The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 24, 2023

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Gov. Greg Abbott asking President Biden for a federal disaster declaration over the Austin ice stormAbbott putting the fentanyl crisis on his legislative agenda this sessionAbbott’s focus on banning government pandemic restrictionsThe Texas Supreme Court hearing a case over whether or not “morbid obesity” is a disabilityTwo West Texas lawmakers proposing similar policies to recapture tax dollars for their regionNew bills filed in the Legislature to rein in non-voter-approved debt and property taxes in small countiesTwo state senators proposing a “review process” for officials in charge of administering electionsSen. Hughes filing a bill to protect attorneys from “discrimination” by the state barA House committee considering four and a half billion dollars for Operation Lone StarHow some Texas school districts get around the state’s “critical race theory” banStreet races in Austin showing the damaged relationship between the city and its police forceThe Austin Police Department hosting an LGBT “world conference” for criminal justice professionals in 2025

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses Governor Greg Abbott asking President Biden for a federal disaster declaration over the Austin ice storm. Abbott putting the fentanyl crisis on his legislative agenda this session. The governor's focus on banning government pandemic restrictions. The Texas Supreme Court hearing a case over whether or not morbid obesity is a disability. Two West Texas lawmakers proposing similar policies to recapture tax dollars for their region. New bills filed in the legislature to rein in non-voter approved debt and property taxes in small counties. Two state senators proposing a review process for officials

in charge of administering elections. Senator Hughes filing a bill to protect attorneys from discrimination by the state bar. A House committee considering $4.5 billion for Operation Lone Star. How some Texas school districts get around the state's critical race theory ban. Street races in Austin showing the damaged relationship between the city and its police department. And the Austin Police Department hosting an LGBT World Conference for Criminal Justice Professionals in 2025. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast.

Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Oh my goodness, folks. It has taken us two hours to get to almost two hours. You're right. It's almost 1.45. To get to this point where we actually can record today. We attempted to start recording at noon. It is 1.45. It took us a very long time needless to say we had technical difficulties a broken sd card probably uh incompetence on my part i don't know but we made it still mad at you too so there's i can't remember why you're mad and i can't but i'm mad i'm mad at you too and i can't remember why we're just both mad at one another brad could you please let mackenzie know that i'm not talking to her for the rest of the podcast mackenzie hayden will not say a word to you for the rest

of the podcast it's gonna make it very difficult to talk about his stories she's being shunned i'm being shunned we did have a lot of uh conflict among amongst the team i don't remember why though well i mean there's my version and then there's your version you're speaking to me i don't think you uh you broke your promise there's my version and there's her version yeah i'm done with this oh man anyways i we had i don't remember what our uh scuffles were with each other but we were laughing really hard and having a really great time about to record the podcast. I pressed start and it said card protected like 15 times

and then it would not read the other SD cards. We lost all of our momentum with how funny we were being. Having a really great time is certainly one way to describe what was going on before this. I learned a lot of new things. We were talking about chat GPT. We were talking about watchmaking. That's true.

We learned a lot over the past couple hours. It's very true. A lot of history here in this room. Matt taught us some new words. Yeah, he did. Words I wish I could now remove from my vocabulary. Matt has no microphone in front of him. That's probably a good thing.

So we're all able just to talk about this without him delightful well we might as well just jump into the news since i can't remember why i have beef against you gentlemen but i do and i'd like to make it clear that i do have beef i don't have beef against cameron but i think i have beef against the other three men well you have beef against me because you and brad were at it as usual and then i didn't sufficiently take your side and so you then called me Switzerland which was just totally unfair oh it wasn't yeah that's why I'm okay that's good to know well at least we've put one piece of the puzzle together I'll take it Brad despite my anger toward you we are going to chat with you about um an appeal that governor abbott made

to the biden administration this week what was that all about well i'm happy to be the adult in the room and let bygones be bygones so we can talk about this very important piece of news why is your voice breaking brad are you on there on the verge of laughing over there are you being the adult okay so anyway would you let me do my job am i allowed to do that okay so this week governor abbott sent a letter to the white house asking for a presidential disaster declaration for 23 texas counties in connection with the ice storm and corresponding outages earlier this month those counties span i think southern most from bear county and all the way up towards uh the east side of dfw and travis county as we know was

the one hit hardest by this because austin energy uh had a lot of issues uh more than anybody else so shocker yes right and uh as we talked last podcast or the one before that the fallout from that has been significant uh but in this letter uh abbott is requesting the feds to come in a declaration by the president would open the door for fema assistance for residents of those counties whose properties have been damaged so if that gets approved and you live in one of these counties and your property was damaged for whatever reason, you are able to apply for aid from the federal government.

So if that applies to you, keep that in mind and take advantage of that if it is indeed granted. In the letter, Abbott said, quote, we will rebuild and recover, but we are fatigued. The constant onslaught of record-breaking storms has affected our first responders, depleted our resources, and caused undue mental and financial stress to Texans. Similar requests for this declaration was made during the 2021 blackouts. For some context, that was approved and the federal government doled out about 202 million dollars in assistance to texas applicants as a result of that storm this is obviously a much

smaller event and according to the state total damages so far for this have amounted to 63 million dollars there you go bradley thank you for that coverage also folks i don't think i i'm monitoring the podcast here i want to address the elephant in the room. If you can hear a lawnmower or a leaf blower outside, we apologize, but we need to move forward with the podcast. So we are not waiting for this poor man to finish. I think he is leaf blowing. I think that's what I see out there. So if you hear it, that's what that is. And we apologize. But moving forward, it's like the other day when he had construction in the office we hope you can't hear it anyways all the boys are looking at me like deer in the headlights thanks for your uh response that was not my gentleman i assure you

that was not my deer in the headlights look i was looking for somebody to say that's right sounds great and i just silence just complete silence that's right sounds great well i would not even mention it and just let them fill up the comments oh interesting interesting because they'll let us know either way that's true we would hear about it i feel like there's different approaches well matt matt matt's matt's on the on the edge here till his till his sections come up okay brad thanks for your coverage. Hayden, the fentanyl crisis will be a priority for Texas lawmakers after Governor Abbott placed it on the list of emergency items during his State of the State address.

