The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 25, 2025

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Texas’ First Special Session of 2025 Kicks Off TodayFlooding, THC, Redistricting: Here's What's on the Texas Legislature's Special Session AgendaInterview: Abbott Discusses Special Session, THC Regulation, Congressional RedistrictingSpeaker Burrows Announces Texas House Select Committee on Congressional RedistrictingTexas Lawmakers Called to Regulate Hemp-Derived THC During Special SessionTexas Senate Committee Unanimously Approves New THC Regulation BillTexas Bill Cracking Down on Chemical Abortion Pills Expected During Special SessionAgriculture, Wildlife Experts Update Lawmakers on New World Screwworm in Committee Hearing‘Bathroom Bill’ Separating Biological Female, Male Spaces Back in Legislative Ringer for Special Session

Hello everybody. Welcome to this week's weekly roundup of the Texting News podcast. Cameron, how's it going? It's going good. It's just me and you and Rob and Jayden in the office. We're missing Matt. Yeah. She is now off. She's now gone like Aaron Hernandez. Yeah. She is now off. She's now gone like Aaron Hernandez. Yeah No, she is now on her maternity leave as of as of this podcast being recorded, right? She has not popped yet, but

Expected in the coming 24 hours, I think yeah, and I never know what to say in these situations like good luck like Do you say break a leg like they're an actor or something? Like what are you supposed to say to you know it's gonna go great? Well Marylisa what would you say as you know the resident female in this in this situation? You know I think um just a nice I'll be praying for you. Good luck Does it does it well and you can always just say congratulations after she gives birth and that's good enough Yeah, I'm always thinking like do I give a pep talk? Like how do you win, you know fire up the troops in this situation, you know Like what's the locker room speech that you give to someone going to give birth?

Like what's the locker room speech that you give to someone going to give birth? I don't know. My guess would be that a pregnant woman doesn't want a pep talk from anybody. Oh, okay. They want a calming atmosphere, candles, maybe some incense. I don't know. I'm a single guy. Yeah. More along those lines.

Yeah. You should send all of that to her in the hospital. No, we're all very happy for Mac. She's gonna get a few months off to, you know, meet her baby and get acclimated to being a mother and hopefully she comes back because I do not want to do her job until the end of time. But until then, we'll step in and. Yeah, we'll pick up the slack. Pick up the slack. Yeah.

Marylis, how are you doing out in Houston? I am doing well. It's really hot down here, but I mean, that's the only thing about Houston that's happening right now. Although I do have a little bit of FOMO with a special session going on. It does feel a little bit weird to be here and see other folks posting on X about, okay, the house is gaveled in. That feels a little bit weird, but it's all right.

Yeah, it was a bit weird being on the floor on Monday and you weren't there. Being solo. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Mary Elise was a trooper. She came in never seen the ledge before and was there until all hours of the night Baptism by fire. Yeah Well now, you know, this is the first one Yeah, this is the first week of the special session. It's been pretty wild yeah, so far and you know, we've talked about the You know the top lines,

the big issues that we're gonna discuss, that the legislature is gonna discuss and try and tackle. Of course, we discussed the really long laundry list of policy items that are on this special session call. I don't think they're gonna get to everything. I think that's just not gonna happen. It's a big ask. Yeah, and I think the governor knows that.

And I kind of wrote that in my newsletter this week. For him, there's no skin off his back, whatever happens. Because either they get more than he expects done, and that's just gravy for him. Or he can blame the legislature for not passing property tax reform or whatever it is you know so well he he got his big issue pastor in the regular session school choice you know so everything else like you just said is gravy it's it sprinkles on the Sunday now and so there there are some interesting issues though that they're gonna be addressing

Especially it I'll be covering the THC issue and the star testing issue. Yeah, and THC issue You know for most of us we had no idea THC was gonna be such a big deal at the beginning of the regular session Yeah, and now here we are heading into the special and it's one of the top three. Yeah issues. We knew the lieutenant governor was gonna Push for this because he put out a statement in December Yeah on it, but but even that caused some people by surprise that definitely did and then How much this thing blew up caught people by surprise? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and so As everyone knows, and that we've covered extensively,

they tried during the regular session all sorts of different formulations of a band, a partial band, greater oversight regulation, and they did end up getting SB3 across the finish line, but obviously Abbott vetoed it, put out a lengthy proclamation saying there was issues with it legally, wanted to stand up in the courts. He pointed towards other states that had issues that had passed similar bans on THC. And so here we are headed into, well, we're at the beginning of the special session and we have the first

action here with SB 5 coming out of the Senate and this is more of a total ban than maybe what the governor wants and we'll get into that when we... Definitely more than what the governor wants I think. Yeah, because we'll get into that when we get to this section where we'll talk about the interview we had with Abbott but With SB 5, you know author by Charles Perry senator Charles Perry. He authored SB 3 as well And yeah, they already held a hearing on SB 5 so they're moving on this thing and Charles Perry summed it up pretty well here. He said, in a word, if you get high from the product, it is illegal.

That's plain and simple. And so some of the parameters within SB5 is all intoxicating forms of THC are going to be illegal. So that's anything that's over that 0.3 federal limit. And they did introduce some carve-outs for things like hemp fibers, hemp seeds, hemp protein powder. So those things are going to be available. CBD, CBG, those will be available but anything that's intoxicating any of the synthetic cannabinoids Those are going to be illegal as well. That's really been a huge focus for

