The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 21, 2025

Episode Date: February 21, 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/texasLearn more about The Beer Alliance at: https://beeralliance.com/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Customs and Border Protection Reports Sharp Decline in Illegal Border CrossingsTexas Lawmaker Proposes Requiring Insurance to Cover 'Detransition' Services'Texas Teacher Bill of Rights' With Pay Raises Filed in SenateTexas Senate Bill Filed to Ban Taxpayer-Funded Expenditures on AbortionsTexas Proposes Land Ownership Ban for Certain Foreign EntitiesHere's a Breakdown of IVF-Related Bills Filed So Far in the 89th Texas LegislatureNew Robert Roberson Filing Challenges Conviction, Citing 'Junk Science Writ'Four Times-Deported Illegal Aliens Arrested With 350 Pounds of Meth in Colony RidgeDan Patrick, Matthew McConaughey Want $500 Million for Film Incentives, Texas House Less KeenWest Texas County Reports Rising Measles Cases in Recent Weeks

from you i'll make you talk about it okay okay cool i'm down to talk with you about it shocking so definitely go check it out read it it's got lots of details and yeah you'd be a lot cooler if you did go read it is that a movie quote it's a matthew mcconaughey quote Oh my gosh. Well, Mary, at least we're in the same boat. Thank you, Kim. Oh, Lord in heaven. Okay. Well, howdy, folks.

It's Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, and Mary Elise. It's been quite a day. We've already had Brad attempt to fire Mary Elise. We've had multiple different... For the second time. For the second time in my my tenure here can you please share the context with you yes I had just recently started with the Texan and I asked a very innocent question someone had sent a picture of one of the dogs that frequent the office in the group chat and I said oh is that Mackenzie's dog and that was my mistake because it was indeed Brad's dog.

And then he threatened to fire me, which is funny because at the time wasn't even my editor. He just, some sort of power was going to his head. Yeah. We all go on a power trip here and there. It's just a question of where the line is drawn. Number one, why did you think Winston was my dog? I don't know why I thought that that was probably your dog, but there were so many dogs that I've seen in the group chat,

I had no idea whose was whose, so I just went with one. I was hoping you'd said because I share – because I think that day I actually did share a bunch of photos I had of Winston. Oh, that's probably why, yeah. Somebody mentioned him, and it made me go down a rabbit hole of – I think I have an album on my phone called winston it was before we got our dogs winston i just assumed um i don't even know how i would describe it i pretended as though i had like partial custody of winston even though i did not at all

i really love winston he's a dog he's a child. My parents even have photos of Winston saved with their phone. Like this is like a very serious thing. Is he in here? Yep. Oh, we'll hear his little footsteps I'm sure throughout some portion of the podcast. But in other news, we also have a ton of bill filings today. School choice dropped in the house. We have a lot going on. So we're going to get right to it because there is a lot to discuss. And Cameron, it's been quite a day, especially for you and the beats that you cover. Yeah, exciting day. Exciting day. One of those days you kind of look forward to. Yeah, it's just kind of impending.

Because you're looking for punishment. Yeah, I like, you know, I like being busy running back and forth to the Capitol. You know, Brad showed me some back entrances and stairways I've never been down before. So that was fun too. So, but yeah, it's a fun day. It is a fun day. And school choice, of course, leading the charge in those discussions. So the house has now submitted their proposal for school choice, break down what's in the bill. Well, we're expecting it to come at some point this week. It ended up coming as Dustin Burroughs, the House Speaker, was addressing the TPPF. I'm already interrupting you, Cameron, because I need to own up to

something. Yesterday, Cameron said, hey, I'm going to go to the Burroughs thing, but what if school we'd heard rumors, rumblings that school choice would drop today. It was expected on our end. And Cameron's like, what if it drops during Burroughs's speech and i was like that's not gonna happen i just like but i'll be in person i won't be able to like work at my debt have everything i need it'll be a little bit harder and now i'll have to run back to the office and i was like it's fine cameron just go it'll be it'll be okay not kidding you the moment it dropped was during this process well this conversation it made for a funny moment because he announced it was up on tlo he was like you can look it up on your phone right now so i look it up it's not there and so i tweet out not a house school choice bill is not tlo official yet and then not one minute

later brad tweets out here's the bill text. You had just refreshed 30 seconds apart yeah and that was the difference. It was a funny moment but to get into some of the details here Burroughs called because there was two bills that were filed one the school choice proposal and then a public education funding bill and he called it the texas two-step so given a little nickname to not the first time we've seen that used because uh last session it was used by the senate and paul bettencourt for the property tax bill it also makes me think of bluebell's cookie two-step flavor which is their most superior flavor it That's wrong. Cookies and cream and cookie dough. So back to the bill text.

Just sort of the top lines here because for House Bill 2, that's going to be the public school finance bill, and that also addresses teacher pay raises, which is a big topic not only for the legislature but governor Greg Abbott has mentioned it as well one of the big things here is similar to the Senate's proposal it's creating a additional category for the types of teachers there's master exemplary recognized and now acknowledged and all for those classifications raises the base of the pay raise that they could each get as part of this bill also an interesting

part of this is clarifying and amending the calculation for the average daily attendance and that is also going to be applied to open enrollment charter schools and charter schools are incredibly popular here in Texas so those are really the two big things in the school finance thing the teacher pay raise and then also a clarification and an amendment to how the average daily attendance is calculated. And then moving to the school choice bill, you know, everyone wants to know what's in that.

