The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - December 9, 2022

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

Register for the 88th Session Kickoff: https://thetexan.regfox.com/88th-session-kickoff Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: 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: Sen. Jane Nelson being appointed as the next Texas Secretary of StateThe new leadership at Texas’ oldest statewide officeSpeaker Phelan receiving an overwhelming endorsement from the House GOP CaucusSen. Carol Alvarado filing a bill to hold a statewide referendum to legalize casinos and sports bettingAbbott directing the state to prohibit TikTok on government devicesAbbott repeating his support for vaccine mandates as COVID-19 enters its third yearThe Texas Legislature demanding it have a say in the ERCOT market redesignRepublicans possibly impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas over the border crisisAustin and its police union reaching an impasse over labor negotiationsUvalde suing its district attorney for allegedly withholding information relating to the Robb Elementary shootingTexas oil and gas companies showing their preparations for the upcoming winter season

Happy, happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses Senator Jane Nelson being appointed as the next Texas Secretary of State. The new leadership at Texas's oldest statewide office. Speaker Phelan receiving an overwhelming endorsement from the House GOP caucus. Senator Carol Alvarado filing a bill to hold a statewide referendum to legalize casinos and sports betting. Abbott directing the state to prohibit TikTok on government devices. Abbott repeating his support for vaccine mandates as COVID-19 enters its third year. The Texas legislature demanding it have a say in the ERCOT market redesign.

Republicans possibly impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas over the border crisis. Austin and its police union reaching an impasse over labor negotiations. Uvalde suing its district attorney for allegedly withholding information relating to the Robb Elementary shooting. And Texas oil and gas companies showing their preparations for the upcoming winter season. As always, if you have questions for our team, 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. Well, howdy folks, it's Mackenzie here

with Matt, Brad, and Hayden.den hayden your two-syllable name really screwed up my intro there oh y'all how dare you my mother hayden's mother please no it's a wonderful name i'm simply joking the nerve of you to have an extra syllable that's just we could do a short version and just say hey hey you said that with a southern i did hi well we sometimes call him is this okay to say on the podcast what your nickname sometimes is around the office sure sometimes we call him hey dog yeah bradford i'll call him hey pup i don't really know why he still calls me hey pup sometimes i don't know why he's mostly He's mostly graduated to a dog.

Well, it started as Hey Dog, and then it went to Hey Pup, and I think we're back to Hey Dog. Okay. That's interesting that you were Dog and then Pup. You get demoted. Yeah, I don't really know what happened there. It doesn't make sense. The curious case of Hey Dog. The mysterious case of Hey Dog.

That's exactly right. Folks, before we jump into the news today, do want to let y'all know that subscribers to the texan can now purchase tickets tickets to the 88th legislative session kickoff that we will be hosting it's an all-day panel discussion with a variety of legislators it's going to be awesome and tickets are on sale right now january 24th at the bob bullock museum here in austin tex. We've rented out the Spirit of Texas Theater. It's going to be wonderful. Our reporters will be hosting these panels and talking with legislators about a variety of issues from the border to the grid to energy, crime. It's going to be very fun to chat through all these topics, school choice, education, and particularly in the

first few weeks of the legislative session as lawmakers get warmed up for what's to come, it will be interesting to hear their perspectives. As I said, subscribers are able to purchase tickets right now. So go to the texan.news. You can find the tickets there. We've posted to social media. The links are all there as well. And subscribers, patriots and just regular subscribers are the only folks able to access tickets right now. They're $35. It's a steal. Non-subscribers will be able to purchase

tickets in a few weeks. They'll be $75. So if you want to get in before tickets sell out and make sure that you get a discounted price, go subscribe to the Texan today. Y'all are really not going to want to miss this event because if you want to be in the know and really be ahead of all your friends and neighbors when it comes to what's going on in Texas politics, please come to this event because there's so much going on and they're going to tax you. They're going to take your money whether you know what's going on or not. So you might as well be in the know and be up to date with what lawmakers are planning and how they're planning on spending your money absolutely it's gonna be awesome yeah i second that um i mean if you don't

if you have no interest in learning about what's coming up in texas politics you could just come to listen to myself bloviate yes yes we do like to do that interspersed by representatives so okay so you'll let them talk occasionally yes yes that's kind of you yes i will say in between comedy routines i'll do a dance number it'll be really bad maybe he'll finally do his golem voice maybe maybe that's the whole show i just do that i speak the whole day in that i will say the boys alerted me last week that i always almost apologized to our listeners at the end of the podcast for us bloviating i didn't notice that i did that every week you're like thanks folks for listening sorry this is such a disaster but we appreciate you tolerating it anyway oh my gosh and it's true

every week i'm like thanks for listening to us just talk to ourselves rant and ramble which is what this feels like right it does we're sitting in a room talking to each other um yeah anyways all that to say folks make sure to go sign up buy your tickets today to the kickoff event on january 24th it's going to be awesome and needless to say we want to meet you this is a great opportunity also to meet our readers. It's very easy just to see, okay, this many people read this article or this many folks visited our website and not actually put faces to names and meet the flesh and blood that's actually interacting and engaging with our product and our work. So we would love to meet you. It'd be awesome. On that note, let's go ahead and jump

into the news. Brad, we're going to start with you. This week, there have been quite a pair of announcements for the Texas Secretary of State position. What happened this week? So first, current Secretary of State John Scott announced that after just over a year in the position, he would be leaving at the end of 2022. He said in a statement, above all, I am proud to say that Texas has made tremendous progress in restoring faith in our elections over the past year. He added, in addition to this, that the full results of the 2020 election audit that was a project

