The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 14, 2025

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/Learn more about the Data Center Coalition at: https://www.centerofyourdigitalworld.org/texasThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Texas House Committee Assignments Released With GOP Majorities, Democratic Vice ChairsVIDEO: Gov. Greg Abbott on State of the State, School Choice, Property Taxes, Border SecurityAbbott Urges DEI 'Purge' of Schools in 2025 State of the State AddressGov. Abbott Lists 'Texas Cyber Command' as Emergency Item for State LegislatureTexas Senate Committee Advances Priority Property Tax Bill, $40,000 Homestead Exemption IncreaseFederal Judge Blocks Portions of Texas SCOPE ActNuclear billTexas Senate Priority Bill Would Increase Parental Involvement in Children's School Library MaterialsCBP Officer Arrested for Alleged Human, Drug Smuggling ConspiraciesNew York Stock Exchange Plans to Relocate Chicago Exchange to Texas40 Massage Parlors Closed in Texas Since Passage of Anti-Human Trafficking LawLawmakers Announce New Texas Legislature UK Caucus

Yeah, so this week there's been a record number of Trump impersonations in the Senate because Senator Paul Bettencourt, in laying out his property tax bill and joint resolution, he is very convinced that everybody loves it. It was, I'll admit, it was pretty funny the first couple times I heard it. And then we hit half a dozen. Three Several Days is putting out all sorts of different Valentines which are making me really laugh.

And one of them was Betancourt with a Trump hair. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was good. That was good. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Mary-Lise. Mary-Lise, we're so glad you're back.

Thank you. It's good to be back. It was a difficult podcast without you. Yeah. I don't actually think it was. I can't remember. I thought it was great. I'm just so insanely sane. I'm just the only girl.

I can't remember if last week was particularly tough or if I'm just, like, playing it up, you know? I can't remember. Cameron's memory may serve him better. Some would say the latter. Well, it's Thursday. We always record Thursdays. We had House Committee assignments come out this morning. We have SB4 on the Senate floor right now.

It's a busy day. Brad and I are recording Smoke-Filled Room later. So anything we don't go into on House committee appointments today on the pod, we will go into in-depth in an episode later that will be released on Monday. So just stay tuned for that. But while they're in the ledge, and I think now it's really going to speed up the process of what happens legislatively going forward. Of course, we're getting closer and closer to those constitutional guidelines where we can see bills start to move, start to be debated, heard, all that jazz. So we're getting closer and closer. You ready for it, Cam?

It's exciting. You know, lots of things I have my eye on, especially education-related issues. Yeah. So, you know, most of my focus has been on the senate with the school choice legislation now it'll shift to the house yeah these committee assignments coming out and bills being assigned so um ready for some long nights yeah yeah i think my goal has been when there are times we're able to let everyone leave early like get out of here early guys because it's so novel right now like that will not be the case in a few months. But as a reporter, as someone who follows Texas politics, this is what you're sort of doing the job for.

It's the bread and butter. Yeah, this is the fun stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And having everyone in town, even just for the legislative session, I'm talking lawmakers, I'm talking, you know, advocates, grassroots folks, lobbyists, everyone at the Capitol, actually. Especially on hot button issues, you're going to see a lot of protests, a lot of activists coming out. Rallies.

Rallies. Last session, it was the child gender modification bill that caused a lot of outrage up in the gallery, and that produced some shocking images of people being removed from the gallery. And who knows if education is going to rile up the public education base similarly. But it seems like, at least from what I noticed, Democrats are really going to fight hard on this issue. So if they're going to have people come out, it's going to be on the school choice bill. Yeah, that's really the big contentious issue this cycle so far.

Knock on wood, we'll see something else. There are always a few unexpected policy fights too. You're like, wow, this water bill really got contentious. You're like, where did that come from? That happens every session, does oh totally like a few years ago a few sessions ago it was like a drone bill that got really good like it was one of the most interesting debates on the floor i forget the nature of the bill exactly but there are things like that that and protesters never know it wasn't protesters so much as interesting house floor debate well if i could make a prediction on

an interesting interesting pieces of legislation that could elicit that type of debate, I'd tell the listeners to look for all the AI regulation bills. Totally. That are going to come up because there's going to be two sides of this debate that are going to be more of the open source, accelerating AI development and those on the more protectionist regulation side of things. And that could lead to a larger debate on the floor, both on the House and possibly in some Senate committees as well. So that could be interesting. It will be very interesting. And I still am holding out

for some border debate of some sort. Like that would be always very interesting. Well, let's get into committee assignments. Bradad the house released these long-awaited committee assignments at this point today give us the top lines of what um was most notable so if y'all recall during the rules fight the number of committees was reduced from 34 to 30 they nixed six committees added to those were the delivery of government efficiency and Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs. Both pretty broad. We'll see exactly what jurisdiction they have. But as we saw in the rules package, every chair of a standing committee is a Republican.

Every vice chair of a standing committee is a Democrat. There were six subcommittees. Six or seven, something. Sorry, there are six subcommittees that ended up being chaired by Democrats and vice chaired by Republicans. And how many subcommittees are there? Sorry to put you on the spot. I can't remember. I think 12.

Yeah. So. Could you just briefly explain, I'm sorry to interrupt, the difference between a regular committee and a subcommittee? Standing committee is what we all know as committees. The standard ones cover various topics. You have state affairs, which is really broad. You have licensing and administrative regulation is a much more narrow one.

So it ranges. Subcommittees, each one is underneath a standing committee. And so they're created to expedite certain bills to hear, basically to not take time away from the standing committee to handle it on their own and then get a bill that is more easily workable through that main committee to advance so they're not spending tons of time on a particular bill. So each one has a different category. What they do will depend on who the chair is but also what their category is within the umbrella of the standing committee. Other top lines, apparently this is the first time ever there's a Republican majority on every standing committee and subcommittee.

