The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - January 16, 2026

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

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.Celina ISD Independent Investigation Into Coach Arrested for Child Pornography Finds No Wrongdoing by DistrictTexas District Attorney Secures Guilty Pleas from Two County CommissionersDallas Police Chief Declines to Reveal Information About Officers’ Interactions with ICECruz, Cornyn Bill Targets Repeat DUI Offenses by Illegal AliensTarrant County Pays Redistricting Law Firm $75,000 Over Agreed ContractState Board of Education to Vote on TEA's Statewide Required Book ListPaxton Sues DPS Over Religious Advertisement Ban in Texas Driver HandbookJudges Can Conduct Traditional Weddings While Declining Same-Sex Ones, Texas Supreme Court SaysTexas Education Agency Announces Seven Charter School Closures for 2026–2027

I know. I'm like a grinch of movies. I'm going to the movies for the first time and a long time tomorrow. What are you seeing, Matt? The extended version on the 25th anniversary of the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring. Incredible. Incredible. Nothing less. Well, howdy folks, it's McKenzie here with Matt, Meredith, Hannah and Kim, Full House. Today on another edition of the Weekly Roundup podcast.

we're set to go. We almost had an all-gals podcast episode, and then Matt just had to come in and spoil the fun here, which, you know, we'll let him. We like Matt enough to think that that's totally fine, but regardless, it was almost the first all-female edition of the podcast, which would have been fun. So maybe another time we'll just accidentally make that happen and make it a little bit, you know, it'll seem as though it's spontaneous, but really it's planned. But regardless, I want to chat with two of you ladies. I want to plug some news, quickly because I feel like we don't talk about them enough on the podcast. If you're a subscriber to the Texan, you're familiar with these portions of, or this portion of our website and this content that we send out in your inbox every single week or every single month. And quickly, I want to make sure that, you know, we plug those and make sure that folks know what's available to them as subscribers of the Texan. So Kim, BlueBotted Bulletin has been around now for, it's been around for almost two years, which is wild to think about. But give folks just a quick rundown. of what exactly the Blue Bonnet Bulletin is all about.

Well, I have the joy of writing the Blue Bonnet Bulletin once a month, and it is a good news newsletter. I try to feature stories of people making a difference around the state doing good things that are uplifting people. It can be ordinary people. It might be a group. It might be a ministry. So I'm always on that lookout for news stories.

So if any of our readers have ideas about people they know in their community, who are making a difference. I'd love to hear from them at K. Roberts at the texan. I love it. Can you give us one example of a story that you've highlighted? Well, I'll give you a preview this month coming out on Sunday is going to be about a group mentoring fatherless young men over in East Dallas. So it's really a great story.

Amazing. So folks, go subscribe to the Texan to get that sent to your inbox every month. It's, I say, I have a, I always say that the newsletter we're talking about at the moment is my favorite, but it really is so great. So go subscribe to get Blue Monat Bulletin in your inbox. And Meredith, we have some exciting news. If you've, you've seen an announcement from us, you know, this is coming. But regardless, you're starting a newsletter yourself, an education-based one, kind of give us a little bit of your vision for that. And this will be a weekly newsletter that will come into inboxes each week.

Yeah, so there's so much that's going on in the education world. and it goes beyond just some of the headlines or the typical things that kind of come through the news cycle. And so I'm just really excited. I'm a former teacher, so I have a lot of experience, 11 years in education. And so as I'm writing these articles, there's always different things that come to mind

that I would love to explain or dive deeper into either zooming into something really, really specific and local or zooming out and showing how Texas relates to the rest of the nation and something like a specific topic related to education. So this newsletter will be a deeper dive into the education world and hopefully your new favorite newsletter, Mackenzie. There you go. I love it. I'm just going to say, whoever sends me cookies that week, that's who will be my favorite. So I'm just throwing that out there. You know, Holly always petitions for chocolate. It's not fair. Meredith is known for her cookies. This is not fair. That's true. That's true. That's all you need it. I don't need to write, really. I just need to send cookies. send cookies. That's my petition.

Holly's always petitioning for chocolate. So this is me petitioning for cookies, you know, to each their own. Of course, Matt has the docket, which is amazing. And he's writing, you know, he's podcasting from his law school. So how appropriate is that. But regardless, it's exciting stuff all around. Go subscribe to the texan.com. Get a newsletter sent directly to your inbox.

Well, let's stay on the education bandwagon here, Meredith, and talk a little bit about some updates in a, sexual abuse case involving former Selena ISD coach Caleb Elliott. This has made headlines all over, and you've been following this story from the get-go. Give us these latest updates, Meredith. So a lot happened this week with this story. Actually, a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, multiple announcements have come out regarding the situation. So just a little background, former Selina ISD employee Caleb Elliott was arrested on October 3rd. So this has been going on for a little while. he remains in custody on charges of recording and photographing students nude in a locker room at more middle school.