Well, it's very similar, again, to the Senate proposal this one borough said it is universal and digging into the actual text of the bill it appears it'll be that way for eligible students as part of this ESA program because they're using ESA's that's the preferred method here in Texas any child who attends public schools or public pre-kindergarten programs or meets criteria for special education services will be eligible for the program. And then just like with the Senate bill and other school trust proposals we've seen, if there's more children that apply than funds that are available so exceeding availability there is prior to prioritization that is filtered through

a lottery which prioritizes factors such as previous previous enrollment status and household income levels and the funds for this ESA are oh here it is sorry I just have a lot here are coming from the general revenue and Burroughs said it's going to be a billion dollars similar again to how the Senate is set up and yeah it's just a lot here I detail all of it in the piece one of the interesting things that I did come across that I think I'll be trying to seek out some clarification on is how some of the safeguards are set up including a qualification that money received under the program may not be used to pay any person who is related to the program participant so I think that'll be

something I'll need further clarification on or might be addressed in the amendments as the bill is debated in committees and on the floor so that's uh sort of the top lines there for both those education the pair of education bills there i'll mention one last thing here because there was a roundtable shortly after the the bills were filed on TLO Brad Buckley who's the chairman of the House Public Education Committee said during this roundtable that they quote calculation for the ESA funding is ongoing and he added that this is me quoting him it's a way to make sure that should we have funding rise in public schools ESA amounts will rise and if funding dips then

those dollars can go down as well he added that this calculation for the ESA amount is done by the Texas Education Agency based on certain metrics it has been given. He added again that the reason they did this was to create a quote link between the school choice and public school funding bills. Yeah. So I bring that up because there's been a lot of discussion about how the House, who has historically had challenges with school choice, they haven't been able to pass legislation. So one part of this is filing two separate bills, the public school finance bill and the school choice bill. But what Buckley is doing here with linking them together, I think is interesting to incentivize those who might be on the other side of the school choice debate to see there might be an incentive to vote for both of them, that way it's showing, because a lot of the concerns for those who are against school choice is that it's just going to explode the budget,

and it's going to cost billions and billions and billions more dollars as the bienniums keep coming up and more students are- Which we see in these proposals, right? Like the cost is increasing each biennium. Are accepted, but by linking these two together it's if the ES set if they're if the public schools need more money they'll get more money which then will be reciprocated in the ESA's as well to balance those out meaning it once public schools get more money more ESA's are available and if school funding goes down for any reason if there's less Once public schools get more money, more ESAs are available.

And if school funding goes down for any reason, if there's less money in the budget for it, less ESA, money in the ESAs. And so just sort of tying those two together to sort of balance it out. So public schools get what they want. ESAs get what they want. Yeah. What's the baseline metric for judging the point at which more money is added? Like is it zero-based budgeting or are they using, like, the current level of funding and everything more from that?

Yes. So in the bill text here, to try and answer your question, for each participating child, a payment is deposited into their account each school year, calculated at 85% of the estimated statewide average funding per student. So is that addressing what you're asking? Sorry, my question is, what numbers are they judging to determine whether school funding has increased sufficient to have, you know, to expand the ESA stuff? Well, I think that's the... Does this have to be another bill, or is this... Well, I think that's the open question because we've seen multiple different think tanks and public policy organizations say either public school funding has increased or Texas hasn't funded public schools in years. Right. We've seen that so I think I don't know if there's a hard and fast way to determine that either TEA might have figures on that but again it's up for debate because there's different calculations that these different

organizations do in terms of how they're judging public school finance like how much it's increased or how much it hasn't increased okay i don't have a hard number for it well yeah that's that's fine or the percentage for how they're going to calculate that well maybe we'll find out and get the committee hearings well this bill's only been out a few hours too so we have a lot to uncover, lots to still figure out, right? I mean, this is just a stage of policymaking. This is how this works. So we'll keep folks updated on all those details. Cameron, if you could look at the Senate proposal and this proposal, first blush, first analysis, biggest difference between the two

proposals right now? Biggest difference? It doesn't seem like there's all that much difference. If I can just get my eyes on the Senate school choice bill, because I think the biggest difference right now, let me see, because let me see, because, let me see. There's a lot. I think it's also notable that Dan Patrick. So I'm sorry to cut you off.

Go ahead. Senate ESA program will credit students with $10,000 annually or $11,500 if the student has a disability. Whereas in the House bill, it's based on a percentage of the student allotment. So the Senate having a fixed figure versus the House bill having a fixed percentage of the student allotment. Okay. I think that's the only difference. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But notable that Dean Patrick, earlier today, he was giving a speech at the Texas Public Policy, Texas Policy, Texas Public Policy Foundation's Texas Policy Summit, that is a mouthful that I butchered the first time around. Said, hey, I haven't read the whole bill, but Representative Buckley's proposal looks pretty good. Like essentially what he said. So we'll see what the Senate and the House have to say on

kind of bridging that delta. It'll be interesting to watch all that go down. But that's the only thing we've really heard from the lieutenant governor so far. Again, the bill's only been out a few hours. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is not the only bill that's been filed today. Of course, there are a slew of others that we want to quickly hit. Cameron, we're sticking with you here, mirroring what's happening on the federal level.

