The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 7, 2025

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/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:Senate passes SB 2Abbott Outlines Property Tax Relief, School Choice, Water Infrastructure as Emergency Items in State of the State AddressPublic Education Funding, School Choice 'Billionaires' Feature in Texas House Democrats' Response to Abbott's State of the StateTurbulent Ties: Donald Trump and Chip Roy Navigate Frenetic RelationshipTrump and Abbott Executive Orders on Border Security, Illegal Immigration Take EffectEfforts to Legalize Gambling in Texas Face Senate Roadblock After Gaining Ground in 2023Lawmakers File Texas Constitutional Amendment to Remove Legislature's Authority to Regulate Firearms

One of my favorite moments this week was when I told my husband about the young men that Musk has hired to perform a lot of this. One of them has like the perfect zoomer haircut. Oh my gosh. The broccoli hair. The article that was written was so biased, right? It was unbelievably biased. And it was objectively hilarious to read because a lot of these guys like at the time of the writing this article didn't even have government email addresses like and so the article was written so snarkily andrew started just crying laughing about how it was it was hilarious

howdy folks mackenzie here with br and Cam. It's like the old days. Me with the boys. Mary Lisa's sick, so I'm lone wolfing it today. Why are you laughing? There's nothing even funny. Poor, poor you. You know, based on the comments we got from people at the event. Mack's in for a rough one today. But that's, I think there's, you know, if there's just some outnumbered person on a podcast you

know the empathy is directed toward them i appreciate it especially when one particular member tends to lambast them repeatedly on a podcast right you brought this up you brought it up this is propaganda it's propaganda i did also love seeing who retweeted the clip I tweeted out last week of that exchange where I was very much playing up how, you know, I don't even know the word. Why can't I think of it? How mistreated I am in this podcast, right? Yeah.

And it was very funny to see who retweeted it. I had some lawmakers retweeting it. Oh, really? Yeah. That's funny. It was really funny to see who retweeted it. I had some lawmakers retweeting it. Oh, really? Yeah. That's funny. It was really funny. It was a good time. Well, I enjoy it.

I like to sit back. Sometimes I poke and prod. How do you see your role in that? Because I feel like it changes week to week. Well, I just have to choose my battles. Sometimes I'll take Brad's side side sometimes i'll take your side try to even it out i'm trying to push this forward right okay heat it up you know one day it's really gonna explode yeah and hopefully it's on camera hopefully it's on camera so what differentiates what battles like how do you

choose what battles to be on my side versus brad's is it just what you like what seems fair in that moment or is it like oh i was on max team the last time i'll be on brad's this time well you know i have a running count i have an entire excel spreadsheet of whose side i've taken in these different arguments i've been tracking this meticulously. Yes, of course. No, it's based all on vibes, just how that day's going. Okay, I'll take it. That's pretty fun.

Yeah, well, really it just depends on what you've approved for my newsletter that week. Got it. You gave me a thumbs up to this, I'll take Maxine. That makes sense. Maybe Brad dropped some interesting things, some insight in the office. Okay, I'll take Brad's. That makes sense. Maybe Brad dropped some interesting things, some insight in the office. Okay, I'll take Brad's.

I don't know. Cameron is an insight guy. He's like, oh, it's valuable. I'll take it. Just put it away. Just stick it away. Yeah. Okay.

Well, it's good to know, Cam. Thanks for the insight. You're welcome. Speaking of which. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and jump into the news because I want to save a little bit of time at the end for our tweeter-y because I have a story I want to touch on. I'm very excited about it.

But Cameron, recording Thursday, last night, Wednesday night, was a pretty significant night in the Texas Senate. Of course, this is something we've seen happen before. But regardless, this session, I think there's a lot of hope among Republicans who are supportive of school choice that some sort of school choice bill, an ESA bill, will pass both chambers this year. Walk us through what happened this week with school choice in the Senate. Well, I think it starts on Tuesday with the intent calendar showing SB2 will be taken up today, and then I show up, and they go through all these Senate resolutions, and then they just go to a recess. I'm like, wait, not today. And that turned into a whole thing. But yeah, SB2 school choice proposal in the Senate was taken up on Wednesday, authored by Senator Brandon Creighton. He's the key architect in the upper chamber on all things education.

Everyone was expecting the debate to last long into the night, 4 a.m. possibly. But they really sped through all the amendments, sped through the debate. But there was some really interesting things to come out in that time. I won't bury the lead here. It did end up passing 19 to 12. Shocking. Well, there was one dissenting vote on that by a Republican, Senator Robert Nichols. And so, yeah, and everyone knew it was going to pass. Many of the Democrat lawmakers in the Senate made that known as they were laying out their opposition. But still, some interesting things to come out. At the top, Brandon Creighton laying out the bill, talking about how school choice would provide opportunities not just in education but safety and serving

special needs students or students with disabilities and that was an interesting thing that came up for me during the day yesterday the day of the debate multiple times Multiple times, one example is Senator Paul Betancourt bringing up how school choice could provide opportunities for bullied students to have a new opportunity, leaving an adversarial environment at a previous school. School choice could offer them something different. So I thought that was interesting, something I didn't really think about beforehand. But during the opening proceedings, question and answer sort of portion, there was claims from a number of lawmakers, Democrat lawmakers, about the origins of school choice being rooted in, quote, segregation and racism. This was explicitly stated by Senator Royce West. That was brought up multiple times, but every time Creighton had a response to say school choice is something that is a proposition that's been offered

for decades now. And he was explicitly saying multiple times, that's not the point of this bill. It's for opportunities for students. And Senator West even said, I know that's not your intent with this bill, but that's what's interesting to think about the difference between a contentious partisan debate like this in the House versus the Senate, is the Senate be like okay yes i'll can like i'm making a point about what i perceive the origin of this legislation to have been but i understand that's not your intent or there's some politeness there there is some politeness and in the house that you don't necessarily see that if a point like that would be conceded by a republican at all in the house it would be a very different story