So even if there's a Democratic chair on one of these subcommittees, it has majority Republican makeup on the committee. Then other notable things, four Cook voters got standing subcommittee chairs. Those were John Smithy, Cody Vesute, Matt Shaheen, and Ryan Guillen. So there's that. The deans of the House, Tom Craddock and Sinfronia Thompson, and then Joe Moody, Democrat from El Paso, is back as pro tem. He was, of course, pro tem in 19 and 21 until it got stripped of him after the quorum break in the summer of 21. So if you want more, go to the story or listen to SFR on Monday.

We have a whole chart that lists out all of the chairs and vice chairs for each committee. Yeah, and denotes which members are Cook voters as well, which is interesting to watch. And that is not necessarily unexpected just due to the math of the House, that there would be a few Cook voters that would be tapped for chairmanships, but it's very interesting regardless. Brad, also this week you interviewed Governor Abbott, which was just a blast to get to go over to the governor's office and have access to that.

We're grateful. But you give us a teaser of that interview, and folks, this is available on podcast platforms right now. So we've got some highlights that are out on Twitter, just like a minute-long snippet of a few different questions on this or answers that he had. But the conversation was 15 minutes long, ranged from his state of the state, his emergency items. I think we talked property taxes. We talked education savings accounts. We talked the border. He had a couple interesting answers on. One that I thought was most interesting was I asked him what he sees as his role in this Republican environment in the political sphere in Texas.

And he basically said that, you know, I have all this money and I need to assert myself. And he did that last time, last session or last primary. Not quite a direct quote, but you know, we're getting close. But he says it showed every indication he's going to continue being a presence in elections. So check it out. Which is, again, we talked about this ad nauseum, but a stark difference from how he's operated within primaries in previous cycles, right? This last primary was, and it was not just like, hey, he dipped his toe in. It was an absolute full-throated endorsement of those who were pro-school choice.

Well, that's exactly what I was going to bring up is you see which races he was inserting himself in and what issues those candidates were directly related to. Or what issue. Yeah, what single issue school choice. Totally. And so let's say, hypothetically, school choice, since many of those pro-school choice members were elected to the House, and we can assume there's going to be two separate bills,

one school choice bill, one public education funding bill. And let's say the school choice bill passes and it's enacted. What could you see is going to be the next big issue that Abbott could potentially jump in on? What's another thing he really sees as being part of his legacy as governor. Is there anything that comes to mind? I don't think so yet. And I think in that interview with Brad, he was pretty reserved in saying anything else that he of ESA school choice proposal mixed across the finish line that is not in the governor's view strong enough, will he reenter the primary fray? And if school choice period, some proposal doesn't pass, will he jump in again?

And the answer was yes. So that is really what will be interesting is, yes, he has, he's a heavyweight. He's the state's top political heavyweight, both in terms of the position he holds and the dollars behind him. But will that mean that he engages on the border or engages on something else? It'll be very interesting to see where the fault lines fall this session. Because I think we're still questioning a little bit of where the other fault lines on some of these issues will be. So who knows? But definitely go check out that interview. It's a very interesting lesson, so folks, go check it out.

Cameron, speaking of the governor, DEI is one of these topics that will, again, be big for the Texas legislature. Tell us what's going on. Well, during the State of the State Address, Abbott, he listed all sorts of things, property tax relief, infrastructure, school choice as these emergency items. But as he was giving the speech, he also said he wants to, quote, purge DEI from every corner of Texas schools. And he explained saying last session we banned DEI in universities. This session we must ban DEI in grades K through 12. And just so people are familiar, we covered this bill last time the session was in.

And they ended up passing a DEI ban at Texas public universities. And there's been some implementation process where these university presidents have been summoned to give testimony in front of committees. And so there's been a rollout already and some pushback and some disagreements on how far the DI ban can go at these universities, but as of right now, it's in place. But Abbott followed up on his State of the State address in an interview with CBS News saying, quote, everyone needs to understand exactly what is meant by the elimination of DEI. Goes into how DEI violates the Constitution of not only the united states but also the texas constitution so it sounds like he is really uh behind eliminating these offices uh in k-12 and another thing that he's done to indicate how uh important this to him. He's actually issued an executive order in January that directed state agencies to abolish all such offices so that they may, quote,

comply with colorblind guarantee of both state and federal constitutions. So Abbott doing a lot of work here, not only mentioning it in interviews in the state of the state, but also executive orders. And we were seeing it at the federal level as well with President Trump issuing a number of executive orders related to DEI and federal agencies. And just so the people listening understand, right now, there seems to be a positive reception to the elimination of these offices. According to CBS News and YouGov poll, Trump's actions on DEI had a 45% of respondents saying his focus on the issue is at the, quote, right amount. So, yeah, just some updates there for people on this issue. And we've already seen a number of pieces of legislation filed related to DEI.

Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of the president's executive orders are being mirrored here in Texas, not just related to DEI, but a lot of other executive orders, too, that we're seeing Abbott kind of jump to the forefront of these issues as well, which is really interesting to watch that tandem kind of following, right? Where Trump issues an executive order, soon thereafter Abbott issues a very similar one. It's just interesting to watch. Cameron, let's also talk about another emergency item from the governor. Cyber attacks have become more prevalent in recent years here in Texas specifically. Tell us what the governor had to say about that. Well, this was an emergency item, maybe something that people weren't expecting during the State of the State Address, saying that he wants to create the Texas Cyber Command,

saying, quote, we must deploy cutting edge capabilities to better secure our state. And he released a one pager kind of detailing the necessity of this new cyber command, protecting critical infrastructure from hostile foreign adversaries listing out countries like China, Iran, Russia, and, quote, other rogue outlets. And the plan right now is to locate this new cyber command in San Antonio. San Antonio was selected because of UT San Antonio that is actually a member of the United States Cyber Command Academic Engagement Network. So it's kind of this locus of experts at this school and in this area. They actually just opened a $91.8 million center there in order to develop experts in security and national security and the reason why this might be

