The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - June 10, 2022

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses new information about the police response to the Uvalde shooting, elected officials butting heads over the legislative response to the massacre, developments in the lawsuit of victims of the Sutherland Springs shooting against the federal government, the attorney general’s investigation into Twitter, a candidate in Galveston campaigning to abolish the office he seeks to hold, the Texas government’s responses to drag shows for children and child gender modification, and a new sanctuary city for the unborn.  Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses new information about the police response to the Uvalde shooting, elected officials butting heads over the legislative response to the massacre, developments in the lawsuit of victims of the Sutherland Springs shooting against the federal government, the Attorney General's investigation into Twitter, a candidate in Galveston campaigning to abolish the office he seeks to hold, the Texas government's responses to drag shows for children and child gender modification, and a new sanctuary city for the unborn. 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. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson on another episode of our weekly Roundup podcast. Gentlemen, welcome. We are preparing to go to Houston next week. We'll talk about that later, but I'm really excited. I feel like I'm the only one in the office that is appropriately excited about going down to houston for convention i'm excited to go to houston yeah appropriately excited for mac entails bouncing off the walls anything short of that is not appropriate i'm not that athletic we all know that it's yesterday i think it was wasn't it daniel yeah who who yesterday i was like guess what happened and somebody says you fell was that you Daniel yeah and I said that's a really good guess but no that was not what happened I don't remember what had happened but that was the guess that I had fallen so no I can't bounce

off the walls it's not it's impossible but Hayden you're excited I am excited I haven't bounced off the walls yet but I could try later it would probably be funny to watch we'll get on my perceived level yeah you know we'll work on it um and isaiah you're excited yeah i'm very excited that's awesome bradley yeah it'll be enjoyable see again it's not the appropriate level of excitement everyone's like yeah sounds good guess we'll just road trip down there some of bucky's call it good i guess we're cautiously excited okay just we're still in the planning phase of our PT convention. There's a real tiny Buc-ee's that we can stop at on the way to Houston.

Yeah. It's not that exciting, except for the fact that it's a Buc-ee's that is actually like a regular gas station. Well, I think we need to stop at Buc-ee's, which maybe that'll be another thing we talk about at the end for a little bit of a fun time. But it's kind of dividing. Without Annie here to defend her position. We can just rave about how awesome Bucky's is. I think Daniel and I passed one when we drove to Conroe, there was a smaller Bucky's that was more like the size of the gas station.

Is that the one that you're talking about? Potentially. Yeah. I think that'd be the one. Okay. Well, we'll make that happen. We'll make it happen.

And Annie has, Annie's riding with Daniel and I, so she has no option but to stop it wherever Daniel chooses to stop. Which will be fun. Anyways, gentlemen, let's get into the news. Hayden, more Uvalde news, more information's coming out as time goes on about what actually transpired on that day. Talk to us about what were some of the reported problems with radio communications during the shooting response. The Wall Street Journal put out a report and they interviewed an emergency management official who was over the installation of the radio communication system more than two decades ago after the September 11 attacks. And he stated that the system that they have in place

was not designed to work in a building with thick walls and metal roofs. And that was the case during the Uvalde shooting. And there was additional reporting after that from Senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents the San Antonio area, that the police chief of Uvalde schools, Chief Arredondo, who has come under a lot of fire for his response and his handling of the situation, did not have a radio with him when he appeared on scene at the school. So, as the investigation proceeds, it is now in question whether officers had the ability to communicate with each other and if the lack of communication and ability to raise alarm about certain things that were going on could have complicated the response and contributed to the tragic deaths of 19 school children and two teachers. Forrest Anderson was the name of the emergency management official and reportedly, according to the Wall Street Journal, he now works for Uvalde County. And he, like I said, was responsible for, or he was involved in the installation of the radio

communication system years ago. But this adds to the speculation that the law enforcement response was lacking on the day of the tragic May 24th event. Yeah, absolutely. So talk to us about the status of the federal government's investigation. As we've talked about before, the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the law enforcement response and the incidents itself. In prior press conferences, the FBI stated that they would involve themselves in the investigation if there was a federal nexus, was the word that they used. And here the federal nexus seems to be the response of law enforcement as a civil rights issue or as a community policing issue. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services is investigating this and Merrick Garland, the attorney, the U.S. Attorney General commented on the DOJ's involvement. He said, quote, nothing can undo the pain that has been inflicted on the loved ones of the victims,

the survivors, and the entire community of Uvalde, but the Justice Department can and will use its expertise and independence to assess what happened and to provide guidance moving forward. What was new in the latest development for this investigation is a series of subject matter experts that were announced. They refer to them as subject matter experts that will assist the department in its investigation. But what I want to highlight about this list is it appears that none of them are from Texas. You have chiefs of police, deputy chiefs of police, public safety directors from all across the country, places like Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida. And there are a couple people here on this list who are experts in other areas or they are certified in other areas there's a new york-based emotional health group and the assistant vice president of this group called vibrant emotional health will also be assisting in the investigation but it interested me that

no one on this list seems to be from texas and there is one there is one individual who is the unit chief with the FBI, Albert Guaraniere, who will also be assisting as a subject matter expert. But of course, that's the nature of a federal investigation is it's not in the hands of the state government. And the Texas Rangers do have their own investigation. But because of the murky nature of the timeline and some of the contradictory details that have come out, the DOJ has launched their own inquiry and they lined up these subject matter experts as the latest development in that action. There is a hearing going on about the situation in Uvalde about law enforcement's response. You watched, you know, this morning. Now talk to us about what happened and give us a brief overview of kind of what folks, if they didn't tune in, did not get to see. This was a very brief hearing on a very small committee. Speaker Dade Phelan formed a committee composed of representatives Dustin Burroughs and Joe Moody, who is from El Paso.

