The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 5, 2021

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” our team discusses the governor’s state of the state address, federal fundraising numbers, Texas House committee assignments, the governor’s comments on limiting his own emergency powers, developments with Planned Parenthood and Medicaid, a potential reinstatement of the homeless camping and lying ban in Austin, rare earth processing in Texas, human and drug smuggling across the Texas-Mexico border, and gun purchases continuing to spike.

Welcome to another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, our reporting team debriefs the governor's State of the State Address, federal fundraising numbers, Texas House Committee assignments, the governor's comments on limiting his own emergency powers, developments with Planned Parenthood and Medicaid, a potential reinstatement of the homeless camping and line ban in Austin, rare earth processing in Texas, human and drug smuggling across the Texas-Mexico border, and gun purchases continuing to spike. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We hope you enjoy. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Isaiah Mitchell, Hayden Sparks, and Daniel Friend, all ready to talk to you about the latest in Texas political news. We actually have a lot to talk about today and an announcement that happened this Thursday prior to the release of this podcast with the

Texas House Committee Assignment. So we have all sorts of things to talk about. Hayden, are you ready? I am ready. You look very perky and ready. I'm very perky and ready. I'm in a great mood, ready to talk about politics. Hayden, you are always in a good mood. Wonderful. Well, let's start with you and Brad to get us going here. This week, the governor issued his State of the State Address, talked with Texans about what priorities he'd be looking at this legislative session. Y'all give us an update on what that looked like. So the speech was on Monday night, and the governor gives his State of the State Address every year. This year is especially notable because it's going into the session.

And he laid out some of his priorities, specifically some emergency items. consider them before the typical 30, 60 day window or limits on consideration of legislation. So the five that the governor highlighted were expansion of rural broadband access, recourse against cities that, quote, defund their police, bail reform, election integrity and financial protection from coronavirus lawsuits. All sorts of good stuff. So in terms of what we expected from the governor, does this align with that? And also what other priorities that he mentioned did he give time to that were not necessarily items that he highlighted as legislative priorities? Yeah, I think a couple of them especially were basically open secrets. The defund the police and the bail reform aspects he had talked about for weeks already about being specific priorities of his. Now, obviously, he took those one step further to make them emergency items. But he had been harking on that for a while.

And, you know, another one, broadband access. That has been a topic of much discussion throughout the entire interim, basically. And so, to me, that's not a surprise either. One that stuck out to me, though, was election integrity. And that's actually the one that mirrors the Texas GOP priorities. So, um, you know, one out of the five, uh, you know, shares a spot with those, uh, party priorities. And then the other one I didn't really see, I don't, it's kind of, it's not insignificant by any stretch, but it's of the five, it's the least notable I'd say. Um, and basically what it consists of is,

um, you know, if a business is accused of violating, um, coronavirus laws, restrictions, and someone gets sick and dies, then, you know, if that person or their family, um, you know, sues the business, the governor is trying to provide protections from that for the businesses. But that was one that I did not see, did not expect to be on there. Yeah, so definitely important, but a less shiny object. Basically, yes. Hayden, what were your thoughts? Well, I think Governor Abbott is trying to tap into some anxieties that are not just in

his electorate, his voter base, but also in the electorate as a whole. And one of those is the defunding of the police, which he said, under his leadership would not take place. And he is making legislation to prevent the defunding of police at the local level, an emergency item. But what he didn't do is give specifics as to what that meant. So different cities have taken different approaches. I know Dallas cut the police overtime budget, but it was really only $7 million out of a $500- million dollar budget. So without specifics, we really don't know what the governor meant in terms of what types of repercussions there would be for local governments and what amounts of money would be unacceptable for him to cut. But for him, I think this was an opportunity

for him to give voice to a lot of Texans who look at cities like Portland and Seattle and Minneapolis and the policies that they're implementing there. And this was an opportunity for him to say, we're not going to do that. In fact, he called that crazy. Those were his exact words. He said, we will support our law enforcement officers, not demonize and defund them. Quote, defunding law enforcement invites crime and chaos into communities. So while he does align himself with some of the concerns in terms of reforming police to make sure it's working for everyone, he wanted to make sure that the people of Texas understood that he does not support defunding the police.

However, he was a bit vague as to what that meant, how that will play out in the policy proposals that the governor's office advances this legislative session. It's also been vague what constitutes defunding the police. Right, exactly. You have the city of Austin going so far as to cut a quarter of its budget. But, you know, that's not when the activists were putting their plans forward over the summer last year, it went anywhere from, you know,

restricting use of force tactics to straight up eliminating police departments. Exactly. So, not only does the governor need to clarify what comes from the state's end, but also what qualifies as, quote, defunding the police. A couple other things that stuck out to me in his speech that were not any emergency items, he kind of danced around the emergency powers situation. Now, I put a story up this week as well afterward about the governor kind of insinuating that

he'd at least be open to the idea of reforming the emergency powers of the state, the disaster code. But in the speech, he largely tiptoed around it. And the only thing he referenced was localities, closing churches, or, you know, kind of tamping down on religious activities. And he, in that part of the speech, he said, you know, this should never happen again, and yada, yada, yada. But to me, that showed that he's kind of uh he's not really all that enthralled with the idea of overhauling the texas disaster act and his further statements this week area statements this week after that further um you know confirmed that to me in my mind

um you know another thing he mentioned was the prenda law um that's the pre-born i just lost it in the article non-discrimination discrimination thank you um that was the only piece of anti-abortion legislation that he mentioned um now it doesn't mean that's the only thing he will support but that was the one he singled out and then one more to me was the – he kind of took a shot at the 1619 Project. Obviously, that's the New York Times kind of reimagination, as they like to say, of United States history. And he rejects this and he said, we must bolster civics education in our classrooms and ensure every child learns the values of freedom, good governance, and patriotism. So those were a couple of things that were not among the emergency items that stuck up to me. I like it. So just as the State of the Union, you know, this kind of mirrors that on

