The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 3, 2026

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

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 check out our articles at https://thetexan.news/ and leave us a review!Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

I'm sure that steak and shake has got to have something good. They've been really leaning on a lot of that stuff. They've got a horrible deal where you can get a burger fries and a drink for 1776, and they're racking about that. I think that's a little bit high. That's got to be like I expect gold foil on my burger instead of cheap. A wagoo burger or something. Yeah, if I'm rounding up to $18 for burger fries and a shake.

Well, howdy, folks. Welcome back to the latest episode of the Texans' Weekly Roundup podcast. I'm your host, senior editor Rob Lauchess, and joining me today are reporters Mary Elise Obar, reporter Meredith Dyer, and reporter Hannah Brewer. How's everybody doing this morning? Doing well. Getting ready for Fourth of July. Are you all feeling about it?

Pretty excited. Going back home, visiting family for the weekend, so there's nothing better than that. Oh, wait, Rob, where is home for you? Houston. Nice. Right, right, right. Yeah, so I decided that in the middle of summer, what I wanted to do was head into the swampiest, most humid city in the state. Because Meredith and Mary Elise just had such a great time at the GOP convention that I decided I wanted to.

I needed to get in on that. Yeah. Make a mouth to a flame. Absolutely. I noticed that three of us have all lived in Houston. some point Hannah you haven't lived in Houston have you? No, and I think my lucky stars. That's fair.

There's a lot to do in Houston once you get through the traffic. But once you're like as you know, moving from building to building is great, but being outside of the building is not so great. So Austin definitely has Houston beat for natural beauty. I will say that much for Austin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm pretty pumped about July 4th. I think it's kind of fun that a lot of the towns are doing their celebrations on July 3rd. So in that way, it kind of makes it more of like a holiday weekend instead of just July 4th being on one day, which seems fitting. What is it called the, is this a semi-quincentennial? Is that how you say it, anniversary? I think it's. I believe it is because it's the half of 500 years. So semi-quincentennial.

Okay. So, I think 250th is a lot better personally. Yeah. I don't think we need to use the Latin name for it. I think that the good old English 250th works just fine. Yeah, good 250. My mom the other day got out like a quilt. She'd made when I was young that was Fourth of July themed.

And she was like, I made all these pieces for the bicentennial when I was younger. And then I like put them together and she had like imported all this stuff. And I was hearing someone talk about how people celebrated. bicentennial like crazy like it just took over and it was very like a unified thing because there was no you know social media or I don't know there like there wasn't many things to do that was like the thing to do they were all very excited and a lot more patriotic I think back then but I haven't been the 70s was also kind of a rough time right so it really felt I imagine for a lot of people like coming together so well the person was making that point that it was very divided because people say we're the most divided now

but they were like, they were pretty divided back then, if you remember what happened with Vietnam and different things. And so they were just talking about how nice, how great it was. And so I really have really enjoyed America Corps, like, reels. They are just, and living in Texas for this time of the year is very, very interesting and nice, not being on the West Coast. Like, watching people ride horses with flags has become something I just really like to see. Well, speaking of, who was watching the USA game as we're recording this on Thursday,

that the USA versus Bosnia and Herzegovina game on Wednesday night. That was good. Even though they took away two of our goals from some made-up rule. That's pretty epic. We beat two countries in one night, Bosnia and Herzegovina. How can you beat that? I had to look at so many details about what Bosnia and Herzegovina are afterwards. Well, a geography lesson.

We're all learning about this world. That's true. This is finally how the rest of the world. world's going to teach Americans geography is by seeing, you know, oh, you beat this team. So learn something about them. Right. That's good for us. I think we're definitely going to win the soccer bowl, without a doubt.

And the rest of the world will have to call it soccer for four years. I saw there was a news reporter that had to issue this formal apology about, I think personally, I think she was just getting into the fun of it. But she kind of cracked a joke about being, about saying, or even. is Bosnia on the map. Nobody here knows. So then people were making fun of her saying, oh, classic American, doesn't know geography. But then she issued a formal apology saying this was insensitive, et cetera. But I thought it was kind of fun.

You know, she was being patriotic American, and she let that shine through on her TV spot. But she did have to formally apologize. I mean, you know, you should know it's in Europe, or at least in southern Europe. But, I mean, the Balkans are already such a, strange, all these tiny little countries, and they all hate each other. And most of us have no, most, unfortunately, many Americans couldn't even place the Balkans itself on a map.

But, I mean, it's asking a little bit of a lot to tell people to like, oh, no, where all those specific countries are in relation to each other when they're all like that big. Also, a lot of them have had the, in the last, or 20, 30 years, whatever, have had lots of different wars that have changed some of the names and the boundaries of them. Like, true. I lived in Bulgaria when I was little for a year and there was a war going on. And that's where I'm forgetting. I want to say, I'm going to look up where it was. It was like an adjacent country where they were having a civil war type situation. So their maps constantly changing. So you might have known where it was before. It might have changed the whole of years. Well, Fourth of July definitely looks like it's going to be exciting.

But we've had some other pretty exciting news that actually broke today as we were recording this podcast. when it was first reported by the Texas bullpen that acting comptroller Kelly Hancock would be resigning from office. I believe that was on Wednesday when that news broke. And then today, news broke from the Texas scorecard that we would be getting a new acting comptroller very soon. Meredith, give us the details on that. So Hancock has been in this position for about a year. And it happened after former comptroller Glenn Hager departed to. become the new chancellor of Texas A&M University System.

