The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - January 29, 2021

Episode Date: January 29, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” our team discusses a special election for a Texas House seat, Beto O’Rourke eyeing a run for a statewide position, a conservative caucus outlining legislative priorities, the battle between state and local governments, Dallas distributing COVID-19 vaccines, the City of Austin purchasing a hotel to house the homeless, Texas blocking a deportation freeze from the Biden administration, and a bevy of legislative proposals from state lawmakers.

Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here, Senior Editor at The Texan. This week, our team talks about a special election for a Texas House seat, Beto O'Rourke eyeing a run for a statewide position, a conservative caucus outlining its legislative priorities, the battle between state and local governments, Dallas distributing COVID-19 vaccines, the city of Austin purchasing a hotel to house the homeless, and the state of Texas blocking a deportation freeze from the Biden administration. Plus, our team details a bevy of legislative proposals

from state lawmakers relating to men and women's sports remaining separate in public schools, Texas secession, taxpayer-funded abortion, and the Second Amendment. Thanks for listening, folks. We hope you enjoy. Welcome back to another episode of the Weekly roundup podcast mackenzie taylor here with daniel friend isaiah mitchell hayden sparks and brad johnson we have all sorts of things to talk about this week daniel are you ready i am it's gonna be fun it's gonna be fun i think we're all i'm post chick-fil-a so i'm feeling pretty ready ready and raring to go yeah i didn't have any good coffee like you though oh yeah my coffee probably wasn't that good because, you know, it's coffee.

Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Isaiah, are you ready? Oh, yeah. You pumped? This is going to be good. Wonderful. Well, boys, you've been running around all over town.

The legislature was, you know, active for about two seconds this week. So y'all have been all over. It was more like 10 minutes to be exact um it felt like two seconds for sure but y'all have been in and out of the office we're glad y'all are back here and we're raring to go so daniel we're going to start with you actually with some weekend news um i would say it's the last special election of the year but it's 2021 this is the first special election walk us through what happened and the results, what it will yield for the legislature. Yeah.

So there was an election in House District 68, which is North Texas. It covers 22 counties up in the north of Fort Worth. It keeps going up toward Wichita Falls in that direction. That neck of the woods, quite a few counties, very rural, very Republican district. This is a seat that was previously held by Representative Drew Springer, who is now a senator after winning the special election for SD30 in December. And so they had to have a special election to fill his spot. And so there were four Republicans running, well as one Democrat whose name was just on

the ballot. And from all that I can tell, he really didn't have a campaign. But there were four Republicans running who got the majority of 80, 95% of the vote went to these Republicans, but none of them received over 50% of the vote. So that means it'll be going to a runoff. Wow. So in terms of how close it was on election night, walk us through a little bit of what that looked like. Yeah. So the lead candidate, David Spiller, is an attorney and a board member for Jacksboro ISD, which is up in Jack County. And he ended up receiving 44% of the vote by the end of the night now it did

look at some points though he might be able to pull off getting over a majority um he was definitely far ahead of all the other candidates everyone else received less than 20 percent i believe and so it was really a question there were there were two questions on election night it was is david spiller going to get a majority, which he did not. And then the next question was, who was going to be a runner up? Because this went back and forth between all of the three other Republicans in the race. At each point, they were at some point the runner up. So it kind of looked like toward the end when Cook County votes still hadn't been counted, it looked like Cook County Judge Jason Brinkley, who was at that point, you know, fourth out of the five candidates,

it looked like he might get a boost with those votes from Cook County. Once it did come in, it turned out to not be enough turnout in Cook County to push him up to second place. And neither did the other candidate, John Berry, who's a financial planner from the same county that David Spiller was. He also did not receive enough to edge out the eventual runner up, who was Craig Carter. Craig Carter also ran the SD30 election, you know, a loss to Drew Springery luther in that um but he lives in the district or his business is in the district he owns a boot business uh there in nakona um so he ended up taking the second place uh interesting to note um obviously david spiller who kind of led the race he spent the most money and raised the most money.

And following that was also Craig Carter, who also spent the second most thanks to a loan from his own business. He poured about $50,000 into that race. So now we'll move on to the runoff election. We don't know when that's going to be. Yeah. So what would that walk us through what needs to happen in order for a runoff election to occur? So the secretary of state and governor's office will set a date for the new special election or the special runoff election. Until then, the seat is going to continue being vacant in the legislature. And so, you know, it'll be 149 members, not 150. Once they do get the date set, uh, there will be that election voters in this district will be able to go out and vote, uh, for their preferred candidate. Now, what that election is shaping up to look like, uh, is definitely going to be an uphill

battle for Craig Carter, who is the second place candidate. Um, obviously he received less than half of the votes that David Spiller did. And it's also definitely worth mentioning that David Spiller has received the endorsements from the other two Republicans in the race, John Barry and Jason Brinkley. So, you know, with the support from those two candidates, not necessarily all those people who voted for those two are going to go out and vote for David Spiller necessarily, but it's a pretty strong indication that, you know, in order for Craig Carter to win this fight, he's definitely going to have to put in a lot. It'll kind of be a little bit smoother selling

for Spiller. Certainly. And with that consolidation of support, it doesn't always, like you were saying, bode well for the other candidate. Well, thank you for covering that for us. The legislature is finally all elected. We have our House members and we have our senators. Isaiah, let's chat through a bill that made some headlines this week, particularly our headline. But walk us through a little bit of what that looks like and, you know, the bill in large part, you know, relating directly to something that happened via the Biden administration this week. Sure. large part, you know, relating directly to something that happened via the Biden administration this week. Sure.