We have a bill filed here, makes Texas healthy again. What do we know about the bill? So I put up a tweet about it just hitting the top healthy again. What do we know about the bill? So I put up a tweet about it just hitting the top lines again. Would require recess for public school students, nutrition curriculum requirements for quote health related majors and graduate medical education at Texas colleges. Establishes a Texas nutrition Advisory Committee. Also foods that contain artificial color additives or certain banned chemicals will require a warning label and then also nutrition training for physicians submitting a renewal of

their license. And if I could just bring up one last thing about that in regards to the food labeling. One interesting thing here is it determines what these certain banned chemicals are. It's banned. It's certain ingredients banned by Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom. And for people who are aware of the health and nutrition space, understand that the EU has particularly stringent bans on some ingredients. So that'll be interesting for people to parse through and if they are currently unaware of some of those ingredients and if they match up or like how closely they match up yeah and another interesting thing about this bill i'll have something out on this by the time the

podcast goes live but there's a section here under the fiscal education curriculum where it says a school employee may not restrict participation in, and then it gives a number of amendments here, one of them being fiscal activity offered as part of the district's fiscal education curriculum for a student enrolled in grade level 6, seven, or eight as a penalty for the student's academic performance or behavior. I think that the only reason I bring that up is because that's interesting in the context of Rep Leach's recently filed bill about discipline of students in schools. I don't know if there was a conversation had between these two bill authors, but I can see those two bills having a little bit of overlap with that aspect. Very interesting. Okay, we'll keep an eye on that one. Brad, let's talk about taxpayer-funded lobbying. So we knew this was coming both because it was on the priority list

and because we've had this fight every session, the last handful of sessions. Senator Maize-Middleton filed today the prospective ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying. It is fashioned in such a way that it doesn't apply to localities who, or employees of localities, provided they're not having to register as a lobbyist. It also doesn't include preventing elected officials from lobbying on things in the Capitol. Basically all it does is say that a political subdivision

cannot hire a registered lobbyist, nor can they pay dues to an organization or association that hires registered lobbyists on their behalf. So this bill is aimed at TASB, Texas Association of School Boards, Texas Municipal League, Texas Association of Counties, all those similar kinds of local government associations. And we've seen this fight happen a lot. You know, the counter to it is, the justification for it is these counties, localities, are using tax dollars to then go lobby and influence the legislature,

you know, on various things, whether it's trying to push a specific property tax bill or certain other things. Like, the conservative right has been pining for this for a while, and I think it could actually pass this time. Maybe it won't, but we'll see, because Speaker Dustin Burroughs is a proponent of this. He's one of the most emphatic proponents of it. In fact, the whole scandal involving him and former Speaker Dennis Bonin

was centered on taxpayer-funded lobbying because that vote sheet is where they pulled the names from and former Speaker Dennis Bonin, was centered on taxpayer-funded lobbying because that is where that vote sheet is where they pulled the names from on the target list. And so, yeah, Burroughs is a big proponent of it. And so, you know, if he wants to, he can really put his oomph behind it. You know, the counter is that this is restricting the ability to petition government, First Amendment. You know, they're going to argue about that until the cows come home when we have this. So Burroughs backing it is a pretty good sign for it, I'd say. But also, on the other hand, the State Affairs Committee chair is Ken King,

who's very much against this. And, you know, the bill died in State Affairs last time around when Todd Hunter was chair. Todd Hunter's now calendars. Ken King is State Affairs. And so unless they move it to another committee, intent maybe the Doge Committee, I could see that, it probably won't advance unless King is told we're going to have a hearing on this

and see where it goes, right? Who knows? Regardless, the members are going to have this fight again. And Representative Ellen Trask-Clair said at TPPF yesterday she thinks this will be the session they pass it. The jury's out, but the Senate has now filed their bill, and their blueprint is out there. So I assume it will start getting some movement.

Absolutely. Where this bill ends up will say a lot about this issue, this session. But I'll be very curious how that is handled. We'll just have to see. Yeah, I mean, it's as – chances are higher than ever for passing, I'd say. But we'll see. The membership knows that, absolutely. Cameron, the lottery, making big waves this week.

Yeah, well, for anyone who hasn't seen the Dan Patrick video, he went to a store that sells these lottery tickets, which sort of set off my alarm bells after I watched this video to look into this issue. And apparently, I've been unaware that the Texas Lottery Commission has been under such scrutiny for a while now now I'll just read up for sunset yeah I'm too well I'll just read from the sunset advisory committee where they said the TLC has had a turbulent existence. So we have a piece up on the site right now that kind of details why this issue is now arising and the reason for legislation being filed.

It has to do with these couriers. And again, I didn't know couriers for the lottery existed. The things you learn. Well, essentially people can purchase tickets on an app and this courier service will purchase the tickets and collect the winnings and distribute it to whoever purchased that ticket all through a third-party app and this third-party app system has caused some issues for lawmakers in the public more generally who are becoming more aware of this because many of these large lottery winners are using these third-party apps to purchase their winning tickets. And I detail the third-party courier system apps play the lottery or purchase tickets through these mobile applications. So for people interested, go check it out on the Texan.news. Lots of info in there.

Absolutely. Thank you, Cameron. Bradley, a couple more education bills. Yeah, so amidst the flurry of these education bill filings, the House basically just presented its education plan, you know, in multiple different bills. You went through them all, but a couple more that were added, and one of them, this was mentioned by Burroughs in the roundtable that we did, that you and I were at with media. Dutton's HB123 is an early childhood education program, so that's notable.

The speaker specifically named that, so, like, that's something to watch. Yeah, he said because it's easy to remember. Right. And, of course, the backdrop to this is that at least when speaker Phelan was still in the race he had reserved the top the lowest hundred and fifty bill numbers for chamber priorities so each member could have a priority bill and so it looks as if Burroughs is keeping that. And so we've seen some priority bills filed.