very necessary is because there has been incidents um for example there was a ukrainian national sentence for his involvement in over 2500 ransomware attacks there There has been a Russian hacking team allegedly responsible for a cyber attack that caused a Texas water tank to overflow. And there are other, you know, other incidents that I have listed in our piece if people want to check it out. And it's expected right now that Representative Cabriglione in the House and Senator Parker in the Senate are going to carry these pieces of legislation. So just something for people to keep their eye on here as cyber attacks are continuing to become more prevalent as everything moves into this new digital arena, not only how we interact

with our governments or with private industry, but with how we connect with each other. Cameron, that was so well looped in. You did such a great job. So it seems very vital now to really ramp up this type of online cybersecurity. Yeah, I think that was one of the issues that when the governor mentioned it in his State of the State, kind of was like, oh, surprising, interesting. Like it was particularly interesting for folks who knew that he'd mentioned school choice or the board or whatever it was. That was an interesting addition to the emergency items. We're going to take a quick break to hear from the Data Center Coalition. online banking to healthcare and government operations, data centers are the backbone of our modern lives, driving economic growth and ensuring seamless communication across

the state. With Texas households averaging 21 connected devices, the demand for data centers continues to grow. In today's rapidly advancing technological landscape and with the state's booming economy, businesses are expected to generate twice as much data in the near future, making data centers a vital investment for the future of Texas prosperity. To learn more, visit centerofyourdigitalworld.org slash Texas. And we're back. Bradley, coming to you. The Texas Senate is passing its property tax priority this week. Really as we speak give us a story yeah so this week there's been a record number of trump impersonations in the senate because

senator paul bettencourt in laying out his property tax bill and joint resolution uh he is very convinced that everybody loves it. It was, I'll admit, it was pretty funny the first couple times I heard it. And then we hit half a dozen impressions. Have you all seen the Three Several Days Valentines that he is posting on Twitter? Yes. He is posting. I actually don't know this person at all, so I don't know whether to.

Anyway, yes, but Three Several Days is putting out all sorts of different Valentines, which are making me really laugh. know this person at all so i don't know whether to anyway this part yes but three several days is putting out all sorts of different valentines which are making me really laugh and one of them was bet in court with a trump hair oh yeah yeah that was good like that was good so local government committee chaired by senator paul bettencourtourt considered and then promptly advanced out their priority bill for a property tax cut. Their plan is they're sticking to the homestead exemption about $500 in savings when paired with the compression that the Senate has itemized in its budget. Now, that savings, as I have said whenever I discuss this until I'm blue in the face, savings is not a cut from the bill this year. It's a reduction from what the estimated bill would be next year without it. So still $500 less estimated with this plan

than it would otherwise be for an average homeowner. You know, for a lot of people that could be very substantial. So the Senate is moving forward with their homestead exemption paired with compression plan. Right now they're on the Senate floor debating it. Everybody signed on to this as a co-author, so this thing's going to pass. It's going to fly through.

It's just a question of how much they want. Democrats and Republicans? Yes. And even Dan Patrick originally, which I'd never seen before, signed on as a co-author, but they removed him. Which I've been told, if he stayed on there, is an incurable point of order in the House. In the House? In the House.

Interesting. Well, I think period, but yeah. In the Senate too. That just wouldn't happen in the Senate. It's a point of order. Interesting. I was told it was a clerical error by TLO. So regardless, he's not a co-author anymore. But he does support the plan, and he's given it his blessing. The fiscal note for the bill goes from the bill and the constitutional amendment because unlike compression, which is just a

general law, a budget allotment, the homestead exemption is in the constitution what you're entitled to as a homeowner. And so they have to, that's why they have to amend the constitution every time they do this. They raised, I think before the turn of the century, the exemption was $5,000. Now if this passes, it'll be $140,000. So they're continuing to increase that. That's kind of their plan. The fiscal note goes from about $1 billion in costs to the state in the 26-27 biennium to about $272 million in the 28-29. And the reason for that is appraisal creep. The homestead exemption gets diluted over

the years as the average appraisal increases. And as everything with this, it'll range from house to house. But if your value, the value of your home goes up, you're going to get less out of the $140,000 homestead exemption, which is why they have to continue coming back and doing this over each biennium. The Senate's initial budget contains $3 billion itemized for compression. The governor has called for at least $10 billion in compression, or at least in property tax relief. He prefers compression.

Well, that was interesting in his interview with you, what he had to say about that too, basically just saying like, I mean, property tax relief is property tax relief, like if it comes to my desk, but this is what I'd prefer, which is interesting. And so the Senate likes the homestead exemption because it concentrates a lot of the relief on homeowners, which are a very active voter base generally and especially once you get up to the um the elderly over 65 they're very active voters as well so there's a cynical side of it the other side is you know we should try and enable home ownership as much as possible which is why we need to focus this here

so maybe even by the end of this podcast the, the bill will be passed through the Senate and over to the House. Definitely by the time this goes out tomorrow, it will be passed. So maybe I don't think we're going to have property tax fight round two, but there might be a little bit. At least not to the extent that was the drama-filled special session after special session dueling press conference situation that we had two years ago. Subtweeting each other across the... Memes being rolled out. Yeah, I don't think that will happen necessarily this time, but we'll see regardless because there still are competing proposals.

Bradley, thank you. Cameron, coming to you. A bill aimed to protect children online is once again in the news. A little bit different from last session. A little bit different. But still, give us the update. Well, this is in regard to the SCOPE Act. People aren't familiar. This was passed during the 88th legislative session, and it aims to prevent digital service providers, such as social media platforms, from entering into agreements with

minors without parental or guardian consent. It also mandates that these digital service providers include options in these agreements for parents or guardians to permanently enable specific settings. Additionally, the Scope Act requires certain disclosures about advertising practices and seeks to provide parents with greater transparency regarding how algorithms are used to target their children. So big picture, trying to help parents with the type of content their children are viewing online. Creating greater transparency. Well this law has been challenged on multiple occasions. This

latest one it was filed on behalf of students engaging in advancing Texas by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, an Austin judge blocked, partially blocked, the Scope Act because in the ruling writing that the law is not narrowly tailored. And the judge goes on to explain the ruling that the Scope Act, quote, employs overbroad terminology, stating that the law is not clear. And this is in regard to some of the words used in the law, such as grooming, harassment, and substance abuse. And so, like I mentioned, this law has had a few different challenges. We've seen other online transparency laws challenged all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, most notably with HB 20, which would have required the social media companies to not conduct viewpoint-based censorship. And that was actually sent back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for further proceedings.

