The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 28, 2023

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Texas flag hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/texas-flag-hat/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to the Department of Justice demanding he remove the Rio Grande buoy barrier systemTexas book vendors suing over a state law that penalizes them for selling “explicit” books to schoolsKen Paxton’s attorneys requesting a bill of particulars for the attorney general’s impeachment chargesVA employees now able to request a religious accommodation from performing abortion proceduresTexas withdrawing from a multi-state voter data sharing organization after transparency and impartiality concernsTexts revealing Texas House members’ anger about Paxton’s $3.3 million settlement funding requestSen. John Whitmire and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee leading in the Houston mayoral raceA Texas woman’s $1 million lawsuit over botched gender modification treatments she received as a teenagerThe attorneys for a lawsuit from Uvalde victim families facing criminal contempt charges in a $6 billion lawsuitFormer Harris County employee Rick Noriega demanding $685,000 and an apology from Judge Lina HidalgoAn computer glitch causing Limestone County appraisal values and property taxes to skyrocketAldine ISD planning to use eminent domain on a home to build its new football stadium parking lot

Happy Friday, folks. Senior reporter Brad Johnson here. Welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses Governor Greg Abbott's response to the Department of Justice demanding he remove the Rio Grande buoy barrier system. Texas book vendors suing over a state law that penalizes them for selling explicit books to schools. Ken Paxton's attorneys requesting a bill of particulars for the Attorney General's impeachment charges. VA employees now able to request religious exemption from performing abortion procedures. Texas withdrawing from a multi-state voter data sharing organization after transparency and impartiality concerns. Tech's revealing Texas House members angry about Paxton's $3.3 million settlement funding request. Senator John Whitmire and Representative Sheila Jackson Lee leading in the Houston mayoral race. A Texas woman's 1 million dollar lawsuit over botched gender modification

treatments she received as a teenager. The attorneys for a lawsuit from Uvalde victim families facing criminal contempt charges in a 6 billion dollar lawsuit. Former Harris County employee Rick Noriega demanding $685,000 and an apology from Judge Lena Hidalgo. A computer glitch causing Limestone County appraisal values and property taxes to skyrocket. And Aldine ISD

planning to use eminent domain on a home to build its new football stadium parking lot. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening. Enjoy this episode. Hello, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, senior reporter at The Texan here, taking over for Mackenzie.

I almost said Taylor. Mackenzie DeLulo, because she is off gallivanting across the continent of Europe at this moment. I don't know what she's doing. Probably eating copious amounts of pasta. Yeah. I hope she's enjoying it. Although, you know, there's one thing about Mackenzie we always know is she always finds the downside of life. She's a very pessimistic person. She's always a cup half empty kind of person.

Unlike you. You're usually chipper and cheerful. I am the most cheerful person on this team, bar none. Nobody comes close. I object, your honor. Holly, your objection is sustained. I have the power this week, and it is definitely going to my head. So with that, we're going to get started. I'm here with Cameron Hayden, and then Matt and Holly joining us from Houston.

They're both here with us remote. So we are going to jump right in. I'm not going to ask you how you're doing because, you know, I'm not going to do that. He doesn't care. No, I don't care. Hayden, this week, the federal government sued the state of Texas over its buoy barrier system. I almost said Dewey Decimal System, but we won't rehash that. What are some of the bullet points of the federal complaint? Well, speaking of acrimony and tension, the U.S. Department of Justice

sued the state of Texas this week over its buoy barrier system that Governor Greg Abbott announced earlier this summer to be placed in the Rio Grande to over emails that were obtained by Hearst newspapers that indicated a state trooper was concerned about individuals being injured by razor wire, concertina wire, and possibly other security devices along the southern border. But this conversation ended up putting a spotlight on the buoy barrier system that was being installed and is actively being installed in the Rio Grande. The buoy barrier system has faced other lawsuits as well, including from a business owner who says it is hindering his ability to operate his kayak and canoe business. And that business owner, as well as the DOJ, alleges that the feds are the ones who are in charge of border security and Abbott cannot commandeer that role. Specifically, in this lawsuit, the federal government said Texas failed to seek permission and input from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, thereby depriving them of the ability to make sure the system is safe.

Attorneys for Biden also said the system violates the Rivers and Harbors Act. And as previously argued, Democrats in Texas congressional delegation said that the system may even alter the river bank on the Rio Grande, thereby changing the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. So the DOJ is making some familiar arguments against Texas instituting the system, and it is setting up a very heated and contentious legal fight. So preempting the filing of this lawsuit, Governor Greg Abbott sent a letter to the president saying he had every right to install the system. What did Abbott contend in that letter? Abbott, from the beginning, has said that President Biden

and his administration has failed to secure the border, leaving Texas no other choice but to bypass the federal government and take on border security itself. He said the president's ongoing violation of the Constitution necessitates systems like the Bowie Barrier System to prevent illegal immigration. Abbott told Biden if he's concerned about human life, he should enforce the laws on the books to keep the border secure. However, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's Homeland Security Secretary, has said in the past that this open borders talking point is not helping because it gives smugglers and the cartels a talking point for enticing people to cross the border illegally. And as has been reported before,

