The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - January 19, 2023

Episode Date: January 19, 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: Sen. Ted Cruz endorsing Donald Trump after he won the Republican Iowa caucusLt. Gov. Dan Patrick jumping in to his first Texas House primary race of the cycleAn investigation disproving allegations that Texas officials let Mexican nationals crossing the Rio Grande drownOne Texas House member reversing course on his vote to impeach Attorney General Ken PaxtonGov. Greg Abbott’s busing program reaching 100,000 noncitizens transported to sanctuary cities across the U.S.Gov. Greg Abbott setting a record for the biggest single political donation in Texas historyThe 5th Circuit Court of Appeals striking down part of Texas’ READER ActThe sub-freezing temperatures that hit Texas this weekThe City of Austin relaunching its Equity Forum this month

Happy, happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup. This week, the team discusses Senator Ted Cruz endorsing Donald Trump after he won the Republican Iowa caucus. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick jumping into his first Texas House primary race of the cycle. An investigation disproving allegations that Texas officials let Mexican nationals crossing the Rio Grande drown. One Texas House member reversing course on his vote to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton. Governor Greg Abbott's busing program reaching 100,000 non-citizens transported to sanctuary cities across the U.S. Abbott setting a record for the biggest single political donation in Texas history. The Fifth

Circuit Court of Appeals striking down part of Texas's Reader Act. The sub-freezing temperatures that hit Texas this week. And the city of Austin relaunching its equity forum this month. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, and Matt on another episode of the Texans Weekly Roundup. We are back in 60 degree weather after multiple days of very, cold negative temperatures well it wasn't negative okay below 31 sub freezing yes that's a very important distinction here we do not operate on celsius that didn't mean it like that but fair calling me out on it. Fair. But it was cold.

You got snow. We did get snow, yeah. You got snow out where you were. Did Winston like it? Does he care? Does he frolic in the snow? I don't think there was enough for him to... Frolic?

Yeah. Was it like a layer of ice or was it actually snow? It was actually snow. That's pretty awesome. Matt, what do you got? Well, the weather is nice today but i will say the wind is insane um i mean it has just been gusting all day like i don't even know i i don't even remember the last time it was this bad in west texas but it's bad

yeah well you're yeah you look like you said you're on West Texas. So weather's, weather's a little more, it's very different from what we have here in Austin oftentimes and a little more extreme in a lot of ways. Never a dull moment. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, Mac. That's right. I forgot to turn off my notifications. I'm doing a great job today. I'm remembering how Fahrenheit and Celsius work and I'm remembering to turn off my notifications. We're doing great. Okay, gentlemen. Well, let's go ahead and jump into our stories for this week. Cameron, we're going to go ahead and start with you. Some federal news here. Trump won the Iowa Republican caucus this week and picked up another big endorsement. Tell us what happened. Yeah, that's right. So it appears Trump just cruised to the Iowa caucus win.

He picked up 51% of the vote and won 98 of the counties. And just like I alluded to right there, Ted Cruz came out on Fox and said he would fully endorse Trump for president. He was speaking with Hannity during an interview. He called the win dominating. He said this race is over. Before he stated outright, he is proud to endorse Donald Trump for president. And he may mention that this is a time for Republicans to come together because, as Cruz said, we've got to beat Joe Biden. And just some interesting background here with Cruz is he won the Iowa caucus in 2016. And so a lot of things that have been mentioned about the voters in Iowa is that they know this process well, and they ask a lot of questions, and they have a, there's passion for the caucus by these voters. You know, I've been following this whole ordeal and it's been interesting to

watch. But Trump has previously been endorsed by Governor Greg Abbott. So now this is two really big names that have endorsed Trump for president this year. And Trump did win the primary in Texas, both in 2020 and 2016. So he has a lot of support here in the state. And one of the polls that I was going through that I think would be interesting to mention is Texas Politics Project did a poll in September and showed 79% of those in that poll hold a favorable view of Donald Trump. So there's continued support for him. And now all eyes are turning to New Hampshire as that's the next caucus event that's going to be going down. And early polling is showing it's really just becoming a two-horse race. After the Iowa caucus, Vivek Ramaswamy, he dropped out.

He picked up close to 8% of the vote in Iowa, but he suspended his campaign and immediately endorsed Donald Trump. And he actually gave a speech opening up a rally for Donald Trump in New Hampshire. So that was interesting. He's aligned himself with the Trump movement there. That's what he was really doing through his entire Iowa run as well. But Nikki Haley seems to be picking up a lot of steam. She's polling at 34% in New Hampshire, according to some recent polls. And the early presidential hopeful, Ron DeSantis, he seems to have skidded a bit because this most recent poll I saw, he's just garnered 5% of support. So really a two-horse race now in New Hampshire. And that's happening next week i believe i'm not getting much confirmation here

i don't know if it still is i think it's next week hold on yeah it was also expected tuesday yeah so tuesday next week so uh for all our listeners out there, you know, we could get some people dropping out after that. Some more endorsements. It will be interesting. So something will be following. Definitely. A couple other interesting points. The Trump's victory in Iowa.

