The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - January 3, 2025

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Texas Political Stories to Watch for in 2025Trump’s mass deportationsStatewide office logjam89th Legislature budget fightTexas House speaker raceBorder securityLocal v. stateHouse v. SenateRobert RobersonTrump v. Congress

I think if I was interested in this at all, it would be that, the political side of it. But Cameron ate up the philosophical debate here. And I'm all here for it. Well, howdy, folks, and welcome to the first edition of the Weekly Roundup in 2025. We're recording in the new year, we're back at it. We really were able to take a couple weeks and work very minimally, which is very rare for us. I'm feeling refreshed. Other than I think both Mary-Elise and I are coming down with something.

Other than that, we're feeling great. Why are you guys immediately laughing at me? Because that's the exact opposite of what you were saying before we started. I felt refreshed until today. Fair? Fair. Bradley, do you have any side remarks to make? No, I have nothing to say.

Hey, Bradley, do sound terrible. Yeah. Well, I am coming off a cold too. Yeah. I got to spend, I got to spend, uh,

about four days of this downtime with, uh, some kind of cold. And now I'm still dealing with the remnants, but I am officially over the sickness I am no longer down with the sickness I do think it's a little bit um interesting that I sound relatively normal I'd argue and listeners if you disagree please tell me but I said upon getting on this um remote podcast setup I was like I think'm sick. And Brad immediately says you sound terrible.

And Brad actually sounds terrible. So I think that's pretty rich. Thank you very little. Cameron, did you have a good Christmas, a good New Year's? I did. I spent some time with my mom up here in Austin, then spent some time with my mom up here in Austin, then spent some time with my dad in Houston, and had a unique Christmas day. Saw Nosferatu, you know, as very, very merry. And instead of

having, you know, your typical Christmas meal with the honey baked ham, mashed potatoes, green beans sort of thing. No, we went to a Mexican food buffet. Spur of the moment, we did not prep anything for a Christmas meal. So we were just trying to find a place that was open and it had the flashing open sign. So we pulled into the parking lot and me and my brother and my dad were the only English speakers in the restaurant. Which made for a great time. Yeah, so it was very good. That sounds amazing. I love an untraditional Christmas some years.

It's just fun. Mary Elise, how was your Christmas? And you're preparing to come to Austin. This is like one of the last podcasts you'll join with us, not in person, which is very exciting. Yeah, I think it's probably the second to last podcast before I'm in person. So, yeah, that's really exciting. Christmas was great. It was a lot of family time. We had the traditional ham and potatoes dinner. And yeah, it was, you know, nothing are. We fly back today with my family, which was so fun.

Siblings, grandparents, the whole shebang. We had a lot of fun. We always do a white elephant gift exchange every year, like on Christmas Eve. It's a tradition we have. And we'll have like my dad's, excuse me, my dad's parents and my mom's parents there with us and um every year for some reason my grandmas end up getting things that they want to steal from each other and it gets heated like one grandma steals from the other grandma on the final round and you can just tell you could cut the tension with a knife and the next day at christmas the grandma who stole this very beautiful big blanket from my other grandma kept rubbing it in her face was like i slept in my

blanket last night and it was the best like could not stop talking about it and my other grandma's sitting there like it was pretty savage wow um that was a highlight for sure we always look forward to see how the grandparents wrestle prized items away from each other. Now, what was so special about this blanket? Was it a homemade blanket? No. Was it crocheted? It was a store-bought blanket.

Mind you, the price limit for this adventure is $20 a gift. So this is like a $ 20 king-sized fluffy blanket so how long will it last i don't know but um my grammy really loves soft things so i knew it was she was uh eyeing it the moment it was unwrapped but my other grandma does too and it was uh it was just brutal like they give no qualms about stealing things from each other. I think it's very funny. Next year, you should settle it by giving them boxing gloves and letting them just swing at each other. Merry Christmas spirit.

I ended up with a Snoop Dogg cookbook, which I'm pretty excited about. There's definitely a recipe for gin and juice, which made me laugh really hard. And a foreword is by Martha Stewart. So I think I won the white elephant gift exchange. Well, if any of those recipes include the addition of THC, you're going to be out of luck because Dan Patrick's trying to ban THC here in

Texas. So. Cameron, that was the smoothest transition to what's happening in the news that I've, I think I've ever seen on this podcast. But I think, fortunately, that there's no THC in any of these recipes. Oh, that's good. I think we're in the clear, you know? Okay.

We're in the clear. No, you're just supposed to smoke a joint while cooking all of these. Oh, that's just like the prerequisite. Got it. I should know. It was Snoop Dogg. We'll shoot him into the news, folks. I think we should.

Today, we're essentially going to go through a story we wrote, basically detailing the top political stories to watch in 2025. So this is a look-ahead podcast. We've got all sorts of different things to talk about. And we're, Cameron, we're going to start with Trump and his mass deportations. We've heard so much about this on the campaign trail. We've heard all sorts of different things to talk about. And Cameron, we're going to start with Trump and his mass deportations.