And we've reported on this, so I won't give all the details, but Hancock steps down as state senator to avoid this constitutional state constitutional issue of a sitting senator being appointed to a state position. So, no, he steps down and then he becomes an employee and then he becomes appointed. And one of the biggest things, and he highlights this in his resignation letter that he was overseeing is that the TIFA program, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts. And so since he started and then it was all of the legislation was passed, he went right into the rollout and oversaw all of that. And so it was just interesting timing. He, the way he words

his letter seems as it's kind of like, okay, things are going smoothly with this. The students and the families as of July 1st have actual money in their accounts and that part of the rollout has started. And so yeah, he kind of was just saying, okay, things are going well with this. I was, when I was called in to oversee it, we knew that this timeline would have, he said, demand urgency and precision. He says it's running smoothly now for initiative of this size. And then he goes on to talk about how Huffines is going to do a good, we'll do well. And as Huffines won the March primary and is favored to be the next comptroller to win. win that race. And we were able to speak to Huffines at the GOB convention and ask him a little bit about

the TIFA program. Like I said, that's not the only thing the comptroller does, but because of the rollout and it's the first year of the program, it's a billion dollar program that has been years in the making. So it is a big deal and it was for the Comptroller's office. Huffine talks about how he really wants to see a little bit more marketing in the in the TIFA program and just make sure that every like government school and government student, he said, knows, like signs off on the fact that they know that this is available to them. And so, um, right after Hancock announces that he's resigning, um, Governor Abbott appoints Huffines for the remainder of his term. And then obviously, if he wins in November, he'll just go right into January with that. So he will get a little

head start in the role. That was one thing. We asked him a couple of questions about things he wants to do. And he's had, I've jokingly talked about how he's had this answer of like, well, I'm not in office yet or I don't know yet. And now he's, you know, starting, I believe at the end of the month, he's going to be, he will be the acting comptroller. And so he will get to dive right into the things he says he wants to do. He talks about doging everything and everything, right? Mary Lease, he was like joking around us about like nobody's off limits. I'm just, you know, so he's, it's kind of, it's kind of, like, an interesting situation for someone who is favored to win that you get like a solid lead into like before you thought you would.

You get lots more time to get started and look at things and get used to the position before you win your election. So that all happened the last couple of days. It's pretty interesting as well because Don Huffines and Greg Abbott actually ran against each other in 2022. Abbott, of course, running for reelection as governor and Huffins was challenging him in the GOP primary, which of course Abbott won. And then Abbott also supported Kelly Hancock in his primary for Comptroller this year, which Huffeins won this time.

So it's interesting seeing how people can kind of come back. You know, strange bedfellows can sometimes exist in politics, right? Between Abbott and Huffines running this very strong primary against each other and now Abbott appointing him to fill a statewide seat. So always interesting of that kind of things happens. I'm sure that there will be many more developments in this story before too long. And now, if I recall correctly, Meredith, what day did Hancock say that he was going to be resigning? Yeah, he'll be done in July 31st at the end of the month and then Huffeins will take over. I did ask Huffines about that, about his relationship with Abbott because the Trump endorsed, he got a Trump endorsement.

He didn't get an abid endorsement. He won. And obviously, you get the typical, like everyone's going to work. together. I'm obviously, we're at this unity convention as well. So it was like, you know, there's going to be no issues with that moving forward. I respect habit and respect everything. So you can, if you want to take a listen to that interview, we have that. But yeah. Absolutely. It was a really good interview. And yeah, thank you for covering that issue for us, Meredith, turning next to you, Mary Elise, from news from earlier this week. We had a lot of stuff

come from the U.S. Supreme Court. There was all kinds of interesting cases and decisions that they dropped. But one big one that happened in the rulings that were handed down by SCOTUS this week was on girls' sports. Now, tell us what the justices decided. Yeah, like you said, we saw several different rulings come down from the United States Supreme Court over some pretty different, pretty controversial issues that we covered. But this one specifically was ruling on whether states can prohibit biological males from competing in women's sports in public schools. And the court did rule unanimously that states can prevent biological males from competing in women's sports in public schools with no risk to their Title IX funding. Although we did see three justices partially dissent there. And they argued that there's some unresolved questions surrounding the transgender male to female person's athletic advantages over biological women.

They said, you know, science hasn't resolved this yet over. the athletic advantage. They said the constitutionality, which was the other aspect of this ruling of the laws should not have been determined. So they dissented there, partially dissented, which is kind of an interesting aspect of this ruling that was a little bit unique here. So they said, you know, they were unanimous on the Title IX funding. States can prohibit these biological males from competing, but then said, you know, as far as the constitutionality goes, we're not all on the same board here. The ruling was addressing two cases that they kind of consolidated that were essentially posing a question of, and I'll quote

it here, whether under Title IX in the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, schools may maintain women's and girls sports teams for biological females, i.e., may schools determine eligibility for female sports based on biological sex? So that was the fundamental question posed here by these cases. And of course, Title IX is something that was passed. It was passed in the 70s to prohibit sex discrimination education programs and activities like public school sports that get federal funding. And so both of these cases were actually brought forward by biological males who are looking to compete in two different states on girls sports teams. But the state legislation there was preventing them from being able

to participate in the female athletic competitions. And so that's where these cases kind of arose from and questioning whether, you know, does the state have the authority to prevent a biological male from competing these female athletic events? And will this affect their Title IX funding? But the court, of course, like we said, found that states may do that. And this was, and the majority opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And so he wrote that, you know, Title IX does indeed to allow schools to separate this, the biological males from the females and prevent them from performing in these athletic competitions, participating in them. This was kind of an interesting opportunity that Texas Republicans took in a sense to kind

of brag on their initiative in this area and how they've passed legislation addressing this. This is something that they have already kind of taken to the legislature. legislature. And in 2023, Governor Greg Abbott signed into law the Save Women's Sports Act, which similar legislation, one of them, I believe, had the exact same title, but in these different states were actually what sparked these cases bringing brought to the court because those were the very similar laws in other states that were preventing these biological males from participating in these athletic competitions. But this was Texas's Save Women's Sports Act that was passed signed into law in 2023 and it required college students in Texas to compete and an intercollegiate

athletics according to their biological sex and that really sparked I wasn't around at the time but I remember hearing from reporter Cameron Abrams and some other reporters that that sparked some of the most intense debate response from folks that were sitting up in the gallery you know whether it was during the committee hearings there was the intense debate and then when it was being passed in either chamber. It was a pretty intense controversial topic. One aspect, one story that had kind of sparked this legislation in Texas in the first place, kind of this incident, was surrounding the case of Leah Thomas and Riley Gaines, which is pretty well known in the local world.

Leah Thomas is a biological male in a former university of Pennsylvania Swimmer, and he won the 2022 NCAA Women's 500 Freestyle, and then Riley Gaines is an individual. She's a female swimmer who tied for fifth against Thomas that year in the 200. That was a 200 freestyle race. And she was one of the biggest supporters of this legislation in Texas at the time, kind of saying that this is the appropriate way to address this issue and talking a lot about her experience competing against Leah Thomas

and how she felt that was unfair. Abbott, of course, celebrated this decision from the Supreme Court. Abbott said, you know, this is a huge win and several other elected officials, which we include in the peace also to celebrate. It said the huge win and then kind of bragged on Texas. Republicans taking the initiative here. So just one of the significant cases that came down this week from the Supreme Court that has a Texas tie there. Well, thank you very much, Mary Elise.

