The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 9, 2024

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Gonzales Flag t-shirt 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, the team discusses: The vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas failing in a near-tieThe U.S. Senate border bill and foreign security package failing to passState governors meeting at the border to promise more support and resources for TexasSuspects in an attack on New York police officers revealed to be illegal immigrants with encounters in TexasGov. Greg Abbott’s new reputation with the Texas GOP’s right flankA Texas Court of Criminal Appeals candidate’s legal battle with his mortgage companyLt. Gov. Dan Patrick speaking at a panel with BlackRock’s CEO over dispatchable generator investmentThe Austin City Council weighing its new “environmental investment plan”Texas suing five cities over their not enforcing state marijuana lawsTesla owner Elon Musk considering moving his business’s operations to TexasTwo House GOP incumbents outraised by challengers in school choice-focused races

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup. This week, the team discusses the vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas failing in a near tie, the U.S. Senate border bill and foreign security package failing to pass, state governors meeting at the border to promise more support and resources for Texas, suspects in an attack on New York police officers revealed to be illegal immigrants with encounters in Texas. Governor Abbott's new reputation with the Texas GOP's right flank. A Texas Court of Criminal Appeals candidate's legal battle with his mortgage company.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick speaking at a panel with BlackRock's CEO over dispatchable generator investment. The Austin City Council weighing its new environmental investment plan, Texas suing five cities over their not enforcing state marijuana laws, Tesla owner Elon Musk considering moving his business's operations to Texas, and two house GOP incumbents outraged by challengers and school choice focus races. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Hello, folks. Excuse me. Howdy, folks. What am I doing? That so did not sound like me. and enjoy this context. Happy Friday. Super Bowl Sunday is the Sunday. And we were just talking. Cameron, you were saying Texas born and bred quarterback is in the Super Bowl this year.

Not that he hasn't been there before. But he was born in Texas, right? Pretty sure, yeah. Yeah. He went to Tech. Went to Texas Tech. So that's something to celebrate. That's right. Texans. Check it out. I wonder if you we

i bet there is data out there maybe we can find it before the end of the podcast on who texans are rooting for in the super bowl i doubt i i doubt many texans feel strongly one way or another about either team i think most cowboys fans are very much rooting against the 49ers yeah that's true because 49ers have been the bane of their existence for the last couple of years especially in the playoffs and that rivalry has been it's historic for decades yeah so at least all of my friends who are cowboys fans hate the 49ers so yeah makes sense i do think that this will be it's interesting because kansas city in and of

itself has become kind of a dynasty and so people automatically are just rooting against them as an institution because of how often they've made it to the super bowl and won the super bowl so fascinating stuff but who are you rooting for cam anybody the chiefs you are absolutely why i i want a new dynasty you know you're a dynasty rooter on her. Absolutely. I was a Patriots fan when they were going on their runs. Okay. Mainly because I was a Brady fan. So you're a fair weather dynasty fan.

That's a new type of fan. Okay. Bradley, who are you rooting for? I don't want to see the Chiefs win again. Oh. But the Niners knocked out the Lions last week. So, I don't know. I like Brock Purdy. Yeah, I really like Brock Purdy, too.

I think it'd be cool to see him win the Super Bowl, even though he defeated the Lions last week. The Niners do have a good cast of characters, too. They do. George Kittle. I like George Kittle, too. McCaffrey. Yeah. They got some cool guys.

I just don't like the team. I guess that's what I struggle with. I just don't like the Niners. It feels very, it just feels bad for the Niners. Oh, they're in Seattle's division, right? Yeah. No, we hate the Niners. So, yeah.

I just, I don't have it in me. So, I'm rooting for the Chiefs. I'm going to take him. Okay. Well, on that note, folks, my goodness gracious, let's get into the news today. Matt, we're going to start with you. Congressional Republicans made a second attempt at impeaching Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week, but the vote was very narrowly failed in the GOP majority chamber. What happened?

Give us the details. House Republicans brought articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, citing his failure to secure the southern border with Mexico and alleged that he was illegally refusing to enforce federal immigration laws and other laws that place national security at risk. This is the second time they have attempted to bring articles of impeachment after the first attempt last year narrowly failed. While Republicans thought they had the votes to pass this time, once again, it failed after three lawmakers, Republican lawmakers, joined the unanimous Democrats in opposition to the resolution, citing their wish to avoid abuses of the impeachment process. One lawmaker we also noted described how he felt that this was just wasting time by replacing one leftist with another leftist, to quote him. Now, these three lawmakers in opposition to the resolution would have not caused the measure to pass by themselves, or at least the GOP thought, because one Texas