We've heard so much about this on the campaign trail. We've heard more and more about it as we approach the legislative session and also the inauguration. Walk us through what folks should be keeping an eye out for in 2025. Well, yeah, like you said, throughout the campaign season, Donald Trump ran on the message of carrying out these mass deportations and seemed like it resonated with the electorate. He won the popular vote, won the electoral college, so he really had this mandate he's going to have coming into the White House on January 20th. He really made a promise, followed through on that promise with the appointment or the naming, rather, of Tom Homan as the future borders are.

And we've talked about Tom Homan before. We've written some stories about him. He is really a hardliner on immigration, especially border security. He has previous experience working in border security, working for ICE. So he knows the policies. He knows the laws, the regulations inside and out, both on the ground and in a senior position. So Trump appointing Homan to this borders our position really tells the public that Trump is going to be serious about this. And we've seen pressure mounting from those who are opposed to this messaging from Donald Trump. I wrote about in the story that you talked about that there have been some Democratic

attorney generals from across the country that have stated they have pre-drafted lawsuits in an attempt to stop it. But Trump has doubled down, telling NBC News a couple of weeks ago that this is something that you have to do. And he has reiterated that on multiple occasions. Sort of the looming question right now for us here in Texas is what is the coordination going to be between not just the Texas legislature, the House and the Senate in terms of policy, but the coordination with Greg Abbott and the federal government. And I wrote an extensive border piece that's up on the site right now about how Governor Greg Abbott has taken a much more assertive stance towards border security over

the past year and a half. And Abbott has appeared with Tom Homan on multiple occasions, both in person at the border, but also doing traditional media hits, speaking with Fox News and saying that there is going to be a close relationship with these mass deportation efforts. So it'll be interesting to see how the Texas legislature in the 89th session reacts to Trump being in office. Is there going to be additional pieces of legislation to help assist in these mass deportation efforts? We saw Don Buckingham offering up land here in Texas so that these transitions can occur when the mass deportation efforts begin. And it will be interesting to see some of the pushback that occurs, some of the floor fights that are bound to happen. But it's something

I think everyone's going to keep their eye on. But if we look at recent polling, something that I included in the article is what CBS News slash YouGov, they did a poll where they found 57% of people approve of a program to, quote, deport all immigrants in the U.S. illegally. So there is more than 50% of people that want to see some sort of mass deportation effort take place. The biggest reaction that people will have to stay abreast to is how the media is going to be framing these efforts. We've already seen attempts to sort of show how this is going to be something that's going to be much more aggressive than what maybe the effort might eventually be. Because, of course, the stories that sort of stay with people are those shocking images, whether it be someone in handcuffs or someone being put into a car, a law enforcement

vehicle, or maybe someone who is under 18 being let off because they entered the country illegally. There's going to be shocking images that come out. There's going to be attempts to frame this in a negative light. But that's just par for the course. And that's just something for casual viewers, people who pay attention to politics as well, to keep an eye on. So yeah, January 20th, we'll see what happens, but it seems like there's going to be a concerted effort

both nationally and here in Texas. Absolutely. And as always, we'll do our best to just provide the information, let folks make up their own minds and go from there. This is going to be definitely something we follow extensively, particularly being that Texas is what it is on the border. So Cameron, thank you for following that so closely. And yeah, session's going to be very, very interesting watching policies either make their way through the legislature or just be discussed. So I'm excited to watch it all happen. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Bradley, let's talk about the statewide office logjam, as you so eloquently have put it in our document.

So, Mackenzie, we did a podcast, what, about five months ago now? Oh, yeah. Yes. drafted who we thought would run for each statewide office if the log jam at the top broke, which obviously Greg Abbott at the top, Governor, Lieutenant Governor Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton, Comptroller Glenn Hager, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, each of those individuals have all been in the office that they currently hold since 2015. They won the 2014 elections and everyone's been in kind of a wait and see holding pattern ever since. Is it going to break at all? We do know that comptroller Glenn Hager will not run for reelection as,

uh, for his current spot. He has said that multiple times. He said it before he won his last election in 22 that this would be his third and final term as comptroller. What he does next, who knows? A lot of talk about him being appointed the new chancellor of the A&M system. There's also talk about him running for one of the higher statewide offices if any of

those open. I do not foresee him running for any either of those lieutenant governor and governor unless Greg Abbott and or Dan Patrick do not seek re-election to their position, but both of them seem pretty set on running for re-election in 2026. Attorney General Ken Paxton is obviously a big question mark. Will he challenge Senator John Cornyn for U.S. Senate next cycle? Or will he stay pat and remain where he is? Who knows? He's definitely considering running against Cornyn, and I would not be surprised to see him jump into that. Then you've got the opening comptroller. Who jumps into that? A lot of different names

being talked about. The one I hear a lot is Senator Paul Bettencourt. Then you have General Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, and she's definitely pining for higher office, but when she jumps in for which seat remains an open question. Regardless, the point of this being a topic in this store, in this segment, is that we should get some answers this year. People should start declaring either they're going to run for reelection for 26, usually by the summer of this year, sometimes later in the year if they're having a difficult time making up their mind. uh 2025 ends we should have a lot of answers as to if the long jam at the top breaks at all