Dan Patrick and the Senate is They they brought up these issues with certain products that They are alleging have been formulated in such a way that it's, in essence, mimicking a similar intoxicating effect that they would have by using regular cannabis. Their gripe is they've been able to skirt the federal law by doing this with hemp THC derived products. So it was interesting though because as I was watching the hearing, obviously the same

sort of pushback came up that we saw during the regular session. Someone who has been a big opponent of the THC, the ill effects of consuming hemp-derived THC versus the ill effects of alcohol consumption and he was essentially asking why isn't there a similar focus on these things? We also saw a number of veterans come out and speak. Someone people might be familiar with, Mitch Fuller from Texas VFW, saying that these THC products are an alternative to opioids and so a more natural solution that aren't going to have

the detrimental effects or addiction that comes about when people are using opioids to treat certain illnesses. So these are some of the same problems people have pointed out during the regular session. We're seeing them again here in the special session and What's interesting though is I'll mention here I don't know if we want to go more into it later, but when we Abbott held a series of interviews

with a number of different news outlets He sat down with us for about 10 minutes and I I got to ask him about the THC question and he he gave a nice lengthy response about what he wants and some of the issues he had saw previous with previous legislation. Yeah. And he said he wants to ban synthetics. He wants to create a ban for people under 20 under 21 He wants to keep the hemp fiber hemp seeds legal create a robust structure of oversight from the plant to the retail store and but what was interesting is

he multiple occasions because every one of these news outlets ask them about the THC question, and he said he wants a three milligram dosage limit, but it can't be intoxicating, which is an interesting needle that's gonna to thread there, right? Because on one hand, there's arguments

about what level is an intoxicating dose and then there's also probably depends on the individual person the individual tolerance varies exactly exactly like with any sort of medication right or alcohol or with alcohol exactly and then also the federal limit being point three percent of dry weight so it's it's interesting his comments there. But he said it on multiple, during multiple interviews. So it seems like that he knew what he was saying when he made those three milligram dosage limits. We haven't seen a bill yet. This is Thursday, July 24th. We haven't seen a bill filed in the House yet. Maybe they'll, they've

been listening to Abbott's interviews and they've been crafting legislation to sort of fulfill some of those goals from the governor or maybe it'll be hashed out in amendments once the bills hit the floor. Yeah, what's your read on the House in this? Where do you think their starting point is gonna be? I think it's gonna be more more akin to what Abbott wants in that way there's the more of the full-out band side which the Senate has and then maybe a more regulation approach in the House and they can find a middle ground there. And so it's... I actually I of disagree. I think they're gonna start about where they ended because keep in mind the last thing the

House did was pass a ban. Was it pass SP3, right? Now we have seen some members come out and say they're glad the governor vetoed. Yeah. But I don't, I don't know. I, but that was also, um, in conjunction with passing expansion to the teacup bill. So the teacup still passed. Teacup still passed. Yeah. And right. So they were saying, okay, if we pass a ban, if people need something, they can get it through teacup, but now they're getting a second bite at the apple here with THC and the energy surrounding this issue has only Grown larger and louder. Yeah, and so maybe they're hearing things from their constituents or they're seeing polling or they're seeing what the governor is saying about what he wants so

We'll see the governor is clearly responding to The vast majority of the polling that shows this is an unpopular Policy banning all this stuff. Yeah Uh lieutenant governor doesn't care lieutenant governor is responding to the vast majority of law enforcement That is saying ban this stuff, which we've also seen throughout He's held press conferences throughout all the hearings, invited testimony, he brings out the law enforcement and they say this is an issue, we're unable to deploy the proper manpower to properly regulate this and see if people are breaking

the law. We have no way to test this if people are pulled over and we suspect that they might be high on THC. They can't do roadside checks on these things. They have to do some sort of blood test that could take weeks. Well, and the lieutenant governor put out a face-to-camera video that he's done a lot this session last night, on Wednesday night, that is a shot across the bow of the governor. As someone texted me when they saw it, that is a shot across the bow of the governor. As someone texted me when they saw it, this is a direct challenge to the governor.

As if the lieutenant governor hasn't been direct enough so far on this issue. But in it he said, why are we going against law enforcement on this? We always back law enforcement and they're telling us this needs to be banned and therefore we need to do this. We always back law enforcement and they're telling us this needs to be banned and therefore we need to do this. So you know, you got the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. The big question is what does the speaker think? And I keep going back to the

statement that Senator Charles Perry made back in a March press conference that as they were driving, Senator Perry along with then just, uh, chairman Dustin Burroughs, along with another member unnamed was driving through their district. They passed a cake shop and, uh, according to Perry Burroughs said, we're going to ban all these, we're going to eliminate all these next session. And so, you know, let's, let's take Perry out his word on that. Burroughs is personally for a ban then in that regard. Question is, is he willing to go to the mat on it

in whipping members like Patrick is? We've seen the Senate is so far lockstep behind, almost lockstep. There's a couple Democratic members who are going to be against this. almost lockstep behind banning this stuff. The vote in committee was unanimous, right? Right, right. And that includes some Democratic members on the State Affairs Committee.

So this is, the big question is what does Burroughs do and does he let the House vote and move as they want on this? And we saw during the regular session, the Oliverson Amendment moved pretty quickly. You know, it got more than enough signatures really fast to do a floor substitute of substituting the SB3 as it on in the place of the Ken King regulation bill so Where does it go from there? I think we're gonna see oh It's gonna be really telling when they file this bill and I think by the time this podcast goes out. They will have filed the bill You know, where's the starting point, you know for the house we know there's been some

you know, where's the starting point for the House? We know there's been some, like we mentioned earlier, some second thoughts by members about how they're going to vote on this or what they would like to see. But ultimately, I think it comes down to Abbott and Patrick figuring out what's okay. And, you know, Patrick's track record is winning these kinds of fights. Look at the property tax fight last session in 23. So this is a, this is the thing that could, I think, send session off the rails or, you know, cause another special. And we'll talk about redistricting in a minute. And there's potential there for that too. Yeah, but that one I think is more straightforward. Republicans have the numbers provided Democrats stay in town. They can pass a new map if they want, right? With this, this crosses party lines on who's for what and who's against what, right?

Yeah, and I think it's worth mentioning as well. There could be negotiations going on behind the scenes about, because there's a lot of issues on the special session call and a lot of things that people are interested in getting passed. And so if they give a concession on another issue to vote a certain way on SB3 or the other way around around that could be definitely happening here and so legislative horse training yeah yeah exactly so that'll be something interesting to watch the other issue I am covering though is the elimination of the star test Yeah give us a rundown of that real quick. Well

this was something that was being pushed for those who follow education in the state. This was this has been been pushed for a while they had an opportunity to do it during the regular session with HB4. What in essence HB4 was going to do was eliminate the STAR test and replace it with a different sort of assessment tool. There was two propositions to do that. One was a norm referenced test. The other one would be a criterion reference test.

