The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 14, 2023

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Texas flag hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/texas-flag-hat/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe 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: The Texas House and Senate striking a deal on property tax reformKen Paxton’s legal team claiming that the House impeachment managers are “withholding information”Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez announcing his candidacy for U.S. Senate to displace Ted CruzGutierrez lashing out at Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House leadership over the property tax compromiseA small business owner suing Gov. Abbott over Texas’ new Rio Grande buoy systemA federal judge dismissing a lawsuit from The Satanic Temple challenging Texas’ laws against abortionThe El Paso gunman who murdered 22 people in 2019 receiving 90 consecutive life sentencesA Uvalde parent who was banned from school district property having that ban lifted after a lawsuit threatSen. Ted Cruz announcing bipartisan legislation to crack down on schools linked to the Chinese Communist PartyThe City of Austin suspending its partnership with the Department of Public SafetyThe former El Paso city manager being hired as the city manager of OdessaThe Texas State Historical Association mediating a lawsuit over its board’s ideological makeup

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses the Texas House and Senate striking a deal on property tax reform. Ken Paxton's legal team claiming that the House impeachment managers are withholding information. Texas Senator Roland Gutierrez announcing his candidacy for U.S. Senate to displace Ted Cruz. Gutierrez lashing out at Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and House leadership over the property tax compromise. A small business owner suing Governor Abbott over Texas' new Rio Grande buoy system. A federal judge dismissing a lawsuit from the Satanic Temple challenging Texas' laws against abortion. The El Paso gunman who murdered 22 people in 2019, receiving 90

consecutive life sentences, a Uvalde parent who was banned from school district property, having that ban lifted after a lawsuit threat, Senator Ted Cruz announcing bipartisan legislation to crack down on schools linked to the Chinese Communist Party, the city of Austin suspending its partnership with the Department of Public Safety. The former El Paso city manager being hired as a city manager of Odessa. And the Texas State Historical Association mediating a lawsuit over its board's ideological makeup. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode.

Howdy folks, it's Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Hayden, and Matt. We're already in a little bit of, I would say, generally snarky moods this morning, except for Cameron. Why would you say that? I've just been busy. You've just been busy. I haven't had time to think outside of what I've been writing today. It's been a busy day, which we should get into a little bit and talk about. Why haven't had time to think outside of what I've been writing today. It's been a busy day, which we should get into a little bit and talk about. Why don't you tell our readers a little bit about what they can find that we just published at the Texan? Yeah, so a new lawsuit has just been

launched against Senate Bill 14. And Senate Bill 14, just to remind all our listeners, is the ban on child gender modification treatments. And so this lawsuit, being primarily represented by Lambda Legal, they are seeking this lawsuit based on five different families who are using pseudonyms for their children for protection in this lawsuit because they say they have transgender Texans between the ages of 9 and 16. And so as we've written about previously, SB 14 has gone through lots of ups and downs during the process of finally getting passed and signed into law. There was lots of protests and there was points of order and there was squabbles over the language during committee hearings. So this is the first real world challenge since this bill has been

signed into law. Yeah, absolutely. So we'll certainly keep an eye on that and all the details can be found at thetexan.news. Cameron, thanks for letting me surprise you there with that question. Brad, let's come to you. What we've all been waiting for for so long finally happened in the legislature this week. The Texas House and the Texas Senate settled their property tax feud. It's been going on for months at this point. Give us the details. It's been a long, long, long, long road to get to this point. And I must say, I'm quite exhausted of it. Wait a second, Brad. Are you telling me that how long has the road been again?

Go over this one more time for me. I'm having trouble understanding. Four times long. Four times. Yeah. Okay. over this one more time for me i'm having trouble understanding four times long four times yeah okay and if we do this back and forth again it'll be five times long okay all right so a long long time yes please what you're saying okay add two more longs to that yes got it and we're where we're at thank you i think it's i think in sinking in now cool all Well, big news. The lieutenant governor and the speaker on Monday morning announced that they had reached a deal, a long awaited deal on property taxes. You know, it's about time because I can only describe in writing what rate compression and appraisal caps and homestead exemption are so many times before it just all gets jumbled in my own head. So, folks, so we don't go over it again.

Brad does have an explainer piece at the Texan that details all these terms. So make sure to go and read that guide at the Texan. That is something that actually interests you. There's probably three of you. And you each have probably read the piece already. So we'll move on. The deal announced Monday morning is the total package of $18 billion. Over $12 billion of that is to compress school district maintenance and operations rates. Now, $5.3 billion of that $12 billion is already basically passed in the state budget to continue the 2019 rate compression that the legislature passed back then.