And the third member of the panel is former Supreme Court Justice Ivo Guzman. The three-member panel made opening comments this morning and then quickly gaveled into executive session. In other words, it's not open to the public to take law enforcement testimony. And that fits. It doesn't seem to be out of place for them to not want all these details hashed out publicly yet, because that only adds fuel to the fire if there are details that they need to discuss privately. So there isn't confusion and public confusion but the chairman of the committee representative burroughs did not commit to a specific timeline for producing report or making particular findings but he did state words to the effect that he would provide updates to the public that are as complete as possible and as often as possible. And of course, they all express

their condolences to the families and express sentiments along the lines of the legislature should do something to ensure that this never happens again. Of course, the government's role in ensuring that this doesn't happen again will be a subject of debate. And it could be the subject of a called session of the legislature if Governor Abbott decides to take that course. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Hayden, for breaking that down for us. Bradley, we're coming over to you. Among the responses to the Uvalde shooting is a discussion at the federal level specifically about gun control proposals, what kind of action can be taken at the federal level. And these heavily involve Texas Senator John Corny cornyn but a another texas

official took aim at cornyn over this i love this kind of in fighting it is so fun to watch who was it and what did they say so this probably won't be very surprising but attorney general ken paxton is the official in question cornyn and Paxton going at it? It certainly isn't the first time that has happened. They're not exactly each other's biggest fans. Last week, Paxton criticized Cornyn for playing a role in these discussions. Cornyn and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy are the two ones leading this. There are others.

I think Arizona Senatorristin cinema is involved along with john thune i believe on the republican side but on uh chris salcedo's radio show paxton took aim at this and said it's a disappointment to me that our own texas senator would even consider doing anything to limit the second amendment if they try to do it we'll be the first to sue them and claim our second amendment rights um in the broader political environment this comes after cornyn chastised paxton for various pending allegations in court just before paxton's runoff against george p bush which he which Paxton won pretty handily. But Cornyn didn't mince words with Paxton then, and now Paxton's kind of returning the favor.

Yeah, returning fire, rather. Where do the federal reform talks stand? Right now, a lot is very much up in the air. In the early stages, nothing has been finalized. There have been certain reports about, you know, specifically one of the time that the accusation was kind of made. But a Politico report indicated that not federal red flag laws are on the table, but federal facilitation of state red flag laws. This would be something like providing funding for the infrastructure that would be needed to support red flag laws, whether it's carrying them out from the bench or investigating potential red flags, things like that. Again, nothing is finalized in this federal response yet.

Other items that are on the table are enhanced background checks, something the left especially wants, is expanding background checks to private person-to-person sales. That is currently not a law, but there are those who want to expand it to that. Also, a waiting period for adults aged 18 to 21. I don't know the specific waiting period, but I've heard people say like two weeks. We'll see what that comes out as, especially since this kid in Uvalde was 18. That is probably something that has

a solid chance of making whatever compromise that comes out of this. Additional items include school safety measures. That's something Republicans have been hitting on a lot. And then mental health funding. So that's especially as a broad category the Speaker specifically. He's mentioned that a lot. So we'll pivot to that and kind of talk through, okay, what's happening here at the state level? Now, this is much less blatant sparring, but it is disagreement, at least on some level.

So the Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and the Speaker of the House stayed feeling, you know, they're often in disagreement over policies, just in terms of even it can be political and like how each chamber will receive credit for what happens, right? Or it can be like a straight up policy difference. What are they at an impasse over right now? So last week, Dan Patrick called for an immediate $50 million expenditure to purchase bulletproof shields for all law enforcement in Texas. This would be done through, as Patrick suggested, through the legislative budget board, moving money from one agency to another. In emergency situations, the LBB has the ability to take, let's say, $50 million from the Department of State Health Services and move it to whatever it is they want. This would either go to the governor's office or DPS for them to purchase these shields he wants to

get it done immediately that way if there is a supply chain backlog that they can get as many out as soon as possible um but he um as patrick often does he demanded immediate action on this item um you know that's a constant theme theme for Patrick, especially in the Senate, where he can kind of just force his will because he, the lieutenant governor, has so much power over that chamber. Phelan, on the other hand, does not. And it's not a similar situation. But Patrick came out and was rallying the troops for immediate action on this. I don't know the exact number, but there are members on the legislative budget board from each, an equal amount from each chamber. So that would be the method by which he would approve this $ million dollar expenditure yeah and it is noting that prior to lieutenant governor

patrick's um tenure there really has not been a lieutenant governor with the same kind of power that's being wielded as as is right now right i mean rules have been like some rules have been changed and others haven't and just like the decorum of the chamber has kind of like the culture's changed and um it just it depends on the day but largely the lieutenant governor is able to kind of get his priorities through get senators together form a coalition and say okay guys we're gonna meet as a caucus together and we're gonna move forward where you know before the lieutenant governor was not the one to call those caucus meetings or make those kinds of behind the scenes actions happen and of course course, 31 senators,

much easier to deal with and wrangle than 150 House members. The script is often written in the Senate behind the scenes beforehand. That is certainly not the case in the House. The House is a wild card. Sometimes amendments are written right on the floor in ways that, you know, leadership or bill authors are totally unaware and they're adopted because votes happen. So talk to us about how the speaker responded to this so he did not reject the suggestion of bulletproof shields itself out of hand but he said he did reject the call for immediate action he said the senate or sorry the house will be conducting a thorough investigation before issuing its policy recommendations part of this will be the hearing that Hayden just talked about, going through all of the

investigation, getting all the facts lined up before they then settle on policy prescriptions and responses for this. And the speaker explicitly said bulletproof shields may even likely be part of that. So I would expect to see these two jockeying for position a lot over the next six months and into next session. They have butted heads quite a bit just because they have different priorities. Patrick has items that he thinks are of top importance and Phelan has his. And so politics is fighting it out and seeing where the chips fall after the disagreements and what actually comes to fruition. And so that will especially grow in the regular session when they convene in January.

And this is one of the lower level disagreements they've had certainly but it's interesting to watch during the strauss era when strauss was speaker patrick certainly went um to bat against speaker strauss a lot politically there was very much a i'm a liberal republican and i'm a conservative republican narrative that was put forth and policies you know often aligned with that and then during speaker bonin's tenure they were very much kumbaya that it was a short-lived tenure but regardless they certainly were um in lockstep there those three state leaders the big three were really in lockstep and now with phelan it's not nearly as contentious as it was with strauss but we're starting to see some of those hints there. It doesn't seem as

rankly political. It seems more policy, at least compared to the Strauss situation. But still, that yields quite a bit of disagreement anyway.