Democratic lawmaker, Al Green, was in the hospital recovering from surgery, and his absence, along with Republican Steve Scalise's absence, meant there was a lower threshold in the chamber. But at last minute, Greene was wheeled into the chamber and asked to vote against the measure, which caused it to fail in a 215-215 deadlock tie. Now, in order to make the resolution qualify for a motion to reconsider, which means bringing it back for another vote, the resolution needed to fail by a majority vote, not a tie. So one GOP lawmaker strategically changed his vote, making the final vote reflect 214 to 216. Speaker Mike Johnson reacted to the resolution's failure, acknowledging it can be hard to count votes in a chamber that has a narrow majority,

and said the articles would be brought back early next week when Rep. Scalise is back in and can guarantee its passage, even if it is by one vote. It is worth noting that the articles of impeachment, should they pass, two Texas lawmakers are to be named impeachment managers, which are a sort of prosecutor that makes the case before the Senate Court of Impeachment to sustain, arguing for the sustaining of the impeachment charges. Those two reps are Congressman August Pfluger from Texas's 11th Congressional District and Congressman Michael McCaul from the 10th Congressional District. According to a recent post on X from Congressman Pfluger, we should expect to see that redo vote occur as early as Tuesday. So we'll keep an eye on this and see how it goes. Absolutely, Matt. Thank you. Big week in D.C. and Cameron, we're going to stay on that topic here. The $118 billion security

package, border security package, yes, unbelievable, has been the leading topic of conversation this week. And there have been some major developments in the US Senate. We're talking about DC here again. Tell us what is going on, Cameron. Yeah, I've been glued to the screen watching this because you say a figure like $118 billion. That's a lot of money. So you want to see what's going on. Well, as we saw, House Speaker Mike Johnson, he called this bill dead on arrival before we even saw the U.S. Senate vote on this. And it did end up failing.

It failed with a vote of 50 to 49. The bill needed 60 votes to move forward because there's all these parliamentary procedures that have to happen before a bill is voted on. It failed in the procedural vote. And what was interesting is actually we saw five individuals in the Democratic caucus vote against the bill, including some on the more progressive wing of the Democratic caucus, people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. But then we did see four Republicans vote to advance the bill, which includes the lead negotiator for this, for the border provisions in this bill, James Lankford out of Oklahoma. And then we also saw Senator Mitt

Romney vote to advance the bill. And I'll go into some of the figures. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. So off the top, there included 20 billion for border security in this package. And then it was all bundled together with foreign aid. So it was $14 billion for Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine. And then there was also additional funding for the Indo-Pacific nations, specifically Taiwan. The bill also included $9.2 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in the Palestine region, Gaza Strip, West Bank, and then also additional humanitarian aid for Ukraine. And what was interesting is there was a lot of discussion leading into this, the U.S. Senate

debate, because we saw President Trump, former President Trump, he came out and called it horrendous and called it a, quote, highly sophisticated trap for Republicans. And we saw remarks from the current president, Joe Biden. He was saying that, quote, I want to be absolutely clear about something. The American people are going to know why. And he was saying this bill, he was predicting the bill was going to fail because of Donald Trump's comments before the vote. So there's been lots of negotiations about how best to secure the border. We saw Senator Ted Cruz, he came out after the vote that failed to advance this big package, this $118 billion package. He put out a video saying,

quote, as a policy matter, it was terrible policy. And as a matter of politics, it was even dumber. So some interesting comments from prominent lawmakers, former presidents with Trump, current President Joe Biden. And what was interesting in Cruz's comments, he made mention of a previous border bill that he introduced into the Senate. This was the Secure the Border Act. And he said in this video that if the Senate would have put Ukraine funding attached to that Secure the Border Act, he would have voted for that. But apparently, the leader in the Senate, Schumer, waved his hands at H.R. 2, that Secure the Border Act, and wasn't going to take it up. So there's lots of disagreements about how to best address the border. And one of the interesting things, though, is there are federal actions that can be taken that Biden reversed on his first day in office.

Like, for example, there were Trump era policies that included the COVID-19 Title 42 public health order, which was used to expel illegal immigrants. The Biden administration allowed that to expire. He also halted the building of the border wall on his first day in office, in addition to using an executive order to actually reverse a Trump order that cut federal funding from sanctuary cities. So there are executive authorities, authority power to help secure the border. They're just trying to do it through policy in the Senate. So I'm sure

we're going to continue over the next few days, coming weeks. This is a big topic of conversation, especially when polling has been coming out recently, when they're asking voters, what is the most important issue for you? Previously, it was the economy. But now, immigration has become the number one issue for voters. So everyone's thinking about it, everyone's talking about it, and we'll continue to follow these negotiations. Absolutely, Cameron, thank you. And on the note of everyone talking about it, folks have been talking about Governor Abbott a ton here. So let's focus back here on Texas and the border. Matt, we're coming back to you. An unprecedented number of state governors joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott on the Rio Grande to show support for Texas in the ongoing legal standoff between the state of Texas and the federal

government over border security. I'm sure you've seen it in the news. We've talked about it ad nauseum. Matt, you were there for the press conference. Give us some insight into what went down in Eagle Pass. Some 14 Republican governors, which was an unprecedented number, were part of the planned visit to see the Rio Grande firsthand at Eagle Pass, where countless thousands have illegally crossed the border in recent years and has been a hotbed for other international crime. An ongoing legal battle between the state of Texas and the Biden administration precipitated the border visit when the Texas National Guard troops put down razor wire to prevent illegal border crossings. Border Patrol agents then tried to cut the wire and also

