The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - June 11, 2021

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

This week on the “Weekly Roundup,” the team details the vice president receiving criticism from a Texas senator over her border response, a review of Speaker Phelan’s first legislative session, campaign updates, a supreme court justice resigning, San Antonio giving tax incentive allowances to Petco despite a missed target, the state reinstating full work search requirements for unemployment, a rundown of the gun bills that passed this session, and updates on the local elections from the weekend.

Howdy, howdy, Mackenzie Taylor, Senior Editor here on another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, our team details the Vice President receiving criticism from a Texas Senator over her border response, a review of Speaker Dade Phelan's first legislative session, campaign updates in the land commissioner's race in a state Senate seat, a Supreme Court justice resigning, San Antonio giving tax incentive allowances to Petco despite a missed target. The state reinstating full work search requirement for unemployment. A rundown of the gun bills that passed this session and updates on the local elections from the weekend.

We appreciate you tuning in. Enjoy this episode. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Danieliel frieden hayden sparks and brad johnson we just stopped a very heated debate over what constitutes gen z versus millennial thankfully with this podcast uh being the reason we all stopped debating this daniel's smirking over here because he has strong maybe maybe we should bring that back up at the end i just typed it and the fun topic suggestion the wrap up at the end of this podcast what a great idea daniel um wonderful well hayden let's start with you our resident gen z or we think um why don't you talk to us confirm that that is accurate both factually and morally as brad would say yes that is a direct uh brad johnson. Talk to us about the border. We have a lot of news being made this week, many headlines written about the vice president

and her comments on the border. One of our senators here in Texas had some thoughts on that. But walk us through basically what's going on there and give us a little bit of a rundown. Well, I meant to check the temperature in a certain very hot place because Vice President Harris went to Guatemala and took a hard line stance on immigration, saying that individuals in that region should not come to the United States. And she has faced criticism from both sides of the aisle now on her decision to go to Guatemala and make that strong statement. She is urging against illegal immigration in Guatemala and the surrounding areas as we continue to face an illegal immigration crisis that really shows no signs of receding. The border numbers just came out and I'll talk about that in a second. But Senator John Cornyn's

response was that Vice President Harris decision to go to Guatemala is like if your home was burning, and it was on fire, and you call the fire department, and they showed up and they started hosing down your neighbor's house. And one of the conflicts is the federal government is trying to reorient the foreign policy of the United States from the Middle East to Central America, because in Vice President Harris' view, that is what is causing this illegal immigration crisis, because of the turmoil in Central America, corruption, poverty, all those factors that many of which do play into illegal immigration. However, Republicans are emphasizing what is

happening right now, the fire that's burning right now, the illegal crossings that are overwhelming local authorities in border counties and overwhelming law enforcement, quite frankly. But Vice President Harris is still focusing on what she calls the root factors of migration. So they're really trying to get at the source of this crisis. But Senator Cornyn said that the vice president shouldn't be in Guatemala, and she also visited Mexico on Tuesday. And he seemed perplexed and frustrated that she would go to those countries, which is in fact her first foreign trip as vice president, instead of visiting the southern border, as Senator Cornyn, Senator Cruz, and many members of Congress have done, including Democrats. So that is the controversy that occurred just a few days before the border numbers were released. And again, these were released just moments before we started recording this podcast, and I'll be able to go into more depth later.

But there were 172,000 enforcement encounters in the southwest region in May, which is almost identical to the number in April, which was 173,000. In the Texas sectors alone, the El Paso, Del Rio, Laredo, Rio Grande, Rio Grande Valley, I know I'm missing one, but it was 118,000 in the Texas sectors, 51,000 in the Rio Grand Valley alone, and 110,000 of the total Southwest region expulsions were Title 42 expulsions and Title 42 is the coronavirus rules. So of course, we'll be able to go into more depth later. But if those numbers are in any way unclear, there were an absolute ton of enforcement encounters in the southwest region. This border crisis is not improving at all.

And the numbers haven't continued to skyrocket, but they skyrocketed earlier this year. And those enforcement encounters are still up there around 170,000, 175,000. So we are in a serious situation i like it well hayden thanks for covering that for us broad we're going to head to you the legislative session the 87th legislative regular session is now over but we have more to come we've talked at length about that but you know basically that calls an end to speaker dade phelan's first legislative session you wrote a piece this week dealing with you know, basically that calls an end to Speaker Dade Phelan's first legislative session. You wrote a piece this week dealing with, you know, quotes and reactions from lawmakers about his first session, the job that was done by the House. Give us a little bit of an idea of, you know, what happened and how the session turned out.