Also included is a $60,000 increase to the standard homestead exemption up to $100,000. It also includes a 20% appraisal cap on commercial and non-homestead rental properties valued at or under $5 million. The House originally wanted a 5% across-the-board appraisal cap. Instead, they get this, and it's for a trial run of three years. The term legislators keep using is circuit breaker. It's an appraisal cap. Now, it's a pilot program. Right now, if it passes, it will only last three years,

and the legislators will have the opportunity to keep it going if they so choose. But it is in the brazil cap. It also includes a $1.47 million increase in the franchise tax exception, meaning that any business, any company that brings in receipts below $2.47 million, just don't have to pay franchise tax. And then it also includes reforms to appraisal review boards, specifically creating three elected positions to these boards in counties with population above 75,000. And so those are the highlights. There's a couple more aspects that I run through in the articles on this stuff. But as I mentioned, total value, $18 billion. And by the time this podcast

is released, it will have been passed. The two chambers are going to gavel in later this afternoon on Thursday and presumably pass it all, adjourn, sign, and die, send them to the governor's desk, who is expected to sign it fairly quickly. Absolutely. And we've seen the big leaders in the state trade blows back and forth over this issue and press conferences and press statements. What are both sides now saying on this deal? So the legislators have all touted the deal the lieutenant governor and speaker were quite harmonious in this announcement on monday morning releasing a joint statement together talking about how uh over the weekend especially the negotiations went fairly went

quite well and obviously they settled on a deal but there was not the uh you know vitriol that we've seen in the past on this issue between the two. They kind of did a reset, it seems, on negotiations between these two chambers that had been warring on this issue quite a bit. Members are touting it as the largest tax cut in the history of the state. There are different ways to look at that claim. $18 billion. The previous largest tax cut is $14 billion. So just based on, that was in 2008. So just based on raw numbers, it is the largest. But if you take out the money that's already in the budget for compression, that lowers it by $5.3 billion.

Then if you account for inflation from 2008, the number is between $20 and $21 billion. So different people will look at that through different lenses, but those are the rough numbers of comparison. Governor Greg Abbott said after the announcement, I promised during my campaign that the state would return to property taxpayers at least half of the largest budget surplus we ever had. Today's agreement between the House and Senate is a step toward delivering on that promise. For that claim about at least half, the state had $32.7 billion in the treasury surplus. Apply the same situation with the math that I just mentioned to that comparison as well. However, detractors such as Van Skin,

who we had on the podcast, Economist, formerly with TPPF, Donna Huffines, former gubernatorial candidate, both of them have said that this is not sufficient in other groups as well. So, you know, they'll be debating this until the cows come home, whether it's sufficient or not,

whether it accomplishes what was promised or not. But overall, a deal is done. That's it. It's done and dusted. There is relief in your eyes. It's palpable. Yes. Yes.

It's not just property tax relief. It's my relief to my own mental state that is being granted by this deal. And Brad did speak with the Senate author of this legislation, Senator Paul Betancourt, in a podcast interview earlier this week after the deal had been struck. So we'll have that coming out probably early next week. So teasing that a little bit there. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, an attorney for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton made serious claims about the impeachment trial this week. What did he have to say? Suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton was impeached in May on 20 articles of impeachment, accusing him of bribery, abuse of office, dereliction of duty and other

violations. His attorney, Tony Busby, said this week that the House impeachment managers are not providing documents to which Paxton is constitutionally entitled. He asked Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to force the impeachment team's attorneys to follow the discovery laws in the Code of Criminal Procedure as if this was a criminal proceeding, and he asked for a strict and comprehensive deadline for different documents that are to be provided to Paxton's team. The Senate currently, in the rules it adopted for the impeachment process, has a deadline of August 22nd for witness lists and subpoena updates. But Busby wants those by the end of the month. And Patrick did issue a document yesterday, but we'll get to that in a moment.

So what exactly did Busby say that the House impeachment managers are withholding? He wasn't specific in his statement. Most of the statement was a tirade against the House impeachment process in the beginning. He has repeatedly referred to supporters of impeachment as, quote, disciples of Speaker Phelan, and he has derided it for the speed by which they moved this through the House because it was passed only days after it became known that the House General Investigating Committee was even investigating Paxton. So he refocused his criticisms on that process. He said, quote, the Texas Senate has clearly stated that it intends

this process to be fair. However, because of the intransigence of Phelan's house managers and their refusal to disclose documents as required by law, it is imperative that the Senate take immediate action to force the house managers to follow the law, end quote. Busby also named Jeff Leach and Morgan Meyer, but again, he did not say specifically what his issues are with them, just generally criticizing them. You alluded to a statement from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Why don't we go ahead and jump into that? Patrick issued a discovery order, and I'm calling it a discovery order using that loosely. Again, this is not a judicial proceeding. The Senate is a, quote, court of impeachment, end quote, for the purpose of this trial, but it is not a judicial proceeding.

So Patrick issued this order through the clerk of the Senate saying, and I'm speaking broadly here, there were stipulations and more particulars in the order, but things like law enforcement reports, witness statements, including statements by Paxton, all physical objects, photographs, and documents expected to be used as evidence, all known convictions of witnesses that are supposed to testify, exculpatory or mitigating evidence and things of that nature are to be provided to Paxton's team. So Patrick is responsive in that way. However, he did not concede in the order that the Senate is supposed to be operating under the Code of Criminal Procedure because, once again, this is not a criminal proceeding. The Senate cannot sentence Paxton to prison or impose any kind of fine or any criminal sanction. All the Senate can do is remove him from office

and prohibit him from running for office in Texas again. So Patrick referenced the rules of evidence and the impeachment rules, which are to be followed in this proceeding, but he did not reference the code of criminal procedure because that is not related to what the Senate is doing to Paxton. There you go. Hayden, thank you for your coverage. Bradley, Senator Ted Cruz gained another 2024 challenger this week. Who jumped into next year's U.S. Senate race? State Senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat out of San Antonio, announced his long rumored bid for the U.S. Senate in 2024. He said, I'm running against Ted Cruz because everything that we've seen in this state has been nothing but taking care of rich people while the poor people, the working class, get screwed over.