Absolutely. Always fun to watch. Again, I just love this. It's like so different being on this side of it now. It's so fun to watch all this infighting. I just love it. It's such so different being on this side of it now. It's so fun to watch all this infighting. I just love it.

It's such fun fodder. Grab your popcorn. Seriously, it's so fun. Isaiah, we're going to come to you now. There was a major development in the lawsuit against the federal government that arose out of the Sutherland Springs shooting. Tell us what happened this week. So if you'll recall, the Sutherland Springs shooting happened in 2017. And the reason that there is a lawsuit against the federal government that arose from this mass shooting was because the shooter was a former airman. And during his time in the Air Force,

he was court-martialed for assaulting his family. And he was also committed to a mental institution. And so for both of these reasons, federal law actually prohibited him from owning a firearm after this. However, the Air Force and the Department of Defense failed to report his criminal conviction and institutionalization to the FBI's database. So when he went to go buy a weapon, they ran that background check. It came through clear due to the Air Force's negligence. And so the district court judge in this lawsuit, who is based in San Antonio, federal court judge Javier Rodriguez, had already found in July that the feds were 60% responsible for the shooting. And so at this point, it's a matter of determining cash awards that will go to the survivors of the shooting and relatives of those that were killed in the shooting, which he determined in this findings of fact document in February, findings of fact and conclusions of law.

And it was in April that he entered an official judgment based on those conclusions that amounted to, I want to say, around $230 million. So the Biden administration just recently appealed this order, saying that the proposed payment was too high and procedurally improper. And so, more specifically, the federal government is arguing that the plaintiffs in this case arrived at this figure adjusted for inflation that was calculated improperly and also based on evidence that was not officially entered into the court the right way to put it in layman's terms got it okay well we will continue to watch this um certainly fascinating to watch it unfold after the fact isaiah thank you daniel um we've talked about elon musk buying twitter before is that still paused by the way is

that like is is he still threatening perhaps to back out is that what we're here is that what i'm seeing yeah yeah that's what i was going to talk about a little bit oh okay well there you go i just spoiled your entire thing i'm so sorry about it um there's reasons for the pause oh because there's this whole bot ordeal where you you know, you go on Twitter and you see these random people liking things that just... There's a lot of just like random characters, letters, names, numbers, and you think, is this just some troll? Is this some random person who just signed up for an account? Or does Elon Musk's little child have a Twitter account?

Yeah, that's right. Like, is Elon Musk's child actually a bot? That's another discussion there. I didn't notice that until just now. He could totally be a bot. Or is it a she? I don't know. Twitter has basically said, we've done analysis over and over again, and less than 5% of the users on twitter are bots they say about a little less

than five percent and elon who has probably one of the largest followings on twitter has lots of bots following him and he's like this is not the case i know there are lots more bots than this and so you know he he started the deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, which seems like a lot of money because it is. It's a lot of money. I don't think any of us here have $44 billion just sitting around. Well, I don't want to speak too publicly about my gross net worth, but... Yeah.

I'm getting there. I'm close. I'm like a little over $43 billion short. Oh, dang. Closer to $44 billion, but whatever. Yeah. Anyways, it's a lot of money, and he's kind of been a little bit hesitant

about actually going through with this deal. He's gone back and forth, and one of the things that he's been saying is like okay twitter's saying that there's five percent of bots but i can't actually go in there and do some analysis so this monday his attorney actually sent a letter to twitter essentially threatening to break the deal off because they're saying that twitter has not allowed them to do analysis their own analysis of how many bots are on Twitter. They think that Twitter has misrepresented the number of users on there, so that could affect the value of the company.

So that's kind of the background of what's been happening lately. The deal is kind of on hold. I mean, it's still in the process of going through. Whether or not it actually does go through remains to be seen. Fascinating. So talk to us a little bit about what's happening in Texas in that regard. The attorney general's doing something. Yes. The attorney general on the same day that this letter was sent to, um, the letter from Musk was sent to Twitter. I don't know if that's a coincidence or, or just, uh, or not a coincidence, but the same day that that happened,

the attorney general announced that he was issuing a civil investigative demand to Twitter related to the number of bots on the platform. you know how they calculate how many bots are on there to uh other internal things that they have that could determine whether or not they're being honest about this uh paxton paxton's concern is are they um have they violated the uh texas law by being deceptive uh in reporting the number of bots that they have improperly yeah so whether or not now Musk or Paxton has not specifically name dropped Musk. He didn't say, you know, I'm doing this because Elon's now a Texan voting Republicans. So he didn't make the connection to Musk, but it's pretty clear that there's the connection there because that has been a big part of the debate over musk's purchase of twitter um and paxton has noted that it also affects other people you know if there's a business in on in texas who advertises on twitter um you know whether or not they're

reaching actual humans rather than just random bots yeah would affect um their advertising so there's stuff like that that uh i think paxton has kind of used as the basis for issuing the civil investigative demand. Very interesting. Yeah, interesting to watch specifically the elected officials in the state as soon as Elon Musk moved here. We just heard so much more about him in Texas. It just became a very big topic of conversation, and the Twitter acquisition is a big part of that. Thank you so much daniel bradley um an attorney general opinion request which as you so pithily put it what is usually pretty dry reading um caught your attention this week talk to us about what it was so the galliston

county auditor asked attorney general ken paxton whether a state law prohibits a candidate who campaigned on eliminating the office he seeks from taking a salary. Seems like a really in the weeds kind of strange circumstance. Seems like it. Yes. But it does apply to a real world and current situation. Enter Hank Doogie, the GOP nominee for Galveston County treasurer. And he's done just that, running on the intention to eliminate the office. And he won the GOP nomination over one of the candidates as the incumbent and won it handily,, the primary outright, didn't even make a runoff.