Let's say it's looking like he wins the nomination. If he does, that will be the first time the Iowa caucus winner in the Republican primary becomes the nominee since George Bush in 2000. Hasn't really been a gauge for success, even though

it is the first out of the gate. I believe New Hampshire is an actual primary. I don't think it's a caucus. Oh, OK. I think Iowa is the only one that's that's a caucus like that. That's why one reason it's so unique. But Trump ran away with the last New Hampshire primary in 2016. So he's performed well there before and expecting to again, I'm sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I confirmed it is January 23rd, the New Hampshire primary. So he's performed well there before and expecting to again, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. I confirmed it is January 23rd, the New Hampshire primary. So yeah. New Hampshire is an odd place. Uh,

I was up there in 16 and you'd have houses, households where, uh, one of the spouses was all for Trump and the other spouse was all for Bernie Sanders. Very weird. So wild. Um,

they have an interesting flavor of conservatism there because that's where a lot of the libertarians have gone. They have this whole free state project. Oh, really? In New Hampshire? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Just, you know, observing from afar, it's very interesting play.

And notable in that Cruz waited so long to jump behind Trump. Let's talk real quick about why he waited. Why did it take him so long to jump in? This is, you know, there's a lot of speculation as to why, but where are we at on that? Well, it's, you know, Cruz and Trump have had a spotty history, right? I mean, they ran against each other in 16. And especially from Trump's side, there were, and Cruz threw it right back at him, some harsh words exchanged between the pair. They mended that since.

And then Cruz, it appeared from the outside. And this was just waiting to see who would emerge. And, you know, a lot of people expected Trump to just run away with it. And it's looking like that's going to happen. But others thought maybe, you know, lot of people expected trump to just run away with it and it's looking like that's going to happen but others thought maybe uh you know desantis had a shot and ultimately at least right now it's not looking that way and so now that it's pretty clear who's going to win uh you know cruises jumping on on board and it'd be fair to say that the desantis support camp and the cruise support camp um overlaps very substantially so i think that's what a lot of folks were waiting to see as well.

Well, Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Brad, thanks for hopping in. We're going to chat here real fast. Having held up for a while, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has now jumped into the Texas House primary fray. What did he say this week? Patrick made his first endorsement in a Texas House race this week, backing Helen Kirwan, a GOP challenger to Representative Dwayne Burns, who was among the 21 Republicans who voted

to strip ESAs from the Education Omnibus Bill back in November. Kirwan is the mother of Brooke Rollins, a high-profile politico who served in the Trump administration, ran the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and now runs the America First Policy Institute. Kerwin has been backed by Abbott and Paxton as well. Yeah, absolutely. And this endorsement is certainly notable as right after the fourth legislative session or the end of the fourth legislative session, Patrick was all for lambasting the House and Speaker Phelan and that he would not get involved in the races. I mean, all he did was pretty much just stop short of endorsing Phelan's challenger outright, going hard against the speaker. And he walked that back a couple of weeks later and now is

saying he might have some things to say. And then he made back some challengers based on very specific issues like property taxes and school choice. Those were two of the big kind of dividing lines over the special sessions this last year. But this is the first one we're seeing, the first endorsement we're seeing from the lieutenant governor in a House race. And it'll be very interesting to see if there are more, what follows this, how far the lieutenant governor takes it. He's got $20 million in the bank, which is plenty to kind of get involved in these races and try and tip the scales. And one way or another, we already see Paxton and Abbott very much involved in some of these races. And so now we could potentially be seeing another huge factor in this primary come in as the lieutenant governor himself.

Last cycle, Patrick did endorse in some house races. We saw that in such as Representative Nate Schatzlein's race. So we'll keep an eye on it. But Brad, thank you so much for your coverage. Matt, we're coming to you. An investigation by the Texas National Guard debunked allegations started by a Democratic congressman alleging that guard soldiers prevented Border Patrol agents from rescuing three Mexican nationals who drowned. A crazy story, tragic story. Give us the rundown. Absolutely. And to begin, we have to revisit recent actions by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who ordered the seizure of a Eagle Pass City Park known as Shelby Park,

which includes some 50 acres that borders the Rio Grande and is where tens of thousands of illegal aliens have been crossing for some time, multiple years now. Actually, if you add it all up, it's probably in the millions that have come across at this location, which is why it's such a point of contention. After Abbott ordered the seizure of the city park, Texas National Guard troops under his command in DPS erected a barrier fence and have been keeping Border Patrol agents out of the park, except to allow for their recovery of federal property and for medical emergencies. The reason for this, I'm told, is that federal immigration officials are simply giving foreign nationals who enter illegally a notice to appear in court,

with court dates as far out as 2036, and then turning them loose, whereas state law enforcement is now arresting them on criminal trespass charges. The recent controversy exploded when Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar made a post on Twitter claiming that a mother and her two children, all Mexican citizens, drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande. And when Border Patrol received a call that there were people in the water in distress needing rescuing, they went to the Guard soldiers to get access to the river, but were denied, and that this led to the drownings. However, the National Guard released the findings of an investigation that found no such thing had occurred and set the record straight on what did actually happen.

According to the report, Mexican officials informed Border Patrol that the drownings had occurred roughly an hour earlier, and this was around 8 o'clock in the evening when this all went down for details. Two men were also crossing the river at the same time and had made it to the Texas side. One was arrested by DPS, the other turned over to EMS for treatment. Border Patrol agents then approached guard soldiers at the Shelby Park gate to, one, inform them of the drownings,

and secondly, ask about the two who made it across. During this time, Texas had a search and rescue unit in the water using searchlights and night vision to look for anyone in trouble, but saw no one. Interestingly, the details of a Department of Justice court filing regarding the incident confirmed the National Guard's investigation timeline. So far, none of the Democratic officials who shared the original accusation have retracted it. Although, and a Texan on the story out today that you can read about, one Democratic congresswoman recently did walk back the details of the allegations. And you can check that report out online at the Texan.