What has been the impact of fentanyl trafficking in Texas? Fentanyl trafficking has claimed so many lives in the state of Texas, and it is tragic how serious of a problem it has become. According to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, 883 individuals died of fentanyl poisoning in 2020, but deaths spiked to 1,672 in 2021, and I think it would be a safe inference to say that that is going to increase when the 2022 numbers are available. That was an 89% increase from 2020 to 2021. And according to the governor, it is the leading cause of death for adults under the age of 45. Operation Lone Star,

the border security effort that was launched in March of 2021, so almost two years ago, has resulted in the seizure of 362 million deadly doses of fentanyl, which I believe is approximately two grams. And I've heard this before, that really a more accurate way of describing a fentanyl death is a fentanyl poisoning, because this is not a drug that people take recreationally. It is something that is laced into other illegal narcotics and even legitimate products or off-black market prescription drugs that people purchase. So it is an incredibly small amount can cause the death of an individual. And it is something that malicious actors are

sneaking into things that look like candy, that look like legitimate products. It is a very serious crisis in Texas. Certainly. So what steps has Texas already taken being that this crisis has been going on for a while? In September, Governor Abbott declared that groups trafficking in fentanyl will be considered extent of a felony murder charge if it is shown at trial that someone died as a result of that trafficking activity. And the governor has elevated that, as we mentioned, to an emergency item on the legislative agenda, which means lawmakers are allowed to consider it before the March 10 bill filing deadline. Ordinarily, they cannot take up legislation until after 60 days into the session, but because Abbott has escalated it to this emergency agenda, they are able to consider

it before that date. There you go. Senator Cruz recently questioned the administration of the Drug Enforcement Administration. What did he have to say on that subject? In a congressional hearing, Senator Cruz questioned Ann Milgram, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. She was seeking to provide insight on the DEA's efforts against the proliferation of fentanyl. And she indicated that most of the fentanyl coming across the border is coming through ports of entry and via tractor trailers and personal vehicles. Although Republicans are emphasizing, and Senator Cruz said this multiple times, that much of the drugs are also coming across the border because of criminals evading the detection and arrest of Border Patrol agents. And after repeated questioning, Administrator Milgram also

acknowledged that reducing the manpower available in Border Patrol hampers the DEA's anti-trafficking efforts. A couple of other interesting facts. She said the bulk of the fentanyl and methamphetamine being trafficked is being trafficked by the Jalisco New Generation cartel and the Sinaloa cartel. And while heroin and cocaine are trafficked by those organizations as well, they are not to the extent that fentanyl and methamphetamine are. She said interrupting the criminal activities of those two cartels, the Jalisco and the Sinaloa cartel, is the primary operational priority of the DEA right now. There you go. Hayden, thanks for your coverage. Bradley, we're going to talk more about Governor Abbott's priorities here. In stark contrast to his

positioning three years ago, he is back to reforming the state's emergency powers give us those details so during his state of the state address uh governor abbott said quote people have been coming to texas in search of liberty for almost 200 years we must protect that liberty that's why i'm announcing an emergency item to end covid restrictions forever we must prohibit any government from imposing covid mask mandates covid vaccine mandates mandates and from closing any business or school because of covid these actions will help texas close the door on covid restrictions now the reason this is in contrast is that abbott was one of many Republican governors across the nation, governors generally, but Republicans are the ones that have been most critical of the way the pandemic was handled on the executive level.

But he was one of many GOP governors across the nation who issued his own emergency directives, including closing businesses and schools and mandating masks. Now, those were ended a lot earlier than ones in other states um but they still happened and it caused a lot of a lot of criticism of the governor arguably created the um uh drove candidates that primaried him into running that race. Obviously, he handled that easily. But it was a massive, massive theme during 2020. And Governor Abbott was kind of silent on whether to reform emergency powers when these uh when the two bills were filed in the regular session in 21 to do to reform the the texas disaster act he was kind of mia um i don't recall him coming out really strongly one way or the other uh this time

it's different and he made it an emergency item and so he's now firmly behind restricting that authority as it pertains to pandemics specifically it'll be interesting to see if that gets extended to anything else but his call included setting a requirement that the legislature be called into session in the case of a declared disaster that was also interesting because there were a few handful of legislators who wanted the governor to call them into session during 2020 to at least give legislative approval of what was going on he did not um they didn't meet until 21 and so it's in many ways this is is a big departure from Governor Abbott of 2020. And I should add that, you know, there was a lot of uncertainty about what COVID was bringing.

He said, quote, there's some grace that should be extended to the governor for being in that situation. And I think there are many people that feel that way. But now they, including the governor,'s it's necessary to try and uh prevent that from ever happening again that that use of executive power is the way it was including at the local level certainly so have there been any disaster power reform bills filed yet particularly after the governor made this announcement yeah there have been quite a few i'd say but the biggest one was announced yesterday on wednesday and that was by senator birdwell and representative slosson uh they filed identical bills that would pare back these emergency powers along with um constitutional

amendments to go with it and their bill sets an automatic convening requirement anytime a disaster is declared the governor must call the legislature into session now that'll especially be interesting to see what the legislature does because you know if you have an emergency declared in one corner of the state for a relatively minor issue as it pertains to the whole state you know that is something is that worth convening the legislature during an interim i'm sure that'll that topic will be debated it also states that only the legislature has the authority to restrict business operations and it prohibits local orders that contradict state ones that is especially notable because this week the supreme court of texas heard arguments on the cases uh from a few different school districts and localities uh who tried to

implement their own mask mandates in violation of the governor's ban on mask mandates and so uh this is this bill is definitely you know aimed at that and any other instances that may come up down the road. Certainly. We'll have to watch the debate, see where the big pressure points lie. Thank you, Brad, for that coverage. Cameron, we're coming to you. This fascinating story that you wrote this week that's garnered a lot of attention, particularly about a case the Supreme Court here in Texas is hearing over whether or not morbid obesity is a disability. Talk to us about this story. So a woman who was a first-year residency physician at a Texas Tech Health Center was allegedly terminated from her employment because of her weight.