the state level. Walk us through what the Democrats' response to, you know, Governor Abbott's State of the State Address was. They had a few members, a few Democrats across the state, some of them Texas House members, others, you know, serving in other capacities, address that. The main one that I saw was Representative Chris Turner, who is the House Democratic Caucus Chair. And he said the governor's speech was notable only for what he did not say. No mention of increasing health care access to millions of uninsured Texans. With that, he's referencing expanding Medicaid. Further in the quote, no mention of policing and criminal justice reform, no mention of gun violence in the wake of El Paso and Odessa, the two shootings that happened there,

and no relief from the star test. That last part, in the days since, many, many Democrats have come out lobbying for the TEA to cancel the start test. So that is going to be something they continue to beat the drum on. Certainly. Good stuff, boys. Well, thank you for covering that for us and, you know, ensuring our readers are informed. The governor's speech was at 7 p.m. on Monday, so a lot of folks were able to tune in, but not everyone always has that opportunity. Daniel, we're coming to you, talking through some federal fundraising numbers. Talk to us a little bit about that and why it's significant. So it seems kind of odd, boring, the elections are over, why do we care about finance reports? It's not as significant as before the election, but it's still going to have ripple effects as we look forward to the 2022 elections and even beyond, as there are some candidates who are probably eyeing the White House.

Now that there is a Democrat there, I think there's some Texas Republicans who would love to challenge Biden in 2024. You know, the top Republicans fundraising for the fourth quarter, which, you know, depending on how you look at it, the fourth quarter is traditionally October 1st through the end of the year. The filing for most candidates who appeared on the ballot was from November 24th to the end of the year. But looking at their numbers altogether, the top fundraisers were, of course, John Cornyn, who is the senator on the ballot this year or this past election cycle. So naturally, he had the most money coming in. He's the top statewide race on the ballot. candidates were then Representative Dan Crenshaw out of Houston and then Senator Ted Cruz, who, even though he wasn't on the ballot, he did a notable job of raising over $2 million in the third quarter. And so, yeah, that's just the big overview of it.

I like it. So in terms of who has a lot of cash on hand, you know, you talk, you named a couple folks there, but there was one, uh, you know, one particular person that really, um, surprised a lot of folks in terms of how much money they have walk us through some of the names and numbers that, uh, stood out most. Yes. So like I mentioned before, you know, Ted Cruz, Dan Crenshaw, those were the big fundraisers, uh, Cruz raised 2.9. Crenshaw raised a little bit less than, or actually more than that, $4.5 million throughout the entire quarter, and then just like $345,000 in that last month. But those two were the highest Republicans with the most cash on hand, with $4.6 million and $1.9 million for Cruz and Crenshaw, respectively. But the candidate who had the most cash on hand with 4.6 million and 1.9 million for Cruz and Crenshaw, respectively. But the candidate

who had the most cash on hand was, interestingly enough, a Democrat from the Austin area, Representative Lloyd Doggett. Now, he's been in the Austin area since 19, his first election that he won was in 1994. He's been in three different congressional districts, thanks to redistricting. And, you know, he could go into a fourth one, thanks to redistricting. And, you know, he could go into a fourth one, thanks to redistricting this time, too. And he has enough cash on hand to maintain that seat, whatever number it might end up being. Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of, you know, this is something that's important to frame is certain folks are up for reelection every two years, certain folks get breaks, what kind of numbers, you know, should we be looking

at in that sense of, okay, well, it's surprising this person raises much money. Well, this person doesn't necessarily have to, they're not on the ballot this next time. What kind of dynamic is at play there? Yeah. So, you know, Senator Cruz, he's not going to be on the ballot. Senators are only on ballot once every six years and he was on the ballot in 2018. So if he's going to run for reelection in 2024, you know, there's still four years away. Right. So there's really not a strong need for him to do a lot of fundraising. But he's a high profile person.

He's rumored to be looking at the presidency. And so, you know, he's going out there and doing a lot of fundraising. Now, all of the representatives in Congress, and this is really looking at federal elections. And so all of those are two years and they're on the ballot every two years, regardless. Uh, now something to remember is that, you know, even though everyone's on the ballot two years, not all the races are the same. There are some districts that are much more Republican, some that are much more Democrat

and they're safe seats and they're not contentious general election races. And even in the primary elections, they're usually not that contentious either. But there are other seats where it's a little bit more purple. They're more the swing districts, and those ones are much more competitive. So looking at the finance numbers there, you know, a lot of people who had low cash on hand, you know, like Representative Michael McCaul in Texas's 10th congressional district. You know, he has the second lowest amount of cash on hand at just under $8,000. And he had a really competitive race in 2018. Now he still won by a decent margin, but he was pouring in a lot of money whereas other candidates

like uh doggit who are in a safe district there's no way austin is going to flip and turn red in his his seat and so um you know he's able to reserve a lot more and if he goes out there and continues stacking up cash you know now he's sitting on five million yeah absolutely well thank you for covering that for us and making sure that folks know what's going on, even when elections aren't on the forefront of the news cycle. Brad, we're going to come back to you. You know, it's been so long since we chatted with you. But you and I, let's debrief these Texas House Committee assignments. So, you know, today, Thursday, the day before this is published, there will be, you know, we just found out the Speaker announced his committee assignments, right? So this means members know what committees they'll

be serving on. And it means that chairmen know which committees they'll be chairing, right? So this is really big news in Austin. It has a lot to do with what legislation will see the light of day throughout the next five months. So walk us through your preliminary thoughts. Yeah, well, like you alluded to, it's important because committee chairs have a lot of power over what legislation even gets considered by committees, what gets through committees, what gets to the floor. So, you know, this is very notable. One of the things that stuck out to me was the, the new house administration committee chairman. It, it, uh, flipped, swapped from, uh, representative Charlie Guerin, a Republican in Fort Worth to, uh, Will Metcalf, Republican of Conroe. So, um, that's pretty notable change.