Well, I think we talked last week about how conservative was session. And, you know know within that is contains the the things that they got done obviously the two big ones are the heartbeat bill and um the uh the constitutional carry bill in terms of conservative legislation there are also uh speaker phelan also had three uh substantial slates of priority legislation for the house itself. Now it's not just conservative legislation itself, but across the spectrum. Those were ERCOT electricity related stuff, healthcare priorities, and then criminal justice reform. And it was kind of a mixed bag about what got through, what didn't, the marquee aspect of the criminal justice side.

Bail reform did not go through. That was also part of Abbott's emergency item list. We'll see that in a special session this week, which I'll talk about more in depth later. We saw the legislature's ERCOT and power grid related priority bills signed. But there was one bill itself that was part of Phelan's priority list in the House that actually got through and was not addressed by the Senate bills. It's related to the gritty wholesale index price utility bill situation where people saw thousands of dollar bills from a couple of days of service. What they did was they basically put a cap on what can be charged during emergency

conditions to these people that are using these wholesale indexed plans. However, it doesn't affect most people because I think it's like 98% of the population has flat rate plans. And so, you know, that's not going to affect many people. But obviously, it was a touchy subject around the time of the storm. Then there were things that didn't go through. And, you know, I also touched on this in the conservative session piece. But, you know, things like big tech censorship, taxpayer fundedfunded lobbying. That specifically, Phelan has been in favor of, but obviously the body was more divided on. Various other things.

It's kind of a mixed bag, all in all. And I think you can definitely make the case that he delivered on more conservative priorities than especially in the recent sessions, but also whiffed on his fair share of things, not just among conservative pieces of legislation, but also overall. Yeah.

So what did House members, you spoke with, I believe it was four in this piece. Yeah. What did they have to say about the Speaker's performance? Well, they all generally lauded him with the exception of Representative Brian Slayton. Slayton was one of the two members that voted against him against his speakership he and representative jeff casen slayton basically said that you know i i like the guy he he hasn't been retributive against us

for not voting for him um slayton mentioned that he had a couple bills actually pass, which under someone like Joe Strauss would not have happened at all. But he said that I haven't seen a commitment to passing the GOP legislative priorities from Phelan. And until that happens, I don't plan on voting for him again. The other three that I spoke with, one of them was Representative Terry Canales, one of the highest ranking Democrats. He's a chairman of the Transportation Committee. He lauded Phelan. He said he'd give him an 8.7 out of 10. Canales was actually one of the Democrats that walked out during the whole election bill fiasco. He mentioned that Phelan was, one thing that he had never seen before that Phelan did,

was he let the parliamentarians really take the lead on their responsibilities rather than, you know, getting his hands dirty on that and directing it one way or the other. Phelan was very deferential to them. James White, he, Representative James White, he chaired the homeland security committee republican republican yep uh from east texas he lauded phelan for um taking what what bonin did and allowing them to preserve their majority and really following through on certain things um at least that's what james said. For example, the heartbeat bill and the constitutional carry and then also delivering in some capacity on the winter storm stuff. And so that along with shepherding through the budget and the increased spending cap.

James White saw it as a successful session, and it appears that there's no risk to Phelan being ousted as Speaker. At least for the time being and going into special sessions, he is going to remain Speaker. We said the same thing last time around. Bonnen was Speaker, and very soon soon thereafter drama befell the house uh so you know as is usual with the exception of maybe last session there's tension between the house and the senate in pretty big ways particularly between the the leaders of both chambers what did lieutenant governor dan patrick have to say about his session

he has been very critical of feeling especially after the election integrity bill died on the last night. You know, a lot of it centers on the more conservative piece of legislation that the Senate sent back to the House that did not go through, did not get through the House for various reasons one way or the other. Lieutenant Governor Patrick appeared on Chad Hastie's radio show this week, and he said that by letting Democrat lawmakers leave and not pass Senate Bill 7, they made Republican constituents unhappy. He basically also said that, I don't know if he came out and said this explicitly, but he definitely alluded to it, that, you know, Phelan should not be speaker anymore. But then he said that, you know, the Republicans are in the House are just going to do the opposite of what I say. So I'll leave it alone. Yeah.

Good stuff. Well, Brad, thanks for covering that for us. Daniel, we're going to come to you. As is customary after session, a lot of campaign announcements are being made. There have been particularly notable ones in that land commissioner, George P. Bush has opted to run against attorney general Ken Paxton in the Republican primary.

And that means that the, you know, the race to replace George P. Bush in the land commissioner's office is, is on. And this week we saw some movement in that. That would also be another domino to fall. So walk us through what happened this week. Yes, the big announcement this week came on Monday when

Senator Don Buckingham, which is the current state senator for Senate District 24, that's kind of in central Texas, and then it dips down into the southwestern portion of Travis County. So Buckingham is from Lakeway, kind of an Austin suburb up at Lake Travis. And she announced that she'll be running for land commissioner to replace George P. Bush. That is the big announcement in that race this week. But there's also been Galveston County Judge Mark Henry who said that he was considering a run and would make a decision in a few weeks as well.