Each chamber saw fit to choose one of those as their vehicle for the replacement. They couldn't come to a reconciliation on that in conference committee, so the bill died. Now they get another chance to do that during the special session. And the big crux of the issue with the Starter Test is if people have been following this, there's been a number of lawsuits filed to try and halt the A through F ratings because the Starter Test is part of that formulation to create that A through F rating. And as part of the Starter Test is a couple years ago, the TA started using an automated grading system.

So essentially using a computer algorithm or an AI to grade the STAAR test. And that was a big issue for school districts and some state lawmakers who said that's not the proper method we want humans grading these tests. And so I mentioned that in the piece about some of the issues there. We'll see if we haven't seen legislation filed yet. Maybe that'll be addressed, like making sure a certain percentage of the tests are graded by humans or you know the TEA already uses the automated grading system then they take 25% of those automatic graded tests and have them checked by humans to see if it's actually grading the test properly. Maybe that's a point in negotiation

in this process but elimination of star test, another issue, lawmakers are gonna be taking up. And it's a big issue for lawmakers, they want it gone. But there still will be an assessment in place, whether it's through a norm reference test or a criterion based test, we'll see which one. Well, that's been the thing with this the whole time. Everybody hates the star test and wants it gone.

Question is, what do you replace it with, if anything? Yeah, yeah. And that's where nobody can agree, and that's why the status quo has, at least for now, remained in place. Yeah, and so you see a lot of, there's gonna be arguments as well coming out from the education policy groups about

which type of test should replace the TARF test. You know, because a criterion reference test measures a student's performance against a fixed set of learning standards, whereas a norm reference test sets it against like a representative group, like the national standard, like what's the national averages, and then they'll test it against that. So there's some that say we need to be comparing our Texas students against all the other students across the country, and then there's some that argue, no, we need the criterion-based test because we want set standards in Texas. They need to be performing in English language arts or math or science

at this level and so we need to compare it against this level. So it's just depending on where you want to set the ceiling for some of these markers. So we'll see which one gets offered. I'm sure we'll see something similar as the regular session, both chambers offering either a criterion or a norm based reference test. So we'll see what happens, but it's a big issue for, you know, parents obviously across the state. Remind me this past the house but not the senate during the other section session, right? Yes, it passed the house well it passed the house and the the Senate sent it to because they didn't conference committee conference okay and that's where it's not swear okay yeah okay gosh I thank you Cameron Mary Lee's let's go to you on a couple of your beats that you're

watching this session start with the Women's Privacy Act also known as the bathroom bill yes so this was filed last night actually by Senator Mace Milton. And yeah, this is called the Bathroom Bill, but it's kind of been dubbed that because what the bill does is it prevents biological males from using female spaces. And these are publicly funded private spaces. So these would include a facility where the state is funding it, but it is considered a private space such

as a public bathroom. So this was heavily controversial as it has been in prior sessions when it's been filed. It was filed in 2017, very similar piece of legislation. And then we saw it during the regular session. It collected a lot of headlines. So during the regular session, it was filed by State Representative Valerie Swanson and it collected a lot of Republican co-authors. There was a lot of partisan support behind this.

Majority, right? Yes. Yeah. Majority of the House. Yes, majority of the House. So this was House Bill 239. So everyone's watching this, right? Because it has all these co-authors,

although it did ultimately die in committee during the regular session. So yeah. Yes, state affairs committee. So, and this is, which is interesting because there's, um, another, uh, piece of legislation that I'm going to be following that also died in state affairs committee, although in a slightly different way, um, you know, state affairs is where, you know, the top social issue bills go, uh, typically. So like this, and then the one I was referencing

is the chemical abortion pill one. But yeah, so just this legislation, what's in it is that the bathrooms in these private spaces, these publicly funded private spaces have to be designated based on biological sex that's stated on the person's original birth certificate. So it lays that out clearly, the definition. It says this doesn't include people that are entering for maintenance or inspection purposes or emergency medical reasons. And it doesn't apply to children that

are younger than 10 years of age. But during committee hearings, we saw a ton of people come in and share their opinions on both sides. We saw some bigger names that have been in national news, some athletes who, one girl in particular, who talked about how she was, unbeknownst to her, was sharing these private spaces with a biological male while she was doing this sport, I think it was volleyball.

And she had no idea about that and she was sharing her concern about the situation that placed her in. And there were other people that came in and said, look, this is discrimination. People should be able to just use the bathroom according to whatever gender they identify with and this is an unnecessary discrimination between the two. So we saw that you know the side of it where it's saying hey this is unfairly discriminating and then the other side who is saying this is impacting our safety. You know various women that came in and talked about that, that they want to make sure that places such as locker rooms, public bathrooms, or women's shelters are only biological females

using them. So yeah, this was in the affairs committee and it unfortunately, um, for its supporters died there. Um, the chairman is representative Ken King. And so he definitely got, um, a fair amount of backlash for folks saying, you know, why did these, some of these important bills not make it out of your committee? Um, of course there's various reasons why that might have happened, but that was

definitely criticism he was receiving, at least from the Republican side. Swanson, I spoke to Representative Swanson about this bill. She authored the House version. She said that she originally filed the bill so that she could protect Texas women and girls from biological men entering their private spaces. She said she worked hard to get over 80 state representatives, which she said majority of the House, to co-author this important piece of legislation.

And then she mentioned how Governor Greg Abbott threw his wholehearted support behind it. But then she noted that it was never given a hearing in the House Committee on state affairs. She noted that it was never given a hearing in the House Committee on State Affairs. So it was never heard in the House, although it did pass through the Senate as Senate Bill 240 by Senator Mase Milton. So he's filing the Senate version during a special session. So she noted that kind of her disappointment that it was never heard in State Affairs. She talked about that she's pretty confident that this is going to get across the finish line and to his desk before August 21st.