lift it with a forklift to allow people to continue crossing. This has raised a question of whether Texas has the right to defend itself in cases of invasion, as the governor and other state officials have described it. And numerous other governors agreed with Texas and told stories about how the border crisis is impacting their states. Some of the statistics that the governor cited that are related to border crimes impacting their states include the fact that Texas DPS has seized some 458 million lethal doses of the dangerous drug fentanyl being seized, along with some 56,000 pounds of methamphetamine, all kinds of other contraband, including just last year, they apprehended and they noted that these are all things just what state officials, law enforcement and soldiers were able to capture. But last year, some 139, I believe was the number, people who are on the terrorist watch list or trying to sneak across

the southern border just at the state of Texas alone. And even one of those people was a soldier in the Iranian military amongst those notable catches by state police. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp summarized this issue as every state is now a border state, indicating how the flow of contraband, narcotics, and violent criminals or terrorists don't just stop at Texas whenever they cross the river, they continue through, and those governors are seeing direct crime-related things increase in their states because of the border crisis. Notable announcements from Abbott was that the other governors had committed to lending more support from their state National Guards and additional equipment to help Texas secure the southern border, and they intend to expand their proven effort to secure the border at Eagle Pass to more areas along the Rio Grande with those new resources. We saw thousands of people, of course, crossing every day at Shelby Park and Eagle Pass

before the state seized control and precipitated some of the standoff. Now, very few people attempt to cross cross and those that do are arrested on criminal trespass charges. But this is obviously caused the cartels to redirect the illegal crossings to other places that are less fortified. So that's what Abbott was speaking to whenever he said they intend to expand similar levels of control up and down the Rio Grande to get better control of the situation. There you go, Matt. Thank you for your coverage.

Certainly incredible to have you be there firsthand. And I'd encourage folks to go and check out Matt's story at the Texan. Some great photos, firsthand account. So, Matt, thanks for that. And also check the Twitter feed. He's got all sorts of live videos and photos and good stuff, good content out there for folks. So Matt, thank you. Cameron, we're going to come to you next. A viral story of illegal immigrants beating up New York Police Department officers has some recent developments and some Texas ties. Give us the rundown. Yeah. So I'm sure all of our listeners have seen the story come across their timeline or pop up on their newsfeed somewhere. But just for those unfamiliar, there were two New York

Police Department officers who were beaten up by a group of illegal immigrants last week. And what ended up happening is five of those suspects in the assault were actually arrested and then released without bail. And the DA in this case, Alvin Bragg, I'm sure our listeners might be familiar with that name. That is the DA who's involved in the New York Trump case. So four of those individuals reportedly left New York, leaving for California. And then we saw a law enforcement source telling CNN that because the Manhattan district attorney, like I mentioned, Alvin Bragg, did not request bail and the defendants were released, law enforcement had no legal authority to chase them or attempt to stop them. So what we came to find out over the preceding days was Customs and Border Patrol actually told Allie Bradley, a reporter for News Nation, that the Homeland Security Investigations identified eight, quote, undocumented individuals that are connected to this officer assault case.

And that information that was provided to Bradley shows that seven of those eight individuals are from Venezuela. Two of them were removed and then reentered the country last year and were given notices to appear. Another two entered through the northern border with Canada into New York, and the others have documented encounters in Texas. So interesting note there that individuals who are coming through not just the southern border, but the northern border as well, are making their way across the country, you know, from Texas to New York. That's a long journey. And what we also found out with this story is a Fox News correspondent spoke with ICE and said that they arrested several of the illegal immigrants believed to be involved in the assault of the NYPD officers. And this was in response to a viral photo of some individuals with handcuffs in Phoenix. And that sort of closed the door on the story, it seemed like.

But then we saw a New York Post story come out and say they had sources that told them it's not clear who the men in the photo are. They're definitely not the individuals involved in the NYPD assault. So a bit of conflicting information there. But Ali Bradley was able to confirm that three of the individuals involved in that assault are in NYPD custody. So at least some of the individuals involved have been tracked down, put into custody. But as of right now of recording, we haven't had many developments on this just as of yet. But it is important to kind of look back at the big picture like Matt was talking about. There's been lots of incidents at the border in terms of not just drugs, but potential terrorist activity crossing the southern border. And the southern border actually saw over 150,000 encounters just in January. And this is both encounters and, quote,

non-citizens processed at the ports of entry. So it seems like there's a border theme going on today on the pod but this is a ongoing issue that Abbott has addressed federal government's attempting to address but there's different approaches on how best to address this growing crisis because it is on the mind of a lot of people because we're not just seeing these large numbers of people coming across or encounters happening at the border, but we're seeing these individual instances of what are the downstream effects of not having a secure border. And I think that's what is top of mind for many voters. Yeah, absolutely.

Cameron, thank you for your coverage. Bradley, hello. It's been a while. Hi. Are you ready to Cameron, thank you for your coverage. Bradley. Hello. It's been a while. Hi. Are you ready to talk? I was back benched for the first half of this podcast. Sorry about it. I assume because I missed the last podcast.

Yeah, just because you were absent. We just demoted you. I will say I listened back to my section from The Road and I sounded really out of breath. But I wasn't. At least not that I remember. So I'm not sure what the issue was. Maybe it's because I was sticking my phone up so close to my mouth. You could have just been like breathing into the mic a little bit and it could have been catching it. It was warm. It was a nice day there, but yeah, I sound like I had just went for a run. I did not. You're just running. I was just walking around taking photos.