Reporting and authorities have found about approximately 40 victims in this case, so it's a really widespread issue that students, parents, families, everyone's looking for closure on. So additional allegations against him were things like he was transferred from another school for an inappropriate relationship. He potentially had a relationship with a student. there were allegations of him placing cameras in the locker room and allegedly making male students perform burpees and jumping jacks naked. So those are, there's a lot there that needs to get looked into. So these allegations prompted Salina ISD to commission an independent third party investigation. And then they also placed Allison Ginn and Bill Elliott, who was, she is the more middle school principal. And he, Bill Elliott is a head football coach and athletic director who was also Caleb Elliott's father.

So they were placed on administrative leave during this investigation, and then there were multiple civil lawsuits filed, including one by representative state rep Mitch Little, who was representing 17 different family members in that case. So on the 12th, they have a school board meeting. They meet. They're going to, in a closed session, review these investigation findings, which is pretty standard, and eventually released some redacted information from that. So there were different speakers that spoke that night. Many of them, there were multiple that spoke in favor of Allison Ginn's employment status, including someone brought her daughter, like maybe who was an elementary school, who was very crying and asking them to give her her job back. So there's just a lot of

emotional things going on in that evening. And some people did speak out against Bill Elliott as well. So after that meeting on January 13th, the next day, they released these findings that were done by Gina Ortiz. And so she said after interviewing 39 witnesses, which the school says that they do not have the fullest of all the students who are involved that they don't know. So they interviewed 39 witnesses. Ortiz concluded that none of the eight allegations against Caleb Elliott or Slina ISD were substantiated. So some of those, just to review those allegations that they found no evidence forward, things like him being transferred to more middle school to avoid termination, the allegations of a prior, of a confrontation between Caleb Elliott and another coach or employee

in the locker room regarding the recording of students, allegations that he placed cameras, making them perform things naked, and then just overall saying there were no prior concerns about Caleb Elliott's locker room conduct before October 2nd, 2025. Obviously, there is disagreement on this. The Texan, we spoke to Mitch Little, who said that specifically on the allegation of a confrontation in the locker room at a press conference in December, he had spoken saying that he has evidence and witnesses to that. And so he said, we expect to show the jury that evidence when the time is right. So that day, Bill Elliott, Caleb Elliott's father, resigns. He formerly retires, is the word that was used in the letter. And there was,

in a second, we'll get to some lawmaker reactions to that. But then the next day, yesterday, Alison Gin resigns from Salina ISD following the release of this investigation. So multiple Texas state reps reacted to this very strongly. Mitch Little was one of them, seeing his close involvement. He commented on the third-party investigation saying his quote was, that's going to be a really neat trick to explain how you can conclude an investigation without talking to a single victim or their families. Having done this a long time, that is a new one on me. Representative State Rep. Jeff Leach chimed in a couple of different times, but one of the stronger

points that he made was, if the head coach and principal did nothing wrong, then the board should reinstate them immediately and stand behind them publicly and proudly. He went on to say that if the board allows either of them or anyone else with culpability to resign and ride off into the sunset with full benefits, no repercussions and no accountability, then there should be held to pay, starting with replacing the entire board. And then the last one was representative. State rep Matt Shaheen released an official statement, specifically saying that he is greatly disturbed to hear that given these abhorrent circumstances, Salina ISD, has decided not to terminate Bill Elliott's employment, but rather has allowed him to formally retire. This is entirely unacceptable.

Selina parents deserve full accountability in this matter. Bill Elliott failed miserably to do the very thing he was enlisted to do, protect the Slina ISD students that he was hired to serve and lead. So a lot of strong reactions on this. And once again, this is an issue that is not going to go away. So we'll keep you guys updated on what happens next. Meredith, thanks for following it so closely and providing. I love how you went through step by step. And like, this is the timeline of how this all happened. Because I think it's easy to, it's been going on for a little while now. Easy to, you know, forget how quickly this kind of took these last few steps. So thanks for tuning in and making sure that our readers,

and listeners know what's going on. Matthew, we're going to come to you here. A district attorney group bringing me in several Texas counties announced guilty pleas by two county commissioners from different counties that were charged by her office, talking about accountability, walk us through what happened here. The 81st district attorney, Audrey Gossett-Lewis, announced that both the Atacosa County Commissioner, whose name was Kenard Bubba Riley and Wilson County Commissioner, Russell King, both entered guilty pleas in criminal cases that her office brought against them in criminal cases that were unrelated to each other. According to the district attorney, Riley pled guilty

to a charge of theft by a public servant after a county employee reported him to law enforcement for stealing county gasoline from a county yard. As a result of the plea, Riley will serve one year of probation, complete community service, pay restitution, for the theft and issue a written apology letter to his constituents. He was also required as a condition of the plea to resign from his office, which he did in a letter on December 31st, which is posted on the district attorney's Facebook page, and he also provided a brief explanation and included the brief apology inside the letter for his conduct. Meanwhile, King was charged with deadly conduct after an investigation by the Texas Highway Patrol, found that he intentionally

used his vehicle to ram another person on a rural highway. Now, unlike Riley's charges, which related to his conduct in public office, King's charges did not relate to his public office, and because if the criminal charge didn't amount to felony, he will actually retain his elected office. Now, with the guilty plea, there were also conditions. He'll serve a year on probation. He'll pay restitution. And he's also required to issue an apology to the victim in that case.

Now, in announcing these cases, the district attorney used them as an example that in her office, which encompasses five Texas counties and it's kind of south central, south of south and central San Antonio, I would say, if you're looking for an area. That in her district, that accountability still applies to everyone.