And like you said, the details are very interesting. It almost reads like a soap opera the details are very interesting. It almost reads like a soap opera or a reality TV show. It was crazy. Because a previous opinion was issued by a lower court that revealed all the internal emails from the health center. And the original opinion ruled in favor of this woman suing. So now it's been appealed all the way up to the Texas Supreme Court. There you go. What are some of the interesting facts about this case specifically that you found? So very, there was lots of dialogue back and forth from the director, with legal counsel,

from other physicians. So the woman at the time, when she was suing, she was 400 pounds. And allegedly what the emails revealed was the interim center director went to legal counsel to see if this person could be terminated for their weight. And they said no so this is what uh the woman who was terminated is alleging led to finding uh these other issues that led to her being fired and a lot of the additional issues point to the weight again 400 pounds being something that affected her performance. The fact that they couldn't find extra large gowns for her to wear. She wasn't able to perform procedures.

She wasn't engaging with some of the patients. She wasn't properly note-taking. Allegedly, at one time, she wrote herself a prescription. It did say she locked it and she was prescribed this medication, but she didn't go through the proper protocol. So there was a lot of back and forth that was going on in these internal emails. So I was actually fascinated just sitting there for hours reading this opinion. It was pretty fun. Yeah. And certainly some things like you were saying, like gown size and those kinds of things related to her weight and what is provided to people of that size. But at the same time, a lot of them were not related at all. And so they were like parsing through all those details of her job performances. Certainly something the court has

been in huge dialogue about. What is the Supreme Court going to be determining in this case? So there's three main things that are going to be covered. The first of which is the attorney-client privilege between the interim director and the legal counsel. So they have to determine if what was revealed in these emails by a third party that was present who was talking about this in the court is able to reveal that information. Was discrimination intent used for termination, meaning under the Disabilities Act, are they able to determine that this interim director actually was discriminatory in their

termination of this employee? Well, and then this brings up another area of conversation that is really one of the more interesting parts of this is, does morbid obesity now fall under what is termed to be a disability? Because right now, if there is no underlying physiological condition causing the morbid obesity, then it does not. So this is going to bring in all sorts of different takes on what different words mean. And i laid some of that out in the piece and there's there's going to be a long argument around definitions so that'll be interesting to watch as a lot of court cases happen to be arguments about definitions thank you for your coverage of that camera and a fascinating piece to go check out at the texan.news another fascinating piece matthew very very

interesting this piece you published earlier this week I believe it was the first we published. A common complaint among West Texans is that oil production generates significant tax revenue for the rest of the state, but that they do not get enough back to pay for growing infrastructure needs. Two lawmakers filed bills in response to this issue. Give us these details and kind of the timeline of how this has all gone down. So Representative Tom Craddock from Midland has refiled his legislation. He calls the GROW Texas Fund, and GROW stands for Generate Recurring Oil Wealth, in the Texas House of Representatives for the third time. And he says he feels like it's prime to finally pass and was showing a laundry list of the state's top oil and gas companies lining up behind the bill. The bill works like this. He's got a constitutional amendment that would create an account where excess tax revenue from oil and gas operations called severance taxes would be deposited and held for counties where significant oil production occurs.

The enabling legislation that he's also filed then provides for a seven-member commission to oversee dispersing that money via grants back to those regions to pay for things that are experiencing increased costs relating to the oil boom, such as highway infrastructure, education facilities, law enforcement costs, etc., etc. The seven-member commission would have some members appointed by the Speaker, some members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor, and I believe the rest are appointed by the Governor. The common analogy being used to support the bill is that if you have a golden goose like the Permian Basin, you should take care of it. Now enter Craddock's neighboring lawmaker, State Representative Brooks Landgraf from Odessa, who has repeatedly echoed support for Craddock's bill and remains in support of it with a caveat. Landgraf has now filed his own version of Craddock's legislation dubbed the Texas Strong Defense Fund. And I forgot to write down what all strong stands for, but it's an acronym. It's always amazing to me how these lawmakers are able to come up with these enough relevant

words to come up with some sort of acronym, do a catchy name for the bill. But it is a catchy name. And it functions very similar to Craddock's legislation. He has a constitutional amendment, which would create the strong account, and then an enabling legislation, which would have the governor, as opposed to this committee that's under the growth fund, and a couple of state agencies give the money back to the qualifying counties to use in the same ways, only much more broadly. For example, non-profit organizations would qualify for grants under Landgraf's version. Now, Landgraf's bill also does a few other things that Credix's bill does not, in that it transfers severance taxes to several other existing accounts, not specifically the strong account that he's creating under

his legislation, including the Texas Emissions Reduction Fund, the Oil and Gas Cleanup Fund, and the Property Tax Reduction Fund. Now, granted, it's not a lot that's being proposed to go to these funds, but for example, just to give you a quick rundown on what they do, which I'd never heard of some of these before, so learning all the time. And that is the Texans Emissions Reduction Fund is a fund that's been around since the early 2000s that's administered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and it basically subsidizes whenever a company, say a construction company or any company that has like fleet vehicles, wants to convert their gasoline vehicles to natural gas or electric, they could actually get

subsidy funds to help pay for the cost of turning that fleet into, I guess, some form of green energy vehicle. And construction equipment would also qualify for it, which I don't think I've ever seen like an electric pool desert, but that would be cool. It would also throw a little bit of money towards the Oil and Gas Cleanup Fund and the Texas Railroad Commission, which is kind of a big deal out in West Texas because you have a lot of those orphaned oil and gas wells