The lion's share of his announcement video focused on the 2022 Uvalde massacre in which 19 students and two teachers were tragically murdered in an elementary school in Uvalde. Gutierrez represents Uvalde. It's in his district, and he struggled with the fallout from that. That's probably putting it lightly. It's been a very difficult situation, but that's something that he has focused on a lot since it happened in trying to establish policy responses that he thinks would have prevented that, including raising the age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle. That's something he's harped on quite a bit, but that is clearly going to be a theme of

his candidacy here. He will now face Congressman colin allred who's been in the race since well a couple months ago i forget exactly the day but all right has been in the race for a while already and has been doing the media rounds and uh gutierrez is just now jumping in all red announced six million dollars raised in the first couple months of his campaign. So Gutierrez has a lot of catching up to do, but the two will face off to see who gets to take on Cruz in the November general next year. And when you say Gutierrez has struggled on the Senate floor, there have been many instances in which he has either made a speech

or made it a point to bring up amendments related to the tragedy, even if the bill was not related to the, in anything related to gun control at all, or even might not, it might be struck down as not even germane. He made it a point to bring up the issue as often as he possibly could. So what have Senator Ted Cruz and Allred said about Gutierrez jumping in? Cruz spokesman said, we welcome Senator Gutierrez to the race. Texans will now get to watch Colin Allred and Roland Gutierrez slug it out for who can be the most radical leftists in the state.

Meanwhile, Senator Cruz will continue passionately defending Texas and delivering real results for 30 million Texans. Allred's campaign added, our campaign is laser focused on beating Ted Cruz and we are happy to welcome anyone who shares that mission into this race i think uh gutierrez asked about when asked about all reds candidacy said that he hasn't really talked to all red much he doesn't know him well

but he said that i will quote i will work harder than congressman all red so we'll see very different approaches there yeah tells us a little bit about maybe their mindsets going into the race thank you bradley matt let's stick on um with senator gutierrez here property tax relief legislation passed the texas senate yesterday but not before state senator and now u.s senate candidate roland gutierrez made an issue out of teacher pay not being included in the bill. Give us the details. That's right, Mackenzie. Prior to the passage of Senate Bill 3, one of the three parts of the agreed-to property tax relief legislation between the House and the Senate, Senator Gutierrez questioned Senator Paul

Bettencourt, the author of the bill, asking why pay increases for Texas teachers were not included, and asked specifically who in the House made the decision as part of the agreement not to include it in the bill. Now, Gutierrez also specifically asked if the decision makers for not addressing teacher pay was House Speaker Dave Phelan or Representative Will Metcalf, who was involved in the negotiations as chair of, I believe, House Appropriations. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick interrupted the question House leadership felt it was best to address teacher pay later on in the special session or a subsequent special session. Now Gutierrez took note of that, saying, oh, so it was Phelan and Metcalf. That's what I wanted to know. Now the incident didn't end there with Gutierrez actually responding to Brad Johnson's tweets describing the interaction and specifically noting Patrick characterizing the question as inappropriate. He was worth $100 million and said that there isn't a teacher's neck that Patrick wouldn't step on.

Now, Gutierrez ultimately joined all of the senators in passing, voting the bill through passage with unanimous support. And another senator, Senator Sarah Eckhart, before voting for it, noted that several billion dollars had been set aside for teacher pay, but this bill was pertaining to property taxes and also joined the unanimous Senate in voting for it. Now, Brad kind of mentioned earlier that Gutierrez has been an interesting figure throughout this past session. He's regularly played the role of the Senate antagonist, frequently throwing up points of orders, posing lengthy questions, doing everything he can to try and force votes on gun control measures that he's a major supporter of. And in addition to that, now he has his U.S. Senate campaign that perhaps the latest move might help draw a little bit of attention to. So as the campaigns continue to unfold, we'll see what other kind of interesting

maneuvers come about. We certainly are nearing the election season, and that means that candidates will begin making it or at least attempting to make it very clear to voters the issues that they care most about and will center their campaigns on. So, Matt, thank you so much. Hayden, we're coming back to you. Governor Abbott is facing a legal challenge to his buoy barrier system. Tell us a little. Aren't you the Dewey Decimal System? It does a little, is there anything to do with the Dewey Decimal System? It does, a little bit. I actually made Brad laugh for once about something I said. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about this buoy barrier system.

Of all the things Brad could have laughed about, he's over there giggling about the Dewey Decimal System. Got a problem with that? No, it's just really funny to me. Now I'm laughing about what you're laughing about. Every time we're going to say buoy barrier system from now on, which will probably happen a handful of times. We'll think about this. Well, in June, when Abbott was signing a series of border security measures into law, he announced that the state of Texas would be implementing a Dewey decimal system on the Rio Grande. And this system is designed. It's the only way you can keep all the buoys straight.