Got it. So what does the land commissioner even do here in Texas? So unlike the railroad commissioner, which its name does not really reflect what it does or encompasses it very well, the land commissioner actually does deal with the public land in Texas. Are you telling me the railroad commission doesn't regulate railroad? I mean, I think that there might be maybe some of that still. Oh my gosh, what a travesty. I think it has a little bit more to do with the oil and gas. Just slightly. Just slightly, exactly. But the land commissioner does focus on the public lands in Texas, so when you hear about them talking about beaches or another big subject is the Alamo.

That's been something that has come up frequently under George P. Bush. He's come under a lot of fire. So you're saying they do have to remember the Alamo to have that job? Yeah. Oh, my. Basically. And then they also help manage or facilitate disaster preparedness and recovery programs. So they work with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development.

Housing and, yeah, HUD. One of those bureaucratic organizations that doles out money to states. They kind of facilitate the money going to the local areas that are affected by hurricanes like Hurricane Harvey. We've seen a lot of controversy over funds from that that Holly Hansen has been covering over in the Houston area. So those are kind of like the big issues that really come up in the land commissioner's role. I like it. Now, where does this leave Buckingham's seat? So since George P. Bush is running for another office and he's not going to be able to run on the ticket for land commissioner, likewise, Senator Buckingham's seat. So since George P. Bush is running for another office and he's not going to be able to run on the ticket for land commissioner, likewise, Senator Buckingham

is not going to be able to run for state senator at the same time. He can't really do two roles at once. So her seat will be open. There are a few different names going around. The big name that was announced this week was Ellen Trux-C who is a former austin city council member uh more on the conservative side of the city council she's running as a republican at least yes on austin city council yeah exactly you don't have to be very conservative to be on the conservative side yeah exactly but we're not saying anything about her conservative credentials we're saying everything about the austin city council yes it's austin it's the blueberry and tomato soup as i've heard it's been called that's funny um so she announced that she is going to be

running for the seat um again things are still kind of up in the air with redistricting. I imagine that it'll still dip into Travis County some, but lawmakers could put SD24 in Galveston if they wanted to. I don't know why they would. Who knows? Redistricting still has to happen later this year. The Census Bureau, don't get me started on that rant. So Troxelair is the first name in there. But another person who has said that he's considering a run but hasn't made any decision yet is aaron wright who ran for house

district 47 i believe yep i always get 47 45 confused but i have done that many a time on tweets yeah delete them um they're pretty close to each other and close in number too. But that seat is also in Travis County. He ran for that and lost in the Republican primary last election cycle. But then he ended up at the Attorney General's office and is now one of the senior aides in the office of the attorney general under Kent Baxton. Good stuff. Well, Daniel, thank you for covering that for us. We'll continue to watch who enters that race. I have a feeling it'll be relatively crowded. So interesting to see the announcements begin to be made. Brad, let's go to you.

One of your tried and true beats here, ERCOT power grid. This week, the governor signed two big bills into law. Walk us through what they do. Yeah, so Governor Abbott, he made the statement at this press conference that everything that needed to be done was done to prevent this from happening next time. I got a lot of pushback on Twitter. You know, we'll see what happens as soon as we get even a tiny little blackout, you know, that will be used against him. But the state did pass significant reforms, maybe not as much as certain people would like, but, you know, it's not like they did nothing on this. And those include, first is Senate Bill 2.

That is less about the grid and more about those who operate the grid and oversee it. It reforms the Public Utility Commission and the aptly named Electricity Reliability Council of Texas. And so, you know, it reforms those in terms of how members get appointed. There was talk about expanding the PUC to five members. I don't see that in the final version, but there was an issue with members of the PUC not being able to talk to each other because of open meetings laws during the winter storm. But one thing it does do is specifically regarding ERCOT, it, uh, it creates this selection committee of three members, each one of one each appointed by, you know, the governor, the Lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house that then vet candidates and make

appointments to the ERCOT board. And rather than having these separate, the ERCOT board as currently constituted, it has representatives of different sectors of the energy industry. So you have someone that is voted in by electric cooperatives to represent their interests, someone that's voted in by generators, that kind of thing. From my understanding, that's all gone now. It's all just general unaffiliated appointments, but they have certain criteria of what someone has to meet in order to be considered for this executive level experience for any number of industries, you know, business, finance, electrical engineering, all this stuff. So it kind of broadens the scope of who can be appointed to this, but also gives more say over who is on the board to, you know, political or elected officials who are obviously, you know,