typically depending on who's on the mic but the House. It would be a very different story, typically, depending on who's on the mic. But the House and the Senate are two very different animals when it comes to this line of questioning. Yeah. Well, and so we got through the opening portion there. And finally, we got to the amendments. And we were all expecting upwards of 40, got very close to 40 different amendments. 19 eventually were adopted, all of those being things that were worked on between the amendment author and the bill author. So a lot of congruency with those amendments and the bill there. And, you know, the amendments didn't do too many different, change the bill too much. Most of it was in regard to the Texas Comptroller's Office and how it's going to manage the ESAs and the approval and eligibility of some of these programs that already exist or could exist if school choice ends up passing this year but I think the most interesting part of the night was when

the Democrats in the Senate got an opportunity to speak at length after they passed it on second reading before final passage, everyone gets a chance to either voice their opposition or approval of the bill. And we heard Senator Judith Zaffirini talk about the threat to widen educational disparities that school choice would be taking away from rural and underserved students. We saw other senators like Nathan Johnson speak on the same thing, talking about how it would redistribute wealth to a large degree. Then other urban area senators like Boris Miles spoke about,

he called them vouchers instead of education savings accounts but he said vouchers only exaggerate the inequalities of the public school spaces same thing another urban senator sarah eckhartsham represents austin saying she spoke about how school choice is splitting the Senate even further, saying, quote, a majority in this chamber neglects the essentials to lavish money on a tiny segment of Texans. But I think the highlight of the evening, really, if people were still tuned in, was when Brandon Creighton stepped up to the mic to move on passage he gave a off-the-cuff really speech about the bill and was quite assertive to combat some of the narratives that were being put forward by his colleagues I include

a lot of those quotes in the piece if people are interested in checking them out. He targets some of the comments regarding, he says, fake garbage narratives. And he was very explicit here saying, quote, this bill does not jeopardize public schools. It is a tenet in American history that there is no greater way to improve a service than those that may use that service to have the opportunity to exit. So really putting forward how school choice is the free market option for parents who have children in schools that they're not satisfied with, they can exit and go to a better school. Can I make a couple observations on this? So first, it was interesting that when you were describing Senator Johnson's argument, he loves making arguments on the grounds of the political right.

You know, he loves using arguments for his purpose, but using the premises that the right of center Republicans usually operate from. Attack the right from the right. Right, exactly. He did that in the panel that we had on infrastructure. So just an observation there. But also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Senate's version, it's a randomized lottery for who qualifies, correct? From what I understand, if the pool exceeds the number of students it's allotted for. So there's $1 billion allotted out of the surplus for these ESAs,

and it's estimated to serve around 100,000 students. So if there's more than 100,000, it would move to this lottery system. But I have it in my notes here. I'm looking for this 80% number. If the man exceeds the available spots, then prioritization gives up to 80% of positions to students from low-income households or with disabilities who previously attended public school with the remaining slots determined by lottery.

The remaining 20%. Okay. I've heard that the house in their version, whenever that comes, is going to have it all indexed based on need, financial or special needs. Okay. Who knows if that's going to come true, but that's kind of the word on the House side. Chairman Buckley hasn't released his version yet, but that sounds like... Committee assignments, but we assume it's Chairman Buckley. Yeah. The governor cited him specifically

in the emergency item list, or the State of the State Address. So that seems to be, even though they're on par right now with, they're in line together on the amount appropriated to this. That seems to be something of a discrepancy right now, but obviously we'll see what comes out. Yeah, and we saw versions of this last session, that sort of tiered system, giving prioritization to low-income families by a certain percentage over the, or under the, like, a certain salary percentage. And kids in failing schools, too, right? Failing schools, students with disabilities.

So, yeah, we've seen versions of this in the 88th session. But like I mentioned at the top, this did end up passing. An interesting comment though, right after the bill was passed, Dan Patrick took the mic and he said, quote, your bill was passed and we now look for the House, after this being the sixth time we passed school choice, to finally step up and give this opportunity to every child in Texas. So Dan Patrick adding his own little jab in there at the end. But he is right. This moves to the House now and historically had a lot of trouble getting through committees and eventually to the floor. But in your conversation with House Speaker Dustin Burroughs

during the session kickoff event, he said that he does believe the votes are there to pass school choice. Universal school choice. Universal school choice. Universal school choice. So I don't know if that's just rose-colored glasses with the changes since the election. You know, many pro-school choice Republicans making it into the House. I did, we'll get into this later, but in the response to the State of the State address, I went and attended a press conference with House Democrats and Gene Wu spoke and said that he believes some of the yeses might be, quote, wishy-washy. Like the Republican yeses. Yeah, totally.

So a lot to be determined here, but just some updates for people there. Yeah, and Cameron has written a ton about the bill itself. So for folks who are wanting a deep dive on what is actually in the bill, I think there's a lot of misinformation and confusion about what's in the bill. So certainly go read those articles as well. And I think it was interesting. Like, you watch the whole debate in the Senate. It was very cordial, very Senate-like.

At the end, when folks spoke in opposition to the bill and then Creighton spoke obviously in favor of his own bill, it got much more fiery, right? That's when the punches were not pulled. Well, he even said that he had prepared notes to speak on, but he said he was going to deviate from those because of the things he was hearing from his colleagues. So yeah, it was interesting. Some spicy quotes from both sides. Yeah. We knew it was going to pass in the senate so now that it's going to be going to the house this is where things really heat up uh especially if this year is going to be anything like last session it's going to be down to the wire very last day you know because last year there the craziest thing for me last year was when all the when the senate uh proposals all those didn't make it through any the house committees to the floor

and then none of the house proposals obviously didn't make it through through committee and it was like 48 hours before sine die and uh senator creighton like took some random education bill and put it in a committee and just like warped like warped it and all sorts of stuff to make it some sort of school choice bill yeah and like i remember just like running down to the camera like there's a committee happening. But yeah, things were crazy last session, but I'm sure we're going to see a lot of the same this year. Absolutely. It's going to be very interesting.

Well, Cameron, thanks for watching that one. I have 746 last night. Cameron sent Rob and I messages. Creighton is fired up. So go read the article to find out exactly what was being said. But great coverage, Cameron. Yeah. Let's talk about the state of the state address, Brad. That happened on Sunday. The governor laid out a lot of emergency items, kind of walked through his vision for the legislative session. What was that setting like you were there in person? It was in Austin at Arnold Oil Company, which I think has been in existence since before World War II.