how much and who's running for each open seat so a lot to be decided there very much up in the air but um i think we'll probably see a couple open seats that we then see a handful of different, especially Republicans running for, you know, until a Republican loses a statewide office, pretty much just have to give it to the Republican because of, you know, it's been 30 years since a Democrat won last a statewide seat. So overall we should get some answers by the end of the year and then we'll see who is the rightest in the wrongest between the two of us i was just gonna say folks go listen to our episode of smoke filled room that we recorded many a moon ago because it is a uh one it was really fun i

think that was one of my favorite podcasts we recorded but it'll be interesting to see who was um closer to being correct on any given um position And I, even in terms of who runs, like even if they don't win, just who runs. Exactly. And I failed to mention Sid Miller in that rundown. You know, he hasn't raised much money at all.

It certainly looks like he's getting, you know, boxed out of a lot of fundraising from typical donors. You know, who's doing that is that's up to interpretation. But a lot of guesses that it's at the very top of the political echelon. So this is coming even from Sid Miller himself. Yep. Yep. Does he does does he take he didn't get the USDA appointment in the Trump administration that he was gunning for?

Does he accept a lower level position to get out of Texas? Does he remain? He's, it'd be pretty difficult to take out in that position, um, regardless of, of not raising much money. He just, he has a big following, um, in the Republican party. And, uh, you know, he has that position kind of unlock right now, but that can change. Who knows? Absolutely. That my same grandma who stole the blanket from the other grandma,

follow Sid Miller on Facebook and sends me all of his posts. I think that I talked about this before, but he has an unbelievable following that folks across the country. And there's an unbelievably popular candidate in any primary in Texas. So it's a very interesting dynamic to watch play out because he's not your typical huge money fundraiser at the top of the ticket statewide elected official. He's got a different approach and it works for every time and he's certainly been primaried for and with very, very little luck for those challengers so really an

interesting one to watch probably thank you we're gonna stick with you you've talked and all the other speakers race what what else do you have for us what do we need to be watching we're getting close to the start of session here well you missed the budget section so well you know what I'll just hit that after the speaker's done. Well, you know what? I'll just tease the speaker. Let's pretend like I read correctly. And then, Brad, why don't you tell us about the budget fight that's looming? Okay. All right.

So speaker's race is the biggest story in state politics right now. Where it's going, nobody knows, I don't think. And I guess we'll hit on that in the section after I now bounce back and talk about the budget fight. Okay, so... You are so sassy. Five minutes into 2025. I'm just confused.

I'm going according to the order we have in the docket, and I screwed up the first time, and now I'm rectifying it. What do you want me to do? Okay, so... on the budget fight my gosh there obviously has been a lot of marquee pieces of legislation passed through the legislature the last couple of sessions you know not everything that statewide republicans want to get across the line has gotten across the line, but a lot has. And so that kind of moves the battle lines to, in my view, to the budget and, you know, how much money is going to be allocated to what purpose is going to expend a lot of the oxygen

in the Capitol this session, uh, more than it has before. You know. Last session, we had a $32 billion surplus. This year, we're going to have about $21 billion. It's looking like right now. And that evaporates pretty quickly. As soon as you knock off $5 billion for the Texas Energy Fund, $3 to $5 billion for the Water Fund, whatever they decide to do on property taxes next session. Probably throw a few more billion dollars at that. School finance is going to be a big aspect of this along with the school choice program, whatever that looks like. So you're already knocking down the amount of money to divvy out

quite a bit right off the mat. And where and how you allocate this money is going to be, um, I think the biggest theme next session. And another thing I would say about this is, and this relates to the speaker fight, um, you know, how is budget night handled under the new speaker, whoever that is. And typically it goes pretty late to midnight or even later than that with all the amendments that are filed. Now last session they did this maneuver where basically they went through some amendments

and then they just kicked everything else to Article 11. Essentially meaning that it just kills those amendments. That's the essential method. Yeah, practically, yes. The committee, the Appropriations Committee, can decide what to bring in, what to approve from Article 11. But typically, it's just the graveyard, right? It's not a good sign. Right. But they saved a lot of time and a lot of frustration on the floor by doing this maneuver. So is that done again? I don't know. I think the budget starts in the Senate this year.

I think it started in the House last session. So overall, the fight over the state's purse is going to be pretty significant and more so than normal, especially with the emphasis on infrastructure spending. I mentioned water and the power grid fund, but you've got roads to take care of. You've got, you know, obviously property taxes related to housing costs. Is there anything done on desalination? How about nuclear energy?

All this stuff, you know, it's, Governor has talked about creating a nuclear energy fund. Um, it's just going to evaporate pretty quickly. And so I see a lot of, um, a lot of time spent on the budget this year, uh, more than we normally see. Yeah. Well, let's move on to the speaker's race. Cause you know, it seems like you're anxious to do so. So, uh, walk me through Bradley where we're to the speaker's race because it seems like you're anxious to do so. So walk me through, Bradley, where we're at in the speaker's race. Well, we are now, what, two weeks roughly to electing a new speaker, although there's a lot of concern that it will take longer than a day to get to elect somebody.