I had coffee in my mouth. I went 100%. Oh, it was bad. Oh, my goodness. These buoys are designed to prevent people from swimming across the Rio Grande. If you have not seen a picture of these buoys they look like an obstacle course from the abc show wipe out and i will say this as soon as i saw them i absolutely wish that i could get on top of them and try try to bounce like like run across them

like on wipe out he literally just said wipe out were you not listening i was not listening sorry also i watch those shows and i think man i could do so much better than those people He literally just said wipe out. Were you not listening? I was not listening. Sorry. Also, I watch those shows and I think, man, I could do so much better than those people. But I could not. Like, objectively speaking, I could not. Well, I mean, there are some people that are really bad. Brad, but I'm like, do you see how I'm built? I would just, there'd be no support. You're built different.

I'm built horribly for the Dewey Decimal System. For the Dewey Decimal System. For the Dewey Decimal System. Okay, keep going. So Colonel McCraw, Steve McCraw, the director of DPS, would not get into too many specifics about the system because of security purposes. He did not want to give away too much information and give people an idea of how to circumvent it. There have been concerns that it will be a danger to people. I think Senator Gutierrez called it a drowning trap or a drowning system, something to that effect, because people might try to swim across anyway and then drown as they try to get under this thing. But Colonel McCraw did not get into too many specifics at that original news conference. It is designed to deter people from jumping in the Rio Grande and trying to get

to the other, to the U.S. side of the river. So what was in the complaint filed this week? A South Texas businessman who owns a small kayak and canoe business said Operation Lone Star in general and this buoy barrier project are causing, quote, irreparable injury, end quote, to his business. He said in order to install the system, the state of Texas has destroyed a tributary that served as the end route for his kayak and canoe trips that he goes on. I don't know exactly the ins and outs of this particular business, but he said that the destruction of the tributary and the closure of a public boat ramp are

inhibiting his ability to offer boating lessons and things of that and summer camp activities and things like that. So he is, the business owner's name is Jesse Fuentes, and he filed this suit against Operation Lone Star in general and particularly the Bowie barrier system. He said the Operation Lone Star is unconstitutional and it is resulting in racial profiling of Hispanic Americans. He also said that it is a violation of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Arizona against United States, in which the Supreme Court clarified that immigration enforcement is a federal duty. So he is covering all of his bases in this legal complaint. Sobering to remember that where this system has been put in place, there is also, you

know, in order to deter illegal immigration coming across the border, there's tourism, there are kayak tours, there are summer camps. This is a very, this is not some, there certainly parts parts of the border where it's very desolate. But in other parts, it is directly affecting citizens who live in Texas and carry out their lives in just normal day to day. what he called a narrative that South Texas is dangerous and a disaster zone. Those types of things are dissuading people from doing business. And I think he even said he had a hard time getting a vendor for a project that he was working on because this vendor did not want to do business in Eagle Pass because the vendor had been convinced that it was too dangerous to do that. I don't know how the governor's words can be used in a lawsuit.

In other words, I don't know how you can sue the governor for an opinion that he has expressed, but he is alleging that the governor has caused injury to his business and he's asking for a permanent injunction against the buoy barrier system. Has Abbott said anything about the lawsuit? He has, and he didn't seem impressed by it. He said, quote, we will see you in court and don't think the Travis County court will be the end of it. This is going to the Supreme Court. Texas has a constitutional right to secure the border, end quote.

And by the way, this lawsuit was filed in Travis County. Notable for sure. Right. the way, this lawsuit was filed in Travis County. Notable for sure. Right. Thank you, Hayden. Cameron, coming to you, a very dramatic pivot here from the rest of our coverage we've covered so far. The Satanic Temple has continued to challenge Texas abortion laws. Tell us about the latest developments. So a federal judge in Texas has dismissed a lawsuit that the Satanic Temple has filed. They've continued to levy appeals on claims that they need access to abortion for their rituals.

Well, this court decision had some very interesting declarations and statements. The judge ruled that the claims by the Satanic Temple were, quote, willfully inadequate and deficient. The judge also stated that the claims did not explain how the plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit and how allegations are, how the allegations are devoid of actual facts. What does this mean for the Satanic Temple and the lawsuit going forward? Well, because the judge called the claims, quote, bad faith, he added that re-pleading the case would be futile. Dang, there you go. Yeah, we've written about this a lot a few different times and so it seems as though this is where it ends. This has been an ongoing legal battle. Absolutely. Cameron, thank you so much for your coverage. Hayden, the perpetrator of the 2019

shooting at an El Paso Walmart faced his punishment this week. What was his sentence? Many of our listeners will recall in 2019, a coward went on a shooting spree in a Walmart in El Paso and murdered 22 people, injuring 23 more. And this week he faced a federal courtroom and forgive me, the death toll was 23, not 22. He killed 23 individuals, injured 22 and pleaded guilty. He received 20, 90 consecutive life sentences, federal life sentences, 45 for hate crimes and 45 for firearms violations. So never, ever, ever getting out of prison. And this is in the federal system. And there's also no parole in the federal system. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, quote, no one in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fueled violence, that they will be targeted because of what they look like or where they are from.