And she encouraged the public to, basically if you see something, say something because it will have an impact. Matt, when you see some of these stories that are local and salacious in nature, these are kind of your bread and butter. You have a way of stepping out these stories. Do you just get so excited when you see something like this come across your desk?

It reminds me of the good old days. Like I started out journalism, like at the very local level, you know, reporting on the city council and the county government and everything like that. Like I, you know, I used to really go down the rabbit hole on some of these investigations. And it's amazing, you know, how even at the local level, like you can still find some really, squirly politicians who really, you know, dodge and zigzag and everything like that. But at the end of the day, you know, if you do your due diligence and do your investigation and everything like that, it's absolutely amazing what you can dig up.

As a matter of fact, I was having a conversation with some friends. I think it was like Thanksgiving and we're sitting around chit-chatting afterwards. And I was kind of telling some of my old battle stories and they're like, you know, you really need to start writing a book. Food for thought. I absolutely think you should. And, you know, the timing of that book is probably the biggest question, but you should write the book because the amount of random knowledge you have about local politics and Texas and state politics. You've just been around the block, Matt, and you have a lot of knowledge up there in that brain.

So I always love hearing about it. And I think a lot of these local stories, even though they are local, maybe the scale seems smaller, they can oftentimes be the most salacious. And I don't know what it is, but these local governments can go wild. So, yeah, the facts can be amazing. The money can still be pretty tall money. It's just you have to have a passion for that story because it's not, you know, the big fun thing. Like, you know, people love to get a lot of attention whenever it's at the state level or it's at the, you know, national level. And that usually gets all the attention.

But, you know, what happens at the local level is still extremely important. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Matt, thank you. Kim, speaking of local politics, let's talk about this. This is interesting and dovetails very beautifully with what's happening on the national level. It's just wild all around. But earlier this week, Dallas Police Chief declined to provide numbers about ICE interactions with police officers in his department. Tell us more about what happened here.

Sure enough. So as you mentioned Dallas Police Chief, Daniel Como, who really hasn't been on the job that long, he was hired last year. he was sent a memo by the Dallas Community Police Oversight Committee asking him for a report about the Dallas police officers' interactions with ICE officials. Now, a little background. Coma reminded the committee that the Dallas Police Department does not enforce immigration law. They declined last fall to enter into what's called a 287G agreement with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or as it's commonly called ICE. They did not enter that agreement to engage in immigration, investigations, and enforcement activities. So their interaction with ICE is usually he described it as securing the perimeter when ICE is conducting its own operations in Dallas. So given the rise in violence around the country against ICE officials, and even in Dallas, there was a shooting last year in.

in Dallas where the FBI believes ICE was targeted last fall and a detainee was killed and two others were injured. Given the rise in violence and the proximity of Dallas police officers during those operations, Como thought it was prudent not to provide the requested information to the community police oversight committee about these operations. So just a little context, the Department of Homeland Security recently released a press statement saying that ICE officials during the first year of this second Trump administration have faced a more than 1,300 percent increase in assaults, a 3,200 percent increase in vehicular attacks against them, and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats.

So they're trying to enforce the immigration laws, and they're facing a lot of backlash, and that backlash in the form of violence. Our own governor spoke about this at a campaign stop in Katie earlier this week. He spoke to our own Holly Hansen, and he addressed the recent shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent saying that while it was a tragedy, and he did acknowledge that her death was a tragedy, he also pointed to the reality that. that ICE is out there trying to enforce immigration laws and they need to be allowed to do their job. Our readers can go to the texan.News to see Holly's coverage of that event and more about Dallas and its interactions with ICE. Absolutely. And go read Kim Roberts reporting as well and check all of it out. We appreciate that Kim. It's complex and I appreciate the diligence that you and Holly put into covering such complex and difficult issues. Matthew, we're coming back to you here.

Texas's two senators, federal senators, say that more needs to be done to prevent those illegally in the country from causing harm while drunk driving. And they filed legislation to address this issue. Walk us through it. Senators, Ted Cruz, and John Cornyn filed the Stop Illegal Aliens Drunk Driving Act, which contains two key components. First, it creates a federal aggravated felony offense. for illegal aliens who commit any criminal level of offense relating to drunk driving, and in doing so, cause harm to another person or actually cause somebody else to die. Secondly, it requires that any alien who has been convicted of such a crime,

or who admits to having committed an essential element of such a crime, to be permanently denied entry into the United States. Now, Cruz issued a statement regarding the bill, saying it's needed to close a loophole for law enforcement that they need to help protect Americans. Cornyn also weighed in, saying that the bill is needed to help show zero mercy to those who are illegally president in the country, but who further disregard our laws and cause harm to others.