the cartels are charging people between $10,000 and $15,000 to smuggle them across the border. So Abbott says he's making an observation that Biden has left the border open and Texas needs to take its own measures to prevent illegal immigration. But Biden has said that this is his job. And Mayorkas has said that this is his job and that Abbott is not helping by installing these systems without keeping the feds in the loop and by promoting this idea that the border is open. How could the impeachment of Ken in a lawsuit like this, but he is suspended right now, as we've discussed before, because of his impeachment in May. So Abbott appointed for his former, a former staff member of his, Angela Colman Arrow, to serve as provisional attorney general. And she is now the one who's responsible for defending the state of Texas. And we had another provisional attorney general, John Scott, but he has since left, and Culminaro is now at the helm.

If Paxton is acquitted at his trial in the Texas Senate in September, he would then resume his duties as attorney general and would defend the state in this lawsuit. But if he is removed, then Abbott will appoint a replacement who would then defend the state of Texas against the DOJ's legal action. And with this kind of lawsuit, it could either come to a succinct head or it could be very long and drawn out just kind of because of the pressingness of the issue, right? Something could happen soon. It also might not. And it could be a situation where there may be, it also depends on how soon the judge wants to intervene. The DOJ is asking for a preliminary injunction to immediately stop the implementation of this system. But it also could turn into a years-long legal fight that ends up challenging Arizona against the United States or some other precedent at the U.S.

Supreme Court. So you're very correct about that. It all depends on how the legalities play out here. Well, we shall see. Thank you, Hayden. Cameron, on another lawsuit front, this on HB 900, the Reader Act, many, including the bill's author, Representative Jared Patterson, anticipated a lawsuit being filed against that law. Give us the details on what came about. Yeah, so a group of bookstores and publishers, some national organizations, some from here in the state, have filed a lawsuit against the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, the Texas Board of Education, Texas Education Agency, all in an effort to halt the state's new law to prevent book vendors from selling explicit materials to schools. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim that the law puts, this is quote, impossible demands

that will compel their speech on controversial topics, implicating them in the recall and removal from schools of books deemed sexually explicit. And so the lawsuit really comes down to what was discussed a lot during the conversation about the bill, the contextual analysis for which the legislation says that it will essentially, the plaintiffs say it will infringe on their free speech rights that they have as book vendors. What did the bill's author, Representative Patterson, say about this lawsuit's filing? Well, he immediately put out a statement online, and he said he anticipated this and, quote, I fully recognize the far left will do anything to maintain their ability to sexualize our children, end quote. He continued saying that, quote, he bring it, and he wants to, quote, bring the final nail in the coffin of your woke agenda. So those are some strong words from Patterson, and of course, we will be following this story every step of the way going forward.

Thank you, Cameron. Hayden, back to you. Lawyers for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton requested a bill of particulars, not a bill of attainers. That's something entirely different. From the Texas House, tell us about this motion. This week, attorneys for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton said the Texas House was not specific enough in its charges against the attorney general. And as we've said before on this podcast, the 20 articles of impeachment allege various infractions of the Texas Constitution and potential criminal violations that in a court of law could be prosecuted as felonies. The motion that Paxton's team filed this week said that they want a bill of particulars

to describe each article of impeachment in exhaustive detail with all of the additional information that was not included in the original document. They cited the previous two impeachments in the state of Texas and said that there is precedent for providing a bill of particulars, which is more or less a detailed explanation of a charge in this case in an impeachment. But a bill of particulars can happen, as I understand it, in a civil case or a criminal case. This is a pretty routine motion that is made by attorneys in a legal case.

And we've seen a lot of these back and forth filings between the two sides, and we probably will continue to as this thing approaches closer. There are 20 charges total against Ken Paxton. How much detail did the charges provide about the allegations against him? The articles of impeachment are not criminal charges, so it is not like an indictment, as we've discussed before. They are pretty general, alluding to the main facts of each allegation, but not necessarily giving every date, name, and location. For instance, in the motion, the attorneys requested dates that Ken Paxton is said to have accepted bribes. They also want different timelines for the other charges, and they want a more detailed description of how he is said to

have made false statements in his securities fraud case and how he has violated the law. They want chapter and verse the statutes and law that he is accused of violating, which the articles of impeachment do not necessarily provide. They are alluding to different acts that the legislature says constitutes an impeachable offense, but they do not necessarily describe and tell the whole story of every allegation that is said to have committed and what constitutes an impeachable offense is a pretty broad issue and left to the legislature's discretion in large part correct so um yeah so it's there's a lot of room to give on this and

like you said this is not a an actual criminal trial um and so there's a lot more uh discretion both ways on this kind of thing so anyway um did did paxton's team add anything else on this paxton himself tweeted in response to this which any statements by anybody involved in this are perilous right now because of the gag order. Most of what Paxton said constituted direct quotes from the motion, and his legal team published a statement quoting the motion and announcing it. Paxton said, today I filed a motion to quash and a motion for a bill of particulars. And this quote from the motion in particular, quote, the unconstitutionally vague articles must be quashed until the House can comply with the Texas and United States Constitution. Alternatively, this court should order the House to timely file a bill of particulars that more specifically alleges the wrongful actions the attorney general is alleged to have taken with respect to each article, end quote.

