The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 7, 2023

Episode Date: July 7, 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: An additional 9,800 babies born in Texas as a result of the state’s laws against abortionThe state’s ERCOT grid setting a new energy demand record amid its first test this year in the Texas heatPaxton’s attorney saying that he will not testify in his upcoming impeachment trialThe U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a web designer can refuse to make a website for a same-sex weddingA federal judge in Texas vacating a Biden administration rule against “ghost gun” gun kitsKen Paxton’s associate Nate Paul being tried on fraud charges prior to Paxton’s impeachment trialThe U.S. Supreme Court overturning affirmative action in higher education admissions as “unconstitutional”Colin Allred branding himself as a moderate in his campaign against Sen. Ted CruzCompeting West Texas proposals for recapturing oil and gas taxes fail in Texas SenateThe Texas Supreme Court passing on deciding the constitutionality of the governor’s emergency powersFederal border officials cutting barbed wire to allow illegal immigrants to cross and escape from the heatThe City of Houston suing Texas over the state’s new local government preemption lawA Dallas Walgreens partnering with a “sexual health services” clinic to offer sexual health care, including “gender-affirming car

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans' Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses an additional 9,800 babies born in Texas as a result of the state's laws against abortion. The state's ERCOT grid setting a new energy demand record amid its first test this year in the Texas heat. Paxton's attorney saying that he will not testify in his upcoming impeachment trial. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a web designer can refuse to make a website for a same sex wedding. A federal judge in Texas vacating a Biden administration rule against ghost gun gun kits. Ken Paxton's associate Nate Paul being tried on fraud charges prior to Paxton's impeachment trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturning affirmative action in higher education admissions as unconstitutional. Colin Allred branding himself as a moderate in his campaign against Senator Ted Cruz. Competing West Texas proposals for recapturing oil and gas taxes failing in the Texas Senate. The Texas Supreme Court passing on deciding the constitutionality of the governor's emergency powers. Federal border officials cutting barbed wire to allow illegal immigrants to cross and escape from the heat. The city of Houston suing Texas over the state's new local government preemption law. And at Dallas Walgreens partnering with a sexual health services clinic to offer sexual health care, including gender affirming care. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast.

Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Hayden, and Matt on another episode of the Weekly Roundup Podcast. Gentlemen, how are you today? Doing good. Good. Brad? Muy bueno. I'm here. Great.

Contractually obligated? That gives us more information on how you're doing. What's funny is all that's, see Hayden, that is my gripe with Brad. But it also tells you entirely. We want to know about your well-being, Brad. We care about you. We do am here what else i am not dead you have winston here today yes that's a good attitude to have yes he says brad how do you just i'm this conversation skills, have they served you super well? Very well.

I am alive, breathing, and I have my dog with me, period. That was a transcription of Brad's mood. Cameron, how are you? I'm great. Yeah, there's been a lot of news over the past week. A lot of SCOTUS rulings.

Yeah. A lot of cultural issues being touched on education issues so i've been very busy once again you ever played full you had like a week or two between the end of session and now where it was a little slower and here we are again but this is fun this is interesting let's see i knew cameron would answer my question with more color commentary bro just nodded like he didn't even dignify our listeners with the word to hear. He just nodded. Yeah.

Great. Okay, we're just going to go ahead and start going into the news here. Speaking of cultural issues, Cameron, Texas passed the Heartbeat Act back in 2021. And now a new study has found almost 10,000 more babies were born as a result. Tell us some of the details of what this study found. So John Hopkins conducted this new study and they found that 9,799 additional live births occurred in the state between April and December 2022. And the state also saw a 38% decrease in abortions in the first month of SB8. That's the Heartbeat Act going into effect. The Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans abortions

after a detectable heartbeat, is what contributed to these numbers. Also, Texas had trigger bans in place after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Yeah. So have there been any other studies showing similar results? Yeah, it was interesting looking into this. There's been some other studies. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission found abortions in Texas fell 97% after the overturning of Roe, and it had already fallen 60% after the Texas Heartbeat Act went into effect in 2021. There you go, Cameron. Thank you for your coverage. Brad, we're coming to you already this summer. The ERCOT grid has set a new record. Give us these details. On Tuesday last week, the state's main power grid set a new all-time peak demand record

reaching 80,828 megawatts. The previous record it eclipsed was set last July around 80,200 megawatts. At the time of the new record, natural gas was generating about two-thirds of the capacity, followed by wind and solar. There was about 8,000 megawatts of gas generation in unplanned outages, along with 2,300 megawatts of coal and combined 8,700 megawatts of wind and solar all out. We won't know the details of why those were out probably until next week,

but all in all, the conditions were normal everything was fine we avoided there was one voluntary voluntary conservation request issued which is different from a conservation alert um but there was no there were no issues uh despite the triple digits heat throughout much of the state. Heading into the summer, ERCOT estimated the peak demand would reach about 82,800 megawatts. And so we haven't quite hit that. We probably will at some point this summer.