The senators also issued a list of current supporters of the bill, which showed about 10 co-sponsors at present. But notably, it carries bipartisan support with Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona signing on as a co-sponsor. There you go. Co-sponsors all around. Matt, thanks for covering that. And I'm always interested to see, I mean, Cruz and Cornynors are such different, same political party, different political stripe, always interesting to see where they can kind of come together on different issues, especially when one of them is up for re-election and going through a tough

primary or vice versa when cruises up. So interesting, very interesting all around. Okay, well, Kim, let's go to you here. Let's talk about redistricting. Big story on the state level has been all last year, but it's been huge on the local level as well, particularly in Tarrant County. And they've been certainly fodder for you. over the last year or so in terms of reporting. So walk us through what's the most recent update on Tarrant County redistricting. Well, as our readers likely recall, the Tarrant County Commissioner's Court did engage in mid-decade redistricting of the commissioner precincts with the express purpose, as cited

by County Judge Tim O'Hare, of trying to get another Republican County Commissioner. That was the sole purpose. Well, that effort, which did pass in June, was then subject to a couple of legal challenges claiming discrimination against minority voters. The county then hired the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which is also known as PILF, to represent it in those legal challenges and approved a contract with PILF not to exceed $250,000. Well, this week at the Commissioner's Court meeting on Tuesday, An invoice was presented to the commissioners for approval of a payment of about $75,000 above the $250,000 maximum.

The Democrats on the court who had completely opposed the redistricting effort on all fronts, that's Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles, they objected to the additional invoice payment. Simmons kept asking at the court, she asked the. staff, she asked other commissioners, she tried to find out who had authorized PILF to continue working beyond the 250,000 limit. But she couldn't get an answer. The DA's office who worked with PILF, the civil division, said they weren't in charge of authorizing it. And the county administrator's office said, we just get the invoices. And the contract that was signed with PILF stated that if billing reached the $250,000 limit, that PILF would then brief the commissioner's court about the budget

and what options were available legally to continue its work. But on Tuesday, no representatives from PILF were there to answer the commissioner's questions and no one could verify that such a briefing took place. Anyway, after all of that, the invoice was approved on a split vote. No surprise. and the two Democrats opposed the invoice payment. But the county did win its two legal challenges. Lots going on there.

My gosh, and lots of money in question here. But Kim, thanks for following it. And if you're interested in how this all goes down, because this is a very high-profile story, Kim has covered this from the get-go. So definitely go and read all of her reporting. Um, this is, can one did this whole start started? I mean, you said a year ago, but when did this?

April 2025 was when they first hired to draw maps. And then, yeah, it's been going on since then. And of course, the primary and the general of this year are going to be big, um, big moments in Tarrant County as we watch folks, you know, file in to, oh, they already filed, but basically just be elected into these seats. It's going to be interesting to watch. And of course, the county judge's race is going to be one to watch. For sure.

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Commissioner, just to throw that in, people keep an eye on. Commissioner Elisa Simmons is challenging County Judge Tim O'Hare for the county judge seat. It's going to be a big race, two names that are very familiar to Tarrant County voters. We've been on the ballot plenty of times. Kim, thank you. Meredith, let's come to you here.

More Education News, Shopper. Last week, the TEA, the Texas Education Agency, released a proposed list of required reading for Texas students. Give us the rundown here. So the TEA released this final proposed required literary works list on January 9th. And it's setting up for a State Board of Education meeting at the end of the month where they're going to vote on and decide to accept this list that would change what every public and open enrollment charter student is going to be reading in the future in Texas. So to rewind a little bit, this goes back to the 88th legislative session with House Bill 1605 that requires that the State Board of Education needs to adopt into the teeks, which are the Texas essential knowledge and skills, a list of required vocabulary, and they said at least one literary work for every grade level, which this list has

much more than one. But that is the requirement by state law. So this is why this list was made, and eventually if it's approved at the end of the month and through a few more different processes, we will see it in statewide assessments as well. So the TEA went through a pool of more than 10,000 titles cross-reference them with about, I think it was 5,700 different Texas teachers and then evaluated them from multiple things like, do they align the teaks, or the texts have the right complexity to them, do they comply with state law, are they suitable for different state board rubrics that already exist? And so the TEA specifically is highlighting that this is going to help with inconsistencies in education. So specifically the 16% within year student mobility rate

where students are moving within schools or within districts in the state. This idea that they move from place to place, they could be rereading a book or completely skipping different types of literature or texts that are important for them. State Board of Education member Audrey Young talked about, she specifically said that inconsistencies across the state have perpetuated the continuance of a reduced literacy score and Texas's public school model failing students. So these, this list are, I read through all of them from kindergarten to 12th grade, which really interesting read because maybe I'm just a book nerd, but there are a lot of great titles

in there, a lot of things that we've all read. For the younger grades, there's things, lots of fairy tales, folk tales, myths. For the older students, it moves into different novels and different short works that things like classics, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, Greg Gatsby. Two of my favorites, Pride and Prejudice and Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington's book, which is a great read. So just there's some great things in there. And then there's also smaller texts and different things that coincide with social studies and history. There are some religious texts in there as well as required by state law. And I had asked, I spoke with Dr. Shannon Trejo, who is the TEA deputy commissioner for the Office of School programs, the long name there.