So that's our bathroom bill. That's what people are referring to when they call it. Let me jump in on that real quick. So like this is clearly something that has been a lightning rod in the past. Like in 2017 there was a massive kerfuffle over this legislatively and I think it caused, I wasn't here but if I remember describing it described to me correctly, it caused one special session to die. I don't know something. There was a massive fight. This was, was that? Well it was one of the top items in a special session.

It was in 2017 and it died there in the special session. So, you know, everybody's eyes were on it. Right. So, you know, this is when I was talking about Abbott and his calculus on this special session call, this is one of the things that he can, that there's no skin off his back. He doesn't have to manage the legislature at all on anything. You know, he's not the speaker managing members. He can just say, do this, and if he gets it

from his perspective, great. You know, he can chalk that up as a win. If he doesn't, he can just blame the legislature. And probably in this case, the House. You know, also notable is that you know this was a this is a priority bill in the Senate. I mean it's a priority bill because there's what 17 16 17 items and all the bills addressing these special session calls have been priority bills announced by Lieutenant Governor. So, Maze Middleton is running for AG and he can, you know, tout this as something that he, that, you know, is accreditation for him for that job. But

ultimately, you know, you've got the big four or the big three items and they're going to take a lot of oxygen out of the room on this during this special. You know it's not impossible for this thing to pass but tradition would dictate that this probably doesn't get across the line unless you know things break its way that haven't before, right? Right. So, yeah. And this is, it's not gonna fail again though without a significant amount of attention because this is such a hot topic right now,

just on a federal level as well, especially with since Trump took office, you know, I mean, he's been specifically addressing issuing executive orders that declared, you know, male and female is the only biological genders and separating biological males from sports. And then we just saw in the United States, the Olympics will not be allowed to, they will not be allowed to have biological males competing in women's events. And so this is just, you know, that ties into this whole women's privacy who can enter the bathrooms who can't.

So I don't think it'll die without a bit of a fight, of course. Sure, but if I could guess, you know, which one Trump would rather have, this or redistricting, I think you can take redistricting. That's a fair point. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays. So Mary-Liess, walk us through the other one. I think you can take redistricting. That's a fair point. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

So Mary-Lise, walk us through the other one. This is in my mind, a more interesting fight because of how much movement it got during session. Walk us through the chemical abortion pill bill. Yeah, well this one is interesting because you had people on a national level addressing that this was happening in Texas that there was this legislation. So it increases penalties or it would increase penalties in Texas for manufacturing and distributing

chemical abortion pills, which is often done via mail. You order online. And so this was interesting because pro-lifers are arguing that, you know, we did severely limit abortion in the state, but they're noting that chemical abortion pills now account for so many abortions. They would say the majority of abortions are happening via abortion pills. So this was Senate Bill 2880. That was the specific, the Senate version by Senator Brian Hughes and that got a lot of attention. And it was also in this House State Fair as a committee. And it did have a hearing. It had a hearing and folks came in and it was kind of the arguments were pretty much along your typical pro-choice and pro-life arguments.

There wasn't too much varying there. So it had its hearing, but then it went a couple of weeks without being voted out of committee. And if I'm correct, it typically, you know, it's within, I think often a day or two of a bill having a hearing that it gets voted out if it does get voted out. Depends on how much they want to vote the bill out. Okay well yeah is that and would you say that's typically mostly the chairman's initiative? It is up to the chairman to bring a bill up for a vote yes. Okay so chairman Ken King he got a lot of attention online from various pro-life groups

and really big groups such as Students for Life of America. They were petitioning and saying, Representative Ken King, you need to vote this out of your committee. And so there was kind of this heightened pressure campaign that was happening around this legislation. And this was, I believe it sat in the state affairs committee for about three weeks. And then they started to get a lot of attention. And then at one point they did hold a formal meeting and they voted it out of committee. And, but then to, you know, everyone saw, okay, it's been voted out voted out of committee we're expecting it'll probably come to the House floor. But if I understand it correctly it was the legislation once it's voted out of committee it has to be reported to calendar so that it can actually be

selected and scheduled to be on the on the floor debated on the floor and then you have your votes on it, but it was never reported to calendars. And so it, in the end, died there in the regular session because it wasn't reported to calendars. And various pro-life groups, you know, were saying, this is something that we need to get across the line. Texas needs to be kind of this beacon of pro-life legislation.

And so we saw this letter that was sent to Governor Greg Abbott. That was just a few weeks after the session ended. There was this letter sent that was signed by a number of Republican legislators for both the upper chamber and the house. And it was authored by Texas Right to Life president. But then it was signed on by a variety of conservative groups and other pro-life organizations, some national organizations. And it called on Governor Greg Abbott to call a special session in order to address his chemical abortion pill issue in order to ban the distribution of chemical abortion pills in Texas.

So this letter and it got a significant amount of signees on it. And Abbott did announce that he would a little bit later, he announced that he would be holding a special session We all caught wind of that, but it didn't include anything at the time Having to do with pro-life legislation And then in the meantime this letter is well received even more signees And there was just in general online a lot of discourse around we need to at least bring this chemical abortion legislation back

on the floor where we can debate it again and at least have an opportunity to discuss it. And then he did announce his special session agenda on July 9th and then it included this priority that was protect unborn children legislation for their protecting unborn children and their mothers from the harm of abortion. And it didn't specify that this is chemical abortion pills, but everyone kind of assumes that that's what it will be. And then Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, like we mentioned before, released his priority list of bills. And so he said that Senate Bill 6 will be filed by Senator Hughes again, and that will be fulfilling that pro-life aspect of Abbott's agenda.

So okay. And that hasn't been filed yet, correct? So we don't know exactly. It has not yet. Yeah, I'm looking at the, I've been refreshing this list. It has not been filed as of Thursday, July 24th. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, Mary-Lise. You'll be following that all session. that has not been filed as of Thursday, July 24th. So. All right, well thank you Mary-Lise.