Delightful. delightful tweeting is really exhausting you know it's so exhausting i know you being demoted to the you know midway through the podcast had nothing to do with the first uh four stories being about the border oh okay yeah that's convenient yeah it's very convenient let's go ahead and jump into your stories though brad um it's been a strange few years for the governor. Pretty politically volatile. And now he's found some new allies among those who once despised him. Give us the details. So, last week, you know, I mentioned on the last podcast that I was at the Mike Olcott rally with Governor Abbott. That was a very big event.

I would peg the crowd number at like 500. Not all of that was in the room because there were a lot of people that could not get into the big room on the seventh floor of the hotel they had to watch from the lobby so huge turnout i think phil king senator phil king said it's the largest turnout he's ever seen for a state rep rally but while there abbott said quote there are many reasons we are here today and one of those is that i made a mistake last time in endorsing Glenn Rogers, and I'm here to correct that mistake. I'm here to make sure everyone knows. I'm here to support Mike Olcott to be your state representative.

Abbott went on to criticize Rogers on a number of things and presented Olcott as the, strongest conservative candidate. Obviously, that is this is interesting in and of itself because Abbott was on the other side last time in 22. He endorsed Rogers against Olcott. And given the very slim margin, you can deduce that the governor at least had a significant impact. Which the governor came under fire a lot. This is one of the endorsements last cycle that the governor was heavily criticized for. Yeah. And especially because Rogers has been critical of school choice his whole time in the legislature and school choice vouchers, whatever you want to call it.

And so the governor endorsed Rogers despite that. And then Rogers was one of the Republicans who spoke against or for stripping ESAs last November and then ultimately voted to strip that provision. But it hit me while I was seeing this large crowd cheer on Abbott's every word, most of the people in this room would have jumped at the opportunity to kick him out of office only a couple of years ago during his own primary against, uh, former state Senator Don Huffines and Texas GOP chair, uh, Alan West, the governor slapped that down easily. It was, you know, he took a lot of, a lot of arrows during the primary, but when it came to

the results, he ran away with it. I think he pulled in above 60% of the vote and neither of those two top other challengers eclipsed, I think, 13%. But the governor has had some wild years running the state of Texas. You have COVID. You have the power grid collapse. You have multiple horrific school shootings. A massive property tax fight, this impeachment now, the expulsion of Slayton. It's all over the place. And it reminds me of a story about the prime minister in the 50s sworn in, and he was asked by a reporter,

what's going to determine the outcome of your prime ministership, if that's the word, and it was events, stuff that's out of your control. And that has been the story of Governor Abbott's tenure so far. However, this primary crusade is very much in his grasp, within his control, and he's leaning into it. He's going after Rogers. He's going after a number of others, and he's got a lot of money to do it. Yeah, Cameron, go for it.

Do you think it has his rise in popularity with the voters that you've seen, is it because he's focusing on issues that they care about, whether it be his border stance recently, his school choice stance? Is that what it is? Or is it because he's been endorsing certain people? Or is it just the issues themselves? I think it's mainly the issues. Also, he's not on the ballot, right?

So for those people that, you know, for the right flank of the GOP who wants to kick out basically every longtime incumbent, everyone they see as the establishment, and Abbott is very much the establishment, let's be honest here, he's no longer in reach

because he won the primary overwhelmingly. But it's also the issues. He's really leaning into this school choice issue more than anything else. But let's not forget the biggest issue of the last four years was COVID. And in the minds of that group, the governor failed overwhelmingly. And now they are very much on his side it it's just interesting to see when only a few years ago this was he was among the most hated politicians by that group of the party in the country i'd say yeah is covid issues still top of mind for a lot of the voters you've run into?

Like, do they mention it or do you, when you're talking with them, do they say anything about it? Not really. Not really. Uh, you know, they're focused on school choice. They're focused on, uh, you know, performing the Texas house in the way they want to, especially, um, you know, really Dade Phelan has replaced Abbott as the persona non grata among that wing of the party. And he's the one that's within reach electorally. Abbott's just simply not. And yeah, I think that's generally what it comes down to.

Brad, when you say the governor's leaned into this new angle of appealing to the grassroots, what do you mean by that? When we mentioned school choice, you know, he's endorsing against all these incumbent R's, some of the whom he endorsed last time. He's putting really all of his effort into that. And then, you know, another example I pull out for this article is the invasion declaration issue. That is something the border hawks, especially in the party, have focused on a lot. And they say, you know, the federal government is abridging its responsibility. It's letting the state of Texas down and we have to do something. Otherwise, nobody else will. And the constitutional authority from which they draw that constitutional provision from which they draw that authority is the article.

I forget the numbers. Article 10, Section 5 or something like that. It's the invasion declaration. The ability of a state. Article 1, Section 10. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. I should have just thrown it over to you immediately.

