The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 16, 2021

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the reporting team discusses the Texas Democrats who fled the state in order to break quorum and prevent the passage of a GOP election reform bill, the Republican response, contrasting activity in the Texas Senate, and actions taken by House Republicans to return lawmakers to Austin. Additionally, we detail the election of a new Texas GOP chairman, a lawsuit targeting the Texas Heartbeat Bill, fundraising in the attorney general’s race, the land commissioner suing the Biden administration over the unfinished border wall, and the breakdown of federal COVID relief dollars in Texas’ top school districts.

Howdy howdy, Mackenzie Taylor here on another episode of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, Texas Democrats opt to fly to Washington, D.C. to break quorum in an attempt to once again prevent the passage of a GOP election reform bill. Our team covers the Republican response, contrasting activity in the Texas Senate, those Democrats who left meeting with the vice president, and actions taken by House Republicans to return lawmakers to Austin. Additionally, we detail the election of a new Texas GOP chairman, a lawsuit targeting the Texas heartbeat bill, fundraising in the attorney general's race, the lane commissioner suing the Biden administration over the uncompleted border wall,

and the breakdown of federal COVID relief dollars in Texas's top school districts. We ended all with a friendly conversation about a list of grievances that staff here at the Texan has with each other in the office. We appreciate you tuning in each and every week. Enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson. We have a lot to go into today, so we're going to jump right into it. The biggest story of the week has been relating to Democrats and planes and Washington, D.C. And Miller Lite. Don't forget that. And Miller Lite. Yes, that is certainly a key portion of the story, to be sure. But Brad and Daniel, you guys covered the initial quorum break. Like I said, national news has been covering this extensively, not to mention Texasas outlets here um basically democrats once again flood the texas house give us a rundown

of what happened and why it's significant why they left yeah so you kind of alluded to it back in the regular session house democrats walked out to break quorum on the final night of the regular session. And that was to stop an election reform bill. It successfully killed that along with various other pieces of legislation. The response from state leadership was to call a special session. And that began on July 8th. Key among the priority issues on the agenda was the election reform bill, slightly altered. Daniel can probably go into a little bit on that, how it differs. And the governor took his time announcing the items.

But one of the first three he mentioned was election reform. And so obviously it was among his emergency items during the regular session. And it is among the top issues during this special session it is not going away um but yes the uh the texas house democrats um 63 of them did not show up on tuesday and broke quorum they made many of the of that 63 group of 63 made a spectacle in um you know flying to dc i think it was monday 58 of them is what we've heard um and so there were a few of them that were not in the in the chamber but were either excused absent or uh were not part of the the flight um to dc so they have been camping out in the nation's

capital ever since and they say they will remain there to run out the clock on this special session until august 8th and obviously it was premeditated but this came out in waves it wasn't something that we all knew was going to happen on monday it was very uh it was quiet ahead of time and then all of a sudden rumblings of it over the weekend and they were um you know making plans obviously in retrospect they were planning this. It's something that required a lot of planning, because moving 58 people to DC is important, or is a big undertaking. But yeah, it was quite a surprise as well. Yeah, absolutely. Daniel, you've covered this as well. What's your perspective on all this?

I mean, I think Brad summed it up pretty well. It was something that we kind of saw coming in a way because Democrats had, they had threatened to do this. They had literally said they're going to do anything necessary. The reading between the lines, that was clear. They could do another quorum bust like they did at the end of May. And we've seen this before. I think the last time that this happened, Hayden looked into it a little bit more in the history of it. But in 2003, during a kind of a redistricting kerfuffle, or whatever the right word is there. That's a good word. They also walked out. At that point, they went and hid in a hotel in Oklahoma, I believe.

In Ardmore. Yes. And so they did that. So there was a possibility that Democrats were going to flee the state. People ask, like, why did they flee the state? I was talking to some friends yesterday who, you know, they saw Democrats going to D.C. They're like, why did they go to D.C.? Like, why didn't they just stay in Texas and just like, we're not going to do anything? And the answer to that is, you know, there are House rules that the House Republicans could, you know, call, make a call on the House. Or I don't remember the exact. Motion to call.

Motion to call. And then use the Sergeant at Arms working with Texas Rangers or other state law enforcement to come and. Which we'll get into very soon. Yes. So the only way to avoid that leave the state yeah for sure and there's yes there's a lot of nuance there in terms of okay well kind of jurisdiction did texas law enforcement actually have to make that happen if you do leave the state yeah right um well good stuff uh we'll have to come back to all sorts of different portions of

this story throughout the rest of the podcast but let let's begin, Daniel, with you. Now, Republicans had a lot to say about Democrats breaking quorum. What is this Miller Lite that everyone seems to be talking about? So as the Democrats were leaving Texas, there was a lot of hubbub on social media. There were several of the Democratic lawmakers who couldn't help but post some pictures of themselves leaving on this bus, leaving on the plane to their trip to D.C. And in one of the pictures, they have all the lawmakers there on the bus headed to the airport. And next to one of the lawmakers on a seat is a case of Miller Lite and so that definitely got a lot of attention from Republicans who are looking at this the rhetoric from Democrats saying like they're gonna do like they're gonna suffer through it and like

stand up for voting rights and march toward DC and democrats are kind of making fun of that poking at it it's like is it really that bad if you're like bringing beer with you on a chartered plane it's also odd the selection of the beer i mean it's not a texas brand and it's also if it were bud light that would also make sense because that's the most popular just brand and overall but miller light that was i was curious a lot of the criticism was why don't you have shiner right i mean that was a lone star right that was a lot of the criticism coming from folks who were more light-hearted about the topic yes um but i think it's fair to say lawmakers were like hey we have a long flight let's have some fun uh we saw one picture

of us of a lawmaker jarvis johnson with a brown paper bag over a bottle right i mean this is something that they were uh it was like a road trip for these guys right for some interesting rhetoric though i think john cornyn called it a beer fuel party bus it wasn't set up well in terms of uh optics for you know they set themselves up for attack from their political opponents and another thing the republic Republicans were very critical of was the whole face mask thing, because that's obviously been a huge issue over the past year. We all know that. And on this plane, I think when you go on a plane, like a public plane, you have to

wear a mask still. Yes. The federal mandate. Yeah. On airlines. And so they're posting this picture of them on this chartered plane, not a mask in sight. And so Republicans definitely hit hard on that and just are pointing out, like, why aren't you wearing masks? Like Biden says.