Dutton's is one of those here. Another one that was filed this morning was Terry Leo Wilson's HB100, and that is relating to the purchase, adoption, and use of instructional materials by public schools. Regulates more. instructional materials by public schools regulates more it's not the Reader Act but it's kind of the same fashion it's not about explicit materials it's about just materials general yeah so both of those appear to be priority bills in the house yeah I'll be interested to dig into that Leo Wilson bill because, you know, there's always a conversation that's in recent years about how academics, the academic outcomes hasn't caught up with the expectations.

And maybe that's being addressed here with the types of materials that are being purchased or being made available to these schools if if that's sort of the goal here with this bill well it's not surprising that this package of bills has been put out kind of all at once and speaker Burroughs has said and he said it in his opening speech after he won this is going to be basically the education session as he sees it. And so there are chips around the table now. Yep. It's like the rubber's meeting the road in terms of proposals from both chambers, but the House especially this week, which makes it all the more fun.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break for a message from the Data Center Coalition. Did you know data centers support 364,000 jobs in Texas and contribute $3.5 billion in state and local taxes? These critical facilities boost the state's economy and power essential services. From video calls and 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. We're back at it. Cameron, coming to found. Well, we've seen some preliminary figures come out from different news outlets saying they've seen numbers internally, whatnot. Well, we finally got

Customs and Border Patrol have released their report. And between January 21st and January 31st, Customs and Border Protection reveal an 85% decrease in apprehensions along the southwest border compared to the corresponding period. In 2024, the CBP report also details how in the 11 days following the termination of the CBP1 app, inadmissible alien encounters at the border have fallen 93 percent as compared to the 11 days prior. So quite a drastic drop there. And for people who have been aware of this, the day Trump was inaugurated, we saw videos of individuals attempting to enter the country via the CBP one app and then the CBP one app not working as the phone is in their hand so this is sort of the fallout here from the from that app being cancelled essentially and the White House actually released their their own details on what's been going on at the border,

where they say CBP agents arrested 29,000 people illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in January, the lowest tally since May 2020. And this could be potentially signaling what a year-long decline in crossings could look like under this new, or rather the second Trump administration. And as everyone knows, and as we've talked about and we've written about, there's been a number of executive actions by Donald Trump in the now month or so since he's taken office. Greg Abbott's instituted a number of executive orders to try and quell the illegal immigration, bolster border security. So we got our first

hard and fast numbers here on what's happening since those executive orders and only time will tell if the decline will continue in the coming months. Absolutely. Cameron, thank you. Mary Elise, coming to you. A state senator introduced a bill pertaining to gender modification reversals. Tell us about it. So this is an interesting one because it's really, I think, one of the first of its kind. So it's, you know, we've had a lot of conversations about gender modification on minors, but this is about gender modification reversal services. So this is Senate Bill 1257, and it was filed by Senator Brian Hughes. And essentially what it would do, it would require health insurance

companies to cover medical gender modification reversal services. and it's really tapping back into one of the most highly debated topics last session. Regardless whether the individual was enrolled on the insurance plan while they were undergoing that gender modification or not, the patient would still be eligible to receive reversal services under this bill. He defined, in this bill, he defined gender transition as a medical process by which an individual's anatomy, physiology, or mental state is treated or altered, including by the removal of otherwise healthy organs or tissue, the introduction of implants or performance of other plastic surgery, hormone treatment or the use of drugs, counseling or therapy. And something I detail in this article are some of the gender modification surgeries.

And I probably won't detail that right now. You can read the article because it's pretty graphic. Mary-Lise, thank you. And I'd encourage folks to go read her coverage at the Texan. There you go. Cameron, coming to you. Teacher pay raises are a top issue of this session, and the Senate filed its version of the legislation.

Tell us about it. That's right. Teacher pay raises. Round two. the only reason i say that is because i i'm the one that now got messed up on which notes i had all right i got the right ones here so senator brandon creighton has proposed senate bill 26 as everyone knows senator brandon creighton has been leading on all things education in the upper chamber. This one, the Texas Teacher Bill of Rights, addresses teacher pay raises, which was a point made by Governor Greg Abbott in his State of the State address.

And this will, for teachers with three to four years of experience, would receive $5,000 raise in districts with 5,000 or fewer students, while those in larger districts would receive $2,500 for teachers with five or more years of experience would receive 5,000 raise in districts with 5,000 or fewer students, while those in larger districts would receive 2,500 for teachers with five or more years of experience. That raise would be 10,000 in smaller districts and 5,500 in larger ones. This would also designate a new teacher designation, the acknowledged designation alongside master's, exemplary, and recognized. And for some additional numbers here for people who are interested, Texas school districts will receive increased funding for designated teachers with master's teachers eligible up to $36,000, exemplary teachers up to $25,000, recognized teachers up to $15,000, factoring in high needs and role adjustments, an acknowledged or nationally board-certified teacher the newly created category will receive 9,000 and one of the more interesting

aspects of this bill is that it would create a enhanced teacher incentive allotment school and allow for principals to implement this enhanced teacher incentive allotment where schools have the ability to compensate their teachers based on performance and this is hitting on another thing that was mentioned during the State of State Address by Governor Abbott saying we need to incentivize merit based performance and so this is a overlap of a bunch of different issues all put together in this one bill where teachers get the pay raise schools get the funding increase if they have teachers that have are a part of a

higher tier in this designation system so just creating a bunch of new incentives for having better teachers and then also teachers to have a higher salary at the end of the day here so lots of issues being addressed in this single bill and the house and the senate may not necessarily have the have different uh approaches but different ways of proposing that's right the teacher pay raises so it will see which proposal makes its way to the governor's desk because i'm sure one will that's right thank you cameron mary lee's a state senator filed legislation that would crack down on taxpayer funded abortion assistance tell us more yes so this is legislation that would prohibit for prohibit government organizations from using taxpayer funds to help individuals get abortions.