Meredith, this was not the only big, U.S. Supreme Court ruling that we had this week. The Supreme Court also made news for upholding birthright citizenship. How did Texas lawmakers react to that? Yeah, so busy Supreme Court week, I posted something about those poor interns having to run all those decisions back and forth. So yeah, they got their, they had their work cut out for them. So the Supreme Court ruled six to three to uphold what is considered birthright citizenship, which essentially struck down. down Trump's January 2025 executive order about limiting citizenship to children of illegal immigrants and what they call anchor babies. So the case is, was brought by the ACLU on behalf of

a Honduran national and New Hampshire District Court cited with the ACLU in July and then Trump appealed to the Supreme Court in September. Interesting fun fact. He is the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court oral arguments in person, which is just such a I just find that very interesting and very on par with his personality, like he's going to show up, but he wants his thing to pass. And it did not. So the executive order, though, just a little bit of background on that, it just discussed and called citizenship a priceless and profound gift and talked about the 14th Amendment, just framing it as this rejection of the Dred Scott case, which had declared enslaved and free black people to not be citizens, just saying that like the amendment. has never, like never been interpreted, this is a quote from, had never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born in the United States. So that was the executive order that was being, that was struck down. The majority opinion issued by Roberts was joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, Jackson,

and Kavanaugh. Just this idea of citizenship, they said, is the right to have rights and extended to every freeborn person in this land. Kavanaugh wrote a separate dissent showing that he agreed that the order can't be enforced, but it was on statutory reasoning and not on constitutionality. He talked about another law that he said mirrors the 14th Amendment language. And so he was technically agreeing that it can't be enforced, but for different reasons, not on the constitutionality.

People on the right were just expressed a lot of disappointment, Kavanaugh and Barrett taking this. stance online. There was a lot of discussion about that, them breaking from kind of ideological lines that they usually would go towards. The dissent was written by Thomas and he just laid out that the, well, there was multiple dissents actually, but there was one that was written by Thomas. He talks about the court's account not being historically accurate and just saying like that citizenship was guaranteed to those, he used the words born and domiciled in the U.S., not to those undomiciled or two don't have a permanent home here. So there were reactions that were definitely on party lines that are Democratic, Texas lawmakers that were very excited

about this and or at least confirming or just very glad that it happened. And then I say not excited because some of them were just saying like, I can't believe we're even discussing this. I'll get into a couple of quotes. But more just like, yes, this is right. This should have happened where then the Republicans expressed disappointment and even talked about some of them talk about things that can be done to change this in the future. So Gene Wu, state rep Gene Wu, was talking about the Constitution and that he says this decision is a reminder that America's strength has always rested on our commitment to the Constitution and the rights that it guarantees us and saying that this is not an optional document and that he's and they all they all had something in

common. He said it does not bend to executive overreach. So they definitely focused on the idea that Trump was overreaching when he was trying to enforce that executive order. Representative Ramon Romero Jr. talked about Texas families and people all across the nation breathing a sigh of relief knowing that their rights by the Constitution are still guaranteed. And then Representative State Rep. Salman Bojani was talking about. He's the one that said, this isn't a question that the court should even have to answer twice. And he was just saying that the order had tried to rewrite the Constitution by decree. So that's what Democrats, how they were responding to it. Republican reactions. Governor Abbott is described birthright citizenship as a powerful

magnet for illegal immigration and just talking about it will change the nation if it's not, if it remains unaddressed. So they still see it as something that needs to be addressed in the future saying it was absurd and that this is not something that the was contemplated when the constitution was written. Congressmanship Roy was kind of laid out like a one-two solution of that mainly wested on Congress. He's saying Congress needs to define some of these like this, what's the word like, verbiage in it, like subject to jurisdiction thereof. They need to make it clear that citizenship is tied to citizenship of the parent and not of the soil or not the soil and that Congress needs to act immediately.

And so he really kind of put the onus on Congress that something needs to happen there. And then Congressman Brandon Gill also, he's had a couple. They've all commented obviously ongoing. This isn't going away. But his initial response was relying on the courts to save our country is a fool's errand. And he's just, he's like, now is the time to do everything we can to stop illegal and legal immigration. So he added that aspect of legal immigration. Anyone not on board with reversing half a century of mass migration is telling you they don't believe America belongs to its people.

So some strong sentiments on both sides. And so, yeah, we're out of busy week this week. Well, thank you very much, Meredith. As you said, yeah, it's not that the Supreme Court ruled that this can never be challenged, but they said specifically that Trump didn't have the authority to do this in his executive order. It remains to be seen if Congress will be able to do anything to get that clarifying language passed if they want to, you know, indeed clarify that subject to the jurisdiction thereof does not include illegal aliens or people who are visiting temporarily for the purpose of having children just so that those children. raised in another country will have American citizenship.

So thank you very much for covering that story. Turning next to you, Hannah, tell us about the comments that Governor Greg Abbott made this week regarding data centers. At an event in Bullard, Texas, this week, Abbott called for a halt data center development in rural Texas neighborhoods, which, to clarify, he didn't ban data center development in rural areas across the board. he specified development in rural Texas neighborhoods. While the event mainly focused on property taxes, which is an issue that he's been campaigning quite a bit on leading up to the elections in November, he addressed this East Texas town to start with the data center topic. East Texas has been a big hub for data centers moving in, lots of rural areas, lots of unincorporated land. He referenced recent directives. He's given on guidelines for data systems operating in the state.

which Maryyaf has written about, including bringing their own power, using their own water, and prioritizing cost reduction for electricity bills for local residents. He called for a prohibiting of data-s-naissance funding built in the neighborhoods and added, we must eliminate tax breaks. So that's a pretty interesting development, I think, because a lot of areas are giving tax breaks to data-s and their projects that are coming in. He said they must be responsible for funding your own projects in Texas. So this marks a potential shift in Texas' policy toward data center development. In the past, we've had pretty open doors to these big projects.

