The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 11, 2022

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses the weekend’s winter storm and how the grid weathered, a Republican congressman pushing back on vaccine mandate funding, overcrowding at border facilities, South Texas districts that Republicans are eyeing, campaign updates, a Texas congressman making allegations against Capitol Police, Austin police officers under investigation for misconduct during the 2020 protests, the City of Dallas considering spending more money on its convention center, the attorney general investigating GoFundMe, and a bribery scandal in a South Texas school district.

Howdy, howdy. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on our weekly Roundup podcast. This week, our team debriefs the weekend's winter storm and how the grid weathered. A Republican congressman pushing back on vaccine mandate funding. Overcrowding at border facilities. South Texas districts that Republicans are eyeing. Campaign updates. A Texas congressman making allegations against Capitol Police. Austin police officers under investigation for misconduct during the 2020 protests, the city of Dallas considering spending more money on its convention center, the Attorney General investigating GoFundMe, and a bribery scandal in South Texas School District. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad brad johnson daniel friend hayden sparks and isaiah

mitchell ready to bring you the news for the week um oh i thought you had two yetis there for a second brad and i was about to roast you for it but there's no need to because having two yetis two identically black yetis how many yetis do you have mac have that's also a fair question i have far too many i in many colors some duplicate i just have a lot if you're gonna roast me for having two yetis you're lacking material i have two yetis in my office right now both filled with delicious things pot matcha and so really you just wanted to rest yourself is what you're saying unintentionally okay yeah i mean that really that really backfired on me there it's okay i'm fine we'll continue everyone shoots themselves

in the foot here and there you know i think you would it would on that note let's go ahead and jump into the news or Or a totally different note. Because this is totally different than that. Correct. Oh, man. No, I could find a connection if I spent the time. I could do a cool transition. I'm not going to do that because it's just a waste of time.

I was hoping you'd find something. You sound a little frazzled, Mackenzie. It's almost like it's been a pretty busy week with news. Wow, Brad, that was well done. Yeah, thank you. You're right. It has been a busy week and I am frazzled. So thank you for that. A little bit of a storm, you might say. Oh my gosh. In my brain and in Texas over the weekend. She just winked really awkwardly. Yeah, people can't hear me wink. I realize that. On that note. That is unless Daniel adds a winking sound effect or something, which is possible. I'll look. Well, now my transition is just demolished.

So thanks, guys. Happy to oblige. It's just demolished like the grid was last year. I feel like I absolutely just botched that. Bridie set me up so well and I just threw it out the window. Regardless, let's talk about... Close the window because it's cold. Oh my gosh. Let's talk about the storm. An Arctic front moved into Texas. Many people across the state had flashbacks to the grid collapse a year ago. But what happened? How was this different from last

time? Yeah, we kind of went over a lot of it in last week's podcast, but now we have all the results in front of us. At that point, we were kind of like halfway a lot of it in last week's podcast, but now we have all the results in front of us. At that point, we were kind of like halfway through. But, you know, as we said last week on the pod, the storm was not even close in severity to the one a year ago. It was not all across the state. It was not nearly as cold and there was not nearly as much precipitation. So that right there is one comparison point to what happened last year. But throughout this event this year, Texas had at least 10,000 megawatts of surplus power

pretty much throughout the entire thing. Actually, it was higher than that at certain points. So that's at least enough to power 3 million more homes. Peak demand. When we talked last week, peak demand was projected to come on Friday morning. And the latest projection was that demand would reach about 74,000 megawatts. It did not even reach 70,000 megawatts on Friday morning. on friday morning and so the texans usage of electricity was not fell below projections which made the cushion even bigger none of the roughly 300 generators that failed last year from

cold weather problems did so this year officials attributed that to the weatherization protocols that were implemented and i think there's like three facilities that have not fully complied with that yet. I think there's some logistical problems that they didn't foresee, but officials said that those three are a very small portion of the total megawattage facilities the total facilities so um now while there was no grid collapse there was there were uh outages across the state uh there were nearly 70 000 customers without power at various points 70 000 that was the peak um and then it fluctuated far below that for the rest of the period the rest of the period, the rest of the storm. Now, these were from downed power lines, things like fallen branches, icing on the lines, and wind knocking them out of commission, which needed transmission fixes from the local companies.

It's not a power grid problem. So, it was nothing like the $4.4 million out of power last year and really the the worst problem caused by the storm were the the icy road conditions um i think it was in austin i saw there was a 14 car wreck but nothing like the 150 car pileup we saw in fort worth last year so roads were bad but those generally only lasted lasted Thursday during the day and then they improved. So all in all, nothing close to last year occurred. And it would have taken a lot more for anything close to that to happen. Got it. What were the reactions from state officials? So Governor Greg Abbott and the Public Utility Commission kind of spiked the football.

Abbott said the Texas power grid is more liable and resilient than it has ever been. And I think when you take it as a comparison point to where the grid was last year and the reforms that have been implemented, whether it's the weatherization or the critical infrastructure designations that would prevent this kind of disastrous cycle of not being able to generate power because the facilities that help generate power aren't are out of power themselves that was fixed um and also we just didn't lose any generation so all of those i think you know as a comparison point it's probably right that it is more resilient than it has ever been now the question is would stand up to the kind of storm last year we don't know And as a comparison point, it's probably right that it is more resilient than it has ever been. Now, the question is, would it stand up to the kind of storm last year? We don't know.

But it certainly would stand a better chance this time because of those reforms. Chairman Peter Lake also added this week that there was enough generation online this time than had been available last year. And so if the same conditions happened, if the demand went up to 76,000 megawatts like it did last year, there would still have been 8,000 megawatts of surplus electricity generation. So he's pointing to that as a testament to the grid being more ready for inclement weather. On the opposite side, though, Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke had been warning of another grid collapse for months. That's his chief campaign point that he's running on. He announced a Pray the Lights Stay On tour of the state. He's been doing that since um and he's made like i said he's made his top issue but obviously the lights did stay on and um we did not face what we

did last year yeah so moving forward what does this mean for texas and the grid what can we look forward to what's next uh you know we look on to the summer. That's historically been the more difficult time for Texas energy usage. That's where we see the highest demand when the sweltering heat comes with such a focus on the winter this year. Will they be ready? Will the generators be ready for the summer heat? How much will the continually rising population affect electricity demand? The summer is not a new challenge for generators and the power grid regulators, but I expect to see more of the same response that they did for this winter storm.