that are contaminating groundwater and whatnot. And then a little bit of money would also go to the property tax reduction fund, which is, I believe, what the state legislature uses to help compress the school district M&O taxes to buy down property taxes with. So you get a little bit of property tax relief in the bill as well. Now, Landgraf says he'll still support and is still supporting Craddock's bill if it makes it to the floor of the House of Representatives, but he's also signaling plans to push his version. Both representatives have noted that it's important for West Texas lawmakers to be unified in order to have any stroke in the legislature,

so it'll be interesting to see, wait and watch, see whether or not these dueling proposals will unite or divide the West Texas delegation. And dueling proposals they are. Thank you so much for that, Matthew. Certainly, again, an interesting piece to read at the texan.news. Gentlemen, one thing that I have been introduced to this week by, in particularly y'all's conversations,

Daniel, Cameron, in particularly, I've talked a lot about this, ChatGPT. It's an AI program that can spit out information if you ask it a question and inform it of some information and facts. I started to play with it today. And instead of just, you know, rattling off my normal plug in the middle of this podcast folks do not skip ahead 30 seconds because i said plug um i figured i would have ai take a stab at what could be a more interesting podcast um 30 second blip here i don't like all of this that's very bizarre yeah all of this ai stuff hayden behind you i literally see a man with a weed whacker. I wondered why you were looking behind me.

Like 50 feet from the window. I thought, is there somebody behind me sneaking up about to stab me or something? Oh my gosh. But I thought I would just, yeah, it can be a little disconcerting. I know some people are more for it in this office than others, find it more interesting than others. But I thought it'd be interesting to see what it did,

what it came up with. So I'm going gonna go ahead and read this attention texans do you want to stay informed about the latest news and developments in the lone star state then look no further than the texans digital news subscription with our subscription you'll get access to exclusive articles in-depth analysis and breaking news updates from our team of experienced journalists whether you're interested in politics, business or culture, interesting business and culture. I didn't know about that.

We've got you covered. Plus our subscription is affordable and flexible with options for monthly or annual plans. So don't wait, sign up for the Texans digital new subscription today and stay ahead of the game. That's not that bad. Wait,

McKenzie, I have a question. hayden how many clues did you give this robot before it wrote this let me read you the exact prompt because surely you didn't just say write a subscription ad for the texan and it somehow came up with all of that because it's spot on i yeah i know the business and culture i guess like it does count because we'll write about some we do write about social issues which i think are cultural issues yeah or like if a big plant is coming to texas and getting taxpayer dollars or if there's a bobcat hunt hint hint at a story coming up soon right there are some cultural stuff or if a personless mcdonald's happens to open in fort worth exactly we definitely have a story about. This is my prompt.

I host the Texans weekly roundup podcast each week. I need to record a 30 to 60 second spoken ad to promote our digital news subscription.

Write me a script. And that's what came up. I feel like a grocery store cashier watching the self-checkout counters grow and grow and grow. Yeah.

That's Please don't replace me yeah that is certainly how it how it can feel sometimes but nobody no ai program can can replace y'all all that to say folks do make sure to go to texan.news and subscribe with uh at the texan we have all sorts of awesome options and i appreciate your support we can't do what we do without you what is what is going is making quite a face. I know. I really want to know what it's about.

I don't know. I think it's... It was funny because Connie said in Slack that you're all replaceable. When we were talking about... When we were talking about another outlet's union strike that was going on. And so that's what I thought of. Debbie downer sheesh here i am encouraging you guys are irreplaceable and brad's like well actually

our ceo says we're all replaceable mac you know who's not replaceable who are our subscribers hayden absolutely could not do this without our thank you for bringing us back to the point of this entire thing so if you're listening to this if you listen to ramble on, you have no idea how much we appreciate you. Because otherwise, we would just be sitting here talking to ourselves. We would be blathering at the walls. Or chatting with GPT, whatever that is. Right. Yeah.

That's exactly right. Okay. On that note, folks, thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing. We appreciate each and every one of you. Brad, we are coming back to you to talk some more news. Two Texas senators filed notable bills dealing with local government debt and tax rates what do they hope to do so senators paul betancourt and maize middleton filed a few bills uh three overall one is an omnibus

then it's broken up into two separate pieces of legislation for the others the slate aims to move all current non-voter approved debt under the voter approval calculation it's very technical what that basically what that means is no debt could be passed without voter input at least up past the the 2019 sp2 limits which for cities and counties is 3.5%. So things like certificates of obligation, tax anticipation notes, which we talked about in the Amarillo situation last summer, all of that would have to go towards, would fall under the voter approval calculation, essentially meaning that cities and counties

would have less ability to spend money without getting voter approval. So that is the main purpose. The other part of it is that it would eliminate the de minimis rate, which is a provision from the 2019 property tax reform that allowed localities under a certain size, currently it's 30,000,

to raise property taxes above the new three and a half percent limits and so that was pretty controversial on the floor when this came up in 2019 mckenzie covered that back when she still wrote things uh but these two legislators are hoping to eliminate that. And we saw originally it was passed. It was something some percent or any county or city could avoid the limit if whatever they were wanting to spend was below $500,000. That got amended to anyone that is below 30,000 population. So now they're just trying to scrap it.