So discussions surrounding online content, transparency, algorithms, viewpoint discrimination. It's going to be a topic continually discussed, not just in the courts, but in the Texas legislature. I expect further court rulings in this case, especially as it's appealed higher up in the court process. So for listeners, they should keep their eyes out. If this is a big issue for you, it's going to be something that comes up again during this session. Yeah, just from a totally different angle, which is also really interesting. And for those who are looking for just background on the Reader Act passed last session and the details surrounding that bill, how that is implemented. Well, the Reader Act is different. Yes, exactly. But that's the issue of public school libraries and inappropriate things. I'd encourage folks to

go read that from last session, all your work, because you followed that from start to finish and all of that. So it's just very interesting. Yeah. There you go. Okay. Bradley, you wrote an article on what's likely to be the priority, the blessed version of this nuclear power bill in the House. Give us the rundown. So State Rep. Drew Darby filed House Bill 2678, which would create the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Authority. And along with that, a low interest loan fund to go with it. It's the companion bill to Senator Tan Parker's Senate Bill 1105. We knew this was coming because the PUC's nuclear power work group released its findings and recommendations last, I think, November. And basically, they're trying to create a state entity that regulates the nuclear power footprint because we're starting to see a lot of development of small modular nuclear reactors. This lower cost, less cumbersome project to try and provide more baseload power rather than doing, you know, two more Comanche Peak power plants or South Texas

power plants, which are the very large scale nuclear plants. They, that has not been, we haven't really had any increase in nuclear power footprint in 50 years or so. Wow. I mean, we've had an expansion of the current ones, but we haven't had a new one built because it was just the capital upfront cost was just too much. You couldn't expect to see an ROI until 20 years down the road. How much are our state government and the federal government going to work together to try and help build out this nuclear infrastructure? Is there any talk about that? I mean, it seems like the Trump administration is friendlier to the idea of nuclear than the Biden admin was. So I think people are more excited about that.

The nuclear power infrastructures is what it is. And like the regulatory side at the federal government, there might be tweaks here and there. I don't foresee a massive change other than rolling back regulations that might have prevent firms that want to invest in building out this type of infrastructure to help expedite that process. I know a big issue was some of the environmental protection forms and stuff. I'm not super familiar with that, but it's just something I remember. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure. I know the state is trying, what they're trying to do is create their own system and apparatus to work within the scope of the federal government's system okay and so it takes still takes years to get things permitted we saw actually should be break ground this year the

an smr project at dow chemicals sea drift plan on the gulf coast gulf of america coast now i guess that's supposed to break ground this year. It was announced in 23. The governor is firmly behind it at the state of the state. He called for a nuclear energy renaissance in the state. So this bill by Darby and Parker will create basically a state. I think it might still have to work with the Public Utility Commission since it is a power utility, but it is hoping, the idea is to take a lot of the permitting requirements off the PUC's

plate and have this entity. They're going to have a, what's it called a a nuclear um a permitting officer someone that basically their job is to work with um firms hoping to build an smr here and work through the red tape the bureaucratic red tape at the federal level and the state level so that's kind of the the gist of it. You know, the other side of it, I mentioned the fund, the low-interest loan fund we saw, the Texas Energy Fund created in 23 to provide natural gas power plant builders some up-front capital at a low interest rate to spur generation development. And it has worked so far.

We've seen a lot of promises to build nuclear natural gas power plants we'll see if they all come to fruition there's a completion bonus i envision it looking very similar for this nuclear power thing but um yeah that's the story we'll see if um i i am pretty positive it'll be a a priority in the House at some point. Darby will get a low bill number on this, especially because he was just appointed as chair of the Energy Resources Committee. This bill would go through that. I don't think it's on the list really so far of Senate priority bills. But that may change with we're still waiting on what, 15? 25 have come out, 40 total,

we're waiting on 15. So maybe it slides in there. So. How do you, that's going to be one of my questions here is why, or how do you know when you're looking at these legislations, like these proposals, what is that version that will be blessed? Because oftentimes members will file the same bill, right? Different members file, have very similar ideas. But how can you, when you're examining what's been filed, determine what will be the quote-unquote blessed version that will make it through the process? I mean, a lot of it's based on author.

If there's someone that you know, like in the Senate, that's the property tax guy, which is bet in court. If it's filed by him and it's one tax the property tax guy which is bet in court if it's filed by him and it's one of the top issues you know it's a priority bill in the house Darby is the chairman he also backed the right horse he backed Burroughs and he got a related chairmanship look at Brad Buckley he's carrying the E esa bill when that whenever that comes which sounds like it's coming chairman of the public education chairman of pub ed um yeah good there's the answer well done thanks for that um well thank you bradley cameron coming to you this bill more

directly relates to the reader act by the way i don't know if you know about it yeah no i know you were prepping me i was prepping you to speak about this one this senate priority bill was filed which deals with public school libraries that's right huh tell us about it well uh this is a priority piece of legislation senate bill number 13 and it will change how school district library collections and catalogs are administered by instituting local advisory councils, dedicated school libraries. In addition, it will lay out a structured process for how a parent can actually block their child's access to certain library content. And in the bill, it actually addresses some definitions like harmful material, indecent content, profane content. And that's directly related to what you brought up with the Reader Act and aimed at preventing children from accessing certain materials in public school libraries by prohibiting library vendors from selling materials rated, quote, sexually explicit. a lot of debate, not only during the bill process, but in legal challenges after the bill was

passed into law. And so the author of the Reader Act, Jared Patterson, in the House, he's actually filed other pieces of legislation to try and help clarify some of those aspects in the Reader Act. And now with this priority piece of legislation to try and help clarify some of those aspects in the Reader Act. And now with this priority piece of legislation in the Senate from Angela Paxton, it's going to work in conjunction by preventing certain books to be sold into libraries, and then what types of books are actually in the libraries, providing that transparency for parents to understand what content their children are accessing. So again, another topic that was heavily debated in the 88th session, accompanying bills being presented here in the 89th to try and clarify different aspects related to public school libraries.