Higher capacity when the temperatures really, really rise, and more caution with additional reserve margins and other protocols that they put in place sooner rather than later when grid conditions may get tight. Longer term, the market reforms, I wrote a piece on this late last year, those will be finalized and will begin implementation, but the effect of those will take years to materialize. One such thing to watch is, will they incentivize more dispatchable generation development, meaning more thermal generators? We haven't seen any natural gas or coal power plants established in the last six, seven years while we've seen this influx of renewable generation. And so once that's one thing the state hopes to remedy, we'll see how how long it takes if it happens.

Got it. Well, Brad, thank you for covering that from start to finish for us here. Full circle a year later. Daniel, a Republican congressman from Texas sent a letter to GOP leadership pledging to oppose spending that will fund the enforcement of COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Go into some more detail of what was in that letter exactly. Yes, so this letter came from Representative Chip Roy, who kind of represents the Hill Country area, and then his district also goes between San Antonio and Austin. But he sent a letter to GOP leadership, along with 48 other Republicans,

and they all pledged to refuse consideration of, quote, any federal government funding vehicle that funds the enforcement of COVID-19 vaccine mandates with 48 other Republicans, and they all pledged to refuse consideration of, quote, any federal government funding vehicle that funds the enforcement of COVID-19 vaccine mandates at any level of government. So the big thing that Roy really honed in on, or honed in, honed in, we've debated this before. It's a really interesting word. Whatever you want to say. Brad is attentive right now because he has put this in a headline before and it made me go a little crazy because it just doesn't look right to say it didn't look great to me either yeah and i looked it up and that's right so then we also go with the alternative zeroed in on yes exactly so

representative roy zeroed in on perfect um really kind of the the spending of the government. So the government, you know, they have to pass a budget every year. And one of the things that they do when they can't reach an agreement on a budget is they pass kind of a stopgap measure called a continuing resolution. And this funds the government for a short period. And so there have now been, as of the recording of this podcast, three have been passed in this recent budget year. And so you had one in September, I think it was September, and then one in

December, and then one now in February as well. And so these continuing resolutions continue to fund the government. Roy's argument is the government is the one that is enforcing several of these vaccine mandates, specifically with the military. And then also with health care workers, you have any funding tied to Medicare and Medicaid services like health care workers in those fields have to comply with a vaccine mandate. And then you also have federal contractors as well in the mix and then other government workers. So a lot of people are under the COVID-19 vaccine mandates that are being enforced by the government. And so Roy was really pushing for some kind of a measure to eliminate the funding for those vaccine mandates so that the government is no longer really enforcing those, using the power of the purse of Congress to halt that. So he was really pushing ahead of the continuing resolution that was approved by the House

this week. It still needs to be approved by the Senate as of the recording of this podcast on Thursday. And so all these lawmakers joined with him and said, this is what we need to do. Got it. Now, has anything happened with respect to the deadline for that government spending? Uh, like I mentioned, the, um, the house has passed a continuing resolution that didn't really address this issue. And so, um, it still needs to go through the Senate. That is supposed to happen before February 18th. That's when the funding from the previous continuing resolution comes to an end. So if this third CR goes through the Senate, then the funding will continue. Now let's get to the nitty gritty. Did any Texas Republicans vote for the continuing resolution? several lawmakers. I went through all the offices. First, the Republican lawmakers who did not sign

on to the letter with Representative Roy. Several of them did get back to me, such as Representative Arrington's office and Fluker's office and Representative Roger Williams' office. And they all kind of expressed the same sentiment that Roy had in their letter where they were opposing the enforcement of vaccine mandates. It's interesting, too, that all Texas Republicans in the past continuing resolution voted against it, and all but Representative Tony Gonzalez in the first continuing resolution back in the fall opposed those funding measures. Now, that's a little bit different this time. You actually have six Republicans now who voted for the most recent continuing resolution. And those six representatives would be Representatives Kevin Brady, John Carter, Jake Elsey, Tony Gonzalez, Kay Granger, and Michael McCaul.

So those are the representatives who voted for this continuing resolution. Thank you, Daniel, for covering that. Hayden, let's talk about a story you wrote this week about some overcrowding at border centers. It's all centered on a report released by the federal government. What were some of the highlights of this report and how serious were the problems? Just to set the timeline for this, these were inspections that the Department of Homeland Security completed in summer of 2021. So these were not recent, but the report detailing the outcome of these inspections was released in January and sent to Commissioner Chris Magnus, who is the recently appointed

and confirmed Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The report's tone was not dire, but it did highlight problems that were present at detention facilities in the Rio Grande Valley last summer as the federal government contended with the spike in illegal immigration that began in the spring and is still going on. There were issues with COVID-19 precautions that could not be consistently applied because of the number of people who were at these facilities. There was one facility where the overcrowding was so serious that people could not sit or lie down. And of course, the way they worded it in this report was that the other facilities were not in that serious a condition

so they said with this one exception people could sit and lie down but to me that implies that there was at least one facility where there were people packed in there like sardines and they couldn't even find a place to sit that is attributed to the sharp increase in apprehensions and what they refer to a surge in migration is how they phrase it. And of course, there's a lot of controversy over what caused that surge. But 7% of the detainees at the facilities that they visited had been there longer than three days. And that goes to the prolonged detention issues that were referenced in the report. And of course, that's a no-no. You don't want people in custody to be in a Border Patrol facility for longer than three days, especially children. Secretary Mayorkas has been clear that Border

Patrol facilities are not designed for children. But one of the reasons or one of the difficulties that have been presented is unaccompanied minors were exempted by the Biden administration from Title 42 expulsion. So, of course, children by necessity have had to be in these facilities. Right. And like I said, the report wasn't dire. It didn't say that this was a DEFCON 1 situation. But CBP was having to work time to address some of these problems. And they were, the Inspector General Joseph Safari, pardon me, was comparing what was taking

place at these facilities to the national standards on transport, escort, detention, and search, also known as TEDS. And I believe these are the standards for detention on federal facilities. But he didn't give him an overall failing grade. He said they were working as quickly and as best as they could to address some of these problems, the local agents there at the facilities, and that other standards such as that the illegal aliens and unaccompanied children there need to be properly fed and provided appropriate bathing facilities, things like that were still being followed, even though there was overcrowding and COVID-19 risk that was excessive.