But his main platform policy is to eliminate the county treasurer's office. And that's something that 10 other counties have done. And since there is no Democratic candidate, Doogie will assume the office in January after the general election. And so it presents this really interesting situation because state code has this weird provision. I can't even believe this is in state code. Yes. Right. I mean,

it forbids such a candidate from taking a salary upon assuming office. Uh, now what it says is the officer shall file an affidavit with the county payroll officer stating that the officer this is very confusing language the officer elects not to be paid for the officer's services if during the person's campaign for election to the county or precinct office the person publicly advocated the abolition of the office. How is this even in state code? I know, it's crazy. It doesn't make any sense. Now, it is not as simple as Doogie assuming office and eliminating the office.

It requires, interestingly enough, a statewide vote, a constitutional amendment. Now, I have heard, I don't know the exact answer on this, but I have heard after writing this piece that it would be on the statewide ballot if the legislature passes a bill, puts it on the ballot, but that only the Galveston County votes would count in determining whether this is eliminated or not. I don't know. Someone that I talked to thinks that's correct, but they're not totally sure. Regardless, it'll be on the statewide ballot if it makes it that far. So this is just a really weird situation. Yeah. What are the arguments made by the auditor about this provision?

So first, the letter contends that such language violates the First Amendment rights of Doogie. And specifically, it also says that foregoing the whole salary, which is a pretty sizable salary, it's six figures, for as long as it would take to eliminate the office that would be quite a burden for someone to shoulder and they'd still have to be doing all the responsibilities current responsibilities of the treasurer's office in the meantime but it also identifies uh i think more interestingly also identifies a contradiction between language within the law. It uses the direct, the person shall file an affidavit along with the passive elects not to be paid. So it's a chicken or the egg proposition here, which takes prominence. The order for him to file an affidavit or whether or not he elects to be paid.

Because if that one takes precedence, then he can just whether or not he elects to be paid because if that one takes precedence then he can just say oh i elect to be paid and that renders the rest of the provision obsolete so that is what is being asked of the attorney general's office to find a an answer to this and it's a non-binding opinion whenever they come out with it um which means it would still have to be litigated in court but it can provide some background and a starting place on this very good um is there anything else particularly notable about this story so one of the reasons that this makes it even crazier one of the reasons that this is such a big push in gallaston County, such that someone campaigning on such a proposition wins,

is that in 2018, the current incumbent, he sent an errant $525,000 payment to an email scammer posing as their road construction vendor. So this guy got email scammed out as their road construction vendor. So this guy got email scammed out of half a million

dollars. And once again, what's the annual budget for that office? It's about that much, isn't it? Oh no, it's probably much more but that's still not a drop in the bucket. That's a lot of money

that was supposed to be paid for road upkeep i wonder if it was like some nigerian prince that was requested reading into it more what they apparently did was um said sent an email posing as the construction vendor saying we changed our bank account information so please send all future transfers here and by the time he realizes the fake thing they had sent half a million dollars to this email scammer so that is one of the things that is driving this uh push in galliston county to eliminate the office but also this is not an unheard of thing it's happened as i said

in 10 other counties and um various other county offices have been uh other kinds of county offices have been eliminated in texas so this is something that has happened before and state code allows the push for elimination has happened 10 times or the uh scamming has happened 10 times i'm sure the scamming has happened i was gonna say brad you have 10 new stories to write oh my gosh well it just kept getting better yes yes that's what made this such a fun piece to write you think you pitched it last week and you're like mac we have to write about this and now we all see why well thank you so much um isaiah there was some big news over the weekend um as some uh drag event in dallas for pride month um caused a lot of controversy and some republicans in the state house are now mulling some kind of legislative action about this event that happened at a dallas bar where children were in attendance

tell us about the event first yeah so it was entitled drag your kids to pride and it was a drag queen event uh aimed primarily at families and children and um it happened at a dallas bar on saturday called mr mister in my sster uh near highland park and uh yeah that's about it but it drew protesters on the sidewalk from what i heard yeah so now some listeners may have heard of this kind of event is you know already illegal for for children but is that the case well i reached out to tabc the alcohol beverage commission and um their spokesman said that he was not aware of any statute that would prevent children from attending as long as they weren't served alcohol, right? This is the agency that governs bars and licenses bars. So that agency said that they weren't aware of anything that would make this illegal. There was also this law that got brought up by some major pundits

weighing in on this event that the state passed last year regarding sexually oriented businesses. And it passes Senate Bill 315-2021. Actually, with bipartisan support, we've got it linked in the article. And the major line that was quoted a lot says a sexually oriented business may not allow an individual younger than 18 years of age to enter the premises of the business. However, the state's definition of sexually oriented business likely does not include bars even if there is an event at that bar that could be interpreted as being sexually oriented so that law probably does not apply but if there is somebody that can find something illegal about it it would be the state attorney general ken paxton who did kind of enter into this story

yeah absolutely so on that note what kind of responses have lawmakers suggested? So State Rep Matt Schaefer suggested that an attorney general investigation might be proper for this, again, floating the idea that somewhere in state law, this might be illegal. But State Rep Brian Slayton, on the other hand, promised to file an outright ban on such events once the legislature convenes next, which would be in 2023, unless something funny happens, we get a regular session on this topic between now and then, which I think is unlikely.

But so those are the two main kinds of responses that we've seen are filing a bill that would make it illegal or suggesting that the AG investigate whether it's already illegal. Yeah, absolutely. We'll watch this probably go into the next legislative session for sure. Thank you so much. We're going to continue talking about another very hot social issue in Texas. Governor Abbott and the Department of Family and Protective Services have been sued once again for the agency's new protocol of treating puberty blockers, transition surgeries, and other similar procedures as child abuse. Tell us the details about the lawsuit. So, you might recall a previous lawsuit along the same lines, and we'll get to that one. legal allegations here deal with the fact that governor greg abbott relying on an attorney

general opinion directed the texas department of family protective services to treat puberty blockers transition surgeries and doses of opposite sex hormones meant to aid a child gender transition treat all these things as child abuse and the df has agreed, and they have been actively pursuing and opening up investigations into families that allow or intend to seek these procedures for their children. So like we said, when we get to it, there was a lawsuit already on behalf of a family and a Houston psychologist that challenged this new protocol. But with regards to this one, this was brought by the advocacy group PFLAG, a gay advocacy group,

and three families of transgender children. Among their, all of these children are born girls, identify as boys, and one of the children claims to have attempted suicide on the day that Abbott actually released his directive to the DFPS, citing the political environment at the time. So that's in the personal story section of the lawsuit. With regards to the actual concrete legal allegations, they basically argue that this new protocol that the DFPS has adopted, this new interpretation of the law, is technically a new rule. And they just kind of adopted it with a snap of their fingers without going through the whole procedure of adopting rules.