So State Senator Charles Perry has filed a bill that would ensure male and female public school athletes compete separately. And there is an obvious exception for sports that have no gendered versions of each other, like football. But, you know, there's men's and women's soccer, tennis, things like that. So his bill would codify into law a rule that boys play with boys and against boys and vice versa for girls. Yeah. So in terms of what the state can do when it comes to UIL and what kind of rulemaking authority they have, how much control does the state have over UIL sports?

Sure. So if you just moved here and you don't know what UIL is, it's the University Interscholastic League. And it started as a UT thing and it's still run by UT or officials at UT. And it's since been officially designated as a state agency. It status is kind of nebulous especially when it comes to like their constitution and there is a rule already in their constitution that determines gender of the athletes by birth certificate so in other words by the same definitions as in perry's bill his rule is essentially identical effectively to what the uil's existing rules dictate for gender and and discerning that in sports and deciding who can play with whom. But with Perry's bill, that would be a law passed by the Texas legislature and not the rule in a state agency's constitution.

So there's a little bit of difference there in terms of authority that has been contested before in court in terms of, I think it took a court case in order to get UIL considered a state agency in the first place. I don't know. But they are one now since they control almost all public school competition. Like in high school, I lettered in UIL debate and ready writing. That's awesome. Because that's who I am. And so they do football, all the A's of schools, 4A, 5A, that's a UIL designation. And there are equivalents for private schools. And obviously, the state doesn't have control over their rules, which since they're religious, mostly reflect these anyway. Certainly. So in terms of, you know, the executive order handed down by the Biden administration, walk us through what that looks like, what that is.

And also, you know, talk through some misinformation about the order that's out there. Sure. So Biden issued an executive order that was mostly interpreted as as ordering trans like the integration of transgender athletes to the gender that they choose in school sports. And that was really more a premise of his order than what it ordered. So the nod that he gave to transgender athletes read, every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love. Children should be able to learn without worrying whether they will be denied access to the restroom

the locker room or school sports so with these little phrases biden is evoking a lot of contentious public debate on uh like in texas we had our bathroom bill um so the restroom and the locker room references in the order obviously allude to conflicts like that that happened across the country, not just in Texas. And with school sports, you know, same deal. It does not say that, you know, transgender children shall choose what locker room they dress and undress in. It's more of a moral opinion. The executive order itself prevents and combats discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation in the military, I believe, and other things that the federal government actually has control over. There was a whole slate of executive orders, you know, since his inauguration to today, and it's kind of hard to keep them all in track

since there's a lot of overlapping between them. But that was interpreted largely as, oh, Biden is now allowing transgender kids to play on the sports teams that they want. Yeah, for sure. So in previous legislative sessions, we've seen proposals from legislators having to do with similar issues they foresee in public schools.

Walk us through one particular that you highlighted in your piece. Yeah. So another rule that the UIL has in its constitution is that students can compete in sports, even if they're on steroids and similar drugs, if it's approved by a doctor. And Senator Bob Hall out of Edgewood in the 2017 legislative session introduced a bill that would have effectively barred transgender athletes that take testosterone from competing in school sports by giving the UIL the choice to decide whether or not a student who's on such drugs is able to play with respect to fairness and, you know, equality between, between the players abilities. And Hall insisted that it was not directly related to the issue of transgenderism or

transgender athletes. At the same time, there's a transgender wrestler, biologically female that won state titles on testosterone. So that coincidence and confluence of those issues with Paul Powell's bill and this wrestler making news just exploded into a little bit of a media storm. His bill did not make it, and Perry's bill is a little bit more direct since Paul Powell shied away from the connection to transgender athletes. Perry's tackling that head on.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think for Republican legislators, they see the Biden administration and the moves that they're making as some political cover, too. So it'll be interesting to see how that takes shape during the 87th legislative session. Thank you for covering that for us. Hayden, we're coming to you. Someone who is very familiar to many Texans. You could say that yes there are you know certain yard signs that looked like uh water burger spicy ketchup uh font types yes they do in the yards of

many texans um walk us through you know an announcement or rather not not an announcement but um a little bit of an announcement maybe yes that was made by this person this week. Well, we all know that Beto O'Rourke loves Whataburger, and you reminded us of that this week. But Beto O'Rourke, the former El Paso congressman who served as the Democratic congressman from 2013 until 2019 and ran for president in 2019 unsuccessfully, announced this week, or again, he didn't really announce, but he did say that he's mulling over a run for governor of Texas. He made the statement on the Buzz Adams morning show, which is a radio show in El Paso. And he didn't say for sure that he would run for governor in 2022. However, the conversation in this interview turned toward the coronavirus and some other issues that the United States is facing. And he criticized his old rival, Senator Ted Cruz, saying that he's guilty of sedition

for his objection to the certification of the presidential election results. And then he went on to discuss his future intentions, which included a possible run for governor of Texas. He said that he disagrees with Governor Abbott's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, specifically as it relates to the county judge of El Paso, who has had very aggressive anti-COVID rules that he has implemented and was locking down the county as recently as November. Of course, the state of Texas has battled those coronavirus restrictions because they are backbreaking to business owners and restaurant owners in the area. So the state has pushed back on those restrictions. And Beto O'Rourke does not agree with that at all.

He doesn't agree with the governor's handling of the past year and of the coronavirus. So he is thinking about challenging Abbott in 2022. And it is a foregone conclusion that Abbott is going to run again. He has been saying that for a while, as recently as summer of 2019. So this is ancient history that Abbott, well, not ancient history, but old news. Get my expressions confused there. But this is old news that Abbott is planning to run again. And it's looking like O'Rourke could possibly be his challenger. Absolutely. And, you know, give us a 30,000 foot refresher of O'Rourke's, you know, time in Texas and kind of the electoral, you know, journey he's taken throughout the last few years? Well, he defeated an incumbent in El Paso for Congress.