Got it. Talk to us about whether the report, you know, made any comparisons to prior surges of illegal immigration. A theme in the federal government's rebuttal to some of the criticisms that have been lodged against Biden happening is unlike ones that have happened in the past. There have been far more apprehensions than in the past. CBP reported 1.66 million arrests in FY 2021. That's compared to 1.1 million in 2019. So definitely by a scale of hundreds of thousands, the surge under Biden

has been worse than in previous surges. Got it. Why else is this inspector general's report significant and what does it mean politically? Well, the opponents of the Biden administration's handling of illegal immigration have highlighted conditions at border facilities. We all saw, well, I don't know if we all saw it, but a video of Ted Cruz confronting an employee at a border facility because she was asking him to stop recording went viral last year. And the senator was highlighting the point that all of this is culminating in problems at the detention centers, because when you have this many people coming over the border, the federal government has to put them somewhere, and they've been releasing them. They have been detaining them at these facilities. But as we saw also,

the federal government under Biden, and he's faced criticism from his left on this issue, has also been deporting people. And the images of Haitians being deported during the surge on Val Verde County upset a lot of people on the president's left. And politically speaking, this report seems to be addressing the fact that there were problems last summer, but they weren't as serious as perhaps some of the political rhetoric might suggest that they were. Well, Hayden, thanks for breaking that down for us. We appreciate your coverage of the border. Daniel, let's talk about South Texas. We've seen lots of political changes brewing in South Texas. And this week, you went through some more of that data

looking specifically at some congressional districts. What were the trends you noticed? If you ask anyone in Texas politics what the political trends have been over the past decade, I think a lot of people would point to kind of the rapid suburban growth and how Texas has, a lot of Texas has shifted leftward. We've become a little bit more competitive, especially in 2018 when there was a big, uh, wave of support for Beto O'Rourke and that drove a lot of democratic, democratic votes, uh, for races down the ballot rather than just, you know, the Senate, um, Beto didn't win, but a lot of people below him did, uh,

in a democratic party. And we saw that, uh, in many of the, even the new districts that have been created, uh, those, those things that used to be rural, and then they became a lot more suburban, obviously in the past 10 years have become a lot more democratic. Now there were, however, three different districts that actually broke the trend, uh, specifically in 2018. And then they've also, uh, seen a, the strongest trend over the past 10 years of shifting toward the GOP. So while every other congressional district shifted a little bit left during 2018, in that year when Beto O'Rourke ran, there were three congressional districts that did not. And those three would be the 34th congressional district, the 15th congressional district, and the 28th congressional district. And these all lie right next to each other down in South Texas. So it's a really fascinating, just interesting way that the landscape down there is changing.

Now walk us through these three districts, each of these three districts. What are the prospects that Republicans actually win something there? Yes. So the 34th congressional district, which is the one that I mentioned first, is probably actually the least likely to change hands this election cycle, even though it was the one that has changed the most since 2012. So in the 2012 election, you had Republicans getting about 31 percent of the vote. That increased by about eight or nine percent to about 40 percent in 2020. So big shift there. But Democrats still have a pretty good stronghold there. You have a current congressman running for reelection, Vicente Gonzalez. He was in the 15th congressional district that became more competitive. So he moved to the 34th

congressional district, which is a little bit safer for Democrats. And so that's still fairly safe for Democrats. But if there's a huge, huge swing toward Republicans, then that could change hands. Now, the next district that is moving from the left to the right here in terms of chances for Republicans, you have the 28th congressional district. This one reaches up into San Antonio, and then it goes down with a lot of votes in Laredo. It, it also used to dip into, um, Hidalgo County as well. Uh, but that County has actually been taken out of this district and it was shifted into a different one. Uh, now this district, the incumbent there is representative Henry Cuellar.

Uh, if you remember from the reporting in the past few weeks, uh, there has been an FBI investigation into Cuellar related to possibly campaign finance stuff. Not really sure what the details there are, but the FBI did investigate his home and campaign office. So there's been some stuff happening there in the 20th congressional district. But even without that, this is definitely still a competitive district because you have Cuellar, who is a fairly moderate member in the delegation, being challenged by a progressive challenger who ran against him in a pretty close election last time. I think he walked away with about 51% of the vote in the primary against one other Democrat. So she's running again, Jessica Cisneros, and he also has seven Republican challengers. So there's competition on both sides here. So it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out,

both in the primary and the runoff, potentially. Well, there's pretty sure that there will be a runoff in the Republican primary for sure, possibly one in the Democrat too. And then the general election. So that will be a very fascinating race to watch. But then the one that is most likely to change hands into Republicans is the one that Republicans in the state legislature redrew to favor Republicans, and that would be the 15th congressional district. Now, Vicente Gonzalez's challenger last time, Monica de la Cruz, did lead a very close race in 2020.