But like I mentioned earlier, he sent a letter on June 10th to the Public Utility Commission and to Aircott, which basically set a framework for new regulations. And he asked that the agencies put regulations in place so that tax taxpayers wouldn't bear the burden of these large load grid users. So I was looking forward to the next legislative session beginning in January, and he pledged in the letter to enforce new requirements from data companies to alleviate pressure on the grid and rate payers around the state. His proposition to prohibit builds in rural neighborhoods is significant because unincorporated

areas in the counties that represent them don't have strong regulatory ability when data centers move into town. So unlike cities, we can turn down project proposals, counties don't have a single authority to do so. But public reception of data centers in the state has increasingly soured, and a poll released last week from the Texas Politics Project found that 50% of voters stated that they oppose data billets in their own communities compared to 29% in support. It also showed disapproval across party lines. So 71% of Democratic responders. said they opposed bills compared to 62% of independent respondents and 44% of Republicans. And just 15% of Democrats said they would support a data center build in their own community

compared to 42% of Republicans. So we're still seeing more support from Republicans in general. But rural and suburban population showed the highest opposition to new bills with 62% of rural responders opposed and only 22% in support. So this will remain an issue. I'm interested to see how it will be addressed in legislation. Absolutely. It'll be exciting to see what happens,

given the fact that Texas has, you know, for a couple of years now, really prided itself on being a business-friendly state where people could come in and build things like data centers, though now it's becoming much more of a political issue. And as you said, Hannah, you know, Abbott is even taking up the mantle here of, you know, let's stop building these out in rural neighborhoods. So thank you for covering that story.

As you said, it'll be really interesting to see where this goes in the 90th legislative session. Meredith, turning next to you for a pretty big story that happened last week, but is worth going into because there is so much interesting detail here. A story that has been years in the making. Last week, the State Board of Education voted to approve a statewide reading, and revised social study standards. Tell us what happened during June's State Board of Education meetings. Okay, so these are kind of two separate issues that have been paired together,

both in the way that they have been handled in the meetings and then also the way that they've been reported on and people constantly mix them up. So I'm going to do my best to try to break down each of them. Even though, and when you're in the SPOE meetings and even in articles, people that are, you know, the board members that are for it will say that they are paired together on purpose. So it is, there is a purposeful reason that they end up together. But we have a reading list and we have revised social studies that both passed. It was the K through eight social studies. Some of the high school wants have been pushed to September. But in general, the majority of the things that

people are pretty, you know, that have been contentious or controversial, like they have officially passed and are going into, into motion. So with, the reading list. I'm not going to go through everything that's on it or all of that. There's plenty of coverage on that. But we have this statewide required reading list, which comes from a bill at 1605 in 2023. So it's been in the making. And it ends up being voted. It's a 9 to 5 vote. And it's mainly along party lines, except for one of the members who is a Republican, Evelyn Brooks breaks with the party and she votes with the Democrats. I just want to note that having heard a lot of her reasoning for why she voted for it, it was more along the lines of

practical, she as a former teacher, it was more on the practical side of teachers and their workload and them having the time to do these things and autonomy versus like she wasn't opposed, she wasn't verbally opposed to like Bible stories or anything like that, that sometimes some of those ideological lines or hers was more from a practical standpoint, which they're all allowed to have those and differ on them a little bit. I know people have been accusing her online of being a Democrat or like coming down pretty hard on her. her, but those were her reasons. And there were a few changes to it. We're still waiting for the finalist to be released. There's different things floating around. But it's interesting that it's just

made such, it's made international news. There was like in Times of India, I found like article about it. It's made, obviously, almost every national outlet has covered it. And mainly the topics and the headlines are these Bible-infused or mandated Bible readings. And that's like the big focus of why it's so controversial. And just to point out, one of the reasons why it is such a big thing is because this is the first time that a state has mandated a reading list like this. Often curriculum and what you decide is up to the district level and often even up to individual schools and even individual classrooms sometimes. It can get, it's so widely varied, which is very unique to America. A lot of countries have a set like the British system or whatever. They have a curriculum

that everyone uses. So the state saying that everyone has to read the same books, while it's not a straight-up curriculum textbook, it is telling them some of the things they need to teach. So that is kind of the monumental point. And the fact that it does have the Bible on it does make it technically the first time that the Bible is mandated in the classroom in this sense. So that's where that controversy comes from. Not to say that no one's ever read the Bible in a classroom or for literature or anything like that. It's just it is mandated. And Texas was kind of leading the charge with that. So it'll be interesting to see, will other states copy this? I've, read articles and seeing things that people are saying that other states are looking to Texas and

wanting to do similar things. And they really did feel that they were leading the way, leading the charge in that. Social studies, there was a lot of discussion about the social studies. This goes back to 2022 when they tried to update them. They had a lot of controversy as well for that and ended up kind of just tweaking some things related to critical race theory at the time and pausing it to have it come back here. The SBOE chairman, Erin Kinsey, has written an op-ed in the daily wire. And he kind of talks about actually how he, the timing of it comes, all this happening on the 250th American in 2026. He's like very like glad for that. And then almost that that was like a desired. And so they go through, you know, what this is is if you're wondering like,

how is it so different and how is it changed? It is a layered and chronological approach, they call it, where you used to probably a lot of us to remember one year you did US history. the next year you did world history next year you did Texas history or whatever state you lived in and then you kind of repeated that through elementary school sometimes through junior high and middle school and then again in high schools there's like a common way that we've learned that this and we have this linked in the article there's a lot more Texas history and a lot less and a lot more u.s history in all of the grades especially in the younger grades and so that garnered a lot of that created some of the controversy of getting rid of some of the other cultures or other world history

and desiring to have more of a focus on that. So that's what they went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth about that. And then Kinsey said, you know, students will finally get the full story talking about tracing the development. He said students can trace the development of liberty, self-government, free enterprise, and constitutional principles across generations. And so it's a very America focused and purposeful revision that, like the, supporters of it say, yeah, this is a big deal. And we did really go in and do a big rewrite.