It was a longtime incumbent, Democratic incumbent, and he defeated him in a primary. And he became a political figure in El Paso. Of course, that part of Texas is very different than politically than Texas as a whole. And he decided not to run for re-election for the 16th congressional district, which encompasses El Paso, and instead decided to challenge Ted Cruz in 2018 for the U.S. Senate. That was an extremely expensive race. I'm not sure about this, maybe Daniel can remind me. But I think it was, if not the most expensive, it was one of the most expensive Senate races in history. And the margin of victory for Cruz was very narrow, especially considering that this is a Republican state. Cruz ended up wrapping up that race with 51% of the

vote. And Beto came within striking distance, I say Beto, I should say O'Rourke came within striking distance of him with 48%. So it wasn't a landslide for Cruz at all. And O'Rourke is probably looking at those numbers going, you know what, in a few years, the politics in Texas are going to be even more purple. And maybe I could win the governor's mansion. So that that electoral history of O'Rourke's here in Texas is probably contributing to his thought process. And a lot of people in the Democratic Party like Beto O'Rourke. So he has a solid chance if he decides to run. And his old rival, Ted Cruz, may even make an appearance again and may have some things to say on that announcement. We'll have to see. Yeah. Well, Hayden, thank you for

covering that for us. I think it's really worth noting that the gubernatorial race will be very interesting to watch, even as we've seen folks on both sides of the aisle really going at the governor, right, even in terms of his response to COVID. You know, conservatives saying Abbott wasn't conservative enough, Democrats saying, you know, there wasn't enough precaution taken. So we'll see what ends up happening there. And Beto O'Rourke certainly, you know, has a place in Texas and had a lot to do with Democrat fundraising.

And what 2020 looked like for Democrats was largely sparked by Beto's run in 2018. has a place in Texas and had a lot to do with Democrat fundraising and what 2020 looked like for Democrats was largely sparked by Beto's run in 2018. So Hayden, thank you for covering that for us. Brad, we're coming to you. One of the more prominent caucuses in the Texas legislature came out with a list of their priorities this week. Walk us through that. Yeah. So the Texas freedom caucus, the, I would say, the foremost conservative caucus in the legislature, they wear that on their sleeve. And so they released, as you mentioned, their list of legislative priorities.

They were the first such caucus to do so right out of the gate. And among them are, you know, obviously and very, very conservative issues, reforms that they want to pass, a lot of things that didn't pass last time, and then some new things that are brought up because of new circumstances. So some of the headlines for those are constitutional carry. Now, that died in the House. Well, it didn't even make it out of committee last time around. Um, but they say they're going to file that again. Uh, the heartbeat bill, that one also died in the committee. Um, notably that was one chaired by, um, representative Sinfronia Thompson, uh, that has kind of sparked this fight over, um, chairmanships in the House that we've covered before. So there's that.

Obviously, one of the foremost ones is taxpayer-funded lobbying. I think that is one they have a really big chance of actually getting through the House. Now, we'll see what happens in the Senate. But I was talking with Representative Middleton, who filed the bill. I was talking with him today, and he said that there's a lot of support for it, including from the speaker. So I would expect that to, you know, to at least pass through committee, get a vote on the floor pretty easily. And, you know, we'll see where it goes from there. Yeah. Then, you know, other typical conservative agenda items, cutting spending, um, you know,

budgetary stuff like that. And, uh, they also had some new issues that have arisen from the, from various circumstances that happened in the last two years since they convened last time, most notably the emergency powers. There would be various legislation filed regarding that. One of them is I think it's Representative Krause that has a bill that would prohibit the state from deciding between essential and nonessential businesses. You can make that distinction under his bill. Another one would prohibit the governor from, or any locality, from shutting down places of worship.

So they have quite an array of conservative legislation on their agenda. Yeah, absolutely. And that kind of goes back to what we were just talking about with O'Rourke's potential run for the governor or their governorship agenda yeah absolutely that kind of goes back to what we were just talking about with or work's potential you know run for the governor and the other governorship and seeing other folks of the republican party you know as well eyeing that spot because of those emergency power controversies so thank you for covering that for us isaiah we're coming to you one of the bills that has uh you know really consolidated a lot of media attention this legislative session has to do with, let's just say it rhymes with Brexit.

Walk us through, you know, this bill as it was filed this week. Well, it's a very apt rhyme, Mackenzie. State Rep Kyle Biederman out of Fredericksburg has filed a bill that would let Texans vote in a Brexit-style referendum on leaving the United States. So this is not a bill that if passed would just automatically detach us. It would just let the Texans vote in one of those same kind of referendums. And even then, that itself would just trigger the establishment of a committee to start disentangling Texas from the United States. And, you know, anybody who's followed Brexit even a little bit can tell, like, didn't they vote on this like two years ago?

You know, it's taken them quite a while. Yeah. And if this were to happen, and realistically, the chances are looking slim, it would also take a chunk of time in Texas. Yeah, absolutely. Implementation would take a hot minute. Walk us through, you know, this is something that as a Republican legislator, you know, Biederman is looking for support from members of his own party. Is there consensus among Republicans that this is something that they want to vote on and pass? Absolutely not.