accountable to their constituents. Another thing it does is it creates this two-year lobbying prohibition so two years after someone leaves either the puc or ercot as a board member or a commissioner they are prohibited from being a registered lobbyist and then the last one is creating an in-state residency requirement for members of both bodies. And obviously that was a big issue during the storm when everyone realized all of a sudden that both the chair and the vice chair of ERCOT itself, neither of them lived in Texas. One lived in Michigan, one lived in Maryland, and there were a couple others that also lived out of state. And so that would be fixed under this new bill. And it's important to note also that these were passed overwhelmingly by both houses. And so they will go into effect

immediately. The second bill, SB3, that's kind of an omnibus power grid bill. It contains a lot of stuff, but the upshot is a weatherization mandate specifically against cold i think it's down to zero degree temperature texas already weatherizes because it gets so hot in the summer that's its main focus preventing blackouts during the summer um you know something like what happened in february is very very rare but obviously now it's something they have to contend with and now they're they're incentivizing these facilities to weatherize their infrastructure against various things one thing i asked was at the press conference was whether they are worried that these um these weatherization

efforts will come at the expense of their summer heat resiliency. And one reason that that is a question is that up north, one way they weatherize against winter storms is putting cold weather, is putting infrastructure, buildings around these pipes and whatever, and that keeps them insulated. So they said that won't be an issue. Other things are more robust critical infrastructure mapping. There was a situation where at wellheads, machinery was cut off from power, and so you couldn't get gas necessary to create electricity. And so that kind of caused a compounding effect. And the last one is a state

statewide alert system that will help keep everyday Texans aware of what's going on. I got it. So these are big omnibus bills. Other bills were passed this session as well, but walk us through if there's anything left to be done. Yeah. The big one is securitization. And that's a very technical term for something that just means loans to defray debt. it's this it's the government taking out low interest rate loans and supplying them to these companies that have found themselves under water and debt after the storm such as like the brazos electric co-op that is i think it's 1.2 billion dollars in the hole to get to allow them rather than having to charge their customers higher premiums in the short run

to make up for that, they can defray that cost over a long period of time. Now, regardless, ratepayers are going to foot the bill for this, regardless of what the government does. So that's something that should be watched, and we'll see how it turns out. Awesome. Thank you, Bradley. Daniel, we're coming to you. A resignation of a Supreme Court justice this week, a Texas Supreme Court justice, sparked rumors of further ambition on her part. Walk us through what happened. Yes. Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman notified the governor of her resignation earlier this week in a letter to Governor Abbott.

It will be effective shortly after this podcast is published on Friday, June 11th. She has been on the court since 2009 when she was appointed by Governor Rick Perry, and then she was elected in 2010 and 2016. The terms for Supreme Court justices in Texas are six years, and so at that point they need to run for reelection or resign. Oftentimes they resign before the term is up. And so her next election, if she had stayed on, would be in 2022. Got it.

So like I alluded to, this is sparking rumors of runs for other offices. She said nothing, but rumors are flying around Austin. So we'll see what happens if anything. Yes. And I do think, um, just of note, some context, you know, obviously there's all the statewide elected officials are up for reelection or election in 2022. There's a number of new congressional seats that are going to be up. Um, now we've seen people on the Texas Supreme Court go to other positions before. I think Senator John Cornyn was actually an attorney general before, or maybe he ran. I think he was attorney general. I think he was on the Supreme Court too. Yes. So he was in

several different positions. Jump around. So it wouldn't be unusual to see her run for another seat in Texas, but she hasn't made any formal announcement yet we'll keep an eye out if she does i like it well daniel thank you for covering that for us um hayden we're coming to you there was some major controversy in san antonio about petco of all things and uh certainly an unexpected headline for us this week um but give us i don't write about cats and dogs very often, but this week I did. Which is funny because you, of all people in this office, care the least about pets. But it has been raining cats and dogs lately.

Yes, it has. Wow, what a time. I read the other day we're in the Noah's Ark phase of Texas weather. Oh, wow. Well, that's appropriate. Okay, so let's go through. Let's talk about San Antonio and Petco here and give us a rundown basically of what's going on. which they have completed the 10-year term on that contract. And the San Antonio City Council decided to terminate this contract, even though they fell 150 jobs short of their required job target.

And they contended that their charitable contributions were one of the reasons that this contract should be terminated. Got it. So tell us a little bit about, you know, the charitable contribution argument that we're hearing from Petco. Petco has actually formed a foundation called Petco Love, and it's very lovey-dovey. I just, first time I've said that out loud, but that used to be called Petco Foundation, and they give to various causes such as canines for warriors and other animal care services in the san antonio area they have given 6.5 million dollars to charitable causes in the san antonio area and at this council meeting the corporation did not appear to represent its corporate offices which are in san diego california and. And the company is incorporated in Delaware, but their primary corporate offices are in San Diego.