And Abbott at first was very hesitant about that suggestion. And you know what? So is Attorney General Paxton. They both said, you know, that could open up the possibility of state law enforcement being arrested, detained and arrested by federal law enforcement for essentially kidnapping, you know, taking using invoking the invasion declaration to do state deportations. That is that was the fear. Abbott's not quite going as far as some of the most zealous advocates of that, I think, would like. But he is not shying away from the rhetoric and he's citing it quite a bit. And at this event,

Mike Olcott, the candidate running against Rogers, read from the letter that Abbott sent the Biden administration on this and it was quite fiery. But he propped that up as, you know, this is, this is the guy. What do you think made that switch flip for him? Was it something internally, like there was discussions between the, because we saw all those governors come out and support him. Was there something internally between governor leadership or was it him feeling the energy or pressure from grassroots activists or people pushing for harder border measures? What do you think it was? I don't think it was one thing, although probably the biggest is that

in the last six months or so, the border has blown up as an issue, as a political issue. We're also entering an election year and that issue itself is not good for Biden. But also, you know, this issue has taken its toll on everyone in the state. I think,

you know, everyone's sick of having to deal with this, sick of, of the federal government conducting the actions that it has or lack thereof and forcing the state to spend its money and resources to try and police the border that I think at least at base, everyone agrees is a federal responsibility. Question is, does the state have any ability to step in? And Abbott is very much saying yes. There you go. Well, Brad and Cameron, thank you all so much. Matthew, coming back to you,

a candidate running in the Republican primary for the state's highest criminal court addressed a pending legal battle he is facing with a mortgage company. Give us the rundown. We previously reported on some of the highlights of a pending legal battle that candidate Lee Finley, who is challenging incumbent Judge Michelle Slaughter for the Court of Criminal Appeals, is facing. The basic facts are that Finley and his wife, Lynn, had a district court order, a judgment last year against them for defaulting on their home mortgage to the tune of half a million dollars and ordered the Collin County constable to serve a eviction writ against them, ordering their home to be seized and sold to satisfy the judgment. Now, the seizure order was stayed when the Finleys appealed the trial court order to a

state appeals court, and they're raising a nuanced constitutional argument regarding why the banks should not be able to take the home back. Because we have had a number of people interested in knowing more about the details of this case, we followed up with this more detailed story. To give you some of the background on it, prior to the Finley's being married, Lee's wife purchased the home in 1999. Then in 2007, she obtained a home equity mortgage for $320,000, of which she used $271,000 to pay off the existing loans. They then married and in 2009 transferred by deed half ownership interest of the house to her husband. In 2016, the Finleys stopped paying their mortgage. Lee filed a lawsuit against the mortgage company on his wife's behalf, alleging that the lien on the home was unenforceable because the loan agreement failed to meet the required criteria for mortgage contracts under the Texas Constitution. The original suit also included a battery of other allegations against the bank. Now, core to their lawsuit, or core to their defense now, is an argument that a

single page of the loan agreement, which was a mutually agreed to fair market value of the house, is that the representative of the bank did not sign the page, and on the space where the value of the house is supposed to be was left blank. And they argue that the Texas Constitution prohibits valid liens from having any blank spaces. Now, the banks responded to that by saying, well, there was a page later on in the mortgage agreement, sort of a catch all. It was an affidavit swearing that everything was agreed to and said that essentially there was an insufficient argument to argue that the lien was invalid. Now, we encourage our readers to go check out the entirety of this story, but we did speak

to Mr. Finley regarding this, and some of the things that he pointed out was that he has never been directly himself liable for the payments on the mortgage, that it was his wife's mortgage, although he did ultimately acknowledge that he owned a half interest in the house, and of course, if the house is seized and sold in an eventual court loss, that of course, he would lose that ownership interest. One other thing that we asked Lee regarding was he pointed out that there had been some questions regarding which bank owned the mortgage. And we asked if you figured out or decided or determined who properly owned the mortgage that you owed the remainder balance to, would you pay it? And he said, if the loan is enforceable and if they can show, hey, here's the entity that's entitled to collect the balance of the loan,

of course we'd pay it. We'd pay it off, whatever the balance was, immediately. Once again, we highly encourage our readers to go check out the entirety of the story, if you want to know the entirety or get the full picture of what these nuanced legal battles, what this legal battle is. One other thing that we'd like to point out is that it's unlikely for this issue to be resolved before the March 5th primary. The appeals court is unlikely to issue their ruling. And in the case that they rule against Finley's, they have indicated that they will appeal a unfavorable ruling to the Texas Supreme Court which will make the case continue on further. Matt thank you so much. Primaries happen to be ample ground for all sorts of things to come up and voters can then determine how important they

are in the process. So Matt we appreciate you bringing this up and kind of distilling down the facts of all that's going on here in that race. Brad, we're coming back to you. Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor himself, hosted an event in Houston this week with BlackRock of all entities. Give us the details. So Patrick and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink convened for an event and made a pitch to investors in the room who aren't already involved, or mostly aren't already involved in the Texas power industry, to draw in $10 billion worth of investments to build 10,000 megawatts of dispatchable generation, mainly in natural gas power plants, specifically in ERCOT, in the ERCOT region, which covers about 90% of the state's square mileage.