Absolutely, Matt. Thanks for breaking that down for us and trying to just get all the facts straight. We appreciate your coverage of this issue. Cameron, we're coming to you. There's been a lot of coverage on the issues on the border. We're going to stick with this subject here. And Abbott has continued his busing program to sanctuary cities. And you came across some interesting numbers about the economic impacts of these moves.

Tell us what you found. Yeah, that's right. Abbott has continually posted about his busing program on social media and putting out press releases. And one of the recent ones he put out was that he has sent over 100,000 people to different sanctuary cities across the country. And so I thought it'd be interesting to sort of look into the individual impacts of this illegal immigration, how much in taxes are being spent on this. So for example, I came across a report done by Axios where they found Texas has spent around $1,650 per person in its busing efforts between April 2022 and October 2023. And then there was an organization called the Federation for American Immigration Reform, who did a 2023 cost analysis of the different fiscal

burdens of illegal immigration and found the net cost to be at least $150.7 billion. And that's at the combination of federal, state, and local levels. And they broke it down by individual here. And so the gross cost per taxpayer being spent is $1,156 every year, while the cost burden per illegal alien, as they titled it, is $8,776. So that is a huge offset there in the amount that is the cost burden to a regular citizen and a legal alien being in the country. AG Ken Paxton, also, I came across a filing of a lawsuit he did in 2021, where he says that he uncovered millions of dollars that Texas taxpayers involuntarily spent on illegal aliens every year.

And there was another report done by the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security last November that actually pointed to Paxton's lawsuit where he said he uncovered this millions of dollars of costs and said that between 2006 and 2008, uncompensated costs borne by Texas state hospitals providing care to illegal aliens ranged from $597 million to $717 million. And that same report added that when you factor in inflation since 2008, $717 million equals more than $1.03 billion in May 2023. So lots of money being spent on attempting to handle the growing issues at the border. And it's really illuminating the problem as Matt has been talking

about with the state and federal issues with attempting to quell the mass number of people coming up to the border. And this battle doesn't seem to be quieting down anytime soon. So something I just thought our readers would be interested in reading about is just the economic impacts of illegal immigration. Absolutely. And we hear all sorts of news about, okay, this new program's implemented, or here's Operation Lone Star, this many illegal immigrants have crossed the border this month. And I think it's important to look at, you set these fiscal numbers to get an idea of the economic impact. Yeah. and there's these same sanctuary cities that Abbott has been sending

what we title them as non-citizens in our reporting. Cities like New York City, they are actually suing the charter bus companies and the lawsuit is seeking $708 million in damages to cover the care provided by the city. And Chicago, something we reported on, they sent a delegation of people to border cities to try to understand and review operations. And so it's a problem if you're in a red state, a blue state, red city, blue city. It's just a growing problem.

Yeah. Something everyone is touched by in one way or another. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Brad, we're coming to you. The first Texas House Republican that voted for impeachment has now issued an apology to the attorney general. What are the details? State Rep. Gary Gates, a Republican from Richmond, issued a statement late last Friday saying, quote, The impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and the continued legal harassment of President Trump by national Democrats have become reflection points for me.

I firmly believe that both the House impeachment and the Senate trial were actions that should not have occurred. As you mentioned, Gates was among the 60 Republicans who voted for impeachment. Paxton responded to the statement saying, quote, I truly appreciate this kind of honesty. Thank you, Gary Gates, for sharing. Healing comes when truth is exposed. This took a lot of courage to admit. I'm proud to support you in your reelection. Yeah. Big statement there. Is this the first time we've seen Gates made a gesture like this to

Paxton? No. He attended an October event for Matt Morgan, the Paxton-endorsed challenger to state rep J.C. Jatone, another Republican from Richmond, with the intention of mending things with the attorney general. Gates followed that up by donating $15,000 to Paxton following the Senate's two-week trial. So those overtures had been made, and this is kind of putting the bow on it. Semantics here. Is it Jatone or Jatone? You know, I've heard it both ways i've been saying jeton this whole time let's just go with jeton jeton sounds fancier like a toblerone bar that's what it makes me think of great okay so let's talk about gates standing with house leadership

uh so gates has previously been a supporter of the Speaker, not one of the typical names to really rock the boat. He gave him $100,000 since 2021. Gates is personally wealthy. He owns a lot of rental housing units, and he's notable for self-funding his campaigns. But this year, Gates has butted heads with the Speaker and the rest of leadership in two main conflicts. In April, he took to the back microphone to lambast Jaton's public facility corporation reform bill, eventually amending it to Gates' satisfaction during the floor debate and asking the body to support his own PFC reform bill, which hadn't moved. Eventually, much of what Gates tacked on got stripped in the final version, but it was an especially notable clash because Gates is not usually frequent

the back mic in questioning or causing a stir. The second one came in May when one of Gates' bills died by a point of order. Gates objected to the reasoning given by the House Parliamentarians and he has since bristled at their explanations ever since. There's been multiple letters sent back, sent to them and

from Gates to the House administration speaker asking for clarification. The issue is very weedy debate over precedent and whether a 2017 precedent should have been used to make this ruling on the point of order or if a 1995 one should have been used. It's all very confusing, but it has resulted in Gates being very upset with the speaker and the parliamentarians. And at one point later in 2023, during one of the later special sessions, trying to give a point of personal privilege, give a speech on the floor and essentially lambast the decision and make some points about other how it could affect other bills. So ultimately, that didn't happen.