They didn't send anyone from the corporate office. Instead, they sent the Charitable Foundation to tout these contributions that they've made in the community. So explain, you know, maybe a good way to think about the tax abatement portion of the council's decision. Well, what I thought about when I heard the decision that they were pondering is everybody has to file their tax return. And if you have a tax bill that's due, it would be interesting if someone just didn't pay their tax bill and didn't pay their tax bill and then sent a letter to the IRS that said, well, we've made these charitable contributions and so we don't think we should have to pay taxes this year. Of course, that analogy breaks down eventually.

This is not quite the same thing. There was an agreement put into place ahead of time. And they had to create 400 jobs in order to receive these tax incentives, which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of training credits and a tax abatement as well as grants. So they didn't meet the 400 jobs that they were supposed to create in order to receive these tax incentives, but they contend that their charitable contributions offset that. So it would be like if you did not pay your taxes and the federal government forgave that because you gave to charity. Of course, we have a mechanism to do that. You can write off charitable contributions, but they don't just completely let you off the hook for paying your taxes just

because you gave to charity. And that's what happened in this instance. The city of San Antonio had the prerogative to reclaim the entire tax incentive package because Petco did not meet the terms of their agreement. And I don't think anyone disagreed that it was a breach of contract, but they exercised their right in the contract to forgive that instead of requiring them to pay back all these tax incentives. Certainly. So, you know, what are the primary arguments in favor of dissolving the contract? Well, one, there were only two votes against dissolving this contract and forgiving the breach. And those arguments were that it set a bad precedent and future companies would just disregard the terms of contracts with an expectation that their breaches would be forgiven and they could fix their they could keep their tax benefits

but one councilman manny palais said that if they did that and they clawed back as that's the phrase they use is clawed back these tax incentives that the the council gave them is that that would turn the contract into a suicide pact of sorts. I'm not quite sure if that's an on point statement. According to Forbes Petco's annual revenue in 2019, of course, before the Coronavirus pandemic, but in 2019, their revenue was $4.1 billion. And we're talking about a few hundred thousand dollars worth of tax incentives, not nothing, but it is still dwarfed in comparison to their overall revenue. So they contended that the supporters of terminating this agreement contended that if the city council did not do this, then it would deter large corporations and it would deter people from seeking out San Antonio

as a place to work with the city to develop businesses and other facilities. So those were the arguments in favor of letting them off the hook and letting this go. Awesome. Thank you, Hayden. Bradley, coming back to you. In light of COVID, unemployment has been a huge topic of conversation just for folks in general and in terms of the news cycle. Walk us through what the Texas Workforce Commission did this week related to benefits. So under state and federal law, there is a requirement in order to receive unemployment benefits that you actively search for work. That was suspended through most of last year

because of the pandemic. And it was kind of a, you know, if you're afraid of going to work because you don't want to catch COVID, especially back when we didn't really know how bad it was or how bad it could be. You know, that was basically removed that requirement. And Texas announced this week that they are reinstating that. That will be a requirement for anyone receiving unemployment benefits. And yeah, a big reason why is because there's a lot of job openings and people are choosing to go back to work. We saw something address this earlier. Actually, it was last month, but it will go into effect later this month. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced they would be foregoing the $300 a month extra federal benefit for unemployment. And so both of these together, it's an effort to try and get

people to go back to work. Vaccinations, vaccinations are out there on the rise. And obviously, you know, the sickness itself was not nearly as bad as we thought it could be early on last year. So, you know, there are like 800,000 job openings apparently in Texas. And actually, it's probably more than that because a lot of them are not listed. Things like construction jobs are often not listed on these databases. So there's a lot of opportunity to go back to work. Businesses need it. I can tell you myself, I've seen, there's a coffee shop I drive by often and they have a sign outside. This is in Austin that says, you know, we're hiring for $17 an hour for just, you know, a person to take cash and pour coffee. Businesses are desperate to get employees back and get back to, you know, something resembling before the pandemic.

Yeah, some semblance of normalcy. Yes. Well, good stuff, Bradley. Thank you for covering that for us daniel one of your uh favorite topics and favorite beats is uh second amendment gun bills etc movements in the texas uh in the state of texas certainly most your most lucrative one yeah it's also one of our favorites for the readers yes certainly um it's just a favorite all around folks care a lot about this issue but being that the legislative session is done you wrote a piece detailing all the different gun bills that were approved by the 87th Texas Legislature.

Tell us a little bit about, you know, some of these proposals, what passed, what didn't, etc. There were, I don't know if it was surprising or not. Going into session, I think a lot of people thought I would focus on, you know, pandemic related stuff and that lawmakers might not get to a lot of gun bills, but it turns out that I think they probably did more gun bills than they did pandemic bills. Um, of course you had the big ones that everybody was talking about this session, um, namely constitutional carry. There's also a second amendment sanctuary bill, uh, to kind of prohibit the enforcement of potential future federal firearm regulations like universal background checks or a gun confiscation program or anything like that. And then, of course, constitutional carry allows people to carry in public without a permit. Most Texans over the age of 21 will be able to do that in September, assuming Abbott doesn't veto the bill, which he said he's going to sign it.