Division in the Republican Party? Right. Gasp. Yeah, and we're even talking about just one chamber. So even though the Republican Party of Texas names the right to secede as a plank on their own platform, his proposal drew a lot of criticism, especially from fellow state rep Jeff Leach, who called it un-American. And even – it is on the platform. It's not like number one. It's in the 60s somewhere. But it's not like number one it's in the 60s somewhere but um it's there and uh we've already seen before you could probably speak to this as well brad that um the overlapping and

sometimes conflicting priorities of the party are you know brought head to head with each other so you've got the republican party platform and you also have the texas freedom caucus priorities and then you have the GOP legislative priorities. And within those, championed by Allen West and the party plank, you know, championed by like Cat Parks, there though they're all technically agreed upon, are the most important or even, you know, as Jeff Leapford described it, American at all. Yeah, certainly. And, you know, we're looking at the governor and his state of the state address coming up this next week that will outline a different list of priorities from the Republican Party's

leader here in Texas. So just like you said, a lot of different voices speaking into that. What kind of groups are backing the bill? And just walk us through a little bit of the history there. So the Texas Nationalist Movement is the biggest group that supports Texas nationalism. They really get ahead of the rest of the field by taking that name. Yeah. So they have almost, I think, 400,000 members. Biederman, I saw earlier on social media, has garnered tens of thousands of signatures in a petition to, you know, see this thing voted on

in the legislature. And the organization, the Texas Nationalist Movement, previously pinned its hopes on James White out of Hillister. But the legislation that he introduced ended up being kind of a neutered version of what they wanted to see. And it didn't include the referendum. It was just an acknowledgment of Texas' Tenth Amendment rights. And it also didn't succeed. I think it died in committee. But Biederman's bill actually does have the good stuff, the referendum in it. And it would authorize a vote in this November.

And the committee that it would establish, it hasn't gone through necessarily the process for how that would exist. It says who it would be on. But it just begins to describe like the committee is such and such and such. So I don't know if it would be triggered by a positive vote necessarily or just triggered by its passing. But anyway, those are the main two actions is that it would allow Texans to vote in November on seceding. And it would establish a committee of like the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house and four members from each chamber to start working on how to get Texas out of the legal obligations it has to the U.S. Certainly. Well, thank you for covering that for us. It's definitely an issue that is, you know, controversial and, you know, highly cared about by a lot of Texans. So thanks for making sure

our readers are informed. Daniel, you have covered a lot of the bills that have been filed this legislative session, particularly relating to guns or the Second Amendment. You have added even more of those bills to a piece that will be coming out here. Walk us through a summary of what's been filed so far and what these new proposals are. Yes. So if you've been trying to go to the gun store and buy some guns, you've probably noticed that there's a little bit of a short supply right now and a really high demand. Yeah, and even ammunition.

Ammunition has gone off the shelves. There are backlogged sales from firearm manufacturers. I think at least a month ago it was in excess of a billion dollars of ammunition sales backlogged. So it's just like a really high demand right now. Lots of people want guns. You know, there were the most amount of background checks ever done in a single year last year for firearm purchases. So there's just, you know, you know, there's a really high demand. And that's definitely the case in Texas, too. So lawmakers' responses to that, especially in the midst of a Biden administration, which is more fun really to the gun control crowd than to the pro-Second Amendment crowd, Republicans are trying to look for ways to push back on that. And their rhetoric is kind of increasing on that. Yeah. Constitutional carry is always at the forefront of these second amendment discussions, right? I mean, the Freedom Caucus, we talked about it this week. Representative Biederman, who also filed Texas, has already filed a constitutional carry bill himself. Walk us through what bills relate to that issue. Yeah. So I think constitutional

carry is really like the pinnacle of pro-gun rhetoric as far as what people say that they want to see policy-wise implemented in Texas. And so what that would look like is essentially under current state law, you have to go and take an LTC class, you have to apply for a background check, you have to pass a shooting test in order to get an LTC, a license to carry, in order to carry your handgun with you, whether it's concealed or just holstered and in view of other people. You have to get an LTC in order to do that. What lawmakers are talking about doing is basically getting rid of that requirement

to have a permit in order to carry. And so there's a few different ways that you can go about it. So far, two lawmakers have filed, or two and a half, I guess, depending on how you look at it, have filed these constitutional carry bills. So Kyle Biederman, representative from the Fredericksburg area, who also filed the Texas bill, has filed one that would basically amend state code and allow people to carry guns without a permit. And then State Senator Bob Hall has also filed one in the form of a constitutional amendment that basically just says that the state can't make a requirement for a permit to carry a handgun. So those are two different ways of coming to the same issue. Also of note, representative or then representative Drew Springer of the 68th House District who'd moved up to the Senate. When he was a representative, he pre-filed a bill that was a constitutional carry or permitless carry bill that would basically cut the penalties or add an exception.

There's a list of exceptions to people who can carry a gun without an LTC. And he would basically add to that everyone who can't apply for an LTC. So it'd basically be doing a very similar thing to what Biederman's bill is doing. So that's the constitutional carry bills. Now, those are the meaty issues that, you know, people have filed these before in previous sessions. Representative Jonathan Stickland was known for doing that, and his bills would be sent to a committee and never be seen again. And so where these bills go to die. That's, that's kind of the process of this works like like these big, high-profile bills. Even with major gun control legislation, they often will just get sent to a committee.

They're not necessarily going to make some progress. Now, there's a little bit more appetite for it this year with the Biden administration. So we'll see if something comes of that. Like you mentioned, the Texas House Freedom Caucus has listed that as one of their priorities. So we'll just see what actually comes of it. But there are some other bills that aren't quite as broad sweeping but would still expand that you could carry a gun at bars by kind of redefining how it works under current state code. Because right now, if you own a bar that makes over 51% of your income from the sale of alcohol,

then you're considered a bar and you have to prohibit people from carrying guns. It's illegal to carry a gun at a bar or someplace that makes over 51% of the profit from selling alcohol. So he filed two different bills. I think either one would kind of do this, and they would also work together. One would increase that 51% limit to 60%, so a business would have to sell over 60% of their profit to be considered a bar.