They still argue, also additionally, though, that even if they had promulgated the rule the official way and, you know, gone through the whole all the rigor of the rule adopting procedure, that it would still be outside of their authority because they're enabling statute tasks to the agency with providing family support that respects, in quotes, the fundamental right of parents to control the education and upbringing of their children. So those are the two main legal arguments. and there are some other marginal ones as well. But basically, the law that animates this agency forecloses the agency interfering with what they would argue is just a private procedure. And on top of that, this new interpretation of the law amounts to a rule. And if you remember, Abbott, Paxton's and DFPS's argument has been that these procedures are already child abuse under unchanged state law. And there were bills filed in the legislature last year that would have explicitly outlawed these procedures, and they all failed. We've talked about that ad nauseum. So instead, DFPS interprets existing like unchanged child abuse law to include these procedures.

Got it. So this is the second lawsuit of its kind, correct? Yes. This is actually whole swaths of this lawsuit are identical to a previous lawsuit that we alluded to that was filed on behalf of a child psychologist and another family with a transgender child. That one was the one that went up to the Supreme Court of Texas briefly. And that court ruled that Abbott does not have direct statutory authority over what the DFPS investigates. But the DFPS does have the discretion to investigate what they want to. So what that resulted in was the Supreme Court of Texas saying DFPS can investigate these procedures, but they don't have to because Abbott told them to. That's kind of the gist of what the Supreme Court said. And so that case is now at the Third Court of Appeals based in Austin. And it's raising a lot of the same claims, including the claim that this is

effectively a new rule that was adopted outside of procedure. Got it. Well, thank you, Isaiah. We're going to keep talking with you about another story here. We're talking all your stories here back to back. Citizens in Athens, Texas are starting what's called the initiative process to get a local abortion ban on the city council agenda. This is something you've been following for years now. tell us what that means and how that process works yeah with most of these uh they call themselves sanctuary cities for the unborn and the vast majority of them pass their ordinances just by citizens um aided by the the national activist based in texas pro-life activist markley dixon they'll just bring this proposed ordinance to their city council and the city council will aided by the national activist based in Texas, pro-life activist Mark Lee Dixon,

they'll just bring this proposed ordinance to their city council, and the city council will decide to pass it. And then that bans abortion locally, and they join this initiative. There's another process that Dixon turns to when city leadership, usually often when city leadership in a particular town is loathe to touch the ordinance and this process, if you get enough citizen support behind it will require the city council to consider it. So the way it works is that it starts with gathering petition signatures. And according to the Athens city charter,

the number that they're aiming for here is 15% of the qualified voters in the city. And I want to say that amounts to about 1,100. Don't quote me on that one. But we've got links to the city. I'm quoting you. Dang it. Should have said it on a recording. But yeah, we've got a link to the city charter you can see in the article.

But they've got to get petition signatures for at least 15% of the city's qualified voters. And then if they go through all that, they can force it onto the city council agenda. If the city council passes it, then it becomes law. And if they don't, then the voters get to decide it in a citywide election. And in Athens, that could be a special or regular one, I believe. But the main thing is, if the city council decides they don't want to pass it, then the voters get the chance to pass it. So got it. So that basically talked to us real fast about how the ordinance will work if enacted. Like all previous sanctuary city for the unborn ordinances, this would ban abortion in city limits with the most immediate enforcing mechanism being

civil lawsuits, similar to the Texas Arboretum Act, but applying from the moment of conception. So more stringently than the Texas Arboretum Act. But additionally, joining a few recent towns that we've covered in some previous articles, this would also, in the words of the ordinance, ban the abortion of any unborn resident of Athens, regardless of where that abortion takes place. So it's what they call an extra jurisdictional provision in this ordinance. And we've seen that in, I want to say the city of Slayton and some others, Abilene is going to vote on an ordinance with that same provision in November. That's something else to note. There are a few other cities that are working through the same initiative process, including Abilene, San Angelo, and Plainview. The most recent one was

Lindale, but the Lindale City Council decided to pass it instead of rejecting it. So there's not going to be a citywide vote in Lindale. That's already law there. But yeah, that's how it works. Primarily city lawsuits. It also allows and encourages local authorities to impose direct penalties and prosecution if they determine in court that those penalties would not place an undue burden on the rights of women seeking abortions or if Roe v. Wade gets overturned. So multiple roads to go down there. Awesome, Isaiah. Thank you so much. Gentlemen, let's talk about some tweetery. I think we have some pretty good stuff this week. I'm a little I'm I'm I'm looking forward to

hearing y'all's takes on these things in the document here. Daniel, why don't you start us off with something that you saw that caught your eye this week? Something that has been catching my eye quite a lot are the gas prices. I actually had a dream. I don't even remember what it was. It was something to do with the extreme gas prices. Oh, my gosh. Actually, I was paying for gas, and the card worked, and I kept on getting charged hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And I was like, this is not good. Whoa.