Whether you agree with that or not. And so the opponents will say that they're whitewashing history and there are a lot of the things that they did focus on in their discussions did relate to minorities or to different other influences in American history or in Texas history. And so, yeah, so there were multiple votes on that because they went through in different grades, but overall, it passed with K through 8. And so the high school stuff will come come around. I'm sure there will be legal pushback. I'm sure there's going to be stuff within the districts. This isn't just a decided thing immediately. And like I said, if other states start to follow, we'll still hear a lot about this in the future. Well, thank you very much for your coverage

on this story, Meredith. I would also recommend everybody also check out Meredith's tweet threads on this issue. There are some really interesting threads where she cataloged a ton of the debate over stuff and got some really cool pictures. The SBOE snaps. So definitely check that out on social media. Hannah, turning back to you for another story relating to local regulation and business moving in and all that kind of good stuff. A new Space X development is emerging in Grimes County.

Give us the scoop. Yes, Grimes County. I went for the first time last week, and it was beautiful. And I went to a little rock-themed coffee shop in Navasota, which was kind of, of fun and also weird. But shout out to the barista who was amazing. Grimes County Commissioner's Court approved a 35-year tax abatement for TerraFab, which is a

semiconductor manufacturing project proposed by SpaceX. It is planned to span roughly 100 million square feet, which is wild. I think, I believe it will be one of the biggest or the biggest semiconductor manufacturing projects in the state. The project is also seeking tax abatements from two Grimes County school districts, Anderson-Shireau and Iola ISDs, for amounts between 25 to 50%, although nothing has been official yet, has been announced to be official yet. In Grimes County, the abatement will be accomplished through a payment in lieu of taxes or a pilot program, which means instead of a traditional tax abatement, SpaceX will give Grimes County $20 million per year for a 35-year. duration. After 10 years, though, the tax abatement or pilot program will be up for reassessment, but no matter what the decision is, the payment will continue through 35 years. The project was originally submitted as a data center through the company XAI, which is also owned by SpaceX.

And it is believed that the project will house a data center on site. I was told by someone, that I interviewed for this piece that the language of the proposal was made so that data center would not be the top line because it's just gained so much negative attention. But I guess we'll see. Grimes County is a largely rural county and the population is just over 30,000 in its main industries are agricultural, ranging, manufacturing. The commissioners voted four to one to approve the tax evapment. for the project Tarifav.

SpaceX proposed a reinvestment zone that covers nearly 22,000 acres in the county. And the heart of the reinvestment zone is Gibbons Creek Reservoir and a brownfield site, which is a previously industrial area that was used formerly by the Texas Municipal Power Agency. So the land is basically unusable by anything other than a big build and a build, some kind of build, industrial build. Per space X's agreement with Grimes County, it seems that they will only be pulling surface water from the reservoir. They are not allowed to use any groundwater.

We spoke with David Tulles, who was the loan-nay vote on the proposed tax abatement, and he seemed very concerned that the county didn't take the time to discuss and plan before agreeing to the abatement. He also seemed to have environmental concerns, concerns for residents whose land lies within the reinvestment zone proposed by SpaceX and stated there were no special provisions in the agreement which protect the Grimes County residents. He seemed most opposed to the rate at which the county made the deal and he wished there were better protections included. We also spoke with county judge Joe Fowth who voted yes to the abatement. He largely sees the build as a positive

for the community. There are a lot of major promises of job creation. and economic stimulation. Both county officials also supported the school districts moving forward with the tax abatement deals with tariffap. The 88th legislature created a program called the Jetty Program, which allows for company, school districts, and the governor's office to enter into 10-year agreements that limit the taxable value of a project for school district maintenance and operations if the company meets certain job creation and investment requirements.

So the school districts are in the process of hosting public hearings regarding the proposal. I think a decision will be made, Mr. La. Well, thank you very much, Hannah. Certainly, as you said, data centers, you know, these kind of bills in these rural neighborhoods are just going to continue being an issue. Especially as you mentioned with data centers, it becomes more and more necessary. We've had them for a while, obviously. Social media wouldn't really work without them to have somewhere to process. all this data, but as generative AI gets bigger and bigger, it's only going to get bigger and bigger, too.

So thank you very much for being there to cover that story. Meredith, turning next to you, I thought it would be fun to go over some of the highlights from last weekend's 26 Texas Democratic State Convention. So as we talked about earlier, you and Mary Elise had the good fortune to be in Houston for the CHOP convention. So what happened at the Democratic Convention? this past weekend. Yeah. So the Democratic Convention, it's, I've talked about this before.

Oddly, there was a lot of similarities between the Democratic Convention and the Republican Convention, obviously on the separate ends of the spectrum. But it was called Texas Together was the title. So they were stressing unity as well. So I think both parties are very clear that you got to, got to put some things behind you to elect, elect your person that you would like, or that you wouldn't like, actually, that was part of it. Even if you don't like them. It's better than a fill in the blank Democrat or Republican. So they had and they had a lot of, obviously they brought in some out of state speakers as well that were, for example, Corey Booker was, Senator Cory Booker was one of the main speakers and he called, he said that he called like Texas,

his like inspiration or like something about like the front lines of America, we should be investing more in Texas, the front lines for the fight in America. And, And we've heard this before from Republicans as well, the idea of wherever Texas goes, so the country goes. And so they were very aware of that as well. And then obviously there were a lot of local speakers as well. So yeah, the unity message was really strong. They had Talarico, James Talarico, who's running for Senate against Ken Paxton was speaking. And he obviously, he kind of like to focus on unifying against the billionaire, billionaire mega donors and who want to turn neighbor against. neighbor was something that he really drove home. And Booker also talked about the idea of everyone in your coalition doesn't agree with you, or if they agree with you on everything, then your coalition isn't big enough. So once again, trying to widen the tent poles to include more people. They had a chair race, obviously, of their own. Kendall Scudder was reelected very handedly won by a big landslide. He has been in that position for a little over a year. And there was like some

slight controversy over as he did a few, made a few decisions. But also, as I'm getting to know, party politics, this seems like it doesn't. I feel like you can't really win as the party chair. There's always just going to be somebody that wants you out, somebody wants you in, someone that's, he had also had like a letter accusing him of a hostile work environment, people encouraging him not to run. And then was just followed up by a lot of support, 800 people that signed off. that he should do it. So he obviously had more support than he did opposition and he was elected. But one of the bigger things was a notable absence of Jasmine Crockett. And we kind of covered this, I believe last week a little bit about the black vote and some of her comments about Tala Rico

and how just didn't she openly seems very skeptical of his ability to win over the black vote. She talked about, you know, she said something in a two, I believe the Dallas Morning News like, I've not heard a lot of kumbaya. People don't be, she said, don't seem to be convinced at this point. But there is a lot of time between now and November. And Jolanda Jones brought this up when she spoke, state rep, Jolanda Jones. And she talked about Black Texans being heartbroken following Kamala Harris's defeat in 2024. And then Crockett's primary loss.

