The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 15, 2022

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses how the grid held up despite the heat, terroristic threats made against Texas lawmakers, the contents of Sen. John Cornyn’s gun control proposal, a Texas congresswoman seeking to protect out-of-state travel for abortion, a poll showing Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in a dead heat against her Republican challenger, key pieces of evidence in the Uvalde investigation coming to light, the health of local pensions, a small school district experiencing controversy over its choice of superintendent, and criminal charges against a Smith County constable finally facing suspension. Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses how the grid held up despite the heat. Terrorist threats made against Texas lawmakers. The contents of John Cornyn's gun proposal. A Texas congresswoman seeking to protect out-of-state travel for abortion. A poll showing Harris County Judge Lena Hidalgo in a dead heat against her Republican challenger. Key pieces of evidence in the Uvalde investigation coming to light. The health of local pensions.

A small school district experiencing controversy over its choice of superintendent. And criminal charges against a Smith County constable finally facing suspension. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks. It's McKenzie Taylor here with a special crew this week. I've got Matt Stringer out in West Texas, Hayden Sparks here in Austin, and Holly Hansen from Harris County. All y'all, thanks for joining me today.

We have like a skeleton crew this week at the Texan. A lot of folks are taking time off this summer, and it all happened to happen this week, which is awesome. We're so glad they're taking some time to relax. But we've been pulling the cart this week. It's been, you know, this crew here that's been making sure content goes up for y'all, our listeners and readers. So Holly, Hayden, Matt, thank you for joining me. I so appreciate you guys jumping on. You know, Mac, when I first saw the schedule for this week at first blush, I thought that it was just going to be you and me, which would have been a fun time about an hour of probably us just talking about the

latest true crime developments. But I'm glad Matt and Holly were able to join us so our listeners don't have to suffer through that. Yeah, I know, which would have been fun. I would have loved it. And Brad, to Brad's credit, he's been cranking out pieces all week today. He's just traveling. And so he's unable to join us on the podcast. But Brad has also been on the team cranking out content this week. So anyways, folks, thank you so much, Matt. I want you to tell our listeners real fast where you're podcasting from, because your view is just beautiful. Yes. So I am presently down in the Southwest Texas mountain, Davis mountain. I'm sorry, the Davis mountains in Southwestern Texas.

My family owns some property up here and it's, it's a little bit different part of Texas. Not too many people are familiar with. We have tall mountains and pine trees and forests and it's, it's actually, it's actually really, really nice. You panned your camera over to show us your view and it was just awesome. It's so awesome.

So I'm glad that we got a peek into it today before we all chat about the news. Yeah, absolutely. It's gorgeous out there. And Holly, you ready to join us again? I feel like you're always my, well, depending on whether you're in a chaotic mode or not, but sometimes Holly brings

the chaos and just to cause chaos. And that is so fun too. But I feel like I always have a partner in crime when Holly joins. Of course, of course. And I'm broadcasting from an undisclosed location somewhere in Harris County. In typical Harris County fashion, there's some drama and intrigue. We will take that all day long. Well, speaking of drama and intrigue, Matt, we're going to start with you. You are covering Brad's beats on the podcast this week. Let's talk about ERCOT, the grid. A lot of alarms were sounded early on this week. Folks were scared the grid might collapse. There's a lot of conservation requests that went out to kind of give us a 30,000 foot view of what actually ended up happening in spite of a lot of those media reports. Absolutely. We have two stories out from Brad Johnson, great fellow reporter here at the Texan covering this issue. This past Sunday, ERCOT put out a conserve power request statewide asking Texans to cut back on Monday afternoon, citing a

combination of reasons that was going to lead to a shortage, potential shortage of power on the Texas electric grid. And sort of ERCOT's been under a tremendous amount of abundance of caution since the 2021 blackouts. And kind of what they were looking at was there was going to be a shortage from renewables on the grid that contributing into it, coupled with increased demand from a number of reasons, you know, heat waves across the state, et cetera, et cetera. So Monday came and went. And fortunately, we avoided having any kind of power outages. ERCOT actually complimented Texans who responded to the request and said they saved a tremendous amount of power and were able to have a pretty good margin of reserve power for the grid on Monday.

Yeah, and I'd say as we were watching, you know, the grids that ERCOT has available for the public and the graphs of where the different energy was coming from, it was very interesting to watch. Okay, it's getting kind of close, and then just more available energy became available. And Brad actually pulled some pretty interesting statistics in this story. You know, ERCOT was consistently citing, you know, a shortage of wind energy for the Monday shortage. Right now, wind energy constitutes around a third of ERCOT's electricity source on the Texas electric grid. And at certain points recently, it was only providing about 2.1% of its generating power. And that was a huge contributing factor towards the potential shortages. Kind of going down the rabbit hole on that, we've kind of covered and discussed how high subsidies and tax breaks, particularly at the federal level, but also at the state level, have actually led to an increase in these renewables such as solar and wind becoming larger and larger portions of the Texas electric grid, as opposed to what's called dispatch ability, which is power sources like gas and coal that don't rely on fair weather to produce electricity.

Got it. So the electric grid has been a political football in the Texas governor's race. Since Beto O'Rourke joined the fray here in Texas, walk us through what is being said about the grid now in the governor's race. Yeah, so on Monday, Beto O'Rourke tweeted out that we can't rely on the grid when it's hot. We can't rely on the grid when it's cold. We can't rely on Greg Abbott. It's time to vote him out and fix the grid. And direct attack against his Republican opponent, Greg Abbott there.