Moved to Austin in, I think, the 50s roughly. But it was in a warehouse. It was pretty hot in there. A lot of people were complaining about that. A little firsthand side note there yes um but they had a stage and they were doing okay i think kxan was doing a production at panel afterwards which was interesting because creighton got fired up there too yeah and uh he basically took the whole five minutes they had um for the panel yeah and uh just blew right past the moderator because he was

um jabbing with talarico after talarico said some stuff and he's also been very vocally um opposed to school choice and he's kind of a house well there's multiple house democrats who are very at the forefront of that discussion but talarico is one of them right he's he's the most well-spoken he's out there yeah um so the the set they had a couple fire trucks in there they had uh I think it wasn't exactly a SWAT van but it was something like that some kind of special operations police unit um a couple other it was all thematic based on what he was going to talk about in this speech um there were over a thousand people in there and it was a it was a big event um you know the governor gave his typical very rehearsed speech but i will say there was one moment that wasn't really rehearsed. He paused to recognize

Alexis Nungere, the mother of Jocelyn, a 12-year-old from Houston who was murdered by two Venezuelan illegal immigrants, and the governor visibly got choked up. It was a drawn-out pause. Yeah. I mean, typically, it was definitely a planned pause. But those usually last like three seconds. This lasted 10 minutes. I thought my live stream cut out or something. Yeah.

And the governor was clearly choked up about it. So I just found that notable because he's accused a lot of being a robot. And he comes off that way when he's delivering speeches because he's very regimented. He knows exactly what he wants to say. Very disciplined. He sticks to it. Very disciplined. But that moment wasn't.

So I thought that was probably the – that was definitely the most unscripted part of the night. That was the first time I've seen that from the governor ever. Yeah. I don't think I've seen a moment where he's – where there's been emotion like that. He was literally struggling to yeah voice words yeah um but and you know very understandable horrible situation and the mother was family was sitting right there including alexis so um yeah there was that yeah well let's talk about the themes of his um layout right this is like i said emergency items but also just items,

even if they're not on his emergency list, the governor wants to see move forward this session. So let's talk generally just about the themes before we get to those emergency items. So his first theme was a classic hit from the governor. A classic hit. Talking about the state's economy and how much it's boomed. He said, quote, Texas is the most powerful economy in America, ranked as the best state for doing business for 20 years. Texas is number one for the most new jobs, number one for economic development, and number one as the best state

to start a new business. Texas is a blueprint for America's future. If there's one theme Abbott's entire governorship has, it's that. I mean, that is the thing he hits on more than anything else. And obviously it's pretty broad, and it touches on a lot of different actual policy points. But that is his, you know, if he hangs his hat up tomorrow, that's probably the thing that he'll be most remembered for or himself want to be most remembered for well everything from big tech companies like elon musk moving spacex and uh x here to chevron yeah you know

coming here so yeah he had you know it's it's one thing to just say it but it's another thing to have the proofs in the pudding there yeah and anytime you see texas ranked anywhere whether it's a mag like an economic magazine or some think tank giving texas kudos for its economic stability or growth you'll see a press release from the governor's office it's like hey check this out right like they this is a messaging point for his office yeah and you know it was going, the early stages of it were going on under Rick Perry, previous governor, but, and probably George Bush as well. You know, this has been a long running theme, but it has really revved up for a number of different reasons during the time that Abbott has happened to have been governor. And, you know, he's been a part of that, trying

to bring businesses to the state, basically being a marketing agent for the state, promising low tax and no income tax specifically and low reg. So that was how he opened. He listed out his emergency items, and we'll touch on that in a minute, but some things that he mentioned that didn't make the emergency item list, Texas nuclear fund. He didn't say that specifically in the speech, but that's in terms of the background information that his staff provided. He wants to see basically what we saw itemized in the House budget, a Texas nuclear fund. We'll see how much money they put in that. But, you know, that may be one of the horse trading issues down the line that the House gets in exchange for giving the Senate something. Or maybe the Senate will just get on board. I don't know. I think wildfire stuff was talked about in there. He brought up some firefighters who aided in combating the California wildfires. Yep.

You touched on a lot of stuff. I have it all in the piece, so if you want to read it all, go for it. But he then hit on a closing note that this also is kind of a classic hit for the governor, especially in conclusion when he's delivering his message. He said, quote, freedom is the power that turns ashes at the Alamo into victory at San Jacinto. Freedom is the force that propelled Texas to global economic dominance. Freedom is the force that propelled Texas to global economic dominance. Freedom is the spirit behind family businesses like Arnold Oil that endure for generations. Freedom is the inspiration that drives students like Raya and Jeremiah, two students he'd mentioned when he was talking about career technology development,

to choose the path that's best for them. More than anything is freedom that will make Texas stronger, safer, and more prosperous than ever in history of our great state. And that's how he signed off. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let's get to the, you know, main event here. What were the emergency items? And explain quickly again why these are important.

These are not just things that the governor's prioritizing. It actually gives some constitutional authority to the legislature to address these items ahead of some deadlines. It is symbolic, first of all, in that this is what the governor feels is our must passes. And it's not entirely encompassing of everything that he wants to see passed, but this is, you know, if there's going to be special sessions, it's going to be probably things that didn't pass that were on this list. Now, the practical application is that by listing out emergency items, the legislature can get around the constitutional 30- and 60-day moratorium on passing things through committee or on the floor. Through committee is 30 days.