Yeah. Weren't you guys for the mask mandate in the in the House? So what else did state leaders have to say about the quorum break in general? So you had different responses from Speaker Phelan, Governor Abbott. You know, they are all kind of saying we're going to use whatever means necessary we have to to make sure that we can secure a quorum. Governor Abbott has floated a few different things of calling a special session after special session. I think Brad will get into a little bit more of calling a special session after special session. I think Brad will get into a little bit more of that later. And then you also had Speaker Phelan saying

similar things of the, he said the Texas House will use every available resource under the Texas Constitution to secure a quorum to meaningfully debate and consider election integrity. And then they've also emphasized the other items that have been on Governor Abbott's agenda that are not, you know, as divisive partisan. Politically, yeah. So you have like the, of course, the big thing that Abbott was using for kind of leverage was the Article 10 funding, which is funding for the state legislature. You have some other stuff like the 13th check payment for the retired teachers. And you also have some other issues like bail reform, which also has a lot more Democrat support.

I don't think that – I think there's maybe some Democrats who are opposed to it, but in the House or in the Senate that voted on it. It's not a truly – well, it is by party. There are some Democrats that are supporting it, but it's not like everyone in the chamber would vote for it like they would for the TRS payments. It's not going to be, yeah. But when they voted on it in the Senate this week, all the Democrats who stayed in the Senate did vote for it.

So now the Senate Democrats who stayed are going to be a little bit more moderate than those who fled. But, yeah. I think it's notable that Speaker Phelan's tone was much less pointed than especially the governors, also lieutenant governors. It's not like he was saying, oh, go off, do whatever you want. He was saying, I expect you guys to show up, which obviously they didn't. But he was not as pound the the table he is as greg abbott was and so um you know he's it's his chamber he's trying to balance a uh a very tricky coalition that put him in the

speakership and i think this is evidence of that that he's trying to figure out how to navigate this without angering to the point of losing his speakership, the general group that is responsible for putting him there. And the culture of the Capitol, too, is very team sports, not just in terms of Republican and Democrat, but urban, rural and Senate and House. So you have these divides based on what chamber you're a part of where your membership lies and the leader of each chamber can be in one way or another loyal to you regardless of whether you're part of their party or not so there's a little bit of the team sports aspect coming to play not to mention just like you said the looming uh re-election bid that uh phelan will have post the election and i think that might surprise a lot of people is it's more than just R&D, because like Brad just alluded to, Speaker Phelan is thinking about more than just keeping the

Republicans happy. It's not, they aren't the only ones he has to worry about. Absolutely. So what are the bills filed by Mays Middleton, Daniel? So in response to the quorum bust, he filed a constitutional amendment and also a bill. The constitutional amendment would prohibit salaries for members who are absent, unexcused, when there's no quorum. So I know that there's some members who are actually, some Democrat members who are absent, and they had excuses. You can go to the floor and get an excused absence. So it wouldn't apply to those, but it would apply for people who just flee a quorum like that. And then the bill that he filed wasn't really specifically

touching on the quorum bust particularly, but rather more broadly, it would prohibit campaign fundraising during a special session. This is already prohibited during a regular session. There's a moratorium for state lawmakers, even for statewide elected officials. They can't fundraise during a regular session. So this would apply that to special sessions, too. Got it. Good stuff. Thank you so much, Daniel. Hayden, we're going to come to you now. The question on a lot of people's minds is, OK, what can the House do in regards to Democrats fleeing?

Is there any sort of mechanism by which they could be brought back? What kind of consequence would they face if they do? Basically, just what do the House rules say? What does Texas law say? And this week, the House moved forward with some of the different methods they have in their in their toolbox, I guess you could say, to mitigate this situation. Give us a little bit of a rundown of what of what happened. Well, as Daniel and Brad mentioned moments ago, there is a mechanism in the Texas House rules for lawmakers, specifically state representatives, to respond to a quorum walk. And there are four lines of text

in the House rules that describe what they can do when there is no quorum. And that is, they can adjourn, or they can move a call of the House. In a call of the House, the doors are locked and members are unable to leave without written permission. In fact, in their most recent, I'll say it was a floor meeting, it was really a prayer meeting because that's all they could do was have the invocation and leave. They were given yellow permission slips to leave the chamber. And the first thing that came to mind was when I worked at a church once in the preschool area, they had the kids, they each had colors. And if you were really good, you could move your color from yellow to green.

So, I wondered, you know, maybe their color will be green next time. I don't know. But they're only able to adjourn or institute a call at the house and incidental motions to those two motions are also allowed. So, when they met on Tuesday, which was the day after Democrats went to Washington, D.C., they passed by a vote of 76 to 4 the call of the House. So, we are officially in day three of call of the House. And technically still the same legislative day as tuesday they haven't they haven't gaveled out the legislative day on tuesday because due to the parliamentary mechanisms that are in place it's best for them to just stand at ease and under rule 5 section 8 they are allowed

to order that absent members possibly be arrested if they are found in the Lone Star State. But as Daniel mentioned, law enforcement in Texas don't have jurisdiction in Washington, DC. So that's one of the reasons why they're all the way out there. But there were four Democrats left in the room, Tracy King, Eddie Morales, Ryan Guillen, and John Turner. And those were the four votes against the call of the House. So they're still still even though they're not physically participating in the walkout they're still in solidarity with their party and with john turner nearby who has been a parliamentary guru for the democrats with him nearby they are able to have an advocate in the house while republicans exercise the limited authority that the Constitution and the House rules confer to them, even without a quorum.

And Turner, notably, is not running for re-election. Right. So, it's interesting to speculate, has that played into his decision at all, to not partake in the flight? And I don't know if he has aspirations for other offices in the future. I know in his statement, when he said that he was not running for reelection, he talked about wanting to spend more time with his family. So I'm not sure if and to take care of his law practice more. So I'm not sure if John Turner has plans for future office, but it's possibly not quite as important for him politically to

be a part of the optics of the walkout. So he stayed behind and took care of some more technical issues. But that's what happened on Tuesday when they had a floor meeting. And that was when Speaker Phelan officially ruled that there was no quorum and they instituted the call of the House. What was the atmosphere like in the House when that happened? It was uncharacteristically quiet the moments after they they voted for it so usually people are milling around and talking amongst themselves but they voted and everyone was paying very close attention to what speaker phelan was going to say and do and people were paying attention to the tick board i

don't know if that's the right word for it but but the light board where people from the gallery and from the floor can see how members are voting on each motion and bill. But this is the first time the House chamber has instituted a call of the House in 18 years. And the last time was during the 2003 walkout, which was when the Democrats went to Ardmore, Oklahoma to kill the Republican redistricting bill. So in the room, I think it was recognized how heavy and historical this moment is. This is not something that happens every session or every special session. This is a rare occurrence. And Democrats believed it was worth it to walk out of the chamber to stop this special session. And Republicans have responded with this historic move of instituting the call

of the House. But I think Democrats and Republicans accepted what was happening. And in a press conference later that afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, Jim Murphy, who's the chairman of the Republican caucus, said he hoped the Democrats' better angels would prevail, is how he put it. At this point, they've really accepted that unless Democrats willingly come back, I don't know if there's some agency of government they can coordinate with, or if there's some other way that they can incentivize Democrats to return from DC. But the atmosphere of the Capitol is, there's pretty much nothing they can do. So at this point, the Texas legislature is about as useful as an ice cream social. Now, where do things stand now?