first undertaken under Scott. Part of the results have been released, especially relating to harris county that holly has written about quote serious breaches were found in that um you can check out her article for more details on that but um he uh he just he thanked the governor for allowing him to serve and said you know it's time to. He's going to go back to his private law practice and continue on. Now, if he had stayed on, he would have had to have been confirmed

by the members of the Texas Senate, much like a Supreme Court nominee, the executive nominates the Secretary of State, and the Senate has to give consent. Now, unlike the supreme court um the uh legislature here is only in office uh for five months every two years unless there's specials and so that means those nominations can only be taken up during them and so scott along with each of his last two or three predecessors have served on kind of like an interim basis nominated by the governor but not confirmed by the senate because um

for much of the time they didn't have to be and then they eventually the senate did not confirm them and they resigned that's what happened happened with Scott's predecessor, Ruth Hughes. And so whoever the next nominee is will have to get past the Senate. Otherwise, it's going to be a very short term in that position. There you go. Well, that's a good segue as you so politely alert me in this docket here to the second half of this news. What followed that announcement so the very the very next day uh this was wednesday um abbott announced that texas senator jane nelson will succeed scott and so that pretty much clears up the question of whether the

secretary of state nominee is going to be confirmed by the Senate. It would take a lot and be very surprising to see, uh, Nelson's colleagues vote against her. She, um, she's nearing the end of her 30 year tenure in the Senate. Uh,

last session, she chaired the finance committee with, and it was the sentence turn to oversee the budget negotiations discussions and so that was kind of the the cherry on top of her time in in the senate and now she's she's not really retiring uh she was set to retire but it's not really going to be typical retirement as she's taking another position uh this time as the secretary of state and that will begin in january she said in a statement i look forward to this new chapter of public service and appreciate the confidence governor abbott has placed in me to serve as secretary of state voters expect fair

elections with accurate timely results and i am committed to making that happen texans with all political views should have faith in our electoral system. And so there it is. Very good. Well, Brad, thanks for that. And folks, elephant in the room, you're going to hear some coughs in this podcast. Brad and I are both recovering from various colds, as I think half the population is right now. So if we cough at you, we're so sorry. We'll do our best to edit out what we can. Matthew, we are coming to you.

The November election saw Republicans retain all statewide offices, but only one office was an open seat that will see new leadership in January. You wrote a great piece detailing the history of this office. Give us a preview of the new commissioner of the General Land Office and talk to us about the history of this agency. State Senator Don Buckingham had swept the November election this past month with a margin of well over 1 million votes against Democratic candidate Jay Kleberg and will begin her four-year term in office next month in January, succeeding Commissioner George P. Bush, who lost his bid for the Texas Attorney General in the GOP primary to incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton. We decided to write a little bit of detail about

what all the general land office does, because it's not exactly something everybody is aware of. And the agency actually has a very unique history in Texas law. The GLO has an interesting history of being the oldest statewide office in Texas, predating the Texas governor having been established during the Republic of Texas period. We decided to highlight a number of the important duties that the General Land Office carries out today, including some of the original duties that the General Land Office was prescribed to carry out back during the Republic era, including the oversight of state lands and resources, titles, creating surveys, maps, and overseeing the state's interests. Today, Texas has a considerable holding of state mineral interests that the GLO plays a significant role in, including

interests from oil and gas mineral rights and reserves that go into a fund, the Permanent School Fund, which is one of, if not the largest public school endowment in the nation that has billions of dollars, carries billions of dollars in the fund. And the GLO plays a role in overseeing the assets held by that fund. One of the most notable duties of the General Land Office is that in 2011, it was charged by the Texas legislature to be in charge of that has thousands of early Texas maps, land grants, and historical records that they provide for historians and researchers and the like. So very interesting agency, oldest statewide office that predates the governor of Texas and will be the only one that was an open seat that'll see new leadership beginning in January. Wow. Well, Matt, thank you. And folks certainly recommend going to the texan.news to read all about that story.

Thanks, Matt, for your coverage. Brad Racon, back to you. The Texas House GOP caucus held its annual retreat over the weekend. During it, they held a vote on support in the speaker's race. How'd that shake out? So 84 of the 85 GOP members of the House caucus, those that will be in the House next session when they convene, cast their votes on who to support in the race

between Speaker Dave Phelan and Representative Tony Tenderholt. In the secret ballot vote, 78 members voted for Phelan and 6 voted for Tenderholt. Of the 6, it can be presumed that one was from Tenderholt himself the six it can be presumed that one was from tinderholt himself

and the other came from uh rep brian slayton who has previously endorsed tinderholt publicly and uh gave his nominating speech at this meeting and so um that sets the table it's it's kind of the first um the first gate you've got to pass through for determining who's going to be the speaker. Ideally, if there wasn't a tense fight over this ahead, all of the GOP members would vote for who this is going who the they selected i don't think it's going to shake out that way because there's a lot of just a lot of disagreements over specifically the main issue of this is the appointment of democrats as committee chairs and so um next up is the floor vote um yeah on january 10th first thing they do and uh we saw last session slayton was one of two republicans who voted against um against phelan's candidacy the other one was jeff casen who is

no longer uh he didn't seek re-election after redistricting and um based on the six is probably pretty likely uh that there are more people more republicans that vote against feeling how many more i have no idea that one will be public and so uh you may see a couple drop off but ultimately um with this number they got more they got three times the opposition last time uh and but still a long long way away from preventing phelan from being speaker certainly what were the reactions to the vote so thanking the caucus phelan said every member will play a role in our legislative process and i look forward to earning the votes of all of my colleagues when the legislature convenes on january 10th

he um adding that the body is united behind Phelan, caucus chair Tom Oliverson said, under Speaker Phelan's leadership, the 87th session of the Texas House accomplished one of the most conservative sessions in our legislature's history, and we are confident this momentum will continue in the next session.