But this is not really surprising to see Gates come out and make this overture to Paxton, especially given the clash with the speaker and his administration for much of 2023. Yeah. And to be fair, this is also something that we like this clash between Gates and the parliamentarian highlights a lot of other discontent we've heard from members about the parliamentarian or how things have been ruled this session, concerns over precedent. You have a lot of stories of the Texan Holly Hansen's reported on this specific issue. So if you want more info on all this weedy stuff that we're talking about, it also is very politically fascinating. Definitely go check it out at the Texan. Cool beans. Brad, thank you. We're going to stick with you here. Governor

Abbott has continued flexing his fundraising muscles, setting new records. If we thought he couldn't break his previous records, well, he's looking at it and he's not even up for election this cycle. What do you announce this week? Yeah, he's a machine, isn't he? It's pretty crazy how prolific he is at bringing money. So we talked last week about Abbott raising $19 million this filing period. He just announced preliminary numbers while the reports have been out since then. And between his two accounts,

ahead of the primary clash over school choice, he has that $19 million. One of the big details he released this week was that there was one donation worth $6 million. And it's the largest one in Texas history. One $6 million donation. Yeah. We'd write about a million dollar donation.

Like that's huge. Yes. And that has not happened very often in Texas history. So time six. It's never been. Yeah. That's wild. No, it's the $1 million one that's not happened very often in Texas history. So, time six. Well, it's never been. Yeah, that's wild. No, it's the $1 million one that's not happened very often.

I think the first time we saw that was during Abbott's governor race in 22, when he had a couple. There had been one before that. One before that, okay. I believe the same donor. Okay. But yes, there was one before that. But this $6 million donation came from Pennsylvania billionaire

and school choice advocate, Jeff Yass. Yass was close with Betsy DeVos, who was the education secretary under Trump for a period, and she was a big school choice advocate. Their opinions are aligned on that issue. And I mean, it's pretty clear that that sum of money is going to be used for the school choice crusade that Abbott is embarking on, trying to flip some of these House seats that are held by members who opposed the school choice plan, as put out by Abbott and voted to strip the ESAs from education savings accounts from the Education Omnibus bill, yes, also gave an additional $250,000. And that sum was then moved to, Abbott's got two accounts. He's got a political action committee account and he's got his cash on hand account. The $60 million went to the cash on hand and then the $250K was donated to the political action committee and then transferred over to the cash on hand. So who knows exactly what he's going to do with all this, but it looks like it's pretty clear that that at least that six point two five million is going to be used in some of these house races.

Overall, the fundraising picture shows Abbott, as I said, with 1919 million raise, $38 million cash on hand between the two accounts. Lieutenant Governor Patrick raised $2 million in this report now that it comes on top of $1 million disclosed in an October filing with $24 million cash on hand. Attorney General Paxton raised $2.2 million and has $1.9 million cash on hand. Attorney General Paxton raised $2.2 million in Ray and has $1.9 million cash on hand. Speaker Phelan raised $2.5 million, has $5.5 million cash on hand. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller raised $16,000 and has $89,000 cash on hand. Glenn Hager, comptroller, raised $390,000 and has $9 million cash on hand, which that's something to watch for a future run for something. He's not running again in 26 for Comptroller. He's definitely going to seek another office, I think.

And he has a massive war chest to help him with that. And then you have new land commissioner, Don Buckingham, raised $767,000 and has $1.1 million cash on hand. Yeah, quite a haul altogether. And certainly Texas Republicans and Abbott at the forefront are big fundraisers. Yes, and it helps that the state has no limit. Yep, and that Texas is as big as it is with as huge of an economy as it does. There's a lot contributing to these big numbers.

And political relevance, all that stuff. All that stuff. Bradley, thank you. Cameron, we're coming back to you. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a group of bookstores and publishers who sued the state attempting to halt a new law that we've covered extensively,

that you've covered extensively. That's right. To prevent book vendors from selling explicit materials to public schools that then are placed in school libraries available to students. Tell us some of the details. Yeah, this is just another domino in the HB 900 story that has fallen. So just some brief background.

HB 900, it's known as the Reader Act. It was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott. It's aimed at preventing children from accessing certain materials in public school libraries by actually prohibiting library vendors from selling library material that is rated sexually explicit. And the law would also require these vendors to perform what's called a contextual analysis of their own materials to determine their level of appropriateness. Hopefully I got that out correctly. It sounded great to me.

It mumbled a bit. So it was interesting. I've covered this lawsuit, and this was the fallout of it because the Court of Appeals, they sided with the bookstore and publishers. And what was interesting, they continually, the court continually noted that they were unpersuaded by the state's arguments, especially on First Amendment grounds. The state was arguing that the First Amendment rights of these bookstores and publishers would not be infringed upon by having to do these contextual analysis.

And again, the court was not persuaded by these arguments. And especially when it came to the standing of pre-enforcement, the state was attempting to argue that this contextual analysis wouldn't go beyond what is required by different governmental agencies. But again, the court said it did go beyond just a simple disclosure of what's allowed, like demographic or similar factual information. And so the court said those arguments would not apply in this case. One interesting point, though, that in the ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court is recently the State Board of Education had adopted standards set forward by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. And these standards were set in response to HB 900 as a way to guide these public school book vendors on what is appropriate and what can be purchased and things similar to that. And the court said that was not an issue in the appeal they issued

their opinion on. So the SBOE adopted standards that we wrote about in December, those can remain. This is just going to affect the book vendors individually. And also I'll mention Patterson's response. Obviously, he said he was disappointed in the decision. One interesting thing that he did say was he called on the Office of the Attorney General to for additional solutions to this problem. He has identified of sexually explicit material in school libraries. So this will not be the last thing we hear about HB 900. And this has been an ongoing saga and it's going to keep going. Yeah. No kidding.