You'll be following that all session. Cameron, I'm gonna hit my two items and we'll talk about the Abbott interview you had. Do it. So the two biggest things I'm following this session are the flood response, which we had a lengthy hearing, our first hearing yesterday on Wednesday. Yeah, I turned on the committee hearing and they were playing a weather caster. Yeah. What was that about? Well, Senator Perry, who is chairing the Senate side of this joint committee. He played this clip from a Houston weatherman that

just described the weather pattern and how it developed and what happened from you know the meteorological side of this event. They eventually got into emergency response and all that but I I posted on Twitter, it's an interesting 12, 13 minute watch. And if you're interested in seeing what the legislators saw as the preface to them getting into this discussion, I recommend it. My biggest takeaway from that, other than just how wild and how much of an anomaly this, what happened in the weather pattern was that caused this, that as Senator Perry described, resulted in a rain bomb on central Texas. But the biggest thing that I took away from this was this clip was listing out the flooding

timeline. So at 1.18 on Thursday, July 3rd, a flood watch was issued. That in the hill country that happens all the time, that's not that uncommon. By 6.10 p.m. that Thursday, there was special discussion about a flash flood threat among weather watchers. At 106 Friday, early Friday morning, there was a flash flood warning issued for Kirk County.

Another, again, another thing that's not entirely uncommon in that area. And then at 403 a.m. there was the flash flood emergency issued for Kerr County. Now that is uncommon. That's not normal. And so they, that is the oh my gosh alarm bells are going off alert. 17 minutes later the Guadalupe River at Hunt hit major flood stage and then shortly after that we saw what's been described as the wall of water come down and sweep through Kerrville. You know, this was a very rare and historic event, obviously very terrible. The so far the the fatality count is well above 100 at this point. In Kirk County as of yesterday, on Wednesday, the missing persons count is down to two. You know, the chief kid of

TDEM described in the hearing that the area, the coverage area they were managing in this response was the size of Indiana. That is massive. Not as big as Texas, but it is a huge state. And so that shows you how stretched thin the state's response resources were. Obviously a lot, most of it was concentrated in Kerrville because that's where the worst of it happened But you know it wasn't just in Kerrville that that this flooding impacted and so they had a hearing on this and Were the meat of you know, who's

You know of what what happened at the local level is going to be discussed at the next hearing which is scheduled for I believe The 31st I think is the date that I saw. That's where they're going to talk to local officials. This was mainly state officials, Chief Nimkit, I'd say, was the highlight of this in terms of the most interesting testimony. He told the committee a few recommendations such as accreditation for local emergency management officials, apparently there's not much of any accreditation required for these people.

Really? So you have some that are really prepared, some that are not. and obviously that spans well beyond the the flooding situation here. Mm-hmm. Since Texas does get hit with a lot of natural disasters. He also talked about the state paying for higher quality radio systems and he mentioned how different emergency response officials from different areas, their their radios wouldn't work together. Whether it was because one was lower quality or they didn't have access to the same frequency that everyone else was operating on.

I'm not an expert on that. I don't know all the details of the technological side. But he was raising the alarm about that and he said that's something that the legislature could do. You know there was there was another discussion and Senator Schwartner got pretty heated about that, about this, you know local officials in the area, Kerr County specifically, choosing, you know, not to pursue a loan in order to meet the the payment difference in order to buy, I think it was sirens in order to finance that. And, you know, we're gonna hear a lot about that, I think, when next hearing happens, in addition to,

and it wasn't Kerr County, it was the Upper Guadalupe River Authority. We'll hear a lot about that in addition to, you know, personal stories about people that were affected by this and luckily who survived. But this is, I think this is going to take all session to hash out and figure out, you know, what they're going to do about, about this. There's at least one more joint hearing coming. And then as Senator Perry mentioned in this, in

this joint hearing, that joint committee does not have the ability to vote on any legislation. So basically what will happen is once they reach the point where they're ready to advance policy responses to this, they will split. And the House will, it'll be the normal process where, you know, one chamber starts, they pass their bill through committee, passes the floor, then goes to the next chamber, then they have to, then that chamber has to move that through the committee and then through the floor and then they get to conference. So same process.

The only difference is they're holding these informational hearings, investigative hearings in a joint manner between each other. So there is that. There's going to be a lot more to come on that I think. Then on redistricting, so today, later today, this afternoon will be the first redistricting hearing and they're gonna hear public testimony from people who signed up. Also, you know, actually I don't think there's gonna be invited testimony here maybe there is I can't remember

but they they will then go to hold a hearing the House will in Houston and then Arlington the Senate I think has four hearings set up across the state one of which is in Austin so this is the big question of you know what's gonna happen. Well what do you expect them to talk about during these redistricting hearings? Well it'll be a lot about, I think Republicans will make the case that first that this Galveston court ruling that was ruling by the Fifth Circuit about Galveston

maps kind of nixing, we talked about this last week, nixing the coalition minority districts as a requirement under federal law. We'll hear a lot of talk about that because that's what the DOJ letter addresses. I think we'll also hear a lot about the case made by that Senator Cornyn basically tweeted that the state's shifted and it's gone further right. It's not gotten more purple compared to 2018.

It is moving right. And so therefore the maps need to be adjusted to fit that. Well, are you expecting more of a conversation between the lawmakers on the committee, or is it gonna be a conversation between the people they invite for testimony? Because it sounds like there's issues between the lawmakers lawmakers but then it

depends on who they invite to provide testimony like how maps should be drawn because these the lawmakers themselves aren't experts in district map drawing right so they have to get input from somewhere so what are you expecting is it gonna be a back-and-forth but where's the back and forth gonna come I kind of expect Republicans to stick to the script and not deviate because everything they say in these hearings will be used in court when inevitably lawsuits are filed against this map. I think Democrats will do a lot of what they've done so far and rail against it and decry this changing of the game in the middle of the decade. Now if you haven't listened to our discussion of the redistricting thing

last week, go back and listen to that if that's something you want to hear more in depth. We talked about it for what, 30 minutes? Yeah. So do that. But I'm not going to go and spend as much time as I did here on that. But this earlier part of this week, Democrats held a press conference and they decried this as unfair. And Republicans doing the bidding of Donald Trump,

which is accurate in terms of Trump has asked for this and the Republicans here are now going to try and put it into motion. Ultimately, unless Democrats break quorum, there's really no way to stop this. The only way, and there's a reason they haven't broken quorum yet, because they want to be a part of these hearings to give their side of things, voice their opposition. If quorum break happens, it'll be the day before or the day of a planned vote on the floor for this map. At least that's my read on it. First of all,

because breaking Quorum is very unpleasant. It's grueling for the members, costs a lot of money, it's just not fun. And also Abbott has put on this call the flooding stuff, and so if they break quorum, they kill the special. And that includes passing a flood response. And Republicans will use that against them. So, and I think in your interview, we'll talk about next, he said as much that I don't think they're going to break corn because there's flooding on this. So yeah, there's a lot to be had on this. I think the whole nation politically is watching this because you have Democrats in other states threatening to redraw their maps. Now, they've drawn most of those states that could do that, that are threatening that, have drawn their maps. Now, they've drawn most of those states that could do that, that are threatening that, have drawn their maps in such a way that you can't, there's not much juice left to squeeze. Yeah.