They are at ease at the moment. I don't know if they are scheduled to come back today. I'll have to double check on that. But they are probably not session being adjourned. Because as I mentioned a few moments ago, there are literally two sentences in the rules that describe how much they can do without a quorum, and that's virtually nothing. Well, and we're at the very beginning of the special session for all intents and purposes. August 8th would have been the day that we're done. And, you know, how long can Democrats, I think this is something that's not talked about as much, how long can Democrats feasibly is something that's not talked about as much? How long can Democrats feasibly their business owners, their parents? They have families. They have jobs.

How long can they be in D.C.? Right. How long was it actually sustainable? Will they come back into Texas quietly without without word? There are a lot of questions here. We'll be curious to see how this continues to go on. And this is effectively a government shutdown, although the rest of the government is not really affected. Of one method or another.

But in the federal government shutdowns, we saw Senator Ted Cruz, when he spearheaded that, he had a lot of momentum behind him and then eventually lost the political capital to continue it. And so how long, what's the clock on the Democrats political Capitol to continue doing this? And we probably won't see it come to fruition until the election next year. But, you know, this is going to have an effect one way or the other on the election in 22. And if voters do have objection to this, you know, if Democrat voters do have objection to this in terms of, you know, let's say two weeks from now, they're still in D.C. and voters are getting restless, constituents are getting restless. Will they remember come 2022? I think that all of our

attention spans are very short in that regard. I think another thing that's important to remember is this isn't the only special session that people are looking forward to. There's also redistricting at stake. So if Democrats don't come back for the redistricting session, there is a provision in state code, or actually I think it's in the constitution itself, that would allow redistricting to go to a legislative redistricting board. Now, there's a lot of questions about that because the Constitution says that it's supposed to happen in the first regular session after the census is published. Has the census been published? That's up for debate.

Certainly. Well, Brad, we're going to keep on this topic here. We talked briefly about the governor's response to this, but let's drill down into this. And he's facing a very competitive, you competitive, high dollar primary fight for himself. And certainly the candidates in that race have a lot to say about this issue. Yeah. So to kind of provide a baseline, Governor Abbott, Daniel mentioned it earlier that he said he will call a special session after special session after special session up until the up until the, the election of 22. And so, um, there's that on the table. He has also said that he is in favor of, or he's at

least considering the option of quote, vacating the Democrats who have left seats and calling special elections to fill them. Uh, that would be quite a a move I don't think we've ever seen before. So if that does happen, that would be fascinating to watch. And I think you'd see the Democrats come back really quickly if for no other reason than to campaign to keep their seats. But his primary opponents have also weighed in. Obviously, they're running against the governor, so they're going to be critical to some degree or another of him and his response to this. That's just the nature of a campaign, right?

I'll read one quote that Abbott said. He said, as they fly across the country on cushy private planes, they leave undone issues that can help districts, their districts and our state. It's the most untexting thing I've ever heard running from a fight. So he's pulling no rhetorical punches there and also focusing on things that will not get done as Democrats are in D.C. But his opponents jumped into the fray as well. Former State Senator Don Huffine said, as Democrats flee Texas today, we witnessed another failure by Greg Abbott.

He refused to prioritize conservative issues during the regular session because we weren't threatening him yet. Now he's empowered the Democrats to do everything they're doing. When I'm governor, this will not happen. You know, it raises the issue of what could have been done during the special session that wasn't or during the regular session that was not. That is the reason for this special

session we're having currently. You know, that gets into a lot of issues with scheduling of things for Florida Bait. The governor really pushing issues himself um he does hold a lot of sway with with members um you know huffines is saying he did not use that enough um this is not this is going to continue to be an issue um another one of his opponents now former texas gop chair alan west um he said these theatrics show an abject disrespect from the Texas Democrats towards Governor Abbott and Speaker Phelan, who I admonished not to put Democrats in chair positions. That's another issue that we have seen Governor Abbott come out and support stripping these Democrats who have committee chairmanships from those positions. You know, that's another debate on an issue of whether Democrats should have these chairmanships in the first place.

Speaker Phelan dismissed those calls before the regular session, and he appointed some Democrats to various positions. And so there's that. Of course, Wes said, commenting on things that will not get done, he said election integrity has nothing to do with denying voting. It's to ensure that only alive citizens' votes count. The third big name, bigger name, primary opponent for Abbott, Chad Prather. He's a Blaze TV host and kind of a comedian um he said when governor abbott refuses to meet the basic expectations of cultural and religious conservatives uh yet he accommodates

silicon valley giants whose bizarre culture contradicts texan values he spits in the eyes of texans that made texas texas so obviously all of his opponents are using this opportunity to knock Abbott for whatever role he may have played in allowing this situation to develop. And I think, you know, in addition to all the other issues that are going to be brought up, this is going to be one of the mainstays of this primary election that will come to fruition at some point next spring. Absolutely. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, we're coming back to you now. The Democrats have been in D.C.

What have they been doing in D.C.? Tell us how they've been filling their time and what the whole, you know, the optics and the point of their trip there specifically is. Well, I mean, shock of shocks. Politics are playing a huge role in this. And they are trying to, I'm not sure if cleanup after the optics would be the best way of putting it. But I think the whole beer. Damage control. Damage control.

The whole beer issue. You know, Gene Wu, a Democrat from Houston, said the other day that they more or less grabbed what they could to survive on this excursion to D.C. Yeah. And I think that might be an over or that is an overstatement of what's going on because Vice President Harris hosted them and thanked them for what she said was this courageous stand for walking out and scuttling the special session. But her sentiment toward them was that this was a civil rights landmark event, that this was comparable to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965 and some of the events in the 60s. So, Republicans have been criticizing this as an, the way Chairman Murphy put it the other day was, it's an all expense paid vacation to DC. So, I think it's fair to say that as we consider this quorum bust, that this is, while they're not in Austin, they have been in DC interacting with big name federal Democrats and advocating for HR1 and S1, which are the federal

election bills that would prevent states from enacting some of the policies that Republicans are trying to enact here in Texas with HB3, which is the special session version of the election law. So, Vice President Harris' position on the walkout is that she's all for it. And her attitude toward them on Tuesday when they were in D.C. was very congratulatory. She was expressing that she was very proud of them and that she believed it to be a patriotic thing that they were killing this bill which democrats believe is un-american and yeah is an attack on the right to vote and many have said that it has that they believe it has a racially discriminatory intent to it. So they're standing by their values and their principles