And it also kind of tightened the reins against government-funded abortion-related travel. So this is Senate Bill 730 that was introduced by Senator Donna Campbell. And this expands the definition of what an abortion assistance entity is to anyone who helps a woman get an abortion, whether it's through providing lodging, food, transportation, funds, or just actual distribution of an abortion-inducing drug. Other forms of logistical support can include counseling that encourages a woman to have an abortion. So that would fall under that category of what taxpayer funds cannot be used for, and this is what Senate Bill 730 is targeting. She said, Senator Campbell said Texas has been a national leader

in defending the sanctity of life, and Senate Bill 730 is another critical step in ensuring that taxpayer dollars are never used to fund abortion-related travel. Senator Campbell also said she believes that this legislation will strengthen existing laws by explicitly prohibiting governmental entities from financially supporting organizations that are assisting in procurement of abortions, whether it's through these different services I listed, transportation, lodging, child care, counseling, other means.

And if an entity is found to be violating this legislation by helping a woman get an abortion using taxpayer funds, they would be subject to acts of civil prosecution that could be brought forward by a resident of the state, could be brought forward by a Texas Attorney General, or any individual residing within a political subdivision of the state. It also includes a severability clause, so if one aspect of this bill is found to be unconstitutional in court, there's other provisions of Senate Bill 730, other provisions of the legislation that could remain effective. She said we must close loopholes that allow cities like Austin and San Antonio to misuse taxpayer funds in ways that undermine our state's pro-life policies. Senate Bill 730 ensures that Texans are not forced to subsidize practices that violate their deeply held values. So this was

filed beginning of January and then almost exactly a month later, February 7th, it was referred to a committee, Senate State Affairs Committee. So it's begun its process in the legislative session. It's been in the process. That's exactly right. We'll keep an eye on it. Mary Elise, thank you. Cameron. Yes. Coming. Yes, he says. We're coming to you next. Okay.

Banning hostile foreign nations from owning Texas land. Wow. A familiar issue to the legislature. It is. A familiar issue to our coverage. Yep. What's going on this time compared to last session? What's the latest update in the legislature?

Well, we have the, quote, stopping foreign adversary land grabs bill, or Senate Bill 17, which has been filed by Senator Lois Kohlkorst and co-authored by Senator Brent Hagenbue. And this is a bill to, quote, protect key and natural resources by restricting who can own land in Texas. And for some details on SB 17, it will seek to block foreign entities, companies, and individuals from adversarial nations, as identified in recent federal threat assessments, from purchasing private property in Texas. While the bill restricts specific named entities from owning land, it does not prevent foreign businesses' investments in the state. Rather than singling out any particular country, it defers to the Director of National Intelligence

designations in the latest security reports. So I pulled the latest annual threat assessment list, which includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as countries, quote, engaging in competitive behavior that directly threatens U.S. national security. So that's sort of the top line that people are going to want to know about there. If you dig just a little bit into the bill here, notably under this bill, U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and dual citizens remain unaffected and exemptions exist for homestead properties owned by individuals fleeing hostile regimes. And the legislation provides a clarified definition of real estate covering everything from farmland, commercial properties, mines, and timberlands. So some clarifying additions to definitions and then also like you mentioned as you introduced this segment this is

something that was proposed last session and unlike SB 147 proposed during the 88 session which relied on a simple majority ownership threshold SB 17 refines the criteria for determining control of an entity to focus on actual operational influence. So just that slight difference there in this version as compared to the 88th session's version. Yeah, thank you, Cameron. We'll keep an eye on this one. Maybe this session's the charm. Well, it possibly could be because we saw with this past election season, both the House and the Senate and the Texas legislature improved their Republican majority. So we'll see if that aids in trying to get this across the line.

There you go. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Mary Elise, let's talk about the IVF-related bills that have been filed so far this legislative session. Of course, we see the pro-life conversation, the abortion conversation has kind of migrated to IVF after Dobbs. Walk us through what we're seeing in Texas. Yeah, so there's been a whole variety of bills that have been filed related to this latest, not ladle, battlefield and vitro fertilization, IVF. And so there's been bills filed in both chambers, and they're mostly consisting of Democrat-filed bills that,

whether it be a constitutional amendment or affecting the Texas Health and Safety Code, but pushing IVF to be a right to pro-IVF essentially. But the one piece of legislation I came across that was filed by a Republican related to IVF was more anti-IVF. So obviously this conversation is an interesting, ever-evolving one because, I mean, President Donald Trump had his recent executive order, I think it was the day that we published this, and he was really saying that he's committed to expanding IVF access, making it more affordable. So among some of these bills that have been filed about five weeks into the 89th legislature

is Representative Vicki Goodwins. So this is one that would modify the Texas Health and Safety Code and would guarantee the right to assistive reproductive technology treatments and procedures. And that would include IVF and a few other assistive reproductive technology services, treatments. And this is House Bill 585, and it would also create a civil offense