And she said, you know, there's zero. This is her quote, Zilch, Nata, black statewide candidates for the midterms. And black Texans are hurt, angry, and discouraged. And we can't. She talked about like we can't ignore it, ignore this. This is something just telling people to vote doesn't motivate them. But she is like, she was encouraging you can earn the black vote. She said not assume it, not expect it, but earn it.

So this was a topic of conversation. And with all the unity talks, seeing Jasmine Crockett not there wasn't helpful. And just a few notable moments. There was a Republican candidate for Railroad Commissioner Hawk Dunlap that came to the Democratic Convention to introduce John Rosenthal. and seemingly endorse him saying that he has endorsed him already, saying that he's, you know, this position is too important for party games. So it's interesting to see a former Republican candidate at the Democratic convention introducing the Democratic nominee.

Land Commissioner nominee Ben Flores, who we've reported on had been announced that he had been diagnosed with leukemia, said that he is in remission, which is good news. But he kind of had the quote of the quote that made the internet rounds talking about supporting James Tolarico. He said, next time they say that James is trans, we're all trans, which would get cheers from the crowd. Next time they say James is a gay tofu eating vegan, we're all gay tofu eating vegans, which would get more of problems. And then he said, and when they say James is going to hell, referencing Dan Patrick's comments about if James Tullerco keeps, he said, preaching what he's preaching or some kind of heresy that he would for sure be going to hell. Ben Flores was saying we're all going to hell. So that got everyone's attention and made the rounds around the internet.

And he ended when he said jokes on them after 30 years under Republican leadership were already, we already know what living in hell is like. So he prepared his zinger as he was ready. And also representative, there was some discussion about, and I'll try to make this quick, Dustin Burroughs had had a lot of Democratic support to become Speaker of the House. And so Anna Maria Rodriguez-Ramos, who had also run for Speaker of the House against Burroughs, talked to. She had some strong words for people about how that went down. And she called Burroughs a pro-Trump, pro-voucher, anti-woman, anti-immigrant speaker of the House, asking them, how did he win?

He got more Democratic votes than he did Republicans. And she said, I say this to tell you that although we are Democrats and we care for each other, we must do better. And so we will, this will definitely play into the speaker's race in the 90th. And so, yeah, a lot of fun. A lot's going on at the Democratic Convention, a lot of fun things. Thank you very much for your coverage on that, Meredith. We appreciate it. Hannah, turning back to you, Governor Greg Abbott submitted a, he submitted preliminary documentation that would allow the state of Texas to receive a federal reimbursement down the line.

for border-related costs. Tell us more about that. Yes. So, Texas is pursuing federal reimbursement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over border security expenses. And Governor Abbott submitted the documentation necessary to begin applying for that.

The anticipated reimbursement will cover costs. The state has incurred in Abbott State of Texas spent more than $10 billion in taxpayer money in order to cover federal lack in border defense. U.S. rep Michael McCall commented on the announcement, Texas took on the federal government's job to protect the homeland and it should receive the lion's share of these reimbursements. So the period referred to in the time is the time under the Biden administration, which Abbott launched Texas's Operation Lone Star and 2021, which has served as the state's border security enforcement apparatus. Its stated mission is to combat the smuggling of drugs and people across the border with Mexico. It is led by the Texas DPS and the Texas National Guard and was launched into, in response to Biden's policies that Abbott stated refused to secure the border and invited illegal immigration.

So Texas and other states have made moves in recent years to take up immigration as a state issue, though it has long been left to the federal government. A case called Arizona versus the United States in 2010 set a precedent that gave federal government the power in immigration and not the state. So Abbott appeared to seek out pathways toward legitimizing state intervention despite this precedent. According to the governor's office, the operation has delivered more than 500,000 illegal immigrant apprehensions, over 60,000 criminal arrests and seized hundreds of millions of doses of lethal doses of fentanyl. The governor's office also stated that illegal crossings were cut by more than 85% due to the operations. It has, of course, seen dissent by other lawmakers who claim it violated the supremacy clause of the Constitution.

In a similar vein, Texas's Senate Bill 4 has garnered dissension. as well from critics as the bill codified that illegal entry was a criminal offense and gave judges the ability to order offenders back to their country of origin. Last month, federal judge David Ezra blocked the law for moving forward because it would contradict the precedent set by Arizona versus USA, but an appeal by Texas is expected. However, through funding from the one big beautiful bill act, the DHS and the DOJ will reimburse states.

for costs incurred through border security initiatives under that came about largely under the Biden administration. And Texas will formally apply for the reimbursement in the new future. Well, thank you very much, Hannah. Certainly with all of the border stuff and, as you said, the one big beautiful bill act, having that provision to give state reimbursement for border costs, which maybe was a little treat thrown in there for Texas, given the fact that this is something that Texas had been talking about for a bit now. Thank you very much for giving us the coverage on that.

Mary Elise, turning back to you. Speaking of other things that the state of Texas is up to, legislation that passed last session is currently facing some major litigation at the federal level. Give us the details on that. Yeah, this is the Absure Accountability Act, which we've covered quite a bit since it was first being discussed. during session and then when it passed. But right now, it's amid some pretty legit litigation. We saw 27 state attorneys general join Texas in defending this law before the Supreme Court of the United States. They're asking that this law is able to remain in effect while this litigation proceeds. So this is

Senate Bill 2420, which was authored by Senator Angela Paxton over the Senate, and then state representative Caroline Fairley in the Texas House. And essentially it requires operators to verify the age of the consumers that are using these platforms and requires parental consent for app store purchases and downloads for anybody that's under the age of 18. So it's kind of trying to kind of one of these bills that's along the lines of child safety online, trying to address technology and children using it. So there's over two dozen attorneys general I mentioned. They filed an amicus brief on June 23rd, supporting Texas.