But the question is how much further do we go above that? And then, of course, the biggest reason for this higher demand is population growth. Texas adds about 300,000 people every year. On top of that include all the businesses coming to Texas. That just means more electricity demand. And so we're going to continue as long as this population growth continues, we're going to continue to see growth in the amount of demand for electricity on the Yurkaid grid, which requires a commensurate increase in supply. And so we've talked at length about all those issues, especially in the legislature, but this is where the rubber really meets the road on this issue. Can they supply power throughout all of the summer and all of the winter

whenever we get these points of tension, points of tight, of high grid stress, we'll see how it goes. But, you know, we expect a pretty hot summer. Brad, I have a personal question for you. Okay. Having come from Ohio, how hot, I know in previous summers, you talked a lot about how hot Texas is in the summer. Have you become more acclimated to the heat heat i think i've become more acclimated to just being sweaty all the time so not so much the heat just the state of being yes yes it is getting easier um and i did find last time i went home during the winter i was not ready for that yeah and it was miserable totally

but uh yeah i mean nothing you can do about it is what it is. I always do wonder, though, how people survived or at least functioned before air conditioning. That seems to be, to me, to be one of the greatest inventions ever. Yeah. Along with the wheel and the light bulb. Air conditioning makes that. Air conditioning. mean makes that list climate control allows people to not only function better but also live more so seems like a great invention to me totally is i don't know how people managed without ac back in the day that That would sound, that sounds miserable.

I think that, I think it's in Miami. They actually erected a statue of the person who invented the air conditioner. Wow. That makes sense. In Miami. In Miami of all places. That person deserves to be honored. I don't know his or her name, but they do deserve a place of prominence. Oh yeah. And I, i i was gonna talk about this in the twittery section but i'll i suppose i'll just do this now since it's timely uh shout out to kim for her article that i read again this week on the history of air conditioning in texas if you want to that piques your interest there's a lot of good info in there um and i think it's I enjoyed going back and reading,

especially with how hot it was. Yeah. This week. I know that article trends every once in a while because people want to know the information. So definitely go read Kim's piece

on the history of air conditioning. It really is fascinating. Yeah. I think the inner piece is the first place that had air conditioning in Texas was the Milam building in San Antonio.

There you go they had a 300 ton carrier manufactured weather system 300 ton yeah wow that's a lot of tons now we're gonna have a little in unit yeah well that's crazy wow well folks definitely go read that and shout out to kim roberts hayden coming to you suspended attorney general ken pa Paxton is facing a September 5th trial date on 20 articles of impeachment. Will he attend the trial and testify? If you're new to the Texan dot news and Texas politics, you may not know that our Attorney General Ken Paxton is under impeachment, and he has been since late May on 20 charges of dereliction of duty, obstruction of justice, accepting bribes, and misappropriating public funds. He,

according to his attorney, will not be at the trial and will not, quote, dignify, end quote, the trial by attending and providing his side of the story. Interesting about this, one of Mr. Paxson's main complaints with the House impeachment was the General Investigating Committee did not give him the opportunity to appear and offer a defense of himself against the charges. Most of the General Investigating Committee's work was done behind closed doors until a team of investigators laid out the case against Mr. Paxton in an open hearing, and then days later, the House overwhelmingly voted to impeach him on those charges

and bind him over for trial in the Senate. Paxton's attorney, Tony Busby, published a statement reiterating many of the grievances that Mr. Paxton has against the process. He said it was the result of a political effort against Mr. Paxton to neutralize a conservative attorney general. He said that those supporting impeachment are Speaker Dave Phelan's, quote, disciples, and they are targeting Mr. Paxton because of his political efforts. Mr. Busby called the articles of impeachment, quote, meritless and absurd, end quote, and quoted one of the members who opposed impeachment saying that they were based on hearsay within hearsay within hearsay. He said Mr. Paxton's Sixth Amendment rights are being violated. Mr. Busby's quote at the end of his statement was, we will not bow to their evil, illegal, and unprecedented weaponization of state power in the Senate chamber, end quote.

Wow, some major statements there. This is a trial and Ken Paxton is being accused of very serious violations of law. Doesn't he have the right to remain silent under the U.S. Constitution? This is not a criminal proceeding. The Senate cannot impose fines or sentence Mr. Paxton to imprisonment even if he is convicted. Their only recourse is to permanently remove him from office and bar him from ever running for office in the Lone Star State again, which they well may do. The Senate rules say Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, or whoever is the presiding officer, can subpoena witnesses and documents and even hold someone in contempt of the legislature for failing to answer a subpoena. The rules do require Mr. Paxton or his attorney to appear and enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. The rules do contemplate that Mr. Paxton might choose not to do this, though, and say that if he does not show up or his attorney does not

show up to enter a plea that he is presumed to have pleaded not guilty for the purposes of the impeachment trial. The Sixth Amendment problem here is the first four words of the Sixth Amendment are in all criminal prosecutions, and this is not a criminal prosecution. So Mr. Busby's argument that Mr. Paxton's Sixth Amendment rights are being violated here is certainly debatable. And while Mr. Busby and the rest of Mr. Paxton's legal team will undoubtedly fight any effort to force Mr. Paxton to testify, it is unclear whether this Sixth Amendment argument will stick or what consequences the suspended attorney general could face if he does not show up at his trial.