Typically, this thing's wrapped up by now. And it is very much not. Both sides believe. They have both sides being. Dustin Burrows on one side. David Cook on the other. Believe they have the inside track on the votes. When we get to. The day of election.

The first day of the new session. We'll have. A resolution. Put out. Governing the rules of election, the first day of the new session, we'll have a resolution put out governing the rules of voting. There may or may not be a big fight on that. A lot of talk about secret ballot. I don't foresee that happening. But the attempt could be tried, and there would be a lot of fervor over that on the floor.

So that resolution will lay out how this happens. If there's still four candidates in the race, you've got Burroughs, Cook, you've got two Democrats, Ana Maria Ramos, and John Bryant. Although I keep seeing John Bryant left off a lot of these discussions about speaker candidates, he's still in the race as far as I'm aware. I have not seen him, you know, officially suspend his campaign. Um, but you know, I do know that he and other Democrats are trying to cut deals with Republicans on the side, which that's how this works, right? You have to, because Republicans are divided and they can't elect, they could, but they won't elect their own speaker without

Democratic support. Both of these guys, Burroughs and Cook need Democratic support. And so that, you know, gives an advantage to the Democrats willing to cross over and deal. So anyway, if we end up with four candidates at the time that we run the race or hold the vote, it's going to be interesting to see how they do it. Like, do they do paper balloting? Because, you know, you've only got a yes, a no, and a P and V on the vote board. So if there are four candidates, how does this work? Uh, probably paper balloting. That's what I've been told.

And then, um, usually what they would do is if nobody gets 76 on the first ballot, they'll eliminate the lowest vote getter and the hold the vote again and do that until they get 76. Now there's a lot of talk about, can we even elect somebody on the first day? Does that, is this just too, um,

is there too much of a gridlock of gridlock here between the two sides to elect somebody? And then does that allow a lane for a third candidate? A lot of talk about a third candidate as well jumping in so this is all over the place um you know over christmas it was supposed to be a ceasefire and there was some of that there was a good bit of cease firing but there was also some firing going on uh you know, some that was not public, that was definitely happening, or at least definitely being tried. But overall, it was kind of quiet.

A week and a half, especially until we got to Christmas. After that, things started kicking back up. We saw a letter from Gary Gates put out where he said David Cook cannot get to 76 and he needs to drop out so we can find a better alternative to Burroughs, basically. And Gary Gates has been playing both sides of this race. He's not the only one, but he mentioned specifically Ryan Guillen in the letter as someone he is working with to try and find a third lane here, something that both sides can be happy with. But overall, this is very much a proxy fight for the overarching political wins in the state. And those wins are fighting over

the direction of the majority party. And so nobody's going quietly into the night. They're not giving up their foothold. They're going to keep battling until we get to some sort of resolution. And whoever wins is going to have their work cut out for them immediately. You know, you're going to have a larger number of members than we've seen in any recent memory willing to just blow things up because they're pissed off. Whether it's the right, whether it's those towards the middle, you're going to have a lot of back-miking during this session, I think. And someone is always going to be, whoever wins, is going to be under threat of challenging the ruling of the chair,

which is a de facto speaker's race, and then vacating or speaker's vote, vacating the chair potentially. So the drama in this race is far from over. Add to that the fact that you have Democrats split. I mentioned John Bryant, but you have Democrats that are on team Burroughs. You have Democrats that are very much anti-Burroughs. Sinfronia Thompson is one of them. Then you have Democrats who are trying to find a solution to this that benefits them one way or the other. Who knows? So then as a very last bit, I'll say you have what's going on on the outside, all these threats of censure. Does that actually, uh, hold any water? Is this something that the party can do by through censure, by keeping Republicans off the ballot

who vote for Burroughs or anybody else that's not David Cook. We already see some primary challengers either being floated or announcing. I do have a spreadsheet keeping track of that that I will release when I get some more content to add to that. But I'm picking up the tradition from Patrick Svitek, and that will be out at some point to keep track of this. So wild time, and it's only going to get wilder. That's for sure. Bradley, thank you. Cameron, let's move on to more border security type stuff. Walk us through, generally, not just with Trump's efforts in mass deportation, but just what we should expect in terms of the border this coming year.

Well, the border is, again, mass deportations is one thing that is individuals in the country illegally and the effort to deport them. The border itself, in terms of building up the wall or enhancing security, is another issue. So as everyone knows, Trump, going back all the way to 2015, if you watch a rally or watch one of his speeches, it was build that wall. And there was some efforts done during the first Trump administration. There was policies put in place, whether it was remain in Mexico or a zero tolerance policy regarding prosecuting border crossers, illegal border crossers. So some of those things have been halted during the Biden administration or even rolled back. And Trump has promised to reinstate some of these travel bans

or using executive action to spur new construction along the southern border. Like I mentioned at the top, Tom Holman's a big indicator of that. But also, for those who have been following politics over the past few years, someone like Stephen Miller, who is very much a hardliner on immigration as well, has been appointed to the deputy chief of staff for policy. And he is another individual who knows the immigration system inside and out, who is going to be working hand in glove, not just with Tom Holman, but with Donald Trump, with putting together the architecture for types of policies to bolster border security. And zooming in here on Texas, like you mentioned, over the past four years, the Texas Ledge and Abbott, again, they've attempted to enact a number of different