And then around 5 p.m., after it was clear that the grid was not going to have any issues. The Abbott campaign spokesman responded on Twitter saying, in the last 24 hours, delusional Beto O'Rourke has been scaremongering about the Texas grid failing, yet the grid remains strong. And kind of a pretty sharp quote here from the Abbott campaign, quote, Beto should stop cheering for the failure of Texas and admit that the reforms pushed by Governor Abbott has strengthened the state grid, end quote. Very spicy, to be sure. I think Monday was the big day that we thought potentially things could go south. It remained strong. And throughout the rest of the week, I mean, we've been dealing with over 100 degree temperatures throughout texas i know in austin we're going on two weeks straight

of over 100 degree temperatures which is wild yeah and i spoke with brad shortly before our podcast talking about his stories and he said kind of an interesting point was that actually on wednesday yesterday they saw tighter margins uh on Monday, but that ERCOT was only able to put out a conservation notice about an hour before those peak shortage times, whereas they had about a day in advance warning on Monday. And one point that he wanted to talk about was that they mentioned that it was heavily clouded in West Texas yesterday, which is why solar ended up contributing to the shortages on Wednesday, as opposed to wind contributing to the shortages on Monday. And it was pretty cloudy in West Texas yesterday. I got about an inch and a half of rain at my house. So I guess there's kind of a good side and a bad side to the clouds now. Absolutely.

Well, and solar had performed very well in the days leading up to yesterday and kind of had been the renewable champ in terms of production. And so yesterday, it saw a little bit of a dip. Matt, thank you so much for covering that in Brad's absence. We appreciate it so much. Holly, we're going to come right to you. Law enforcement took a suspect into custody for making a terroristic threat against Senator Cruz and some other lawmakers as well. What is the nature of these charges? Yes. So there's a gentleman by the name of Isaac, and the last name is very difficult to pronounce. I believe it's Nigerian in origin, but it's, I believe, Infirmangum. He is a 22-year-old male

living in the Houston region, but he apparently called the senator's Houston office regarding Republican opposition to some legislation regarding elections. He was under the impression that Republicans were seeking to repeal the Voting Rights Act. said that every last one of the Republican, Ted Cruz and every last one of his Republican colleagues to have signed off on, quote, that platform is to be found and killed. He said they needed a bullet to the face or smashing of the brick to their skull. This was all recorded and transcribed. The Capitol Police did notify local law enforcement. They were able to locate this individual and bring him into custody. So this was a felony that he was charged with, I think a big part of the story. I mean, immediately, the story was about these threats, and it soon pivoted and became about what happened after these charges came forward. So, you know, the suspect was charged with felony, how did the criminal court in Harris County handle the suspect? Exactly. And that's where, you know, the story

becomes more interesting. Harris County, of course, has seen a change in attitude towards the way we detain suspects who are accused of crimes. In this case, this person has been charged with a felony terroristic threat. However, a magistrate, which is an unelected person who assists with the courts, this magistrate signed off on releasing the suspect on what we call a personal bond or a pretrial bond. Although the Harris County District Attorney's Office had asked for a $250,000 bond. This magistrate by the name of Cheryl Harris-Diggs authorized a bond of $2,500. It gets better. I did confirm with the criminal district court that handled this case that actually, since this was a pre-trial bond,

this individual was released without having to pay anything to the court system or any kind of security deposit. He was supposed to appear in court last Friday, but he did not. Not surprising for many law enforcement who are seeing this play out over and over again in the Houston and Harris County region. The district attorney's office announced when they were at a Senate committee hearing this past week that they had reached out to the federal authorities and U.S. Marshals did take this person into custody.

But it is alarming that he was released into the community, someone who is obviously very angry and is threatening to kill a sitting senator and other members of Congress. And he said it was the civic duty of folks, I believe, in that transcribed document to kill these officials and that that was kind of their duty. So what happened? Where is he now? What ended up happening with the investigation? As far as I know, he is in federal custody. We don't have much more information than that at the moment, but they are detaining him until he can appear in court. But yes, you're right. He said it is the civic duty of every

American citizen to see to it that every last one of Ted Cruz's colleagues is to be killed. So, you know, and this comes in the context of an environment where we've seen, you know, some violent demonstrations in front of U.S. Supreme Court justices' homes and when they are out in public. And so there's a lot of concern about some of these people who are very upset about trends in politics, about legislation, about Supreme Court decisions. And some of them seem to be prepared to commit violent acts. Absolutely. And interesting that this was about,

I believe, election legislation of all things when there are so many heated topics to discuss at the federal level. And very interesting also to watch this political climate, this heated political climate, come home to roost in Harris County and relate to something that is so personal to so many folks who live in Harris County with the PR bond issue.

So Holly, thank you so much for connecting all those dots for me, for our readers. We so appreciate it. Hayden, we are coming to you now. President Biden signed a spending bill that had gun control measures introduced by Senator John Cornyn from Texas and others. What are the main features of this law? The government really has only two tools at its disposal when addressing a crisis, and that is to exert force to attempt to change people's behavior or to spend money in an attempt to address a problem. And the state did, or the U.S. government did both in this

instance. The main features of this new law, which has been dubbed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, was the spending provisions and the limited gun control measures that were enacted. But I want to go over some of the spending provisions because this was as much an appropriations bill as it was anything. And much of a lot of this money will be dispersed through grants to local and state governments. But the huge line item was the safe schools and citizenship education for $1 billion and state crisis intervention programs in the amount of $750 million. murders of 19 schoolchildren and two adult teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, as well as the shootings in Buffalo, New York, and myriad other mass casualty events that have taken place over the years. But this funding is intended to allow states to set up programs that will make students less likely to commit acts of violence and to address mental health care needs among their communities. There are some other line items.