So he probably will. It would be a shock if he didn't. So some other bills of note. There was one that got quite a lot of attention when I gave it to Isaiah to write about, and it was our top trending article for some time. But now my new gun article has beat it. Not that these boys care about what trends well on the site whatsoever, or keep track.

Not at all. But that bill, and I think he's talked about it on previous podcasts, would exempt Texas-made suppressors from federal gun regulations. So it kind of brings some interstate commerce ideas into the firearm industry and lets people have a little bit more flexibility in using suppressors, which some people like to do. Instead of having ear protection, it just helps with decreasing the noise because guns can be quite loud. Some other bills that were passed. But not if you have a suppressor. Yeah. Brad.

Oh, Lord. I think you need a suppressor the next time you go to the range because clearly you have some hearing problems. Oh, man. Other bills, there was a hotel carry bill, which basically allows individuals, if they're staying at a hotel, to carry their gun and store it in their room. Of course, like carrying it to your car, if you don't have a license to carry, you need to have it in a case or something more concealed so that as you're

taking it to your room, but hotels cannot prohibit guests from storing it in their rooms based on that bill. There's another bill, or actually two, I'm really not sure what the difference are. They both passed and they both accomplish basically the same thing of allowing more flexibility in the types of holsters individuals in Texas can use. Right now, the code is very specific in saying a shoulder or belt holster, and that just eliminates the words shoulder and belt from the code to allow any kind of holster that people want to use. There were some different expansions to the license to carry program,

which will still remain in effect even though constitutional carry is going on. So individuals who are under protective court orders who might be 18 to 21 years old, but can otherwise qualify for the LTC besides the age, if they're under a protective court order, they'll be able to apply for an LTC. There's a new bill passed to expedite the process for other people who are under court orders, protective court orders, or at risk for violence, so that their LTC application can be expedited. So those are some of the big ones. And, of course, there's many, so go read the article if you want to see them all and have them linked to the actual bills so you can read the bills too. Yeah.

Good stuff. Well, Daniel, thank you for covering that for us. Um, we're going to turn to some local elections here. Um, particularly in light of, uh, this last weekend, Brad, we're going to start with you. The McAllen mayoral race, uh, raised a lot of eyebrows in the in the state, particularly after the 2020 elections. Walk us through what happened there. reason it's so difficult to find that is they are nominally nonpartisan positions but um javier via lobos is the republican uh mayor-elect of mcallen the fourth largest border city in texas and um he won by a narrow margin it was like something like uh, 206 votes. And so, um, obviously it was a tight one, but for a place that is, has been so basically impenetrable for Republicans and, uh, essentially a democratic

bastion, uh, they, you know, this is a shock and it gained national attention. Um, you know, obviously we wrote about it since we're talking about it, but it wasn't just us. So, you know, obviously we wrote about it since we're talking about it, but it wasn't just us. You know, basically every national news outlet did something on this. This has been obviously the border stuff has been a developing story. But this is just another testament to what's going on down there. So who won? Well, it was Javier Villalobos, and he is a city commissioner. I think this was his first term, but he has held multiple positions, not in elected office, but in the Republican Party down there. He was the Hidalgo County chair, GOP chair.

He ran for state rep at one point. So he's a known quantity down there. And he defeated the mayor pro tem, Veronica Whitaker. And he had the endorsement of the sitting Democratic mayor. So that's, that's who the McAllen voters chose to take their, uh, take over, take, uh, control the city for the next, I think four years. And, um, one thing I was looking at his, his platform, uh, some of his statements on social media, he touted a lot, you know, good government transparency in the elected officials, um,

but also things like lessening property taxes. And so he was not, he ran as a Republican and he talked like a Republican in a lot of ways. So it wasn't like voters were shocked to see that he, you know, is a Republican and, and that's the way they went. Yeah. So you've, you've specified some, but give us a little bit of the broader context, political context in the border. Yeah, so we saw, obviously in 2020, this very shocking shift toward Republicans down, especially in the Rio Grande Valley. You know, we saw four counties down there shifted in Republicans' direction during the 2020 presidential race by over 20%. And basically every county down there shifted towards Republicans in some way.