Absolutely. Matt, I know you have something to add to the conversation. Just a random fun fact or fun question, I guess, since I don't know the answer to it. But Hayden mentioned that the legislators impeachment power, their only recourse is removing someone from office and banning them from holding office in the state in the future. I wonder if that applies to federal offices in the state or if it's only state offices. Yeah, I mean, that would be an interesting jurisdiction question. And I, my initial thought would be that would be all decided on the federal level as they are elected to federal office. But that would be an interesting question to look into. I don't know. It doesn't seem like the legislature's authority would extend to barring someone from running for Congress or U.S. Senate or some other federal office because the Texas Constitution can't govern

what happens in federal elections. But that is one of those things that might have to be litigated if and when it happens. Yeah, absolutely. Good question, Matt. Awesome. Well, Hayden, thank you for your coverage. Cameron, we're coming back to you. One of the major SCOTUS decisions that you teased earlier of this past week dealt with a woman, her website, business development, and her religious beliefs. Tell us these details. So Lori Smith is the web designer involved in this case. And before expanding her business to include wedding services, she sought a preemptive ruling on the grounds that Colorado would enforce its anti-discrimination law against her if she chose not to design websites for same-sex couples. Well, the majority opinion relied on the First Amendment protections of free speech that prohibits Colorado law from infringing on Smith's ability to refuse to promote messages that run contrary to her beliefs. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about the ramifications of a ruling

like this. So there's been lots of fodder online about what the fallout of a ruling like this might be. So I went to the Free speech organization FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and wanted to see what they had to say about this. And they argue that this ruling makes clear that nothing in today's decision, this is them writing, allows businesses like restaurants or movie theaters to refuse service to customers on the basis of protected class status, but rather recognizes and reaffirms protections in the First Amendment to include the freedom of consciousness is a fundamental individual right. There you go. I'd definitely go read Cameron's piece at the Texan for more information. Real fast, I did a quick Google so

we can, you know, can take this at face value. There's probably a lot more legalese that goes into this. A federal officer removed from office of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach federal officials. An official can be impeached for treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. Very familiar language there. The House of Representatives brings articles, charges of impeachment against an official. And then the Texas legislature, it's the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, commissioners of the general land office, comptroller, judges of the Supreme Court, court of appeals, and the district courts. So state level officials. There you go. Matt's question too was could the legislature ban Ken Paxton from running for

federal office in the future? Obviously they can't impeach. My question on that rises because you generally have to file to run for office with some kind of state official. Oh yes. Like if you're running in the Republican ticket you file with the Republican Party. Yeah. Do you file with the Republican primary, excuse me, the Republican Party when running for

Congress? Or is that something that happens with the Secretary of State? Do you know? I think both. If you file for a congressional seat, you file with a state party chair, which they're kind of quasi state officials. And then if you want to run as like an independent or write in, you file directly with the Texas secretary of state. Well, there you go. OK, well, we'll continue to poke around a little bit there thank you gentlemen matt we're coming to you what's the weather like in west texas today is it hot there like it's hot

here i bet it's hotter there uh it's about 85 85 are you serious huh that sounds nice um okay well let's go ahead and jump into your story here. The Biden administration has seen defeat in several cases arising out of Texas-based federal courts when it comes to the White House's gun control measures. This latest ruling struck down a new rule attempting to regulate ghost guns. Give us the details. Firearm Policy Coalition saw victory this past week in the Northern Federal District Court of Texas with Judge Reed O'Connor ruling in their favor to their challenge of a Biden administration rule that defined home-built firearm kits as regular firearms regulated by the Gun Control Act of 1968 or the existing federal statutes. Under federal law, new firearms must be bought and sold through federally licensed dealers. So think of going to the gun store and filling out that, I think what they call a yellow sheet and doing a background check and etc, etc. A long standing loophole to this has been the selling of firearm kits that have uncompleted

parts, such as a frame or receiver that still needs to be machined before it can actually be operable. The problem, Judge O'Connor found, was the precise language of the federal law didn't give the White House the wiggle room, so to speak, to expand the definition of these partially manufactured firearms parts to meet the definition of regulated finished parts. For now, the judge's order is vacating the rule as it stands. And until the Department of Justice decides whether to appeal to the Fifth Circuit, that will continue, the rule will continue to be vacated. Notably, the Department of Justice, the ATF, or the Biden administration have not weighed in on the rule. The ATF's webpage regarding the rule and its active enforcement are still up.

So as I've reported on in previous cases where the federal government lost in one of these cases, we found that the ATF was still enforcing the rule even after losing in federal court. So readers and listeners, beware. This ruling joins a host of other firearms-related rulings arising out of Texas, including challenges to the bump stock ban, which is the one that I was just talking about, the pistol brace ban. And one case in particular has made its way all the way to this U.S. Supreme Court, which will determine whether or not a federal law that bans those who have been convicted of violent domestic abuse crimes may permanently have their right to a firearm be taken away. And we'll continue to keep an eye on these Second Amendment and firearm related cases as new ones arise and the existing ones make their way through the federal judiciary. Absolutely. Thank you, Matthew. Hayden, more Paxton stuff here. Surprise, surprise. One of

the characters in the Paxton impeachment is a real estate broker facing criminal charges of his own. Tell us about Nate Paul. Nate Paul is a wealthy businessman who has been taken into custody and charged and pleaded not guilty to a series of federal loan fraud charges that could land him in prison for a very, very long time. Prosecutors say Paul exaggerated his assets, including by saying that he had millions of dollars in accounts that had only a few thousand dollars in them. He pleaded not guilty and faces sentences of 30 years in prison on each of the eight counts. That could easily add up to a life sentence. He was indicted in June and now has a trial date set for August 14. To clarify Paul's connection to Mr. Paxton, this was a campaign donor of Paxton's. He donated $25,000 to Paxton's re-election bid in 2018. He is named in many of the articles of impeachment against Paxton, accused of offering bribes to the suspended attorney general in exchange for favorable