that they're against this bill. And Vice President Harris is commending them for that. Yeah. And with the backdrop of HR1 in Washington, D.C., it's a very hot topic both nationally and here in Texas. So the pairing there is quite something. Is this the first time the Vice President has met with these lawmakers, has commended them for such actions? No, she did this in May, right after they broke quorum the first time, but it wasn't all of them. And they all weren't in DC. They had just left the Capitol. They didn't go all the way to DC. But she met with a limited number of them and congratulated them for their successful defeat of the bill. And I think one reason Vice President Harris is so enthusiastic about these state-level lawmakers defeating this bill is because it's so important to national democrats the they perceive this bill

as being a threat to their voter base and it seems like texas is always about to be a swing state like every election we hear texas is purple texas is turning blue it's a narrative yeah and that is one of the reasons why texas is so because, of course, because of the balance in the electoral college. So when election laws are enacted in the Texas state capitol, that affects national Democrats. So Vice President Harris, this is not the first time she has spoken out on this issue, not the first time President Biden has spoken out on this issue. And I think we will continue to see remarks from the Biden administration about this Republican election reform bill. Absolutely. And we're seeing a lot of these state reps who did, in fact, go to DC, you know, have spots on national outlets, Fox News, CNN, you name it. And the messaging that they're getting across to voters is that we want to bring

attention to the fact that states like Texas, Georgia, they are all having these similar proposals, you know, brought forth. So let's go to DC. Let's, you know, ensure folks know what's happening and, you know, ensure our federal lawmakers know as well. That's what is being said by these Texas lawmakers specifically. Well, thank you, Hayden. Daniel, let's go across the Capitol. We're talking about the House. Let's go to the Senate. Now, the Senate still has a quorum, which we weren't sure if that would be the case. But give us an idea of who stayed behind because some Senate Democrats did, in fact, go to D.C. There were nine Democrats, I believe, who either went to D.C. or at least they did not show up to the Capitol on Tuesday.

They all did, according to the Senate Journal on Monday. They were there for the roll call on Monday. They were not there on Tuesday. I went into the Capitol to see who was actually showing up, looking at the desk, was there in the floor to see who's there. When I got to the floor, on Tuesday, the first Democrat that I saw was Senator Judith Zaffirini from Laredo. And then I also saw Eddie Lucio from Brownsville, Juha Hinojosa from McAllen, and then John Whitmire from Houston. Notably, those three Democrats that I first mentioned, you know, they're all the border county or the border district Democrats, which, of course,

that has become a little bit more of the competitive area of the state. You have more conservative Democrats from that area. So that was not terribly surprising and then john whitmire from houston notably back when the quorum was busted in 2003 he was the cinder who was the quote-unquote defector who came back and established the quorum um so he also stuck behind he's also the dean of the senate so he kind of does a lot of the procedural uh you know, whenever they're adjourning for the day, the motion goes to him to make that motion. And, yeah. A lot of seniority there. Okay.

Now, because they still have a quorum, they're able to still do business. Now, is it just by one senator that they have a quorum to? Is that what we know? I think it's one or two. I'd have to go back and double check. Very small margin. Regardless, the Senate is passing bills. What bills have they passed this week? So they have passed a number

of bills that were on Governor Abbott's agenda items. The first bill that they passed was that 13th check bill for the TRST, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. It's like an additional payment for them. I think Brad is working on an article about that. The second bill that they passed, of course, was the election integrity bill. And, you know, one of the interesting things they did go for several hours on that bill. But with so many Democrats absent who had normally asked question after question and then this process would be drawn out, you know, Back in May when they were doing this, it went all night, and they went from, I think

they brought it to the floor at like 10 p.m., and they ended up voting at 6 a.m. after 6. So it went quite a long time. With so many of the Democrat senators gone, they're not spending as much time on this, so they're able to get a lot of these issues through faster. So they did election integrity, and then they also did bail reform the same day. And then on, let's see if I can get my days straight, Wednesday, they passed a number of bills as well. They passed the transgender sports bill, which Isaiah has been covering. And then they also passed a social media censorship bill, property tax reform, and then a family violence bill. With the family violence bill, it was interesting that was actually originally given to Senator Royce West from Dallas.

That was his bill. SB 9 was the original one. But since he wasn't there, they essentially just copied and pasted it into a bill from Senator Huffman, SB 72, and that's the bill that they passed. And so those are the bills that they have passed as of the recording of the podcast. You know, one of the interesting issues that has not been passed yet is the Article 10 funding. Of course, that could be passed by the time this podcast comes out. I don't know. Now, how have Senate Republicans responded to the antics over in the House? They have been very frustrated. I think it was Senator Joan Huffman who said on the floor, and then she said again during a press conference on Wednesday, that she was very angry because she was, this was especially in respect to the bail reform bill. And so Republicans really want these bills to be passed. They're saying it will save lives. They're saying Democrats are blocking that, and so they're mad.

Now, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has sent out a press release, and I'm 95% sure he's using the same sentence, and he says that the Senate is going to pass these bills over and over again until the House actually has a quorum. And so I don't know what that will look like. Obviously, they don't need to pass the bill again now that they've just passed it. But if it goes into another special session, as Governor Abbott has threatened that he might do, if they have another special session after August 8th, then they could pass this again and again, theoretically. So we'll see what happens a month from now, if they're back and passing the same stuff again, or if there's a quorum before then. We'll see. I like it. Well, and one thing to consider, too, is the lieutenant governor has been very forthright in his strategy, as he is usually during the sessions of saying, OK, we're going to pass a bunch of stuff as the Senate up front and place pressure on the House. And that's usually in terms of the more socially conservative policies. But that's kind of the Dan Patrick way, right, of, OK, well, let's see what I can pass, throw the ball over to the House, and they're the lazy ones. That's the optic that he likes to try and brew up a little bit, which is interesting. And so now the House really can't do anything. It's not the House leadership's fault.

That's just the nature of it. They physically can't do anything. Well, let's zoom out a little bit, folks, and talk through some other things happening in Texas. There are other stories happening besides this Democrat walkout. I'm shocked. I am too. Shocked, I tell you. I'm with you.

But Brad, you were up in North Texas this last weekend, specifically after Allen West announced his resignation as chair of the GOP here in Texas. Someone had to fill a spot. He's running for governor now. Walk us through what happened this weekend. Yeah. So up in Louisville, the state Republican executive committee had their, I guess, emergency or special meeting to elect the replacement of Allen West to fill out the remaining year of his term. GOP chairs are usually elected at the state party convention for a term of two years until the next convention and then start the process all over again.