That itself is a big debate among Republican circles, whether this is the most conservative session. Obviously, that can be a relative term depending on how it's treated but also there were conservative priorities that died and so some of the big ones that got passed the abortion stuff

constitutional carry and then other things that did not make it through and so that is still an argument that is being had and will continue to be had um tinderholt after the vote said today's vote while unsurprising is disappointing because dade phelan or is disappointing because dade phelan has all the support of democrats republicans fear the bully tactics of this team if they oppose him not pulling any punches um as he hasn't this basically this entire time he added that he intends to take the race to a floor vote on the first day

of session it is and always has been a long shot bid for tinderholt to win i mentioned the democratic committee chairs um i think a big reason why tinderholt launched this is to have a vote on Democrat committee chairs in the House rules. And, you know, for him, ideally preventing Democrats from getting committee chairmanships. And so is that a Republican Party of Texas priority? It is. Yes. Yes. And so. So primary voters or delegates rather at the convention decided that they. I think there were also it was also a proposition on the ballot so primary voters did support that by a wide margin but that's

different than the members in the in the caucus themselves supporting that and we saw a lot of opposition um last time around this time the texas gop tweeted out a list of 18 members the republican members that have stated opposition to appointing democrats as committee chairs one thing to be really interesting to see is how the votes come down in speakers race versus how they come down in the democratic committee chair vote 100 and i think that's going to tell you a lot about about just the breakdown on where the GOP caucus really is on committee chairmanships. And as it relates to this big elephant in the room for feeling. for a democratic chair ban but unwilling to vote against feeling a speaker that they're like maybe the political capital is not worth the sacrifice even if i may may not want feeling a speaker or may have concerns about his leadership a vote against the speaker is in a lot

of ways like nails in your coffin right legislatively during the session and any sessions to come while the speaker is in office and feeling a show no sign of weakness really in terms of leaving office anytime soon who knows regardless that would be the differentiating factor right is there might be some people who are like ah whatever i'm willing to to kind of stake my claim in both fights and others may just be willing to do the democratic chair and particularly in that the party came out in favor of that ban as well yeah so strongly yeah and the other the other aspect of this democratic chair um issue is that uh you know phelan did have democrat support when he announced last session and before last session he got he basically ended the race because he had 83 people in in um in his corner and just i think it was 11 of those original uh endorsements were given uh

committee chairmanships and they were democrats um we we all saw we all know what happened with strauss and how he became speaker you know you had a dozen or so republicans two speakers i guess yes yes but i think that was when this was when he first got it right um you had all democrats and a dozen or so republicans And that is always a threat. There's always a threat of the current speaker getting ousted by just a couple handful of Republicans, probably more moderate Republicans, siding with the Democrats and getting their own speaker. And so that is background as well, along with the way these the party voted in the party primary voters voted. All this is just bubbling over into this massive issue that both sides have their arguments and there's no really compromising on it. You either have a bust was really the catalyst for it being a further

discussion as last summer the democrats fled to dc and some of those were committee chairs which then republicans said how why should they still be being paid by the state if they're not doing their jobs if they flood the state why should the speaker who's a republican be granting them chairmanships it already was an argument and has been for decades or not decades i don't know how long probably decades at this point but regardless um it became more of a hot topic then as well after that quorum bust and fleeing to dc and it's has staying power because of that 100 well brad thanks for that um we got into the weeds a little bit there but it's fascinating stuff um at least for us we're nerds about it and we love it hayden we're gonna come to you thanks for your patience

it's been 20 minutes and we're finally getting around to you. Oh, that's okay. I was reading something else. Hayden just tuned out. Okay, so Senator... It was related to something I'm working on. I wasn't just reading People Magazine over here. People Magazine.

Oh my gosh. My parents, I've never subscribed to People Magazine. My parents get a subscription to to people magazine my parents get a subscription to people magazine in my name every month they get people magazine sent to their house and it's in my name and i'm i've never read people magazine anyway i haven't either that made me think all i know is that i usually look at the front cover in the grocery store line at the at the grocery store and it's usually something dumb. I'm totally guilty of that. I know that they didn't source. Oh my gosh.

Okay. Well, tangent and it was my fault. Let's get back to your story. Senator Alvarado filed legislation to loosen gambling laws in Texas. What is included in her proposed constitutional amendment? I'm glad you asked. Oh man,

somebody wrote this really smart question for me. Senator Carol Alvarado is a Democrat from Houston. Somebody wrote this really smart question for me. in the state of Texas. The proposal would establish a gaming commission in Texas. Currently, Texas does not have a gaming commission. We have a lottery commission that runs the state's lottery and licenses charitable bingo operations, but we do not have a gaming commission as we have a constitutional ban on casinos and most other forms of gambling. This proposal would also allow a sports wagering program in Texas. It would direct the Gaming Commission to license and structure a sports wagering program. The legislature would also need to pass additional bills to set that up, and this constitutional amendment, if passed, would mandate the legislature to do that. The state of Texas under this plan would collect