And I will point out the articles of impeachment are not the only source of information for this impeachment. There is a transcript of a public hearing that took place in which investigators laid out in detail the allegations against him. And that hearing was the basis for the impeachment that is publicly available as well. We have linked to it at the texan.news where everyone can go read those charges in more detail. Although Paxton announced this motion and his team is commenting on this, he said through his attorneys that he would not dignify this trial by testifying. So we may not hear much more from Paxton going forward. It'll be interesting to follow. Thank you, Hayden. Cameron, back to you. We wrote about when Veterans Affairs, the Department of Veterans Affairs, first ruled to expand their abortion

access to beneficiaries back last year. Now there's an update. Give us the deets. Yeah. So like you said, the VA expanded their services to providing abortions for beneficiaries at all their facilities, which was a problem because of Texas's pro-life laws and a problem for nurses who would refuse for religious obligations. That is what happened here is a nurse, Stephanie Carter, was a nurse at a VA hospital in Temple, Texas, and sought a religious exemption from providing abortion services. She quickly found out, though, that the VA did not have an official process for filing for a religious exemption. So what happened after that? Well, First Liberty Institute stepped in on her behalf and filed a lawsuit against the VA demanding that such an accommodation should exist as it was a substantial

burden in a violation of Stephanie's religious freedom. And it was announced this week that Stephanie had won, and the VA will be instituting a nationwide religious accommodations process. Not the last update we'll have on that, I am sure. Matt, over to you out in West Texas. The Texas Secretary of State officially withdrew from a multi-state voter database that was intended to help prevent voter fraud and promote voter registration. It's called ERIC. Some were opposed to the state leaving the system. Others very supportive. It's a very contentious issue.

What is the background on this? That's right, Brad. The Texas Secretary of State recently sent a letter to the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC as it's known, announcing the state will end participation in the system on October 19th. Now, ERIC is a multi-state non-profit that takes data from four sources, state, Department of Motor Vehicles, election records, and federal data from the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Postal Service, and creates voter databases for each of the member states that they may use to remove disqualified voters from the voter rolls, such as someone who's died, or find potentially eligible voters,

such as someone who got a driver's license but hadn't yet registered to vote and allows the state to reach out to that person and say, hey, would you like to register to vote? Now, Eric has faced criticism from numerous Republicans and some watchdog organizations who say the contracts with member states regarding voter data runs afoul of state transparency laws, such as the Texas Public Information Act. One law firm is actually suing Washington, D.C., which is a member of ERIC, over its refusal to release ERIC-related data in violation of the Freedom of Information Act, and says that this structure doesn't promote public confidence,

especially since ERIC leaders are allowed to allegedly share the data with other groups, including one group that it has apparently shared data with that has left-leaning ties. Now, Texas State Senator Brian Hughes passed legislation this past session that will go into effect in September that will change the guidelines the state uses in seeking a multi-state database for voter security and essentially ruling out the usage of ERIC. Hughes stated that the cost of participating in ERIC has outweighed its benefit. Additionally, the Texas GOP passed a resolution earlier this year supporting Hughes's bill and calling for the state to stop participating in that. Eric also saying that the fact that the

organization doesn't look at data pertaining to someone's legal status shows that the data is incomplete. Now, the decision for Texas to leave wasn't embraced by everybody. In fact, there is some opposition, obviously, on the Democratic side, but also within some Republican circles. Tell us who was among those opposed leaving Eric. A really good example of one of the people kind of leading the charge against leaving Eric is state representative Mihaela Plisa. I hope I pronounced that correctly. A Dallas area Democrat who earlier this session managed to call two points of order on Hughes's legislation stalling its passage. And she has since reiterated her opposition to leaving the state database, saying doing so undermines the state's ability to ensure our elections are secure. Now, according to Plesa, voter fraud's a very rareiers, mainly supporters of, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Now, according to one election integrity watchdog, many of those states withdrew, citing concerns of partisanship from the leaders of ERIC, as well as the organization's refusal to consider reforms, I say, would aid in improving public transparency measures. Yeah, and now, you know, just leaving ERIC is only the first step. The state will, I'm sure, have to develop its own, whether they pull together with other states that have done this or go out on its own and create its own database. But that itself will probably be a lift, but we'll see how that develops. Thank you, Matt. Hayden, back to you. The Dallas Morning News obtained text messages that show a Republican state lawmaker was irritated by Ken Paxton's