And she's running again in 2022. She already has the support of a lot of big-name national Republicans. And so she has a lot of backing there. She really is the frontrunner in this race. There's some other Republican primary challengers as well. So we, that could play out differently, but she's kind of viewed as the, the candidate of most likely to, to move forward. So those are kind of the three districts. We'll probably see some changes there and this region is going to continue changing different ways. It'll be really interesting to watch. Absolutely. Thank you,

Daniel, for following that. Isaiah, let's go to San Antonio. Four Republicans are running the primary to replace Lyle Larson in House District 122. This is a seat that will very much likely stay red. What is interesting about this race? Well, for one thing, political scientists have ranked Larson as the most liberal Republican in the Texas House. And the candidates running for replacement, the primary, are all establishing themselves or establishing a reputation, I should say, as being very conservative. And there are some caveats to this interesting phenomenon. For one, one of the candidates is endorsed by Larson, and we'll get to him. And secondly, the forums that they've been attending have been held by the Bexar County Republican Party. And the most recent one that I attended,

for example, was by the Hill Country Conservative Network. And so they've got a conservative crowd in front of them. And it could be that they're just trying to put their best foot forward. But on mailers, websites, messaging, and these in-person speeches, they're all, for the most part, trying to put on a very conservative face, which is quite, well, I don't want to say the opposite, but it's certainly not what Lyle Larson did or has done while he's leaving the House. Certainly. So the four candidates are four Republican candidates are lawyer and entrepreneur Adam Blanchard, former San Antonio City Councilwoman Elisa Chan, financial executive and veteran Mark Cuthbert and construction entrepreneur Mark D'Orazio. There is an unopposed Democrat candidate in the Democrat primary, Anji Arambaru baru but the texas partisan index rates this as a r 60 seat and so it's very likely to go to a republican and stay red it's a really good rating too the texas partisan index

oh the system yeah it's flawless yeah brilliant it is truly ingenious whoever came up with it was something like some kind of political einstein yeah wow definitely now what issues did these candidates discuss uh the most substantial ones i found um were property taxes which we'll talk about here water usage and priorities for the republican party that did not pass in the legislative session so um we discuss all those issues in the article and here i guess we can talk about property taxes because that's probably the most substantial one of the topics they discussed that they all actually had good answers on water rights is substantial they didn't have the best well you

can read the article for that um that was not a a healthy robust debate on water usage but with property taxes they all had um plans ready. And Chan called total property tax elimination a great goal, but stopped short of calling it feasible. And so her plan is to buy down school taxes by 50%, which would result in a 25% reduction of the overall average property tax bill over 10 years. Chan touted her record on the San Antonio City Council as being the only one with experience in government. Unfortunately, that record does not show a commitment to reducing property taxes, which is an albatross, I must say.

But we go into that in more detail in the article. The others who have not had a record in government have slightly different plans. Cuthbert expressed support for buy-downs and said that's a good idea, but said the root cause of rising property taxes in Texas could be addressed by unleashing school choice, his choice of words here.

So his plan mainly focused on broadening school choice options. And under his analysis, that would in turn reduce property taxes. D'Orazio's plan involves buy downs, but says that he would also target the tax appraisers as well. And Blanchard offered a very similar plan, calling for more popular input in the appraisal process, noting that we elect the tax collector, but a board selected by the taxing entities themselves appoints the tax appraiser right so they both had a similar focus on on the appraisal process got it well isaiah thanks for covering that for us we'll keep an eye on that race daniel we're coming back to you congressman troy nels from fort ben county made some new allegations

this week against capitol police like dc u.s capitol police saying they violated the constitution by entering his office and taking a photo of protected information give us more details about what happened this incident actually happened back in november uh it's just come to light now he's that he's making the accusations against them. But the week before Thanksgiving, it was a Saturday. According to a police report that I read, there was a Capitol Police officer just doing a kind of routine patrol of the Capitol House office buildings. So if you've seen the picture of the Capitol building, there's also office buildings connected to that underground, but beside the Capitol,

where the lawmakers actually have their offices. And so the Capitol Police officer was just going through this, doing a patrol, according to this report that I read. And he stated that he saw that the door to Representative Nell's office was open. And so he thought that was a little bit strange because the doors are typically closed. And so he went into the office and then looked around. He saw a whiteboard that said something about body armor. And he also saw on the whiteboard or next to it, a map of a neighboring house office building along with a little X on, on the map indicating somewhere.

And so the officer thought that was really suspicious and he took a picture of it. That's according to kind of the different reports and information that I've seen. Then the following Monday, since that was on the weekend, you know, staff members aren't usually in the office on the weekends taking those days off. But on Monday, the three other officers in plain

clothes went into the office and contacted a staff member there and asked them about this. They apparently showed him the picture of this white board that they took trying to figure out like what's going on here. Is this, um, they, they thought it was some kind of a quote veiled threat, uh, against the congressman or maybe another law maker. And, uh, so they were asking about like what this thing was on the whiteboard, why the door was open. Um, and the, the staff member told them that they were, uh, looking at, uh, potentially legislation related to, uh, body armor imports from China based on, uh, some recent reports about, uh, a man in Texas who is, uh, convicted for a wire fraud scheme of essentially trying to import faulty Chinese cheap body armor and sell that as if it was some Texas-made armor that was actually reliable to law enforcement.

And so Nels was looking at legislation related to that, specifically the imports of Chinese body armor. And so that was kind of the context of that those words on the whiteboard the other thing with the map was the map was just a map that they were using to show an intern where to go and pick up ice so nothing crazy um so according to another report that was filed uh from the officer that that did that investigation on the Monday. They said that there was nothing more suspicious about this. So we're just like, that's the end of it. Closed book.

But apparently over the next few months, there were some tensions that kind of rose between Capitol Police and Troy Nels' office trying to figure out why the officer came in there and took the picture. If you go into a Capitol Hill office, oftentimes you'll see just a little plaque that says there's no photography or video allowed. It's prohibited in these offices. There's constitutional protections specifically for lawmakers that kind of help protect their speech and debate. The speech or debate clause is what it's called. And so Nels is alleging that the officer taking this picture of the whiteboard, that's information about his legislation that he's working on. That's protected information, he says. this without any permission, without contacting any of his senior officials about this, and just not doing it quite by the book was kind of a violation of the Constitution. So those are kind

of those are the accusations that he's bringing against Capitol Police. So what is Nels doing about the situation? So Nels requested the inspector general of Capitol Police to launch an investigation into the matter of this officer taking a photo of his office. The inspector general of the Capitol Police agreed to do this. And so he's now conducting information or investigation that's independent from Capitol Police itself. So you have, you know, essentially like Capitol Police over here, and then you have the Inspector General completely separate from that doing the investigation. Got it. Well, we'll definitely keep an eye on that. Daniel, thanks for covering that for us and breaking down all the nuance of this whole situation. Isaiah, we're going to come to you. Let's talk about another campaign that you're covering. There are quite a few Republicans running in the primary to replace George P. Bush as Texas's land commissioner. Remind us first what this office does.