But she was in charge of putting this list together. I was able to speak to her. And I did ask about, we've had some backlash with religious text specifically in the Blue Bonnet. learning curriculum. People have been upset that I've listened to different meetings and heard a lot of public comment where people are upset that that's included. But it is like she reiterated is part of state law. And she just said there's a statutory requirement around religious literature and its impacts on history and on literature and that the TEA selected pieces that would support students being able to engage in reading and understand historical impacts, things like general

sayings in the English language and idioms that come from religious texts. So another thing is this is a great list. There's lots of, there's so much in it, but we do know that students, according to STAR data, are reading between third and eighth grade, anywhere from 49 to 57 percent of students are meeting the grade level reading standards. And so I was just asking Dr. Trejo about how are students going to access some of these texts when they are a significant amount of them are below grade level for reading. And her comment was just that, Texas teachers understand how to meet student needs and they work with each student to ensure that they can gain access to the content. And she just ended saying, sometimes I think if we will just allow students the opportunity to read, they will rise to the occasion. And so overall, TEA officials are saying that this list is this idea of building a shared base of knowledge. So anyone going to Texas schools will be reading and doing the same things. And they described the list as an effort to establish a statewide literary canon. Well, Meredith, thank you. I know I was

at that list and picking out my favorite titles. It's exhausted. There's so much to delve into there, and it's fun. So thanks for putting that together for our readers. Kim, let's go to you here. You've been covering this issue by Texas judges declining to perform same-sex ceremonies for several years now, and the Texas Supreme Court now gave a definitive answer to that question. Walk us through it. Well, thank you, McKenzie. I would like to give a little background and context for our readers who may not be familiar with this issue. There are at least two judges that I've been covering in Texas who are involved in lawsuits trying to clarify if they can be subject to disciplinary action. Texas has a state commission on judicial conduct and if they can be subject to disciplinary action by that commission,

if they decline to perform same-sex ceremonies but choose to perform traditional marriages for heterosexual couples. And so those two judges are McClennon County, Justice of the piece, Diane Hensley, and she was actually disciplined by the commission for her refusal to perform same-sex ceremonies. And then Jack County Judge Keith Umphras, and he sued in federal court in 2020 to try to clarify his rights, his religious freedom rights, to decline to perform same-sex ceremonies. So this article particularly relates to Umphras's case, but it does involve Hensley's case. So the district court in Umpherson's case said that he didn't have standing to bring this suit because he hadn't actually suffered anything and so he was dismissed. It was

dismissed. But he appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. They accepted it and then they certified a question to the Supreme Court of Texas. And just for our readers who may not know when a federal lawsuit is brought and it involves a question of state law that may be unclear, there may be no existing precedent on it, the federal court can, in quote, certify a question to the state Supreme Court asking for an answer to that state law question because federal courts are not, they are not authoritative on state law, state courts are. And so the federal court sends that question to the state court to certify an answer. So in this case, the Fifth Circuit asked the Supreme Court of Texas to answer whether a judge.

judge who refuses to perform a same-sex ceremony is then prohibited from performing traditional weddings. And the court answered no. And this takes us back a little bit to a previous article that I wrote in October. The Supreme Court of Texas had added a comment to the judicial ethics back in October, and it said, quote, it is not a violation of these canons for a judge to publicly reframe from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief. Settles the question, right? Not exactly. In the Hensley case, the Judicial Commission followed up with an argument that that comment

to the judicial canon did not indeed settle the matter. They argue that the comment only states the judges may decide not to marry people based on a religious objection, but it doesn't state that they may choose to marry other people if that decision results in apparent discrimination that could cast a reasonable doubt on the judge's capacity to act impartially as a judge. So their argument is that if you're going to refrain from performing same-sex ceremonies, then it will look discriminatory against those same-sex couples if you do traditional marriages of heterosexual couples, and so they think that's still a violation. So has the Supreme Court certified answer now clarified things and settled the matter?

Well, the Fifth Circuit asked for additional briefing, so we'll see. That's what I have to say. We'll see. Keep reading the Texan, and I'll let you know. Oh, my gosh. That's so good. And this is, like you said, this has been several years of coverage here that you're, you know, alluding to that you're following up on.

So there's a lot of backstory here, and we'll keep an eye on it. Okay. Kim, thank you. Okay, well, let's go ahead and move on to our next story. Hannah, we're going to come to you here. Last week, the Attorney General filed a lawsuit citing a violation of First Amendment rights. Tell us what happened. Yes. So last week, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Safety, of Public Safety, so the DPS. He claimed that First Amendment rights were violated under Title 37 of the Texas Administrative code. The rule was created in 1999 and then established in 2000, but it includes prohibitions of advertisements in official mailings and also in the DPS handbook. So some of the prohibitions include religious ads, controversial organizations, ballot measures, tobacco ads, ads contrary to agency goals, political ads, gambling ads, controversial issues, alcoholic beverage ads, personal or offensive issues, and ads which mention the department anywhere in the advertisement.

So again, it was created in 99, established in 2000. He stated that the rule infringed on the rights of religious groups and discriminates against religious groups in that the defendants are upholding the religious ads prohibition. So it's unclear what sparked the lawsuit as the current issue of DPS actually also has no advertisements at all in it. But of course, with elections, coming up, everything is important. So that's so true.

Everything is. And these kinds of issues, we love seeing, you know, a prostrate, like this comment to our inbox. It's always interesting in sends us down a rabbit holes. If you like rabbit holes, go check out Hannah's reporting at the Texan. Hannah. Thank you for your coverage. Okay, let's see here.