That's an awful dream. Yeah. That's a nightmare. Anyways, but gas prices aside, there was a U.S.edy from louisiana who always has very fun remarks and he made one related to the price of gas um he said quote in my state the price of gas is so high that it would be cheaper to buy cocaine and just run everywhere can you can you play the clip and have it like listened like yeah yeah play the yeah play the clip on the pod um even can you play it now into the microphone continues to campaign for more

economic chaos meanwhile i don't know about where you live jesse but uh in in my, the price of gas is so high that it would be cheaper to buy cocaine and just run everywhere. It would be cheaper to buy cocaine. As far as the personalities of senators, he has just got to be my favorite. It's crazy. of senators he has just got to be my favorite it's because of all these quirky lines that he has i he actually when i was writing my book sorry to plug this again but when i was writing my book the narrator is a u.s senator and i was like there needs to be some way to like distinguish the narrator from the rest of the story and so what it did was i drew some inspiration from john kennedy and just like had him threw in

some some little bit more quirky southern random sayings like this of just like very off the wall funny things oh my gosh that is so awesome yeah i i just wonder how what it's like to be a staff member of his you know like he just and it's so much like so much of the stuff he says is just like benign, kind of funny. Like, but sometimes it's something that gets him in trouble and oh my gosh, it's just so funny. Um, well, Daniel, thank you. And I wanted to choose that one and you stole it and I'm okay that you did, but it was so funny.

Hayden, what did you, uh, see on Twitter this week that caught your eye specifically? Well, it's hard to follow that because John Kennedy is just something else. He is. He is hilarious and entertaining. But what caught my eye was a tweet from Democrat Mike Collier, who's the nominee for lieutenant governor. He said in Texas, you can buy a beer at 18 in Texas. Pardon me. You can't buy a beer at 18 in Texas, or pardon me, you can't buy a beer at 18 in Texas. You can't buy cigarettes at 18. Yet in Texas, you can go and buy a machine designed to murder human beings and walk into a school at age 18.

This will change when I'm lieutenant governor. It must. And not singling out Mike Hollier, but I think we're in the middle of a gun control debate, and we're going to be for a while. And there are a lot of fallacies in that debate. And but a common one is probably the is odd fallacy, which is more or less an appeal to the status quo. And a lot of politicians will say because things are a certain way, that means that they should be. And this is an example. Common retort to this argument is that you should be. And this is an example. A common retort to this argument is that you should be able to buy a beer at 18. You can be conscripted to military service,

so you should be able to buy beer and cigarettes. So, you know, and on the right, a lot of the time the argument is the Second Amendment confers a right to an individual to have a firearm even if it's a semiotic firearm with a high capacity magazine and um it's an appeal to the status quo as well and the retort to that from the left is that it shouldn't be that way that that's not a good policy so i think we'll have to keep our eyes and ears peeled for the is-odd fallacy in the coming months as the U.S. continues to debate the policy response to what everyone agrees was a tragic event. But it's important for the public to make sure that the policy is built on sound logic. And oftentimes in the heat of a political discussion, a sound logic is not a priority. Really?

Yeah. I'm just figuring this out. The glass is shattered. He's just spitballing here. Oh my gosh. Well, that's very good, Hayden. Thank you for bringing that to the pod. Isaiah, what do you have for us?

Brad wrote an article about this a little while ago about these big statewide figures running into school board elections. Waiting was the verb he used in the headline, actually. Ted Cruz... I've got to stop using that. I use that too much. I like the verb waiting. But he said,

he twote out, I'm proud to endorse Craig Chipping for Mansfield ISD school board. He goes on to say that Craig Chipping for Mansfield ISD school board. And, uh, he goes on to say that Craig is committed to fighting CRT and so forth. Um, but it is interesting to me, there was actually a different school board candidate for the state board of education who pointed out, like, it's just funny that we've got a U S Senator, not only waiting into a school board race, but this is a runoff election for a school board race placed for June 18th. So it's not even with all the other Ross that we, you know, but this is a runoff election for a school board race, placed for June 18th.

So it's not even with all the other runoffs that we, you know, it's not a major election date. It's Mansfield ISD school board runoff. Very particular, very specific. But we know that this has been a big issue for Ted Cruz, but it is a trend just to notice. And like I said, we've already written on it. I'm just adding this little example to the pile of examples that are growing. Yeah, it is a pile now, for sure.

A big pile, yeah. It's a lot of endorsements. And real fast, and we've talked about this previously, but for those who may not have heard, talk to us about why you might think that, or just reasons why school board races are drawing attention in this way recently? There have been a lot of issues related to education that have been pushed to the political forefront. It's something that didn't exist before, but COVID and COVID policies exposed a lot of things about school that people did not like. And they've been realizing slowly or gradually that school boards, especially in Texas, have the most authority over what actually goes on in the classroom, what goes on in school. And, you know, whatever the legislature decides, the general rule in Texas law is that things a school board may do vastly outweigh the things that they shall do.

And so we talk about this in our piece on school security. The legislature gives this big toolbox to school districts and charter schools saying, here's a lot of things that you can do, but almost nothing is required of school boards. They can pretty much do whatever they want. And anyway, so there's been a lot greater attention devoted to previously boring elections regarding schools and the state of education and so forth. Those issues have also become prominent in races that only involve education as one part, like for the legislature and things like that. So, but it's a COVID phenomenon. Yeah.

Really. Yeah. Certainly critical race theory, mandates code response i mean there's just so much um that is in the limelight right now and kind of causing a lot of this involvement which is interesting um thank you isaiah bradley what do you have for us not one of my own tweets oh my gosh so you're welcome for that although i did also tweet it. Is it a quote tweet of somebody who quoted your tweet? No, it is not.

This is directly from the source. The Texas Attorney General's office came out and they announced this morning, being Thursday morning, that a 40-year-old cold case had not entirely been solved, but partially. There was a double homicide in 1981 in Houston of a couple who were living in Florida, from Florida, and their infant daughter was missing um after this i don't know i think they had an infant daughter i don't know if she was with them at the time or what but um she was assumed dead for 40 years well it turns out uh that daughter whose name is holly has been found 40 years later wow and um that's wild dude yeah it's they were it was part of an investigation into the now cold investigation uh by the attorney general offices what is the name of this thing the cold case and missing persons

yeah and apparently it's new, the unit is, and they have already found something pretty striking. Yeah. But that's good news, right? That this person is alive and well. They did say that the investigation into the homicides is still ongoing, but luckily Holly has been found alive and she's now 42 years of age. Wow.