In Texas, there is because, first of all, the shift since 21 towards Republicans, especially among Hispanics. Now, obviously, who knows what happens next cycle. There might be a huge democratic wave where the Hispanics swing back, but there's no... I would not bet on that right now. Right. It could happen, but it seems that a lot of that support is holding for Republicans even despite the fact that there's a Republican in the White House. So there's that. Democrats, they need to try and mitigate the damage I think If Republicans really go for swing for five seats, they could get it It also might come back to to bite them in the rear

if the midterm cycle goes the other direction for Democrats a term cycle goes the other direction for Democrats. A lot of gambling happening here, even though this is a no gambling state. Of course, no money's on the line, at least directly. But both sides are taking a gamble politically. And if Republicans want to redraw the map, they can, provided enough Democrats stay in town. Yeah, just one last question about the technical aspect of the map redrawing. Who's actually doing the map redrawing?

They take submissions, correct? Well, anyone can file a map suggestion. That is not, none of those are going to be the map that is advanced. I'm told Butler Snow has been retained to draw this map. Tommy Cardin is the name I've heard of the, he drew the maps in Florida. I think he also was involved if not was the main drawer of the maps here in Texas in 21. So they have brought on legal counsel to do this because they have to navigate all this federal law, right?

Yeah. So it's not just, you know, Phil King and Cody Vassut, the two chairs of the redistricting committees sitting in a room and drawing the maps. They'll be involved, but they're not the legal expertise here. Right. Well, I think that's an interesting tidbit though, because as we've seen with Florida, huge swing to the right in recent

years. And if this individual that you just mentioned redrew those maps in Florida, which helped Republicans in that sense, could do something similar here in Texas. Well, and I think it's been reported that Ron DeSantis has intimated interest at redrawing Florida's map to squeeze out another seat or two. Wow. We're dealing with very potentially very fine margins. You know, there's a chance that none of it matters either way because the margin in the House next year after the cycle, whether it goes Democrats way or Republicans way, is not close. But right now it's close. And so that's the frame at which everyone's operating at the moment. So that's enough of that. Cameron, let's get into your interview with Governor Abbott.

What are your main takeaways? He wanted to talk about THC, definitely. I asked him multiple questions about it. On one occasion I asked what he really wanted to be solved with this issue. It gave a very extensive answer, laying out the regulation side, dosage limits. I already went through that. One of the things asked is did he think this was gonna be such a big issue at the beginning of the 9th century? Nice short answer. I had no idea. So that was sort of revealing there. I also asked about some of the things that he mentioned in his proclamation. He said there's a

model that Texas can look at in Virginia and how they handle hemp-derived THC. I also asked him about some of the comments Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick made in the post-vito press conference, where Patrick made the claim that Abbott wants to legalize recreational marijuana. Abbott said, that's absurd. So again, nice short, easy answer there. But I did ask on the question of redistricting about a quorum break. I'll re-verbatim here what he said about the threat of a quorum break. This is what Abbott had to say. I'll be honest with you, I really don't think they're going to do that because they know how important it is to their constituents in every district across the state to make sure that they are going to be here and address the needs of

Texans with regard to these very devastating floods. And so I don't think they're going to leave on redistricting. So sort of echoing what you just mentioned. Well, in Democrats' cases, you're masking congressional redistricting behind flood response. And they have put it in multiple groups, MALC, HTC, all of them have put out letters saying, let's dispose of the redistricting and just take care of the flooding. And that's their case they're making. Yeah, and what was interesting though, just a sort of big picture on the interviews, because Abba gave multiple interviews

over the course of the day. Yeah. And it seemed like everyone asked him the same questions Which was in my mind a very tactful decision by Abbott and his media team to say, okay We're gonna conduct all these interviews, but they're gonna be one-on-one All I assume about ten minutes all about ten minutes. And so it's it would be a much different minutes and so it's it would be a much different question and answer an environment if it were a media roundtable where the reporters can sort of play off and he did do that after the legislative session ended yeah I'll say

that I was part of that yeah but with these issues because the the big thing the the biggest takeaway for me was the three milligram dosage limit. He said that on multiple occasions through these interviews not only with me but with other outlets and I think that'll be the big sticking point as we go through this special session with THC is where the legislature lands on regulating THC in terms of dosage limits. And I think his mention of Virginia as being a model,

because if you look, they have a per package THC limit of no more, this was just a quick research here, no more than two milligrams of total THC per package in a retail setting. If the product contains CBD to THC ratios of at least 25 to one, exceptions may apply to higher THC amounts. So I might have to dig into that Virginia model,

but if he's saying that is what he wants, then maybe we'll see some tailoring of legislation with amendments and things as we go along to fit that. Yeah, and as we know with all this stuff, it can change on the fly. Absolutely. And probably will. Yeah.