request to fund his settlement. Tell us about this fascinating text exchange. The Dallas Morning News submitted public records requests to the Office of the Attorney General Tell us about this fascinating text exchange. beyond that really display a heated exchange over the settlement request that Paxton submitted for a $3.3 million payment for his lawsuit that he was attempting to settle with former employees who said they were fired wrongfully after reporting their suspicions of misconduct to federal authorities in good faith. Leach was frustrated that Paxton did not include him in the discussion earlier, and he seemed to be very hesitant about this funding, and not just hesitant, but he said that the legislature should not pay for this. Leach said in this text exchange, quote, no legislators knew about this

and Ken should have called me, period. Michelle Smith replied, but Jeff, before trashing him in the media, shouldn't you call him? Leach replied, I didn't trash him. I told the media exactly what I told him. Legislators have questions and we want answers. If we get the satisfactory answers, then all will be fine, end quote. That's just a portion of these text exchanges. Smith, notably in this exchange at one point, said that it was not Christian for Leach to criticize Paxton publicly unless he went to him in private first in an apparent reference to the conflict resolution described in the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible. And Leach did not take well to this criticism. He responded negatively to that. All of those texts are linked in our article, and we quoted some of them for people to read. They're really interesting and

show just how frustrated Leach, at least Leach and probably other Republicans were with this request. Yeah. And he said as much, there were other Republicans that were just as mad as he was and especially more conservative ones as well. So what does all of this coming out say about the impeachment? Well, it at least shows Leach's state of mind. But as you just alluded to, he said in the text exchange that other Republicans were also frustrated with this. For those who are a little bit new to Texas politics, Leach is a particularly hands-on lawmaker. He likes to be involved in most of the policy discussions that are going on. So it's not entirely unusual for Leach to be very vocal about an issue.

There are other lawmakers who are usually comfortable functioning in the background. Leach generally likes to be out front in many of these discussions. So it wasn't a surprise to me that the text messages involved Leach, but it shows his state of mind and how Paxton ostensibly blindsided them with this request and how they ultimately said, we're not paying for this. And it spurred this investigation that leaded with his impeachment. And it was ill-fated from the beginning. Speaker Dave Phelan said that the legislature, that it was Paxton's responsibility to convince them to do this and that Phelan did not believe it was a proper use of taxpayer funds and uh forgive me if you mentioned this already but these text messages were obtained through a

public information request by the dallas morning news and uh just shows a lot of discord going on which we all know is happening but now you can peel back some of the layers and actually see it holly coming to you this year hou Houston residents will select a new mayor to replace term-limited Sylvester Turner, and there's a new poll out this week, and it's pretty interesting. Tell us about the results. Sure. This is going to be a crowded field. There are 14 declared candidates, although the filing period is not closed and will not close until August 21st. The poll was conducted by the University of Houston's Hobby School and co-directed by political analyst Mark Jones, very well known, renowned in the state of Texas. And clearly it shows the two front runners are Democrat state

Senator John Whitmire from Houston and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Whitmire and Jackson Lee are kind of neck and neck here. So you have Whitmire coming in at about 34%. Jackson Lee took 32%. But you still had 22% saying they were undecided about the race. So it looks like there's still some room for movement there. Of the other 12 candidates, they came in at 3% or less, some with just half of a percent. Jackson Lee seems to have higher name recognition, but along with that higher name recognition comes higher unfavorables. A full 48%, almost half, said they had an unfavorable view of the congresswoman. Another 44% said they would never vote for her compared to only 13% who said they would never vote for John Whitmire. John Whitmire is a Democrat, of course, but in Houston, he looks

like he's taking about 88% of those who said they were Republicans, about 60% of independent voters. And Sheila Jackson Lee takes most of the Democrats, but just 55%. So it looks like Whitmire is grabbing most of the Republicans, most of the independents, and maybe enough of the Democrat vote to put him over the top there. And I think it's probably safe to say that Whitmire, at least in relation to Jackson Lee, is slightly more moderate, if not significantly so. So that would seem to indicate why that shift in favorability among Republicans is happening. If no candidate takes more than 50%, there will be a runoff in December. Did the poll put out by the hobby school consider the runoff matchups? Yes, it certainly did. And this is where

I think you see Sheila Jackson Lee's unfavorables really come to play because in a runoff scenario between Whitmire and Jackson Lee, Whitmire takes 55% to her 33%, with the rest left undecided. Interestingly enough, Sheila Jackson Lee also loses in runoff scenarios with four other lesser-known candidates. They didn't poll on all of the 12 candidates, but those lesser known four, beat her not by much, but looks like those unfavorables may sink the Congresswoman in this particular race. Now, she is very popular amongst her constituents. She's been handily reelected to Congress every year since she first was elected, I think in 1995. And she's very good at making herself appear at many different

events and is certainly well known in the city. But it's not always a very positive response to her. And she does have some baggage there that may drag her down in this race. Well, it's very clearly at this point, a two-horse race between those two. And it'll be very interesting to see how this plays out and who gets to be mayor for the next, what is it, four-year term? Yes, four-year term. And to note, largest city in the state of Texas, fourth largest city in the nation. So what happens in Houston is pretty important to the state of Texas and the rest of the country. And that is why the eyes of Texas politics are firmly on this race and will be for the rest of the year. Thank you, Holly. Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying our podcast, subscribe to The