Um, you know, we saw representative Guerin really appeal in the last two months or so to, to feel and to try and, uh, you know, assuming to try and keep the committee. Um, you know, there was a point where he, um, you know, said speaker feeling, I really look forward to working with you and, um, you know, hope this can continue, but it will not. Um, you know, that, so that stuck out and they, they oversee the, um, the rule, the, um, you know, just basically day-to-day operations in stuck out. And they oversee the the rule, the just basically day to day operations in the House. And so, you know, it is a pretty powerful position, especially from our perspective on who gets committee credit or House credentials. So I think that's definitely notable. Anything that stuck out to you?

Yeah, I think it's notable that Guerin still is in a position of power, right? He still has a chairmanship and a relatively powerful committee, local and consent, which is where most of the largely uncontested and localized bills are funneled, right? So he will still chair that committee. It's of Mother's Day massacre fame. There's all sorts of different dynamics at play there. So he is certainly still in a position of power. And there's a lot of bills that go through the local. Absolutely.

And some of them are not necessarily local or uncontested. There are bills that make up to that calendar that constitutionally have some discrepancies there. So I think it is notable that although somebody else is now Metcalf taking the reins of that admin committee, Guerin still has a position of power. I thought it was interesting to see a Freedom Caucus member in Briscoe Cain receive a pretty prominent chairmanship in elections. Especially this session? Absolutely, particularly after this November election and seeing what happened there. You know, Cain, it was reported in a lot of places that Representative Cain was on the ground throughout the country looking at election results and searching for

fraudulent votes in different states and on the legal team there. So for President Trump, then President Trump. So he's certainly been at the forefront of a lot of that discussion. That was very interesting to see that that Representative Click, who formerly chaired elections, will now chair public health, which is where Sinfronia Thompson, a longtime representative from Houston, formerly chaired. So there were a lot of swaps. I think the big 30,000-foot view takeaway is that some very important chairmanships were swapped. And that public health one is particularly notable with context from last time, because that was the one, I think it was the heartbeat bill, right, that she did not allow advance. And obviously, that was, I think that was a GOP priority. It is again. And so that was, you know, I think it was Briscoe Cain that filed it so um you know that was a notable casualty for republicans and that kind of spurred that was one of the things that spurred the argument this interim of um you know whether the speaker should even appoint democrats uh to to committee chairmanships especially appoint them

to you know as they call these priority committees that would oversee the legislation of the that would um you know of the GOP priorities. So that one stuck out to me as well. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's also one of the biggest changes that I saw was public education. Representative Dan Huberti from the Harris County area has chaired that committee for a while now, very entrenched in public education issues. And one of the experts in know, experts in the state in terms of policy has been, you know, removed from that chairmanship.

And it was given to Representative Harold Dutton, another very longtime member of the House, one of the most senior members, top five most senior members of the House. But he's a Democrat from Houston, right? So we're seeing a difference in how that committee will be handled, even just in terms of party, right? And that comes at the back end of last session, which obviously school finance reform was half of the top, quote, accomplishments that the legislature did. So Huberti was very involved in that.

He was a public face for it. Absolutely. No, that was very surprising. I think one that a lot of folks who care about the Second Amendment will find interesting is, you know, previously, Representative Poncho Navarro's down Poncho Navarro's from South Texas, chaired the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee, and a lot of, you know, gun bills go through that committee. He is no longer in the Texas House. There was a scandal involving an envelope of cocaine that had his name on it,

just minor stuff. But he no longer serves in the House, and now a Republican, James White, will be serving as chairman of that committee, which could signal some interesting movement for big gun bills like constitutional carry. So we'll see what happens with that. Obviously, then calendars, what has something to say? Explain to our readers or our listeners really fast the calendars committee, what that entails. Well, it just sets, you know, what it establishes the rundown of what legislators will have

on the floor to consider each day. And so once a bill is passed through committee, it can be considered on the House floor. Yes. And then it can also die in the calendars committee. Exactly. Be held hostage there. Yes. And what I think is very interesting there is, you know, gosh, there's been a lot of scandals in the last couple years, but hey, it's politics. What do you expect? But Representative Dustin Burroughs, who was very much involved in some scandal involving a quid pro quo and former Speaker Dennis Bonin, he was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,

had a lot to do with Senate Bill 2, which was the big property tax legislation that passed last legislative session. You know, folks weren't quite sure where he would land, right? After that scandal, you know, Bonin stepped down and said he wouldn't, well, he didn't step down. He said he would not run for re-election. And where did that leave Burroughs? Well, Burroughs actually finds himself in a very powerful position this session, which for us was positive. It's very, very powerful. Calendars is one of the – I would disagree.