So their basic duty is just to manage land that the state of Texas owns. And there are some other responsibilities that branch off from that. One of the most substantial of those is managing the permanent school fund and what the permanent school fund is so the psf is we've just got land that they allocated way way back in the early days of texas being a state um the glo actually fun fact it was created before texas was a state when it was still a republic so it actually predates the governor's office wow it's the oldest state agency um a lot of cool history in this article that I came across. It is very interesting. But anyway, to focus, the revenue that we get from that land from oil and gas leases, for example,

funds public schools in Texas. And so the commission makes decisions about how to make money off that land to fund schools. And obviously you can see down the chain, the more money you get from that, in theory, the legislature can take that and buy it on property taxes. And so there's a lot of ripples from that responsibility. Obviously, conservation is another responsibility. The GLO takes care of the Texas coastline, so forth. It offers loans to veterans to buy land and homes, and it provides some other veteran services as well. And the GLO manages the Alamo. Got it. How do these candidates distinguish themselves so far? So there are eight Republicans and four Democrats that are running. This article focused on the Republicans because the tpi for this as well is also um pretty solidly

republican all the statewide offices are um so it will likely go to a republican and the the red candidates in the race include ben armenta an ice agent our former ice agent i'm fixing him up victor avila was the ice agent the ice agent. Yes. Ben Armenta is a businessman. Don Buckingham, the outgoing state senator. Rufus Lopez, Western Martinez, former Texas real estate commissioner. Don Minton, a West Point graduate and mineral company, mineral extraction company executive. John Spires, an attorney and heart surgeon. And Tim Wesley, whom Alan West appointed as Republican party historian and um that's that's his main political role so they have some interesting different plans that are mainly

they diverge most substantially with regards to managing the psf and the natural resource leases that are involved in that um and national security which in a way can be an ancillary duty of the GLO okay but that's really where the big debate is is how much the GLO can actually influence national security so right now for example Hayden has reported extensively on the GLO building a wall on state lands you know lands of the Texas owns a lot of the border is private lands and so texas can't touch that without their that's that's an obstacle even a domain or at least and whatnot you know and so um but abbott and current commissioner george p bush have already begun building a wall in state lands and um all of their republican candidates they're republicans and so

they agree that border security is a big issue, but they disagree about how effective this project would be. So Victor Avila, naturally, given his background, he made that his number one priority, border security. And he says as land commissioner, he would continue building the state wall and would expand it tremendously, as he said. He claims to have met with a lot of private homeowners, and he's met a lot that he says want the state to help them, and they're willing to donate their land to sell it or lease it. Don Buckingham has a similar platform in that regard, and Wesley as well. He said that he would think outside the box, in his words, whether it's a wall that's been completed on those public lands, or other ways to divert and discourage people. The other candidates disagreed and said that the GLO has bigger fish to fry, essentially.

So Armenta said that the agency has very little control over the border, pointing out that less than 5% of the lands that the GLO manages are along the border, and the vast majority of those lands, he says, are in parts of the border that you cannot traverse. So instead, he thinks that the GLO should focus more on foreign countries leasing state lands, which is a phenomenon that we've reported on a little bit. But China, for example, has leased public land in Texas for wind farms and stuff like that. And so China has ownership interests and leases and stuff on state land while uh current commissioner bush is focusing on the border and armenta and minton as well agree that with each other that um the foreign entities leasing state land is a greater concern so if the glow is going to work on national security that should be

the focus and so they kind of split on on that topic with regards to the permanent school fund, Avila said that as Glow Commissioner managing the fund, he would get in front of the money, as he put it, and keep it from going to schools that teach critical race theory, for example, which is an interesting strategy. He was the only one to suggest that strategy. Minton and Spires both suggested opening up these leases to, in addition to supporting oil and gas leases, also invest more in rare earth companies. So companies that are extracting rare earth elements like strontium and lithium and so forth for batteries and stuff like that. Texas has quite a bit of those and Daniel's written on this a little bit as well. And so Minton and Spires both suggested or offered plans to focus on those as well as oil and gas and kind of diversify

the PSF portfolio. Buckingham, for her part, focused more on the Biden administration rather than distinguishing herself from her primary competition, which is just a common political tactic for candidates that feel that they have a strong lead, you know, to kind of look ahead to the general, ignore the primary for the moment. It's just a common tactic. So Buckingham just promised to continue protecting the oil and gas industry and finding against the Green New Deal policies, as she put it. So got it.

Well, thanks for bringing that down. We'll continue to watch that race. Bradley, let's turn to the city of Austin. you put it so got it well thanks for bringing that down we'll continue to watch that race bradley let's turn to the city of austin there are currently up to 18 austin police officers under investigation for misconduct during the 2020 protests that kind of turned into riots many of them where do those investigations stand so each of them is being investigated for the use of beanbag rounds, a crowd deterrent tool which is used, fired into masses of people. Sometimes it causes injuries. Usually, though, because of the way it is, it's not like a solid bullet.