But because of the vacancy, they needed to fill it and so you had four candidates running for the the position you had former state rep matt rinaldi um orange county gop chair david covey uh lobbyist and consultant also former executive director of the texas gop chad will banks and then a um a donor slash activist in the party named bill burge so you had these four candidates up there making their final pitch to the state republican executive committee on um you know why they should be the ones that uh that succeed alan west which is not usually how the chairman is elected to be fair right usually the srec is not the one choosing the chairman it's the delegates at the state convention. So this, because there was a resignation,

this is the method by which the bylaws allow an election. Yeah. And it's more efficient that way in a, in the interim manner. Right. You know, they can't put on the largest state convention in the country. So,

so what happened was, you know, these candidates go up there, they, they had been working, they'd been whipping votes basically the entire time. The question was, you know, who to come down to. Largely, everyone I talked to said it would come down to Matt Rinaldi or David Covey. And it shaped up that way. A lot of people, members of the SRC that I spoke with said they expected it

to be razor thin margin. Shockingly, it did not turn out that way. And also shockingly, it did not go to multiple ballots. So if no one had gotten a simple majority, 34 votes of the SRC, it would have gone to a second ballot for, uh, you know, votes to shift one way or the other. Um, but it didn't need that in the end, uh, Matt Rinaldi won, he won handily. I think it was 13 votes. It was the margin. And so in a, uh, 64 person body that, um, that's significant, that's a wide margin. And so he won on the first ballot. And David Covey got 21 votes. You know, it was surprising. The biggest, the most surprising thing was the fact they didn't go to a second ballot.

And you could hear that in the response once they were reading off the results. And they said that Rinaldi was the first one they read. They said 34 votes. Everyone goes crazy. It was hard to actually hear what the numbers were for the other candidates. But Chad Wilbanks got six votes and Bill Burge got one. So there was quite a difference between the top half tier of the candidates and the lower tier. But yeah, that's how it shakes out.

Matt Rinaldi will now run the texas gop for the remaining year he has said that he intends on running again um at least as of now who knows you know family things happen who knows what what will come down the pike but um his intention is to run again at the convention next year um so we'll see how it goes rinaldidi is obviously following an interesting tenure with Allen West. West was, he did not hold back criticism of Republicans, Republican elected officials, or those within the party itself, like activists. He was unabashed in his support for the legislative priorities. He took that and ran with it in the public square.

And that is something that separated him from the previous chairman who worked the legislative priorities within the Capitol more. And he also was an open rhetorical conflict west was with various members of the party including he joined a lawsuit against the sitting republican governor greg abbott so uh that's a big act to follow for rinaldi um i i can guarantee you he's going to take a different approach at least that's what he told me and so um we'll be interested to see how it how it plays out and to be fair but prior to this rinaldi prior to his candidacy for the chairmanship he had endorsed don huffines for governor right and that is obviously the challenger for the city republican governor and right after he was elected uh

huffines basically invited him to rescind his endorsement which rinaldi promptly accepted so even just going forward there's a little bit of that, you know, shuffling of unity, I'd say, prior to his, you know, first moves as chairman. Now, you spoke with him right after the election. Tell us a little bit about what he said and specifically, you know, talk to us about what he said about unity, because he has been very critical of a lot of sitting Republicans, particularly in the in the age of COVID. Yeah. So first thing I asked him was on his message to the party coming in as chair. And he said that, you know, despite all of our differences, despite all the past criticism of what the party has done, we're one of the most successful parties in the entire nation. We've run every statewide election since 1994. He said he was incredibly optimistic. And he said, we're going to continue to win every statewide office and beat the tar out of the Democrats like we've been doing for the last 30 years. He also said he believes they will gain at least one or two congressional seats. He expects that they will gain a little bit in the state house and in the state senate.

We'll see what happens. A lot of it has to do with redistricting. We'll see how that shakes out. Um, but excuse me. Um, the other thing he said specifically about, um, his previous criticism of, he didn't say it outright, but referring to his criticism of Greg Abbott and his response to the coronavirus pandemic. He said, you know, we're going to reach out. Politicians go through this all the time. You have to have thick skin to be in the business.

Sometimes you're opposed. Sometimes you're working together. As RPT chair, we need to come together. Whether personally I endorsed someone or didn't before I was chair, now we're going to work together to make sure that we win in 22. So that's overall his message. And, you know, there were a lot of, I was seeing on Twitter, a lot of people that didn't, that were not in favor of Rinaldi going into this. They were in the Covey camp. They liked that message.

They appreciated it. And so already he's one, maybe one over is too strong, but he at least is making strides with the opposition within the party. And there's this divide within the party that is not going away. I've written about it before. It's what's the role of the party? Is it to focus more on electoral things, focus more on legislative priorities, both somewhere in the middle? There's varying opinions of that.

And that is something that was kind of exacerbated under alan west um for good or for ill but rinaldi is gonna have to navigate it and um he's already trying thank you bradley now isaiah welcome to the podcast what oh it's on down for a little bit um well and being that you know you uh this was not particularly your beat with the democrats What? Oh. It's on down for a little bit. Well, and being that this was not particularly your beat with the Democrats flying out of the state, some of your stories got the shaft this week. But we have a very important story that we should talk about. One of the more important that we've published, specifically post-legislative session about the heartbeat bill, which made headlines after the legislature passed it this last legislative session.

There's a lawsuit now, which, which shocker none of us are shocked right but uh tell us a little bit about what this lawsuit is about it is a really unusual lawsuit because the law itself is really weird and it was designed to avoid lawsuits against the government but one was expected attempts were expected the plan of plan of the law itself is to dodge the courts in such a way where they'll just throw out the case for lack of standing. And something like that has happened before at the action on enforcing this law against abortions after a detectable pulse. It deputizes every citizen in the state to where if anybody violates this law, performs AIDS or abets an abortion, you can sue that person as long as it's not the mother. And as long as the person suing, the plaint plaintiff is not someone that illegally conceived the child like through rape for example right so in order to sue to you know enjoin this law from being

enforced through citizen lawsuits the plaintiffs have had to sue the entire court system every judge and clerk which is weird and they also picked one individual man, Mark Lee Dixon, the dude who founded the Sanctuary Cities of the Unborn Initiative, but they picked him because he threatened to sue Planned Parenthood under the Lubbock Local Ordinance, not the Heartbeat Act, if they performed abortions after June 1st, which is when Lubbock took effect. So it's a really weird lawsuit. The plaintiff, the chief plaintiff is Whole Woman's Health. They've been involved in a number of very important abortion legal cases, one of which went to the Supreme Court, Whole Woman's Health versus Hellerstedt, based in Texas. And they have another case pending at the Fifth Circuit

now involving Texas's currently enjoined ban on dismemberment abortions. So explain some of the, you know, more in-depth case law behind all this. So everyone knows Roe v. Wade. Everyone knows Planned Parenthood v. Casey. That's the undue burden standard case at the Supreme Court. Other Supreme Court precedent and those pretty amply support their case that pre-viability bans are not legally viable. However, we've talked before in this podcast about the case Oak Pelobe v. Foster.