We'll see if it goes anywhere. But two, I think, pretty notable property tax and local debt issues there. Certainly. De minimis rate making its comeback. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, we're going to talk about another proposal from a couple of senators this time two republicans filing bills to create a civil administrative review process for elections talk to us about the elements of this bill senator bettencourt from harris bettencourt bettencourt i just liked how you're sorry i just like interrupted you i just liked how you said it senator bettencourt bettencourt from harris county and senator hughes from east texas filed legislation that would set

up a civil administrative review process as it is called for election grievances more or less and that's probably not the best word. Election irregularities is the term that the bill uses. And it would give recourse to election judges, candidates, county chairs of political parties, state chairs of political parties, and even presiding judges, alternate presiding judges, and the heads of some political action committees to make a complaint to the Secretary of State if they inquire about something that they suspect to be off in an election. And after two questions and answers from a particular official, if they're not satisfied, they can ask the Texas Secretary of State to conduct an audit. And if that audit is unfavorable to the election official

in question, then a conservator would be appointed to take over that particular election authority. So we're talking, my interpretation of the bill is we're talking about the administration of elections and the Secretary of State would be able to more or less commandeer a process that had been called into question and found to be irregular. Bettencourt said, Bettencourt said, every time I say his name now, he said, quote, SB 1039 is just common sense transparency legislation that increases the public's confidence in the election process as we can't have anyone in an elections administration not answering questions from the public, end quote. That is how he is presenting this legislation. And as I mentioned before, Senator Hughes name is on this as well.

Thank you, Hayden. What did Senator Betourt um say specifically about harris county as he has he's from that area he is from harris county that area um he said that there were thousands of election irregularities you and i are like are like five-year-old siblings i know backseat of a car. I don't know what we're doing today. He said there were thousands of election irregularities in the 2022 elections and that the 2020 audit found serious breaches in election procedures, including chain of custody problems and provisional ballots. And I'd like to give a hat tip to Holly Hansen. Her coverage is much more

extensive on the audit in Harris County. That one was ordered by the Secretary of State, and then there was another randomized audit ordered for the 2022 elections. But the 2020 audit found serious problems, according to the Secretary of State. And of course, that has been caught up in politics a lot. And the officials in Harris County obviously are not thrilled about having a Republican state government come in and be so involved in their county-level process. But Betancourt is seeking to address what he believes to be systemic issues with the elections in Harris County. And he pointed to other alleged misconduct across the state as well. There you go.

Well, thank you for your coverage, Hayden. We appreciate it as always. Matthew, Senator Brian Hughes is proposing a bill to prohibit the state bar of Texas from discriminating against licensed attorneys. What is the background on this bill? And do we know why it is needed senator hughes this is legislation prohibits the state bar from adopting rules policies and penalties that would limit a law license applicant's ability to obtain a license or an existence existing licensee

to practice law or burden a current licensed attorney's ability to maintain or renew their license based on constitutionally protected speech and expressions. Specifically, speech regarding a sincerely held religious belief, a political ideology or societal view, and of expressive conduct. It also protects freedom of association. So, for recent instances, may have been motivation for this bill. That includes a controversial rule by the American Bar Association that was opposed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who urged the Texas Bar not to adopt the ABA's rule because he said it was too vague and overbroad and would impact these free speech rights of attorneys. Secondly, the bar took action against Paxton and members of his legal team for intervening

in the 2020 presidential election, as well as some other attorneys. These actions were blocked by a district court who deemed the actions unconstitutional. For now, the legislature has referred this bill to the Senate committee on state affairs, which is chaired by Senator Hughes. And it'll also, so it'll be interesting to see how the legal community reacts to this bill as it advances.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Uh, Hayden, coming right back to you. Republicans are seeking an additional 4.6 billion in spending on operation Lone Star. What are the next steps for that funding?

The appropriations committee has numerous subcommittees that handle different articles of the proposed budget. Greg Bonin's budget is 1,000 pages long. It is not something that can be hashed over by one committee. So they split it up into different components and take testimony on each part of the budget. And they have been actively in that process this week. For instance, earlier this week, they talked about Attorney General Ken Paxton's settlement with those who have sued his office and him over the Texas Whistleblower Act, which he is wanting to settle for more than $3 million. So they took testimony on that on Monday. But this coming Monday, they will take testimony on Operation Lone Star, which cost the state $4 billion last biennium, in which Governor

Abbott and Republicans are asking for another $4.6 billion to be spent in this coming two-year budget period. So they will likely take testimony from agencies that are intimately involved in Operation Lone Star, such as the state police and the National Guard. What is the significance of El Paso in the border crisis debate, border security debate? Well, I didn't set up that question very well because I was supposed to mention that the chair of the subcommittee handling border security is Dr. Mary Gonzalez. She is a Democrat from El Paso. And that is why El Paso is entering this discussion, just to make sure that people know

that that wasn't just out of left field. But when the Title 42 policy was said to be on its way out in December, there was a massive surge of illegal immigration in the El Paso area. At one point, there were nearly 2,500 illegal crossings over in the El Paso sector per day. And with Title 42, the Supreme Court has canceled the oral argument. So that policy will likely end on May 11, when the federal government ends its COVID-19 emergency measures. There you go, Hayden. Thank you. Cameron, schools and critical race theory just continue to be a hot topic here in Texas. Talk to us about a recent incident recording some of these individuals working in public schools. Yeah. So undercover investigation by an organization named

Accuracy and Media was able to record multiple school employees about how they've reacted and essentially sidestep this ban on critical race theory. There's a there's a truck on Congress when we just walked by there that was had it was a video yeah and they were playing this exact thing that you're talking about oh okay yeah i think circling the capital yeah parked in a spot right yeah this has been a very viral story over the past week so it's gained a lot of attention online and, um, people in the online media space, news reporting space have been covering this. So it's cause a lot of the things that came out in this,

uh, investigation were pretty, pretty, uh, apparent that they were sidestepping what this ban is. Cause they were saying things like we did not follow much of what Abbott is trying to get us to do. One person said we just have gotten around it by saying, well, we're just not teaching that. And I did some of my own investigation into some of these

school districts because if you go onto a lot of of these ISD websites you can find links to the curriculum You can find links to the frameworks for how they develop the theories behind the curriculum So I did some digging myself and I found links for the 1619 project I found links to culturally responsive teaching. I found links to a curriculum framework that was developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center that was called Teaching Hard History. So if you want the information, it's out there. You just got to dig for it a little bit. So obviously the ban that was signed in 2021 is not taking effect like I thought it would. So we'll see what's going to be the follow-up to this type of investigation. Yeah, absolutely. Cameron,