It's a pillow of BBs. And so that increases the surface area that these, um, that these impact. And of course it hurts, but it's meant to, um, and prevent people from engaging in whatever activity they're planning on doing. Um, these were used during the, uh, the riots that occurred last year. Um, you know, the crowd was throwing bottles and rocks bottles full of urine at the police and the police responded in some instances by firing these beanbag rounds and so a bunch of of these protesters that were struck by the beanbag rounds have filed complaints and the travis county da jose garza is currently in the process of presenting evidence

to a grand jury trying to get indictments of the various officers he controls what evidence is submitted to the grand jury what they see before they make the decision um now it's important to know that the bean backgrounds were approved to munitions at the time they they were given out by the department themselves. And so it's not like the officers took these munitions from home and used them in official APD operations. That was not the case at all. He was trying to get indictments for basically abuse of force in these instances. And right now we're still waiting on a final grand jury verdict. I'm sure evidence is still being submitted, but right now we're just waiting for that. You spoke with a defense attorney for several of the accused officers. What did he have to say? Yeah, so Doug O'Connell, an attorney here um alleged that the beanbag grounds first of

all that were fired had been expired and by expired they basically had the bb's in the in the pillow had melted together and formed like a solid slug obviously not you formed like a slug that you would out of a shotgun or even a bullet smaller, but a singular mass instead of the individual BBs spread out within the pillow. And so that caused some serious injuries. I saw one picture, a guy had basically sliced his forearm, shoulder, the skin on that, and caused a lot of bleeding. One person was struck in the head, which knocked him out cold, and he fell down and struck his head on the concrete on the ground and was in the ICU for three weeks. So these cause real injuries. But O'Connell alleged that the department knew about these defects and issued the munitions anyway, did not do anything about it. He also said that, I've also heard that SWAT, they had these munitions as well and they switched them out when they saw the defect. But the regular rank and file patrol officers still use them during these this event um this evidence o'connell

said will likely be withheld from the grand jury because garza quote wants to make a show of getting the indictments since that is something that he campaigned on, ramping up prosecutions of police officers during his 2020 campaign. O'Connell also said that there may well be a righteous personal injury case against the city in these instances because of the expired beanbag rounds that were issued anyway. But there is no case here against the officers for criminal offenses, which is what DA Garza is pursuing. Like I said, the indictments are likely to come later this month. Grand jury indictments are pretty easy to get. They come at a, when you present evidence in front of a grand jury, the stats I've seen

is like 95, 99% of the time they choose to indict. Now, when it goes to trial, a lot of this alternative evidence that is not presented to the grand jury comes out and then that's where we see a lot of these indictments fall through but likely an indictment will come and we'll see if that happens later this month thank you Bradley for that Daniel pivoting back to you, we talked about South Texas congressional races earlier. Let's pivot to the state Senate. There's another race that we're watching closely down there. Talk to us about Senate District 27. So Senate District 27 is the most competitive Senate district in Texas. But more than that, it's also the Senate seat

that is currently held by Senator Eddie Lucio Jr., who is actually retiring at the end of his term. So the seat will be open, which means even with it being a competitive seat already at about D57% with the fabulous Texas Partisan Index rating. Fabulous. Even with it being the most competitive at that, it's going to be probably even a little bit more in the spotlight just because it is an open seat. And so with people view Lucio as the most moderate member of the Democrats in the Senate. And so looking forward to who will succeed him in that role, there will definitely be some competition here. So we'll see what will happen there. Got it. Are there front runners in this race? So the big front runner in the race is Morgan LaMontia. She is a businesswoman from

South Texas. Her family has a big name there. She is definitely well connected financially. And so her campaign has definitely pulled in the most money and has the most resources available. She also has the endorsements of several different house members in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley region, as well as Senator Eddie Lucia himself is endorsing her. So she has the backing of a lot of people. She has the connections. She has the finances for that. She is running as a Democrat. When she was initially, rumors were going around about whether she might run. There was some debate about whether she would run as a Democrat or a Republican, which for a moderate member like Lucio, I think that's something that he also appreciates. Now, she does take a different stance on him with regards to abortion. She is a pro-choice and not pro-life.

So she would have voted against SB8 is what she said. And so there's some question there about how that will play out in the district. Now, the other big names and the Democrats who are running would be Sarah Stapleton-Barrera and Representative Alex Dominguez. Dominguez is also from the Valley, so it's kind of interesting that his colleagues endorsed a different candidate than him. But Stapleton-Barrera and Dominguez are both also very much on the pro-choice side of things. And so that's just a... A rundown. Yeah. Yeah. Now, being this is the closest thing we have to a district in the senate this cycle who are the republicans in the race so there are three

republicans in the race there is adam hinojosa who's a businessman and then you have israel salinas as well as uh roald torres and torres was actually a state representative uh back in i believe 2011 2012 uh He was there for that redistricting cycle before the maps changed. And then afterwards, I think he ran for something else because of the way that his district was drawn. I'd have to go back and double check that. But those are the three Republicans who are running. An interesting thing here is that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has been very active in endorsing candidates in all the other open races, even with SD10, which is technically not open. But Republicans are confident that they'll be able to swing that after redistricting.

And he has endorsed Republicans in all of those races. Specifically, the Senate races you're talking about. The Senate races ahead of the primary election. And so this is the one race where he has not waited in. And that's just kind of fascinating. A spokesperson from his campaign, Alan Blakemore, told me that he's waiting and watching to see how the candidates perform in the primary. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there if Republicans come and support one of those three Republicans who are running. Absolutely. Thank you, Daniel. Hayden, let's pivot to Dallas. What did the Dallas City Council

decide about the future of its convention center this week? Anyone who has been in the Dallas area for a while is aware of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, now named after the former U.S. Senator. It used to be called just the Dallas Convention Center. But I remember the 2016 Republican Party of Texas Convention was there. It has been used for myriad activities and events over the years. But the Dallas City Council has decided to revamp it. And they gave preliminary approval to a plan that could cost up to two billion dollars and involve a tax increase on the city's hotel tax but there were a lot of different plans that they were considering this one will redevelop it to the west of lamar

street and create really an entirely new convention complex. One of the problems that they identified or stated with regard to the current facility is that it lacks some of the facilities that would make it more competitive with other convention centers across the country like ballrooms and meeting spaces, restaurants, hotel space, and things like that, as well as an authentic urban experience was one of the items that they listed and, quote, limited parcels for future development due to its current physical orientation, end quote. So this is going to be a pricey project. The mayor pro tem compared it to investing in a business, and he said the city has been in the conventions in our business for many years, so this is just another step in a good business plan.