I think Hidalgo County shifted 13%. It went from very, very low, like in the 10s, to much higher than that for President Donald Trump in the last election. And it's part of this obviously broader trend of Hispanics on the border, for whatever reason, becoming more friendly to the Republican Party than they otherwise were beforehand. And that's something that political talking heads are fighting over, weighing on what the cause of it is. I'd be hard pressed to believe the immigration situation is not contributing to that at all. But it also, with Villalobos' win, it shows it's not just Donald Trump himself that caused that shift. I would argue probably that I find it hard to believe that Trump did not have something to do with it

and probably had a significant portion, but he's not the only factor in this. And so we'll see if this continues to develop. Obviously, the 2022 midterms are not too far away. I can't believe I'm saying that right now, but it's true. And we'll see if this trend continues. I think it will. And we'll see where that takes the Republican Party in Texas. Good stuff. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, you've been following the Dallas City Council elections for, well, as long as they've

been going on at this point. Walk us through what happened. Who's departing the Dallas City Council? Well, there are four people who are headed out the door. Three of them reached their term limits. Councilwoman Jennifer Gates, Councilman Lee Kleinman, and Councilman Adam Medrano. Medrano is also the mayor pro tem. And those three individuals met their term limits. So the Public Safety Committee will also need a new chair because Jennifer Gates was the Public Safety Chair. But a fourth councilman, David Blewett, lost to one of his challengers, Paul Ridley, who advanced to a runoff with Blewett and defeated him pretty handily. I

think the margin was 61% to 39%. Janie Schultz will replace kleinman and gay willis will replace jennifer gates and jesse moreno will replace adam madrano i had to say that really slowly because they have very similar names but those are the four individuals who will be replacing the four incumbents on the dallas city council how did the defund the police movement factor into these elections? The Dallas City Council never truly defunded the police. They did make a 25% cut to the police department's overtime budget. Of course, the pro-defunding activists were not pleased with that decision. And I remember at the council meeting virtually, I attended know, we were still in COVID at the time, but many of them were saying, we're going to vote you out because you didn't, you know,

reimagine the police department or whatever their argument was at the time. And on the other side, people were irritated that they had cut as much as they did. So they never really truly defunded the police. And it didn't necessarily have a great impact on the results of the election. Incumbents Kara Mendelson and Adam Magoe were endorsed by the Dallas Police Association, and they won re-election. On the other hand, the three candidates that lost the runoffs this past Saturday were also endorsed by the DPA. So they were two out of five for Dallas Police Association endorsements.

And of course, the police department doesn't endorse, but that is the city's police association. And one of the incumbents, Carolyn King Arnold, who suggested that people in Dallas were addicted to calling the police, an interesting comment made at a city council meeting, I think in January, and she was reelected as well. So it was mixed results on the defund the police front. It wasn't a resounding mandate in either direction. Quite honestly, it was an uncharacteristically quiet city council race. What a time. Well, thank you for covering that for us. We're going to pivot to some contract writers, other writers, pieces that are not in the office

and unable to share their stories, but we're going to stay local. So one of the pieces I'm going to highlight here is Kim's piece on the Fort Worth mayoral race. We saw that Maddie Parker, the endorsed candidate from outgoing mayor Betsy Price, won the race against Democratic Party Chair Deborah Peoples, the Tarrant County Democratic Chair there. So certainly a very heated race. A lot of folks were looking to see if the city would elect someone who was more left-leaning than Price in terms of her political affiliation. And Maddie Parker from the Price camp was able to come out on top. A lot of Republicans rallied locally to ensure that she would win, and she did. So we'll see how that goes forward.

And we just found out that outgoing Mayor Betsy Price will, in fact, be running for the Tarrant County judge position. So we're not seeing the last of Betsy Price yet. But that is written by kim roberts our uh tarrant county reporter great work from her um hayden we're going back to you will you cover a piece from isaiah about the san antonio city elections well the socialists actually had a stake in this one because there were two candidates one of whom was endorsed by bern Bernie Sanders, who will be incoming members on a seven-member city council. I haven't been covering San Antonio City Council.

I know more about the Dallas City Council, but I did get a little flavor of it this week with the Petco controversy. There were two candidates who were endorsed by the Socialist Party, one of whom was Jalen McKee Rodriguez, and another was Terry Castillo, or Castillo. And Castillo was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. So I enjoyed the way Isaiah put it, the council became a deeper shade of blue. Although I think it also goes to a divide in the Democratic Party at the moment, because many Democrats are trying to distance themselves from the socialist wing of their party. So this is a very far left endorsement of two candidates who have won seats on a very

influential and large city in the state of Texas. Absolutely. Thank you, Hayden. Well, let's pivot to some other stories here and talk about another piece from Kim. But Brad, walk us through this piece about a new policy at TCU's campus. So get this. I'm ready. An institution of higher education is doing something that really won't affect much but is kind of farcical. Wow. Yeah.

Shock of shocks. They are changing the name freshman to first year student. Wow. I know that's going to really help a lot of people. What's the reasoning? To make it more inclusive.

I think it's the fact that the word man is on the end of fresh. And so they are going with the gender neutral first year students. Yes. This is, first of all, reading this, I was shocked that that wasn't already the case because I just kind of operated under the assumption that every school had done this.