Check out Cameron's interview with the full transcript is published there. You can see all the questions, all the responses. And we'll say a lot more long-winded than I thought he was gonna be yeah he was really wanting to talk about THC yeah as you said so okay last thing I'm gonna hit is kind of a campaign roundup there's been a lot of stuff happening things changing in some of these seats so an SD nine which is one of the most interesting races, I think, a lot

of different themes there, we saw John Huffman jump in. He is the former South Lake Mayor. He's been mulling this for a while. I talked previously, I think, about a poll that went out from his allies that showed he had pretty strong support in the in the district, at least name ID. And so that was only a matter of time before he jumped in. So he jumped in, then we saw Armand Mazani drop out and decide to run for HD 98 on Tuesday evening I think it was representative Giovanni Capriglione did kind of a 180 and decided to not run for reelection whereas he had been touting governor Abbott's support and Trump's support endorsements and saying he was going to run so that kind of came out of nowhere was going to run so that kind of came out of nowhere and now Mazzani is running for that and then elsewhere in that seat you had Texans United for conservative majority which is the Tim Dunn pack they came in and backed Lee

Wamskans I don't think that's surprising. She is backed by Dan Patrick. She is kind of taking that right flank lane. She's been a big activist in Tarrant County for a while running Patriot Mobile Pack. So she's well known there. And this is not, I wouldn't say this is surprising. The thing that's interesting to me, I'd say, is the timing of it because it came after Mizani dropped out and went to the house so that tells me they were deciding between those two those two candidates and now that Mizani

is out then they back Lee Wamsgun's also notably there's a question about, this is gonna be a big fight in this will be over gambling in the casino legalization. Really? Why, let me say that. Well, Tuckham is very much against that. Okay. And Huffman, the viewpoint is that he's more open to it. Also this seat was held by Kelly Hancock and I don't know if he ever formally talked about it publicly but the viewpoint was generally that he is friendlier to it than most other senators even though you know he isn't out there advocating for it. So this is kind of a proxy fight over that. And you have ostensibly a more pro gambling expansion candidate in Huffman.

Maybe that changes during the race. Maybe he announces that he's against this. But I think that's a big reason why Tuckham is backing Wabbs Guns in this. And certainly why they waited until Mazzani was out to do it because I don't think Mazzani's been very pro gambling expansion that I've seen. So yeah, these two. Are you expecting the gambling lobby to get back into

these races? Oh, 100%. Mary Adelson put another 9 million dollars into her Las Vegas Sands pack in Texas. Okay. This is gonna be this along with the tort reform fight. Yeah. I think it'll be the two biggest issue fights during the primary next year. We won't have a school choice fight like we did last time. Right. Okay moving on to a different district, SD 22. That's Brian Birdwell seat. He's of course retiring. We've already seen David Cook jump into

that. Um, he got lieutenant after a little bit of a wait. He got Lieutenant Governor Patrick's endorsement. We kind of expected that would happen. Um, you know, Cook ran for speaker. He was the candidate that Patrick wanted eventually in that he also, Cook also hired Patrick's consultant, Alan Blakemore. So all the signs are pointing to him getting that endorsement, but it was kind of odd not seeing it drop immediately because Patrick endorsed Wamsguns immediately when she jumped in. But the same morning, shortly after Patrick endorsed Cook, we saw John Gimble, the McClennan

County district clerk, announce his run for the seat. McClennan County, Waco, kind of see a geographical fight here in the district. I think McClennan County is the biggest voting base in this district if I remember correctly. But then you have a bunch of North Texas towns that are connected to the that are in the district as well including Mansfield where Cook lives. So this seems to be at least some of the some of the Waco political machine getting behind him because they want of course they want their own guy as the senator for them right Birdwell is from Granbury that's up closer to DFW and so they see an opportunity a chance. Notably though, state representative Pat Curry, who represents part of Waco, a big chunk of it, he has endorsed Cook.

So it's not exactly just straight down the line Waco versus North Texas, but there is some of that. And I think it's interesting to watch. Another one we have in House District 8. That's in East, Texas That's held by state rep Cody Harris. He's been under fire a lot. He was censured By Henderson County the the precinct chairs there the Republican precinct chairs, I don't think that center is going to go Far there was a lot of errors in that. Maybe they, the SRAC, if they eventually address these and take them up, they might take, if they can, a portion of it that they deem more viable than the rest, but there was a lot of, a lot of errors in the one that passed, specifically knocking him, Harris, for

PNVing, white lighting, not voting for certain bills, but that happened while he was standing in for the speaker on the dais and the speaker almost always white lights every vote, so We'll see where that goes, but notably the Henderson County Republican chair Dan Hunt has announced a run for that seat against Harris and of course he oversaw the passage of the central resolution. This is gonna be a very interesting and fun to watch primary I think. Harris of course is one of Speaker Burroughs' lieutenants and from my

observation on the floor one of the most active in terms of calming tensions on both sides, talking to members who, you know, are not part of leadership or friendly to leadership, but still engaging with them, you know, managing things. He did a lot of that on the floor. But he's also come under a lot of fire, and specifically for backing boroughs. That's kind of the original sin here for a segment of the Republican Party, activist base. The other notable thing here is, of course, Kansas City Councilman Chris Woolsey, who had filed a campaign treasurer appointment,

he for to run in the seat, he is not running. He told me he's not running in his backing hunt. So that's one race to watch. There in Texas 18 we had there's a whole host of people running for this seat Like if you look at my spreadsheet this block is far bigger than any other And so but notably state former state rep Jarvis Johnson, right? The other notable part to this is looking at his filing In there was a statement in there that indicated

he intends to spend zero dollars in this, which is odd. I'm not sure, maybe just file and if you catch lightning in a bottle, you catch lightning in a bottle. Yeah, see what happens. Yeah, that might be. But Jarvis Johnson filed there. He of course ran for the Senate seat that John Whitmire left to go be Houston mayor and he lost that special election to incumbent Molly Cook then now incumbent then candidate so there's that Eric Flores in Texas 34 he we talked previously about him mowing a run. He formally announced this week he is a former federal prosecutor and army veteran. Notably his dad was in the Texas house, the current seat that Sergio Munoz sits in.

And I believe if I'm correct, Flores' dad took over for Munoz's dad in that same seat. And now Munoz holds that seat and we're not going to see Eric Flores's dad took over for Munoz's dad in that same seat and Now Munoz holds that seat and we're not gonna see Eric Flores running for that seat at least right now But that would be a pretty wild symmetry to see happen Especially depending on how the maps get redrawn. That's that's a that's a big candidacy to watch He's got a really good resume, but we might see, as I mentioned last week, other candidates jump into that race after a redraw. The last one I'll mention is Texas 10. There's been a lot of talk about Michael McCall not running again. He's kind of reached the capacity of his seniority in the House, and he only raised $92,000, which is not a lot of money at all in the latest report.