And then the other one would basically exclude every business that has both an alcohol license and also a food license. So then if it's a bar that just sells alcohol and they don't sell any food, then you would still be prohibited from carrying a firearm there. But from my understanding, I'm not really a bar hopper by any means, but from my understanding, most bars do sell food and they have a food license. So that would really affect the carrying. It also affect, you know, like under the current executive orders under Governor Abbott with the emergency orders, you know, bars have been singled out because of those qualifications that apply for the like the 51% threshold. So that would kind of change. So those are the main carry expansion ones. I like it. One thing we've seen a lot in Texas and you've covered extensively is different localities opting to become

second amendment sanctuaries, right? And the governor even came forward and said something, you know, referred to that about Texas potentially having to follow that lead as well, particularly under a Biden administration. Walk us through some of the bills that have been filed relating more,

you know, in that vein. Yes. So bills kind of in this category of a second amendment sanctuary at the county level, basically what happens is you have a county sheriff, county commissioner's court come in and say, if the state or the federal government passes any unconstitutional firearm laws, we're not going to expend any of our resources to enforce that law. And so at the state level, it's a very similar thing where it's if the federal government passes these laws that we don't agree to,

we're not going to enforce that. And there's a few different bills that would accomplish this. One is called the Texas Fire and Protection Act. There are two different versions of this. The first one was filed by Representative Steve Toth. Now, an interesting fact about that one is Representative Steve Toth actually introduced this back in 2013, I believe, when Governor Abbott was then the Texas Attorney General, and he actually helped write this bill and draft it. And so it got 100 votes in the House then, so a very strong support from Republicans in 2013. I imagine such a bill will get the same strong support from Republicans this time. Now, something interesting that happened actually on Thursday as we record this podcast, the other bill that is pretty much the same thing, there's a few different small

differences between that one and one filed by Representative Ben Lehman, but they are both titled the Texas Firearm Protection Act. Lehman's bill was actually just introduced in the Senate by Senator Lois Kohlkorst as its companion bill. So with that, it'll be interesting to see if that bill will go a little bit further now that it has support in both the House and the Senate. Again, we'll see what comes of it. Now there's a few other bills. There's another one that's very similar to that Texas Firearm Protection Act that was introduced by Representative Matt Krause as well. I'll link to that in the article that you can read on our website. And then also, there's a few that are not quite as broad. Texas Firearm Protection Act basically says,

any gun law that the federal government makes that the Texas does not have in our code, we're going to reject that. Now, there's some that are a little bit more specific than that. Representative Briscoe Cain made one that was in respect to red flag laws, which are those extreme protective orders, extreme risk protection orders, which is if someone is is seen as a potential harm to themselves or others basically you can go to a court and get a court order saying that you can take their firearm away and so representative briscoe kane has one that says if the federal government does this and texas does not have it on our, we're not going to enforce that here. And then there are a few that have to do with the specifically guns made in Texas,

guns or accessories made in Texas. So Representative Matt Krause has another one that relates to firearms made in Texas and says if it's made in Texas, you know, aside from like the basic components that you might order that, you know, aren't necessarily specific for a gun, but for other things, materials and whatnot, then those guns manufactured in Texas aren't subject to federal regulations. And then Representative Tom Oliverson has a similar bill with that, except it's more specific to the use of silencers made in Texas. I like it. Well, thank you for covering that so thoroughly for us. You are a resident gun guy. I like it. Isaiah, let's keep on these legislative proposals. One proposal that you have been following very closely is related to abortion and taxpayer dollars being funneled to those kinds of procedures. Walk us through what this proposal would do. Yes. So Cheryl Cole, a state rep out of Austin, and Sarah Eckhart, a state senator out of Austin, have filed bills in each of their respective chambers to provide abortion services through government aid.

And in more granular terms, they would make the Health and Human Services Commission of Texas provide abortion services through Medicaid and possibly also through state funds. I'll have to talk to their legislative director later today to disentangle those two things because there's some deep diving into the code. But the long story short is that taxpayer-funded abortion would be approved under this bill. So in terms of what this means for insurance companies and those who would be seeking these kinds of procedures, walk us through what this bill would mean just in layman's terms. Yeah, so in addition to taxpayer-funded abortion, it would also allow insurance companies to cover abortion in their regular plans. Since 2017, in layman's terms, people that want abortions or to ensure abortions have had to pay a different premium that equals the cost of

the abortion on a different and totally optional and individual plan. So in terms of, you know, Texas being a red state, we've seen a lot of more pro-life bills passed by the legislature. What kind of, you know, previous provisions with this bill, if it were to pass, which again, let's be very clear, we are still dealing with a Republican majority in both chambers. So the likelihood of something like this passing that is, you know, very much more progressive for many of those folks is, you know, that the chance of this passing is very small, but walk us through what this would overturn if indeed it was passed. It's pointed right at a bill from 2017, as I mentioned, in the special session.