And a high profile piece of legislation during the legislative session, certainly. So not something that folks are willing to stop talking about for good reason. So Cameron, thank you so much. Brad, let's talk about weather. Let's talk about the grid. Let's talk about your favorite things. My favorite thing. Yes.

Yes. Not Michigan football. No, you're right. That is My favorite thing. Yes. Yes. Not Michigan football. No, that you're right. That is my favorite thing. Yeah. This is the purpose of this is both the purpose of my existence. I think. Yes.

We had a winter storm hit. We talked about it. And I provided another test for the power grid. I'm told. Yes. Yes. Would you like to give us some details as where we're at now? Well, yada, yada, yada.

I told everyone it was going to be fine. Is that enough? No. The grid held up totally fine. There were no issues. The grid set actually three new peak demand records. One was a weekend demand record that was above 75,000 megawatts. And then on Monday and Tuesday, it set two new all-time peak demand records. So

obviously it was very cold and electricity use was ramped up and there was snow in parts of the state, freezing rain as well. But mostly, as I explained last week about this, like it was just going to be cold and the conditions were not even close to the same that we saw in 21. And frankly, even if they were, the grid, unless another catastrophe had occurred, would be more resilient to that kind of storm because of some of the reforms made, whether it's the weatherization or fixing the critical infrastructure problem, designation problem. So overall, the grid performed fine. We didn't even come close to emergency conditions and it was you know that there were concerns there were projections of very tight conditions that did not bear out and so uh yeah another cold spell and another test passed yeah and only um i think the main damage we received on this end

it was uh some broken pipes folks, which is horrible nonetheless. But that's about the extent of the damage. Icy roads. Yeah. There were some power outages, but all those were local transmission problems. Whether it's ice on power lines or trees falling, tree branches falling on them, other more localized mechanical issues. But there was never a point where there was more electricity demand than could be supplied so uh another another test pass like i

said yeah check check that right off absolutely well brad thanks for covering that for us and distilling the facts down so we can kind of get a um unsensationalized idea of what's been going on cameron we're coming to you. Austin continues to push for furthering their progressive policy agenda this month, also with a new equity forum. Tell us a little bit about what this is all about. Another World is Possible is the name of this year's equity. Cameron, I love your lead-ins. They're so good. They just make me laugh, and they always catch me off guard, Even if I know what they are. Well, yeah.

You make it fun. Yeah, they're fun. You spice it up. They're fun. That's right. So, yeah, this is a re-upping of their equity forum. They took a break. Like I said, it's titled Another World is Possible,

where they plan to have panelists and organizations help the city of Austin work towards racial equity and related issues and initiatives. And it's important to note that the city of Austin has adopted a $5.5 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The total proposed expenditures for civic and business equity is over $10 million, which includes over $2 million for the civil rights program and over $3 million for the equity program. The city council also decided in their budget proposal, they plan to combine this equity office with the small and minority business resources department and their civil rights office to create a new office called

the Civic and Business Equity Department. And they plan to do this sometime this year. I highlight in the piece some of the past work the city council has done in the name of understanding equity. They actually commissioned a study to quantify the cost of black dispossession due to the city's policies. And the city and the equity office spearheaded the whole reimagining public safety initiative. And with the recent reporting on some of the machete attacks that we've written about as well, that program doesn't seem to be that well received by some in the public. Just for example, when we were writing about one of the more recent machete wielding maniacs, that's a quote, that attacked someone in downtown Austin, a teenager actually, the Austin Police Association president told us that the officers continue to arrest people who are violent or who have shown a

propensity for violence, yet Travis County prosecutors ignore that work to accommodate criminals more than protect their constituents. So despite the lead-in being a bit spicy, like you mentioned, that is only because the people who are in charge of law enforcement and oversight seem to be differing in the approach, like I mentioned. The reimagining police movement versus the words coming from the Austin Police Association president seem to be at odds. And these progressive policies, you know, differing opinions online in the community about what should be done. But this equity forum, they're going to be exploring some new initiatives, and I'll keep my eye out on it. Absolutely. Thank you, Cameron. Bradley,

while we've been sitting here on this podcast, you have been tuning in a little bit multitasking. We record on Thursdays to publish early Fridays. That's the timeline here. But you've been listening in to some news from the attorney general. What do you got? was on Charlie Crook's radio program and announced that he and his office had filed a new brief in the ongoing whistleblower litigation. As a recap, that is allegations of abuse of office made by four former top aides to the attorney general. And that was the biggest theme of impeachment, the investigation that led up to it, the settlement that was originally announced and then kind of revoked after the legislature or actually fell apart after the legislature, the House specifically refused to pay for the $3.3 million settlement. And then after impeachment was over, it got revived in court. And it's kind of been going back and forth ever since. We saw it in order to have to hold some depositions of individuals, including the attorney general.