Patrick noted that this is just the first step towards ensuring the state can cope with its rapid population and business growth. More than anything else, the gathering was an advertisement for the state's new power plant construction loan program that was passed in Senate Bill 2627 last year and approved by voters on the November 2023 constitutional amendment ballot. They allocated $5 billion for that from this session and intend to allocate another $5 billion next session. The loans are low interest, intended to make it easier for these companies to justify putting up the capital and trying to provide a counterbalance overall to the market distortion caused by the production tax credit, which is the tax credit, the subsidy given from the federal government to wind and solar generators. And it's very lucrative. It's a big reason why we've seen so much growth in wind and solar, not only in Texas, but across the country. Texas is just massive and has the land capable and the demand capable for supporting those investments.

And so it was a pitch for that. We're going to see if it works. Applications are open in June for that loan program. But that wasn't the statement that got the most attention at this. He did say, if we can't get an incentive program to attract investors to build, talking about the loan program and the other things, then the state would have to build it ourselves and then subcontract that out for someone else to run it. There will be pushback on that, and that's the last card you want to play. Yeah. My goodness. So that's going to send the existing industry into a frenzy. Tell us why. So that is discussing floating the possibility of essentially state procurement, the state purchasing its own power plants and using that to buttress the ERCOT grid. ERCOT is mostly a free market. There are some aspects that aren't quite as much, but the entire system, because it

is free market, it's not a capacity market that is negotiated up front. The amount of electricity supply and the price negotiated years up front, that's like the rest of the country. Here, the price of electricity is constantly fluctuating and it hinges on price signals and accurate incentives to try and ensure we have enough supply to meet the demand. And ever since the production tax credit went into effect, there's been an imbalance there. We haven't seen the growth of commensurate growth of the natural gas or overall thermal fleet alongside the population growth that we've had. And so this is an attempt, one of the attempt by the legislature to try and right that ship or counterbalance that in some fashion. I'm not sure if it'll work just because the strength of the PTC is so huge, but maybe

it does. And maybe we get some new generators and we already are getting some starting construction underway. But the reason this is causing such a ripple effect in the industry is that the state entering into the free market either specifically picks winners and whoever's going to own or operate those fleets, or, and actually probably both,

dissuades other capital from coming in from the people that aren't going to get that sweet deal. And so it's a tough situation to be in. The lieutenant governor is of the opinion that we have to get more generation. And if this is the last resort, this is the last resort. But it could seriously throw a wrench into this, into the gears of the ERCOT system, economically at least, when you're countering the federal government essentially picking winners with the state government picking winners. And then you have all these other people that are just left holding the bag. Right.

Why all together, too, just to see Patrick and BlackRock at an event together, which we've talked about before. But that in the nitty gritty of all these policy outcomes and details, wild altogether to see them sharing an event stage together. Yeah. And that was kind of downplayed at the event. I'm sure. It's not ending the ESG fight. Yeah. It's certainly not happening. Although BlackRock is walking back their stances.

It's interesting altogether. Bradley, thank you. Cameroneron coming to you next here the city of austin has continued to pursue very progressive policies related to the climate tell us about this new environmental plan from the city yeah we're gone from border discussion to climate discussion but i came across this because I thought it was very interesting. We've reported on the city of Austin, and like you mentioned, they tend to address climate change, sustainability of city operations, and community resilience. So you read that, your eyebrow goes up a little bit, and you're like, what's this all about? So we have talked about this climate equity plan that the city of Austin has implemented because they passed this back in 2021,

I believe it was. And in this climate equity plan, they are essentially, they've set a goal for themselves to reach net zero in greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. So that's a pretty lofty goal. And in their proposed city budget for this year, it includes a $385,000 one-time funding allotment for this climate equity plan. And that's within the total context of the city's budget being $5.5 billion. So this is a big budget here. And the city has 11 different departments, all of which include different net zero climate-related initiatives because they have 74 different strategies on their website listed for this climate equity plan. The resolution does note that they've only been able to complete three of them since 2021. So

I'm guessing this resolution is an attempt to reinvigorate their climate net zero emissions goal. But what's interesting is they've put in plans like creating sustainable buildings, promoting plant-based foods, switching all public sector vehicles to electric vehicles. So very ambitious goals, lots of money flying around to these different departments. And this is a long-term strategy for them. Like I mentioned, they want to do this by 2040. So expect a lot more of these climate change-focused resolutions to be coming forward here in the city of Austin. Yeah, absolutely.

Nothing new, but really new stuff. Thank you, Cam. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Bradley, coming to you. Texas made some headlines this week, suing five different cities over not enforcing state marijuana laws. Give us the rundown of your story. So the state of Texas sued, like you said, five, four cities.

Four cities. Five cities. Yes. Austin is the biggest one. Then you have Denton, Elgin, Killeen and San Marcos. All of them are targeting the marijuana decriminalization ordinances passed by each of those cities. And it's doing so under preemption, pointing to state code that prohibits the use of, under the Texas Controlled Substances Act, bans most uses of marijuana and the possession of related paraphernalia. So the argument is that these ordinances conflict not only with the state, what's in state code, but by extension, the state constitution. Because the constitution says that even if you're a home rule city, you cannot pass ordinances that violate state law.

And so that's the argument made. You know, it's notable that preemption was a big issue last year on a different, from a different angle with the Death Star Bill, as it were. As it were. As it were. As it were. And that is a different strategy. That's field preemption. That is setting forth nine sections of code specifically and saying you cannot pass anything that exceeds what is allowed in here. This is conflict preemption.