10% of the revenue from table games and 25% of the revenue from slot machines. Governor Abbott himself has reluctantly said that he would consider professional casino gambling options in Texas, which is a surprise because in the past he has been opposed to expanding gambling laws in this state. But this time around, the Adelson family and Las Vegas Sands pro-casino interests have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Abbott, Alvarado, and other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and Abbott's spokesman indicated that he would be open to it. So this plan is similar to plans that have been introduced in previous legislatures, and it is unclear if it will be heard. Last session, a plan like this was heard in the

State Affairs Committee in the House, and it is possible that it will be seriously considered again this session and that there will be familiar arguments for and against it. And of course, this makes folks wonder, what would this look like in Texas if it were to pass? Could there be casinos on every corner if this Alvarado resolution passes? That's a question that a lot of people probably think about when we talk about lifting the casino ban in Texas. And I use the term casino ban broadly because this would not allow a freewheeling system where anybody could open a casino like people open small businesses. There would be a limit of four casino licenses where full-blown casino gambling was allowed with slot machines and all kinds of table games. They would be called destination resorts, but there would be a high bar for investment, and there would be minimum dollar amounts required. And the Texas Gaming Commission, if it was established, would need to license these organizations. And then five additional

casino licenses would be granted, but those would only be for limited casino gaming. And I believe that Indian tribes, Native American tribes are included in this legislation, that they could apply for some of those other licenses as well. But the big casino complexes or destination resorts would be for major metropolitan areas, and only one would be permitted in each metropolitan area. So if we're talking about four casinos, there'd probably be one in DFW, one in Houston, one in San Antonio, and one in Austin, I would imagine. So it would just be major metropolitan areas. But of course, conservative interest groups like Texas Values and the Christian Life Commission, which is an arm of the Baptist General Convention, would likely appear again here in Austin to testify against this proposal and other similar proposals. I talked to Rob Kohler, who's a lobbyist with the Christian Life Commission. He told me that he doesn't expect it to be successful because they will likely look at it and have all the same objections that they have had in the past because these proposals have not gotten very far in previous legislatures. So Alvarado is filing a similar proposal, and it is likely to face opposition. But it's probably not opposition that is usually the death knell for these

proposals. It's usually ambivalence. There is just very little interest in it. And maybe the money that Las Vegas Sands has poured into Texas elections has made some difference. It has at least, I won't say resulted, but it has gotten the attention of Governor Abbott. But if it is successful at all, it still might not be enough to push it over the finish line and get it to Abbott's desk. Certainly. Fascinating political dynamics there, Hayden. Thanks for following that and covering it for us. Bradley, we are circling back to you. The governor made national headlines this week when he announced an order concerning TikTok, the social media app. Give us the details.

So the governor announced a directive to state agencies that they prohibit the use of tiktok on state-owned devices he said quote tiktok harvests vast amounts of data from its users devices including when where and how they conduct internet activity and it offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the chinese government um tiktok is owned or the the company that owns tiktok is affiliated with the chinese communist party and that has that is the root of a lot of concerns about it in addition to other typical concerns about social media abbott further added in a similar letter uh but differently purposed to uh lieutenant governor pat Speaker Phelan, that the legislature should pass law next year that makes this ban permanent, extends it to local governments, and creates a list of prohibited softwares from being used on government-owned devices it's not a flat-out ban across the board of using tiktok

um it's more limited in scope to the state and the property it owns why has this become an issue in the first place so this um this announcement came about a week after fbi director director christopher ray said that using tiktok is a risk due to the app's chinese roots specifically the roots to the ccp he added that the influence that it can have um uh driving driving people viewers to certain things that allegedly the the chinese communist party wants you to see um manipulation like, but there's also the rank security concerns of all this data is collected by

the app, and who does it go to? The company that is directly affiliated with one of America's biggest foes at the moment on the geopolitical stage. Then I kind of mentioned the broader concerns about social media. That kind of dovetails into a bill filed that we talked about on a previous podcast from Representative Jared Patterson that would prohibit social media use for minors.

He just filed that today. He announced it before, but he officially filed that bill today on Thursday. And his argument is that this is very harmful to the psychology of young people and the state should have a role in restricting its use. And obviously that is going to be a very contentious debate, but I don't know if the bill's going to go anywhere but it's part of the larger context of why abbott issued this directive and additionally both south dakota and maryland at least that i saw i'm sure there are others waiting in the wings to do this but both of those issued similar directives to abbott's um i'm sure they won't be the last

absolutely fascinating to see that of all stories that have been published this week, this is the one I got the most text about from friends who are just randomly scrolling through their Twitter feed and would see an article about TikTok and immediately text and be like, what's going on with this? It was

fascinating. It is definitely the kind that gets eyes from across the country. Of course. Absolutely. Well, thanks for your coverage of that. Matt, we are coming back to you. Governor Abbott signaled support for state legislation to ban all COVID vaccine mandates and ask that reiterates his prior position on the issue. In addition, the governor also recently joined a letter to congressional leaders in Washington asking that a COVID vaccine mandate on military service members be lifted. Tell us

about the details of these two stories. Late in the special session, last special session, Governor Abbott finally made a call for a legislative ban on COVID vaccine mandates. That's something that lawmakers back then were unable to accomplish in that short amount of time. But fast forward to this past week, he's still holding on to that position and has reissued his call ahead of the upcoming full legislative session, asking lawmakers to pass legislation to fully incorporate into state law a ban on COVID vaccine mandates. In response to Abbott's call, two lawmakers, Representative Brian Harrison and State Senator-elect Mays Middleton, issued a statement regarding joint legislation the duo filed to ban COVID

vaccine mandates, both by private entities and governmental actors. The issue continues a trend of pushback the governor has made on vaccine mandates, having recently joined other state governors asking Congress to lift a vaccine mandate on military service members imposed by the Biden administration, saying that the mandate was causing plummeting recruitment numbers, was causing too many current soldiers to be needlessly fired. And both of those issues were creating a national security issue, having a shortage of soldiers to defend the nation with. Congressional leaders must have heard the message loud and clear because shortly after that, they added a lift of the Biden administration's mandate in an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act in the United States House of Representatives.