border security measures. Abbott declared there was an evasion at the border. There was efforts by the Texas Ledge to pass bills for building border wall. Abbott has continued to construct the Constantino wire and the buoy barrier system. And this was efforts in direct opposition to the Biden administration. And we've covered a lot of those back and forth legal actions. And what we've seen already is there has been a bill filed that would ban convicted illegal aliens from receiving early termination of their probation through serving community time. I believe Mary Lisa wrote that story and Abbott had said that he would sign that law if it was passed through the legislature. So early indications that there are going to be actions by the Texas Ledge for assisting in bolstering border security. As everyone understands, the immigration system is

a federal issue, but the state here has attempted to do some efforts rather successfully in some instances to help bolster border security. So for those listening and those following Texas politics, there are going to be continued efforts during the 89th session. Absolutely. Cameron, thank you. Bradley, Holly wrote a section of this story about talking about what to look for in terms of state versus local drama this year. Of course, this is oftentimes the front upon which so many of these battles in Texas politics are fought. Walk us through a little bit of her section. the Death Star Bill that was the biggest aspect of this, um, of this general dynamic, local versus state, you know, there's always a lot of, a lot of battlefronts in this war between

typically blue localities and the red state, so there, um, there will be a lot more of this to come, maybe nothing quite as big as that, but you've got taxpayer-funded lobbying ban that will be a topic once again that's on the Republican Party of Texas's priority list. And let's say David Cook does win, he's pledged to advance the RPT priorities as fast as possible. So that's something to watch there. Then you've got on the other side, Dustin Burroughs wants to ban taxpayer fund lobbying very much.

So whichever way it goes right now, it looks like, you know, there's a larger chance that it can move than in previous times. So I'm not sure how that's going to go, but that's definitely one to watch. Then you've got Harry, Holly also talked a lot about bail and bond reform. How that has failed the last couple of sessions. Republicans in the House have not been able to get to the constitutional amendment line, which is two-thirds, a hundred. It's probably still the case, frankly, unless Democrats really shift, which maybe they do after what we saw in this election. So check out Holly's section there for more. A lot of it is also infrastructure. You know, that's going to be who's prioritized in this money.

Harris County is going to need a lot of money for flood mitigation, various other things. So there'll be a lot more flavors of this endless, timeless fight between, you know, local control and state authority. It's true. If you end a sentence on so, I never know if you're ending a sentence. Excuse me for not jumping in quickly enough. But probably we will stick with you because there is another

front that we should talk about where there are fights that are fought. House versus Senate. Of course we're in a speaker's race. Of course, we know Phelan, the current speaker, and Dan Patrick, the leader in the Senate, have been at odds for a very long time now. Walk us through what we should expect in this coming session in terms of relationships between the two chambers of the legislature. Yeah, so you've heard of Ali versus Frazier. You've heard of the rumble in the jungle. Well, this is the, I don't know, I'm blanking on a clever name. We are once again going to see conflict between the Senate and the House, as we always do.

These two chambers are meant to balance each other out, to counterbalance um that's the way the system is set up so it's just natural it's natural tension now how personal and how fiery it gets depends on who's running these things and we've seen that over the last couple sessions patrick and feeling uh you know they just go at it and they're they're there's they don't pull any punches they're fighting with each other not just behind the scenes over policy but on social media and there's childish names and means put out during this and well that's what i'm wondering if patrick is just waiting patiently

by so he knows who the next speaker is going to be so he can start crafting his memes ready to just hit yeah well you know that's a big question with the speaker fight is does whoever win wins you know do they just roll over and let the senate do what they want and i i don't see that happening entirely. Different sides will have different opinions on that, but I think it's clear both sides, either, uh, David Cook or Dustin Burroughs, as it currently sits, we'll have a better relationship than feeling did at least right off the bat, because it won't be immediately as personal as it has been right um now where it devolves from there i hell i don't know but what about the breakfasts will those

start back up again return to the big three breakfasts i doubt it if i were a betting man and if gambling were legal in the state of texas I would not bet on a return of the big three breakfasts. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of fighting, as there always is. But I think part of, I mentioned earlier how a lot's been done already. It's not that there's no new, there's no fronts to fight over, but there's fewer really third rail issue things to do. Now, school choice is going to be a massive fight, right? How much you tie that to education funding, um, you know, how much money goes where, as I talked about, but I think the, that coupled with the fact that everyone's really sick of multiple special sessions,

I think that at least sets the table for an easier time during session in terms of avoiding a special session. Now, all hell could break loose. And you know what? Based on the way it's been going, maybe it does. But now that the personal vendetta between the two of the big three is off the table until we develop a new one, I think that that's a decent signal that at least there's a shot of avoiding three special sessions next year, which everyone wants to avoid.