Think of it more like a rifle approach than a shotgun approach. But the interesting thing is when the city sued the state over the Death Star Bill, part of their argument was conceding that the state has full authority to engage in conflict preemption, but not field preemption. I'm curious to see if that gets brought up in these lawsuits, especially as it relates to Austin, because Austin was among the plaintiffs suing the state over that and thus among those making the argument that the state can engage in conflict preemption. That'll be interesting to see, but if that happens, you know, the city of Austin especially kind of undermine their own case there, at least as it relates to this specific lawsuit that they probably did not see coming, especially in the frame of, you know, the other lawsuits and the other bill.

But yeah, Paxton said, quote, I will not stand idly by as cities run by pro-crime extremists deliberately violate Texas law and promote the illicit use of drugs that harm our communities. This unconstitutional action by municipalities demonstrates why Texas must have a law to follow the law. It's quite simple. The legislature passes every law after a full debate on the issues, and we don't allow cities the ability to create anarchy by picking and choosing the laws they enforce. We'll see where it goes in court, but sure to be interesting. Bradley, thank you. I want a really quick shout out rob lausches our incredible assistant editor he has been standing i i see him through the window here in the pod room he's been standing over that box of pastries i brought in this morning for like 45 seconds determining whether or not to have another one it's he's rifling through it now oh yeah give us a quick play-by-play what's he doing well? Well, he just stood over it. And Rob is a towering individual.

Yes. I believe he's 6'4". He's very tall. Over the box of pastries on the counter. Oh, he chose one. He chose a croissant. He chose a croissant. Okay.

Is it a sweet croissant or a savory croissant? I think it was part of the cream cheese pastry croissant. I think he chose part of it. Quick aside. Yes. Savory or sweet pastry. Sweet. Sweet. Brad? Can you give me like what the two

options are specifically? No just generally. Savory or sweet. Probably sweet. Yeah. I'm definitely sweet. Sweet. Yeah. Cameron's very disciplined. He does not eat as many sweets as we do but I just wanted to shout out Rob. He looked very conflicted over whether or not he should eat the pastries left over. He did also recommend that we bring them into the podcast room so that he did not eat them all.

He was probably not conflicted about whether or not to eat them. Just which one to choose. Maybe. Although he did earlier, he really wanted us to bring them into the podcast room with us. And I was like, we're not going to eat pastries on the pod. He's like, oh, I just really don't want to have another one. So I think there was some conflicting feelings. Anyways,

poor guy has no clue. I don't even know if he listens to the pod after each Friday. We'll find out. Don't make one of us. Um, Cameron coming to you next. Okay. Elon Musk has found himself in the news again.

Surprise, surprise. Now he's looking at the Tesla compensation plan, but there's a lot more to the story here. It pertains specifically to Texas. Tell us what's going on. Yeah. So again, I am shocked to always see Elon Musk in the news because it's like-

This is the richest man in the world. Why are you shocked? I don't know. But they won't leave him alone. It's like they keep going after him. I feel like he's done a lot of great things. But like in the larger context, like you mentioned with Texas, because there was a new report that came out from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas that called Texas an economic juggernaut. So that caught my attention initially.

And then some of the numbers that came out is the state netted nearly 103,000 jobs between 2010 and 2019. And this huge growth in net jobs is within an even larger context of Abbott recently went overseas to India and was promoting the Texas economy, trying to establish ongoing partnerships with India. And India has been an interesting country to follow, especially with many manufacturers that were originally in China have moved their manufacturing to India. I believe Apple has done that. So it's been interesting to, you know, keep an eye on India as a global power. And with the Elon Musk situation, what has happened recently is Tesla, his EV company, there was a large compensation package for him, $55.8 billion. And one of their stockholders sued him in Delaware and a Delaware judge sided with the stockholder and rescinded his compensation package. And I go into some of the details in the story about what led to this compensation package being so large. A lot of it primarily actually was based on performance measures. And for any of our

listeners that pay attention to the stock market, when I say the Magnificent Seven, they will understand what I mean by this group of stocks that absolutely dominate the NASDAQ. So Elon Musk, he's already moved lots of his business operations to Texas. You know, we reported on a fun story about their gigafactory was going to be building the largest rooftop solar installation in the world. But after this Delaware court decision, he, of course, took to X and posted that companies should not incorporate in the state of Delaware. And then he followed that up with a poll asking all of his followers if they should move Tesla to Texas. And overwhelmingly,

87% voted in favor of moving Tesla's incorporation to Texas. So he posted that he was going to have a shareholder vote on that issue. So we'll see if Elon is going to be putting down further roots here in Texas. Absolutely. Crowdsourcing a little bit of that. Cameron, thank you. Brad, we're quickly going to come to you and then we're going to move on to our Twittery section. We've had a lot to say today, so we're going to make this quick. You compiled fundraising numbers for two sections of Texas House races with incumbents who opposed school choice and open seats. Give us a rundown of those numbers. So I published a list of, we tracked it before, but the GOP primaries with incumbents who voted to strip ESAs. Fundraising numbers for the 30-day report.