$500 million was appropriated for school-based mental health services. A quarter of a billion dollars was designated for mental health services in general. There was also $250 million for violence intervention and prevention. $100 million for community-oriented policing services, which that's a tagline we've heard throughout the debate on police funding that generally seems to me to mean alternatives to arrest and prosecution, that type of thing. And then pediatric mental health was given $80 million with this law. President Biden did sign it shortly after the Senate passed it on a bipartisan basis, although we'll talk about this in a second, but the support was unanimous among Democrats, but not among Republicans. Of course, with this appropriations funding, the intended purpose of the funding may not necessarily align with what actually happens. If we learned anything from all the crisis-focused funding in the COVID-19 pandemic. It's that sometimes once the funding reaches the local government, it's not necessarily used for what Congress

intended. So these are the intended purposes for all this funding. And even the purpose of the funding is controversial. So certainly once it makes it to the local governments, I'm sure that there will be debates and decisions made as to how they apply the purposes laid out in this federal legislation. But then, of course, it is a gun control bill because there were gun control measures in it as well. So let's talk about that, because there's criticism from both sides of the aisle that, you know, one side contends the bill doesn't go far enough. The other contends that it certainly goes too far. How restrictive is the bill in terms of firearms specifically? Well, one of the debates about how restrictive the government should be over firearms is when should a person's right or privilege of purchasing

a firearm should be revoked. And one of the criticisms of the bill is that the state crisis intervention funding was intended to incentivize states to adopt red flag laws, which are criteria that a judge uses to direct law enforcement to either request or require that somebody surrender their firearms or block their ability to purchase firearms. So the gun control measure could extend to local governments using some of this funding to enact laws such as that, although Cornyn denies that that was his intended purpose. And the bill does contain additional civil rights protections. Some say that those are not strong enough. But the major provisions of the gun control portions of this bill are the background checks, which includes or seeks to include juvenile

justice records and juvenile delinquency records and background checks for those under 21 years of age. Of course, the perpetrator of the Uvalde Rob Elementary School shooting and the shooting at the grocery store in Buffalo were both under 21, which is why this was important to the authors of the bill. But there are things in a person's background that maybe occurred before that person turned 18. And the authors are hoping that in addition to the National Criminal or the NCIS background checks that including juvenile delinquency records at the state from the state and local level will preclude someone who, from a mental health perspective or from a behavioral perspective, should not have his hands or her hands on a weapon. But this legislation also closes what is commonly called the boyfriend loophole, and it defines a dating relationship for the purpose of a judge being able to remove someone's ability to purchase a firearm if they have a domestic violence conviction, even if it's a misdemeanor. Previously, federal law only included relationships that involved cohabitation or children or marriage.

But this broadens that to include intimate relationships. Although the law is still a little bit fuzzy, it includes criteria like the duration and the nature of the relationship, which, of course, different people can apply different meanings and definitions to those terms, which is a source of the criticism is that this could be abused to revoke the right of someone to buy a firearm when they aren't necessarily covered by the dating relationship definition. And this law in the hands of a judge that is eager to use it, critics say, could be a source of abuse. But finally, the gun control also extends to creating criminal statutes to punish straw purchasers, i.e. those buying guns for someone who otherwise would be legally prohibited from purchasing one. Opponents of the law, like I said, say that these provisions could be abused. But having said that, they are very measured and very moderate compared to some of the proposals that have been made,

such as a prohibition on AR-15 style rifles or other automatic or semi, pardon me, semi-automatic rifles. Some have called for the age to purchase a firearm period being raised to 21 years old. This bill didn't include any of that. Some of the measures that Democrats have called for are very assertive and would change the culture of gun ownership in this country. This bill was very, very mild compared to some of the proposals that had been made. And as I said, the appropriations and the spending in this bill are probably, in many ways, as significant as the gun control measures. So that is a brief overview of some of the gun control measures in this law.

Yeah, I think there's so much misinformation about what exactly is in the bill and what was passed. So thank you for breaking that down for us. Let's talk quickly about the political consequences for Senator Cornyn. When we were at the GOP convention just weeks ago, he was booed from stage, right, by thousands of delegates that were there. Now, of course, that is a small slice of the pie in terms of Republican voters in Texas. Nearly 30 million people live here. It's a 52% or 54% Republican state, depending on, you know, what you're looking at here. But so it's a small slice, but there have been polling that's come out that give us a little bit of an indication of perhaps what consequences there might be for the senator with Republican voters. Talk to us about what we've seen. Well, I think what you just said takes care of it.

The staunchest conservatives are against this because of the possible what they contend to be the possible abuses before the legislation was signed by President Biden, there was polling on Cornyn's popularity and his disapproval rating was half of the respondents in the poll. Only 14 Republicans supported it in the U.S. House, and while 15 Republicans supported it in the Senate, 14 Republican members in the House supporting it is a small number compared to the entire caucus. And groups like the National Sports Shooting Association gave statements that they supported some of the mental health funding and some of the provisions that would keep someone with a domestic violence conviction having a weapon, the civil rights protections they contend are not enough. And that's why this law is not popular amongst staunch conservatives. There you go. Will be very interesting to watch what happens. And here's the thing as well,

voters, including all of us who go to the ballot box have short attention spans. So what will this mean for Cornyn when in four years he's back on the ballot? Who knows? Who knows that this has any staying power? But it will be interesting to watch this going forward. And of course, opponents who disagree with Cornyn's approach to this measure are already putting feelers out there for potential vulnerabilities. So, Hayden, thank you for covering that. Matt, we're going to come back to you as you cover another piece from Bradley