And the attorney general has been trying to prevent that from happening and basically just get rid of the case and it seems like as as claimed here by the the office of the attorney general that they have done that by essentially in this brief pleading no contest and that the intent there is to expedite a judgment by the Travis County District Court. And basically, instead of keeping this dragged out and going back and forth with dueling filings, the intent here is to just bring it to a close. And I don't know if, if the the district court does issue a judgment quickly you might see an appeal maybe you don't i don't know it looks like right now the attorney general's office at paxton just wants this concluded um but we don't know what the whistleblowers will

say to this maybe they come back with a competing filing. I don't know. But as of now, this is the next counter move that Paxton has made. And he says that specifically he's doing it because he wants to bring this, quote, wasteful litigation to an end and enable him in his office to continue the other legal fights that they're having, whether it's border, any number of things. So that's the big news right now. And I guess we'll wait to see what the following counter move is from the whistleblowers. But yeah, big update there. And we're, of course, keeping an eye on the looming depositions from or of Paxton and his senior staff and also there was a subpoena issued to nate paul for deposition in this case which he filed a motion to quash so there's just a lot of back and forth on this and clearly they do not want depositions to happen and they just want this over with they view

the impeachment verdict as vindication and they say that this is just sore losers basically trying to you know pitching a fit essentially yeah we'll definitely keep an eye on it Brad thanks for keeping an eye on that press release or excuse me that press well we're also just podcasting

killing it multitasking like a pro but I'm gonna stop complimenting you because you hate it Matt we're going to you next you had some interesting campaign finance reports come out this week. We already talked about you had some interesting observations about donations from Pfizer and how that pharmaceutical company has entered into the Texas political sphere over different periods of time. Walk us through what you saw most recently and kind of what the trends have been previously. Well, sure, Mackenzie, as most of our readers and especially our Twitter followers know, this is the merry time of year that we love to comb through all of the financial report disclosures for Texas political candidates and office holders. And I've been kind of keeping an eye lately on some of the finance activity of some of the big pharmaceutical manufacturers, particularly because there's a pretty wide interest in knowing just how some of these companies are influencing politics in Texas.

One of the biggest giants, if not the biggest, Pfizer. According to a search through the Texas Ethics Commission campaign contributions for this recent semiannual report, I found 31 individual contributions that Pfizer made to various Texas public officials, both legislative members and members of the executive branch. The standard contribution seems to be $1,000 for each candidate, although there are a handful of exceptions to this. Glenn Hager, the Texas comptroller, received $1,500, while Texas Governor Greg Abbott's PAC also received $1,500. Meanwhile, pretty much everyone else that I'm seeing on this list are legislative members that received $1,000 contributions. A wide variety of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, committee chairs,

ordinary rank-and-file members. I mean, we have everybody from Senator Brian Hughes to Aaron Zwiener, Lacey Hull, Donna Howard, just kind of not really seeing any particular pattern. And I'm not exactly sure what their reasoning or position on campaign contributions for. But yeah, so we tweeted the list of 31 officials who received finance. And as we have more time, we're going to take a look at, I think, a broader area of major pharmaceutical and medical lobby and manufacturers and see just exactly how they're influencing elections this cycle. Kind of an interesting topic.

It's drawn a lot of attention on Twitter. Yeah. And for good reason. And Matt, thanks for compiling that. Make sure you go follow Matt on Twitter. And I will mention that some of the people on here, you can kind of find them on both ways, like particularly on like vaccine mandate votes

and things like that. Like there's going to be people in here that voted both for and against like the ban on COVID-19 vaccines. So once again, not entirely sure what their criteria was for the contributions, but public record and we're just putting it out there. There you go, Matt. Thank you so much. Let's move on to the Twittery section of our podcast.

Gentlemen, Bradley, we're going to start with you. Some interesting political dynamics at play federally, locally, statewide. Fascinating. Give us the details. So Politico put out an article this morning that's titled Trump Seeks Revenge on Ex-DeSantis Operative. It says, quote, Trump and people in his inner circle have told down-ballot GOP candidates not to hire Republican strategist Jeff Roe or his firm. Roe's firm is Axiom Strategies, which is a very large political consulting firm in the nation. They also have a very large footprint here in Texas.

Some of their top clients include Senator Ted Cruz and Attorney General Paxton. You will see most of the Texas House challengers that are running against incumbent Republicans who voted for impeachment have Axiom as their

consulting firm and uh trump is saying this on the heels of the iowa caucus win uh because jeff rowe who runs axiom was running desantis's super pack for a while now i think it was two ago, maybe, Roe resigned amid a lot of dysfunction within that super PAC and just DeSantis world in general. But now Trump is telling – Trump and his people are telling candidates, if you are with me, then you will not hire Axiom. And so that's going to have an interesting trickle-down effect. And these consulting firms change hands a lot. They're shifting sands. Interesting enough, Axiom, if I recall correctly, ran David Dewhurst's campaign against Cruz when he first won the Senate race.

They also ran, if I recall as well, I think Philip Huffine's race against Angela Paxton that was pretty nasty, and I think that was in 2018 maybe. And now Axiom is on Ted Cruz's side and on Paxton's side. It's just this stuff changes all the time, and they're hired guns right yeah uh consultant world is it's very much uh you know what have you paid me lately uh and that's just the nature of it but it's interesting to see it play out when you have these you know these

falling dominoes later on and, uh, just a weird situation. We'll see if it has any actual implications, but pressure from a high, uh, you know, trouble holds a lot of sway among a lot of people. And he also, though,

says things that he doesn't mean, for example, uh, criticizing Vivek Ramaswamy like a week before the Iowa caucuses and then Ramaswamy drops out after and endorses him and then they're all buddy-buddy. Like which is the real Trump in that? I don't know. But like – I think it's just all political speech.