for violation of access to these rights by a government official. And so there's a few bills that are kind of similar to each other. There's another one where State Representative Ana Maria Rodriguez Ramos proposed a constitutional amendment, and this is House Joint Resolution 80. And this would guarantee both a right to abortion and assisted reproductive technology treatments, which include IVF. And it says in this bill, House Joint Resolution 80, it says that a pregnant individual may get an abortion in the state without government restrictions, specifically before the baby is viable or if it's determined the abortion is necessary for women's health. So that's also another conversation Texas has been having a lot. And it also would amend the state

constitution to include the right to certain reproductive technology such as IVF. And moving on, so there's a, I would encourage you to read the piece because I list all of the bills, the people that filed them. But the bill that was filed by a Republican representative Pat Curry is House Bill 1084 and it declares that IVF can only be conducted if an individual intends to carry each embryo to term and that pre-born children cannot be aborted in cases of multi-fetal pregnancies which is extremely common from what I've observed. Yeah, that's what, because this is such a fascinating topic.

We've talked about it a lot in the office and it seems like it's a large debate online at least within the right wing circles that I float in. At least that I observe online. And because it's an interesting question with how medical technology has rapidly innovated in the past decade or so, allowing for something like IVF to become much more common, it brings to the surface, again, the question of what is life and what constitutes life. And so I think this IVF topic could field a robust discussion amongst lawmakers, whether they have it privately or on the floor debating some of these issues. You know, it's something I'm definitely going to be keeping my eye on.

Yeah. It's also been bringing about an interesting conversation about a lot of people are saying, kind of like a natalism conversation where people are saying, yes, we want more children, but then the manner that they get there, is to a pro-natalism mindset. And that really then breaks down along when does life begin? Because with these embryos, you know, it could be anywhere from 5 to 20 being held in these IVF clinics. And so like we saw with the Alabama Supreme Court decision, they determined that those frozen embryos are human life. Are we going to see that issue addressed here in Texas? It was hinted at back in February by Greg Abbott that it would be addressed.

We just haven't seen legislation yet. Yeah, and I would imagine that we will, considering the fact that greg abbott said that there's no doubt it'll be addressed in texas i'm sure at some point um we'll see i don't know because brad was saying earlier the only legislation that would probably get across would be filed by a republican right so yeah but right now we've only got this by pat curry so especially on the IVF issue. This is going to be IVF.

If there's anything that goes through the legislature on this issue, it will be filed by a Republican. So we'll keep an eye on this. But it's helpful to know what the conversation is in the legislature currently, and your piece does a great job of laying that all out. So Mary Elise, thanks for publishing on that. Cameron, very familiar beat for you, very familiar story. There's been an update in the case of death row inmate Robert

Roberson. Tell us what's happening. Well, it was a bit quiet on the Roberson front for a couple of weeks now until we got a new filing in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. So this is the highest criminal court in the entire state. And there's supposed alleged claims of new evidence regarding his conviction. So just a brief background for people. I know we haven't talked about it in maybe over a month now, but Roberson was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2003 in connection with the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in 2002. Over the course of his sentence, his legal representation has continually attempted to appeal his death sentence, but without success.

And we saw Roberson's case gain larger public attention with the Texas House Criminal Journalist Prudence Committee bringing about this, bringing this case in front of their committee. We saw a letter saying that he should essentially have this new evidence presented in his trial because of a new law, a junk science writ, which is intended to provide a pathway for prisoners to challenge their convictions of new scientific evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, cast doubt on the fairness of the trial. And there's been emphasis placed on Roberson's case, particularly because an element of his conviction was based on what's called shaken baby syndrome. And there's evidence that's been presented that shaken baby syndrome is now essentially debunked uh so i've written about this quite a bit about how much the jury relied on shaken baby syndrome to convict him versus how much emphasis is being put on it

by this house committee and by roverson's attorneys but back to this latest development the new filing is asking the court to take another look at earlier decisions by previous courts where they refused to grant relief. Roberson's argument now is that there have been changes in the law, like I just mentioned, and that the court should determine, quote, actual innocence or order a new trial. And so there was a unprecedented legal maneuver to try and get Roberson to appear in front of the House Committee to provide in-person testimony, which put his execution on hold before further legal decisions could be made. His execution has continued to be delayed because of this ongoing legal process and that's sort of where we stand now. There is no set date for the scheduled execution. Again, this has been an ongoing saga over the past, I don't know how many months now, but this latest development will see how the Texas Court

of Criminal Appeals handles this new filing. Yeah, absolutely. And a high stakes case to be certain. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. And now we're going to hear from the Beer Alliance of Texas. The Beer Alliance of Texas is proud to support its members who help deliver an annual economic impact of $35 billion and provide over 200,000 jobs to hardworking Texans. From local tax revenue to direct economic investment to charitable contributions, their members are heavily invested in the success of our communities and our state. The Bear Alliance is dedicated to ensuring the safe distribution of alcohol throughout Texas. For more information, visit BeerAlliance.com. Okay, we're back. Bradley.