Texan right now while you're listening. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of Everyday Texxans to keep doing our jobs when you subscribe you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published so that you can stay informed up to speed and ready to vote at the ballot box a subscription is nine dollars monthly but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for ninety dollars which comes out to just 750 per month new subscribers will get a free texas slag hat with all sorts of color options to choose from for more details visit the texan.news slash subscribe or click the url in the description of this podcast and now for the awkward transition to myself for a section on friday you're so awkward

i know my word you know secretly i've been waiting for that reveling in the prospect of an awkward transition to myself and here we are on friday a tarrant county woman filed a lawsuit against her former doctors on numerous grounds related to their encouragement and executed gender modification treatments and procedures conducted on her soren el daco sued five physicians Del Scott Perry Sreenath Nekalapu Barbara Wood Robert Santucci and Ashley DeLeon who facilitated the gender transition procedures and they culminated in a double mastectomy at age 15 Aldaco was admitted to the Fort Worth psychiatric hospital after a mental breakdown in following visits she was allegedly pressed to state she identified as a male. In 2020 Perry a nurse practitioner began prescribing her hormone blockers and later she underwent the double

mastectomy at Austin's Crane Clinic. Complications arose from the botched surgery, which included large bruising caused by the pooling of her blood under the skin on both sides of her chest. There's more graphic detail in the story that I'm not going to say on here, but it was horrible, the complications she had, she suffered from. But ultimately, she needed an emergency surgery to fix those issues. After the surgery, she asked Crane Clinic to pay for the about $400-ish emergency care, and the clinic's CEO agreed to pay for it only after requiring her to sign an NDA. The story is pretty wild. We'll go into a lot more detail on the allegations and the timeline in the piece.

I recommend you read that. And also the court filing is there. That goes into even more detail. But Aldaco ultimately is seeking at least $1 million in damages from the defendants. I called one of the people on Friday night when this broke. One of the, I think it was Barbara Wood, who was her therapist, and she had not yet heard of it, of the lawsuit. So this is coming as a surprise to the defendants, but this is something to watch. And Cameron will probably be, since this is his

beat, will probably be following this for the remainder of its course but just a shocking shocking set of details in here and it's it got national attention brad can you remind me the to emphasize the time frame of this she was 15 when this all started do we know how old she was when the procedure took place the mastectomy um i believe she was 15 in 2017 so or 2018 and then the procedure took place in 2021 so she was put on over years yeah she was put on hormone blockers in 2020 and then a year later the double mastectomy was uh was conducted and she is you know alleging that they basically goaded her into this. They took advantage of an adolescent who had body image problems and mental health issues.

And now she's suffering from the consequences. So read more of the Texan. It's definitely going to be a case that we'll get to grab the headlines for maybe years to come. Matt, over to you. A lawsuit filed on behalf of victims of the Robb Elementary mass shooting in Uvalde against the gun manufacturer that made the gun used by the murderer is not advancing in the court system. And that is because lawyers handling the case are in trouble over how they have handled it so far.

What are the details? That's right, Brad. The attorneys for the victims filed a civil lawsuit against gunmaker Daniel Defense, and damages over how the gunman gun maker marketed the type of firearms that were ultimately used by the mass murder. They also named the gun store that sold the gun to the killer Oasis Outback, a gun store there in Uvalde, citing witnesses who saw the gunman buy the rifle that was used and described how he was acting suspicious at the time. They say that the gun store should have exercised their ability to deny the sale, but instead chose to go through with it simply for the profit. The case was originally filed in the Western Division, or the Austin Division,

of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas, but a federal judge in that division transferred it to the Del Rio Division, causing the lawyers to need to serve the defendant's notice of the lawsuit again. Now, this simple task seems to be where the lawsuit has hit a strange roadblock and just sort of fallen apart, with the attorneys failing time and time again to serve the defendants. The new judge in the case set a hearing for why the attorneys failed to serve the defendants after being instructed, and they failed to show up for the hearing. Now the judge has issued an order mandating that the attorneys appear for a hearing on October 1st,

where they will not only face, I'm sorry, August 1st, where they will not only face sanctions for failing to follow instructions, but now they're facing potential criminal contempt charges for failing to appear in court. For now, the lawsuit is not advancing while the attorney's fate is decided by the judge, and overall, it's not looking very good for the future of the plaintiff's case. We'll keep an eye on it as any more new developments occur. Okay, thanks, Matt. Holly, over to you. A top official terminated from Harris County's government has sent a second demand letter to the county. And on emerging, Lena Hidalgo voiced support for a termination of a county employee, although she did not name the head of universal