Right. You know, the Vivek thing, he puts out a tweet, he's not MAGA. And then Vivek comes out and endorses him giving speeches in New Hampshire for him. Yeah. And then everyone on social media goes from hating Vivek to he's back on our side. We saw that with Cruz. Yes. Trump said some horrible things about Cruz's wife.

And then Cruz afterwards, then Cruz afterwards admitted defeat. He lost and he said, all right, I'm back in the president. Yeah. So who knows what's going to happen here with a consulting firm. Right. aligning themselves with more pro-Trump people. Or if Roe comes out and starts saying positive things about Trump, maybe, you know, who knows what Trump will do. Yeah. Trump values loyalty.

I think that's very clear. Very clear. And so I think we can change on a dime here with rhetoric from either side. Which is exactly why he's coming out swinging. Yeah, exactly. Because they backed DeSantis. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But fascinating. And for folks like I'm curious, y'all's perspective on this or anything you'd add to this, but the consultant world and Texas politics either holds no bearing on how elected

officials are operating or a lot of bearing. Like it's kind of one or the other. I think some consultants really do have a myriad of different candidates who, you know, usually one party, right? Like there's usually Republican consultants and Democratic consultants. But sometimes they really do have an array of candidates from the very conservative end to the more moderate end, you know, candidates all across the spectrum. it's almost a team sport where a lot of folks who are contracted with that consultant or that firm hold a lot of the same policy positions, maybe align with a lot of the same statewide elected officials. You see a lot of the endorsements come down in line with who the consultants are. And I think by and large, especially with the big consulting firms in Texas, that would be the case. So interesting, especially post-Paxton, right? This is where really where we've seen a lot of this, or not post-Paxton, post-Paxton impeachment trial. We've seen a lot

of this, particularly with this group come down. Yeah. And you know, when you have lower level candidates who aren't as sophisticated on political issues, because they haven't been in this thing for so long. And they may not need to, right? Yeah. They're going to listen to their consultant a lot. And if their consultant is telling them Right. Yeah. They're going to listen to their consultant a lot. And if their consultant is telling them, you know, criticize Pax impeachment, if they don't already believe it, which a lot of them probably do, you know, that holds a lot of sway. And it's very influential. Yeah. Well, and one of the first questions, you know, reporters or insiders ask when a candidate

announces, OK, who's their consultant? It just tells you a lot. Right. It tells you a lot about their their candidacy and who they're aligned with. So it's interesting. It's another layer to the massive proxy war in the Republican circles in Texas. We talked a lot about the HD2 special election and you have Brent Money on one side, Jill Dunn on the other.

Yep. Axiom is a great example. Yeah. And Jill Dunn has Murphy Nazca. And so these two not only are these two candidates fighting for this rate, this election, the seat, you have those backing them fighting for relevance in whatever the decision making circles are in the party. And then you also have the other layer of these two massive consulting firms fighting for business. Yeah. And they both have their own opinions about the direction of the party, the direction of conservatism, all this stuff. But also it's a business. And that's I could literally say so much about this,

but that's what's interesting is these firms that are more hired guns that come in and have candidates of all different political stripes within a party again, but of all different political stripes, they may not go out there and find candidates to run in these races. They may just have candidates approach them. They may find candidates of different, like they don't have an ideological bent as much as other firms to be able to say, okay, we need these candidates. These kinds of candidates are already filed in this race. We need one like us.

Right. Which is where a lot of consultants, but then other consultants do. Right. So there are those two approaches where some it's like a catch all for just a bunch of different candidates. And then other consulting firms are like, no, we don't have a candidate that represents our ideological bent within the Republican Party or within the Democratic Party. We need to find one and place them in the race. So it's fascinating. And consulting firms, so people know how this helps.

They usually help fundraising. They usually help with mailers, messaging, social media, advertising, TV, radio, whatever the campaign is, you know, has the money for it. That's all the direction and strategy of a campaign is usually run through a consultant and they have vendors they work with that allow easier access for the candidate to these kinds of processes. So they're usually campaign vets. Yep. They at one time worked for a candidate or candidates and eventually went on out on their

own, started their own firm and, uh, just began advising essentially. And they're usually on retainer even during the legislative session. Um, and kind of turn into advisors if their candidates do wins. Yeah, exactly. Yep. All sorts of inside baseball. Good stuff, Brad. Thank you. Um, Cameron, we're coming to you. What did you find this week on the Twitter, on the X? Well, last week I talked about the license plates that were rejected, and we went over some funny license plates. Well, something new has dropped here where the U.S. Federal Highway Administration's newest regulations

say TxDOT, who oversees Texas highways here, they can't put up funny traffic signs anymore. So just some things like if you've been driving before and, you know, it says if you see something, say something when you're, you know, see a drunk driver or call 911 or giving instructions to do this and that or Amber Alerts, sometimes they put those up there. But sometimes they put funny stuff. Like I came across one that on Thanksgiving, they said one of these text hot signs said, gobble, gobble, go easy on the throttle or on Christmas day. Rudolph is the only one who should be the one driving lit. So, so these funny little puns i guess the federal government says no you can't do that anymore um unfortunate though because those are you know you're on a long road trip been driving for hours you look up you see that you know puts a smile on your face yeah it really does look at big brother taking all the joy out of things especially the joy of christmas yeah gosh guys

so sad but i just thought you know you change up the the tone a little bit we talked about some heavy stuff today it's true it's very true a lot of a lot of inside baseball sorts of things yeah you know try to bring some levity i like it i like it cam 342 days until christmas in case anybody wanted to know i did have to google it i will say well in my brain did Try to bring some levity. I like it. I like it, Cam. 342 days until Christmas. In case anybody wanted to know. I did have to Google it though. Nobody asked. I will say.