End quote. This perpetrator is a self-proclaimed white supremacist. He said his goal was to kill as many Hispanic Americans as possible to deter immigration to our country. So just absolutely a despicable individual. Victims of the mass murder, their family members appeared at the hearing, and those who were injured also appeared at the hearing to testify and give victim impact statements as to the effect that this unspeakable crime had on them. And Attorney General Garland commended them for their bravery and stepping forward and testifying to how this event impacted them.

So this 24-year-old male will spend the rest of his natural life behind bars. Is this the end of the case? Maybe not. The state of Texas could still prosecute him and convict him on state capital murder charges. So for now, he is going to federal prison, but he could ultimately get the death penalty if he is convicted in El Paso County on the state capital murder charges. So at the least, he will be in prison for the rest of his natural life, but he could still be executed. There you go, Hayden. Thank you for your coverage. Cameron, coming to you. As we know, Uvalde was, the community of Uvalde

was the victim of a violent tragedy when the massacre at Robb Elementary School occurred, and parents of students started to become much more involved in varying ways following that tragedy. Tell us what happened with one particular parent that you covered this week. Yeah, so I saw one parent from Uvalde named Adam Martinez. He was one of these parents who started to speak up at school board meetings and his youngest son was actually present at Robb Elementary, but thankfully was unharmed. Martinez was a vocal critic of a new safety officer that was hired by the school following the events at Robb Elementary and because of the intervention that he was speaking out about the school sent him a letter declaring him banned from the school property.

And so in response to this, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, better known as FIRE, they took up his case and saw his concerns and took them to the school and threatened litigation if they did not repeal this ban. And because of this threat of litigation, the school withdrew the ban, and he is now able to go onto school property, speak at school board meetings, go to his son's practices, and pick up his daughter from school. So kind of a, this was a long journey for this individual, this parent. I just saw this. And so I think it was really interesting highlighting this free speech response and issue that was occurring at a high school and campus here in Texas. Yeah, absolutely.

Cameron, thank you so much for your coverage. Matt, coming to you, legislation by Texas Senator Ted Cruz aims to remove influence from the Chinese Communist Party in JROTC programs sponsored by the Defense Department. And the proposal carries bipartisan support. Give us a rundown. Senator Ted Cruz announced the filing of the Deterring Gregorius State Infiltration of schools training or desist act, which on a side note, I'm always impressed how these lawmakers come up with names for legislation on Wednesday, which prevents private and public schools with links to the communist party of China or the people's liberation army of China,

or basically anything to do with communist China government through like secretly owning shares of the school or etc. From being eligible to host a JROTC program sponsored by the Department of Defense. Now, JROTC programs develop leadership skills amongst high school aged kids and are conducted through the various armed forces divisions. So you'll see like a U.S. Marines, JROTC program or U.S. Army, etc., etc. The legislation is part of an ongoing effort by both state and federal level lawmakers to push back on Chinese Communist Party influence here

at home in America. Cruz stated the CCP wants to ultimately control what Americans see, hear, and think. He even noted that legislation he already passed in the law barring the DOD from helping movie productions if companies acquiesce to the CCP's demands for censorship or other content guidelines, basically acting as an arm of their propaganda or censorship machines. State lawmakers more recently have attempted to pass legislation banning hostile foreign nations, including China, from owning land in Texas. The legislation, which was carried by Senator Lois Kulquhorst, was failed to pass the Texas House after ultimately passing the Texas Senate, and it was because of strong opposition from House Democrats.

Texas lawmakers were, however, able in previous recent sessions to pass legislation banning those same hostile foreign nations from gaining access to the state's critical infrastructure, including the Texas electric grid. Now, Cruz's legislation, in addition to being filed in the U.S. Senate, was also filed in the U.S. House of Representatives, where several of the authors come from across the aisle, giving the legislation bipartisan support. There you go, Matthew. Thank you. Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying our podcast, subscribe to The Texan right now while you're listening. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of

everyday Texans to keep doing our jobs. When you subscribe, you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published so you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month. New subscribers will get a free Texas State Pride flag hat with all sorts of color options to choose from. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Brad, let's move on to another story you covered this week. There was a big law enforcement development in Austin. What happened? The city of Austin and its mayor, Kirk Watson, abruptly announced the cancellation of the Austin Police Department's partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety. DPS and APD had partnered up

back in March to assist the department that was struggling with staffing attrition. Mainly it was done to aid APD in responding to 911 calls and other policing activities, traffic stops, things like that. On the first day of the task force, DPS officers seized 70 pounds of meth and made 14 felony arrests. The partnership was paused, though, to redeploy officers to the border back in May to cope with Title 42's looming expiration. It resumed at the beginning of July. And the Tuesday decision to then cancel this partnership kind of came out of nowhere. It took a lot of people by surprise, I think including DPS itself. Absolutely. So what caused this decision?