Everyone wants to return to, you know, the 2019 session where we just had one session and that was it. Is that possible? Is it doable under these current conditions? I'm not sure. But, you know, Republicans had a very successful election, and there's an argument to be made that that makes them more willing to just set things aside and not go at each other's throats, but also this overarching political war we see, you know, that cuts the other, the different direction. So House versus Senate, always a theme and it will be once again.

And I'm, this is probably even more so than state and local where I'm most interested to see where we land after session starts is it all depends on who the speaker is. And of course we have Dan Patrick who's come forward and said, yes, I will, I encourage House members to support the call on House members to support the nominee that the Republican caucus in the House has chosen, which is David Cook. But at the same time, last year when those property tax

negotiations were happening in special sessions where Phelan and Patrick were unbelievably at odds and I think folks really started to understand how fraught their relationship actually is in a public manner. Burroughs was the one that was sent over by Phelan and he was part of those negotiations and of course he was representing the speaker that Patrick very much has been vocally opposed to but it'll be interesting to see regardless of who becomes speaker. And if there's a third candidate, how that ends up for, for the house and Senate. So very curious to see what all goes on there. Did I ride the fence enough there?

I think you rode the fence. I have so many jokes. I'm going to leave it at that. Yes, you did. Well done, Bradley. Okay. Cameron, let's go to you here. This is a story that I said this before, but you were fully aware of before even a lot of news outlets were covering it. This is something you had your finger on the pulse of, and we're going to go into the new year with a lot of questions still and lots to figure out. So walk us through the robert roberson of it all it is a lot because we've spoke uh about this on our previous podcasts on multiple previous podcasts because this has been an issue that's gone on for a few months now. Like you mentioned,

I became aware of this late last year, just prior to that letter that was going to be published, the bipartisan letter that was urging clemency for Robert Roberson. And since that time, there has been a number of other issues that have come to light regarding the not just death penalty involvement of this case, but separation of powers between the branches of our Texas government. And they're all sort of still hanging around, not so much that we have answers, but that there are going to be issues that are going to be addressed in the coming months. Because over the course of the past few weeks, we've seen a number of different opinions come from the Supreme Court of Texas. Probably the one most related to this Roberson case directly is they issued an opinion that a subpoena could be issued

by the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee if it did not impede on the scheduled execution. Since it was delayed initially by the subpoena, there was all these different legal actions. Then the execution has been delayed successfully to this month. And there have been multiple subpoenas issued since that initial subpoena. Roberson has still yet to appear, whether it be via Zoom or in person in Austin to provide testimony. And that seems to be the big crux to this issue regarding the subpoenas. The members of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee have continually said they just want to hear Roberson's side of the story in the public domain and have that put on record. There's been a number of different voices that have taken different sides of this issue. There's these different coalitions within the Texas House. The Texas Attorney General has jumped in. Counsel for Governor Greg Abbott has filed a brief with the Texas Supreme Court.

So every voice that is a part of the Texas legislature, whether it be at the very top to just a regular elected House member, has got involved in some sense, it seems. But there is still some developments that could occur. Is Roberson going to appear in Austin to provide testimony? Could another subpoena be issued? That's unclear right now. But I think that's something everyone's going to want to keep their eye on. And especially as the days take down to when the scheduled execution is planning to take place. We still don't know the exact date on that, but

once we have that information, that's going to be another big turn in this story. So, yeah, and this is also related to larger questions regarding the death penalty. Uh, we've seen both Democrats and Republicans come out and voice their concerns with how the death penalty is carried out and different, um, issues regarding, uh, the legal process for using certain bits of evidence that have been used to convict people and sentence them to capital punishment. So there are both policy issues that are going to come up during the 89th session. There are issues concerning separation of powers related to Roberson's case that are going to come up.

And ultimately, the execution itself is going to continue to provide opportunities for people to voice their opinion on this issue. So many shoes yet to drop on the Roberson case. Absolutely. And Cameron has covered that extensively. Make sure to go to the text line and read all about it, especially as we head into a season where we might get some answers on the long-term results of this case.

Mary Elise, finally, we're coming to you, my dear, after this entire podcast. Let's talk through Trump and Congress and what we can expect in 2025. Yes, so definitely an interesting story we'll be watching this year closely is how President-elect Donald Trump will interact with Congress this year. And we saw some indicators in the recent funding fight,

which of course dragged on, which is pretty typical right before Christmas. There was a really big bill, a continuing resolution that was introduced and typical Congress style is about 1500 pages long. And although it's admittedly very large, it's common for Congress to pass a big funding bill right before Christmas. It's been called a Christmas omnibus bill. But when the bill was released, Elon Musk, who will he will lead the Department of Government Efficiency with Vivek Ramaswamy, as announced by Donald Trump. Elon Musk went on X, of course, and commented. He sent

out a flurry of posts about this continuing resolution saying, commenting on the size of it, he said, ever seen a bigger piece of pork in a picture of this stack of papers. And that really sent off a whole bunch of responses from online commentators, legislators, all sorts of folks online commenting and saying that the continuing resolution needed to be shortened. And Trump joined the bandwagon and he said, there will be no votes on spending tonight. Come back with a clean CR or shut down the government. Do not pass this bill and call their bluff so the following day there was a new cr that was introduced and it was about about 15 000 pages of 400 pages longer than one but there was one request that donald trump had let everybody know he wanted an extension of the debt ceiling, but this new CR did not

include it, which is interesting to note considering that Donald Trump is our future president. This was his one request and that Congress did not care to take that into account. Congressman Chip Roy, sorry, excuse me. So the new CR that was introduced included an extension of the debt ceiling. But Donald Trump said, hey, you all need to vote for this. This is a request. I want this to go through. Congressman Chip Roy, which a lot of people probably observed online, said that this is ridiculous.