Although it did pass by a vote of 14 to 1, it wasn't exactly a close decision. Councilwoman Kara Mendelson stated that it was a risky move, and because of COVID-19, the future of conventions and the nature of the convention center business is going to change. And she pointed out that the city still owes $2 million on the current facility. And despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that were stated to be spent on maintenance fees, the proponents of this plan believe that the expense and the taxes that would need to be spent on maintenance fees. The proponents of this plan believe that the expense and the taxes that would need to be raised in order to build a new complex are justified by the fact that it is expensive to maintain the current facility because of the problems that are there. Of course, Councilwoman Mendelson questioned why there are so many problems and if the council

has struggled to adequately fund maintenance in the past, that could be a problem in the future. And taxpayers deserve an answer to that important question. So it wasn't too controversial. It was nearly a unanimous decision to move forward with this plan. But there were still concerns raised by Councilwoman Mendelson. And of course, there are still a lot of steps in the process. This isn't a type of project that you vote on the council votes on once I'm imagine there will be many votes ahead on contracts and different allocations and appropriations for budget budgetary reasons. So this is just the first step in the plan to get the ball rolling on this new convention center in Dallas. Wow. Well, we'll definitely keep an eye on that. Thank you, Hayden.

Daniel, why is the attorney general now investigating GoFundMe? GoFundMe, a popular crowdfunding site, I think that's what they call it, where essentially someone wants to start a fundraiser for something. So they go and they start a fundraiser through GoFundMe. People can then contribute to whatever cause that might be. And I think GoFundMe, they pull a little percent of that to be able to run their organization. And then the rest of the contributions go toward whatever cause. Now, one of the big causes that has gotten in the spotlight recently has been the, quote, freedom convoy up in Canada, which are protesting, a bunch of truckers are protesting the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, as well as the different government measures in reaction to the pandemic up there. And so with that protest going on,

there was a fundraiser to support those truckers, which raised reportedly over $10 million on GoFundMe. So quite a large sum of money went to this fundraiser. But then GoFundMe suddenly halted contributions to this fundraising campaign and actually began refunding people who had given to this campaign automatically after talking with the US and Canadian governments who expressed concerns that this was now turning into a, instead of just being a peaceful protest, they're saying that this would be something violent. And so they just suddenly halted the contributions to this campaign or not. I don't want to use the word campaign because we're talking about political campaigns all the time. This is a little bit different, but, uh, so they halted, uh, contributions

to that fundraiser. And because of that, uh, Ken Paxson and a lot of other lawmakers are also just expressing concerns about this. So the attorney general submitted a request for a bunch of documents from the organization, really concerned that they could be violating some state laws with respect to the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. So that's what he's doing. You can read more about that. You can even read the investigative demand that he sent to them. Go to our website and read the article. Well, Daniel, well done. Thank you.

Hayden, let's really quickly cover this as we're wrapping up here. You covered another bribery scandal. Seems to be your beat. But talk to us about the most recent conviction in a bribery scandal in South Texas. Okay, really quick. Verdict. Guilty. Case closed closed i'm just kidding in la jolla school district an assistant superintendent had accepted 28 000 in bribes from 2019 forward and he pleaded guilty and is facing up to five years in prison he

remains free on bond and will be sentenced on apr 19th. This is the latest conviction in a series of guilty pleas, including a La Jolla ISD trustee who accepted more than $234,000 in bribes from an energy savings company. And essentially they sold votes. And there were also city officials there in Hidalgo County who accepted bribes from the same company. And chief of staff of a councilman also had to plead or chose to plead guilty on this and several other offenses. So several hundreds of thousands of dollars involved. And of course, all these people are facing lengthy prison terms if they, or once they reach their sentencing sentencings. Well, thank you, Hayden. Again, covering bribery with the best of them. Gentlemen, let's pivot to a fun topic here. Um, y'all wrote down several options for me. I like this. I'm going to go with the first one here. Speaking of, as we did earlier, the truck driver convoy up in Canada, what would you do to kill time if you were a truck driver? Would you listen to podcasts, audiobooks, call everyone in your phone book? Take a nap.

I see a future in which truck drivers will just kind of be operating Teslas, Tesla trucks, Tesla cabs. Would they be truck drivers will um just kind of be operating teslas you know tesla trucks text tesla cabs would they be truck drivers then or would they be truck supervisors or i don't know yeah fun fact the novel that i wrote features a self-driving truck are you serious like a like a semi it's an autobot yes it's not an autobot it's just a it's just a semi it's really brief not a big part of the story but but it's in the future so i thought you know there might be self-driving trucks sometime i bet there will be relatively soon it is not a healthy lifestyle for these truck drivers to sit all day in a cab it's not good i sit at my desk all day totally different totally different

and it's not good to sit period um we're all sitting right now oh my gosh i just can't get away with anything okay kill time if you're a truck driver what would you do bradley hmm well i would listen to sports on the radio oh that's awesome yeah that's all um i'm sure podcasts which is what i do in the car now anyway i'd probably snack a lot i'd probably eat a lot of snacks isaiah feels that lots of beef jerky lots of beef jerky as a protein give me so i'm not hangry by myself i basically do what i do on my road trips back home to Ohio. Listen to podcasts, music, sports when they're on. Yeah.

I'm a bigger fan of audiobooks. Yeah? Over podcasts? Yes. I feel like with podcasts, you have just like a bunch of fools like us talking around a table. Yeah, a lot of fools. Yeah, it's just the conversation can be very fluid whereas an audiobook like the information is packed in there a little

bit tighter and cleaner do you listen to audiobooks on um fast speed are you one of those people we've talked about this before but i can't remember which camp you're in it depends on the book sometimes i'll speed it up if there's stuff that i am not really paying super close attention to if it gets into something that's a little am not really paying super close attention to. If it gets into something that's a little bit more complicated and requires more thinking to process, then I'll slow it down. But like one and a half times is usually where it would sit at. Okay. There are a lot of podcasts out there. So it's not all just people giving their hot takes about whatever nonsense is happening.

The format of podcasts is very interesting. There are so many formats. Yeah. Like revolutions podcast, which is literally making a podcast personally. So yeah. Yeah. Though it's a,

but that's an audio book, right? You're treating, it's an audio book podcast. Yeah. Hmm. Well, so I know that there are,

there are like some that might be in a format that I appreciate more, but just like if you're looking through and trying to find something fast to look at, I don't want to do the research and like skim through podcasts. Finding podcasts is hard for me. It's true. There are so many. I just listened to a podcast. Football fans will know this.