On the floor is 60 days. So any legislation after he delivers this that applies to any of these categories is available to skip the line, basically, and get past that moratorium. So that's the practical application. On to the items. Property tax relief was the first one mentioned. Not surprising. You know, this is U.S., McKenzie, U.S., Lieutenant Governor Patrick. During your interview, you know, we've back, basically we're back here again two years later after a massive tax cut wanting another one. Is this sustainable? And Patrick's answer, if I recall correctly, was kind of like,

nothing's truly sustainable, but when we have the money, we should do it. I think it was in reference, my question was in reference to homestead exemptions specifically, right? And say that that's the Senate's preferred method of property tax relief in the last few sessions here. And so is it sustainable to come back each time and just do another one, like continually add to that? Well, the other thing with the homestead exemption, and this is a reason Patrick wants it, is that it's amending the Constitution. So if on compression, if the legislature runs out of money to appropriate for this, they have to cut, they can just cut it through general law, through the budget, but they can't cut the homestead exemption. That remains in place unless you repeal it and reduce

it, amend the constitution again to reduce it, which of course is not going to happen because that would take a lot. Nobody's going to, unless we're in a financial crisis, nobody's going to vote to basically increase taxes like that. So the governor wants compression. He did not specifically name the homestead exemption. Given how things turned out last time, I think he'll probably take it when Bush comes to shove. But if left to his own devices, he has said that he wants Texas to be, quote, on a path to eliminating the property tax through buying down with compression. And the plan that he has kind of played footsie with in the past was the TPPF plan, effectively, of putting 90 cents of every surplus dollar towards buying down local school district rates.

Patrick has said that's flat out not going to happen. It is impractical, and it would cost way more money than we'd have to distribute. And it's just, you know, you're not always going to have a huge surplus. And this session is evident of that. We have a huge surplus, but this session is evident of that. We have a huge surplus, but not what we had last time. So when you raise the bar based on the amount of surplus you have, you have to cover that the next session. Otherwise, property taxes are going to go up even higher than what they normally would under standard operating procedure. So we'll see what happens there. But the big thing for this item for Abbott is

requiring tax increases at the local level, whether it's school districts, counties, cities, to be approved by two-thirds of voters. That is going to be a high lift in legislature, I think. Possible, especially if he puts his force behind it. But that's a transformational change, the likes of which we saw even maybe even more so, even more pronounced in 2019 with the caps put on through SB2 and HB3. Well, that's where sometimes this angle comes in where it's not just like, okay, let's use surplus or let's do the homestead exemption, like something the legislature can do, but it's like how can we inform voters, hey, this is happening, or make it more difficult for localities to do it based on voters themselves, right?

Even just implying like the ballot language where, you know, this will result in a tax increase, like those kinds of things being added to ballot language when there is that kind of, you know, move taken by a local authority. Like this is another way that folks, you know, move taken by a local authority. Like, this is another way that folks at, you know, in the state are trying to combat. Well, and, you know, the local governments are going to fight this tooth and nail because not only does it drastically change the way we do property taxes now, which is exactly what Abbott wants, right? Like, there's the pro and con on

both sides of this. But it would really, by necessity, hamstring their ability to pass a tax increase when they deem they need to. Now, that's the whole point of this. Because they're deemed to be, by the state Republicans, to be passing onerous and excessive tax increases when they don't need to. They would obviously say that's not true we only increase it when we have to for services that we provide so that's why sorry which is why you're saying it could be difficult to get through the legislature because there are a lot of Republicans who are usually rural potentially who would have this issue with their localities because the again the role of the local government is um

obviously very important in this state but there's that argument between sects of the republican party where it's like okay who's the authoritative form of government is it the state or the local and that's where some of this will come into play yep so those are the top items on property tax relief abbott called for a, quote, generational water infrastructure investment. Senator Charles Perry has indicated he'd love to have $5 billion for this fund. I'm not sure if he's going to get it. He'd take probably $2.5 to $3 billion, but he wants $5 billion. He'd take it. He'd take it.

Just $2 to $3. Just a measly $2.5 to $3 billion. But everyone is on board there. Something as big as going to happen on water infrastructure, the three, the House, the Senate, and the governor are all aligned. By and large, maybe quibble with some details, but that's going to pass. Abbott called for a teacher pay raise. I think it's notable that he did not

include a school funding increase among this. And when I asked his team about it, they said not a basic allotment increase. He'll call for other like more targeted programs, whether it's special ed, funding increase or career technical, that's another thing. Expanding career training, that was another emergency item. So that, to me, was quite notable. Yeah. Because we saw the deal last session was, yeah, you get an ESA program, but it comes with a teacher pay raise and a school funding allotment increase, a basic allotment increase. So the governor is not pushing the issue there.

Well, Representative Buckley, when he was on our panel, said, or at least he hinted at, there's going to be two separate bills. Yeah. One being public education funding, which could probably most likely include those teacher pay raises, and then an ESA bill. That way, separate the issues and give lawmakers an opportunity to vote for one, vote for both, vote for neither. And I think Speaker Burroughs told me that he thinks it won't be tied together. You'll have two separate things. Now, the question is, in that funding bill, is it just teacher pay or does it include a basic allotment increase? increase um you know democrats especially but also um the the republicans who were not gung-ho school choice last session are going to be pushing hard and maybe even more than that are going to be

pushing hard for a basic allotment increase um and basic allotment typically just means we're talking about like per student right dollar amount well you sorry, the number on the basic allotment is still something that is constantly debated about. Yeah. Because it just depends on which figure you're looking at. Is it just the number that's produced by the fiscal analysis on these basic allotments coming from the state legislature or is it something coming from the TEA and then there's separate policy institutes that are doing different analyses on the total amount of dollars being sent to an ISD or to public education where they're including you know the maintenance and operations dollars that can, that if they distribute that into the basic allotment, it raises it in some portion, you know,

it's. There's some accounting. There's, yeah, everyone can kind of create their own narrative based on these different numbers on if the basic allotment is at appropriate amount or not. Well, then it's, it's not the only aspect of school funding right when you include everything i think the total climbs to what ten thousand dollars roughly per student yeah or maybe more i don't know the exact number but it's more than the basic it's more than yeah that's the thing because i think it's like nearing 12 i want to say yeah i'd have to look at some articles that i because i've included the two separate numbers basically um because there's one that shows a higher number if it's coming from tppf and then there's another one that is lower if it comes from raise your hand texas um just because of

how they're calculating just the different calculations include in this yeah yeah um yeah so there's that that brings me to esa's which is on this i think we've spilled enough not ink we're talking whatever that is um the on that so the other couple that we had on this list bail reform that is attempting to again pass a constitutional amendment that would prohibit judges from giving PR bond or low-cash bail to individuals who were accused and arrested and charged with violent offenses. We've talked about this a lot. Holly with us has written on it a lot. I've written