But he hasn't said he's not running. So he's running until otherwise stated, right? But there was a poll put out and I don't know who did it. It doesn't say, they always couch it. They always keep it private who has sent this out. But it listed out a bunch of first a bunch of names in this for this 10th congressional district. McCall was listed in there. But then so were state reps Stan Gerties, Tom Oliverson, Trey Wharton, Paul

Dyson or someone else undecided. Then the next question is it narrows it down to a two-man matchup between McCall and Oliverson. So I mean that tells you the purpose of the poll. Usually it tells you who is running the poll, gauging this this candidate's chances for the seat. So I've tweeted it out. However, Tom Oliverson did put out a response and he said, I don't know who's doing this or why, but I'm not running against my former congressman and friend, Rep McCaul. I'm running for re-election to HD30. So he says he's not seeking a congressional run. You know, the poll is odd in that it does put Oliverson as a matchup

against McCall. However, the kind of the insinuation here is that McCall is not going to run again. And whoever is running this poll is trying to figure out who's a good candidate to run for it. In their mind, it's Oliverson because they match him up with McCall. Right? So, you know, I find no reason not to believe Oliverson that he doesn't know who isn't responsible for running it. But I think someone who has an interest in seeing Oliverson run for it is running the poll. Yeah. Right. So maybe something comes out on that. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe McCall runs for

re-election and that's that. And no one's going to run against him. You know, Democrat would, but that's about it. So there is the campaign run through. Let's quickly do Tweetery. Cameron, let's start with you. The Texas A&M mascot, the first lady of Texas A&M, Miss Revay, she has undergone eye surgery due to glaucoma. So this is, this is a huge deal because not just on the mascot front, you know, there's Bevo, there's Ms. Rave here in Texas A&M. You know, it's unique to have two schools in one state, but just a school in general having a live animal as a mascot. And one as prestigious as Ms. Ravée, the tenth here. This is an institution.

Okay, Cameron, I'm nearly 100% certain her name is pronounced Revy. Revy? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. All right. At least when I was in college station, that's how everybody pronounced it. I would take her word for it, though. I'll take your word for it. But the other angle to this is glaucoma.

What's glaucoma treated with? Medical marijuana. So many layers. So maybe they can get her on the tea cup program. She can get some low dose THC to heal her wounds here because we want her on the sidelines during the football season. Yeah. But yeah, that's what I got.

I just thought that was funny. Marylis, what you got? Well, okay, I was just looking for something to say, but Candace Owens, the commentator, is being sued by the French, well, I believe, do you pronounce it the McCrone's? McCrone's. McCrone's. Emmanuel McCrone. Yes, like that.

But she is being sued by them. It looks like they have officially filed a lawsuit against her because she has been for, I think, the past couple years, she's been doing this investigation and talking about how the wife is actually a man and it's this whole conspiracy theory that a lot of people online believe, but she's really been honest, she's been following this, investigating it, but they're now suing her because they say it's on grounds of defamation saying this is absolutely not true. So I'm very curious to see how this develops because she's also not somebody to back down at all. So this lawsuit will be probably sparks flying, but not related to Texas, just interesting on the national level.

level. But it's interesting, a nation's leader, the prime minister, suing a social media influencer. Yeah. An international incident over someone talking on the internet. Well, the fact that they know that she's got that much reach too. She, she's just she's just a social media influencer commentator or whatever But they know that she's her ideas are having a significant enough reach that they want to sue her over it So it's pretty wild. Yeah i'm gonna go with Uh ozzy osbourne in the alamo Uh, one of the big celebrity news this week was that Ozzy Osbourne passed away I think at age 77. RIP. He of Black Sabbath fame. He is... He... He bit

a head off a bird. Yeah, well was it a bird or a bat? It was a bat. Oh yeah. A very interesting character and... Great. He had a fantastic reality TV show, The Osborn. Yeah. Hilarious. Well, I mean, I was never a big Ozzy Osborn fan or listener, but the thing I always remember is him yelling, Sharon! Anyway, so the Alamo commemorated Osborn by saying, we at the Alamo are saddened to hear the passing of legendary musician Ozzy Osborne. His relationship with the Alamo was marked initially by a deeply disrespectful incident in 1982.

This act profoundly and rightfully upset many who hold this site sacred. They then went on to say that he reconciled and redeemed himself, personally apologizing and whatnot. But this was the first time that I had heard that Ozzy Osbourne took a whiz on the Alamo. I had no idea. I had never heard that before. Yeah.

But that is the deeply disrespectful incident in question. Ozzy Osbourne, may he rest in peace. Yeah. Well, I will say that the Alamo has um commemorating a lot of celebrities recently i think i saw some um something came across my timeline they're keeping a bike from Pee Wee Herman on front of the Alamo or something there's some interesting celebrity you know lore surrounding the Alamo this this just one example of it. Yeah Never dull moment with Ozzy Osbourne. That's for sure

I thought it was interesting the way that they formatted that post because their first and they did a thread but like the first post Was basically saying okay, we're sorry that he died But his legacy is marked by this deeply disrespectful and so, and then they explain, you know, he apologized and it was a good thing, this reconciliation. But the first post you see, unless you click on it's just like, basically what a loser. This is what he did. I think the big takeaway here is that the Alamo remembers. Never forget. Never forget. They will never forget. No. Not even on Ozzy Osbourne's deathbed.

All right, that'll do it, y'all. Thank you for joining us for this week's weekly roundup podcast. I'm sure we'll be back next week, barring some unforeseen incidents and me accidentally unplugging all the fuses that keep this place running together while I am in charge. Happy hunting in special session, Kamri and Mary-Lise, but you're doing it remotely.

Thank you. Thanks for joining. We'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at TheTexan.News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics.

And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at TheTexan.News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.