treatment by the office of the attorney general in litigation he was facing by a non-profit foundation. Not all of the articles of impeachment against Mr. Paxton concern Mr. Paul, but many of them do. And these loan fraud charges Paul is facing are not directly related to Paxton's case. So Paxton is not implicated in any of the charges against Paul that are due for trial August 14th. However, Paul and Paxton are connected in that the impeachment trial in September will be about the relationship between those two men and whether it was a corrupt relationship. So this looking forward to the impeachment trial, I mean, one, this is interesting that it's happening almost exactly a month before the, or I guess three weeks, I can't do math, before the Attorney General Paxton, or actually now former Attorney General Ken Paxton's impeachment trial. So what could this mean for the impeachment itself? I hesitate to say that this is a brief window for a federal prosecution,

even though it certainly seems that way. I don't know how common it is for cases to go to trial this quickly, but if it does go to trial on August 14, it will be a total of two months and eight days between indictment and trial, which seems quick for a federal prosecution. And this August 14 trial date just happens to be a few weeks before the impeachment trial. I have a hard time accepting that that is just a coincidence. It does seem strategic. I don't have any confirmation that it is, but it would not bode well for Mr. Paxton that the business relationship, not business relationship, but that this connection he has to Mr. Paul, if Mr. Paul is a convicted felon, that doesn't bode well for Paxton at his trial, because then you have even more opportunity for house managers to say,

look at this individual that he was associated with. We have these other things that we can look back on, whereas if they're just in a trial, the attorneys defending Paxton, if nothing had happened, could say nothing's happened. We don't have a trial. We have to wait and let, you know, justice run its course. And if we have a result before then, that's in any way a negative move for the attorney general. And that could mean that they have more to or less to fall back on. And again, the I'm not saying the charges against Paul implicate Paxton in any way because they don't. It's association, right?

It's association. And at least in the public's view, having a convicted felon associated with the attorney general so closely certainly helps the case against Mr. Paxton, even from a broad 10,000-foot viewpoint. I formerly said former Attorney General. It's suspended, Attorney General. I'll have to think about my words carefully in this instance. Hayden, thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, coming back to you, let's talk about SCOTUS again. Another big decision was they struck down race-based affirmative action admission policies.

Tell us those details. Yeah, so the majority cited race-based admissions violated the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. And in Robert's opinion, he wrote that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina's admission programs lacked sufficiently focused and measurable objectives in that they use race-based admissions practices in a negative manner. A negative manner. So what have been some of the reactions to this ruling? So immediately upon the SCOTUS ruling, Harvard released a statement saying that it will continue to reaffirm its principles of creating a student body of many backgrounds, perspectives,

and lived experiences. So based on that, it seems as though they're going to be moving to more of an essay-style admissions policy. Many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, took to social media to celebrate the ruling. He called it a great day for America. Ted Cruz said it was a tremendous victory for those who have suffered from explicit racial discrimination. Also, President Joe Biden took the podium to proclaim his disagreement with the SCOTUS ruling. And he stated that discrimination still exists in America. There you go, Cameron. Thank you so much. Brad, coming to you. You wrote a piece this week about Representative Colin Allred, Congressman Allred, early in his challenge to

Senator Ted Cruz. What did he say? Allred is doing the media rounds right now and appeared on two podcasts last week. Chuck chuck todd who runs the show meet the press his podcast and then pod save america which is a progressive podcast run by former obama administration officials and during those he ironically hit crews for doing podcasts too often. Did that on a podcast. Welcome to campaigns. Yeah, right. But closest weapon to hand always. But that was just kind of an aside.

The main theme during these appearances was that Allred positioned himself as a relative moderate, voicing opposition to his party's posture on issues like energy and the border. He said he thinks that proposals like the Green New Deal, even though he didn't name that specifically, but proposals like that are unreasonable in their timeline specifically. He also said that the um the national democratic apparatus has kind of ignored the the border situation and how serious it can be uh especially on the communities down there and in talking about that he also criticized the republicans on their uh their policies on these these things as well but uh another big theme Allred made in both his appearances was repeating over and over

that Cruz was too, quote, extreme for Texas. And it's clear that's the label he's trying to stick onto his opponent. He said, quote, I think this is on Chuck Todd's, I come from a background that focuses on pragmatism. The best way you help folks is by actually being able to deliver on making their lives better ted cruz is the extremist and everybody knows that i don't think i'm stepping out of line and saying that at all a cruise spokes a person responded saying um quote colin allred advocates for biological men to compete women's sports for abolishing the

second amendment and voted for an anti-police bill that could restrict funding for local police departments ted cruz fights for texas jobs secure border the oil and gas industry and believes that men are men and women are women enough said i think that's a pretty good summary of how this the messaging in this race is going to go um both sides are going to try and label their opposition as the extreme part of their respective party. And it's shaping up to be a, it won't be the headliner, that will be the presidential race, but it's shaping up to be a pretty, I'd say vitriolic campaign and forceful, I think. But a recent poll showed Cruz with a five-point lead over Allred.