thanks for your coverage. Brad, some Austin news here that is going to wrap up most of what we're talking about. On this podcast, last weekend was a bit of a frenzy here in Austin. We saw viral videos of street racers make national news. Give us the details of what what happened so on saturday night a crowd of individuals blocked off the intersection of south lamar and barton springs in austin it's quite a busy intersection individuals then did donuts in their cars and other tricks as a crowd surrounded them and filmed it as you can imagine many of these people uploaded those videos or were streaming anyway online and it quickly became a national story turns out it was part of this thing called the lone star show a street race series that occurs throughout the state apd interestingly said that

in a news conference after the fact that they had gotten tip from san antonio about some unnamed uh event like this occurring but they couldn't source it they couldn't verify it and it turns out it was real but when the uh the crowd took over this intersection 40 different apd units responded to the events to that specific intersection but it was so out of hand that could not immediately be dispersed one video showed mob confronting an officer in a car and forcing him to slowly back away in the vehicle according to apd projectiles were thrown at officers and one was hospitalized with a non-life-threatening injury the events also spread to i think three other locations across the city and so it hospitalized with a non-life-threatening injury. The events also spread to, I think, three other locations across the city.

And so it was quite a night of mayhem. Other video shows a couple individuals catching on fire after a truck skidded through a flame engulfment. I'm guessing they lit it with some sort of lighter fluid on the ground and then sped through it and then sprayed the the fluid that was on fire onto people um that it looked terrible although apd said that no individuals had checked themselves into the hospital for that situation so on thursday governor abbott uh directed dps to look into this and other similar events across the state.

It's just another example of some crazy stuff that happens in Austin. Absolutely. And all backlit by the city's ongoing police contract dispute, which is all part of the wildness of this as well. Tell us just quickly a little bit about that. Yeah. So shortly after when this became, when this went viral,

AP, the Austin Police Association, which is embroiled in a contract dispute with the city council, said Austin policymakers are directly responsible for the overall safety of their citizens and visitors. Looks like they failed to make the right decisions and continued to defund, destroy, and demoralize public safety. Austin was one of the safest cities, not anymore mayor kirk watson uh replied on twitter and said replied in a in a statement posted to twitter said the austin police association posted some false comments on sunday that appeared to wrongly conflate this illegal incident with important community conversations about safety and oversight here's a kicker twitter is not an appropriate forum for contract negotiations so uh it was it's still kind of metering out the the two sides are are not giving any ground but this just this

event just provides another example of why or how uh heated this whole contract negotiation is and by extension how dire the police staffing problem is in austin certainly thank you bradley cameron we're coming back to you another austin police story the police department is getting involved in an lgbt world conference what is this all about well if apd isn't already uh hearing it online from people. Well, this was something that I saw again. They're going to be hosting a world conference for criminal justice professionals focused on LGBT issues. Well, I looked into some of these past conferences, things they've talked about, such as sex worker reform, how to do trans-inclusive police service.

And so if Austin PD, they've had some issues in the past with similar type programs and trainings. Of course, we know in 2021, Austin PD spent almost $10,000 a day on a systemic racism training group. So they've been involved in some controversies that was the that was the city and uh they forced city employees and officers to go to that yeah both well they covered that uh so folks we have all sorts of coverage on that issue from cameron and from brad brad's been uh on that for a little while. And this particular conference, fascinating in that it's being hosted by, you know, the department. Yeah, that's right. It's a world conference. They've had it all over

in Australia and Europe. So it's coming to Austin 2025. Fascinating. Well, we'll keep an eye on that for sure. Okay, gentlemen, we have all sorts of things to get into in our tweetery section here and some office news to chat about at the end as well. So Brad, why don't you start us off on your tweetery? I don't have much, but I got an email. I don't know. Maybe you guys got this, but Netflix

is announcing a release of its own docu-series on the Waco siege. I don't know how I got on the email list for this, but I did. There are a lot of things we end up on the email list for this but i did there are a lot of things we end up on the on the email list for that don't make sense but it's a three episode series it's coming out march 22nd uh i don't think it's like a dramatization like the one i thought they already did one that's why i'm making a face because i thought there already was one but well there was

with uh the guy from friday night lights is that what you're thinking of? Yeah. That was on Netflix. I don't think. I think that was something else. I think that was Netflix. I think it was on Amazon, now that I think about it. They didn't commission it. It might have ended up on Netflix. Yeah, they were just hosting.

I remember seeing it on Netflix. Yeah, but this is straight from Netflix. So it'll be interesting to see how they handle it. If it's any good. Yeah, how much they be interesting to see how they handle it. If it's any good. Yeah. How much they suck up to the ATF on it. The other one certainly didn't. It made the ATF look like the devil.

Yeah. Which I don't know. I mean, that may have been an accurate portrayal in that case. But that was the angle. It certainly did not defer to the Clinton administration. Yeah. So yeah, March 22nd is when it comes out. There you go.

Cameron, what about you? So I saw an old article came across my Twitter timeline. And it's the fact that the term Texas is slang for crazy in Norway. I thought this was just hilarious. And there's this entire article laying out the history of the use of the word Texas is crazy. And what also is interesting is there is actually a population here in Texas that is directly from Norway, the town of Clifton, Texas, where a third of the population is of Norwegian descent. And they have dubbed the Norwegian capital of Texas.