on it some. It's a big issue across the state, especially in Harris County. But they did not have the support in the lower chamber to get to the 100 vote line required to pass a constitutional amendment and i believe they were i think eight or nine short so that you know after 24 in the election and the democrats and what happened you might see more willing to jump on that jump behind that and even republicans like the same few republicans that maybe were you know oh no this is a constitutional amendment yeah this is a totally different but there are two more republicans yes so um it has a better chance of passing now i think than it has passed but that's still you know democrats if they stick together and they want to kill this thing they can kill it

yeah and republicans can do nothing about it But you'd also argue this session they're more motivated than ever to kill those kinds of Republican bills with the climate in the House right now. Also, Holly wrote a piece this week on it, and she got a quote from Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus Chairman. Killer quote. And he said, you know, essentially, if it's a reasonable outline of policy, he said, what, if it's not hella bad. Yeah, that's exactly what he said. Then we'll play ball with it or at least consider this.

We won't just kill it out of hand. So more chance than we've seen before on that one, but we'll see. And then finally, Governor Abbott called for the creation of a Texas Cyber Command in San Antonio. Focus there because UTSA is really big on cybersecurity and also just the military footprint

there already. Not sure who's going to carry that bill in either chamber, but probably someone from San Antonio. They'd be smart. If he wants a a republican or might be uh derazio or lahood in the house um are there any senate republicans in san antonio i don't think so probably have a sliver i'd have to look yeah yeah but it would not be by and large. But maybe they give it to Jose Menendez. That's possible.

I don't know. It depends on how they want to strategize this, if it's even an objectionable policy from one partisan side or the other. I don't think so. I think that'll be something that passes pretty easily. So, yeah, there's the emergency list. There you go. I'd encourage folks to go read Brad's piece. We've also had several pieces come out since then spotlighting specific

emergency items. So go read those. Holly has one on bail reform. Cameron's going to have one on the cyber command. So all sorts of different things to check out. Okay. Cameron, you've mentioned this earlier, but Democrats responding to Abbott's state of the state. So after the governor gave this address, the next day, because there was an immediate response that evening, but the next day there was a press conference. You attended. What were the talking points? Well, they gathered at Palmer Lane Elementary School in Austin, which is significant because Abbott had given a press conference there when he signed House Bill 3 in 2019. Back in the day.

Back in the day. Back in the day. So very specific location there. But this was in response to the State of the State Address, specifically on ESAs being named an emergency item. And we've mentioned his name already, James Tallarico, who was at that roundtable afterwards and got into it with Creighton. He spoke after at this press conference as well, and he said,

quote, our state government has failed to do its fair share of school funding. That was a continued theme throughout the press conference, hitting on public school funding. I did include some numbers in this piece to try and provide some context for people who might be interested. For example, the Texasas public policy foundation they published information analyzing year-over-year public school funding by the texas government they note here quote since abbott took office the state has increased funding by more than 30.9 billion even after adjusting for inflation 2023 was still the year with the highest funding with an inflation adjusted increase of 23 percent uh so again this is like we were talking about with the basic allotment

the democrat members of both the house and the senate hitting on uh public school funding, but the numbers are up for debate. So I just tried to provide some context there. Multiple times at this press conference, they were calling ESA's vouchers, calling it, quote, a big grift. Rep Gina Hinojosa said, quote, Governor Abbott will pillage and plunder our schools until there is nothing left. Um, Rep. Retta Bowers, she talked about, again, like Senate Democrats did at one point,

Retta Bowers talked about, um, how there's going to be a, uh, inequity attributed to how school choice will be enacted, specifically talking about how black families, black children will be affected by this. Again, in the piece, try to provide some context for people on how different demographics view school choice legislation there was a recent university of houston hobby school poll that found 70 percent of black texans expressed support for school choice legislation that would be available to all parents when prompted specifically with a question regarding education savings accounts 69 percent of all texans in the poll support a program of that kind for all parents. Pivoting in this press conference, there is a big focus on the, quote, billionaires that are driving the school choice legislation here in Texas. For example, Tallarico, he called out by name Jeff Yass, Tim Dunn,

Ferris Wilkes, also called out Betsy DeVos. I haven't heard her name come up in a while, but he called her out at one point. So there was a lot of things going on during this press conference, but like I mentioned, again, during our earlier discussion at the top of this podcast is about this wishy-washiness that Gene Wu mentioned. He said that some on the yes side of this debate could go either way. So just some interesting things to come out there. Obviously, during the election, there was a big change in the number of pro-school choice House members to enter this lower chamber. So it's going to be a bit tougher for House Democrats to fight back this time. I'll be interested to really see if what Gene Wu said about some of these yeses being wishy-washy, if that actually comes to fruition. But just some interesting comments to come out after the state of state by these House Democrats.

Absolutely. And go read the article. It's a spicy one. Okay, well, Brad, we're going to quickly touch on an article from Mary Elise, since she's out today. She wrote a great story about the relationship between President Donald Trump and Congressman Chip Roy, which has certainly been one that has played out very publicly, oftentimes with the president lambasting Congressman Roy or calling for somebody to primary him, even after even a filing deadline. But we'll get to that in a minute. But, you know, Mary Lee sat down with Congressman Roy, and I think he spoke very candidly about that relationship and kind of explained some of the background.

Fascinating. Yeah. So walk us through it. Yeah, she put a lot of work into it, did a very good job. It was a great piece. It turned out very well. Goes through the whole and everything you know the the first term then roy objecting to the objection of the seating of the electors in the 2020 election um the various spats since the recent one over the um raising the debt ceiling and the budget speaker johnson of course

being a cornerstone of that conflict yep um the part where you kind of referred to it when he when trump called for the uh someone to primary roy in 23 and he did so two weeks after the filing deadline in Texas. Or I should say his staffer tweeted that out or truthed it out, whatever. I don't mean to get us off too far. I'll just make this one comment. There's a scene in this series called Art of the Surge where it's documenting the Trump campaign for this most recent presidential election. And one of the scenes shows how these tweets are sort of put together and actually put out or on social. And it's Trump sitting there vocalizing what he wants to truth out. And he

has someone typing it for him. And camera then so it shows trump sitting next to this woman doing this and then the camera goes to behind him and you can see her like putting things in all caps yes and stuff and like the hallmark trumpism yeah it's just funny like he someone's dictating what he's saying into tweets and and she's like, does that look good? And he's like, yeah, put it out. That's so interesting. It's exactly how you think. Or, you know, I think we all picture him on his phone in Air Force One or something, like, tweeting things out.