This is not something that should be passed. And Donald Trump really went after Chip Roy for that. this cr did not pass this revised cr then a third cr was introduced and that did not include donald trump's request for an extension of the debt ceiling and that did pass and that's we don't include that in this specific article because it happened after it was written. But this CR was passed and it didn't include Donald Trump's one request really for this funding bill. Which is interesting because obviously Trump and his administration, his team, are not afraid of really bullying Congress into what they want. A resolution or what they want Congress to do. But apparently Congress is confident that they can sidestep that, that they don't necessarily have to bow to Trump's request, his demands.

So it'll be interesting to see how they continue to interact in this upcoming year, because Trump is most likely not going to back down. He has a lot of ideas of how he'd like Congress to run things. And Congress has their own ideas and traditions. So it'll be interesting to watch. I'll be covering it closely in the 40, which comes out on Thursday. So you can read more about it there. Absolutely.

Exclusive to subscribers. Bradley. Can I jump in? Yeah. The other part of this is Trump wanted that debt ceiling to be raised so that he didn't have to spend political capital this year when he takes office, which now he will do. Either they'll have to fight it out over the debt ceiling or some of his spending he wants to do will not get approved. So there's that aspect. Then, of course, you have the speaker's race, the federal speaker's race, which may or

least correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're voting tomorrow on Friday when this goes out, right? A lot of question about whether Mike Johnson can retain the gavel. Trump has endorsed him despite the hectic stuff that happened over the holiday break. But is there any talk about a serious challenge being mounted or if things kind of settled for Johnson? There's a lot of questions surrounding Johnson and especially with Trump nominating him or endorsing him. It's going to be really interesting to see how this pans out. So this is what

everyone's wondering. Is Trump endorsing Johnson going to be big enough to get him? That'll be a big story tomorrow for sure. They go to UFC fights together, so I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Yeah yeah they're basically best friends if that's not an endorsement I don't know what is

they eat Big Macs on the airplane together too with RFK and Elon and everybody else was Elon on that plane? I think he was right? yeah I wonder how difficult it was for RFK to scarf down that Big Mac good question you know I can't you pleased okay I'll merely thank you for

your coverage as always let's move on to the tweeter section here. Bradley, start us off. So among the slew of rulings that were put out by the Texas Supreme Court on Friday, not on Friday, on New Year's Eve, they do it every New Year's Eve. Among the list of those was a ruling on the case between the Commission for Lawyer Discipline, State Bar of Texas, and Brent Webster, the first assistant attorney general for Texas. sued four other states alleging that each of them violated their own constitution in changing election procedure without proper input from the legislature. I will note, as I always note with this, Texas did the same dang thing and they were not sued. But anyway, this has been long ongoing. The State Bar of Texas, someone filed a complaint. State Bar and this commission ruled against Webster and then tried to level a penalty. And that's how it got caught up in court. Supreme Court ruled that this is nonsense, that the state bar cannot punish or try and levy any

kind of penalty against a lawyer for signing onto a lawsuit for, especially one that hasn't been deemed irresponsible or, um, uh, you know, fraught with holes by a court. This was conducted outside court and, um, you know, there was no frivolous lawsuit finding in this, so there was no dismiss with prejudice. Uh, the U. Supreme Court just said, no, we're not going to deal with that. So you can read the opinion. It's a pretty well-written opinion by Evan Young, Justice Evan Young, and centers on the separation of powers. And overall, you know, this, this should put to bed any kind of similar instance down the road where there isn't, you know, action by a judge reprimanding an attorney. So there is that. There you go, Bradley. Thank you. Cameron, what do you got for us? Where were you during the great H-1B visa debate?

You know, this was something that didn't, I didn't think this was going to happen during Christmas, but apparently everyone decided to fight over H-1B visas over the Christmas break. And it elicited quite a wide range of responses. The one I highlight for our tweeter-y today is the one by Sam Hyde and Sam Hyde a well he's a comedian and he posted a 45 minute response which was actually quite cogent and involved humor involved um some interesting insights that an analysis um I'd encourage people to watch it. It got quite a response from people online. But it seems like this H-1B visa discussion is not going to be quieted down anytime soon. The questions of what is America? What is an American citizen? What is the point of our immigration system? There are many looming questions regarding these larger abstractions in regard to America more generally that have gone unanswered over the last few decades. And they all came to fruition with this H-1B visa debate. Is America simply a economic zone,