That was such a great ad read. Oh, thanks. It was awesome. Fantastic. Do you know who read it? I assume you. Oh, actually I did. I thought you were going gonna be blindly complimenting rob and then it turned out to be me your nemesis and was curious how you felt about that compliment

rob wow yeah i don't know what that means i know pathetic mining exactly more more content for me bradley let's talk about some high profile arrestsile arrests made in Colony Ridge. Lots of buzzwords in that sentence. Give us the deets. Yeah, so officers in Liberty County, where Colony Ridge is, made a traffic stop, and they pulled over these three Hispanic guys, ran their names, and found out they're all illegal immigrants at least one of them from Guatemala I don't know if they're all Guatemalan but one of them had a handgun in his waistband and they from the sound of the report they asked questions and the guys admitted they had

a bunch of meth. They admitted it. They admitted it. It wasn't on their persons, but it was off-site at a house in Colony Ridge, and that led to a really, really big drug bust. Liberty County Sheriff Bobby Rader, his officers participated in it, along with Texas DPS officials and federal law enforcement. And I think also maybe Houston, either Houston PD or Harris County. But 350 pounds of meth they found in these guys.

To quote Brad on Monday or Tuesday or whenever this was, Brad said, that's a lot of meth. That is. It's a butt load. That is, yes. That's an actual measure. It's a buttload. That is, yes. That's an actual measurement. It is. Is it?

It is, yes. Oh, really? Yep. I say that word all the time. That's a funny phrase. No, no, it's an actual measurement. 108 imperial gallons are about 126 US gallons. It's an old British measurement that was used to measure large quantities of beer, wine, or spirits.

Well, this definitely affects the spirit. That much less. That's exactly right. So anyway, these guys were all arrested. One of them is being charged with a felony. The other two are being held in ice holds. So I assume if they haven't already, they'll soon be deported. And, you know, it's a shocking amount of meth.

It's a shocking amount of meth, but I think the headline is, well, four times deported. That's right. I forgot to mention that. Thank you, Cameron. They were each deported at least four times before. So obviously they came back. And, yeah, there you go. That's the story there. It's another example of Colony Ridge making headlines.

Of course, this is the 50,000 or more person settlement in Liberty County that's caused a lot of problems. When it first came up as an issue, they took questions about the gang involvement, the cartel involvement there when I talked to the local law enforcement there, people on the ground who patrol this area, they said yeah there's some

cartel involvement, gang related stuff but it's not really out of the ordinary compared to Harris County next door but that's still a problem. You know, just rank levels of crime is a problem. But the biggest problem is the resources being stretched so thin for this very rural ex-urban county

with this all of a sudden massive population base in there. So that takes a bunch of different avenues. Like I mentioned, crime, you know, the infrastructure, the flooding gets really bad there. Holly's covered that quite a bit. So, yeah, Colony Ridge just keeps, you know, making headlines. And last session, the legislature during the special were tasked with doing something.

There were debates about whether they would do, like, ban these colonias or do some sort of regulation. I don't think Colony Ridge is technically a colonia, which is like this pop-up settlement along the border. I don't think it's technically that, but it's kind of similar. I don't want to tangent too much but has there been legislation or maybe it's already a lot I'm not sure can a real estate development place that has homes can they rent properties to someone who's a

illegal immigrant do they have to check? Does the person have to be a citizen? Well, there are a lot of illegal immigrants there. They don't know how many, but when someone is buying a property in Colony Ridge, one of the big things is they don't ask for Social Security numbers. So people who don't have Social Security numbers, not all of them are illegal immigrants there, but So people who don't have social security numbers, not all of them are illegal immigrants there, but obviously people who don't have social security numbers

are able to buy property there. Colony Ridge and its developers are also being sued both by the federal government and the state government alleging deceptive lending practices and harmful lending towards these people so there's that the legislature what they ultimately did on this issue last session was basically it make an appropriation forty million dollars to DPS to continue surging their presence there DPS went in to help supplement the local officials

because they were just incapable, or unable, not incapable, unable to deal with the amount of population there. So the resources were stretched thin, DPS supplementing it, they're still there, and probably will be for a long time. Yeah, absolutely. It's a fascinating story, Colony Ridge,

with all these different things happening there. And I think it's an interesting encapsulation of a lot of rhetoric that we've heard from elected officials, because not only see the crime, the drugs, illegal immigration, but it's the practical application of that rhetoric. And so you see it play out like this. Absolutely. Thank you, guys.

Both of you. Mary-Lise, coming back to you. This will be our last story before we hit the tweeter-y. One of Lieutenant Governor Patrick's priorities this session is film incentives. Yes. Tell us more. This one I really enjoyed writing. It was a very fascinating topic, in my opinion.

So this is a priority bill, as you said, for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. And it's yet to be filed, but he reserved Senate Bill 22 as one of his top 40 priority bills. And he reserved it as establishing texas as america's film capital and so he's essentially looks like he's hoping to set the stage here for the lone star to compete with hollywood by allotting 498 million for the texas moving image industry incentive program that's a mouthful it is a mouthfulful. I think the acronym is T-M-I-P. T-M-I-P. With like three I's. Yeah, it is. So I'll just refer to that as the incentive program. Perfect. Patrick clarified that this grant is going to be divided into two parts.

So new tax credits as high as $450 million for productions and $48 million designated for TV commercials and small films, which is a little over 2% of the state's projected $23.8 billion surplus. And the tax credits do have in-state residency requirements. So there's a video, if you're online, if you're chronically online, you probably saw this video for Senate Bill 22. It was released the same day that Patrick designated this as a priority, but it

had a bunch of film legends. So there's Matthew McConaughey, Dennis Quaid, those are the only two that I knew actually, and then Woody Harrelson, Billy Bob Thornton. You didn't know? Have you watched Landman? Nope.