We'll know of this person, Ryan Leaf, who is a quarterback in the mid-s early 2000s did he leave the nfl yeah actually um he was picked number two i forget which year behind peyton manning in the draft and he just was a complete bust dang and his life kind of like spiraled out of control he went to jail and all this stuff and uh basically his entire career is marked by every nfl draft people saying oh who's gonna be the next ryan leaf oh that sucks he did a podcast about all that telling a story ryan leaf being ryan leaf and it was very interesting so if you like football i recommend that it's a 10-part series that's interesting hay, what about you? Well, I also would probably get to the end of Audible and Spotify and listen to lots of audiobooks, but I guess I would eventually get bored with that and probably try to come up with games.

Like, let's see how many... I was going west on or east on I-20 and I got to Dallas. I'd say, let's see how many blue houses I can count on the way to Shreveport or before I get to Shreveport. So it seems dangerously close to counting sheep while you're driving. Yeah, I don't, I would not be a good truck driver because I would probably fall asleep at the wheel at some point. What about you, Isaiah? What would you would you do on um a long truck drive across the country i would get one of those ovens that you can plug into your cigarette lighter and i would cook things those exist yeah i'd have one right now if my cigarette lighter thing still works but it doesn't i can't plug anything into my car how big is this thing um imagine a like a toaster oven

it's small it's skinnier than a toaster oven it's like the width of a toaster oven it's more of like a toolbox is it a toaster no it's an oven i don't see it i mean what would you cook in this thing anything anything the possibilities are endless oh my gosh you find one hot logic portable personal 12 volt 12 volt mini oven in black at nordstrom rack that's a weird place well i just see them at like loves and yeah truck stop stuff like that oh that's awesome the target audience obviously 100 and i i just look at them longingly because i i can't use one in my car but you totally would if you're given the chance yeah my little brother broke my cigarette lighter somehow.

I don't remember what he did, but it's his fault. Call him out. Yeah. I would do that. I'm not an audiobook fan. And y'all are psychopaths for listening to them on high speed. I just listened to an audiobook between two and two and a half speed. That's like in Fahrenheit 451 where they made the billboards real long.

So that people could read them when they were zipping by at 100 miles an hour. Oh. Something about it is just so strange to me. Yeah. But if you can process, I mean, that's the thing. If there were harder things to process, it wouldn't have been as, these are so, I'm trying to find a portable stove. This is crazy. But if you can process information faster, why just sit around and wait? Especially when an audio book is like 20 hours and you play it at two times the speed, you're cutting the time of that book in half.

I don't know. I feel like I want to enjoy the book. You know what I mean? But it depends if it's a story versus a, like I just listened to a book that was much more about negotiating. I listened to that book and I loved it it but it was not very um what was it art of the deal no it was lord in heaven but um that one i could listen to faster if it's a story i want to like savor it more so i'd still probably listen it to like one and a half speed does does real conversation bore you not Not at all. Like if you

conditioned yourself to where like the rate we're talking now is Yes. No. Too slow. Not at all. You're so boring. Oh my gosh. Ridiculous. Just kidding. Okay. Best road trip snack. Anything from Bucky's. Powdered donuts. Powdered donuts. Really?

Easy. Yes. Like the donut holes or just the donuts? Just the donut. I mean, I guess the same i mean i guess the same step donuts i was yeah every time i'm in the road from a particular place gas station i mean yeah that's usually the place do you prefer big donuts or mini donuts um in general or if they're powdered if they're powdered the mini ones yeah numbers just get a big bag of those i I want donuts now. We had Tiff's Treats yesterday. It was delicious. Thank you, bro.

Was that yesterday? It was yesterday. Okay. I don't remember. What other snacks? Daniel? I like the roasted nuts at Bucky's. Oh, those are great.

Like the ones that are warm and come in paper. Those are so good. I like Chex Mix. Ooh. If Cheetos didn't get all over your fingers and make it impossible to get them off i would eat those more like original cheetos or the puffs or the hot ones i don't like the puffs you don't have spicy too much air in those yeah and they just dissolve but you're right you get this neon orange patina on your fingers and... It's nasty. You get a chisel off of your teeth. Yeah.

It's not good. This is even worse than Cheetos, but Takis. You guys know Takis? Oh, yes. Oh, they're so good. You like Takis? I love Takis. They're so delicious, but it is awful to eat because...

Or they get all over your fingers and they dye your tongue red. It's not good i since i just did a road trip tuesday uh i had mcdonald's french fries both on the way there and on the way back so that's kind of slowly developing into a road trip food i got it i mean that's pretty they're decent fries mcdonald's like the only thing for mcdonald's i will readily eat is their fries well i like their mcchicken too oh how dare you maybe their ice cream if their ice cream machines aren't always broken yeah well soon it'll be um uh what's the the saint patrick's day shake that they do the shamrock shamrock shake

you never had that no it's disgusting to me isn't it green yeah but it tastes like mint it's not like you're eating green sludge. I just don't like it. Although it is McDonald's, so who knows? I was going to say, you can never rule out green sludge as an ingredient in McDonald's. I don't eat McDonald's, like, ever, except for on road trips. Got it. And that's it. Okay, that's fair.

You don't seem like a McDonald's eater. No. Physically. No. Wait, so, oh yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, mcdonald's is such a big food chain it's not because their food is amazing it's because it's consistent and you know what you're getting with it i think it has more to do with the um prominence historically where

it was just the first food fat first fast food chain and took over the market well that's why it took over the market because not because their food was amazing because it was consistent and replicable yeah everywhere that's fair at least according to the movie the founder with i forget his name the guy that used to be batman oh he used to be you mean well that's gonna be batman again yeah that's happening what yeah he's gonna be batman in a new flash movie don't it's it's weird okay we're on our like 10th batman yeah anyways gentlemen thank you i really really diverged it really went off. Folks, thanks for sticking with us and we will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening.

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