Now, while the bill hasn't fully passed both houses with the amendment in it, we will be monitoring the bill to see whether or not the amendment makes it into the finally passed version. Absolutely. Well, Matt, thanks for covering that for us. It'll be fascinating to see what happens. And you've somehow kind of become the vaccine mandate beat reporter in the last week. So thanks for covering that for our readers. Certainly an issue they care deeply about. Bradley, what happens if we don't if Winston doesn't get fed? Well, bad things.

Yes. Do you want me to name them? Is that? No, not necessarily. I just am trying to, you know, hammer home for hammer home for our listeners how important it is that they subscribe to the Texan. Well, not only if they don't subscribe, can I not afford to pay for his food, but I can't afford the vacuum steam cleaner I had to use yesterday when bad things happened oh wow and that was quite an endeavor um so for the next time so so the next time this happens then i can afford that um please subscribe all of this logic seems a little bit shaky to me hayden you have to be on

board company line yes i'm sorry company line i did not know we were also going to the the steam cleaner route but so you should subscribe even more because winston threw up all the food that he ate oh not just threw up okay this is enough i try yes all that to say folks it is it is vital that you subscribe to the texan and help support winston's little. You told me to tow the company line. I was doing my best, Mackenzie. Oh, man. Hayden and Matt, do you guys have any dependents that require your financial backing?

Are you asking me if I have children? Winston's a dependent. I do not have any children that I've hidden from the office. You don't have a fish? You don't have anything? I do not, no. Well, you probably should. I don't have a fish you don't have anything i do not well you probably should i don't have a fish a cat a dog or anything that depends on me anything or anyone

dang it i was gonna financial support i was gonna loop your dependent in on this as well but folks in all seriousness go to the text news subscribe today a subscription is nine dollars monthly and you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for ninety dollars which comes out to just 750 per month and we have that fan favorite merch item back again if you subscribe today you'll get the fake news stops here mug it's by far a most popular merch item for more details visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Boy, thanks for jumping with me on that. You both looked absolutely terrifying when I started.

Brad really took a turn. Hashtag ad. Brad, we are going to come back to you. Next year, the legislature will take up a very familiar topic in the ERCOT power grid. What's this week's development? So both chambers chambers there have been rumblings about this before but now it's plainly clear both chambers of the legislature say that they want input on the redesign of the ERCOT market last year the legislature passed a massive

piece of legislation that addressed mostly the physical issue and then on redesign of the market um which is very complicated but incredibly important for the direction of ercot and how things develop in the physical capacity um but they punted that market reform to the puc last year and that's something that the puc has been the public utilities commission has been working on considering taking input on developing a plan to tweak the market but now the legislature wants a firm say and one of those was lieutenant governor patrick he made um an issue about this on put it on his priority list and he said in fact um if we don't leave next session with ensuring there is more dispatch development of dispatchable generators then um then we will have failed and sounds like he's ready to push a special if that doesn't happen. But yeah, the legislature wants to say.

And now we are going to wait a handful of months more before we know what ultimately the change to the econ market will be. What's the root of the issue? So the reason it's so complicated is it involves price incentives and price signals to generators in terms of 10, 20, 30 year investments down the road of natural gas and coal power plants. And we have a situation where we're seeing a lot of, I've talked about this ad nauseum, so I'm probably repeating myself, but we've seen an influx of renewable generation,

a lot of wind, and then in the next few years, a lot more solar generation. And the reason, in addition to the physical realities in terms of the reliability in times of high demand stress or high grid stress. The other part is that they get massive federal incentives. The production tax credit gives these renewable generators a tax credit based on for every kilowatt hour they produce. And so because they already have low fuel costs um they have no fuel costs they just use the wind and and the sun uh in addition to these financial incentives they have a really a real leg up financially

in terms of related to these, these dispatchable generators. And so that has kind of crowded out the market. We have this massive influx of renewables and until about four or five months ago, we had no development of, of natural gas. Since then, we've had a couple projects,

pretty small ones come into the works for natural gas, but by no means is it on the same level that we're seeing with the renewables. And so ERCOT, the PUC, the Ledge now, the task in front of them is how to balance these out, how to figure out how to ensure there is more investment in dispatchable energy down the road and that is an incredibly complicated topic there are very very um fervent opinions on both sides of this

and i'm fairly sure that nobody's going to get everything they want in whatever form comes out on this and so uh it's it's definitely something to watch and something to note not only because of its importance for the power grid but also we saw um last session the power grid failure took a lot of the oxygen out of the room of the legislature for for other things take emergency powers reform um we don't know if that passes without the power grid failure but it certainly didn't help it and so now we have another big power grid related issue and different sides are gonna have different opinions we saw a big fight between the two chambers last year over repricing another more market focused kind of um issue but there's this is going to be a knockdown drag out fight and it's something because of how complicated and

esoteric it is not many people are going to pay attention to and so you know property taxes is something that gets people's attention a lot more. This does not, at least in terms of the actual details of the debate. So definitely something to watch. And now we're going to have a five-month session where things get hammered out. There you go. Hayden, we're pivoting back to you. Let's talk about the Homeland Security Secretary. What could be the basis for impeaching Mayorkas and what could impeachment entail?