I wonder if she wanted to be found. I always wonder that. I always wonder that. Or if all this attention is something that she wouldn't welcome if she had the choice. That's a fair question. It's an interesting thought. Yeah, I would be intrigued to hear her thoughts on the whole situation. Who took her? Where where she been the whole

time you know they did say that uh she's going to reunite with her her family um but there wasn't a lot of details about everything that's gone and sin they're in the middle um but i'm sure this that will come out at some point but um yeah or maybe not who knows might just be something that is kind of kept private it's i can't imagine like we how yeah i can't imagine 40 years like yeah mac have you heard of the maura murray case no it seems like something you might have heard of she was a woman who went missing as a college student in new hampshire and there are theories that she went missing intentionally because the police have never solved it. But there are theories that she went missing people put so much out there that it it's probably true that it has been solved nobody

knows which theory it is though like at least one of them right is right okay i think it was considered one of the first missing person cases in the media age because it happened in 2004 right after facebook launched oh my gosh wow that's got to be a shell shock of a situation there yeah i haven't heard of it but true crime we always love that i think i think i should probably look into that this is a real life true crime this is a real life but most but that's why it's called tristron bradley being sarcastic i was saying that to myself because you said that i'm like yeah i really wait a minute does that remind me of a movie by mel gibson or maybe he just started it but

i think it's called conspiracy theory where there's this guy who's gone crazy when he has like a gazillion conspiracy theories and one of them is true they just don't know which one because like the government starts chasing after him and trying to suppress him but he has like this blog full of conspiracy theories and he's like i don't know which one is right that's hilarious i feel like if you throw the dart at the wall enough times you'll yeah you'll get there eventually right interesting well against my better judgment gentlemen i am going to um choose a broad tweet choose bad yes choose a broad tweet this week week to highlight slip a bad tweet but again against my better judgment this is what i'm what i'm going for but brad did tweet something interesting for once so i figured i would just highlight it um but uh braddy tweeted

a text that had been sent out to some delegates for the texas gop convention asking if they would support Matt Rinaldi for RPT chair for reelection or Kat Parks, who has been his vice chair and was Allen West vice chair as well when he was chairman, which was fascinating considering one, Kat Parks said that she would not run for reelection as vice chair. And two, the rumors aroundin and republican circles that we've heard have largely been that you know she won't be running against rinaldi and that was not something that had been on the table for a while so interesting to watch kind of a push poll almost go out to delegates and again delegates are the ones who will choose the chair at the end of the day also interesting in that rinaldi who has been uh previously before he was chairman very

critical of the governor on certain issues particularly in light of his covet 19 response and since assuming the chairmanship has been far less um you know critical of the governor has kind of been more of the you know central gop figure um filling that role um but it's not like there are you know there is that much uh love between rinaldi and the abbott camp right and we even saw for a while there abbott had not planned on sponsoring or attending or speaking at a convention and that has changed a little bit in the last couple of weeks but um in the last i believe there was a call with delegates uh three days ago two days ago something along those lines where um carl rove and steve munistery two of abbott's top advisors were on a call with delegates ahead of convention kind of talking through what to expect what the

governor would be doing for delegates etc and they i believe and brad you you correct me on the exact phrasing or what was said but they were like we hope no one runs against rinaldi it would be a mistake or something along those lines of saying you know at this point we hope that there's no challenger to the sitting chairman and i think they also threw cold water on challengers to sric members or something like that yeah some other level of party official yeah but uh mainly yeah rinaldi they which was fascinating kind of shocking too right like and one i guess it's late in the game where i feel like usually there is a challenger at this point to the sitting chairman and it would

be shocking if we didn't have somebody challenging rinaldi because fights over who is chairman for the gop have been a hallmark of conventions in previous years it's just kind of what happens and so it'll be interesting if nothing happens in that regard and there is no challenger to rinaldi specifically considering uh his political inclination and you know the people that he's previously ticked off yeah and uh somebody very clearly is interested in at least pulling the idea of a challenger to Rinaldi. But it is the delegates who will make this decision. And there doesn't certainly as of now,

there appears to be no challenger, but it doesn't appear that there would be much support for a challenger to Rinaldi. Things can obviously change, but he's got almost all of the srec lockdown in support and obviously they're not unless they're a delegate they're not explicitly the ones making the the vote for for rinaldi but um that does hold a lot of sway in in the inner intra-party circles so it's like a trickle-down effect almost yeah right so we'll see where it goes but um

yeah that was really odd to see especially after all the long time of no this isn't going to happen nothing especially cat parks thing talking seeming like she had no interest in running against rinaldi and a campaign of 10 000 delegates or 8 000 delegates or however many end up actually being at convention is a hefty ask right i mean that's a lot of work so to stage that a week out from when convention will start is very difficult yeah you gotta be exactly literally just on repeat and uh that would be i mean a big ask so it also might be at this point too late in the game for that kind of opposition to be mounted successfully maybe that's some of

the thought process behind this but it's still very interesting to watch at least uh kind of some feelers go out to delegates yeah and whether he gets one or gets a challenge or not the person who probably has the likeliest chance to upset him would be kat parks because she has built such a a foundation in the party um as vice chair and doing a lot of uh voter outreach stuff especially in south texas she's done a ton down there so um yeah well they represent two very different parts of the party too yes um yeah needless to say very different parts of the party so we'll watch that and we'll see you know we'll report back after convention next week next week or we won't actually talk about convention much on the podcast but afterwards we will certainly um report back with what we what we saw and what we found speaking of convention let's just pivot to that as our fun topic this week gentlemen are there

things you are looking forward to witnessing are you hoping for a fantastic floor fight are you looking to speak to an elected official specifically are you looking for to get as many freebies as possible in the convention hall what are you guys most looking forward to at convention i don't have a single clue what goes on there and so i'm not i'm looking forward to the road trip to houston yeah i guess the road trip will be fun because you boys specifically are going now hayden i think you and i are the only ones who've been to a convention before um what should the gentleman expect well it's been a bit i was at the convention in 2016 and the floor fight over the platform is a sight to behold there are i mean spit flies people mad, people debate and argue. And I remember one of the seminars that was given was by the Republican Party's parliamentarian.