And this is after two groups who oppose this law, brought the case to SCOTUS and asked that it prevent Texas from enforcing this law. And that was back before. It was just a couple months before it was set to go in effect in January. So I think they brought this lawsuit for it in October. October, yeah, October 2025, and then this law was set to go in effect January 2026. They were alleging that this law is infringing upon the right to free speech. They said it violates the First Amendment on its face.

They are arguing that it, you know, restricts, essentially restricting this free expression of minors. So two months after these groups went ahead and sued Texas, a district judge, temporarily did block the state from enforcing the law, and he said that when considered on the merits, this bill does violate the First Amendment. And then at the beginning of June this year, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the state of Texas's request for a stay. And so essentially halting that district judges ruling and saying that the, quote, balance of equities and public interests are clear cut in Texas's favor. Then the groups who had filed the lawsuit originally issued this emergency application to the Supreme Court, they asked that it vacate the Fifth Circuit stay, and they were alleging that state had failed to show evidence. Showing minors access to harmful material online was an actual problem in need of solving. So they're saying they didn't present the necessary evidence to prove this.

So there's this amicus brief, 27 state attorneys general filed this in support of Texas. They were led by Florida Attorney General, and they're arguing that they have a, quote, compelling interest and protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors. And then they also say a duty to protect the liberty of parents and guardians to direct upbringing education of children under their control. They say that this bill marries the best of these two traditions. serving to protect children by ensuring parents have greater visibility and control over which contracts their children enter into with app stores and developers. So that's kind of the argument here that's in favor of this law, but then we've also got the folks who are concerned that this is infringing upon free speech.

I talked to both Senator Paxton and Representative Fairly, and they both essentially were saying, you know, I think that these attorneys general coming forward and supporting this is a sign that that this is a significant kind of moment. This is a powerful thing, fairly said, because they're joining together. She said to defend digital safety for minors. So we'll see how this impacts everything, but I'm definitely a strong show of support from these states.

So we'll keep following this case for sure. Thank you very much, Mary Elise. I'm glad that given all of the Supreme Court stuff we were talking about earlier, we were able to bring it back yet again to the Supreme Court. Right. And we weren't in, unfortunately, Holly wasn't able to join us today, but she also wrote a piece this week talking about another Supreme Court decision that one dealing with smartphone geofence warrants, which I would highly recommend everybody read. But even though Holly could not join us today, there is somebody else who could join us today. A new old addition to the Texan. And I think we have him online right now. Is that is that right?

Mitchell. Hey, Rob, are you doing? Good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Doing great. excited to be back. That is fantastic. How have you, what have you been up to? So you left us about two, four years ago in 2022 and disappeared off the face of the earth. But tell, tell the people what you've been up to over the last few years. Yes. Yeah, I'm emerging from hiding. So I left the Texan to move back to North Texas. where my family lives,

just because my little brother was growing up. My older brother was having, you know, he's having kids, and I wanted to get to know them. And my family was just changed it a lot, and I wouldn't be near them. And so I moved up to live with my older brother for a little while I looked at graduate school

at University of Dallas. And I eventually got a job editing their print materials and got married, met this girl from Massachusetts. at UD and I've dragged her down into the Texas heat. And so we've got a home in North Texas now. And after that, I worked at The Real Deal, which is a real estate magazine covering real estate trends

for mostly North Texas, but really the Texas Triangle in general. And throughout that, the Texan has just remained my absolute favorite workplace. And I think the most important place I've worked, It's got such an important mission. And all the while, I was, you know, reading the text for one thing, but also constantly trying to pry and peer for a way back in.

And so I was happy when this opportunity arose. And I just got a call out of the blue one day from Connie. And I told it, yeah, I'd love to come back. So it was, it's really been an answer to prayer and we're stoked. Well, we are absolutely excited to have you back as well. So I, of course, know you because we worked together for about three months before I drove you crazy enough that you wanted to quit. But Mary Elise, Hannah, and Meredith do not know you as well since all of them joined after you left. But I believe they have some questions for you, some sort of icebreaker questions to get to know you better.

And also for people who might have joined the Texan after you left in 2022 to get to know you a little better as well. Well, I'm curious, Isaiah, what was your wife studying at UD? Because you said you met her there, right? And I didn't really see you had gone to UD, which is, it's a great school. Yeah, we were both studying English. And I, as a grad student, I was taking three classes this semester. And I had two that I needed and I had an option for the third between some class in Alexander Pope with a professor who I knew was going to be pretty hard. And a class of Henry James, who I really don't like.

but with a professor who I knew it would be pretty easy. And I'd had it before. And I just find Henry James to be pretty bland. But I thought like this will be a lot easier to get a good grade in this class. And so I joined that one. And it turned out that this is Ruth's favorite author. But we met in that class and our, well, at first day it was a restaurant, but our second one I took her to the state fair because I wanted to like take her on a whole Texas tour.

That's awesome. Because her only impression of all of Texas had been bleak, gray, concrete, Irving. And we were hanging out at the lake here in Ennis one time. We were driving past fields with cows hay and everything. And she was looking at the window. She said, wow, Texas can be pretty. And I said, yeah, if you're not smack dab in the, you know, cancerous blob that is DFW, it's actually pretty beautiful.

Yeah, yeah. It's just like a post office box. It's so weird to me that people are born and bred and Irving. But yeah, so we were both studying English and we graduated like a year apart from each other. That's awesome. Okay, so you're both English majors didn't know that. So you have two degrees in English. So you really love you love English.

And we've talked about reading and the book list. What is your favorite book? I know it's hard for people like you to pick a favorite, maybe. And then also, what is a book that you think is overrated? My favorite novel is as I lay dying. And it's been that way since high school when I read it for the first time. And so it's had a lot of competitors. Maybe I could talk about some of those.

But that's still my favorite novel. As far as most overrated book, I've got to be James on the brain, but my wife will kill me if I say that. I don't know, maybe the ambassadors. What's that? It's not the portrait of a lady. The portrait of a lady, I actually thought it was such a slog until the very end. And then I found myself like wiping my eyes, you know, on the last 10 pages.