Johnson. There was a bill filed and preliminarily passed in one chamber in Congress dealing with out-of-state abortions from a Texas congresswoman. Talk to us at a 30,000-foot view of what exactly this bill entails. Absolutely. So there's been some talk since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that Republican lawmakers in different states, including some in Texas, might pass legislation that would prohibit someone to go leave this state to go to another state where abortion is legal to obtain one. And so in response to that, a Democratic congresswoman from Texas, Representative

Lizzie Fletcher from Texas' 7th Congressional District, filed a bill called the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022. And essentially what that bill says is no person acting under the color of state law, including any person who by operation of provision of state law is permitted to implement or enforce state law, may prevent, restrict, or impede or retaliate against those involved in abortion done in a state in which it's allowed. I actually spoke with Brad talking with him about his article. against those involved in abortion done in a state in which it's allowed. I actually spoke with Brad, talking with him about his article earlier today, and it's kind of an update that we haven't covered yet on the Texan. Last night, the United States House of Representatives actually passed this bill. And something that we're going to look a little bit more in the details in is that this bill actually kind of takes a page out of Texas Republicans playbook

in the Texas Heartbeat Act, which kind of created a civil enforcement mechanisms for citizens to sue under the Heartbeat Act. Apparently, this mechanism creates a similar mechanism where people can sue state officials civilly in order to enforce this ability to go to another state to have an abortion. And we're going to kind of keep our eyes on that and see what happens with this legislation as it continues to work its way through the federal legislative process. Absolutely. And fascinating to watch that civil enforcement mechanism be part of the discussion at the federal level. It is such a unique part of what made the heartbeat bill, the heartbeat bill, and a unique piece of legislation when many other states have passed heartbeat bills of its own, you know, of their own colors. But the one here in Texas was very different, particularly because of that enforcement mechanism. So Matt,

thank you so much for that. Holly, we're going to come to you. Results from a new poll were released this week with some very interesting numbers from Harris County. Tell us about the poll and what it says about the race for Harris County judge. Yes, this poll was released this morning, and this was conducted by the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs in conjunction with Professor Mark P. Jones, a well-known political scientist who's very well respected in the state and does a lot of analysis and polling. It is a small sample, but it had some very interesting results. It looks like at this point, Democrat incumbent judge Lena Hidalgo is in a dead heat with the Republican challenger, Alexandra Del Moral Mueller. The poll showed Hidalgo with 48%

and Mueller at 47% and another 5% undecided. If you dig down into the numbers, you also find that Hispanics, kind of mirroring what we've seen elsewhere in the state and in the nation, are moving more towards the Republican in this race, Del Moral Mueller. So not a huge amount, but you're seeing about a 3% percentage points of leaning towards Mueller. Black voters still lean very heavily towards Lena Hidalgo. But all of this is alongside some numbers out of Harris County about the gubernatorial race, where Beto O'Rourke is still leaning over Governor Abbott, 51 to 42%. So although you have a preference for the Democrat candidate for governor in Harris County, you are seeing a very, very close race there for county

judge. Among the top issues that we're seeing in Harris County, they're not surprising. We're seeing a huge concern over public safety and crime, which has been a top news item pretty much every day for the past several years. We're also seeing concerns about ethics and government corruption. And that may be a reflection of some of the things that have happened this year with the indictment of three of Lena Hidalgo's staffers and the process of that particular case. Absolutely. Now talk to us very quickly about what the poll indicated about other county officials and candidates. Harris County is going to be and has been a hotbed of political activity. Yes. And so very interesting. Democrat Sheriff Ed Gonzalez has a net favorable rating of 16 percent. So he is a very top, very popular candidate in Harris County.

Also, we saw two individuals who are facing each other in this year's elections, the incumbent commissioner for Precinct 2, Adrian Garcia, and his Republican challenger, a former commissioner, Jack Mormon, both have a favorability rating of 10%. Interestingly enough, the person with the highest net favorable rating was the Republican candidate for county judge, Alexandra Del Moral-Mealer. A little further down, you see a couple of different other characters that we know of in Harris County. Harris County, Kim Ogg was the only one who had a net unfavorable rating and her net unfavorable is at about negative 10%. Got it. Now, this is just a question I have. I kind of want you to paint the picture for us a

little bit. Remind us how 2018 and 2020, what resulted for folks in Harris County, where did, you know, the county end up politically, there were a lot of losses for Republicans in some of these areas. So I'd love for you to kind of just give us a throwback of what happened in the last two election cycles. Sure, exactly. In 2018, of course, you had Beto O'Rourke on the ballot there running for Senate race that he lost. But he was very popular in some of these urban districts, and he probably helped sweep a lot of Democrats into office in 2018, including County Judge Lena Hidalgo. It was really a surprise win. No one expected her to win. The Republican incumbent had been very popular at Emmett.

He was not a firebrand conservative, but was respected by both sides of the aisle, whereas Lena Hidalgo was a relatively unknown newcomer. She was swept into office and all of the judicial races, I think there may be one exception, but all of the courts now are presided over by Democrat judges. And along with Lena Hidalgo taking the helm and all of these Democrat judges, some of whom have a very far left approach to criminal justice reform, it's really changed the scenario here in Harris County as far as crime and the way the county handles dangerous suspects. And I think that's going to play into the elections in a huge way this year. And I think although Harris County has been written off by a lot of Republicans as a