And I've written any number of stories on continuing controversies in these school districts. You know, there was one where a school district banned the Bible and because they made the justification based upon HB 900, which sparked a public debate online with Jared Patterson. And then the school district superintendent went back and forth with Patterson, and finally the Bible was reinstated in the school. But it's those types of instances that highlight why certain definitions require a legal process to adjudicate what is the actual legalese for these terms, so school districts understand what is and is not proper to include in these libraries. So very complicated process for some things that might seem relatively straightforward, but in law, it is necessary. Yes, absolutely. That's where we're seeing this

battle go down in the courts, right? That's all it is, is like defining these terms in a lot of ways and competing sides trying to get their outcome. But I would encourage folks, like I said before, to go and read all of Cabron's coverage of this, from the lawsuits to the bill passage to actual instances where this bill is affecting what is happening in public schools. Because it's one thing to bring up the issue, highlighting it. It's one thing when it's presented as a bill.

It's another thing to track it and how the bill is changed through the process. And then it's another thing when it's passed into law and actually enacted in real-world situations. And then we're at the spot now where clarifying bills are added so that people who are just interacting with these books, with their schools in their day-to-day lives can have some understanding about what's going on. Absolutely. It's going to be very interesting to watch all that. And I will say too, an interesting, I always think the acronyms of these pieces of legislation are so interesting. So reader act is restricting explicit and adult designated educational

resources really truly amazing to see the reader act like just well done to patterson and his team finding a way to figure out that acronym my gosh what was that one that we talked about i think it was one of ted cruz's acts that was yes i can? I think it was one of Ted Cruz's acts. Yes. I can't remember what it was called, but very impressive. It was like keep it off or something. It had to do with sexually explicit AI-generated images. Like keep something off the internet? Yeah.

Take it down act. There you go. Yeah, take it down act. Take it down act. That is wild. I couldn't remember what each letter stands for, but it was very impressive. I mean, that's a lot of letters. I remember reading that in the 40. Did I read that in the 40?

I think that's where I read it. It was in the 40. Marylis, what was in the 40 this week? This week we talked about there was an act introduced by a Texas congressman that has to do with the cartels and managing reporting cartels and tracking them and such. We also talked about the funding situation that's going on because there's federally they've been going back and forth trying to figure out what fiscal year 2025's bill will look like and they've been working

through that. So they kind of introduced a skeleton bill that'll at least give them a starting place to work from and that so very interesting and if you aren't subscribed to the text and subscribe the text and get the 40 in your inbox every thursday thursday morning yeah well lots of fights about raising the debt ceiling yes yeah yes absolutely um we're at least we're finally coming to you here a customs and border protection officer was arrested this week pretty spicy story tell. Tell us about it. Yeah, this is especially interesting considering all of the talk about immigration right now, all of the executive orders that have to do with mass deportation, securing the border. But yes, the Customs and Border Protection Officer was arrested and indicted in El Paso

because he was allegedly involved in trafficking both humans and drugs, or at least participating in conspiracies that were trafficking drugs and humans. It was announced on February 10th, and the official charge was that he had allegedly smuggled and attempted to smuggle undocumented non-citizens into the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain. And our newly appointed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, is that how you pronounce her last name? Yeah. Okay. No, you got it.

She said, to traffic drugs and smuggle humans, and she's referring to this indictment of this officer, while wearing the badge is not only a disgusting betrayal of our patriotic customs and border protection officers, but of our nation and the American people. So Manuel Perez Jr., he's the officer that was indicted and arrested. He was indicted under five different counts. So one of them was conspiracy to bring aliens to the United States for financial gain, personal financial gain, and then three counts of bringing aliens to the United States for financial gain,

and then one count of conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with the intent to distribute. This was referring to, they said, between kind of a broad range of dates, but between November 2019 and February 2025, Perez allegedly conspired to possess a substance that contained at least five kilograms of cocaine that he allegedly planned to distribute throughout multiple states such as Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, and a few others. There was a similar case back in 2023 when there was another CBP officer that was indicted for accepting financial gain to

permit vehicles to pass through the border into the U.S. and those vehicles were found to be containing fentanyl and methamphetamine. I believe that's how you pronounce that. Yeah you got it. Nice. Spot on. So there was an instance that he was specifically accused of allowing a vehicle operated by an illegal alien to cross over the port of entry in El Paso on multiple occasions. And that vehicle was containing humans. So that's one of the specific charges there. If he is convicted of these crimes, he could face a range of 10 years to life imprisonment. Those are for the drug conspiracy charges, and then up to five years for the human smuggling conspiracy that he

was allegedly involved in, and then three to 10 years for each human smuggling conviction. And Christine Noem said Manuel Perez will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. She did confirm that. So. Well, this is, it's so interesting hearing about the story because it's not an isolated incident. Like you brought up that other time it's happened. I wrote a story in December about three Texas-based U.S. Army soldiers who were involved in this type of conspiracy. And we're seeing also with Tom Homan being the border czar working in conjunction with Kristi Noem to conduct these ICE raids. And there's been multiple incidents where information has been leaked about where these raids are going to occur, effectively allowing these individuals

that these departments, federal agencies, are going to try and arrest to put them on the path towards deportation. So it's interesting how there are CBP officers, Texas-based military individuals, leaks from the FBI. So even internally, people who are a part of our federal agency are supposed to be carrying out the duties that are given to them from the heads of the agencies and from the president working against those orders. So just something to keep your eye on if it's going to continue. That's what I was curious if this is something that we're gonna see become more more

normal to these indictments is that gonna be something that's regular yeah well especially you know we we've already seen a number of Democrat run state attorney generals or I'll rephrase, attorney generals in Democrat led states filing lawsuits to effectively try and stop the illegal immigration enforcement efforts by the Trump administration and his other federal agencies. And you you know, obviously, there's a number of sanctuary cities across the country that are pushing back on these efforts. So, you know, it's, there's going to be more stories coming out related to this.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's gonna be a lot of reporting to do. The fronts of the war just changing, right? With a different person in the White House, related to this. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. There's going to be a lot of reporting to do. The fronts of the war are just changing, right, with a different person in the White House that becomes the Democratic-led state. So it'll be very interesting. But go read Mary Lee's piece on this to get all the details, and certainly something we'll continue to follow.