We'll see how that shakes out down the road. We also might get another challenger or two in the Democratic primary. State Senator Roland Gutierrez has been rumored to be considering a bid. He has not jumped in yet. No telling if he will or not, but that would make the Democratic primary kind of a two horse race for the right to face off with Cruz and the general. And regardless, both candidates are all red right now. They're hoping to build on how close beto o'rourke got in 2018 six years ago it's a different it's a different cycle you don't have a republican

incumbent as president you don't have donald trump as president although he may be on the ballot so uh it'll be very interesting to follow and no telling how it's going to shake out. And this, you know, Cruz's extreme messaging is very familiar. When Beto did run against the senator back in 2018, this is a very similar route that was taken. Maybe not so much calling Cruz extreme ad nauseum, but it was a lot of, I'm sent, like we can unite as Texans, find some middle ground and work together on issues. And I think that is typically just what we've seen in messaging from people who have challenged Cruz on the Democratic side. Yeah. And I list more of Allred's comments in these two interviews, including views on guns and all this stuff. So check it out if that interests you.

But there'll be a lot more to come in this race. Oh, my gosh. No kidding. Buckle up, folks. OK, Matt, we're coming back to you. Midland and Odessa have a historic football and business rivalry. And lately, it seems a legislative one, causing dueling proposals to secure more funding for the region to fail. Give us these details on your very juicy story.

Well, a longstanding complaint from energy producing counties in West Texas is that, while they produce a significant portion of the state's budget revenue stemming from oil and gas taxes. But the wear and tear that they see on infrastructure, on governmental services, et cetera, due to the energy boom causes increased costs that need some extra financial attention from the state. So interstate representative Tom Craddock, longtime Midland Republican, who came up with the idea about three sessions ago to what he described as protect the golden goose, so to a constitutional amendment enabling legislation that created an account that took a little bit of the severance taxes that are generated from these counties that are experiencing this increased wear and tear and set it aside so that it can be used to help pay for roadway, law enforcement, health care, etc., etc., kind of covering the bases. Now, it functioned by a seven-person committee that would appropriate this funding. It was appointed by a combination of the governor and the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House. And they would appropriate the money back to these energy producing regions. Two of the region's lawmakers have really been at odds on this issue. So talk to us a little bit about that. Well, they started out both on the same team, having teamed up in previous sessions

to pass GROW. However, one or two sessions ago, when Landgraf made changes to the bill that were not agreed to by the other stakeholders, it caused Craddock to storm to the back mic and call in a point of order, killing the bill. Fast forward to this session, both indicated early on that they planned to work together once again to pass GROW. But shortly thereafter, Landgraf suddenly announced his own bill, the Strong Defense Fund. Now, the Strong Defense Fund was very similar to GROW in the general purpose of it, bringing those severance taxes back to energy producing counties. But it differed in that it had more ways that it appropriated the money. I believe it had a percent or two allocated towards some property tax relief and a lot more social issues involved in it, including, I believe, even some green energy related subsidies. Yeah.

Now, both bills ultimately passed the House this session with overwhelming support, with the Strong Fund getting, I believe, about 10 or 12 votes more than the Grow Act, but almost unanimous in the chamber, sending both bills up to the Senate. Now, recently, Landgraf and his office spoke with the newspaper in Odessa, and they laid blame for his bill not passing the Senate on Senator Joan Huffman, who is the chair of the Finance Committee, for not holding a vote on the issue. Now, for clarification, neither bill was taken up in committee for hearing or a vote, but Landgraf was specifically addressing his bill, the Strong Defense Fund. Now, we reached out to Senator Huffman, who actually issued a statement to the Texan clarifying why she didn't hold a vote on the bill, saying that the House inexplicably

passed two competing bills and that the senators were not going to pick sides, leaving little doubt that the dueling proposals caused their own death. The interesting thing about the post-session rhetoric is the optimism that the bills stand a good shot next session. Both lawmakers indicate they intend to champion their own bills again. And despite the Senate sending a clear message that competing bills are dead on arrival, neither lawmaker has indicated how they plan to consolidate support behind one proposal to present to the upper chamber. Man, what a time. Well, Matt, thank you so much for your coverage. And folks, I'd encourage you to go read more about that story at the Texan.News.

All sorts of details there and juicy back and forth between lawmakers. So certainly go and check that out. Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying our podcast, subscribe to The Texan right now. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep doing our jobs. When you subscribe, you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published, so you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, coming out to just $7.50 per month. New subscribers will now get a free

Texas State Pride flag hat with all sorts of color options to choose from. For more details, visit thetexan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Brad, we're coming to you. The Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling in a dispute over emergency powers between local governments and Governor Abbott. Give us a brief review.

The localities among them, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Harris County, the localities had sued the state for banning local mask mandates and business school closure orders, arguing that those localities had autonomy on issuing their own under the Texas Disaster Act, one section of it specifically. Governor Abbott had issued an executive order banning the local orders. And so that's what prompted this lawsuit. The court ended up ruling, I think it was Friday last week, that the governor could restrict local orders, siding with him over the localities. Yeah, I think it was Friday.