Yeah, absolutely. Calendars is a very, very big deal. And it really does – I mean, yeah, calendars is one of the, one of the top committees in the house for sure. Um, and that, like, you know, like we already said that that determines what bills are heard on the floor. So it means he has, you know, the speaker, uh, Dade Phelan has a lot of trust in, in Burroughs and his ability to have responsibility for that committee. And then one last one that I'll mention was, you know,

who would Phelan pick to replace himself on the State Affairs Committee chairmanship? Another very powerful committee. Yes. And he chose Chris Paddy, Republican from Marshall. You know, I think it's especially notable because Paddy had been in the speaker's race. Didn't last too long, and especially when Phelan jumped in, but you know, was there a deal struck? That's kind of how these things work in the Capitol. And so, you know, he gets to oversee the state affairs committee now. Yeah, absolutely. Well, good stuff. We'll certainly be watching to see how these chairmanships shake out in terms of what legislation is let through certain committees, but it will be, it'll be very interesting. Isaiah, thank you for your patience. We are

coming to you. There was some big news this week in terms of Planned Parenthood and Medicaid. Walk us through a little bit of what that entails. Sure. So the headline here is that after a successful day in court for Texas last year, Texas was poised to cut Planned Parenthood from Medicaid. Planned Parenthood is currently on the list of Medicaid providers, and Texas was ready to remove it from the list. But just yesterday, two days ago actually, for listeners, a judge of the 459th Civil District Court in Travis County paused that removal. So Planned Parenthood was fixing to be no longer a Medicaid provider, and now it still

is. Yeah, absolutely. Until when? This is until February. It's not that long that this is actually going to be held out. Potentially. It is, at the very least, a temporary 14-day restraining order until this judge, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, will hold a hearing and consider a longer injunction against the state.

But this had been, you know, before this ruling came down the other day, this week, this had been the end of a very long legal battle. Absolutely. Walk us through a little bit of that history. I mean, it kind of started with some pretty big news that then trickled in some legal matters. Well, back actually when I was in high school, I remember when all this happened. In 2015. You youngin'. Yeah. That was when a lot of these undercover videos of Planned Parenthood saying that they were going to cut Planned Parenthood off from the list of Medicaid providers.

And originally – well, two years after that, Planned Parenthood went to court and got a ruling in their favor at a U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. And the judge there discounted the video and said he was not convinced, this is his words, not convinced all of Planned Parenthood's patients would be able to quickly and easily find new providers if they were prevented from seeing their chosen provider, a harm in and of itself. So then Texas appealed this decision that was initially favorable to the company, and they appealed to the Fifth Circuit and won in November of 2020. The Fifth Circuit held that it was legitimate for Texas to choose its own Medicaid providers, as opposed to the patients in Medicaid choosing which providers

could and could not be on there. And so that was a win for Texas, a defeat for Planned Parenthood. Yeah. In response, Planned Parenthood asked the state to naturally be let back onto the list of Medicaid providers. The state said no. And they also asked for a grace period to refer their patients to other doctors and help transition their patients into new providers. So the state gave them 30 days beginning on January 4th of this year. And

they Planned Parenthood used that time to go to court again and then, you know, receive successfully this ruling from the judge literally hours before that grace period came to an end that would have finalized their removal from the list of Medicaid providers. Yeah. So how to, in terms of how, you know, federal dollars can be spent on these kinds of issues, you know, explain a little bit of that to our listeners. So there are two, two big things to,

to remember about federal dollars funding abortions. The biggest one is the Hyde amendment. This is a very old piece of legislation passed by Congress that mandates that federal money cannot fund abortions. The second one is a 2017 bureaucratic rule signed by, not bureaucratic rule, a bill signed by Donald Trump. There's another bureaucratic rule that goes with it. But during the Trump administration, it was ruled by Congress that abortion providers that also provided other services, obviously very pointed at Planned Parenthood,

had to separate their money that they get from federal funds from the revenue that they generate from abortion. Now, this led to a deal. I'll get into some background here. During a congressional hearing, Representative Steve Russell, a Republican from Oklahoma, asked the leader of Planned Parenthood, Cecil Richards, if federal funds do not go to abortion services, which would have been a violation of the Hyde Amendment, would ending federal funding for Planned Parenthood reduce abortion services? And Richards really couldn't give a very clear answer. And since then, the company, Planned Parenthood, has since turned down federal funds rather than comply with the Trump administration rule that

forbids them from referring patients to abortion doctors. Good stuff. Well, thank you for covering that for us and ensuring our readers are informed. Hayden, we're coming to you. Let's walk through a legislative proposal from a few Democrats that certainly caught the attention of some press. Well, first, I'd like to explain what exactly this bill is. And if we have time, we can talk a little bit about some of the similar policies that have been enacted in the past. What this bill would do is it would prohibit something that is sometimes called conversion therapy, also known as sexual orientation change efforts. Now, this should not be confused with gender transition, which is the process of someone

changing their biological gender. Conversion therapy is, for example, if your 16-year-old comes to you and says, mom and dad, I think I'm gay, and you hire a professional to correct that or to change that, that would be what is known as conversion therapy. And that is, under this law, that would be prohibited for a list of professionals. Pastors would not be on the list. But professionals like licensed professional counselors, chemical dependency counselors, behavior analysts, and other mental health type professionals would be included in that. This legislation really does not have any chance of gaining any traction in

a Republican controlled legislature where traditional value in a state where family values, parental rights, and traditional values are strongly valued and favored. But this type of legislation has passed in other jurisdictions, but it would prohibit conversion therapy, and it would also prohibit therapists from trying to talk a minor out of a gender transition. So they would also have to affirm that minor's gender identity, not their biological or their birth gender, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. So remind our listeners which legislators filed this piece of legislation. Yes, it was Senator, pardon me, it was Senator Jose Menendez, Democrat of San Antonio. It was

also Representatives Anna Hernandez, Democrat of Houston, and State Representative Celia Israel, democrat of san antonio it was also representatives anna hernandez democrat of houston and state representative celia israel democrat of austin awesome thank you hayden for covering that for us bradley we're coming back to you we are just ping-ponging back and forth here uh you alluded to earlier comments from governor abbott regarding emergency powers and maybe some you know uh maybe he might be open to reform walk us through what those comments entailed and whether or not that was, if there's hope for some overhaul. In short, I think there is hope for something. But I would not be too optimistic that it would be very significant at all. Just because to me, it would take a lot for someone to willingly cede their own authority that kind of goes against human nature.