That was a case that ended at the Fifth Circuit that I mentioned earlier that upheld a Louisiana law allowing women to sue their abortionists. And so it was intended to be a pro-life law when it was passed and um when some abortion facilities sued to enjoin the law from being enforced through these citizen lawsuits i went to the fifth circuit which admitted that they have no power to just that you know you can't have standard to sue the government when the government isn't technically the one inflicting injury on you and that's the way the heartbeat act works that's why it was designed the way it was designed. So the, the jurors, I'm not saying it necessarily gives a conflicting future of this particular lawsuit because the courts are going to work it out one way or another, but it certainly frustrates any kind

of prediction as to how the case will work out. Thank you, Isaiah, for covering that for us. Certainly an important story that we'll continue to follow. Daniel, we're coming to you now. The attorney general's race is another very heated Republican primary contest already prior to next year. We have some fundraising totals and they were pretty massive.

Walk us through the fundraising totals for these three top candidates. Yes, so the three top candidates, they have all been on a statewide ballot before. Two of them are current office holders. The third, Eva Guzman, is a former state Supreme Court justice who just resigned in order to run for this, or I guess focus on this race. Eva Guzman reported earlier this week, or announced rather, that she had raised $1.1 million for the race, which is a significant

number for any race. And that was only in a 10-day window, and I'll explain more about that later. And then the current Attorney General, Ken Paxton, announced that he had raised $1.8 million. And the third candidate, the current Land Commissioner, George P. Bush, who's now running for the Attorney General's office, he announced that he raised $2.3 million. So, you know, that's seven figure salaries or seven figure halls. Yeah, there we go. Pretty significant. Lots of money being poured into the race.

It's not going to be the end of the money. There's going to be a lot of money poured into this race. What was the fundraising period? How long did they have to raise this money? So the fundraising period, the actual time, if you go to the report and you look at it, it'll say from January 1st to the end of June. However, there was a moratorium that I talked about a little bit earlier in the podcast that prohibits statewide office holders from raising money during the regular session. So they only had the two statewide elected office holders, Paxton and Bush, only had the last 10 days of June to run or to raise money. Now,

of course, they could be going and soliciting people for campaign donations before then and say, hey, when this window opens, will you give me money? But that's the only time that they can actually receive the money. And then Eva Guzman, even though she was a statewide office holder, there's an exemption on the moratorium for judicial officers. So that wouldn't have necessarily applied then. However, she didn't actually launch her campaign until the 21st, the same day that the window opened up for the other two candidates. So they all had this 10-day window at the end of June. Are there any Democrats in this race? We're hearing a lot about the Republicans, but Paxton last cycle had a very contentious race against a Democrat. And I expect that by the time the general election comes around, too, this will probably be another contentious race.

Right now, I think the field is still being formed. The first big Democrat to announce was a former Galveston mayor, Joe Jaworski. And then the second Democrat to announce who just announced this week is Lee Merritt, or he launched his campaign. I think he had said that he was going to be running prior to this, but he launched his campaign this week as a Democrat. He is a civil rights attorney. I think he's located in the Dallas area, but he has been the attorney in several cases involving the victims of people who've been shot by police. So those are the two big names for the Democrats right now. Of course, this is still very early in the election cycle.

We still haven't even gotten to redistricting. That won't affect this race. But I'm sure by redistricting time, we'll start seeing some more candidates note. What do you say you can't read this? You can't gerrymander a state? Well, I mean, you can theoretically through like wars. Oh, my gosh. If we were to bring in Oklahoma, that and whatnot. Oh, okay. Oh my gosh.

So if we were to bring in Oklahoma, that would be. Yeah. Okay. I mean, wait, hold on. I thought Oklahoma was Texas' largest county. You know what? Maybe right. That's really good.

I'm glad to be present for this conversation. Hayden, we're going to come to you on the note of George P. Bush. Let's talk about a lawsuit he filed as land commissioner here in texas who is bush suing and why land commissioner george p bush not to be confused with the myriad of other bushes that might confuse him with sued president biden and the Department of Homeland Security, including its chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, over the cancellation of former President Trump's border wall project. Specifically, he is alleging that Biden's choice to end construction on the border wall is illegal because Congress has already appropriated the funds for the project and the administration does not have the authority to override a congressional appropriation and also has the responsibility to enforce and faithfully execute the laws of the United States. So that is the 100,000-foot view of this 42-page lawsuit,

which we have available at thetexan.news. If you would like to take a gander at some of those court documents, they are available on our website. Yes. 100,000-foot view. That's a very... I think usually we do 30,000 yeah you went even further even further up yeah got it okay well that's good to know now why is it significant that bush is suing the federal government well as daniel just mentioned

we have a heated attorney general's race going on right now well i'm not sure if heated is the right word we have an expensive attorney general's race going on right now well i'm not sure if heated is the right word we have an expensive attorney general's race going on right now to be heated yes to be heated and land commissioner bush needs to show that he knows how to sue people because that is an important role of the attorney general specifically he needs to show that he knows how to sue the president and his administration. And he is going up against a tough opponent, Ken Paxton, who is known for butting heads with Biden specifically on immigration. So instead of waiting until he might become attorney general to sue Biden, Bush is going ahead and doing it now. And he's doing it on behalf of the general land office.

So this is in his official capacity, which is how he would be confronting the Biden administration in the courts. If he was attorney general, he would be doing it on behalf of the whole state of Texas, not just the general land office. So Bush made this announcement from a 3,100 or so acre farm owned by the GLO, which is used to produce revenue for a fund that is owned by the state. And he contends in the lawsuit that this illegal immigration crisis and the end of the border wall project is affecting the permanent school fund because that fund receives money from this 3,100 or so acre farm that is owned by the state of Texas,

which is, and he initiated the lawsuit in McAllen, which is a division of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. So this has significance for both the border wall and George P. Bush's run for Attorney General of Texas. Well, thank you for covering that so specifically for us. Isaiah, we're going to come back to you about some COVID relief funding for school districts here in Texas. You wrote an awesome piece this week detailing how those districts are spending their money, a survey that went out to teachers, students, and parents about how they think that the money should be spent. Which districts are getting the most funding? Naturally, the most populous areas are going to see the most funding

for their school districts. So number one, obviously, is Houston ISD. It was the only lone district on its own to get more than a billion dollars allocated to it from the ESSER fund. For those of y'all who don't remember, the ESSER fund came in three parts, two under Trump, one under Biden, and it's just federal education relief for COVID costs. So they've got to spend 20% at least on learning loss, catching up on learning loss. And the rest of that is up to them. So we'll get to that in a little bit. But in order, the top 10 recipients for the ESSER fund were Houston ISD at just under $1,250,000,000.