Lots of Supreme Court rulings, both state and federally, were done Friday. So what wasn't addressed in the ruling? So the court again punted on the question of how far the governor's disaster powers extend. Now, the question in front of it in this case was competing competing authorities in the state and local so that was the question they were analyzing but the broader question here is uh does the governor have carte blanche authority to suspend laws namely um when a state of disaster is called obviously that happened in 2020 he issued his own closure orders, movement restrictions, and his own mask mandate. Now, the court gestured at this question in its ruling, saying it may very well be, as a matter of statutory interpretation,

that the section of the Texas Disaster Act should not be read to give the governor unfettered authority to impose conditions on the movement of persons or the occupancy of premises on a statewide scale for an open-ended duration. We need not decide that question, however. Because that was not the question in front of it there. But this is beginning to be a pattern. The court has punted. Now I think this is at least the third case that it's heard that it has punted on on this question uh in both the shelly luther case who was jailed for two days by dallas county for operating her salon in violation of the closure order

and the suit by various gop officials who opposed the governor's unilateral extension of early voting back in 2020, the court did not address the root question, at least head-on. Does the governor have the authority to suspend laws? Well, the Texas Constitution specifically grants that to the legislature. That's the suspension clause of the Constitution. The governor and those defending his authority contend that the ledge created that discretion when it passed the texas disaster act allocating this the authority to suspend laws

in times of disaster to the governor specifically um now the tda does not lay out a requirement that the ledge be convened to allow disaster declarations to be continued. We saw all this went down in early 2020. The ledge met in 2019. We're not set to meet again for a regular session until 2021. That left about a year between the legislature convening on its own. The governor did not convene a special session to reauthorize any of his disaster declarations and so the legislature had had no authority throughout this this scene and that is the lawmaking body in the state and so the governor was doing lawmaking by executive order. And the question is whether the TDA allows them to do that or not.

Those opposed to the governor's position contend that the TDA itself is unconstitutional. Actually, some of these plaintiffs' localities in this suit brought that up and raised that question. It just was not something the court decided to address. Despite that vague reference that I read off, along with another one in there, the court has avoided this question and it remains so. Something that is quite interesting and it's becoming, like I said, a pattern. But also the legislature itself has not really asserted itself on this question. Absolutely.

It's had two sessions now to address the issue in some way, shape or form, or at least issue some sort of prevailing piece of legislation that would address it and maybe give us a little insight into the legislature's thoughts. But we haven't really seen much at all. There you go, Brad. Thank you. Hayden, let's talk about the border here. Is it true that U.S. border agents cut barbed wire to allow illegal immigrants to cross? One of Fox News Digital's main border reporters is Bill Malusion, and he tweeted a video of border guards apparently cutting barbed wire in order to allow illegal immigrants to cross through private property and be checked in by CBP agents. The agency did respond to Fox News's request for comment, so they confirmed that this was the case. The private

property had barbed wire placed by the state of Texas as part of its efforts to combat illegal immigration and prevent people from swimming or otherwise getting across the Rio Grande and then trespassing on private property. The barbed wire or razor wire was also part of the Facilities Commission's project to construct the border wall funded by the state of Texas. So another clash between federal agents and the state's efforts to secure the border. Tell us what the feds have had to say, if anything, about this. As I mentioned, Customs and Border Protection responded when Fox News Digital asked them for more or less an explanation of how to enforce immigration laws as it sees fit. That is not something the state of Texas can override or somehow work around. The agency said, quote, the individuals had already crossed into, excuse me, I'm going to start that quote over. Beginning with a quote is the individuals had already crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico

were on U.S. soil and are subject to U.S. immigration laws. Individuals who cross unlawfully will be subject to the Lawful Pathways Rule, which places common sense conditions on asylum eligibility, with certain exceptions. Those who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed, end quote. The communication from CBP also reportedly stated that this group included children and they needed to get out of the heat. They are also emphasizing consequences that Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has emphasized as part of the Biden administration's effort to deter illegal immigration, but also check these individuals in and get them in the system for claiming asylum. There you go. Hayden, thank you so much for your coverage. Brad, coming to you. We have two more

stories, folks. We'll be speedy here. On Monday, the city of Houston unveiled a lawsuit against the state over its newly passed preemption law, the Death Star Bill, if you choose to go with that moniker. Give us a review of that law. The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act lays out nine sections of code and says that local regulations cannot exceed what state law allows in those areas. It's an effort to prevent the ledge from having to address every instance of excessive regulation after the fact to rather preempt them before they're issued. What does this lawsuit state explicitly? The lawsuit filed in a Travis County District Court against the state says that the Texas Constitution lacks a supremacy clause and thus it may only address specific existing conflicts of law between state and local rules with that they allege this law as it is sweeping field preemption not conflict preemption is unconstitutional and asks the court to invalidate the law one more note on it before

even getting to the merits of that argument the suit will have to prove standing against the state that's potentially a huge roadblock to the city's case because like in the Texas Heartbeat Act and challenges therein, the state is not tasked with enforcing the law. Individual plaintiffs are tasked through a civil cause of action in suing these potential violations by localities. So based on what happened with the Heartbeat Act, probably doesn't stand a good chance, but who knows what's going to happen. Absolutely. Thank you, Brad. Cameron, coming to you, the legislature passed a ban on child gender modification this session. We all knew this issue would persist. It's been a big issue at the national level and continues to be at different

state level as well. Tell us about the story and how this legislation is related. Yeah, so just some background on the story. The Texas Health Action Organization has partnered with Walgreens stores in the state to open a gender-affirming care program known as Kind Clinics. One of these clinics opened in a Dallas Walgreens where they offer gender-affirming care to any patient 16 years or older. And I got that from the Walgreens website advertising this kind clinic. And Senate Bill 14 was signed into law June 2nd, which will prohibit medical doctors and professionals from performing surgeries or administering puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones

to children under 18 for the purposes of gender transitioning. And Texas Health Action responded to this law by saying that they would be providing more information for patients under 18 in the future. There you go, Cameron. Thank you so much. Gentlemen, let's move on to our tweeter-y section here. Brad, you already kind of talked about yours. Do you have anything move on to our tweeter-y section here. Brad, you already kind of talked about yours.