Well, I won't regale our listeners with the full history of impeachment. You won't bloviate? I will not ramble on. Wow. Although I will say Secretary Mayorkas has been the target of anger of Republicans and other opponents of President Biden who say that he is responsible for allowing a record amount of illegal immigration. Of course, Mayorkas and the Biden administration contend that it is because of international factors, stress, war-torn countries, impoverished conditions in places like Central America and Haiti. But Mayorkas could be impeached

by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives when the new Congress is seated in January. There were 600,000 gotaways in fiscal year 2022, which means 600,000 illegal immigrants were detected. They were somehow observed by border guards on video or with heat-seeking technology, and they were able to evade capture. So 600,000 were observed but not captured. That does not include the number of people who were neither observed nor captured. That is on top of 2.38 million encounters with illegal immigrants just in fiscal year 2022. And based on the numbers in October and probably November, we're already on track to exceed that again. So in terms of whether the federal government is deterring illegal immigration,

Republicans certainly are going to be making the case that Mayorkas is simply not doing his job. And that with the impending end of Title 42 expulsions, that we could see events similar to the September 2021 surge of Haitian illegal immigrants in Del Rio. And there were nearly 30,000 who crossed illegally in a constrained period of time. And to make matters even more concerning for Republicans, Mayorkas recently extended temporary protected status for Haitians again, this time to August of 2024, which was one of the factors that contributed to the surge in 2021. And then there were the allegations, the false allegations that border agents had whipped Haitian illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande, and they were exonerated of those claims. But the GOP says that, and I say the GOP, Republican members of Congress say that Mayorkas

knew that they were, that that narrative was shaky at the least and a blatant falsehood at most, and that he still repeated it from the White House. So many different objections that could be raised against Mayorkas in a possible impeachment. There you go. What is the likelihood that Mayorkas would be removed from office? And talk to us about big names supporting the impeachment. Well, Mayorkas would need to be impeached by a majority of the House, so 218 members, and there will only be 222 Republicans. So virtually every Republican would need to support impeachment, save four. And 67 U.S. senators would need to convict him to remove him from office, which is politically unlikely to impossible because that would require the support of 18 or 20 Democrats,

depending on politically how that unfolds. So it would require an extraordinary event politically. Impeachment of Mayorkas would likely just be symbolic for Republicans, much like it was for Democrats when they impeached Trump twice, even though the likelihood of his conviction was almost zero. who is favored to become speaker, has said that he would support investigating Mayorkas, and that investigation could culminate in an impeachment inquiry that might result in Mayorkas being impeached. And then other Republicans have supported impeachment as well. Very good. Well, thank you for your coverage of that, Hayden. Bradley, the city of Austin and its police union reached an impasse on negotiations of its labor contract give us a preview so its current contract uh from 2017 is running uh running low running down and it uh they have until march to finalize otherwise um some interesting things happen in terms of the police department becomes a function of general

law that will probably not happen a deal will be struck eventually the question is what in what capacity and so the the two main issues in this one is very easy to understand the the pay difference the police union wanted a 20 pay raise over four years the city came back with a 10 and that was one of the the two main factors and why they're now at a stalemate for the moment the second involves the office of police oversight that i've written quite a bit about about um this is the body that is uh tasked with reviewing cases um and issuing recommendations on officer discipline but nothing beyond that and we saw last december about a year ago a third-party mediator found the opo had violated portions of the labor contract currently in existence namely that they tried to assert their authority where it didn't exist on investigating complaints

and now we're seeing a big push among especially the the reimagine uh policing progressives to get rid of that limitation because they want a stronger opio to oversee the um the police department with more authority and there's a ballot initiative um that would give the opio more authority on the may ballot but right now uh the the limitations of it are structured within the labor contract. And the question is, do we do we take it out? City wants to take it out now. That way, it's more it's just law that that determines what the OPO has in its authority but there's all there's state law that has protection provides protections for officers that makes them not at will employees of the city so they can't just be fired whenever they want um and so the um the progressive activists are trying to cut down on

that and pass a labor negotiate or labor contract that is more favorable to the opo so i have more details in the story on it reactions from both sides but this is going to be a continuing fight and it's another instance of state versus local um as many many of these issues in texas are uh what does the what authority does the locality have compared with the state and i if if things go awry i think you'll see a state legislative reaction like we saw last session on other on other issues certainly thank you bradley hayden why is the city of uvalde suing district attorney christina mitchell uh christina mitchby. Excuse me. I had to get all three of the names in there. That's okay.

Sometimes her name appears as Mitchell. Sometimes it appears as Mitchell Busby. But I think it's officially Christina Mitchell Busby. Got it. So Busby is allegedly declining to provide documentation relating to the city's inquiry into the tragic May shooting that took the lives of 19 school children and two teachers. The city does not prosecute people, but the city says its investigation is necessary for

the police department's internal affairs review of what happened. And of course, there were hundreds of law enforcement officers there from various agencies, not just the Uvalde Police Department, not just the Uvalde School District Police Department, but the city says that this investigation is necessary for and their families and other survivors of the shooting. Senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat from San Antonio, has been vocal against her. And this time, the city is seeking a court order requiring Busby to hand over documents related to her investigation and the investigations of those providing information to her. There you go. Well, what is in the works to take care of these survivors and families of the victims? You mentioned Senator Gutierrez. Does he have a hand in this? He does. Senator Gutierrez said that his work next session will focus on compensating those

who were affected by this. There will be about $300 million proposed. He has filed a bill to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for those impacted, especially the family members of those who were killed by the perpetrator. He created a bracketed system in this bill to provide compensation, and this is designed to circumvent the legal system in a way because they would otherwise have to seek a judgment from a court. And he is seeking to get that done through the legislature so there doesn't have to be a protracted legal fight to compensate the victims and their family members.