hopelessly blue county, we do see in those poll numbers, you know, some indication that those crime and public safety issues are going to be paramount this year. Absolutely. And this is the first election cycle where in terms of predictability, it's predicted that Republicans will fare far better than Democrats to have the last two election cycles just because it's a midterm election. There's a Democrat in the White House. 2018 was a big win for Beto here in Texas. It was a Beto wave in large part. Twelve Texas House seats and two state Senate seats were flipped from Republican to Democrat, which was an incredible number. Very unexpected in terms of the actual wins for Democrats. In 2020, we saw Joe Biden go to the White House and defeat former President Trump. And this midterm,

you know, in terms of where what we expect, we expect it to be far more favorable to Republicans just because of the political wins that are at play. So it'll kind of be an interesting way to see how blue Harris County has become and kind of get a more accurate read of where the county ends up politically. So fascinated to see. Holly, thank you for covering that poll and breaking it down for us. Hayden, let's talk about Uvalde. Representative Dustin Burroughs from Lubbock promised a key piece of evidence would be provided to the public on Sunday. Now he is the chair of the committee that's investigating the shooting that happened in Uvalde at Robb Elementary School. Tell us about the hallway video. There was a 77-minute gap between the Uvalde School shooter breaching Robb Elementary School and him being killed by a team of tactical border agents. And Representative Dustin Burroughs, the chairman of the investigative committee looking into the shooting and the law enforcement

response promised on Tuesday that the video of that 77-minute gap, bar the moment that the shooter entered the school and the moment he was killed, would be released to the public on Sunday. However, he stipulated that it would be shown to victim family members and others in the community in Uvalde before it was given to the public. He also stated that a preliminary report of the committee, which also includes former Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman and Representative Joe Moody of El Paso, would be published as well. Burroughs heavily emphasized that he wanted people in Uvalde, of it are produced for the entire public to peruse. The Austin American Statesman provided a portion of the video this week. What was notable about the version that the Statesman produced?

Well, the Statesman provided snippets of the 77-minute video, but what was notable about the version that they provided is it includes the gunman entering the school, which, as I stated, Burroughs said that that part of the, I don't quite know the right word, but one of the dust-ups that came from the version that they produced was an officer in the video is seen taking out his reviled for looking at his phone instead of charging in and taking down the shooter. He was, in fact, the husband of Eva Morellis, who disappointed that the statesman chose to release this video and that the victim family members in Uvalde did not have the opportunity to view it first. It was important to the committee that they view that evidence before the general public, and that was not achieved with this. However, the statesman did not have the preliminary report. That will be published on Sunday, and Burroughs emphasized that people should still watch the entire 77-minute video if they're inclined because it provides additional context to what happened on the day of the shooting. Got it. Hayden, thank you so much for covering that for us.

And we'll continue to watch what happens in the, you know, committee hearings in the future. Matt, we're coming back to you. Another piece from Brad that you will so graciously cover for us, local pensions. Now, this is something that certainly Brad is far more nerdy about than you or I. So let's just cover it best we can here. Talk to us about the health of Texas local pensions and what the, um, the findings from this piece were. That's right. Uh, so 15 local Texas pensions are less than 50% funding funded, uh, according to a research story by Brad Johnson. And with these 15 local pensions, the unfunded liability totals around $2.9 billion with a B in unfunded liabilities. There's pensions all over the state dealing with police and firefighters and local government officials. But the largest share of this unfunded liability lies with the

Dallas police and firefighter pension system, which cannot account for $2.5 billion of that $2.9 billion in promised benefits to its 10,836 members. is one of these pensions is the Odessa Firemen's Relief and Retirement Fund, which has roughly a $75 million account of unfunded liability for its members. And that's something that falls right in my backyard in Odessa here in West Texas. And it's something that in the coming days, I'm going to be reaching out to local officials and kind of following up on and see if we can't get a better explanation for how this unfunded liability came about, what kind of percentages of retirements they're expecting and also kind of gauge the reaction of some of the local firemen to see, you know, whether or not they're aware of these deficits and kind of get some reactions. So that's some news that was definitely news to me and I think it's going to be very important for West Texans to find out about because we're, particularly Odessans, are very passionate about supporting local law enforcement and firefighters and first

responders. So it's going to be an interesting story as it continues to develop. And $75 million is no small chunk of change. So Matt, thank you for covering that for us. And make sure you go to texan.news folks to read all about that story. Holly, I'm going to come to you next. A very spicy story. A small school district here in Texas has experienced a lot of controversy over its choice of superintendent who has now resigned. Tell us about this official and why his hiring and tenure has been so controversial. Yes.

So this is a smaller school district. It's kind of southeast of Houston in the Galveston County area. And they have about 40, 42,000 students or so. But they brought in this superintendent. They hired him in December of 2020. And they actually brought him in from Loudoun County, Virginia, which has been very much a national news over the past, I don't know, two and a half, three years. There's been a lot of controversy in that district because of the use of critical race theory, the way they handled the COVID lockdowns, and then some things

that happened after this particular superintendent left, but yet he is tied to them. So the superintendent's name is Eric Williams. He started with this district in January of 2021. So he hasn't been there all that long, but he's had controversy since he's been there as well. So parents were concerned that he would also bring in critical race theory to this district. He and the board have denied that that is the case. However, they have noticed that there's a kind of a character program that emphasizes social and emotional learning that some of the parents are pointing to as, you know, also similar to what they had in that Virginia district that brought so much controversy there that it sort of subtly aligns with the ideology of critical race theory, as Superintendent Williams had said in a controversy over sexual assaults in that Loudoun County, Virginia public school system.