Meredith, you have our last story of the day here. Let's chat through it. The TEA, another TEA story, announced seven charter schools. We'll be closing after the end. end of this school year. We've talked a little bit about different school closures in the past, really more directly to public schools, just traditional public schools. So walk us through these details. So the TEA confirmed that the seven charter schools will be closing at the end of the 2025-2020s school year. And there's a few different reasons why the TEA can be involved in a charter

school closure. It can be academic failure, financial problems, or just failure to meet some of their renewal or contract requirements. And so there were three voluntary closure. which were Bridgeway Preparatory Academy, Meadowland Charter District, and Yellowstone Academy. And the conservators were appointed to Bridgeway and Yellowstone, specifically I read those letters. And what's interesting is the schools have to pay for the conservators at a rate of $250, $250 an hour,

which is to be paid by the schools. And they are involved in helping them with the process of closing the school down. Accountability rating scores drove a few different, a couple of other closures, and Bloom Academy earned an F after failing to meet an improvement plan that they had, and Legacy Sport Sciences posted unacceptable academic ratings and also had some financial issues over the years as well. Essence preparatory charter school did not appeal the closure. They cited that it would probably be expensive and unlikely unsuccessful. And so under the TEA's code, they are allowed to close a charter school if they

receive three unacceptable accountability ratings within five years. And so Essence Prep did qualify for that. And then there was a charter school, two dimensions, Preparatory Academy closed. They just failed to submit a charter renewal petition. So it just kind of win its course and ended up closing. And so these are, like you said, this is a trend we're seeing. There are a lot of school closures that were announced last year. And there's even, I have a running list that I keep. There's even more they're popping up this year. But it's more common in traditional public schools due to declining enrollment is one of the larger things. But we are seeing some other charter networks announce that they're closing schools. For example, we cover that KIPP, Texas public schools announced they're

closing seven campuses in San Antonio and Austin. So it's happening, a lot of discussion in the school board meetings. Community meetings are being held. They're doing feedback, different things like that, but we will see a lot of closures this year in schools in general. Absolutely. Can you quickly for listeners just describe the difference so folks understand the difference between just a charter school and a traditional public school? Yeah, so a traditional public school is the school down the street where you are zoned to for your address, and that's where whatever grade you would go to that school.

Charter schools make an agreement with the state for a variety of different things. like you heard some of these here. One of them is a sports school. One of them, they can be prep schools. They can have specific focuses or just be a general school. And they make a charter with the state and agreement of how they will run things and that they need to obviously have certain test scores or certain financial standings. And they have to meet some of those things to continue their charter. They are often going to be lottery. So whoever they have limited availability, but it's kind of if they get more than the amount that they say that they can have 500 students or something like that. If they get more, there's going to be a lottery to see who would be able to go into that school.

And some of the, some of the, what's the word like criticism against them is that they are allowed to, like a different, they can expel students or they can have different discipline, they can run things different than the state. And so they can, the criticism is that they can allegedly be more selective or different things like that. But they are called open enrollment because they are not, they are open. You can, oh, you can openly enroll, but you are not guaranteed a spot. Yeah, makes sense. Thanks for running that back. Okay.

Well, wonderful, y'all, let's move on to our tweetery section. Oftentimes my favorite part of the podcast. I want to go to you first. What do you have for us this week? Well, sadly, as many people know, Scott Adams, who had been suffering with pancreatic, no, prostate cancer, died this week, earlier this week. And I just have a personal story about Scott Adams. I feel like he played a role in my love story with my husband.

We were both in law school and we were studious. and would go to the library in the mornings before class started. And so I learned that he really loved Dilbert, the cartoon. And so I would find the paper every morning and go and find him, and we would read the Dilbert comic strip together. And so I have a fondness for Scott Adams, and I'm very sorry for his passing. And I hope his deathbed profession of faith was genuine.

in. So I'm just watching all the reactions all around. I love that story, Kim. That's awesome. Okay, let's go to Meredith. Walk me through. Mine was something that a lot of us have seen. Josh Hawley had an interaction with a doctor in a hearing, and it's four minutes of just asking a doctor if men can get pregnant. And I think there's, at one point he said, I can't believe we're still doing this. And I think that that's, I've seen a lot of people repost it that I know are on different political ends of the spectrum. And I think that it's, hopefully soon can be a total bipartisan issue that we can all laugh at and agree that this is ridiculous. And it was just the answers and the interactions were comedic. And I laughed many times.

And so, I don't know, Josh Hawley is really good for a good lambasting of a, in a hearing. can really get to the point there. I feel like he's had more viral, many moments than I've seen many senators this year, or in the last year, obviously, we're a few days in this, but this year, but I've seen so many viral moments from him. I feel like, and this is a while now, and I'm like when Trey Gowdy left, do you remember Trey Gowdy? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I feel like he left, like, that kind of vacuum that was filled by somebody, like, they had some similarities of the way that they would ask questions and have that comedic timing as well. Yeah, absolutely. Hannah, I'm going to go to you next. What do you have for us to for this week's tweeterie?