And this bill was passed into law. Abbott was very enthusiastic about it, and it was one of his priorities for the session. And it was meant to ensure that Texans wouldn't have to pay for abortions through taxpayer money or for insurance. It has been occasionally misrepresented as a total ban on insurance for abortions. And that's not quite the case. The law just mandates that insurance companies in Texas cannot cover abortion except through an optional additional rider that you have to buy separately. And, you know, the premiums equal the cost of the abortion and so forth. So state rep John Smithy from Amarillo and state Senator Brandon

Creighton introduced this bill and, you know, it successfully passed into law. So it's pretty fresh, right? Four years old. And it added the four pieces of code into Texas law that this bill by Cole and Eckhart directly targets. So the first and second that I've linked in the article are from the Health and Safety Code and the Human Resources Code. And the current law there outlaws the use of government aid for abortions. And the third and fourth bits of code are both in the insurance code, and they forbid insurance companies from covering abortions except for emergencies in their regular plans. Now, the current law, you know, still talking about the one passed in 2017, makes exceptions for emergencies, but not much else. And so that

caused a lot of contention in 2017. And this bill that the two Austin lawmakers are proposing today will essentially overturn it entirely. Well, thank you for covering that complex issue for us. Bradley, we're coming to you. You wrote a long piece earlier this week, really detailing the battle between the state government and the local government and the roots of all of that. Walk us through a little bit of that. Basically, every issue that comes before the legislature this year will, you know, has this theme of state versus local authority. You know, we see it play out in things as obvious as police funding, public safety protocols,

especially pitting the governor of Texas and the mayor of Austin against each other. Other things such as taxpayer funded lobbying. You know, those are the obvious ones, but it, it, it's really a part of everything. Who's who which level of government at root has the authority to make which decision? And so, you know, I was interested in the question I've heard. You know, I started off the piece saying having a quote, you know, I thought Republicans believed in local control. And I hear that constantly. You see it on Twitter. Whenever a Republican is advocating, the state jump in and assert itself.

So I wanted to look into the historical context of that. And I laid it all out in the piece. A couple of notable things is, you know, the state started off the sovereign. It had all the authority. Municipalities originally did not even have the authority to charter themselves. Now that changed when there was the Constitutional Convention of 1875. They gave them – the state kind of delegated some of that power away. That way the legislature is not having to run the affairs of all these different municipalities because Texas was growing. At that point, it was, you know, far cry from how big it is now population wise, but it was still big.

And so it's just becoming cumbersome and impossible to deal with every on top of the regular business that the state had to take care of. So they kind of delegated some power away. That's called the Home Rule Charter. And we've seen that kind of snowball. And that's something that I spoke with Senator Bob Hall. He's on the side of the state asserting itself more where he believes it should. People on that side of the argument say that the cities have too much power, whether it's taxing, whether it's shutting down businesses in the last year that we've seen,

various things like that. So then on the other side, you have people like Representative Terry Canales, who say that the government that governs best governs closest to home and so yeah this this kind of dynamic butts heads constantly in texas politics and if you're interested in knowing all the historical context and um you know how it ties into today i recommend you go read the piece i like it well brad thanks for covering that for us it really is an in-depth piece and gives a lot of great context hay Hayden, let's talk local. Speaking of local versus state, we've seen a lot of drama here in terms of the city of Dallas and the COVID vaccine, two things that have made a lot of headlines. Walk us through a little bit of what the discussion centered around this week. Well, the city of Dallas has a population of more than 1.3 million people.

It's probably closer to 1.4 or 1.5 because that's last year's estimate. But they've been given 5,000 vaccines, which is separate from and in addition to the allotment the county has been given, which they have no control over. But it has caused an undue amount of political chaos in Dallas, because a lot of people are upset and afraid of the Coronavirus. And the sense that I got from the meeting, the special meeting that took place on Monday evening is people want to get the vaccine and there just are not enough vaccines for everyone. And as the mayor said in concluding the meeting, the scarcity of the vaccine is what's driving the anxiety. And that's not something that is affecting Dallas exclusively.

Everyone across the country wants a vaccine, or not everyone in the country, but across the country, there are people who want vaccines. And the city council had this hours long, I mean, it lasted for four hours or so discussion over how to market the vaccine and how to get people to register because the problem they seem to be facing is people south of I30, for whatever reason, are not registering to get the vaccine in great numbers. And there's disagreement over what is causing that, whether that's something the city is doing wrong, or whether it's historic injustices that is causing racial minorities not to sign up. And they're trying to address that. But there's been a lot of personal attacks back and forth, most strongly probably from Councilman Adam Basaldo to the mayor in terms of the political disagreement.

But what the Monday evening meeting was called by three council members. It wasn't called by the mayor. They employed a portion of the city's charter that is not used very often to call this meeting. And it was really mostly a discussion. And they passed some measures, I think, at the end, but it was more or less an opportunity and a venue for them to vent political frustration. And that's something that is felt in more contexts than just the city of Dallas. So it was probably a microcosm of what is being seen across the country and across the state. And that is 5000 vaccines, a million and a half people, there's gonna be frustration, there's gonna be anxiety, because as as the emergency management coordinator in Dallas pointed out, if this is a month long

process, you're not going to be able to run down to Walgreens or run down to Fair Park in Dallas and just get a vaccine, especially if you're someone like me 2020 is relatively healthy. The general public is not going to get a vaccine for a good deal of time. And there are there is, there are no number of meetings or pull up politicians making speeches that that is going to change that fact. And that is the essence of, of what they are dealing with in Dallas. Yeah, also, and this is all I mean, talk about a pandemic, fear, concern, supply not meeting demand. There's a lot at play there. In terms of state versus local, let's go back to Brad's piece and refer to that a little bit. Has the city passed blame on anybody else other than themselves?