Well, I'm sure that. Certainly can happen, but that's very interesting. Well, Stafford didn't do enough research on this one, and they released that after the filing deadline. Which, of course, made everyone in Texas laugh. Yes. But the president. Anyway, I'll highlight one thing that she had in here about, it's not constant, but

about the resurfacing conflict between them and the insinuation that there's bad blood between them. Roy told Mary Lee's, quote, there are forces in Washington who thrive on the conflict of trying to create a wedge between President Trump and ideologically aligned conservatives. Roy being one of the foremost ones, we saw a lot of the anonymous or not so anonymous Twitter accounts that, like, cat turd, that just love anything Trump does. That's real, people. For the record, that's a real account.

It's amazing that a thought leader in politics today is named cat turd. A thought leader in politics today is named Cat Turd. A thought leader. But, like, also one of my favorite things is on Twitter right now is Cat Turd versus Cat Turd, where they pulled two tweets of his together of totally contradictory statements, one of which was about Chip Roy, and he's like, I'm really impressed by Chip Roy. And he's like, Chip Roy is the worst thing since sliced bread, basically, whatever. He does that a lot. So clearly an intellectual heavyweight over there.

But Roy's assertion here in this piece is that there are people who either just like seeing the president take swipes at people like Roy where they have a vested interest in encouraging that kind of divide between the president and someone like Roy. That's like the thesis of Roy's interview with Mary Elise. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a great piece. Give it a read. But, yeah, that's the gist. Solid solid end it really is awesome piece yeah it because there is i was so happy she got a chance to sit down uh with chipboard because there was a lot of interesting things to come out in that conversation um like for example oh gosh, if I can find this quote. He says,

Roy chose, I'm reading from her piece here, Roy chose to endorse Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the 2024 presidential election, a decision that congressmen said people often point to as an example for him working against trump this and then she has here well this is a quote well governor desantis is a very good friend of mine an exceptional efficient governor he said quote i was delighted to go campaign with uh with and for governor desantis just as ted cruz was my good friend when he campaigned in 2016. It's politics. I think just those last two words, it's politics. I think that's what people need to keep in mind.

There's the public-facing issues, and then there's all the politics that happen behind the scenes. And so when the outrage generation machine revs up that's only one aspect of it there's conversations and deals and meetings and all sorts of relationships happening offered behind the scenes yeah that we have no clue about and so to just keep that in mind when you come across a tweet from someone or even a press release or if they say something on the House floor or the Senate floor here or even in the federal government, let's continue talking about the president, Cameron, you wrote a piece giving some updates on the border and immigration since Trump took office. Run us through your piece.

Well, President Trump declared a number of executive orders, like we all know, right after he took the OTAB office, national emergency at the southern border, declaring drug cartels as foreign terrorist organization, also an executive order clarifying, seeking to clarify birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. We have begun to see some of these executive orders go into effect. For example, since Trump took office, Fox News has obtained numbers. I tried looking. There's no official numbers yet, so the only thing I could find was sourced figures on these numbers. The best I could find here was from Fox News saying there had been a 60% drop in migrant encounters at the southern border. Furthermore, from January 20th through January 26th, there were just 7,287 migrant encounters compared to 20,086 encounters in the final week of the Biden administration. You know, that can be attributed to the CBP

shuttering access to some of these ports of entry, ramping up the military presence at the border, but also the CBP One app. That was a huge deal when we saw right after the inauguration alerts going out that the CBP One app was not going to be accessible by anyone. So people who had made appointments to check in at ports of entry were looking at their CBP one app and all of a sudden saying you're, you don't have access to that appointment scheduled time thing. So very interesting there. Also, Trump has directed federal agencies to immediately remove illegal aliens. We've seen Tom Homan come out and say border crossings are down 93 percent.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that's ICE, they have begun this arrest campaign of these illegal aliens. At first, it was a few hundred per day. They were releasing those numbers daily. Trump wanted to encourage more. That number has gotten up to over 1,000 per day on multiple occasions. And obviously, illegal immigration, border security, not just a federal issue texas has taken a more assertive stance on these things governor greg abbott has issued a number of executive orders on one day he issued five of them because of this new he says partnership with the trump

administration and abbott has directed, quote, tactical strike teams to work in coordination with Homeland Security to locate and arrest these criminal illegal aliens. Similarly, we saw a memo that was signed by both Abbott and CBP Commissioner Pete Flores, which allows the Texas Army National Guard to arrest illegal aliens suspected of violating federal immigration laws, including illegal entry. So lots of things happening. You know, it's been, what, two weeks since Trump has now in his second administration. I thought one of the more interesting things that's happened recently is Trump Saying he's going to be utilizing Guantanamo Bay as a holding facility for illegal immigrants

So Everyone who's been abreast to this illegal immigration issue Trump ran on it. He's begun to enforce it and another interesting wrinkle to this is trump attempting to uh relocate the illegal immigrants to their country of origin when they're being deportated so we deportated i i'm trying to talk and think at the same time and it came out weird um because i don't have it in my notes so. I'm trying to talk and think at the same time, and it came out weird. Because I don't have it in my notes, so I'm just trying to think. Deportated is so good.

So there was flights scheduled to Colombia, and the Colombian president said, nope, can't have these flights. Like revoked American permission to be in their airspace or whatever. Well, then Trump threatened tariffs. And then they said, okay, never mind. I just saw a story, totally off topic,

that the Colombian president said, cocaine's only as addictive as whiskey. It's no different. Oh, my gosh. And guess which company is the, or not company, country is the largest exporter of cocaine. Huh. Colombia.