That's so Texas. So you're using the term correctly. There we go. So if you're ever in Clifton, check it out. Fascinating. Hayden, what about you? There we go. So if you're ever in Clifton, check it out. Fascinating. Hayden, what about you? This happened before our last podcast, so this is not this week. But last week, there was a disagreement on the House floor when they started to pass their customary resolution to allow each chamber to adjourn for more than three days. There is now a clip that Representative Tony Tenderholt has put on his Twitter feed of him objecting to that

and trying to ask Representative Goldman if they could use the Texas Constitution to take up bills before the bill filing deadline. And Speaker Phelan decided that that was not a proper question because it was not on the subject of the resolution, which if you just watch the clip, you might think that it was strictly about the parliamentary discussion they were having of whether or not this question was correct, or whether the question was in order. But it was an unusually heated back and forth between the back mic and the speaker. And if you watch the back mic, they usually give state reps a lot of leeway to comment on their questions before they ask them. And they usually are allowed to say a few words afterward. But Speaker Phelan was holding him to the letter of the law. You kept having to ask only what was on the topic of the bill.

And sometimes they'll say, they'll give a long preamble to their question. And Tenderholt was attempting to do that. And Goldman and Phelan kept interrupting him. That's not a question. That's not a question because he kept formulating it as, I think, blah, blah, blah, instead of, isn't it true that blah, blah, blah. There's a statement. Yeah.

He would start something that was going to be a statement. And so looking at the letter of the law, yeah, they were right. He wasn't asking questions. And there is an argument to be made that the question he was asking was about something else in the Texas Constitution. It wasn't about what they were voting on. But at the same time, Tenderholt, I think he said something to the effect of, I've never been disrespected like this on the House floor in the eight years that I've been here.

And it was unusual to see somebody at the front mic and the speaker kind of tag team pushing back on the speaker. Very obviously. Right. That does not happen very often. And there are times when the speaker will shut down what's going on at the back mic, but it was fascinating to see Goldman and Phelan both go back and forth and try to shut down what Tenderholt was saying. But Phelan created quite a soundbite at the end where he said, your remarks are dilatory, take your chair, which that was unusually aggressive from the speaker. It doesn't happen very often. It does happen. But I think Speaker Phelan is probably just at first blush.

It seems like he's trying to set a precedent that he's the one with the gavel and he's going to roll the day in these parliamentary discussions. And he's not giving much leeway for people to try to speak over his decisions about parliamentary procedure so i would encourage everyone to go watch the uh the clip because i think it sheds light on the dynamic between tender holtman and the house leadership right now yeah particularly this session thank you so much for that hayden matthew what did you find this week i found out that it's national chili day and i had all these amazing plans to go celebrate at texas chili parlor but but what matthew but nothing that's so passive aggressive oh poor mckenzie no but no this this podcast was good though this podcast was good though. This podcast was good. You managed to ameliorate it.

Oh my gosh. Ridiculous. That's my new word I came up with this week, by the way. So I had to work it in somehow. Yeah. Well, it makes me feel sad, Matthew. Thank you for that.

I'm just going to feel sad the rest of the day and I'm going to make it your problem. The facial expressions going on around this table when I go or something else. It is National Chili Day day we can go eat chili later and that makes you feel better that's true although we have we have several out of office

things planned so maybe chili will just be the next thing we do but let us know tweet out to the texan crew and let us know where your favorite chili place is in austin there you go and if it's not chili parlor then that's going to be interesting um okay i do want to give a shout out to one of our listeners laurie galindo who messaged me in this particular tweet that i'm going to use for our tweetery section it is from megan kelly um and she said omg alex murdoch going or alec murdoch going to take the stand in his own defense epic moment in american trial history. If you weren't there listening to us bloviate last week on the podcast, I'm very in like into this whole Alec Murdoch trial and watching everything with a very close eye.

It's fascinating to watch. what this shows or what it seems to be showing is that alec murdoch in this double homicide trial of his wife and son felt desperate to the point that he himself felt the need to take the stand which is pretty unheard of to let the defendant get up there and be subject to cross-examination um by in this case the state um and it's been going on all day i've watched a little bit of it and will i be watching it in its entirety at some point later on this evening? Yes, absolutely. Is the state still in its questioning or is the defense still in its questioning or has it gone across six yet? It's probably to cross now.

I'd be shocked if it hadn't. It's been like five or six hours at this point. But it had gone like they'd gone two hours last I checked and they were still going strong with, you know, the defense going at it. There's so much I could get into, and it's very spicy, and it's very controversial on Twitter. People who've been following it for a long time are kind of very done with him and saying he's certainly guilty. He's using all the same manipulative tactics that they've seen this entire time. Folks who are more new seem to be like, oh my gosh, this guy's really broken. And it's hard for me to imagine how he could take

the life of his family in a very brutal way. It is fascinating to watch and kind of see what folks, and it's far more complicated than that, but that's kind of what the breakdown of the side seems to be as of today as he's taking the stand um but anyway shout out to lori galindo for sending that to me i've certainly was watching um and she said uh this is so so kind she goes i'm a loyal podcast listener so i had to share this with you and uh she said for the record i enjoy your banter with the guys so i'm glad somebody enjoys our banter because sometimes i think we're just so much which we are we were a little rough today we were on each other that was so part of that is due to the fact that this podcast was

delayed two hours yeah so there was a little bit of pent-up and we all got really hungry and cranky and we didn't have any chili i still haven't eaten lunch so you don't complain to me mister who got to eat cilantro come at me bro okay let's move on to the fun topic here. This week we have, this is our second to last day in this office in downtown Austin. We were just moving a couple blocks down the street, which is exciting in that it's a far nicer office. It's even closer to the Capitol than we already are. So I'm excited. And honestly, this office has served us so well.

I will not miss these beige walls the question is if is that i want to pose as our fun topic is what are you most looking forward to about this new office or what are you most looking forward to about leaving behind here at this office i'm most looking forward to leaving behind the beige walls do we know that the walls in the other well you've been there i haven't been there have you seen video i've seen video but i don't remember what color the walls were let me look i don't think they're i think they're white well the brick wall is what makes it in my opinion the brick wall is so cool yeah it's like white and if it's not white it's like more space personally yeah yeah the space is be kind of nice to where you don't have to squeeze around camera and get to my desk. Wow. Come on.