In fact, there was a conviction of a student who identified as female and wears a skirt or wore a skirt at school. And he was convicted last year of sexually assaulting a girl. He had sexually assaulted another student, but the school district simply transferred him and did not report this to the state. It has come to light now that even when Eric Williams was there handling this district, the district was failing to abide by Virginia law that required reporting of sexual assaults. Also, while Mr. Williams has been at the Clear Creek ISD school district, there have been concerns about a program that was presented to school counselors that encouraged these school counselors to refrain from notifying parents of students who expressed desire to transition from one biological sex to another. There's been some

controversy over the elections. This school district seems to operate its own elections. It does not utilize the local county elections division to do that. And there's even a lawsuit pending about that. So they were not very transparent about what led to this resignation. They're calling it a retirement. But Monday night, he did formally accept this retirement package. So let's talk about that. After Superintendent Williams submitted to a retirement agreement, what exactly are the terms of his departure from the district? Yes.

Well, when he was originally hired, his annual salary was set at $306,000 a year, along with a car allowance and some bonus incentives and an expense account. With this retirement agreement, he will continue to stay on under a new title, Superintendent Emeritus. And as Superintendent Emeritus, he will continue to receive his salary and his benefits, including his contributions to his supplemental retirement plan. They're also going to pay him a severance of just about $200,000, and they will be paying him for any unused leave days on or before his official resignation date, which is not until January 31st. This, of course, has the effect of allowing him to be in place as the superintendent

of this district for a full two years, making him eligible for the retirement system here in Texas. Wow, absolutely crazy story. And Holly, we so appreciate you covering that for us. Let's continue to talk about local government corruption and a little bit of what's going on here in Texas. Hayden, last week we talked about Constable Curtis Traylor Harris and the criminal charges against him. Tell us about a recent development in the lawsuit to actually remove him from office. Not long after we talked about Constable Harris last week on the podcast, a visiting judge named David Brabham made a decision that he would be removed from office pending the criminal case against him. Constable Harris is now Mr. Harris because he was removed from his post as constable and replaced by an investigator with the Smith County District Attorney's Office named Ralph Caraway Jr., who's now

serving as interim constable. Caraway was on a short list that included Willie Mims and Bobby Garmin, who were the two Democratic primary opponents that Harris ultimately defeated. And when I say defeated, Mims was disqualified from the election after he won because he did not submit the required number of valid signatures to be on the ballot. And then Harris defeated Garmin in a runoff. I'm going to venture to say that the decision to appoint Carraway, although I'm sure he is qualified, was also an attempt to avoid a possible argument by Harris that this whole thing was a ruse to just get Garmin or Mims in the office since they were disappointed, I'm sure, that they lost. But the Smith County Commissioner's Court made those recommendations and then Judge Brabham appointed Caraway to be interim constable.

There was comments by Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman. He explained a little bit the proceedings so far and said that the criminal case against Harris is still in the discovery phase, and that a criminal conviction would be enough to permanently remove Harris. The removal by Judge Brabham this time was in the civil case, not the criminal case. But Putman explained that if he is convicted before this civil matter is resolved, then the lawsuit will no longer be necessary because criminal conviction is one of the criteria for removing a constable from office. Otherwise, his term of office would end New Year's Eve of 2024. So Constable Harris is no longer on the job. And there is a new precinct one constable.

Wow. And folks, this is a crazy, crazy story. We just skimmed the surface of all the details. So make sure you go to the texan.news and read Hayden has a couple stories about this very issue. And it is absolutely fascinating to say the least. Hayden, let's move on to the Twittery section of our podcast and talk about some crazy tweets that caught our eye or just interesting notable things that caught our eye on twitter this week um also worth noting that elon musk's uh purchase of twitter fell through which is big news and crazy and i was ready for the drama and it did not happen so i personally am disappointed by this but hayden let's talk about the tweet that caught your eye this week and start with you. What caught my eye was Brian Hughes, Senator Brian Hughes from East Texas. I talk a lot about East Texas for obvious reasons. But Senator Hughes talked about Texas election

integrity legislation and congratulated Governor Ron DeSantis on signing a similar law, though the purpose of his tweet and another tweet by Representative Cole Hefner was to Texas and pass these policies, constitutional carry, heartbeat bill, abortion ban. And Senator Hughes had tweeted, great to see Florida following Texas lead regarding election integrity. Last year, Texas passed all four of the policies mentioned here, plus many others. Glad Governor DeSantis liked our idea and signed a bill Governor Abbott signed over a year ago. Just some interesting background on this. Florida Governor DeSantis liked our idea and signed a bill Governor Abbott signed over a year ago. Just some interesting background on this. Florida Governor DeSantis has been taking a lot of the spotlight from conservatives. He is a favorite right now. And it seems that the Texas legislature is maybe feeling a little bit crestfallen that conservatives aren't as appreciative of some of their legislative accomplishments. At the Texas GOP convention, without Trump, DeSantis got the support of 71%

of delegates for president. Abbott got 1% of the support, and I think Cruz got 9%. And of course, Cruz has run before, though. Granted, this wasn't a poll of registered voters. It was just a poll of delegates, but an interesting piece of background information as Texas lawmakers draw attention to their conservative accomplishments. Fascinating to watch the Texas versus Florida battle, you know, wage on here, both on social media and in terms of policies passed. Very fascinating. And yes, like you said, though that poll was fascinating, seeing the governor at 1%, these are delegates. This is the base of the base. The base is Republican primary voters, and Governor Abbott won with over 60% of the vote when facing a couple of big challengers. But this is very interesting to watch the heart of the Republican

Party here in Texas, really not show much support for their sitting governor, their leader of the Republican Party here in Texas and in a potential bid for president. So fascinating to watch that play out. And I love I love the spicy drama. So Hayden, thank you so much for covering that. Holly, we're going to come to you what caught your eye? Yes. So what caught your eye? Yes, what caught my eye last week, this was actually last Friday, is Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez put out an interesting tweet. And keep in mind, this is immediately after the police or sheriff's department had dealt with a suspect who was barricaded. And I believe, you know, there was a