Okay, this little bit of football humor. I saw this on Barstool Sports. Heck yes. So my husband would be proud of me that I follow Barstow Sports on Twitter. The coach of Ole Miss, former coach of Ole Miss, Wayne Kiven, he left like, right as Ole Miss was coming into the playoffs this fall for LSU. So he's had other controversial exits in his coaching career. But I saw a tweet that had a picture of him with the Venezuelan flag behind him. And it said, Lane Kiffin is now leaving LSU to become the president of Venezuela.

It just made me laugh. It's so good. That's like on par with all that Marco Rubio has like five jobs memes that I'm seeing everywhere. It's so good. Hey, Hannah. Yeah. I don't follow much sports, but that versatile sports guy has this social media side project page where he goes to pizza restaurants all over the country and all over the world. And it's like, he calls it one bite review or whatnot, but like every review he does, he like eats an entire slice slice.

It's not one bite. And he repeats himself, he'll be like, one bite, one bite, one bite. You know, and every time he takes one bite, you know, it's anyway, I don't know, it's kind of cheesy, but it's entertaining. And it has a large following. And every now and then you get a good idea for a pizza restaurant. One bite, everybody knows the rules. Yeah, that's it. One bite, everybody knows the rules.

Yeah, and then he takes another bite, and then he takes another bite. And he's like, one bite, everybody. Yeah, Dave Fortnoy, certainly one for internet fodder, to say the least. He just posted recently a video from a year ago, him doing a pizza review at, I don't know, a restaurant on the East Coast. So it was pizza, it's a diner pizza restaurant. And he doesn't tell the owners he's going. He just kind of like finds a spot wherever he is in the country and goes in and does a review. Yeah.

He went in, came out, did his review. The owner comes out and is like, oh, my gosh, we're so excited as you're here. start talking. He just like this very enthusiastic, um, gregarious dude. And somehow it comes up that the restaurant's about to close. Like they just aren't getting enough business, things they're going well, yada yada. And Portnoy goes, but he's like praising Portnoy for, uh, being pro small business. Because during COVID, he had this like small business funds or I forget the nature of it, but he basically had a fund that helps small businesses weather that storm. And the owner, you know, says, we're about to go out of business. Portnoy says, how much money is you

need to keep this place open. And he's like for another year. And he's like, I don't know, like $60,000. And he like really hesitated to say a number in Portniquet Pushing. He's at $60,000. He's like, done, you'll have it before Christmas and then walks out. So just interesting. And then they shows me a year later that they have business and, you know, they're doing well.

I haven't seen that one, but I have seen somewhere like he actually gets into it with the store owners like because he's pretty confrontational fellow. Give him one nice moment here, Matt. He had a nice moment. Exactly. I don't know if I don't, because there's probably so many, but tell me which one you're thinking of Matt. Well, there's this one where he's out there and he's about to rate this pizza well and suddenly the owner comes out and he's like, hey, just so you know, I don't like what you're doing. He's like, this isn't fair.

You know, we really work hard, tails off hard. And then you come out here in an house and give us a seven point. or a 5.4 or whatnot. And, you know, like, he barely even gets his spiel out there, you know, but he's clearly, like, unappreciative of, you know, the rule or whatnot. And then just point or just jumps down his throats. And he's like, you know what? I was going to give you a 9.1, but you know what?

I ain't giving you nothing. This is a zero, you know, and just, like, jumps down his throat. And, like, just, yeah. And, yeah, it was, and they get, like, really intense. It was, like, almost fight breaking out sort of thing. And so, you know, it's, I guess what's interesting about the show is it's much more than just his occasional, you know, review, which I don't know, for some reason the review is fascinating because he'll be like, you know, look how crispy this crust is. And, you know, like, he's got his formula for rating a pizza down, like, great, it's everything you want to look for in a good piece of pizza, you know. And nobody likes a soggy crust pizza and, you know, everything like that. So, yeah. it's a fun channel. But then every once in a while, it gets personal.

And then every now and then, yeah. So true. Meredith, are you jumping in? Can I add it just a total different tweeterie? I just realized I want to add. Yes. Mary Elise posting her wedding photo, just, I don't know if that, you didn't write one. I don't know if that was yours, but.

No. Gorgeous. And I love that she wrote, you'll expect my usual Texas ledge reporting with the new last name, Irish last name, Obar. And it's just a gorgeous photo. So shout out to Mary Lisa. We should be joining us in a week or so. But it was very beautiful.

It's so true. The picture is gorgeous. Go check out her Twitter for that. And it's amazing. And last week we recorded right before the wedding. We can now say the wedding was amazing. We had so much fun for those who were able to be. I think from this crew was just Meredith and I.