So on Sunday, DPS officers pulled over Carlos Meza for not having license plates on his vehicle. After they were pulled over into their driveway, both Meza and his son, who was in the passenger seat, tried to exit the vehicle. This caused the officers who were now out of their vehicle to draw their sidearms and shouted the two to get back in the car it's state policy to remain in your vehicle when you are pulled over at a traffic stop on monday fox 7 here in austin ran a report including an interview with mesa alleging the officers pointed their side arms at the younger mesa the report caused an uproar from the reimagined policing activists who called for the partnership to be canceled

they'd already been calling for the partnership to be canceled but this gave them ammo to cite watson on tuesday obliged saying this partnership was an innovative approach to address acute staffing shortages that were years in the making however any approach must be quote in sync with austin values apd is down about 500 officers from its staffing level in 2019 about 150 that was slashed during the 2020 budget cut and redirection and has not been replaced so that was a big onus for DPS coming in in the first place. In the release announcing the cancellation, it said that the partnership had resulted in violent crime and gun crimes being reduced, response times being reduced.

Overall, things seem to be getting better. But despite that, this is now concluded. Yeah, so as of now, it's canceled. It's done. Although that was not the only development. Yeah, so let's talk about DPS's response to this allegation. DPS said on Wednesday, yeah, today's Thursday. DPS said on Wednesday that no guns were pointed at the child,

and they released their body camera and dash camera footage showing that, in fact, no sidearms were pointed at the younger Meza. By the time this goes out, there will be a piece up from us with all of the footage that DPS provided. So you can watch it there and see for yourself um there was a point where uh the firearms from the two officers were pointed at the elder meza driver when things kind of got a little more tense as he tried to get out of the vehicle um after the the two officers shouted at the younger meza who stuck his leg out.

And this was before they knew who they were dealing with here. They just pulled the car over there and talked to him. And there were no plates to run, so they didn't know anything. But overall, this is, the allegation seems to be not true. And despite that, despite the decision by the city, DPS says it will still be patrolling Austin as they have jurisdiction across the entire state. Governor Abbott came out and basically reiterated that statement. So how much this changes things functionally, not really sure, possibly not much at all other than the old task force was specifically coordinated between apd and dps

whereas now we might see more dps just doing their um doing their patrolling that they would have done only without apd's oversight specific oversight or say on operations where they're deployed so we'll see how it develops but um a lot of smoke and maybe very little fire on how this is um actually going to affect the patrolling in the city and it'd be an understatement to say this body cam footage set twitter ablaze in the austin press corps last night yeah we saw two station reporters fighting each other one from fox one from over twitter for the record on twitter they were fighting over twitter yes yes there were no no station reporters fighting each other. One from Fox, one from... Over Twitter, for the record.

On Twitter. They were fighting over Twitter, yes. There were no blows. It wasn't a video of them digging it out on Congress. Exactly. Let's be very clear. Regardless, it was a lot of drama last night

on the Twitters. Brad, thank you for your coverage. Matt, coming to you, the former city manager of El Paso will become the new city manager for Midland. Some residents expressed concerns about his background. Give us some details. The Midland City Council voted unanimously to hire El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez this past week, joining their neighboring city of Odessa and recently having to hire a new top administrator. But while Odessa selected someone outside the regular city manager candidate circles

in hiring John Beckmeyer, which you can read about our coverage there, Midland selected someone with an extensive history in city management, having served as the city manager in Irving, Lubbock, Arlington, and as assistant city manager in Dallas. But some residents expressed concern over the hiring, including citing the unusual circumstances and why El Paso only decided to vote to terminate his employment earlier this year as the city manager there, a decision which forced the council to pay him roughly or nearly $1 million in severance pay. They also pointed to past news stories where he was accused of illegally accepting high-value sports tickets from city vendors.

But Midland leaders dismissed these concerns with several council members, including the mayor, sending an op-ed in the Midland Reporter-Telegram saying they found the right man for the job and that those concerns were nothing to be concerned about. from Texas Tech University. And just like with Beckmeyer and Odessa, he is expected to officially assume the role as city manager later this month or potentially early in August. Absolutely, Matt. Thank you for your coverage. Cameron, coming to you,

the Texas State Historical Association has continued drama surrounding some of its board members. Tell us about this latest update. Yes, we have reported how the executive director, J.P. Bryan, and board president, Dr. Nancy Baker-Jones, had previously been engaged in a disagreement about the ideological makeup of the board. There's supposed to be an even split between academics and non-academics. Well, this eventually led to an injunction to halt a board meeting that would have ousted JP from his position and also led to a potential lawsuit against Jones. But latest

developments is that both sides of this disagreement have come to terms and that they will forego a lawsuit and mitigate this conflict outside the courtroom. There you go, Cameron. Thank you. Let's move on to our tweet-a-wee. Tweet-a-wee. The Dewey Decimal System. And tweet-a-wee. Oh boy. Okay, Hayden, why don't you start us off with a tweet away for this week the houston i don't know i don't know what's going on the houston chronicle tweeted a piece regarding ken Paxton and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer. Schumer's claim that Democrats

need to do more to crack down on what is generally known as venue shopping, that is, suing in courts where the judge is more likely to hand you a favorable outcome. Chuck Schumer said specifically that Ken Paxton has been suing in courtrooms with Trump appointees in order to gain favorable decisions, specifically Judge Matthew Kazimierak and Amarillo. And I did not realize this, but apparently Texas federal courts have different rules in which you can choose the courtroom where your lawsuit is going to be heard instead of other states such as New York, where you file your suit in a district and they assign the judge for you. And Chuck Schumer wants something like that to be implemented in Texas as well so that Ken Paxton or other Republicans whole pro-Paxton argument is that he is