But Abbott kind of alluded to what he would consider, not specifically, but something that preserves the ability for a quick response to a disaster while tinkering at the edges with what can know, what can be done, you know, how forcefully it can be applied, that kind of thing. But, you know, I think this is a response to a significant amount of advocation from the legislature that, you know, they need a seat at the table in these decisions. They need, you know, they are the supreme branch and they should have a say when you are, you know, quite literally nullifying laws, creating laws, you know, that is the purview of the legislature. And there's quite a bit of, you know, opposition to them being left out entirely of the process. But overall, I don't think much will be done, especially with the other priorities that have already been, you know,

brought forward. Yeah. And this particularly, you know, you oftentimes in your pieces talk about, you know, the Disaster Act, right? And how that came back from relative obscurity, right, and to really be applied with a broad stroke post-COVID. Walk us through a little bit of that just to frame, you know, the context there. Yeah, so it was originally passed back in the 70s. It was kind of this legislation shopped around each state by the Council of State Governments. And it was this broad, sweeping, generic legislation to try and help state governments respond better to natural disasters, such as a hurricane. Obviously, especially down on the Gulf Coast, Texas is susceptible to that. And it kind of remained that way for a long time, for decades. But obviously, this is the first time that it has been applied statewide.

And we saw, you know, business shutdowns, a significant amount of deference left to localities. And, you know, a lot of localities took it and ran with it. Some of them didn't. But that's all, it all comes back to the Texas Disaster Act. and really any significant reform that is passed has to start there. Because it is, you know, that is the source that, you know, give, that has given the governor this power over the entire state during this further response. Absolutely. Well, thank you for covering that for us. It'll certainly be something, I mean, we've talked a lot about just the prominent place that this issue has in terms of you know legislative uh overhaul so we'll see if legislators actually sink their teeth into this and whether or not the governor ends up

signing something but i think it was interesting saying that you know abbott saying you know we're we're gonna file something on this and like i said if if the legislature does do anything about this it would be them deliberately trying to pull back authority that, you know, as originally constituted is theirs. Yeah. And, you know, in this world of ceding a lot of decision making to the executive of whatever branch or whatever level of government, you know, that would be something new. We haven't really seen that before. Yeah. At least recently.

Certainly. Thank you for covering that for us. Isaiah, we're coming back to you. We talked a little bit earlier about the heartbeat bill specifically in regard to the committee chairmanships that were announced. Walk us through that proposal. You've covered these, you know, either pro-life, you know, different pieces of legislation very thoroughly. And walk us through this year's heartbeat bill proposal. Sure. So it's coming from state rep Shelby Slauson, a Republican. A freshman. Yes, a freshman. I forgot to mention that. Right now, abortions in Texas are illegal

once the child is viable. And the heartbeat bill would ban abortions from the moment a child's heartbeat can be heard in the womb, which can be as early as six weeks into the pregnancy. This is not a Texas original. It's been tried in a few other states before. But as you mentioned, freshman Republican Shelby Slauson is going to hit the ground running with this one. Yeah. What's a little bit of the history of the proposal? You know, this is something that, like you mentioned, has been passed in other states and tried before in Texas. But walk us through that and maybe particularly what other proposals are on the table in terms of pro-life legislation this session. measures have taken flak for perceived punishments that can be levied against the mother.

And since then, a lot of pro-life measures in and outside of the legislature have taken steps to ensure that the mother is not the target of the punitive action of, you know, whatever law or ordinance it is. So sanctuary cities for the unborn, for example, tomorrow, I'm fixing to write about Shaheen's non-discrimination bill. And there's even a proposed ban on abortion. So a lot of these pro-life measures, all these that I've mentioned, they don't target the mother for punishment. And Slauson's heartbeat bill proposal is the same thing. It would target the physician instead. And previous heartbeat bills, I believe, or other measures along these lines have targeted the physician with, you know, the punishments that can range up to jail time.

And the Slauson would put the physician at the mercy of, you know, getting his license suspended or the mercy of the commission. So more administrative penalties instead of criminal, right? Jail times or felonies or things like that. Yeah, absolutely. You know, what, like we've mentioned, what other states have passed this? Instead of criminal. legislatures, but legal challenges have left them unenforceable or struck down, as in Iowa, Mississippi, and a few other places. Good stuff, Jose. Thanks for covering that for us. Bradley, we're coming to you. Austin and homelessness, two things that seem to be intrinsically connected.

There have been some developments that occurred this week. Walk us through what those are. So voters come May 1st will have a say on whether to reinstate the homeless camping and laying ban in the city of Austin. And that comes after Save Austin Now, the group pushing the petition effort, submitted 26,000 valid signatures to get it on the ballot. You know, they only needed 20,000. And so 26,000 is a significant amount more. But right now, the next step is the city council has to come up with ballot language to put on the ballot for the item, or they could just adopt it outright. I don't see that happening. You know, at the very least, this is going to be put on the ballot because the city council clearly does not want a full reinstatement of the camping and laying ban.

Certainly. So is this the first time this has been attempted? No, they tried this last year. And there was some controversy over the results. The city clerk rejected it using the sampling method. Now, the group submitted far fewer petitions themselves, and it was just above 20,000. And so they had to have a really, really high validity rate in order to meet that 20,000 limit. But they did not.