There you go, Hayden. Thanks for your coverage. Bradley, we're coming back to you. You were not on the podcast last week. We just missed you so much, Bradley. Yeah, i'm sure that's accurate it is um you were off in midland visiting natural gas facilities talk to us about your trip so i went out there to see the um the weatherization techniques that were mandated under the the legislature's bill that they passed last year after the power grid failure and the two companies who showcased that were eventive i believe i'm

saying that correctly and diamondback energy diamondback is um both of them are among the biggest producers in the Permian, but Diamondback especially. And it was amazing to see just how simple some of these are. And they said that these safeguards had already been in place. Things like insulation blankets that cover valves and things that may be at risk of running into freezing problems

during a time of severe temperature drop like we saw in February 2021. Other things like just a wrap around a compressor valve, windscreens, removable windscreens. There was one where a compressor station had a three-sided windscreen around it. And the reason was that the blocking side was facing north,

and so when the cold winds come from the north, it blocks those. But then the winds from the south that are warmer during the summer it is open-sided that way those winds can cool the um naturally cool the the machinery and during when it gets really really hot outside so that was just an interesting um piece of engineering that i saw and pretty simple um but overall it was really cool and i'd spell it out in a lot more detail on the site now ultimately they said that at least a vint of who gave the presentation said that they were one of the the places that was cut off entirely from power when urquhart started issuing the blackouts and that was one of the big problems we saw the critical

infrastructure designation did not cover a lot of pieces of critical infrastructure and so we had this cycle where um the the very source of generating most of the power could not be accessed because those sites were cut off from power so So, um, a lot more in there. I'd check it out if you're interested, but over, um, in addition to that, it was, it was the first time I ever flew on something that wasn't a commercial jet.

And that was an odd experience. I was sitting right next to the cockpit and I could watch the whole, were you in the front of the plane or were you like next, like second row? Basically I was second row. Yeah. So I could, the whole. Were you in the front of the plane or were you like next, like second row, basically? I was second row. Yeah. So I could, I was the closest person to the cockpit that wasn't in the cockpit.

That's cool. And it was interesting to see all the gadgets and the, like the, um, the software that's in there. It looks like the flight simulators that, that, um um that i've seen on like social media and whatnot yeah it's exactly the same um exactly the same i'm sure some pilots are listening to this and scratching their heads well i mean from my i asked the guy about he said it is pretty similar because that's awesome that's how they train pilots um true the other thing that was notable was how smooth the takeoff was because it was a much smaller plane. Whereas it's pretty bumpy on a commercial jet.

That surprised me when you mentioned it the other day. Yeah. So all around, cool trip. Glad I got to do it. It's one of the cool things about this job. And yeah, it was interesting. That's awesome. And folks, make sure to go to the Texan and read the entire story.

It's good stuff. Let's move on to the tweetery section here. Matt, we're going to come to you and chat through what you saw that interested you on Twitter this week. Hold on. Let me get my tinfoil hat here ready. so um rfk uh robert kennedy uh tweeted a newsweek story about evidence that came about or surfaced that apparently indicates that lee harvey oswald was a cia asset uh so that prompted me to enthusiastically dig my tinfoil hat out because I am a total JFK conspiracy nerd. I love it. That's awesome. I went and toured the sixth,

fifth floor museum, the book depository museum. Yes. Bought the cool vintage sunglasses and the whole nine yards and I went and walked the grassy knoll and everything like that. So, um, it was the X's in the middle of the road. Huh? Did you see the X's in the middle of the road? Yes, I did. Pretty cool. It's, it's actually a very powerful experience. Um,

it was, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting that you can, you can go back and watch the Zapruda film or read some of the old stories and things like that. And, you know, it's just such a heartbreaking, you know, thing. It's something that gripped the nation back then. And, you know, still something that's, you know, even shocking for generations today. And there's just so many interesting theories and unsettled issues surrounding it. And even today, there's still information coming about. I have no idea how valid the information that was being reported on was or anything like that, but I just thought the tweet was interesting since I'm, uh, I can easily find myself emerged in that era and that saga. And I want to know all the things and read and watch all the documentaries.

Oh, absolutely. Fascinating. And then the, yes, the sixth floor or fifth floor. I can't remember what floor. six floor museum in dallas depository museum and it's a fantastic museum if you haven't been it's amazing definitely recommendable thank you matthew hayden what about you

my tweet has absolutely no intellectual value at all but it made me happy so i'm really excited about this oh okay'm really excited about this okay we were talking about this before i don't know what to call this it's basically a windowsill that is big enough that you can turn it into a daybed or a couch of some kind and we can't think of like the name but it's like a nook it's a no it's a yeah yeah with a cushion on it so it's like it's like a daybed i would call it yeah's a yeah yeah with a cushion on it so it's like it's like a daybed i would call it yeah um david i've never heard of that like if you're at a resort and they have like like instead of lawn chairs they have like mattresses almost out on the sand or around

pool like those are davids yeah okay anyway it's a cat sitting where it's a cat that is wedged between the cushion and the windowsill, and it's just looking very contemplative out the window. And it just made me happy because this cat looks very content. Wait a second. So I know exactly. I got raked in the coals multiple times for describing something. By you, Mac. Yeah. Describing something that I saw on Twitter. I stand by it.