a stalwart of conservative values and that he's the one going after Biden and that no one else has the spine to do that. Chuck Schumer criticizing Paxton only gives credence to that idea. So in these weeks leading up to the impeachment proceeding, I honestly think national Democrats or a democratic figure such as Chuck Schumer could not have given team Paxton a better gift than to lob criticisms at Paxton for doing what his supporters are a fan of him for doing yeah there you go um who to go to next matt actually we're gonna go next to you on west texas what did you find on twitter this week well i uh before i tell you what i found on twitter uh i have a question for you i'm potentially ready Are you feeling lucky?

Yes Oh good, then you need to go down and buy yourself an $875 million lottery ticket because that is what the jackpot has soared to after time and time again no winners have emerged for the Powerball Lotto

and I believe today is the, well, I guess by the time this podcast comes out, there will either have been a winner from today's lotto or there will be an even higher jackpot. But regardless, it's soaring to one of the all-time highs. And so why not go down spend what is it three four dollars on one of them and get the best night's sleep ever dreaming about how you're gonna draw those lucky numbers and be the next big millionaire yeah until you don't win yeah that's true but um

i don't know it is always fun to like buy one of those tickets and then daydream for a day and all that sort of stuff. Maybe that will be our fun topic. Maybe I'll bump Brad's mustache from the fun topic. And we can talk about what we'd buy with being a lot of – we'll get to it, Bradley. We'll get to it. Interesting. The word mustache is not in quotes. You just legitimized in quotes. Ooh. What?

It's legitimized. Yeah. That's, you know, Brad, I'm trying to be nice. She called me wonderful earlier, just so everyone knows. Okay. Great. I love when I say words and nobody responds to me. It's super fun.

Hayden, nope, you've already gone. I am a mess today. You say, I'm trying to be nice, and then you say something like that. So it seems a little disjointed to me. You're exactly right. It's, I understand. Cameron, why don't you go next? You know, let's pick things up a little bit here.

Let's do it. So we, Mac, you love TikTok, right? No. Oh. No. You don't love TikTok. No, but I do. I don't know how to say this.

I do not love TikTok. I'm fully aware of the challenges and controversies surrounding TikTok. But I also enjoy some of its content and its cooking videos and recipes and Orca videos. Perfect. Translation, she loves TikTok and she's afraid to say it on mic. Well, you know, like you said, there's some good, there's some bad. Well, here's a good for TikTok here.

Someone posted a video of a lonely author at a Kroger trying to sell his book. At a Kroger? Here in Texas. And he writes young adult literature. And in this TikTok, he's explaining what the book's about. And it went viral. Wow. Millions of views.

Wow. And it actually jumped up on Amazon book sales to be a bestseller. Wow. It's as simple as that. All because of the TikTok video. I'm telling you. Virality. Virality. Virality.

Which odds are better, doing that or winning the lottery? Ooh, good question. I think it's much harder to win the lottery than get a million views on TikTok. Come on, you can do a stupid dance on TikTok and get a million views. You can do anything stupid on TikTok and get a million views. You can do anything stupid on TikTok and get a million views. We won't get into it. He sets the microphone down

dramatically. Matt, is it harder to go viral on TikTok or win the lottery? I don't know. I don't have TikTok. Okay. Fair. Just viral in general. fair just viral in general oh viral in general like your like your tweet yeah you're drawing oh yes that's i'm gonna say it's easier to go viral because i've never won the lottery but um i've had a few tweets go viral so that's true there you go um bradley we'll come to you next. Well, there was a lot happening this week. There was the baseball all-star game.

I saw the trailer for the new Napoleon video movie. Not video. The trailer was a video. Very old saying that. It looks very good. But I think what I'll go with is Governor Abbott announced his fundraising hall. And state officials are prohibited from fundraising during session. It's meant to prevent them from exchanging legislative favors for fundraising numbers or money.

But I guess you can do that outside of the legislature so you can it's you can bribe elected officials you just have to make sure and give them the payout i mean i'm sure there's a different part of statute that prohibits the bribery is illegal oh okay oh bribery is illegal but anyway i digress so there was a 11, 12 day span where legislators, state officials could fundraise before the end of the filing period on June 30th. And in that span, Governor Abbott announced this week that he raised 15 million dollars. Just insane. I can't even I don't even know what 15 million dollars looks like. It was like an 11 day period. Right? Yeah. And it was $15 million. Yeah, that's crazy.

Can you imagine having, policy aside, can you imagine having the name ID and the fundraising savvy to have $15 million that you did not have 11 days ago in your campaign account? That blows my mind. Well, I mean, that's his fundraising prowess is one reason why a lot of people looked at him as a potential presidential candidate. Absolutely. Obviously that hasn't happened yet. If it will,

we don't know, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's his ability to fundraise is pretty much unmatched in the state and he's doing it again, running numbers.