And again, this is not necessarily like we already talked about. Demand is not necessarily their responsibility in a lot of ways. But where has that delineation been? Well, on the council, there definitely was assignment to blame. The council members are blaming the mayor. Some council members are blaming the mayor. They're saying that this is some kind of communication fiasco and that the city is not doing its part to get people registered and they discussed all these different ideas like putting up billboards and having these reverse

text messages sent out to get people to register then there's also the argument of well if you can lead a horse to water but you can't make a horse drink. You know, I'm butchering that saying, but the general idea is you can't, you cannot, you know, a few members of the city council and the city government, they only have so much manpower. They can't go to people's homes and say, here's the registration link, register to get a vaccine. And they don't have any control over how many vaccines they received. As the mayor pointed out, he's going to keep doing what he has been doing and what resulted in getting these 5,000 vaccines in the first place. So I think there's room for, of course, for them to argue there's room for improvement. However, the math just doesn't work. You can't you can't

with 5000 vaccines, there are going to be people that are feeling crestfallen. This is not a loaves and fish situation. So yes, there people are blaming one another. But at the end of the day, you know, the state is in charge of who gets what jurisdictions get vaccines when and the city can do what it can to get people to sign up and to get those vaccines distributed. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for covering that for us, Hayden. Let's stay local, but let's move south.

Brad, talk to us about something that particularly happened this week in Austin and, you know, something that will continue to be part of the discussion going into next week. So the city of Austin has decided to put $6.7 million up to purchase another hotel. Now it is intended to house homeless individuals. Obviously, Austin is renowned for its homeless problem. And so their strategy consistently has been a housing approach. Their opinion is getting people into housing will solve the issue itself. Obviously, there's a lot more to it than that, but that is the strategy they've been putting out there. So this is the third hotel they have purchased in the last, well, since 2019, when things really got out of hand after they changed the ordinance on camping

and lying. Well, next week, they're going to be considering another one. And this one is a higher fiscal tag. It's $9.5 million. And, you know, there's not a lot of, a lot of the people that have been upset with the city of Austin are continuing to be upset with the city of Austin over this. You know, they're of the opinion that they're just throwing money at the problem. And the city, like I said, maintains that the best strategy to fight this homeless situation is by increasing housing, which is in a city that is becoming notoriously lacking of housing because of how many people are moving here and the cost of living is so high. And that undoubtedly contributes to the homeless problem. But they're of the opinion that these, you know, these hotels can solve the issue. Yeah. Well, thank you for covering that for us.

We'll continue to keep an eye on what's happening here in Austin. Daniel, let's zoom back out. Let's talk about state and federal. The state responded to another thing that the Biden administration went forward with this week. Walk us through what it was and the ramifications. So after President Joe Biden was inaugurated last week, his administration quickly signed a memorandum that would freeze many deportations for a 100-day period. That started on Friday, the same time when Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against it, arguing that it violated an agreement between the court in Texas for the Southern District. And in that court case, Judge Drew Tipton issued an order this week granting the temporary restraining order, which essentially means that that freeze on deportations has been blocked.

And so for the time being, the status quo as it was before the freeze will continue. And so the Department of Homeland Security is required to continue the deportation process as they had been doing it in the beginning of this month. So that is basically what happened. Well, all sorts of good stuff. Now, Daniel, I want you to make a prediction that might be very difficult to make okay will this be the only uh lawsuit uh brought against the biden administration by particularly the state of texas you know attorney general ken paxton yes it will the only one yes absolutely okay got it um well i mean it's a one-hit wonder it's the only one except for all the others. Perfect. Perfect.

Cut and dry, folks. There you have it. Some first class political analysis from Daniel J. Friend. Boys, let's talk about some fun stuff. I know this is what Isaiah lives for. This is why he works at the Texan is to talk about the fun topic every week. Yes. Oh, that was so good.

You know, it's true. Like we sit in the office and he just has like this calendar that's counting down to the podcast day. He crosses off each day as it comes. And then as the minutes go by on the podcast, he just keeps on looking at his watch. You're making my life sound really sad. Oh, my gosh. All in good sport. Well, Bradley, I believe this question is yours. And also, if we have time, we'll talk about the stock market a little bit.

But I will say Daniel explained, I came to Daniel this morning and was like, I don't understand what's happening. So if you want to know what's happening in the stock market, please tweet at Daniel J. Friend and he will explain to you. I'm signing you up for this, Daniel. Cool.

Yeah. Let's see how many people actually tweet at me. So many people actually get to the end of our podcast, tweet at you have a tweet yeah all those kinds of things um but bradley would you would you start us off with a fun topic oh i am laying it out well because you yeah brad's question oh yeah i i guess my question was if you could start any business what would it be daniel added an addendum about uh that's you know it will succeed yeah so which you know it's kind of important um but you know in my opinion i have always dreamed oh gosh opening up a parking garage oh you're talking about this are you serious it is especially in a city like austin So what did you do in Austin, though?

Yeah. Brad, that is the most milk-toast boring answer you could have given. Are you going to let me justify this? You just said you want to open a parking garage. Yeah, yeah. Brad, I will rake you over the coals for this. This is so painfully boring, it makes me respect you less. You haven't heard my reasoning.

There's a good reasoning. Now, I have another answer my reasoning there's a good reasoning now i have another answer if it's going to succeed i have another answer just tell me the parking garage thing first so it is very low maintenance now you have to build the structure first but not a lot of maintenance cost and in a high demand city for parking you're gonna make a crap ton of money without having to do a lot. So. Dude, yeah, you just sit back. Yeah. So if I'm entering into a market where there's no guaranteed success, I am building a freaking parking garage.

But. Okay, no, but that's not the question. Yeah. The question is if any. Okay. Well, I originally posed the question and it was without Daniel's addition. So I was giving my answer for that since I was told to. That is so boring.

So if it is guaranteed to succeed, I would open a bar. That would be cool. That makes sense. And name it Puzzles. Why Puzzles? Brad. That's the puzzle. Brad.

Wow. You are not helping yourself. This just gets progressively worse. Why don't you name the parking garage puzzles? Yeah. It looks more like a puzzle. Because no one's going to ask what the name of the parking garage is. Yeah.