But it was so fun. And even just to get to be together and hang out, it was the best. And it was a sweet wedding. Everyone and her family is just wonderful. And it was so fun to meet people that. um we're just there ready to celebrate it was awesome and we had the best time i will say i rode trips there with brad and rob and they spared no time getting into it with each other it was like brad was driving with his knee on the phone texting and rob was like all over him about it and

it was so fun and at one point brad was like well then rob you drive and rob's like i'm busy and they just were like just at each other's throats the whole time it was very funny um And for once, it wasn't me, you know, going to bat against Brad. It was great. So I loved that. Okay, Matt, let's chat through your tweetery. Well, it turns out that just as our podcast recording began, that Texas Attorney General announced that he was excited that he has cracked a case and obtained a court victory against a company called CalMaine Foods,

which he alleged was, which he was suing for violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Apparently, they had engaged in some price gouging. The company sells chicken eggs, I guess, to grocery stores. And apparently there was an instance in which they were caught inflating the price of eggs by roughly 300%, which, for those who do not know, Texas has a price gouging law. where you're not allowed to charge excessively for things. As part of a settlement in securing an agreement with them, Cal Main has agreed to donate

1 point or 2.16 million, 2,160,000 eggs to the great state of Texas. Now he issued a scrambled up list of how these eggs are to be distributed amongst various food banks throughout the state. 30,000 eggs will go to the North Texas Food Bank, Houston Food Bank, 20,000 eggs to the Tarrant County Area Food Bank, 10,000 eggs to Rio Grande Valley Area Food Bank, 5,000 eggs to the coastal bend in South Texas,

and then at least 2,000 eggs to High Plains Food Bank, West Texas Food Bank, that's there in Odessa, and a few others there in the West Texas area. So there you go. You've got the yoke on the legal egg news. I like it, Matt. That's very good. I want to, I want to like two things quickly before we let folks get back to their day here.

But one, campaign finance reports are coming down the pipeline here. So be on the lookout for all sorts of reporting from our team as those kind of over the next week or so here. We'll also have the war room up at the Texan that will be a slow going process, but we will have the war room up, which is essentially a one-stop shop for all campaign finance numbers, polling coverage from our website on the biggest races in the state, the most contentious races in the state. So go certainly keep an eye out for that, as that rolls out over the next few weeks as we get all the data in from all the different sources that we get it from, but check out the war room. But I also wanted to kind of throw this out there. We talked about

this on Slack a little bit last week, but Alamo Draft House is going directly to a mobile ordering system. So the whole thing with Alamo Draft House is that they want a, you know, top tier moviegoing experience for those coming into their theaters. So when you order food, you order drinks, you do so with a pen and a paper, and they, they will kick you out if you text. They will kick you out if you're on your phone or calling wild. Now, they're switching to a mobile ordering service, which you know, you'll have to be on your phone for, which is kind of against and antithetical toward their entire thing. So I'm curious y'all's thoughts on this. I read the article. It does say that it will be like a dark screen

system. I don't know exactly what that means if it'll just be like a black, you know, background with a white, I have no idea what that even means. But how can you enforce no texting or being on your phone if you're also asking folks to order your product on their phone. It doesn't seem like it makes much sense to me. I think Kim had brought up, and I agree with her. I'm just not a big fan of people coming in and out

during the movies. And so I wasn't, I know that like, Rob loves Alamo Draft House, I think. And I wish she was here to comment on it. But I just, I don't go to the movies too much anyway, and I definitely don't want people walking in in front of me or talking to me. I just, yeah.

I don't like it. I'm going to the movies for the first time and a long time tomorrow. What are you seeing, Matt? The extended version on the 25th anniversary of the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring. Incredible. Incredible. Nothing less. I'm pretty excited about it, yeah.

That's awesome. And I can't believe it. I've never seen the extended version. I just saw the extended versions last week. Is it good? I mean, I don't think they needed to keep those scenes that they took out. It didn't really add that much to the movie, except time. But actually what Meredith was talking about.

But time is precious when it comes to Lord of the Rings movies. True. So I don't like those movie theaters, but we went to one on Saturday, ironically, to see Song Song Blue. and which was pretty good actually I have to say so I still didn't like those people coming in and out and they had you like use your phone to take a you know to do the QR code of the menu and people had their phones out and you could see them and people were coming in and out so I don't it'll be a while before I go back to one of those movie theaters it serves you dinner I know I'm like a grinch of movies.

But here's the thing. I actually appreciate that, Kim, because if you don't like that kind of movie theater, you just don't go. But if you like Alamo Draft House, like, that's where if you enjoy having food, because the thing is, this doesn't change this mobile ordering system, the fact that servers are going to be bringing you food. All it does is change how you're ordering, right? There's still going to be interruptions.

There's still going to be people coming in and out, bringing you your burger, your triple fries, your fried pickles, whatever it is. Not that I know the menu inside and out, I definitely don't. But it's not going to change that, right? It's just going to change the method. So if you don't like movie theaters with food, just like Kim said, don't go.

Don't do it. But for those who enjoy this kind of thing and like having, you know, whatever movie going experience this provides, it is weird that that's the angle they're taking because I think it's far less enforceable. Like their whole business model is based on no distractions on your phones specifically. It's weird. I also like not being able to see. because I ordered a salad, which I'm not a weird thing to order at a movie theater, but I ordered a cough salad and it was hard to see while the, what I was eating while the movie theater was dark.

And anyway, I know that's a silly thing, but I'm just going for the popcorn from now on. Popcorn again, perfect movie food. You don't need to see it to get it. That's a good take. Well, folks, team, thanks for joining me. Folks, thanks for listening to all of our blathering. and chatting. We'll catch you on next week's episode of the weekly roundup. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple

podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to the Texan at the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the Texan. News. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.