And I just remember feeling the stress from him as he prepared for this massive event, because like you just said, it was something like 11,000 delegates in 2016. And I remember him saying, ask yourself the question before you seek recognition. Do 11,000 people need to hear what I'm about to say? And a lot of people, when they went to the mic, it was clear that they hadn't asked themselves that question first. Oh my gosh, yeah. It was just endless bickering. And you've got, everyone has copies of everything.

So there are papers flying everywhere, a bunch of sidebars. So that's what I'm looking forward to is putting my head on a swivel and just observing from afar the floor fight over the platform. And then of course the elections and like we just talked about,

you know, that's possibly not that there's going to be a fight for the chairmanship of the party, but, you know, other elections as well that go on at convention. So, I think sitting back and observing different people, the people who are involved in party politics, hashing out the future of the political party and power in texas will be very interesting absolutely and i will say as well the role of the chairman of course is fundraising for the party trying to get republicans re-elected um that's i mean any party chair of either party that is the goal right is to raise money for candidates and to re-elect or newly elect um people of their party affiliation but there's also the part of convention where the chairman does reside over or preside over that um floor fight and kind of act as like a speaker of the house for the convention so that will be it's always fun to watch how each

chairman kind of monitors and um brings down the the hammer literally hurts cats yes i just think 11 000 cats 10 000 cats i just think about how rowdy the texas house is with 150 representatives and this is just that on a massive scale 150 representatives who kind of understand for the most part parliamentary procedure and how to go about the business of the house 11 000 people 10 000 people can't they don't all know how to approach a mic and go about their person now certainly not everyone is going to go up to the mic and try and make changes not everyone does that but a lot of people do and this goes on and wait like this war wages for hour it is so spicy and so funny to watch you don't have the spice what's the spice level on it it's like a five star out of you got a request out of five stars and like spice levels are up to five

if you order enough thai food you find this they all have that same system the thai food restaurants they actually do yeah it's standard it's stars five star three star i usually get between like i usually get three star it's usually what i go for four or five is just. Not that anyone cared to know that, in fact. You know, something I was thinking about the other day is Texas is truly a republic. We elect representatives to make decisions on our behalf, unlike some other states that are a little bit more participatory we get to having a statewide town meeting, so to speak. Oh my gosh, yeah. And feeling the percent of the

time you know statewide election statewide elections go to republicans that's kind of the breakdown there but um so certainly republican state at least by a small um small enough margin but the democrat party is not nearly as organized or has as many activists who go to their convention the republican convention here in texas again not that there's that big of a difference between party is not nearly as organized or has as many activists who go to their convention, the Republican convention here in Texas. Again, not that there's that big of a difference between how many Republicans and Democrats show up in terms of statewide elections on any given year, but the Republicans in Texas are so involved in their process, which is really interesting. And to have that many people from the state come out and actually, you know, care about the issues is fascinating. And it provides a lot of fodder for, for us. Okay.

Knowing a little bit of that, Isaiah, Brad, are you guys looking for, Isaiah's looking forward to the, to the road trip. To the friends we make along the way. Bradley, what are you looking forward to? I've got a couple of things in in mind um first does governor abbott speak right now he's not slated to yeah and that is a massive speaking of spicy yes that's like a level four spice that's at least a four and a half um the sitting governor of texas the top elected republican in the states is right now not scheduled to speak in front of his

party's delegates and you can speculate as to why that is um a lot of people have but it's as of now not happening and so that is very odd to see um i don't know if we if I mentioned this last week, but it kind of smells of John Kasich not attending the RNC in his home state. That was back when I was living in Ohio, so it was close and personal. But it's just, it's very interesting to see something obviously had to tick the governor off for him not to do it.

But things can still change. He may still do it. A lot of time until then. Another thing I'm interested in is the legislative priorities that they decide on. There were, I think the number we settled on was like two and a half of the legislative priorities of the party were passed by the legislature. What do they do with those? Do they make them more generic? Like, uh, on the second amendment stuff,

like prevent any infringements on the second amendment. Is that the kind of language they adopt? Do they pick another thing? Um, same thing on abortion. Do they just continue to adopt the abolition item despite the, um, uh,

the, the heartbeat bill passing? Oh dude, something else on that note. In the ballot proposition poll for the statewide election, one of the ones on the ballot was protecting life for concession to natural death. And so does that involve the death penalty at all i mean that's a very good point yeah that's a big deal it's a great question but the legislative priorities are um the party's slate of priority items that they want the legislature to address

yeah and so um and then can be advocated for by party officials during the legislative session. Yep. And, um, you know, we've seen things added to it. Things drop off. I think one thing that may drop off this time, um, is taxpayer funded lobbying. I think it slid in, in 2020 at number eight. Um, will Matt Rinaldi add any chairman's priorities like alan west did with emergency powers reform i think that's pretty that's going to be an interesting fight um not only what gets included

but how do they fashion them well and leading up to the convention because convention for just general attendees starts wednesday for delegates and people kind of working through the platform on different committees um it starts monday right so that's part of the deal as well as the process of actually getting committees together hearing testimony on different platform planks that will be going out you know the entire uh the entire time different senate districts will also be meeting throughout the week it's a very interesting um kind of governance model yeah um of the party um i do read yeah that'll be very interesting daniel what are you looking forward to seeing one of the things that

i'm looking forward to is having so many elected officials in the same place to be able to take pictures it's nice we can just get them all together get a bunch at once um and then you know from a from a media perspective when we're writing articles we always want to have photos handy of different elected officials if there's a story related to them so this is a helpful tool for us from that perspective it's also just fun to to get pictures yeah have options absolutely i'm excited to hang out at an airbnb with you guys it's going to be a blast Annie will be there with us as of right now she sustained an injury

so hopefully she'll be with us officially but I'm excited Connie will be there we'll probably play some games in the evening we'll record a podcast from the Airbnb it's going to be a really fun week knock on wood, no more injuries anybody awesome

okay gentlemen, well thank you so much for joining us. And folks, thanks for listening. 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 the texan.news.

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