Do you have anything to add to your... Well, I had a different one, yeah. So, every July is... The beginning of July is known as Bobby Bonilla Day because it's another day that the Mets make an installment on their multi-decade long contract with former baseball star Bobby Bonilla

who hasn't played since the turn of the century and he will get paid I think it's every July 1st 1.2 million dollars and that lasts until this tweet doesn't say but it's every July 1st, $1.2 million. And that lasts until, this tweet doesn't say, but it's like 2035. So this man basically deferred payment of his contract from around 2010 for two and a half decades. And he hasn't worked in years and is still making over a million dollars

that's a pretty sweet deal that does not suck yeah and so it's become this big holiday i'm using air quotes um baseball fans both to take a shot at how stupid the mets are and uh just how crazy this is that. That's really funny. That is pretty wild. What's your favorite or your least favorite MLB team? The Yankees. Not even close.

That makes a lot of sense. I feel like that is, I mean, but they're by far the most hated team in the nation. You mentioned the Death Star before. They are the evil empire. I guess like, and that's the thing,

Yankees fans, there are plenty of Yankees fans. I'm not saying that they're the most hated, but in and that's the thing yankees fans there are plenty of yankees fans so i'm not saying that they're the most hated but in terms of the if you were to pull people i think they'd be the worst fans they're not the worst fans that's the phillies because every philly philadelphia team has the worst fans because philadelphia fans are just terrible because they're just aggressive loud yes drunk all the time yeah but yeah okay well this is this is the the the the world according to brad dodgers i thought you're gonna say the dodgers but no actually no i didn't because you love the dodgers you root for the dodgers you love them you wear their merch

yeah slander okay um cameron yes what do you have for us? So, you know, I'm just scrolling along Twitter and I see this story that, you know, everyone knows the Barbie movie is coming out. We're excited for it. Are you? Okay. You're excited for the Barbie movie? Well, some people in our office are. Who?

You. Yeah, who, Cameron? Yeah, Matt's like, who? No, our editor, Rob, is very excited for this Barbie movie. He even thinks... Is he really? Oh, yeah, he's going to go do a double feature with Oppenheimer. Yeah. No, I want to go see Oppenheimer really badly.

I might do that this weekend. Totally agreed. But apparently Ted Cruz called the Barbie movie Chinese propaganda. Wow. For one of the scenes in the trailer that is depicting, it's called the nine dash line that is separating Taiwan and China and claims to territory. And so apparently he sent out a press release. Oh, my gosh. The Barbie movie for Chinese propaganda. has already banned the film over this territory dispute being portrayed and on just this map

in the film of the barbie movie so what a world we live in yeah i have i have no interest in watching that but i must say i did see a small clip on twitter of a scene and it was actually kind of funny was it like a ryan gos. Because that's the one I saw too was that scene. I just don't understand. I had Barbies growing up, whatever, but I don't understand why people are so excited about this movie. I don't get the hype. I might be in the minority.

Have you ever heard of Divorced Barbie? No. She's a regular Barbie, but she comes with Ken's house, Ken's car, Ken's savings account, and Ken's children. He looked very proud of himself for that one. I saw that joke the other day. I thought it was funny. That is a pretty good one.

Hayden, what do you have for us? I saw a tweet from former U.S. Attorney General. I talk a lot about Attorneys General. And you use the proper plural form. Yes.. Attorney General. I talk a lot about attorneys general. And you use the proper plural form. Yes. Attorneys General. Eric Holder, Obama's AG, responded to a decision by a federal judge in Louisiana that prohibited the Biden administration, well, any federal government, from communicating with social media companies

for the purpose of asking them to remove or delete things outside of things like criminal prosecutions. I'm not doing a great job of explaining this, but the intent of the ruling is to keep the feds from pressuring social media companies into suppressing free speech. And Eric Holder just tweeted with the New York Times article, which the New York Times article is something else. We'll leave that one for another day. He said, well, this is pretty stupid and potentially dangerous. No other comment. And I looked at that and thought, wow, that's some sound legal analysis. And it goes to how people, because he would never stand in front of a judge, much less the Supreme Court, and say your decision was stupid.

So even the AG on Twitter, just the quality of the commentary rapidly declines on twitter no matter who the person no matter who the person is that's exactly right well fascinating um matthew i'm coming to you last because i saw yours um has to do with my favorite movie of all time and so i'm curious yes forrest gump is my favorite movie i did not know that yeah well then you will be pleased to know that i stumbled across a tweet that says today is the 29th anniversary of the release of forest gump wow wait the 29th the 29th anniversary is that what you said uh yes it says 29 years ago wow one of of the biggest movies of the 1990s and one of Tom Hanks most famous roles was released. Huh. that the author of the book the movie was based on had envisioned John Goodman to actually play the role of Forrest Gump.