Fascinating. Anyway. Columbia. Fascinating. Anyway. That's so crazy. Yeah, so just some updates for people there on the implementation of a lot of these executive orders. Wild stuff. Cameron, thanks for putting it all in one place for us. I think we should change our style guide to accept the word deportated. That was a big moment for me. It sounded right at first, too. I was like, that doesn't sound right, but it does. I think we should change our style guide to accept if we're deportated.

That was a big moment for me. It sounded right at first, too. I was like, that doesn't sound right, but it does. It took me a second. Cameron, thanks. You're welcome. Bradley, let's quickly, you wrote a piece about the gambling issue in the legislature. What's the latest developments there?

So the governor came out this week, and after a poll was put out that showed pretty overwhelming support for the three general kinds of gambling expansion we're talking about that's resort style casinos sports betting on mobile apps and live wagering in sports books on-site at athletic arenas the governor came out and said i told the chronicle i don't have a problem with online sports betting the reality is i'd be shocked if there were not some teans that do it already. He's previously indicated support if a bill were to ever reach his desk that he would sign it on legalized gambling at resort-style casinos. So there's the governor that's kind of spun this issue back up right now, but ultimately, and check out the piece for a lot more detail on all of it and the arguments for and against, but ultimately the senate is the

roadblock here and lieutenant governor as well uh lieutenant governor has maintained that there's not enough support in the senate um he's not bringing anything up that doesn't have gop majority support in the senate itself um the uh the lobby the gambling lobby which is you know has over 100 if not more than that lobbyists across the board believe that that's not quite true they think they have quiet supporters who are not wanting to cross lieutenant governor but ultimately the um but whether they're looking for casino expansion or the sports betting they want to at least preserve the ground that they've gained up until this point and so sports betting passed the house very narrowly in 23 uh casinos did not they got eight votes shy um and then it just kind of petered out, especially because the Senate said we're not moving this.

We'll see who files what, how much effort is put behind these, or do they just kind of call off the dogs for this session, say it's a wash. But regardless, this is a very long, drawn-out fight and effort that's going to take multiple sessions. And I'll give one quote that I got from a Republican, Cody Harris, who voted for both of the provisions last time. At our event, I asked, what's the story here? Is this going to pass? He goes, I think that's a gambling question. It's a question for another legislature. We don't have time or the bandwidth for something that probably does not have the votes to pass.

So why waste it? And I think that's pretty much how it's going to end up. But still an issue that's going to be talked about. We'll see if the Senate changes on anything. Read the piece if you want a lot more detail about the arguments for and against. I quote a pretty good study in there from TPPF's Derek Cohen on the financial benefits and the potential downsides socially. So check it out.

Absolutely. Makes me think of Luca. RIP. If you know, you know. Okay, let's move into the Twittery section here. Actually, I'm going to quickly plug the fact that we have a bunch of, all of our panels at this point are up and available for folks to listen to from our 89th session kickoff event that we held last Tuesday. And they're awesome panels. So we've referenced them a ton even just in this podcast because we heard a lot from state lawmakers that was of interest certainly some news was broke I think the school choice panel ranked number one in our survey to attendees as their favorite

and I think the lieutenant governor and the speaker were second and third after that so top panels we have awesome discussions with all sorts of different lawmakers about the border about the dynamics between the house and the senate even a conversation about the state's financial outlook with the comptroller really good stuff and i'm not just saying that because i work here and i believe it but it's really interesting stuff let's move on to the section um brad let's start with you so the house members had their football game this time or this week on uh is that wednesday a tradition tuesday i think it's tuesday it's a tradition they do it every session it's like a um flag football game held at ut stadium sometimes they have it at a&m

but i don't remember the last time i was. Was that last time? I heard somebody talking about that. Okay. But anyway, they do upperclassmen against freshmen, and there's a lot of freshmen this time around. Normally the upperclassmen spank the freshmen because there's just not a lot of them. They're playing both ways. They're getting tired.

They're getting tired. The number of them that has the athletic ability to dominate is usually the chances of that is less. But this time around with such a big freshman class, they matched the upperclassmen pretty well, and they won 30-24. I think that was the first time in like 12 years that the freshmen won, and then the last time before that was like 30 years before but the most um it's not fun but the the most careful a very interesting a very i'm trying not to use the word interesting because

we say interesting all the time very do noteworthy part of this byproduct is looking at who shows up the next day with injuries. Because there's a bunch of middle-aged or older individuals who are doing physical activity. Sure enough, we had a couple injuries. We had Briscoe Cain faceplant into the turf, almost scored a touchdown on it. I think we have a video of it. There's a video on Twitter. It was a pretty good play, pretty acrobatic. He just didn't quite get in, but he's got a scrape on his forehead.

You can see that on Twitter at some point. I heard Trent Ashby either pulled a calf or twisted an ankle. But then the big one was Wes Friedle, freshman from Brady. He separated his shoulder, and he went into surgery. Yeah, a more substantial injury. Wow. So a tradition unlike any other. Yeah.

Very good. Cameron, what about you uh i just wanted to bring up all the us aid discussion that's been happening online yeah and i think for the average person they were really unaware of how much of the federal government is sending to organizations through this USAID program. For people in the media who follow the news really closely, have sort of known about this for decades now, but I just think the awareness of it being so much light being shown on what's happening with the USA, I think, is a good thing, at least with how the Trump campaign ran on greater transparency in the federal government. He's fulfilling that campaign promise here but I wanted to at least highlight a comment from a Democrat uh Chris Murphy Democrat Senator from Connecticut there was a big press conference there's been multiple press conferences actually with these as always with the Senate Democrats because they've really

they've been kind of looking for an issue to hang their hat on to push back against the Trump administration, and it's been this USAID program. It's the latest. I'll actually, in addition to this, there's been protests happening across the country as well, anti-Elon Musk protests, anti-deportation essentially protests. There was one at the Texas Capitol. I took some photos. Brad took some great photos, and they're up on X now. But going back, Chris Murphy made some comments, I think, provided some insight into this USAID program. I'll read a quote here.