And so I like, begrudgingly admit that the portrait of a lady moved me at the very end. The ambassadors, I don't know how highly rated it is. But that was one book where I think I just don't get why anyone is being asked to say. study this. Let me think. Probably Gravity's Rainbow, actually. I started Gravity's Rainbow because I had heard, I had read like a couple other Thomas Pension books, and I thought they were, you know, pretty entertaining. And I had heard that Gravity's Rainbow was just, you know, a mind-blowing psychedelic experience unlike any other book. And I got about two-thirds of the way through when I realized, like, I hadn't laughed at any of the jokes. I hadn't really

felt moved at like any of the other movements in the book. And so it's dazzling, but not really effective, just in my opinion. But it's like every big critics, it's on everybody big critics list of like the 100 best books of the 20th century and stuff like that. And I just don't understand it. Okay. Do you always finish every book you start or do you ever get like so far in? Because he said two thirds of the way and then you're,

You realize you didn't like it? Do you ever get in and you're like, okay, I'm done? Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, pretty rarely. I usually just grip my teeth and finish it. But occasionally, I'll give up. Okay. Well, yeah, so I saw Luna on Slack from Kim that you had a flip from.

And I just would love the details about do you currently operate? a flip phone and I'm sorry how long. Give us the scoop. So I do still have a flip phone. It is on the dumber side. I've had dumber phones before. At this point, there was a short period when flip phones were known to be more durable than smartphones and I think that's long gone.

I feel like you can take every major smartphone underwater and this would immediately kill over a die, which is how I've killed probably 80% of of the phones I've ever owned. It's just swimming with them in my pocket. So it's not for the hardiness of the flip phone, although this one is pretty blocky. And, you know, I think, you know, it could probably take a good beating.

I've only had it for a couple years. Yeah. But I've had flip phones since college. And a lot of the reasons just that I'm irrationally paranoid about data harvesting and tracking and things like that. And when I say that people think of geographical tracking and they say, oh, they'll still get you. They know exactly what your phone is.

It would never have to specify who they is. But the main thing I'm worried about is like through apps, ISPs and app developers gaining and developing a profile of the user based on your app usage. So I deleted my Twitter when I left the Texan, and I only added because Connie held a gun to my head and forced me to make it. So with trembling fingers, I made it on my first day. And the second I left, I deleted it.

So I had to make another one this time around. I've got a whopping 17 followers now. So anybody listening can go get me a follow. Yeah. But yeah, it's mainly, I'm not a big evangelist for him, but because I admit that it's just my own paranoia, but that's why. I like that. It's good.

Yeah, definitely recommend everybody to go follow Isaiah on Twitter because, as, of course, one of our reporters, he will be breaking all kinds of interesting stories on Twitter going forward. So definitely go follow him at Isaiah E. Mitchell on Twitter. Or actually, Isaiah, as it's called now X, since I think you left before Elon Musk officially rebranded the platform. I did. Yeah, it's all different now. I remember used to you could see who liked and retwote your tweets without paying for X premium. And now at every corner of those ads telling me to pay a little more money to see stuff that I used to could see it for free.

And I think there's not a good verb for X. Like, you can tweet something. I've never heard anybody say that they're Xing something. Kind of sounds like you're deleting it. But as you say, I'm still new to this iteration of the website. Well, did anybody see, speaking of actually Twitter, this is a fantastic segue that we didn't even plan. But does anybody have any good tweetery from the week, anything good that they saw on X or Twitter? or Zwitter or whatever you want to call it.

Well, I'll just make a quick mention of two fast food places that I appreciate that they're getting in on the 250th fun. I'm not going to make the effort of saying the word I said at the beginning, but the proper name for this. But in and out is doing, you know, if you eat, I'll admit, I know this because I got in and out recently, but if you get in and out in the car, you know, they give you those place mats. they're doing they've got like this beautiful thing that um is celebrating the country's birthday and

just explaining how grateful we are to the men and women who've gone before us and um so i thought that was pretty cool and then pteris is doing a like a seven dollar deal for you can get a meal with their birthday cake um what is it it's like some sort of a smoothie situation milkshake yeah um so but just for seven dollars so that's classic pteris um but i saw some of that on on twitter so i appreciate shade they're getting in on the fun. I don't think Waterburger's doing anything, are they? I was just there and I didn't see any kind of disease. Yeah.

I'm sure that steak and shape has got to have something good. They've been really leaning. Yeah. They've got a horrible deal where you can get a burger fries and a drink for 1776, and they're racking about that. I think that's a little bit high. That's got to be like I expect gold foil on my burger instead of cheese. Wagyu burger or something.

Yeah, if I'm rounding up to $18 for burger fries and a shake. Whereas, of course, Pete Terry's not sponsored, but Pete Terry's is doing it for $7.5. That's not bad. Yeah. That's not bad at all. Yeah. Now I know what I want for lunch.

You should. You should get it. But I got to say, it's actually pronounced Terry's like pterodactyl. There you go. Yeah, it's a real Austin classic. I don't know if you all saw that the cool. one off of 35 with the cool like space age architecture. I think we might have talked about this actually on the last podcast, but due to the I-35

expansion, that one is closing. And that caused a bit of a stir on Austin Twitter. I have not been to that location, but I've passed by it a bunch of times. And it does have a really, really cool design. Unfortunately, are you getting a chance to go? Maybe. Maybe I will. It's just that like, there's another P. Terry's closer to me and like driving five extra minutes to go. to a different P. Terry's to get the exact same food just strikes me as, I don't know, I don't want to do that.

Something that bothered me when I was living in Austin, which is during COVID, there were restaurants closing down left and right, you know, and every time I heard about one that was closing down, it was for the first time. And so I'd read an article saying like, Austin Institution, such and such, you know, hope you enjoyed it. Nobody's ever going there again. I think, I've never heard of this place before. And the article would say, like, that's too bad, you know, um, you'll, you'll never save it a goodness of whatever this was. Yeah. Well, hopefully, uh, this podcast has made everybody sufficiently hungry that now they'll go out

and get themselves a good burger for the 4th of July and have generally speaking a good fourth of July themselves, uh, shoot off some fireworks, um, you know, enjoy the semi-quincennial, uh, as much as you can, um, find a way to, um, find a way to to pronounce it before the weekend's over to impress everybody at the party, because that's exactly what everybody's going to want to talk about. So thank you to everybody for joining us, and we'll catch you on the next week's episode of The Weekly Roundup. 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,

visit us at the texan. 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 the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.