Cameron and their stock exchange is planning to move to Texas. Pretty big news this week. Tell us about it. Well, as we know, Greg Abbott loves to beat the drum about Texas being the economic capital of not just the United States, but the entire world. Right. And well, we saw the establishment or the announcement rather of the Texas Stock Exchange that was announced in June last year. And that announcement was something that

is separate than what is going on now, because what is happening is the New York Stock Exchange is actually going to reincorporate its Chicago-based exchange in Dallas. So it appears there's going to be competing stock exchanges here in Texas now and what's interesting though is it potentially is going to be very necessary with the already hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment that are that occur in the state and with many pro-business policies that have been passed and sessions passed and are going to continue to be passed this session,

having the ability to have these exchanges take place in trades, take place here in Texas, is only going to encourage further capital investment. Yeah, very interesting to see kind of two of these different stock exchanges target Texas as their home. It'll be very interesting to watch how that just affects everything in the state. Thank you, Cameron. Mary Lise, 40 massage parlors across Texas have been closed by the Department of Licensing and Regulation. Tell us why. Yes, so this is, this has been an interesting story I've been following for a few months now, and there have been 40 busts that have uncovered illicit activity going on in massage parlors across the state, and this was really triggered by, allowed by legislation that was passed during

the 88th legislative session. Representative Ben Bumgarner's House Bill 3579 gave the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, TDLR, essentially additional authority to be able to close these massage establishments if they found that they're violating certain standards or there's certain indicators of human trafficking going on. And so I was talking to someone from TDLR and kind of asking, you know, how does this work? How do you know to go visit a location and how do reports work? She said that a large number of the reports are first issued by a TDLR inspector

just doing a regular inspection visit, right, as they do at many different establishments. But she did say that a fair amount of reports, such as one that happened recently in Austin, are customers that will go into these massage parlors, and they will think it's just a regular massage parlor, and they're just going in, you know, their back hurts or something, and they're just wanting to get a regular massage. But one individual, a man in Austin recently, called into TDR and he said, hey, I was there getting a massage and this woman started to make advances upon me that I was not anticipating, was not desiring. And so sometimes it's apparently these massage parlors are advertised on illicit websites. And so oftentimes clients will see that on the website

and they'll come in specifically visiting a certain woman. But then there's members of the public that have no idea that this place is doing this and they think, oh, it's just a regular massage parlor, right? I'll just go in. So oftentimes they'll get a complaint from customers regarding that. That's wild. Yeah, really wild. The inspectors will check to see if there's a few different things. So they have to have no people living in the massage establishment, which is with these places that have been closed down, I believe all of them have had employees living in the establishment,

and that's a no-go. And another thing that they check for is that the employees are professionally dressed because they have noticed when they go in and visit sometimes after a report was filed or a complaint was filed by a customer, they'll find that the employees are dressed promiscuously or there's lingerie laying around all over the place. Can I ask something? Yeah. You said they check to see if people are living in the establishment. Is the law that Bumgarner passed in the 88th session, is it narrowly tailored

for just massage parlors? Because I feel like people might run a business out of their home and they, you know, I live where I work sort of thing. Or people might run a business out of their home and they, you know, I live where I work sort of thing. Or people might own a building and, you know, they decided, you know what, I'm just going to live in the attic, you know, and they're not doing anything illicit. They're just like, I can only afford the building that I work out of. Well, I do think that massage parlors have specific protocol just because of the nature of the business, because it is a very private situation where it's a very private situation where it's really a unique industry where you have clients come in, they're one-on-one with these

masseuse, and there's not a whole lot of accountability. So maybe that's why that's not allowed. So after the inspectors go in and they collect evidence, they'll then take it back and discuss, does this warrant a six-month emergency closure order? And essentially what this six-month closure order is is that they have to immediately close for six months, and then TDLR works to revoke the license of the individual that owns the massage parlor. And then when they decide if they're going to issue that order, they'll go in and let them know this is your order. And they said that they'll talk with the employees and they'll usually bring in someone that's a part of a government program that helps

victims of human trafficking so they can speak with the employees and say, hey, if you need assistance, we're here for you. And the representative I spoke to said that they'll most frequently say, oh, there's not a problem here. I'm not being trafficked right on the spot. But then later, she said, maybe a few days later, they'll call the phone number that they gave them and say, hey, I need help getting out of this. I need to go and please help me. So she said, just because there's not an outcry at the time doesn't mean that those folks are not being trafficked and that they feel like they're not being trafficked.