SWAT effort and so forth there. The suspect was arrested and charged with new charges. And among those charges, you know, were aggravated assault, burglary, but also felon in possession of a weapon. And Ed Gonzalez tweeted out that he had this suspect, Mr. Torres, had been out on bond for other charges, including felon in possession of a weapon. And so then he tweeted that he was upset thinking about how his agency and his community, his officers, could have had a deputy killed in the line of duty trying to recapture the suspect. And this, you know, lines up with the concerns that residents of Harris County are having, including people who would typically

vote Democrat. Ed Gonzalez himself is a Democrat. He was formerly the nominee from the Biden administration to head up the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He did withdraw that nomination recently. So, you know, he's not known for being a conservative or, you know, someone who's a hard right. He's definitely falls on the left side of the aisle, but he is also drawing attention to this problem that we are having in Harris County and in some other urban areas where there is a very extreme criminal justice reform kind of program in place that is seeing a lot of these dangerous repeat violent offenders constantly released on bond and creating even more dangerous situations in the community.

Crime in Harris County at the forefront of discussion again, Holly, thank you so much. Matt, I mentioned Elon earlier, what caught your eye on Twitter pertaining to the Tesla mogul? Uh, yeah. Um, so, uh, pretty funny tweet in my opinion.

I don't know. Uh, it started off with, uh, a meme that Elon tweeted, uh, tweeted out was this picture of a guy wearing all these different GoPros on his head and all these different angles. And it was captioned, Hunter Biden every time he buys Kraken hookers, because apparently, and I haven't watched all of them, but,

or hardly any of them at all. But apparently, there's been a lot of rather out there Hunter Biden videos surfacing. And I really haven't paid that close of attention to it. Some of us were kind of talking the other day about how we were wondering if it was all real or not. And it was kind of disturbing how there hasn't been a whole lot of this isn't real or that sort of thing and and so it's just it's sort of something in my peripheral vision i i mainly focus on texas politics but uh so elon shared that and said a plus for cinematography and uh the tweet got uh nearly half a million likes and lots of reactions. But the tweet that caught my attention was a big time MSNBC news anchor host responded to Elon and said, imagine the

positive impact you could have on the world if you used the extraordinary amount of influence and power you have to spread decency, kindness, and positivity. And Elon quickly responded back, imagine if MSNBC did that. Oh my gosh. Burn and mic drop. I love when Elon gets sassy on Twitter, which happens I think daily, but I still love seeing it.

It is so funny to watch. Oh, it is definitely the account to, uh, uh, to keep an eye on and, and, uh,

keep your day interesting. Not the least of which, because he occasionally, and by occasionally, I mean one time, uh, replied to some of our tweets, which was awesome.

Yeah. And I have to, and I have to toot Elon's horn just a little bit. I'm coming to you over Starlink on this podcast, which has been working flawlessly. I've had it about a month now and it is better than my home landline internet. So I have to give Elon all of the kudos and credit on that. It is very impressed. So I'm coming to you from space.

Which I will take. That is so freaking cool. The tweet that caught my eye this week, I have two. The first is a tweet from patrick svitek some notable names not currently scheduled to speak as part of the main program at the texas democrats convention which started i believe or no today thursday um and these names include lena hildago which we just spoke about earlier harris county judge um dallas mayor eric johnson um congress Congressman Henry Cuellar, and then other congressmen, which is also very notable, Vincent A. Gonzalez. So these are names that are not

scheduled to appear at the convention. A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Abbott not speaking at the Republican Party Convention. And certainly this is a different scale that we're talking about here. There's no statewide archidemocrat here in Texas, but interesting to watch these names not be on the docket for those attending the Democrat convention this week. Our very own Isaiah Mitchell will be there and covering what the happenings of what's going on. So make sure to follow him on Twitter and kind of see what coverage we have from him. It'd be very fun to see the scoops he gets. So make sure to tune into that. And then I also wanted to plug Holly's tweet, a tweet from Holly Hansen, that specifically comes from Bluebell. I believe you're on the press list for Bluebell, which is freaking awesome, Holly. And there's a new flavor of ice cream for National Ice Cream Month month oatmeal cream pie which I think is delicious although it appears that some folks have different differing opinions

in the on our team what do you guys think oatmeal cream pie ice cream fans or not fans uh I have not had the ice cream but I've had the little oatmeal cream pies that you get at the gas station they're pretty good yeah I think ice cream could be good. I think anything oatmeal and ice cream is pretty convenient. It's definitely a maybe. I'd give it a try. Okay, there you go. Hayden, Holly, what do y'all think?

I think it sounds awesome, but I haven't tried it yet. But I just want to say it's my favorite inbox item is to get press releases from Blue Bonnet. And then I just have to go get some ice cream. So it's awesome. Hayden, I'm going to ask your opinion here before I loop in somebody who's very anxious to speak on this issue. Well, in anticipation of the negativity that we're about to hear, I will say it sounds very good. And I think we should have a taste testing on our pod as soon as it hits the market.

I second the notion. Sounds delicious. I put it on the docket or on the calendar for next week to have an ice cream taste test. I don't know if it'll be available. I assume it'll be available. I don't know. I don't know when it'll be available,

but let's definitely do that. Let's find a way to make that happen. Now, a stranger currently to the podcast, Daniel Friend. Daniel is sitting in the corner of the internet listening to all of us chat about the news. And his camera's been off. He's been monitoring and kind of checking in on making sure our sound levels are good as he's transitioned to a new role here at the Texan. But he has a very strong opinion about this issue and raised his little hand on our podcast platform and requested to jump in the conversation. So Daniel, I'm nervous, but bring it on. Yeah, I mean, I had to jump into this conversation from my little corner of the internet because I saw that tweet this morning from Holly about this new ice cream flavor, and it just looks disgusting.