Then it's Dallas ISD, Fort Worth, Aldine, San Antonio, El Paso, Cypress Fairbanks, and Brownsville, Northside, and El Leaf. And right under that is Austin ISD. One charter network almost cracked the top 10. Idea Public Schools, it's the state's biggest charter network, was at number 12. So it was the charter that came closest to cracking in the top 10. Got it. Now, some districts have published surveys that they took to figure out how to spend the money, right? Where they would pull those in their district and say, okay,

how should this money be spent and prioritize those things for us? What were the results of those? I would say that the only consistent result between districts was that teachers or staff, I should say, and parents and students tended to disagree fairly widely. It was more common for parents and students to agree than any of those other two groups. But interestingly, their lines of disagreement were not the same from district to district. So, for example, a lot of the big top priorities that kind of floated to the top of these surveys were, for example, new technology, or more days on the calendar, more time on the calendar for lost learning, student services for things like mental health. And it wasn't that teachers at every district were asking for the same thing or

parents or students or so forth. One interesting phenomenon was that parents ranked student services and well-being higher than students did, which was funny. And having been a high school student fairly recently, I think that's, you know, a pretty good sample of reality, personally. But so in fourth ISD, for example, student services for middle, like for mental health, for example, ranked in the top six for parents. That was a big priority for them. They were 13th on the list of the survey from students themselves. At Houston ISD, teachers and staff voted pretty overwhelmingly to have technology, new technology as the top spending priority. Some other spending priorities that just across the state tended to float to the top

have been staff expenses. And I use that term to lump in pay raises for existing staff. But San Antonio ISD, for example, is adding a bunch of new administrators to their staff as well as pay raises. So things like that, new staff and better pay for existing staff. That's along with new technology, more time on the calendar. And let me think what else? Oh, student services. Got it. Now, these funds are a one-time grant, right? This is a huge, you know, injection into the school funding mechanism, but it's a one-time. How does this compare to the state budget? How much money is this in the grand scheme of things? Regularly, schools in Texas are funded about 60% on average by local property taxes,

and about 40% by money from the state, which is collected from sales taxes, since there is no statewide property tax in Texas. So over the course of the pandemic, property taxes remained stable because, you know, the price of like toilet paper didn't affect the value of your home. Like nobody was closing down the appraiser office or anything, you know? And so those, those revenues tended to flow pretty steadily. On top of that, last session, and it looks like it's going to be in this special session too, this right now, the funding from the state for schools is higher than it's ever been. So schools kind of rode through the pandemic pretty well. And I think that's important context in which to frame this huge $17 billion ESSER package, which is itself,

you know, that would equal more than half of the state's budget for education alone for the entire state. Wonderful. Well, Isaiah, thank you for covering that for us. An awesome piece to go check out on our website, thetexan.news. Well, gentlemen, we just found out some big news here. Speaker Pro Tem Joe Moody was just removed from his position as Speaker Pro Tem by the House Speaker Dade Phelan. So we're working on that right now um but in the meantime hayden and isaiah while these two others uh click away we're gonna we're gonna talk about our list of grievances that's what we're going to talk about here

very important stuff to talk about and brad and daniel will chime in as they can hold on my first grievance is that you're excluding me from this conversation i'm adding this to the list to be fair she did just include you right before you hopped in well yes but it was like a an addendum like an afterthought i don't want to be an afterthought i want to be or not i am simply allowing you the space to do the things you must do right now and i'm trying to be sensitive but i mean like i can i'm not working in an article like brad is i'm doing photos which which is still i mean that's very important a job isaiah's were so opposite i remain college who you know yes he was a graphic design major and he would he would work on pictures while i was writing an article and he would like watch tv shows it's like how do you like i wish i could do that can. Yeah. I think design work is different in that regard.

Well, then join in as you wish. But Isaiah, how would you, you started the document. I did. It's entitled The Spreadsheet of Grievances. Yes. Now tell us what the genesis of this spreadsheet of grievances is. Well, we're fixing to hire a new, what's the title of this position? Operations and Outreach Coordinator. Yes.

And HR will fall under his jurisdiction. Right, yeah. And so we decided to just come up with a bogus task for this guy that we're hiring. Yes. And it also, it just ended up being therapeutic in a way, as Mac described it. We were all just at first, I guess, in a sense of humor, and then maybe getting a little bit more serious, airing our grievances to each other.

It's like Festivus. It's exactly like Festivus. That's what I had in mind. For example, as a joke, something I threw on the list was that we've got this coffee maker that I'll use like once a week or something. And one time before some kind of major holiday where I was leaving for a while, somebody made coffee in it. And when I got back, there are these little gelatinous frisbees of bacteria

just kind of floating on top of the coffee in there. So when you went to clean it, it was like bacterial frisbees. How did you phrase it? Bacterial frisbees? Exactly. These little discs. And you should have heard them when they plopped into the sink. I've got the sound recorded. Just a wet slap of jello bacteria. Oh, it's so gross.

I had to poke them down the drain with a straw. I hope nobody's listening or eating lunch while listening to this. So you, but that is an HR complaint. Who were you complaining to? Who was the aggressor? Whoever did it. Man, I wonder who did it accusations were thrown around i don't think anybody can really know at this point yeah

it's lost to history it's unknowable yeah but the purpose that is included in this spreadsheet is this so that he can our new employee can conduct an investigation and see if he can get to the bottom of it. So the full extent of the law that is the Texan offices, right? Yeah. Thank you. Then they got a little bit more interpersonal, I guess. So this is a spreadsheet where we have the person complaining, the complaint,

the aggressor, the victim, witnesses, and then the status of the complaint. Resolved or whatnot. Exactly. Or might result in firing you never know anyway continue no oh you don't have anything else well i was trying to think of i'm scrolling through this right now um somebody put down that daniel has started physical altercations with the oxford combo with people that don't respect it. And to the alleged victim, it says several orphans. I was a witness to this.

You were a witness to this? He beat them savagely. I don't remember this, though. Yeah, you don't. This is like one of those complaints where I have to make a counter complaint about a false accusation being made against me. Certainly. Now, there was another accusation made against me

because I did not include an Oxford comma in a draft that I sent to McKinsey. Actually, multiple drafts, I think. Yeah. And, you know, I filed that complaint because I was both the victim and the aggressor in this instance. And justice needs to be brought. Bring the hammer down on him. Yeah. Humble.

This is very good stuff. I think one thing that I have down is that Daniel will go outside the bounds of any tic-tac-toe game we play in the office and pretend like that's a victory. If I either beat him or it's a cat's game, he'll somehow find a way to make three in a row where three in a row should not exist a what game a cat's game yeah i mean like the tie who says that everyone i've never said that really no is that a northerner thing perhaps yeah okay probably i'm a dang northerner and i've never heard that maybe it's just a me thing or my mom thing but to get back to the issue like you're the one that cheats i don't cheat at all that's not true because i mean i mean clearly if you didn't cheat i would be winning okay i see i see it's impeccable logic it's pretty simple yeah it's just like the many games that i

have one that you're saying that i'm working outside the bounds like there's no rule in tic-tac-toe ordinances that say that you can't draw an extra square outside of the line interesting well show me show me the show me the law yeah we'll just we'll just pull up tic-tac-toe rules and it'll explicitly state the rules of tic-tac-toe. Another that I think is interesting, this was filed by me. The cows came home and Isaiah still has that freaking sweet waters cup on his desk. It's a coffee cup where he got a latte or something. Okay, that's me. I get lattes all the time.