Interesting. But he had also, one of his other top picks was Bill Paxton. Um, now the director of the movie had offered the role to Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, John Travolta and Sean Penn, but they all turned it down. Wow. Now, I couldn't envision. Forrest Gump not being played by Tom Hanks, like it just it wouldn't work. It would have it would have been a, even though I love Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, it just, I don't think anybody else

could have done that movie. I know. I wonder why they declined. I don't know, but they did say, they did add onto the trivia here that John Travolta later said it was a huge regret that he didn't take it. I am glad that he didn't take it i am glad that he did

of those options seems like the least likely to succeed in that role i could potentially see bill murray pulling it off yeah i agree but tom hanks you know tom hanks would just be just it just wouldn't be the same without Tom. And Tom Hanks is like one of my favorite actors, directors ever. If it's Tom Hanks, it's probably a good movie. Agreed. In the novel, Forrest was 6'6 and 240. And the author had imagined John Goodman as playing the movie version. That's really interesting.

That would have been just terrible. That's so interesting. Wow. Well, Matt, that was some really good movie trivia that made me very happy it looks like they also offered the role of jenny to jodie foster nicole kidman and demi mar but they all turned it down wow wow it's such a good movie. I remember my family and I, we were road tripping to some national parks a couple of summers ago and we went to the road where Forrest Gump stops his like back and forth running across the U S like marathon of marathons.

And you know, there's that huge rock formation in the background, the stretch of highway in the middle of, I think it's Utah. Monument Valley, I think. Yeah, I think it is Monument Valley. And there's like a sign on the side of the road where it says like, this is the Forrest Gump scene. And so we took turns like running up and down the highway.

Of course, also there, it was not blocked off for any filming. And so there are, you know, semis and trucks and families and station wagons all driving up and down the road. But regardless, it was so fun. And we have photos of us running up and down. And in Savannah, the famous bench where he sits in the feather drops and the life is like a box of chocolates, that whole thing. I've been there as well, which is really cool. So definitely Forrest Gump fan over here. There's some more fun movie trivia.

Joe Pesci was offered the role of Lieutenant Dan before Gary Suneyes. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Which, you know, once again, you know, great actor actor but it just wouldn't have been the same and then they offered ice cube and dave chappelle uh the opportunity to play bubba really i might have dave chappelle had been in forrest gump oh my gosh now that would have

probably been interesting this could it could have been a completely different movie yeah if bill murray dave chappelle and dave chappelle yeah joe joe it would have been it would have been just an outright comedy yeah i just can't imagine it would have had the same tone yeah man it would have been interesting yeah no kidding well that was a really good one matt that's almost as good as orcas you have an orca story for us well i did have a couple of videos i was going to share and then i forgot to bookmark them yeah but they were talking about well i can tell you i can give you an orca fact before we get orca fact okay so brains people's brains animals brains some mark of intelligence is how folded

a brain is so like we have a ton that's why our brains are very folded they have a lot of um intricate i don't know it almost looks like designs right in our brains like a taco absolutely not and so a taco brain can you imagine i'm just not dignifying brad you mean like hold it like you know how brains they're crinkled they have a lot of folds in them have you ever seen a dolphin brain i don't know that i have i'll look it up um but that's what i mean like fold it's the wrong word for that but okay well that's what the scientist was saying so take it up with him i will this is a marine biologist okay he's talking about the folds of a brain oh dolphin brains are huge and they look very similar to humans wow this is pretty wild and that's similar to orcas is what this scientist was talking about is

if you have a brain that visually resembles like this is very basic information so people like me can understand it right i'm sure this is far more complicated than i'm explaining it to be right now but if you have all if if it visually looks similar to a human brain where there are folds, crinkles, whatever word you want to use to describe it, it usually means that there's levels of self-awareness, critical thinking. Like it just means that there's more, I don't know, going on. And orcas have that. And so they are, there are even pods of orcas where they'll emit sounds and they think it's them having like names for each other, which is a pretty wild thing to think about. Because like I've talked about before on the podcast, there are transitory orcas and there are resident orcas. So orcas who just live

in pods in one area and transitory are like, they'll go up and down the coast of an entire continent and just travel all year long. The resident orcas have these sounds that they'll emit where scientists think they're calling each other by names. That's fascinating. Yeah. That's my fact of the day. Thank you.

Thank you for asking. Well, you did it. Oh, you did. After I mentioned orcas, you did. Yeah. Thank you did it oh you did after i mentioned orcas you did yeah thank you i was excited to share that fact oh he took a deep breath i thought he had something to say god's creation is wonderful

if whales can name one another yeah and it's not like bob it's like i was i was going to emit an orca sound and I stopped myself. You were on the verge. You were on the precipice of making an orca sound. I honestly wish you had because that would have been a nice finish to this podcast. But we've also tried to get Brad to do his Smeagol voice on the podcast and he never has. He won't do it. Yeah, he won't do it. Probably because we would create a clip of it and use it in Slack all the time.

All the time. It's true. And possibly other places. Yeah. Like Twitter. His worst fear. His worst fear. He's completely ignoring us right now.

Okay, folks. Well, thank you for listening and we will 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.