Well, my brain did. So I wanted to know and thought I'd share. Brad's just mad that I told him I didn't have time for him today. That's what Brad said. That's true. Yeah, okay. I was deeply offended. I'm sorry about it.

Matthew, tell us what you found on Twitter this week. Well, there's all kinds of great things on Twitter it's just so much fun hard to pick but um one thing that just broke a little bit ago while we were podcasting was that a whole bunch of members of congress including ones from texas filed an amicus brief with the u.S. Supreme Court and the Colorado election case. For those who don't know or do know, the state of Colorado wants to remove former President Trump from the ballot, citing the 14th Amendment Insurrection Clause. Of course, that's all kind of been put on hold. They're putting him on the ballot, but they're still like resolving the question of how the 14th Amendment Insurrection Clause, which says if you've engaged in insurrection against the United States, you're not eligible to hold public offices with the United States.

Of course, a lot of the Republicans are quick to point out that Trump has not been convicted or even charged with insurrection and that a lot of these claims are kind of just based on the allegation that he engaged in one. And so this U.S. Supreme Court's taken it up and they are going to soon settle the question. Probably first time that this clause has been addressed since like the late 1800s, but it will bring greater definition with regard to how it functions. One legal scholar that I follow on Twitter was pointing to another clause in the 14th Amendment that basically says Congress has to pass a law showing how this clause is enforced, and they really haven't done that. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how the court rules. But a whole bunch of Texas congressmen, including U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and John Cornyn,

are all signed on to the amicus brief. Yeah, very notable. Thank matt cameron matt matt i this is not so much texas focus but there's you mentioned something on our little docket here about scotus but i wanted to ask about have you been following the chevron uh case that's been taken up? Not as close as I would like to be, but I have been loosely following it. Okay. Chevron Deference is a multi-decade old legal precedent that basically the courts abdicate a lot of their judicial authority to federal bureaucracies and their ability to promulgate rules to carry out the effects of statutes. And the argument is that they have delegated away too much of their judicial authority to these administrative agencies

to allow them to essentially create whole new laws on top of the actual, way beyond the scope of the actual statutes that Congress passed. So there's been a legal movement afoot for some time to find a case at the right time to take it back to SCOTUS. I know Justice Neil Gorsuch is kind of one who's regarded as having laser eyes for overturning Chevron and reasserting the judiciary's role, which from what I am seeing, if the challengers in this case are victorious, it's going to really dial back the federal administrative state. So, yeah, huge case there. But I haven't had a chance to, like you said, look at it as closely because I followed another big case out of Texas at the Supreme Court this week.

DeVillier v. Texas, one that we reported on quite a bit. We're going to do a follow up piece here soon. But it's essentially a Texas farmer down by Houston, Richie DeVillier, who always had water naturally flowing across one side of his property. And then TxDOT came along and did some construction on I-10 and built a dam, causing his property to flood during the first big storm. and he's wanting to sue the state of Texas for a reverse just taking clause violation, saying essentially by knowingly building the dam and flooding his property, he's entitled to just compensation from the state for destroying his farm. The state, through the Texas Attorney General and State Solicitor General, are arguing that the Fifth Amendment's takings clause is not self-executing, meaning that Congress has to pass an additional statute that allows you to sue for a just takings clause, as opposed to a citizen being able to sue directly to recover a claim under the Fifth Amendment. Once again, that's going to be a major, major landmark decision whenever it comes out. Courts have split on this question in the past.

The Fifth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit say that the Fifth Amendment is not self-executing. It passed a non-binding Supreme Court precedent. Some state Supreme Courts have said that it is. So it'll be interesting to see. Absolutely. Well, real fast, I'm going to highlight a tweet from Patrick Svitek saying in a newly published campaign finance report, Ken Paxton discloses $2.3 million in legal fees to lawyers who worked on his impeachment trial. Previously in December, we found that there was about a $4 million cost incurred by the House, by the Texas house who brought the impeachment charges against the attorney general. So now we're seeing some numbers here from Paxton's camp. We've Hilton

Stone, which of course, Judd Stone and Chris Hilton, two members of the OAG or the solicitor general, and then Chris Hilton who works with the OAG, both went on leave to defend attorney general Ken Paxton during the trial. That's one firm, or I don't know if that was just formed for this instance, but the Cogdell Law Firm, Dan Cogdell is mentioned as well. Sheaf and Stone is a big firm out of Dallas. I know Mitch Little is, who's now running for Texas House, largely relating to the impeachment and different issues related to Paxton. He's part of this firm. And then, of course, one Anthony Busby, Tony Busby.

So big cost there. We'll keep an eye on that. But that's over $6 million in costs. $6.5 million, I believe, in costs. After the acquittal, the cost was closer to four million so that uh someone hasn't been disclosed yet maybe hasn't been paid yet but yeah probably gonna go up and these kind of uh reports they can come out in waves too right depending on when they're paid and all that so that makes sense so we can only see this portion for this there's not really anything that's um

outstanding or untoward about that. It's just kind of how it works. So, okay. Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining me, folks. We so appreciate you tuning in to our podcast each and every week for listening to us blather on and on about the news of the day. And we will catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening.

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