They might just not have the wherewithal to deal with making that admission right there in front of everybody. Absolutely. It's a totally different environment to make that admission in. Yeah. Yeah. And so she said, and this hasn't happened yet, but she said once they issue this six-month closure

order, if it goes on for six months and the individual has not given up their license voluntarily that owns this massage establishment, then they'll move to revoke, but she said what's happened so far, all the owners will just say, I don't want to run a business and massage establishment in Texas anymore, and I don't want to be licensed in Texas anymore. And she pointed out that these formerly licensed therapists may go to other states to seek a license, but she said the odds are very low for another state because the state will see that on the record. They're probably not going to be handing out licenses to them. So there's, I would read the full story because there's just like whole conversation I had

with this woman about what goes down, the way that they advertise on these websites is particularly disturbing. Just, yeah, really interesting. And Representative Bumgarner is expected to introduce another piece of legislation that will deal with further cracking down on human trafficking in Texas and preventing these businesses from reopening. So yeah and you put in a ton of work on this because we were we've been talking about this story for a while in the office and I think it's so emblematic of what people have been talking about with the issues with illegal immigration, because it's one thing to focus on the issue of just these coyotes in these cartels bringing people across the border, but this is the downstream effect. This is the real world

impact that it's having. People are being trafficked to these massage parlors and taken advantage of in these situations. And so really bringing like a personalized take on how illegal immigration is affecting people, I think it's really important for people to read about. Absolutely. Go read Mary Lise's piece with the Texan. Great coverage, Mary Lise. Cameron, let's very quickly hit this before we move on to our Twittery section. But a new caucus was announced in the Texasan. Great coverage, Mary Lise. Cameron, let's very quickly hit this before we move on to our Twittery section. But a new caucus was announced in the Texas legislature. Seemed kind of out of left field. Tell us about it. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. A UK caucus. And it's going to be headed up by Senator Tam Parker and Vice Chair by Representative Claudia Ordaz. So bipartisan caucus here.

And went to the press conference. They talked about working with their British counterparts, building a path forward to strengthen our economy with our friends across the pond. And the UK is the ninth largest trading partner with Texas as of 2022. That's the latest numbers I could find. And according to a report from the governor's office, these investments have yielded more than 1,500 jobs and $5.7 billion in capital investments over the last 10 years. So a substantial amount of money and jobs being provided here to the Lone Star State. And what was interesting is right as this announcement was happening, there was the

executive order signed by President Trump to put tariffs on aluminum and steel, so imports coming to the United States. So I asked, how does this new caucus plan on navigating the tariffs? With the Trump administration, you know, they want to bring in capital investments. They want to build infrastructure. Well, if the U.K. wants to import steel to build a factory in Texas, it's going to cost more. They just said, you know, this is something we're working on. I'm sure the federal government has their best interests, our best interests in mind, and we look forward to working together. So I'll be waiting to see what comes from this UK caucus. I just thought it was interesting

that we're partnering with another country in in this way i couldn't find any other uh caucuses that are similar whether it be with germany or switzerland or something like that so it seems to be the first of its kind and um something i'll keep an eye on yeah very interesting out of left field announcement from the ledger this week yeah interesting stuff okay let's move on to our twittery section here brad i want to walk through um very interesting poll that was released this morning i'm not talking about that poll oh i'm talking about another poll it is from the same poll it's just not the part that was not the part that okay well tell us more um so the hobby school of public affairs mark p The Hobby School of Public Affairs, Mark P. Jones, put out their first fave-unfave ratings of state officials, including, not their first, but put out these fave-unfaves, including Speaker Dustin Burroughs' first appearance on one of these polls. And it put him at plus 1% fave-unfave.

That's the delta between the favorable and the unfavorable rating. However, as is common with most speakers, 63% said they don't know enough about him. I think that tells you a lot. First of all, it's the nature of the position. He's not on a statewide ballot. And until about a month ago, he has not been in a position of statewide prominence like the Speaker is. So even when Dade Phelan was most embattled, his don't know enough was still above 25%. So it's just the nature of the position. But he's starting off with a very slight edge towards the favorable.

Compare that, though, to Governor Greg Abbott, who's plus 20, blows everybody away. Trump's in there. I didn't pull that one, but I just pulled the Texas officials. John Cornyn, who is up for reelection next year, is dead even. Senator Cruz is at plus 3. Senator Cruz is at plus three. Dan Patrick is at plus three. Ken Paxton is at minus two. That's interesting that Cornyn's getting in and Cruz is plus three.

Yeah, well, Cruz just came off an election. I think that influences it, an election in which he won by quite a bit. And then favorables among... Ugh, it didn't come. The sneeze did not arrive. Favorable rating among Republican primary voters for the U.S. Senate race next cycle. Cornyn's at 53%, Paxxton's at 58%, so five points ahead. That wasn't a head-to-head, exactly head-to-head rating,

but it tells you about something. There you go. Sure does. And there's a lot more in that poll as well, so definitely go check it out. Cameron, what you got? You and me are at least kind of tag team on this one maybe because I think you guys are similar. I just saw that. That's fine. a lot more in that poll as well so definitely go check it out cameron what you got you and mary lee's kind of tag team on this one maybe because i think you guys have similar i just saw but i

also want you to mention the the cruise tweet or the cruise letter too for sure why don't you go first then mary lee's helpful okay well i was just gonna point out that rfk jr tulsi gabbard and brooke rollins have been confirmed for their positions in Trump's cabinet. And now I think everyone's kind of looking out to see is Kash Patel going to be confirmed. But I think his odds are pretty good considering Gabbard and RFK, which I think were probably the two most controversial nominations, the fact that they got through. So they're definitely off to a good start. And McConnell voted no on both of them, didn't he?

Yes. Isn't that true? Yeah, which is pretty interesting. Yeah, and I think the first big test was Tulsi. There was so much pushback, not just from Democrats, but from Republicans as well because of her, especially her stances on FISA warrants. You know, she kind of modulated on that petition as she was trying to court some votes. But if it's any indication of what she said in the past, there's going to be some,

she's going to make some adjustments to how those FISA warrants are handed out. And if people are unfamiliar, that's how the Foreign Intelligence Committee processes these requests to surveil individuals online. And it's, you could say, abused in some instances, or people have raised questions about the extent to which it's used. So, Tulsi was the first to test. RFK Jr., as we're recording, he was confirmed as well. It was just interesting. During, you know, two former Democrats, well, Tulsi changed to being a Republican. I don't know, RFK is an independent now or what he is. But Trump, when he signed the cabinet confirmation for Tulsi, he mentioned how these Democrats are now moving over to being conservatives now.