And they considered legal action. They ultimately, at least that I'm aware of, did not go for that. Instead, they decided to try again. And they collected all these signatures in 50 days. And this time it was successful. Yeah. So in terms of, we kind of know where public support is for these kinds of these kinds of issues. There really is some bipartisan momentum for this publicly in terms of just, you, the entire city council has remained for most of the time of its existence of this, uh, you know, rescission of the camping line ban, um, you

know, in support, they, they passed it, uh, unanimously. They've remained largely in support of it. Uh, they did not want to limit or go back to the way it was before they passed the ordinance. But two days after the group submitted their petitions, Steve Adler, the mayor, he kind of walked back his support for it. He said, you know, it's no longer working. You got to figure something else out. You know, is that a coincidence? I think not. Uh, but then there was, um, you know, it was after shortly after that, uh, council members began to come up with their own plan to change up the, the camping and lying ordinance. And one of the plans councilwoman

and kitchen cam, uh, submitted, it would basically, it would prohibit the camping and lying basically on any public property with some stipulations, but it would not have any real enforcement behind it. Like you wouldn't be able to charge anyone or find anybody for it. So, you know, it wouldn't be that effective if effective at all. Yeah, certainly. Well, thank you for covering that so thoroughly for us. You are certainly on top of the Austin beat.

Daniel, we're coming to you on something that some readers may not be familiar with. Others might be very familiar with. We'll just get it rare. I somehow did not see that coming. And I set you up and everything. You're welcome, Daniel. Thank you. Yeah.

So to walk us through this very unique and rare instance of, I don't know how to end that. I was trying to go with you in your poems, but you should just tell us about your story. Okay. So rare earths are actually not that rare. They're pretty common. Dang. But they're called rare earths anyway. they are 17 metals that are found on the periodic table and many of them are used in pretty much everything you use today so if you used a computer today you have used some kind

of a rare earth if you have an electric car you've got a rare earth there um so that's basically what it is now there is a lot of uh foreign dependence on the supply chain for rare earths, and the U.S. government is trying to take steps to try and decrease U.S. reliance on that. to Linus Rare Earths LTD, which is a company out of Australia and Malaysia, to establish a rare earths processing facility in Texas. Fantastic. So you've already alluded to what rare earths can be used for, but zero in a little bit more on that for our listeners. Yes. So the Department of Defense is actually the one that authorized this investment, so to speak, of taxpayer dollars. And the reason why they did that was it was because of an executive order signed by President Trump in 2017

that authorized the Department of Defense to use the Defense Production Act to kind of incentivize people, businesses, to use rare earth elements and process those more. Now, the Defense Production Act is used for national security purposes. And so as it relates to national security, one of the uses of rare earths is for modern weapon technology. So, you know, night vision goggles or any kind of satellite, anything with a computer in it, basically, or some kind of a battery is going to be using rare earths. So that's why it's kind of important from a national security perspective. Yeah. Does that explain?

Yes, I think it does. Now, zero in on that a little bit more, because what exactly are, you know, is the U.S. as the DOD trying to do by, you know, ensuring that there's a Texas base for this kind of manufacturing? I mean, is there in terms of, you know, U.S. versus foreign manufacturing, what kind of political aim is at play there? Yes. So the big deal about this is it really kind of relates to China. You know, the two greatest geopolitical actors in the world right now are the United States and China. And China really leads the supply and exports of rare earths. They operate the mines. They operate the processing facilities. They really have kind of, I wouldn't go far as to say a monopoly necessarily, but they definitely have a very strong grasp on the rare earths market. And so with the U.S. relying on that for computers or whatever technology that we need that is important to national security and also just for the economy in general, a lot of that reliance is on China. And so as tensions

in the past 10 years have grown high between the US and China, as China has become increasingly more communist, increasingly more assertive on the world stage in ways that are a little bit more hostile to the United States, the United States is looking for ways to kind of back out of that. Now, it's still yet to be seen how the Biden administration is going to kind of tackle the China problem, how we're going to approach this, if we're going to take a step back and kind of let China grow. Or if, like Trump, he's going to kind of step in and be a little bit more assertive against China. So we'll see how that goes. But this step, you know, this was an executive order under Trump that was signed. It hasn't been rescinded by Biden. So, you know, the DOD is still acting on this

to try and increase rare earth production in the United States. And this is big for Texas, too. There's several Texas congressmen who have kind of pushed for more rare earth reliance within the United States. You know, because we have the Round Top Mountain out in West Texas, kind of in the El Paso direction, and that has a ton of rare earths there to be mined. We just haven't quite tapped into that full potential yet. And there's other... Because of a lot of federal regulations.

Yes. The mountain of regulations. Very good. Oh dear. Can we add in a sound effect, Sarah? She's shaking her no. Brad just did add in a sound effect. We have in-house sound effects, Daniel. Okay. Fine. Homegrown.

Homecooked meal over here. Okay, good stuff. Well, thank you for covering that for us. We certainly appreciate it. We're going to pivot to Hayden here. Hayden, you have covered all sorts of crazy, debaucherous things. Walk us through the latest. Hayden's face is shocked over here. Walk us through the latest in terms of, you know, your debauchery.

My debauchery. My debauchery. Your debauchery, yes. Well, this is, I did not perpetrate this particular crime. You don't take responsibility for this? I don't take responsibility. I was hundreds of miles away when it happened. Five individuals from Mexico tried to smuggle 77 individuals into the country and were rapidly, well, I don't know if that's the right word. My grammar gauge is off today. Were quickly apprehended by border patrol officials.