services, which manages a lot of things for the county, including technology. But the head was Rick Noriega, a former state rep. We knew instantly he was the employee in question due to some leaked documents. Unfortunately, Hidalgo did not stop there and gave a kind of monologue decrying the good old boy's way of doing things and jokes and comments demeaning to women, and she said she herself had been groped in that very meeting room. Noriega, after his termination, hired renowned Houston attorney Rusty Hardin, who is also one of the attorneys prosecuting Ken Paxton in the impeachment. But Hardin sent a demand letter to the county and Lena Hidalgo, that was obtained also by the Texan, demanding Hidalgo retract her comments and

apologize. And she was supposed to have done this by the last commissioner's court meeting in the month of June, which did not happen. Harden also claimed that some of the circumstances were different than what was portrayed. He says that although Noriega was accused of refusing to attend sexual harassment training, he did attend the training in March of last year and then attempted to take another training. Although he was protesting the complaint itself, he tried to take a training the day before they terminated him. But he said he was locked out of the system and not able to access this online training that he helped create. He also filed a counter complaint saying that the woman who accused him filed a false and misleading complaint. He says that the woman's husband worked for him in universal services and had been disciplined. And so he suggested that that complaint was a retaliation.

They also note that the whole complaint stems from Noriega allegedly leaning over and hugging and kissing this woman on his way to or from the commissioner's court meeting. There is video of this incident, and they say it does not rise to the level of sexual harassment. What new demands did Noriega make in this letter? So in this new letter, also obtained by the Texan, it was sent by Hardin to the county and Hidalgo last week, and it accuses them of not taking the matter seriously. The communication is to a private attorney hired by the county, says that that attorney has not communicated in at least three weeks. And it adds a financial component. Instead of just an apology and a retraction of comments,

Noriega is now seeking back pay, damages, legal fees, and either reinstatement to his previous position or one year's future pay. So this is going to come to a minimum total of $685,000. He also accuses the county of violating the Texas Whistleblower Act since he did file a counter complaint against the woman who accused him of sexual harassment. Now, on the day he was terminated, the county attorney's office sent a letter saying they had investigated Noriega's counter complaint, found it to be unsubstantiated, and therefore dismissed it. Has there been any further explanation from Hidalgo on her allegation that she had been groped at the commissioner's court?

Yeah, this is very curious. There has not been any follow-up and no new statements from the county judge's office. The county did post a video of that particular meeting. And additionally, excuse me, initially, the video that was posted was altered to exclude those comments. We did question the county about this. We got an odd explanation from Hidalgo's legal counsel, a woman by the name of Catherine Case. She claimed that when the comments were made, there was no quorum, and so they were not really in session. But others had taken video of the incident. And clearly, all five members of Commissioner's Court were seated at the dais.

And they were back in session when she made these comments. These videos are considered public record under state law, and they may not be altered that way. We continued to press. And ultimately, the county did repost the video with the full comments and basically blamed a third-party vendor for the editing that took place initially. All right. Thank you, Collie. Collie. Holly. Wow.

Who's Collie? You have a new name. Thank you. All right. Well, after that, screw up. I'm going to transition to myself again. So there is a shocking situation unfolding in Limestone County right now. Appraisals on old, run-down homes are increasing substantially, sometimes doubling in value because of a software glitch, at least primarily because of a software glitch. The issue has led to a canceled contract and the resignation of the appraisal district's chief appraiser.

After appraisal notices went out earlier this year showing alarming increases, especially in homesteads, citizens began asking questions. It turns out that the software the county appraisal district was using was not accounting for the condition of the structures when identifying values. Also, previous CAD employees had been artificially messing with the appraisal values to have them match sale prices, and it caused the district to go haywire. One house in Mejia, which in our story you can see it's the header photo, it's literally falling apart, saw its value increase 72 percent from last year after evidence began mounting about you know this issue rather than have western valuation the company that had been contracted to assist with the appraising fix the issue the limestone county appraisal district canceled the contract immediately leaving them up creek without a paddle to try and turn this around. On top of all this,

the property rented by the Limestone County Appraisal District in Grosbeck did not increase at all in value, while some properties around it jumped substantially. I have a map in there showing the different plots of land and their change in valuation. It's pretty striking. Additionally, the appraisal district apparently lost all evidence that they are required to provide when a taxpayer is protesting their value. This just doesn't exist for this year. And there's been no answer, there was no response to our questions from LCAD about any of these issues. And they seem kind of headless at the moment.

There's no chief appraiser there to run things and things really are a mess and going haywire. However, the Limestone County judge said on Wednesday in an update appraiser there to run things and things really are a mess and going haywire so uh however the limestone county judge said on wednesday an update that the cad is adjusting everyone's property value a process that could take some time and may not leave everyone with um what they deem a sufficient value but they are working towards fixing or reducing these outrageously increased property valuations cameron now over to you a new high school football stadium in houston is expected to threaten a fourth generation texans home

tell us how we got here yeah ald, Aldine Independent School District approved the $50 million construction project for a new high school football stadium back in June 2022. But the construction plans included a new parking lot that would encompass a fourth-generation Aldine residence home, and they have been fighting the plans for the expansion. We reached out to the school to ask why they planned on invoking eminent domain. They sent us a pre-written statement, which they said the family rejected an initial request to sell the property before the school district invoked the eminent domain process. And where do things stand now? Well, the groundbreaking for the new stadium began in January, and it's slated to open in August of next year.