It's an interesting thing. Whenever you think about, you know, his, his, his clear, I mean, top dog status in state politics,

whether, you know, just absolutely clearing the field in the primary or being able to fundraise some of the highest figures in the nation, as far as gubernatorial incumbents go, etc. But then whenever it comes to presidential polls and things like that, it consistently places very, very near the bottom that I've seen. So it's been a pretty clear message that people in Texas,

they love him as governor, but I guess maybe it'd be fair to say they love somebody else potentially as president for now. Well, he's also not putting his name out there as a presidential contender if he plans on doing that. So that could also be, it's a snapshot in time. The polls are a snapshot in time. And those rumors have died down a lot yeah you know they've died out a lot it's all DeSantis and Trump right now and they all have like yes so people giving their opinion about someone's favorability in a poll or saying whether they'd vote for them the thought process too might be well he's not running so why

would I vote for him yeah that might not necessarily reflect his his standing as far as his viability as a potential candidate yeah it's fair regardless he's a crazy fundraiser so did you switch from the mlb all-star game to talk about this i did yeah no what about what about the mlb all-star game you don't care brad i'm trying to bridge our gap tell us about the fly ball that would be an expensive bridge you would need a dewey decimal system to get to bridge the gap between you and brad that was we're talking about viral clips that was a viral clip during the home run derby vlad guerrero jr was cranking it and uh he uh i think he won the derby but there's

a video they have kids in the outfield uh catching fly balls it's like it's it's normal it's like a tradition they have all the kids from the from the players they go on the outfield catch fly balls it's a fun thing but this is something that you know i've talked about with my buddies like what if a kid just gets like drilled in the dome and some kid got domed yeah it was a it was a headshot oof and uh yeah so there's a clip on twitter of that and he was okay i don't know i mean it probably hurt quite a bit they turned the camera away pretty quick yeah that makes sense he's probably not dead how about that i just can't handle the way that this podcast goes sometimes on the pod there you go bring him on the pod yeah that'd be interesting this has been great what it feel like tell me what it feel like to get hit in the head with a

hundred mile an hour baseball off ladgar ever juniors bat this is horrible okay i'm going to switch to orcas because i love them and they are much wait wait wait you're saying talking about the baseball hitting somebody in the head is horrible but talking about the murderous vicious savage orcas is somehow better than an accidental injury when an orca has ever murdered a human being they never have it's undocumented you showed us a video of an orca brutalizing a seal. Yeah, that's the circle of life. That's nature.

Wow. You know? That sounds a little Darwinian. There's prey and there's predator. It's nature. What? It's nature. Neat.

You know it's an orca because of the way it looks. I'm frightened. I think I need to turn my desk so that my back is not to Mackenzie anymore. It's like saying the lion shouldn't shouldn't hunt antelope well there is a trend of people turning their pets vegan so i saw the greatest response to a pita tweet i've ever seen the people for the ethical treatment of animals which is just basically it's just anti human that's all it is but

they tweeted something about how we shouldn't eat fish it's a great Twitter account just said so fish can eat other fish but we can't eat fish they can cannibalize one another but that's exactly what happens so anyway there's orca in the serenity of gibraltar which is between spain slash portugal and africa where a lot of these

yachts or boats have been sunk at the hand of orcas and the video like somebody gets in the water with the orca with a camera a gopro or something and the orca you can see him he's literally just scratching his nose on the end of the rudder like just trying to make him feel i don't know he's like enjoying a back scratch is kind of what it looks like and they started to move the boat and he started to like ram it like don't move my back scratcher and then they stopped and he just kept scratching his nose. So maybe all these yachts have been sunk just because orcas like to scratch their little noses. You might have cracked the cone.

Yeah, I might have. You now speak fluent orca. I should be a marine biologist is what we're all saying. I think so. Thank you, Cameron. You're welcome. But look, he's scratching his little nose.

You're framing this as if it's somehow cute or or endearing this is terrifying i mean it just hates all animals that aren't cats see look he's scratching his little nose i don't particularly like cats either i don't know where that came from. So you've seen the film, the documentary Blackfish. I said, I said I like cats among animals. There's, I'm not saying that I would like cats or to have a cat, but if I had to pick one, I would rather have a cat than a dog.

Also, let's just say that orcas have like repeatedly, there are no instances in which orcas have like repeatedly there are no instances in which orcas have ever like killed a human being or even hurt a human being but there are instances in which orcas have saved human beings from great white sharks are you sure i i just brought up the documentary blackfish i've watched well that's in captivity oh so there's a difference there's there is not an orca if it's in captivity no i'm sorry i should have qualified no instances of orcas in the wild having killed or murdered anyone but in captivity

there has been there have been multiple instances in which these orcas which are placed in tiny little ponds are and tanks are so the murderous instinct is there yeah 100 they're wild animals but they're seeing these humans as their captors so they bring them underwater and it's horrible so you're saying it's morally justified no sounds like pita oh my gosh this is so horrible yeah 100 um that was a joke, people. Okay, let's move on. All of us are getting cut. Folks, thanks for listening to our blathering. It has been particularly a blathering day. We appreciate it very much.

Tune in next week for more blathering. We appreciate you listening. Peace out. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Peace out. team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the texan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.