They were also trying to smuggle hundreds of pounds of marijuana and methamphetamine into the country. That was like a wild Friday night. Yeah, it was. Okay. And honestly, y'all, every time we do one of these stories, someone in the, in our social feed says, well, there goes my weekend. I'm like every single time one of these drug busts, but that those narcotics were valued at more than $5 million. I believe it was $5.4 million. And the criminal case is still in its earliest stages because this happened no sooner than January 28.

So within the past week or so. And they have been charged with felonies that could put them behind bars for up to 20 years. At least four of them. And one of them could go behind bars for could be ordered to federal prison for up to 10 years for the offense of trafficking narcotics into the United States. Wow, craziness. I think we'll continue to see more of these stories be part of the narrative as you know, we have different border policies then and different focuses from the previous administration to the current one. Thank you, Hayden, for covering that for us. Daniel, we're coming back to you. Speaking of changes in administrations, walk us through what kind of gun sales, background checks, LTC apps, what are we looking at in terms of guns

here in Texas? Well, it's kind of similar to 2008 and 2012 when Barack Obama was first elected and then reelected. You saw a spike in gun sales. We're seeing the same thing with President Biden and his inauguration last month. Now, it's a little bit different because 2020 was just a crazy year for gun sales. But nonetheless, the sales did kind of skyrocket in January. I like it. So in Texas, what are we looking at in terms of numbers, even from the end of last year? Yeah, so a lot of the numbers, there's not really any specific list of gun sales that happened. The way that we kind of see the trends of gun sales is through the data provided by the FBI through the number of background checks that are conducted that are required when you purchase

a gun or a license to carry. If you apply for a license to carry, you have to have a background check done on you. And so notably in Texas this past month, there were 84,000 checks that were done for the purchase of handguns, which was up 5% from December and 56% from the year before. But even more interesting, a little bit fewer, there are 59,000 checks that were for license to carry applications, which is the highest for a single month ever in Texas. So that means that there are, you know, probably 59,000 people thereabouts who are applying for LTC who want to have a handgun to be able to carry it in the state of Texas. Uh, and you know, that's, that's a huge number. Um, that's a 20% increase

from December. Uh, and it's also almost double what it was, uh, January of last year. Um, so we're definitely seeing just this high demand of people want to be able to carry a gun. Wow. What does that look like nationally? So nationally we we kind of see the same trend where the numbers went up for both the purchases of handguns and purchases of licensed to carry applications or permit applications. It's different from state to state. Some states also require permit rechecks, which kind of inflates the number of background checks across the nation. But all in all, there were over 4 million background checks for gun-related things through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is also another record-setting number for a single month. So it's just a very, very large amount of people who are going out buying guns, getting licenses to carry. So yeah, there's just a high demand for guns. Now in previous administrations, when we saw the election of Obama, it went up really fast. And

then the number of gun sales did kind of taper back down. They still stayed high throughout Obama's administration. And I expect we'll They still stayed high throughout Obama's administration. And I expect we'll see the same thing throughout Biden's administration, if not more so, you know, as gun control policies are put into the spotlight at the federal level. We're also going to see gun pushback from that at the state level. I expect this session that will be one of the big themes that we'll see. Yeah, certainly. Daniel, thanks for covering that for us. Isaiah, we're coming back to you.

One proposal that we've seen offered for the last several legislative sessions is back on the forefront of the discussion. Walk us through what exactly that looks like. Sure. So Republican state refs Jeff Kasin and Brian Slayton have filed a bill that would end in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. And for those of you who don't know, in-state tuition is lower than out-of-state tuition.

And right now in Texas, in the eyes of public universities, according to the law, citizens from other states are naturally counted as out- state. But illegal immigrants who graduated from Texas high schools and have lived here for three years or more count as Texas residents. So they get in-state tuition, which is lower than what an American citizen coming from like Oklahoma would have to pay. Certainly. How is the issue being framed by the authors? I mean, there's certainly a lot of play. We have higher education, we have fiscal issues, walk us through, and we have immigration, border, but walk us through what the framing of this is in terms of legislators. Well, Kaysen framed it as a tax issue, and he characterized the lower tuition for illegal aliens as a subsidy. So in his words, he says, Texans' tax dollars should not be used to reward and encourage illegal immigration to our state and nation.

As Texas taxpayers are seeing their property taxes rise, they are rightfully even more frustrated to find out that the Texas legislature has seen fit to give handouts to illegal immigrants. This must end now. And this proposal has actually been kind of a phoenix for the grassroots wing of the Texas GOP for a while this is the fourth legislature that it's been tried and i believe since uh stickland tried it in uh whatever is 87 minus four that's 83 yes yes good math here we are writers in this office math is not our strong i'm so woefully woefully bad. I'm going to do it. Everybody says that. And anyway, yeah. So Kasen and Sladen are notable conservatives in the House. They were the only two members of the whole House, not just the Republican Party, but the whole House, to vote against handing Dade Field in the speakership.

Yeah, absolutely. And it certainly caused some waves. And it will be interesting to see how they continue to go into this session. There is definitely a divide within the conservative faction of the party. And speaking of that, Bradley, you published a very, very insightful long form piece this week about the Freedom Caucus. So walk us through a little bit of that. Give us a 30,000 foot overview of what that piece entailed and kind of the political context that you delved into. Well, first of all, nice transition there. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was much smoother than my rare earth one. So I appreciate that. Congratulations. Yeah. So we published a piece, you know, detailing the history of the Texas Freedom Caucus and,

you know, where they're at coming into this session. In short, they started out as bomb throwers, ready to stand up to the House leadership as much as they possibly could. And now they're playing a much more diplomatic hand. They see a lot of possibility for their priorities to get passed. And so if you're interested in that, I recommend you go read the piece. It's long, but it has a lot in it.