USAID fights terrorist groups all across the world, making sure that we address the underlying causes that lead to terrorism. USAID chases China all around the world, making sure China doesn't monopolize contracts for critical minerals and poor infrastructure all around the world. It supports freedom fighters everywhere in the world up until yesterday, delivering firewood, for instance, to the brave Ukrainian defenders on the Eastern Front. Multiple things in that single statement there that I think people who are encouraging the transparency in the USAID program want to know why money is being sent to secure mineral rights or to fund freedom fighters.

It highlights the very different perspectives in this, right? Very different perspectives here. So I might, we'll see if this turns into a newsletter for me, but Cameron looks over at me. So I might, we'll see if this turns into a newsletter for me, but I just thought I'd bring that up. And this story is not over yet. I'm sure there's going to be a lot more information that comes out, especially as the access Doge and the Elon Musk team has with the Treasury Department. Obviously, right now, they're not actually slashing anything. They have just a read and document access. But who knows how much authority they'll be given in the coming weeks and months.

Absolutely. One of my favorite moments this week was when I told my husband about the um young men that musk has hired to perform a lot of this one of them has like the perfect zoomer haircut oh my gosh and the article the article that was written was so biased right it was unbelievably biased and it was objectively hilarious to read because a lot of these guys like at the time of the writing this article didn't even have government email addresses like and so the article was written so snarkily andrew started just crying laughing about how it was hilarious that article inadvertently showcased one of these guys on the team who had made this groundbreaking discovery of reading like crazy uh ancient scroll ancient scrolls decoding it yeah

just and people are like wow this guy's like crazy impressive yeah maybe he should have this job it's hilarious it's so funny okay i want both of y'all's attention on this one which means that brad i'm mainly talking to you because cameron's always locked in okay here's the thing there is something that's going viral this week i think it's gained a lot of traction on like instagram and tiktok because this united this u.s woman she's 33 years old traveled to pakistan to meet up with this 19 year old boy that she had been talking with online and the goal was this woman 33 the goal was to go and get

married to him so this was like an internet dating relationship right she get catfished would you let me tell my story okay so she goes and goes to pakistan meets this young man um is eventually ghosted by him now i believe also she traveled there initially back in like october or november okay so was, this is a while ago. She goes to his house the next day or several days later and him and his family had evacuated their home and were no longer present in the home. So she was there. She was like, she camped outside the house, I believe for 30 something hours. Okay.

Waiting for him to return. But his, him and his family. She was in love it sounds like. Him and his family were were like we are out of here okay pretty wild and she's still there her visa her visa's expired now what's interesting is that somehow she and she has like two children she's from new york she has two children in new york what's interesting is that she's refusing to leave well i don't know how old they are i think they're oh yeah they're adults um but this didn't really become public until a youtuber highlighted highlighted what's what's going on and essentially this woman here i'll call her Ms. Robinson, essentially has been offered a ticket back to the U.S.

Like local authorities have said, we will give you a ticket back to the U.S. You have an expired visa. Like we'll help you. And she's refused to leave and has been again making a series of demands saying, like she's holding press conferences, okay? Like daily press conferences. And people, like she's a celebrity in pakistan i believe she's also filming some commercials in pakistan because she's like a local celebrity now what are her demands what does she demanded okay from from this 19 year old and his family she

demanded three thousand dollars per week and demanded pakistani citizenship in another interview she claimed to be married to this person and stated that they were planning to move to Dubai and start a family. Okay. They eventually escalated, and she demanded $100,000, including $20,000 in cash, from the Pakistani government that week. For what? Well, she said that when questioned about the purpose of the money, she said, It's against my religion to tell y'all my business. Okay. the purpose of the money she said it's against my religion to tell y'all my business okay and then

it kind of changed where she's asking for hundreds of thousand dollars hundreds of thousands of dollars saying she wants to rebuild pakistan and make it this glorious place to live so now she's becoming an advocate for the pakistani people she's claiming to be muslim there's no history of her religious affiliation maybe she had a conversion and but local authorities will literally set and like a press when this woman stages a press conference it's oftentimes with the local authority it appears dozens of press are there with microphones it is unbelievable and the quotes from this woman unbelievable now her family is also saying that she has bipolar disorder and there's mental issues going on here.

So it also could be a very sad story. Right now, that's what we know. It sounds like she's thinking clearer than ever. Clearer than ever. But she wants to, that's what she's saying is, I'm going to, like, rebuild Pakistan. And she's becoming an advocate for who knows you know maybe she can do it but it's against my religion to tell y'all my business unbelievable

like all-time quote yeah i might start using that around the office i was gonna make a joke about cameron why are you requesting this time off? But Cameron has historically never requested time off, so never mind. This woman is the best case for reopening the mental institution that I've seen since the crazy guy screaming at nobody on the sidewalk happened a couple weeks ago. I think there's a greatflix documentary that's in the works about this one i want the entire backstory i want to know what happened to these kids i want to see what are the text message threads with this mysterious pakistani man that she's been in communication with where did he go what's what deal, right? They've done documentaries like the Tinder Swindler. You guys remember that one?

Oh, I remember. Do I ever? Maybe this is part two. Yeah. She's going to rebuild the nation. Yeah. She's with the family. She's stranded.

Apparently, she doesn't have a passport either, which I wonder if she just lost it. Well, she's a citizen of the world. She doesn't need one. Apparently. It is wild. I'm asking for $ 100K or more. I need 20K by this week.

In my pockets. In cash. That's a demand to the government. That's what she said. I'd listen to her. Put her in a straightjacket. But they're entertaining this. They're completely entertaining this.

And it is unbelievable to watch. What was that good one? Okay, there you you go that's my contribution to our twittery hey i'll give you one that was pretty good thank you i was excited about it mary elise is very into this story as well so i was excited to talk with her about it today unfortunately she's not feeling well so mary elise i hope i did it justice and i'm sure she'd be able to add plenty more plot points because it goes far beyond this but and there are other all-time quotes that I neglected to share I'm completely hooked I'm gonna do a deep dive I'm not gonna get any work done today yeah I think that's appropriate yeah okay yeah and I understand that is my fault that's right okay well folks on that note thank you for listening to the weekly roundup we'll catch you on next week's episode thank you to everyone for

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