We'll have another one for the eight-day report, eight days before the primary. And then the second section is on the open house seat races. And so, a highlight, you can see all the financial details in the article, but I think a notable example here is that two house incumbents were outraised by their opponents. And that's the first time I've seen that, at least among this group of legislators. Representative Travis Clardy and Stan Lambert both were outraised. Clardy raised $40,000 and Lambert raised $110,000, respectively. Lambert's opponent, though, Liz Case-Pickens, she exceeded the incumbent's total by nearly six figures and holds the cash-on-ardy, Joanne Schaffner, the challenger who is receiving a lot of support, not only from Abbott, but also the other overarching pro school choice groups that are involved in this primary.

She raised just shy of $290,000, but is behind on the cash on hand front. So she spent a lot of that. But check out the rest on the websites but a very interesting change there i'd say absolutely thank you bradley moving on to the tweetery section of the pod cameron coming to you what do you got so there was a stabbing that occurred here in Austin. And it involved a group of individuals, one individual specifically, that was Palestinian American. And the APD said that the Palestinian individual was the one that was stabbed. I'll make that clear at the outset here, they said the individual that they caught that perpetrated the attack meets the criteria of a hate crime. And so there was lots of stories written about this.

And I actually saw someone post on X saying there wasn't a lot of information being reported about the perpetrator. And if it meets the criteria for a hate crime, what are the parameters here that led to that determination? And I came across Tony O, Current Revolt. He put out a story going into some of the details. And we have here that the police say the perpetrator was an alcoholic and he drank that night and allegedly was using racially loaded language. So Um, if, if that, all this is alleged, of course, but if that is, ends up being true, then, you know, but it could align with constituting as a hate crime. But I just thought it'd be important to let our listeners know there, what, what the perpetrator of this crime, how is that aligned with a hate crime? Not just because the victim was a member of the Palestinian community here in Austin, but what are the parameters for hate crime?

Yeah, very good. Laying out the facts. Thank you, Cameron. Bradley, what do you got? I think we have an early contender for most creative or I I guess, most attention-grabbing campaign ad for this year. I mentioned earlier the Olcott-Rogers primary, which is one of the top, if not the top one to watch in the House. Glenn Rogers put out his campaign, put out a TV ad that basically mirrors uh, very, it basically mirrors the, the old show lifestyles of the rich and famous. And it's, it's quirky, but I think it's, it's pretty good. Um,

as far as grabbing your attention and not going too far into the realm of silliness, but it hits Mike Olcott on a number of things. It has a British voiceover. A British voiceover in a Texas house race? Whoever the guy was that did Lifestyles Rich and Famous, he had that. Interesting. I was trying to mirror that. I wonder if it's AI. Could be.

Yeah. But one of the things they hit all cut on in there is having been educated in sweden oh my gosh and then you have a british guy doing the voiceover but um yeah it's on the airwaves now and i think it's you know as far as just objectively done how well a tv ad is done i think it's pretty good we'll see if it remains in the top slot we got a long way to go absolutely thank you Bradley Matthew what did you see on Twitter this week that

caught your eye well since we reported on the impeachment of a cabinet official or the attempted impeachment second cabinet official I thought it would be curious to know when the last time a cabinet member was impeached. Of course, you know, everybody can think of presidential impeachments, but the Constitution provides for

other, everybody else in the federal government being subject to impeachment. So I thought it was curious. So I did a little bit of research and on, and I shared this of course on my Twitter. So I'm pointing to my own Twittery for reference, but I found this really cool article on the U S Senate's website about the last time a cabinet member MP faced impeachment. And that was Secretary of War William Belknap in

1876. It's been that long. So, the story is of course kind of wild. It details how he made this he had this grand

lifestyle in Washington, D.C. that everybody was taking note of, that he was throwing these extravagant parties, and it described him as always being elegantly attired and having first and second wives. And everybody started questioning how he managed to do this on his meager government salary. So as it just got more over the top, the House of Representatives had a committee do an investigation, and they uncovered a pattern of corruption blatant enough even at the standards of the scandal-tarnished Grant administration, according to the Senate. So on March 2nd, 1876, just minutes before the House of Representatives was to vote on articles of impeachment, Belknap raced across to the White House, handed Grant his resignation, and burst into tears, but that did not stop the House. They decided they can still impeach him post-resignation because ultimately impeachment can result in your inability to never hold public office or any position in the government again.

And they impeached him on five articles that specifically said that he was charged with criminally disregarding his duty as Secretary of War and basically prostituting his high office for the lust of private gain. Anyway, fast forward, the Senate convened its impeachment trial in April. Belknap was present for it after the Senate, by majority vote, found him guilty of it. They fell short of the two thirds vote necessary to sustain the conviction. And after that, he went away and held a quiet life until he died in 1890. So there you go. The last time anything like this happened was in 1876, and it was quite the episode. Well, Matt, thank you for your Twittering.

We appreciate it. Folks, thank you so much for tuning in to our weekly roundup each and every week. Boo Niners, go Chiefs, but also go Brock Purdy. That's my sentiment. I think many people feel that way. Many such cases. Many such cases. Happy Super Bowl Sunday, Super Bowl weekend, and we'll talk to you next week.

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