I feel like I sit pretty close. I give you enough room. It's the nature of the room. It's not Cameron's fault. We call it intimate. It's cozy. Let's not use that word. It's also so well set up to be a newsroom as opposed to our office. Again, it served us so well. And y'all's

room is a reporter's room. Y'all are so in tight quarters. But there's a hallway all the way down and offices connecting down the hallway so it's not like there's a central part where we can all kind of hang out at the office at all and this one has much more it's like it's much more conducive to me not being so isolated away from you guys and actually being able to like step out and say hello i do like this building though and the little kind of drive around thing yeah it's a nice build we'll have more like i don't know solidified secure parking yeah we're gonna have covered parking at the new one which i'm looking forward to yeah it's definitely more secure than

it is here which is nice in downtown austin to have a little bit of parking security it does not suck especially since i have literally had something stolen out of my car right in front of me here yeah it's happened a few you had that michelle had that i watched it out the window and i felt like an idiot because i had left my car unlocked yeah i left the car unlocked i always hide my stuff in my car because i get nervous that something's gonna break a window even if i do remember to lock it downtown austin i swear with that leaf blower is it right outside the leaf blower is right outside that reminds me there's been some legislation filed uh that uh actually pertains to like

weed eaters and leaf blowers and all that sort of stuff it prevents cities from being able to ban gas powered uh things of that nature interesting random fun fact well there you go any other thoughts thoughts on Brad on the new office? Or let's get you the mic. I'm excited for the move. Excited for a change. It's been almost four years that we've been sitting at the same desks. At least I've been sitting at the same desk.

I'm very much looking forward to not having to walk up that dang hill that's gonna be incredible it's especially when it hits 90 degrees uh which it almost did yesterday yeah yeah i walked up that yesterday and it was not fun especially for you boys in suits it's no point now uh i don't know i being two blocks closer to the capital means we don't have that hill for those listening. It means we are exempt from the hill that causes us so much stress during session walking to the Capitol. Right. I don't know.

Got good memories here. For sure. Beige walls and all, I'd say. I don't hate them like you do. I know. It's probably a girl thing. I just hate the beige walls. I mean, yeah.

It will be nice to have something more appealing to look at. It's going to be weird driving past this office every day to get to the new office. Yeah. That's going to feel weird for a while. Yeah. Also, shout out to our CEO, Connie Burton. What other CEO would come into town and handle the move entirely on her own? She's like coming in and doing it all herself.

Like she's going to be the point person. I'm just on call in case something goes wrong or a door needs to be unlocked. And she's like, I'll do it. herself like she's gonna be the point person i'm just on call in case something goes wrong or door needs to be unlocked and she's like i'll do it like i just want to do it myself which is very connie connie likes to get in and set up things how she likes them make everything pretty she's so good at it but like we're all like connie let us help you and honestly she and phil came down to the office shout out phil and like wrapped up and packed up and did a lot of work where we only really have to oh my gosh this darn leaf blower he's literally right outside the window i know matt can barely hear me in this own in this room anyway shout out to

the burtons i think uh you know this is we've had different chapters of the texan and usually measurable by people coming and going. Thanks, Matt. I really appreciate, you know, I'm trying to be all sentimental and you're giggling like a child. But this seems like a very tangible change. Yeah. Something that, you know,

we're all going to come into a new building every day. It's the biggest like physical change we've had in Texas. Yeah, it's cool. It provides perspective on how far we've come in almost four years. Knock on wood, there won't be any leaf blowers at this big office building that's where we're on a top floor. So hopefully that does not... Leaf blower sounds, if we can hear them from our building,

where we are insulated in the interior, it's going to be kind of insane the only downside is there are no windows that is a big downside so maybe we'll have some but there are windows like i have a window where i can see y'all smoke breaks oh my gosh um there are but there's like a window from my office so i can like see y'all which i don't know i think i'll enjoy more than y'all be like hello you guys be like leave us alone but that's we're gonna feel like fish in an aquarium i don't feel like a fish in an aquarium are you kidding me my office is like isolated and closed off y'all's there's like the big room yeah but there's more happening in our we're gonna have to come up with a nickname for the new i don't know i'll start doing like dances so there will be more happening in my my office what was that we're gonna have to come up with a nickname for the new i'll start doing like dances so there will be more happening in my my office what was that we're gonna have to come up with a nickname

for the new office you know we already have the fish tank what else we could we might have to get over there first maybe the submarine submarine yeah that's how we describe this place yeah 100 i told cameron last week not to play with his mic while he's talking into it and he was like i'm not gonna do it this time i almost got through it's okay you you were very your your success rate has increased dramatically well brad's been here for four years he he has an incredible attachment to this building i've been here for four weeks so i've been doing a lot of moving and so this is just another step in this move. There is one thing, though, I'll be looking forward to because the very first day when I

used the restroom here in this building, the force with which the water comes out of the faucet honestly surprised me. And it absolutely drenched my shirt. No way. No one noticed. My sleeves were just soaking and no one noticed. So I'm ready to get an actual functioning faucet in the bathroom. I did not know that about your old bathroom. It's been that way for a long time. Oh my goodness. That's crazy.

Well, we're excited for this new chapter. It's going to be an awesome, awesome change up for us. i'm excited it will feel like connie keeps calling it young she thinks it's like a young office i think the brick wall yields it to that it's probably true i don't know maybe hip maybe that's the way the best way to say it it's um i don't even know what that means and i'm not going to i just heard it today i guess that's the hip language we're saying something's good it's busting i will take your word for it cameron okay folks thank you so much for listening to us blather we appreciate it each and every week and we'll catch you on next week's episode thank you to everyone for listening if you enjoy our show rate and review us on apple podcasts spotify or wherever you listen to. And if you want more of our stories,

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