or is it a place that has a shared history and there's a shared peoples that are American. And should immigration be focused on what is the purpose of our immigration system? So there's lots of looming questions that were brought up with the H-1B visa discussion. I don't know if Brian, Mary, Eliseise you guys were um distracted at all by this debate during the christmas holiday or you were able to tune it out and just relax yeah i kind of got sick of it i didn't notice it until it had been uh trending on x for maybe 24 hours and i got on there and it's just like every single post was about it and lots of different, lots of different strong opinions. But I try to not

spend too much time on it because it was a little chaotic. Yes. Well, the, you know, you ran through the kind of philosophical side of this, but the political side is that, you know, you have kind of a break between certainly Elon and Vivek, but also Trump on this and the, a lot of the base, a lot of the most fervent, particularly online supporters of them in this fight. And so, you know,

does that rift grow down the road? Is there, is this something that either camp really wants to spend a lot of political capital on? Do these, you know, as you mentioned, all the deportation prospects and the other borders, border actions actions does that play into this i mean obviously h1b is different than that but you know it all kind of bleeds into a general topic about immigration and um yeah that i think if i was interested in this at all it would be that the political side of it but cameron cameron went ate up the uh the philosophical um debate here no but it on on a political side like you're talking about this rift that is occurring because the trump campaign uh for presidency made deals with a lot of different coalition groups. One of the most powerful being Silicon Valley tech people. And their view of what America should be is going to be vastly different than maybe the

coalition for the working class base sort of people. The blue collar populace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, it like there's, there is someone like Steve Bannon who is commenting quite a bit on this. Um, and he is known for being very much a populace, uh, here in America. And then many of the tech bros say we need to build up the knowledge capital that we have here in America. And the best way we can do that is by using H-1Bs to our advantage, by recruiting the best people from across the world to come to America. And that makes America better. Um, so there's these, there's these splits, like you mentioned, because Donald Trump and

the Mac and movement made a deal with all these different groups. Um, and now they're having this debate out in the public and, you know, there's been some stories, uh, headlines, uh, mainstream news outlets that try that attempted to frame this as, uh, negative where a public debate is occurring on this issue. But then there's also been the perspective that, no, this is a healthy part of quote unquote democracy, where public debate is occurring and people can voice their opinion and eventually the best opinion will win out. And Trump, like you said, Trump did make some comments and they, it initially was, there was a New York post, uh,

a story that came out. Uh, then there was some comments on New Year's Eve that came out, or the day New Year's Eve Eve Eve, something along those lines when some other comments came out. But we have to remember, Trump is not in office right now. You know, there's still a lot of time between now and January 20th, where this is going to continue to be debated even after he's inaugurated on January 20th, because this is not an issue that's going to go away. It's immigration, illegal immigration, economics, populism. Those issues are not going away. It's going to be a debate that continues to occur.

And I'm all here for it. Touch on one of my classic hits. That's the problem with a coalitional, a coal, an electoral coalition that's heavy on the coalition side and lighter on the ideological side. You're going to have to balance these things. And, you know, whatever you think of FDR, he did it very well. He balanced it, held that together. This coalition filled with a bunch of people who didn't agree on much at all. Um, you know, other presidents have not done that very well, and this is going to be

Trump's big task because he does have a pretty large and at least at recent growing coalition of people that have competing interests. Yeah. And I'll just touch on one more thing and we can move on. But we talked about the political disruptions that this debate caused. But it seemed like there was one million views right now where he was quite critical of some essential elements of what is this kind of americana like american culture you know he was criticizing boy meets world he was criticizing sleepovers he was criticizing hanging out at the mall. And I think that's really zooming back and asking if people are trying to parse through this conversation, like asking ourselves, like, what does it mean to be an American? What do we want to promote as the sort of foundational idea? What is that culture going to look like moving forward? I think that the the underlying issue at hand right now and the hb1 visa is sort of the the thing that brought it to the forefront absolutely it's gonna be fun and i'd say on monday uh cameron will have

redacted out talking about just this so you can find out for that subscribe to the deck then mary lease let's go to you for your tweeterie yes so i've been on my x i've been sharing some updates from fbi houston so this is a story we'll have out by the time um our listeners are listening to this episode but um there was a man who drove through a crowd in New Orleans and he I think the death toll is now up to 15 and injured dozens of people but they have confirmed that he is from Houston and following that there was an announcement from FBI Houston that they are conducting a search in a certain part of North Houston. And as of now, they say that they concluded it this morning, which

I got early this morning with Harris County Sheriff's Office. They concluded their court authorized search. And they said at this time, there's no threat to residents in the area, but they are unable to provide any details due to the ongoing nature of the investigation um so it's really there's not many details about it yet we're still kind of waiting to see uh what they'll let us know they've been they've been sharing a few updates as they go along but essentially it's been we can't share details this is ongoing uh so definitely you can go look at my x to see if there's more updates and then we'll have a pizza out about that about that search and in north houston absolutely well guys um happy new year this is first podcast 2025 and i think we're off

to a pretty rolling rocking start you got a tweet I don't think I've ever said that before I do not have a tweet or even I know I think my throat is about to give out but I've had a very delightful time chatting with all of you and I love her back in the

saddle happy to be back there you go well folks happy Year. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics. And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news.

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