So just some interesting things. And, you know, Kash Pat patel another maybe a controversial pick just because of some of the things he said on podcasts and things but um someone who is going to be more assertive in the role of kind of rooting out um government corruption yeah yeah certainly do you guys think he'll get confirmed? Cash? Yeah. I think so.

I feel pretty optimistic for their chances of getting confirmed after Gabbard and RFK. It's just they were pretty dang controversial. Yeah, totally. The Trump effect, I think, and the Musk effect, because Musk has promised primary Republicans who don't vote to confirm. Yeah, well, that's the thing. It just further galvanizes Democrats, isolates some Republicans, but Republicans have a little bit more at stake in these regards, right, for these kinds of confirmation votes. Very interesting. But I'll mention this letter that Ted Cruz penned to Speaker Burroughs in regard to school choice. And Cruz writes in this letter that, quote, school choice is the civil rights issue of our time and, quite frankly, a matter of common sense. Texans overwhelmingly support parental rights to choose education that best suits their family's needs, regardless of the race, ethnicity, wealth, or zip code. And I've mentioned Ted Cruz in pieces in the past about

him being a champion for this issue for a number of years now. And so with the new speaker coming in, Cruz just reiterating that support. And Burroughs has indicated that school choice will pass. So this is just another notch in the belt for the possibility of school choice passing. Yeah, and interesting to see the speaker singled out in that letter as well. Okay, I want to mention, you know, last week, Mary Elise, I talked about the New York woman who had made her way to Pakistan after speaking with a 19-year-old male online and going to Pakistan, by all accounts, to get married to a man. Wild. And she's in her 30s.

So very, you know, there's definitely, this is an age gap situation we're dealing with she started holding daily press conferences after this um 19 year old and his family ghosted her by leaving their home saying hey we are so not about this that we are going to vacate our home and she started holding daily press conferences became a worldwide sensation she reportedly left pakistan did she she did i did catch that. Well, this is what's wild. She was spotted in Dubai. Okay. So now this is also something that has not, like, her presence in Pakistan was heavily reported by American media. It was very much confirmed that she was there. Dubai, it's like some videos that are circulating the internet.

Okay. So some say that she was, and there are not really any new articles, like, writing anything about it. So take this all with grains of salt, folks. There are videos of her, again, supposedly, reportedly walking around Dubai being followed by some folks. She's not, it appears that no daily press conferences are being held or if they are, then that folks are not paying much attention in Dubai. So it is possible this is an imposter. No, I think, no, it's her. Okay.

I think it's more so where she is and the confirmation of her location but she is um supposedly not back in the united states and some folks said this was a layover that somehow pakistan to dubai to the states i don't know my flight tracking well enough to know whether that makes sense but they said it was some sort of layover and she just didn't get on the plane back to the States. Well, oh. Could be true, could be false. Well, I'm curious if maybe her 19-year-old friend moved to Dubai. Oh, wait, he, I forgot. Okay, that is such a great point.

Because where did their family go? She said in one of her press conferences that she would soon be in Dubai to have their baby. She said that that which is so interesting and ridiculous but I saw on social media clips or a lot of clips using her audio of what was it she said all I'm asking for is 100k 200k maybe and and people are using the audio and social media and she's just very confidently, she knows what she wants. I saw a lot of videos that were saying how to ask my boss for a raise, and it was like, I'm asking for this, maybe this, maybe that.

I thought it was quite funny. But you're right. I'd forgotten that she pledged to make her way to Dubai. So I don't know what's going on there. We'll have to keep following that closely. I know. I just wish I had more information. I hope it works out for her.

Which part? What do you hope happens? Just generally, or do you hope that... Or a role in the Pakistan government? No, she's looking for love. Oh, you hope she finds... Well, I think she's married. A second love.

Isn't she married, Mary Louise? I think so. I don't think we know much about her family in the states so please take what i'm saying what did she say about her religion in the first one she said that and well she said that she was or no she said it was are you asking there's multiple things she said about her religion i don't have to listen to you oh she said it's against my religion to tell you all my business right yes you know it's none of our business it's none of our business to know her love life how many husbands if any you know i just hope she finds what she's looking for well she's also looking for to have a role in pakistan working to improve name another person from pak we know her she's a international

celebrity and so is at this point yes so maybe she can be a spokesperson she's not there anymore they kind of kicked her out well maybe she's on duty for the Pakistani government in Dubai I think that's an optimistic outlook but maybe she is Cameron maybe she is, Cameron. Maybe she is. Marylis, do you have anything to add to the discussion I had by myself last week about her? I just really loved the way that she commandeers the crowds.

It's unreal. And there's grown men who are clearly used to being in positions of power that were trying to take kind of her soapbox away from her and she would not have it. And she really, she's really very confident and knows how to control the crowd and how to really take control of the situation. So I was really impressed by that. At one point after we recorded last week, she was walking around Pakistan. I forget which city she was in, so forgive me, but she was walking around and she had i forget which city she was in so forgive me but she was walking

around and she had a posse which she always had a posse but this was more so like local law enforcement that was following her around and at one point she goes again the press approached her with cameras microphones she said this is my team and the um i don't know if it was the chief one of the officers came forward and was like commenting to the media as well and it was the chief. One of the officers came forward and was, like, commenting to the media as well. And it was a press conference with this woman and Pakistani law enforcement. It was unreal. She also went to a hospital at one point and was, like, held in a hospital. I believe it was a mental hospital. Yes, and was there and was taking videos and making people laugh who worked there and other law enforcement, like security guards and things.

I have a theory about this. I think it is entirely possible that she's not mentally unstable and that she just thinks this is hilarious and she's become a national sensation. So this is just all a bit. If that is true, she must win an Oscar. Yes, I agree. 100%. Yeah.

We're going to find out. There's been a camera crew following her this entire time, and it was actually a mockumentary or something. Totally. Like, Borat take two. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Well, thanks for joining in, Mary. I'm glad we actually got to talk about it on the podcast. Yeah, me too. Well, folks, thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics.

And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.