And you let Hayden go right off the hook like that. Here's the difference, Brad. If you if you would like to know the difference, I will tell you the difference. Would you like to know? Sure. Or do you just want to be angry? Both. OK, great.

I'll take the 50 percent. Hayden's describing a very simple image. You attempted to describe a piece of furniture that is so modernly designed that it folded out of the wall in this very complicated way. And you attempted to describe the mechanisms by which it folded, the angles at which it came out of the wall all of which are incredibly difficult to picture a cat on a window no is entirely different and i will wedge in between something oh complicated i don't know if i can picture it now folks i just i want you all to put yourself in my shoes. That I can literally describe something as simple as a cat sitting next to a window.

And somehow it's a sore subject between Mac and Brad. I don't know how it happened, but y'all heard it. Y'all are witnesses. Oh my gosh. That even a cat sitting peacefully next to a window can be controversial in this room. Oh, man. I'm sitting there listening

and wondering what the picture looks like. Oh, wait. You have the link. You can look at it. Everybody else can. I'm not going to retweet it because the account has a political message in the bio, but otherwise I would retweet it. i haven't looked at it yet it makes me happy i'm just looking at it and the cat just looks so peaceful

and content and it it's just he looks like he's contemplating lots of realities are up yeah it's very he's just tucked you know tucked there he looks like he's look people watching out the window too yeah it's very cute i understand why you picked it oh he like folds his little hands in his lap he does it's like he's just sitting there um thinking about his life the account cats being weird little guys i love that okay bradley i'm gonna hand the microphone to you and allow you to expound upon whatever tweet your heart so desires okay well then um since yesterday was the and the anniversary i think 81st anniversary of the date which will live in infamy um i saw our friend derrick ryan who mac interviewed on podcasts before the election said that um his dad was

i believe in the air force i think he was he was a pilot i don't know I believe, in the Air Force. He was a pilot. I don't know if he was in the Air Force or the Navy. Derek said, We lived at the mouth of Pearl Harbor in the early 80s. Even 40 years after the fact, there were still signs all over the base of the attack. The Pacific Air Force's headquarters building still had damage on the exterior.

That's just wild to think that there was still um visible signs of what had occurred 40 years before and maybe by now it's uh it's cleaned up but still that was uh that was interesting to read and um, that's something that every year people need to reflect on's an important date in American history for a lot of reasons. So thanks for bringing that to our listeners attention to mine. I appreciate that very much. Okay. Well, Brad, that was very lovely. Thank you.

I really do appreciate you bringing that to our attention. Interesting. A compliment on the podcast. That is rare. Well, I'm about to absolutely slam you. Oh, okay. What is the stupid question you wanted me to ask about the gingerbread houses on this podcast? You were asking about what the fun topic should be.

And I was like, is a gingerbread house worth the effort? Yeah. Worth the trouble. Great question. I say no. No. I've only built one in my life and it was in, I think, third grade. Okay.

And. You've gone away with 27 27 years of life almost 28 years of life yes and you have only built one gingerbread house and you know why impressive you know why because you declined because it was such a stupid experience that wow i refused for the rest of my life and i will die on this hill i think it's fun to build gingerbread houses i don't know why you hate them so badly i guess it's that they're not that good to eat and so it's it's aesthetic it's supposed to be for decoration right it's fun you build it up and then you eat it. That's the... No, I don't think people really think that that is the case. I think people build them for fun and for the decor.

I don't think people actually always... Some gingerbread, like it's only really if you make the gingerbread yourself when it's actually tasty. Otherwise, I don't think folks really care. I mean, if you put a house made of food in front of me i am expecting to eat it at some point a simple man wait matt what did you say i don't think i've ever had gingerbread ever in your life nope have you had gingerbread flavored stuff i've had ginger snap cookies that's okay so that's very similar to gingerbread it's still

not gingerbread but it's very close what do you think about this whole debacle do you think it's worth building gingerbread houses have you built one before have i built a gingerbread house before yeah i think so yeah um i think in church many many many moons ago uh they had a project where they made us sit down and build a gingerbread house did you like it or did you not like it which camp are you in hayden being pro or brad being auntie um i'm not against others who wish to build gingerbread houses I just don't wish to participate stop straddling the fence Matt take a side

this is the most important election of your lifetime I'm going third party on this third party okay non-interventionist non-gingerbread building um foreign gingerbread house building uh non-gingerbread building um foreign gingerbread house building uh

non-interventionist uh non-interventionist gingerbread houses oh my gosh i'm of course i'm sure y'all imagine i'm certainly more on board with the hayden side of this i'm not a grinch about freaking gingerbread houses, but I will say it's not my favorite Christmas tradition, but I do enjoy it. I don't love like the kits you get from the store and I'll kind of alter them a little bit

or get different candies because I think it's hard to make them pretty with the kits from the store. So I enjoy it, but it's not something I do every Christmas. You know what I enjoy?

What do you enjoy? How you literally trash talk this suggestion and then ran with it as a topic when we could have just done without it brad if you were so if you were so offended i was trying to let go of my ego and allow you input on our fun topic especially now that it's christmas and you aren't as much of a grinch about christmas we should have just kept talking about that video. Oh, man. Sometimes I think when I really laugh,

I sound, like, evil. Like, I sound maniacal. That sounds, oh, I hate it. It's ridiculous. Okay, folks, once again, thank you for listening to us bloviate. We appreciate you sticking with us each and every week. And we will catch you on next week's episode.

Also, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Aw. 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

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