Why? I mean, first of all, oatmeal cream pie cookies are just kind of meh anyways. Okay. You kind of blend that into an ice cream, and it just does not sound good. It doesn't sound like the two could become one. I'm sorry. I just couldn't do it. So you're just not an oatmeal cream pie guy.

That's where this is coming from. Well, it's more than just that because the oatmeal cream pie, I can do it, and it's fine. It's a fine little thing that people, if they want to do that, that's fine. It's not my favorite thing, but I don't have anything against it until it tries to become an ice cream. It's a little my favorite thing, but I don't have anything against it until it tries to become an ice cream. It's just a little bit too far.

And Bluebell also, they've been doing weird stuff lately. Like they did a strawberry lemonade ice cream. Yeah, that didn't sound that great. My parents told me about it and they said it was a great thing, but it just didn't sound that good to me. So I don't know. Maybe they're onto something. It doesn't sound that good to me. So I don't know. Maybe they're onto something. It doesn't sound good, though. Well, Daniel, despite my disappointment in your opinion,

I'm glad you joined our podcast this week. Holly, sorry, I interrupted you. No worries. I'm disappointed in Daniel's take. It's very wrong, but it's okay. It's very wrong. I don't know if this is taking things too far off topic, but I did have the best ice cream I've ever had the other day that I've never had before. And that is out in West Texas.

We get a lot of we grow a lot of cantaloupes out here. And there's a shop in Fort Davis that makes homemade cantaloupe milkshakes. And they're absolutely to die for. So that sounds pretty awesome. Where might someone procure a cantaloupe milkshake? The only place that I know of right now is a little place called The Caboose. It's a little train car caboose that's in Fort Davis, Texas. That's a little ice cream parlor that you walk through.

It's an actual train car that they got and turned into an ice cream parlor. And they get the cantaloupes from pecos where they're grown and um i think they make it with bluebell vanilla and um just kind of come back and it's just yeah it's amazing that sounds like an incredible west texas treat i love hearing that folks should definitely go check that out. Okay, folks, I want, I almost said gentlemen, but I don't, I don't get to say gentlemen and I'm kind of glad about it because Holly is

with me this week and that makes me very happy, but I would like quickly before I know Holly has to jump off and talk to, talk to important people and cover stories and fancy things in Harris County. We have many people who are not with us this week off on vacation. Let's just friend, like do some friendly disparaging. That's what I think we should do is just talk about our grievances against our co workers. Brad, Isaiah, Kim and Rob are all off this week. And it's Brad's only off today. Like I said, what are some What are some grievances we have? Holly immediately raised her hand. I'm ready for this. Well, you know, I am a little tired of Isaiah referring to Kim and I, and now Matt can be included in this, as the unnamed contract writers.

Treating us like we are the redheaded stepchildren of the Texan. And I'm really sad he's not here this week, though, because I'm not getting to troll him about my articles being the top trending above his. So I know that is nuts. Isaiah does like to poke fun. You and Kim specifically, I haven't really seen him dish it out to Matt in the same regard. I wonder what the heck is wrong with that? Hmm, a concern who knows what's going on there but it's still pretty yeah that's a that is a very good grievance but I I do want to say I miss Isaiah's memes they are mysterious puzzling sometimes quite funny uh sometimes a little disturbing

this is where you lose me Holly we are honestly paid you up most things but isaiah's memes are not on the same page unless i ask him to make one for me which happens occasionally sometimes i ask him to commission them on my behalf because i don't know how to photoshop worth anything so you know never never know um hayden matt even daniel daniel i'll let you jump in on this too we have like two minutes. What grievances would you like to air? Well, now I have a grievance against Holly for reinforcing Isaiah's memering. I also have a grievance against Brad

because he always watches games in the writer's room. I was going to say that. I never know which team he's rooting for. And so I'd never know when the, the joyous outbursts or the angry slamming a fist on the table or is about to happen. Cause I just, I always lose track.

So, um, you know, it can be, it can be quite a roller coaster when Brad's watching sports in the writer's room. So it's very animated, not so much a grievance, I guess,

as an observation. I think that's a grievance. Any grievance against Brad, I co-sign. Matt, you got anything for us? You may not have as many grievances. You haven't been on our team as long to let us all get under your skin. Or who knows? There's plenty of chance that we've already done that, though.

No, I'm good. Daniel? You can't really have any grievances when you're working with the best team in Texas. Wow. Exactly. I'm sending him an oatmeal cookie. Oh, dear. That is...

For the record, that was my sentiments as well. I just wasn't trying to, you know, score points with it. Overt brownie points. Yeah. You're supposed to sell it as something good. I don't know. You're supposed to frame stuff as good,

I guess, in a marketing role. Oh. Positivity, role. Oh. That's what they say. Positivity, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. Seems like that. Well, thank you for reminding me of what was far more palatable to hear from folks. I appreciate that.

Well, I think we should just end on that note. I'm not even going to air any of my grievances because, Daniel, if I did now, I would look far more grumpy than I think I am. Although I can be grumpy, would I would look far more grumpy than I think I am although I can be grumpy and I have been told that before but folks thank you so much for listening and Matt Hayden Holly and Daniel thank y'all for joining me so appreciate y'all's time and we will catch you next week thank you to everyone for listening if you enjoy our show rate and review us on apple podcast spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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