Yeah, you get drip coffee. But it's been sitting on your desk for weeks and it just sat there empty look there's a there's a cultivation going on

there's a civilization forming inside that cup for bacterial frisbees I don't know what shape it is because I haven't opened it Isaiah your case for the bacterial frisbee

innocence committee there's life is really not being helped there's life blossoming in the cup and I don't want to destroy it there's a whole there's a world that's just forming in there.

That thing has been thrown away today. And I'll be frank with you all. The funniest ones on the sheet, I'm scrolling through, and I just can't read them on the air. So you'll just have to imagine them. Well, Hayden, what do you think about the spreadsheet? Do you have any sort of contribution to make? You have a lot of filed grievances in this sheet this sheet i do but i only filed one against you and then i withdrew

it so wait no i filed a new one against you earlier i think are they all against me no i have a few against other people other people but i filed one against you because you called me a full confession and i didn't know what that insult a full convention can a full confession I mean she's been saying a lot of weird things like the cows come home and the cats no I said what happened was I said Brad made a full confession about something we were talking about and then you went you're a full confession that's the only comeback I know it's an ambiguous insult didn't even know what it meant. No, my real complaint, or my most important complaint, is Daniel plans stops along the way before leaving on a road trip.

So when I go on a road trip, I just... It takes the most expensive gas station to stop it because you don't look at the gas prices. No, I don't look at gas prices. I don't look at anything. I just start driving, and when I get hungry or if the gas tank looks low, I start looking for a gas station. This man stopped before we left West Laco. He stopped, and he planned where we were going to stop along the way.

But I guess, you know, know to his credit we did end up getting the cheapest gas and there was this really immaculately clean yes gas station that wasn't bucky's that was not bucky's and it was like an exxon yeah it was like an exxon or something and so i will say we did get to stop at the really nice convenience store so we stopped there the day before and i was so impressed with the gas station and the cleanliness of the bathroom in there oh my i sent an email to exxon and i'm like hey guys are you serious i watched him write it i saw the guy cleaning the bathroom i told him he was doing a great job but that's not enough you need to give this man a pay

are you serious but the funny thing is he started is, he started the email like it was going to be a complaint. He said, I just want y'all to know I stopped at this Exxon. It was store number whatever. And I could not believe the condition of the restroom. I watched him write it. It was funny. And then he was like, it was immaculate. The floors were clean. The stalls

were clean. The sinks were clean. Everything. So I guess there are pros and cons. When I'm on a road trip, I prefer a level of spontaneity and so i just stop whenever i prefer a level of spontaneity wow um brad i know you're busy typing away but i want to hear your perspective on this because no i will say this brad and i had a spat yesterday it lasted day. It resulted in me ignoring him for several hours, but we're fine now. Right? I mean, I'm good. Yeah. Guys don't hold grudges. That is absolute bull, especially you. So, tell me a little bit about your contributions to the grievance sheet. Well, I'm having a hard time remembering all of them but i had one about

isaiah's false complaint that he was not responsible for the bacterial frisbee in the coffee pot that has resulted i can't believe we're never using that ever again i can't believe we're going to tell people about that because that is absolutely disgusting yeah absolutely false i can tell you that well we'll have to settle this in court won won't we? I would say, you know, back on this podcast, perhaps listeners may remember, I was absolutely berated over my business idea of owning a parking garage. Well, yes. The offending party was one Mackenzie Louise Taylor. And I stand by that. I stand by that so hard.

It was just awful. In 30 years, Bradley Phillip Johnson is going to have a conglomerate of parking garages that he owns and he'll offer all of us like a share of his business except you. Dude, I'll take a slice of the parking garage. Seriously. It's a good deal.

It's a golden goose. Just buy what our esteemed editor believes. I think that's ridiculous. My other one though is also against you. Whenever Brad starts to come up with a thought about how much he wants to share something that he deems profound he folds his hands puts them on the table is this on the complaint chart it will be momentarily and kind

of cocks his head like he has like like he's turning to talk to you smoking a smoking a pipe or something and he has this incredibly intellectual thought that he wishes to bestow upon the world and not only bestow but hopes that the world appreciates as much as he does well we shall see about that what a gift bradley well so when i turn in an article to our esteemed editor oh who's that well that would be you oh good to know she's esteemed editor. Oh, who's that? Well, that would be you. Oh, good to know. She's esteemed.

I mean, I don't know. I think that's a little much. Regardless of the content of the article, regardless of how good or crappy it is, how extensive or short it may be, the retort that is given is, you're a hero, or you're a rock star or inserts your other meaningless. You're the best.

Yeah, that too. You're a rock star. You're a hero. It provides zero insight into how the article actually is. And it comes off as baseless praise. You should know. I cannot stand. You should know how the article is based on how much i have to edit it and honestly you know what i think this complaint is baseless because who is

against positive reinforcement and encouragement it is excessive it's not excessive it's not excessive here's why it comes out of excessive positive reinforcement here's why i'm standing up against this complaint is because i don't want her to stop doing that because I like the encouragement and the positive energy. I would rather her call me any number of insults instead of those things. That's just psychotic. But Brad, when I say them, I mean them. You act as if I don't. See, but then it's this thing where it happens every time and then one time it won't happen.

And then you're like wait a second what did i do wrong i'm learning so much please continue and next time he turns in a draft you should just say you're a villain i'll say load it up and all caps bold i'll just be like i'll give the thumbs up emoji that's all i got brad probably would prefer that yep okay any final thoughts list of grievances we have so many oh my gosh oh i have one that i need to talk about brad doesn't know how to smell his to smell that's a whole other thing he doesn't know how to smell his own name whoopsies freudian slip brad doesn't know how to spell his middle name he now he does now but when i asked him didn't yes but he i didn't know

at the time he knew how to spell it now his middle name's philip he did not know if i had one l or two l's and did it for like 26 years of his life okay i wonder if you took a poll a scientific poll of the country how many people would say that at any point in their lives they had forgotten how to spell one of their names yeah i wonder what portion of the population would say that they had forgotten this probably one person bradley philip johnson that's me just one lip johnson just one yep i think um do you feel better now no i don't i don't feel better now okay any final thoughts i had mine i have one more thought you know what sucks oh my gosh daniel a vacuum that is one of the grievances is that daniel says that

joke far too often it It is on the sheet. Yes. Wonderful. Well, folks, thank you for bearing with us. We appreciate you listening each and every week and we'll catch you next time. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter.

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