Exactly. You're going to see the sign. Why would you call your bar a puzzle? Literally just because that's. That's the puzzle. Brad. Why is it called puzzles? I like it.

Would you like frame puzzles and hang them on the wall? I hadn't thought that far. Oh my word! See how many drunk people can put together a puzzle? Oh, that's a good idea. Daniel, you can be my bartender. Oh, yeah. I'd love to be a bartender.

He'd be the perfect choice. You know he'd never steal from your stash. I'm getting a lot of flack for my two answers, but they are very reasonable. Because Bradley, they're horrible. No, they are not. They are horrific. I support you in your endeavor to become a parking garage administrator this is literally i would like to i would like to own a baseball team but the question was if you create your own business

so okay well we're moving on from brad we need to salvage this this thing yeah um daniel please tell us what you would do i would start start a film company. That's so cool. Brad, take note. Okay. Tell us more. Yeah. No, I would start a film company that would make movies or TV shows. I don't know.

Probably more movies. I lean more towards movies. I've always wanted to, I've always been interested in filmmaking. That's what I went to college originally to do. And then, well, I somehow ended up in the world of politics. Yeah. And here you are now. And here I am. What would you name your company? Do you have any idea? Um, I would have to think the world of politics. Yeah, and here you are now. And here I am. What would you name your company?

Do you have any idea? I would have to think about it. The Friendlies. No. That's more of a movie title. Puzzles. Yeah. Yeah, puzzles.

Yeah, puzzles. There you go. Isaiah? Just came up with it. You remember that guy from Breaking Bad who disappears? That's his whole job. Saul recommends him? I don't know.

I've only watched the first couple episodes well saul in one of his frantic moments where his tie is like kind of loose and you know he's sweeping his hair back a lot he says like okay you know and he describes this guy whose job it is is just to make people disappear and he suggests this to walter white and jesse and everything and um i won't spoil you know what happens in the end or anything but this guy's job is basically where they bring him a sack full of millions of dollars. And he just gives them new identities and tells them where to live. And, you know, it's like the witness protection program, but with this one dude who runs some vacuum repair shop as a side hustle or a front for his business.

That would be cool. Just take a bunch of people's money, tell them to go live in like Tucson and go by the name Bob. They'd be easy to get rid of. And then when I retire, I just disappear myself and that's it. Because you have the skills. Yeah. You can make yourself disappear.

Do you have this set of skills already, Isaiah? Or is this something you have to acquire? Or would you have to kill me if you told me? Well, I'm really good at Photoshop. Well, okay. I'm pretty good at Photoshop. I'm good enough at Photoshop to probably make a fake ID. I've never tried.

But, you know, with a laminator and a printer and whatever it is that, it's not paper, plastic, whatever it's made of. You do know that the NSA is listening in on this conversation, right? Well, they shouldn't be surprised, I guess. I mean, they know it's fictional. They have context, right? They're not jumping in right now. That's right. That's true.

That's true. I like it. Anyway, I don't know what other skills are required. You'd figure it out. But I would make it seem really expensive. Yeah, well, I think that that sounds doable. I will say, when you said that you were going to make people disappear, the first thing that I thought you meant by that was, like, becoming a hitman.

Yeah, that's what Sarah a hit man. Yeah. That's what Sarah thought too. That'd be rough. That would be. Well, I'm glad you're not going to do that except you can give more people money. Maybe you can help me disappear. I'd love to. Yeah.

Yeah. That's delightful. Hayden, please, please also tell us what you would do. Well, for the record, I just broke the microphone. So let's see. I honestly thought I was off the hook cause I didn't have the microphone in front of me. So I didn't have an answer prepared,

but I guess I would have to start a casino. Wow. Hayden, I expected you to say like a Bible study. I did not expect you to say a casino. A casino with lots of no limit, Texas Hold'em. And I would start it

in Oklahoma and no one would know about it and I'd sneak away on the weekends to run it and get business updates this is so surprising what tribe are you going to work with? I don't know, I'm still trying to decide I guess it'll just have to be whichever tribe likes me and wants to take me in

I guess if it's guaranteed to be successful that really doesn't matter yeah it's guaranteed to be successful so automatically all the native american tribes in oklahoma love me and you know would work with me on my new casino quite the gamble wow this is a oh my gosh daniel friend mean i was because i'd be able to hayden is dying you were so vehement about brad's answer being boring mine is not boring yours would smell good but that's about it oh wow i would say you should have at least said candle shop or something i don't know i think it's a craft store oh my god it's better than a parking garage it's better than a parking garage in my view it would smell a whole lot

better than a bar amen and that's kind of the whole point is like it'd be really cool to go pick out specific kinds of you guys specific kinds of leather leather goods you can sell them at hayden's casino and i'm crying this is bullcrap no this is okay bradley i will go to blows with you on this this is so much wouldn't be the first time this was not even close to as boring as a parking garage i could hand select incredible you said my answer was bad i didn't say it wasn't boring i said it was it's a great answer i also think it's bad i think it's both of those things are not mutually exclusive this is hate speech imagine the kind of exciting lifestyle you can

subsidize with all the money you get from a parking garage and how much time you have that you can spend elsewhere that you don't have working in a leather shop this is the saddest day oh man okay well this has been wonderful what a segment you know less a few weeks ago we we said we were going to tweet out a poll, and we never actually tweeted out the poll. I said a reminder to tweet out a poll tomorrow, parking garage or leather shop. And, folks, there is only one correct answer to that question. I sincerely petition you to choose wisely. Well, folks, on that note, thank you so much for listening to this absolute nonsense.

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