And so this, yeah, it was a promotional video for Senate Bill 22. You ever seen Friday Night Lights? No. Great. We just watched it the other week. Y'all, this is, this is, yeah. Like Matthew McConaughey and the, what is it, the wedding planner? Yes. That's what really gave him his career, yeah.

And what's the Kate Hudson one? Why can't I think about the Kate Hudson one? Oh, dress. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. One of the best ever. Yeah. And so in this video, it's a very dramatic cinematic video, but they're talking about,

they're reflecting upon the Hollywood industry and what it's kind of morphed into, and they were saying that they see that Texas is the place where these stories should be told. Matthew said, so what do you say, Texas legislature? You don't like what Hollywood's been dishing? Let's take over the kitchen. That was kind of his mic drop in that video. There were a few replies to the video that Republican Party of Texas Chairman Abraham George commented, not in the back of taxpayers.

Representative Briscoe Cain said, but with your money and not the taxpayers, right? And then House Representative Daniel Alders commented and said, Texans don't pay taxes for us to incentivize a Texas-sized version of Hollywood. They pay taxes for us to keep them safe and free and to ensure the state continues to have the infrastructure in place so that businesses, both large and small can succeed. So clearly we know what the Senate thinks about this, right, because this is Patrick's priority. But the House has not been, I mean, there's been those offhand comments, but it looks like, I mean, these comments are negative, but we don't know exactly how the House is going to deal with this. So it could be,

this is something that Brad was explaining, could be a good candidate for horse trading at the end of the session to get either chambers policies or legislative pieces across the board. So yeah, this piece kind of details all of the different impacts that this could have on Texas. So definitely go check it out. Read it. It's got lots of details. And, yeah, full of movie stars. You'd be a lot cooler if you did go read it. Oh, my gosh.

Is that a movie quote? It's a Matthew McConaughey quote. Oh, my gosh. Well, Mary, at least we're in the same boat. Thank you, Kim. Oh, Lord in heaven. Okay, well, let's move on to the tweeter-y section here. Bradley, you start.

What are y'all laughing at? What I have written there? So, my tweeter-y title here is The Unavoidable Musk of Dan Patrick. Yeah. Today at TVPF. this is not a comment on anything other than his it's a pun okay yeah it's a pun uh today at tbpf lieutenant governor was giving his speech and he talked about uh the elon musk tweet when he tweeted at dustin burroughs the now speaker uh calling for him to pass for the house to pass an ESA plan and

Burroughs responded we will I think that's on Valentine's Day yeah because it resulted in some funny like Burroughs replied with candy heart yeah said we will on it well turns out the tweets the original one was Dan Patrick's idea at least according to Lieutenant Governor. He told TBPF that he requested to Elon when he saw him the other day to tweet that, and specifically to put Burroughs' name in it. I just thought Elon was just that locked in to Texas politics. Yes, I don't think so.

There's always an angle. There's always an angle. I don't think that's the case, but there it is, the unavoidable musk of Dan Patrick. So many unintended consequences of that sentence. Bradley, thank you. Cameron, what you got? Nothing new. I was going to just talk about the make Texas healthy again bill.

Oh. I had written that in there before. Before we changed the setup. We changed the docket to talk about it at the top. But I just will bring up, I thought this being such a new issue, it being a priority piece for the Senate, it's just interesting because it wasn't something that was really in the mainstream as legislation. I know it's something that's been talked about online or within fitness communities

or health-conscious communities before about what the government should or shouldn't do regarding people's health and wellness. And just the fact we're seeing it in legislation I think is interesting. Yeah, absolutely. Mary Elise? Well, this is something I, this is related to what we were talking about earlier with IVF, but thought this was notable just because, you know, all of the conversations about IVF that are going on, but this was a Georgia woman is suing an IVF clinic after she gave birth to a child that was not biologically hers.

So insane. Wild. And the clinic doesn't know where her embryos are. So this is one of those complications that people might not anticipate when being pro-IVF and then things like this happen. So yeah, pretty wild situation. Rare, but not as rare as you'd think. You'd think there'd be labels on those things. To say the very least camera lord in heaven the quotes from this podcast are wild um i really want to quickly go around we have no time left but favorite blue bell flavor per our conversation earlier mine is cookie two-step 100 it's a mix of cookies and cream and cookie dough and you cannot get better it's delicious it's in the blue tub everyone go and get it bradley if you say vanilla. Homemade vanilla.

I'll shoot you in the foot. Yeah, why would you choose vanilla? Why would you choose vanilla when you can have something? Because it's so amazing. It's delicious. It's a classic. It is. It's great with a brownie, but the brownie is also part of the greatness of it.

You just want vanilla by itself? This is coming from the guy who waited until that white bread is bad for him the other day out in them wow okay cameron do your favorite blue whale flavor you may actually may not i don't have you ever i'd say ninja creamy ninja creamy favorite your favorite ninja creamy flavor favorite ninja creamy flavor um gosh you brought Ninja Creamy flavor. Gosh. You brought up butterscotch. Yep. While we were talking about Ninja Creamies. Yes, that is a topic of conversation in our office. It is, it is.

Ninja Creamies. Yes. So I'll say my homemade butterscotch. So good. Mary Lee's favorite Blue Bell flavor? Dutch chocolate. It's easy. There you go.

It's too much chocolate. You can't have too much chocolate. You also apparently would rather have plain vanilla than anything else. With yellow dye in it. Nice and simple. That's right. Bradley. Shots fired.

You're going to see a big warning label. You're fired again. Setting a record. On that note, folks, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week. Thank you to thanks for listening. 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.

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