But the family said they're still hopeful that they can push back and negotiate against the construction plans on their property. And I think it's notable that the home in question here would be a part of the parking lot that is part of the larger construction plants. Yes. So thank you, Cameron. You're welcome. Great coverage.

Thanks. All right. Now I guess we'll go to Tweeter. We're going to go with Hayden first. What you got? There's a video on Twitter that has been shared many times of Mitch McConnell, a senator out of Kentucky, at a news conference with the Republican caucus, freezing up in the middle of the news conference and trailing off mid-sentence and standing there staring blankly over everyone's heads.

And after he stands there for a few minutes, Senator Barrasso, who was a doctor before he was elected to the Senate, finally asks him if he has anything else to say to the media, and McConnell shakes his head no and steps off to the side and appears to grab a banister to steady himself. Reportedly, he later came back to this news conference and resumed answering questions and people, a few reporters asked him if he was okay and if he was able to do his job. And he said, yes, Senator McConnell is 81 years old. Earlier this year, he suffered a fall and a concussion. His health is in question for that reason. He's not the only senator who has faced questions about his health. Senator Feinstein, I believe, is in her 90s now and has

had many health problems. She has not resigned her position as California's senior U.S. senator. And we talked about this in the office this week. Congress historically has been, the age demographic has been older, but it is getting even more older than typical. I don't want to spit out a number, but we were talking about how many members of Congress are above the age of 70. This is another example of a very powerful U.S. Senator having his health called into question.

And I think everyone is thinking about what could happen if Senator McConnell is no longer able to do his job as leader of the Senate Republican caucus. I think it's fortunate for him, though, that Senator Barrasso, who is a physician, was standing right next to him and was able to offer his assistance in that moment. And, you know, we see this in the context of all the, not exactly the same, but similar situations we've seen President Biden in, you know, blanking on things or just saying words that really don't make any sense in the moment. So this is, you know, this is a trend, especially in the nation's capital.

And I'm not sure if it's going to cause retirements but you know this people are watching this and it's the pattern that matters if this happens to mcconnell again that would probably be way more important because when in front of a camera everyone can freeze up or lock up. I think what the, the here, the alarming part was that once he froze, he just stood there. He didn't step away from the podium because people draw blanks. People lose their trains of thought,

but here it seems when you're looking at the video for a split second, it looks like his eyes are rolling back in his head, but then he just stops and stares over everyone's heads. And it's looking at him. It seems the lights are on and no one's home. Yeah. And that's what seems strange about this incident. Yeah.

We have a cinematic idea of what a seizure looks like. People convulsing, falling on the floor, things like that. But in reality, it looks a lot like what we saw with McConnell. You think so? And so it'll be interesting to see what happens, though, because like you were saying, there's a lot of really old people. I think, too, there's been a lot of concerns about California Senator Dianne Feinstein, too, who's been very ill. And the concern is that her staff is essentially making

the decisions that normally she would have made. I know there's a couple of older members of the Texas delegation, too, that there's been some behind the scenes concern about their health and whether or not they're able to continue to do that job. But they keep running for reelection and getting elected. I think McConnell's next election is 2026, if I recall correctly. So he still has this is he's pretty early in this term that he's currently on. And he may not be able to finish it if this concussion, if the concussion and his age are what caused the problem here, he may not be able to finish, may not be able to finish his term. I did learn something interesting about U.S. Senate vacancies in Kentucky, though.

Which is? If you were to resign, according to Kentucky law, if a vacancy is caused, then the executive committee of the state political party belonging to whoever's vacancy is being filled. So in this case, the Republicans would have to submit a list of three people to the governor to choose from to appoint to fill the vacancy. Now, the governor of Kentucky is presently a Democrat. So the kind of reason that I looked at that was I was thinking, well, if McConnell resigns, would that seat flip blue? And if this Kentucky law controls, then no, Republicans would retain the seat. Now, I don't recall reading about states being able to do this under that constitutional appointments provision. And with the balance of power being so close, if there's any kind of question there i could i could definitely see democrats litigating over that statute but i thought it was an interesting fun fact yeah and one more thing on this is mcconnell is the

minority leader and he has eyes for being the majority leader again uh if republicans can retake the senate next year so he definitely doesn't want to retire. Whether he will or not, that's an entirely different question. All right, Cameron, what did you find on Twitter this week? Well, sorry. On X.

On X. Is that how I pronounce this? Xing? Or I heard someone say a good way to say it would be X-pressing. Oh. What did you see someone express this week? Well, I saw.