And we were luckily able to talk to more than a few of the Freedom Caucus members. So yeah, recommend it. I like it. Well, thank you for taking that on. It certainly was a bear of a piece, and it turned out phenomenal. Well, team, let's talk about something fun. Isaiah's favorite part of the week. And Isaiah, this is actually this week's topic is's true you can tell that one well uh daniel asked me earlier today it's like isaiah um if you had you know the whole population of australia's kangaroos at your command what country would you invade and i won't say what i answered but for our podcast um i just proposed if you had an exotic pet, what would it be? Mine would be an army of kangaroos.

That's very well done. Nice, nice pivot. I love the question, the original question. Yes. It's very specific. Well, you see, the reason that I thought about it, and it's a little bit. Daniel, your brain is an interesting place. Well, okay. it makes sense it

makes perfect sense of how i got to this this question so i saw a tweet earlier this week uh it was from medium buying which kind of follows political ad buys and they said that the d triple c was placing new tv ad spending in several districts, including in Dallas, targeting Representative Beth Van Dyne. And someone had a very insightful response to that. They said, quote, this does not change the fact that in Australia there are 48 million kangaroos

and in Uruguay there are 3.4 million inhabitants. So if the kangaroos, and in Uruguay, there are 3.4 million inhabitants. So if the kangaroos decide to invade Uruguay, each Uruguayan will have to fight 14 kangaroos. 48 million? That's how I got to the question. Okay, because I didn't understand. When y'all proposed this as our topic today, I was like, guys, this is ridiculous. I thought y'all were this is our topic today i was like guys this is i thought y'all were actually like joking i didn't realize there was actually like any sort of legitimate backing to the question not that it might mean but it but it has more context than i realized yeah yeah so

i suppose the context helps this it certainly does all i saw was yeah the kangaroo army question without any context whatsoever um let's go back to exotic pets because it's still in the same vein. What exotic pet would you have, Bradley? Why is it so hard to say? Well, I'm glad you asked. Oh, gosh. Are we on good terms after last week? I'm throwing it back to, you know, an actual war instead of an imaginary one between the

Uruguayans and kangaroos. I'm going to go with the emu. Because the Australians, and this is just to upset any Australian that I would ever happen to meet, know, or come across, whether they realize it or not, it would be a slight at them because they lost, they literally lost a war to their emu population. And I feel like this is not talked about enough in this world. Wow. And so part of my life's mission is to spread the knowledge.

Part of your life's mission? Of the great emu war. Okay. I mean, that's fair. One emu at a time. So you're going to adopt an emu? Yeah. How do you?

I mean, if I were to get one, that's what I would do. Okay. Just to slight the Australians. Well, that's what I would do. Okay. Just to slight the Australians. Well, you know what I would do? What? I would, in the same vein, adopt a feral hog. Oh, gosh. Because just as the Australians lost a war to the emus,

Texans are losing a war to feral hogs right now. Yeah. 30 to 50 of them. Feral hog abatement people. And so I think a good way to fight back might be to domesticate them you know maybe maybe turn it i feel like you have a much further shot at that than i do of re-enacting the uh great emi war and taking over Australia for myself. Yeah, yeah, probably. So that would lead me to my answer to the original fun topic question is,

which country would you invade? And I would do Australia. See, that's what I was going to say, too. With your kangaroos? No, with my emus. No, I would do it with the kangaroos. With your emus, okay. We're going to leave the kangaroos off to the side,

just like America did with the Canadians in World War ii there's so much to dig into here i don't know where to start hayden where which question would you like to answer i don't know i feel like that fun topic has become which fun topic should we actually do yeah i don't know i feel like since last week i opened a casino i need to have a pet that would go well with the casino. Maybe like a white tiger. I'm just kidding. You'll have to listen to our podcast last week in order to get background on that.

Yeah. After that, Brad, are we, are we, speaking of which, are we on good terms after last week? I feel like we might need workplace counseling after last week. What happened? Have we healed appropriately? Yeah. What happened?

Have you forgotten? Y'all like had a knockdown drag out over over what which small business you would open oh look at me opening it no that wound is not healed obviously he could because uh obviously we have healed because um yeah what happened oh i did win the twitter poll that's right i totally forgot about this this has been a crazy week so yeah i'm gonna gloat a little bit here's the thing though bradley obviously you have healed because you couldn't recall on twitter you lost so the margin of error of 3.2 percent it was a very close poll that's just a joke because the margin of error i still would

have won even with the margin i know it was a joke going in your favor you are so ridiculous take that people weren't pulled. Are we going to have to separate you two? I think we might have to. I would adopt a laughing hyena just to for the closure of answering the actual fun topic. I appreciate it. I would adopt a laughing hyena. I have no idea why. I feel like

Why? Because they laugh at all your jokes? You know what, Bradley, that's hate speech. Oh my gosh. Yeah yeah that's good stuff um well wonderful well done team you guys are wonderful you didn't answer i don't have an answer but you picked this we have one not two fun topics maybe three if you consider hayden's meta topic of which topic that's so true and you're not answering any of themden's metatopic topic, that's so true. And you're not answering any of them. We were metatopic. Okay. If I had a,

an exotic animal, um, I mean, Sarah is, Sarah's bringing up Joe exotic, which I think is a, a very timely addition to this conversation. I,

you know, I don't know. I don't know what I would go with. Uh, probably, probably, you know, uh, something that you can turn into leather for your leather shop. I don't know. I don't know what I would go with. Probably, you know what?

Something that you can turn into leather for your leather shop. It's actually hilarious. You nurture a baby like crocodile, her wife, then tan it on its deathbed. Unreal. Okay, well, on that wonderfully uplifting note, folks, thank you for bearing with us and have a wonderful rest of your week.