This is so dystopian. I saw some Texas history tweeted out this week that it was the 160th anniversary of Sam Houston's death on the 26th. And obviously everyone knows the history of Sam Houston. I just thought it was really interesting because their 160th anniversary and with a lot of things going on here in the state, just always good to remember the history. Yeah, that's why we at The Texan like to write about Texas history. Did we put something out about that?

I don't think we did, no. But we've written on Sam Houston before. I know I have. So it's somewhere in the... It's somewhere on the site. Everyone should check it out. It was great. Check out our Texas History section.

It's got a lot of good stuff. Holly, what did you see? Well, speaking of the namesake city for Sam Houston, the thing that caught my eye is an expression, if you will, we used to call it a tweet. Houston ISD Watch is a group that often puts out information about what's going on in that school district, which as we reported earlier this year, the state went ahead and triggered that intervention. They've appointed a new superintendent and a new board

of managers to control the district. And ever since then, and even prior to that point, the mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, has been very critical of that decision. He's criticized everything the new superintendent, Mike Miles, has done to try to shake things up and change up the way they're handling the school district. The latest public feud is over Miles' plan to not use some of the school libraries in their traditional capacity, but use them for centers for kind of focused learning, students who are not able to behave or are having discipline problems in the classroom. Instead of just putting them in a kind of a timeout space, they're going to put them in small learning groups in these libraries and change the purpose of those libraries. So the big headlines have been, well, you know, they're closing the libraries at these schools and how

is that going to help? To note, this is just at some select schools that Mike Miles is targeting. These schools have been low performing for a year. Some of them have not met minimum academic achievement standards since 2011. At some of these schools, you have third graders, excuse me, on the standardized testing every year, fewer than 30% of the third graders there are able to read on grade level, sometimes as little as 19 percent at some of these schools. So in response to Mayor Turner's criticism, Mike Miles sent a letter to Turner explaining what he's doing and inviting Turner to come and observe and partake in what's happening on these campuses. The only place I've seen that shared is at Houston ISD Watch

on the Twitter now ex-social media site. Interesting. Very interesting. Always spats playing out on Twitter. It just seems born and bred for that. It's interesting how our news cycle has shifted somewhat, right? Sometimes you write an entire news article based on a Twitter spat or an express spat or whatever we're going to call it today. Well, you know, it can affect actual real life stuff. So it's occasionally not just, you know, yelling at each other through your fingertips.

So, Matt, what you got got i got all kinds of stuff i can have one thing okay well then i'm gonna choose aliens all right what about aliens uh so there was a uh congressional oversight hearing this week in Washington where this very serious guy who worked in some high capacity in the federal government testified about the government's possession of unidentified flying objects and the fact that some were recovered

containing uh non-human biologicals anyway cracking up tell me matt why do you think the playing out of Independence Day is funny. The playing out of Independence Day? In real life. I think it's been hilarious, the reactions. Some people have been like, oh my god, we just had confirmation that there's aliens. And then some people are just kind of like, yeah, there's aliens.

We've known that. Of course there's aliens. And then other people are just like ignoring it altogether because it's just kind of mind boggling that this occurred and it's not like April Fool's Day or anything like this. Like just the nature of the conversation, like there's this one video of Representative, I think, Mace, interviewing this guy, cross-examining, whatever you want to call it.

And just the nature of the conversation is like something right out of a movie. And she starts asking him, well, can you give us details about these non-human biologicals? And he's like, well, you know, the more intense details I'd have to provide you in a SCIF, which is a secure location for sharing classified information within the Capitol. And just like everything about it is just like straight out of a movie, but it's like at no point was there like a, ha-ha, this was a gag or anything. It was all serious.

Matt, if we're allowed to speculate, we know that there are secret tests of aerial drones, low-Earth missions, whatever it is. And they don't send humans initially on these tests. They could have sent a cat or a dog or a chip. Which would be a non-human biological. Which would have been a non-human biological. But the headlines, you know, they fill up with non-human biological, which means alien, but we don't know what it is.

You know, they could have easily, like if there was any question about the source of what this crash thing was or what the thing inside it flying at or writing in it was, you know, they could have easily done a DNA test and said, Oh yeah, this is chicken fried dog. Um, you know, uh, and would you ever chicken fried dog? Chicken fried dog. What is happening here?

Talking about a crash site for UFOs. All right. Well, I should correct myself. Nancy Mace is from South Carolina, not Virginia. But that was just a riveting discussion. Thank you, Matt. I will leave us with this. Governor Greg Abbott signed the property tax bill this week.

And so that is done and dusted. We'll be on the ballot in November. And provided that passes, everything we've talked about leading up to this, I'm not going to rehash it, will become effective. And people will see a reduction compared to what their bills would be on this year's tax bills. So that is the latest development on property taxes and almost the final development at least for this chapter.

So with that thank you everybody for listening to us and I know Matt really enjoyed discussing aliens on this podcast. And for the record I'm not saying there's aliens, but, you know. For the record. You watch too much History Channel.

So there we go. Thank you, everybody. 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 an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you.

So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.