The one I went to, my alma mater did this, and that was back when I started in 2013. So we were called first-year students. But Kim has an interesting piece on the website about it. There's actually a student or a TCU parent group that has formed or has already been formed and they're fighting back against this. They're not happy with it. It's just, you know, it's another one of these things of these universities thinking they're doing something really groundbreaking and it's really just kind of silly in the end. But check it out and it's on the website.

Great reporting from Kim. What it reminds me of, there's this video, website. Great reporting from Kim. You know what it reminds me of? There's this video, some comedic thing from over in Scotland, and it's like this Scottish police officer who keeps on, he says something offensive, and so he tries to apologize to this group, but every time he apologizes to a group, he offends another group, and it's just like this constant. Is it a bit or is it like a real thing? It's a bit.

It's like a domino effect of a few people it's just like this three minute video of him apologizing to different groups and then eventually he he offends bald people I think at the end but he's able to accept the apology himself because he is bald

I'm just you know counting down the days until every descriptor we use is so ambiguous that it can't describe literally anybody. And I think we're on that path. Good stuff. Daniel, we're coming to you on that front. A piece from Holly about hospital staff walking out in protest of hospital policy. Give us a little insight.

Yes. So over at Houston Methodist Hospital, there were over 100 employees who staged a walkout after the hospital essentially threatened to or didn't really threaten. I think they actually followed through on this to terminate employees if they refused to get a COVID vaccination before a certain date. And so there were several employees, several nurses at the hospital who did not want to get a vaccination and were against it for different reasons. And they staged this walkout. Holly Hansen went over to watch this protest and talk to a few people there, get some good pictures. So be sure to check that article out on our website as well.

Good stuff. Well, thank you for that. Well, folks, the moment we have all been waiting for. Let's talk Gen Z versus millennials. i think there will be some discussion here i'm just confused i've been told i'm both but i'm i'm millennial like i don't see any evidence that is uh that i'm gen z i think i'm millennial yeah so let's let's let's talk through this daniel so i see on your computer you have an article pulled up which is where i i found the definition i was trying to find an official definition not the definition the most official definition that i can find what qualifies it as

official if it's research government mandated would have been like the official if the cdc came out and said i know the cdc's kind of like that's another topic in and of itself but you know if a government organization comes out and says we're measuring generations based on x date that would probably be the highest standard in my view of like what's government agency is the highest standard in your view of like what's official government agency is the highest standard in your view of an official definition for a generational date since there wasn't that the closest thing i could find to like an official organization that says this is the hard date is the pew research center which says december 31st 1996 That's the last date for millennials.

What do you think, Aiden? Daniel, you're a fan of the Oxford, are you not? I am. Well, according to Oxford, Generation Z is the generation reaching adulthood in the second decade of the 21st century, perceived as being familiar with the internet

from a very young age. Daniel, would you say that you have been familiar with the internet from a very young age. Daniel, would you say that you have been familiar with the internet from a very young age? Yes. And would you say that you reached adulthood in the second decade of the 21st century? In the second decade, so 2010 to 2000? Yes. I contend that it is a subjective determination as to whether

someone is Generation Z or Millennial. And so it is improper to suggest that I am Generation Z because I was born in 97 and you're Millennial because you were born in 95. I think we could both be considered either generation. But I say I'm Generation

Z, you say you're millennial so we may have to agree to disagree on that point well you said you're generation z i think i'm generation z because i'm and you think i'm millennial no i don't think i'm i think you're gen z too because what year all of us were were what was that what year were you born 97 okay yeah you're then you would be gen z by by by by both our definitions but i think i think all of us in this room could be considered gen z just my personal opinion interesting i think i'm reading this pew research article and there's a an argument that there's post-millennials which would be a segment pre-gen z and post-millennial which is interesting and miriam

webster oxford urban dictionary all those cite that as something that exists which you know okay right if that was a category i think we'd fall into it but i mean here's the thing if you're at either end of the extreme of one of those you know groupings you're going to have some tendencies of the of the following one one year is not going to have some tendencies of the following one. One year is not going to make that much of a difference. So there will be some things. That's a really fair point. That's a really fair point though. When you look at third graders, like there's a big difference. Absolutely. They are the big kids on campus. But at the same time, you know, you may have more tendencies of the group you're grouped in with, but it's not like the one year is going to make

that big of a difference. So you'll have have some tendencies you'd have to group it and draw the line somewhere what do you think brad i have two thoughts i'm ready for them the first is i have this burning desire to know whether post malone is a post-millennial oh lord in heaven let's find out second i reject this generation nonsense you have i I see these. I get the broad trends. Yes, it has some validity. But when you lump entire generations of people into this one category that is supposed to describe them, it drives me a little up the wall. A little bonkers? I was going to use another term.

A variation of that one. I've got two words for you, Brad. Okay, boomer. He literally sounds like a very crotchety old man right now. Which I guess does kind of prove his point. Exactly. We see the majority of the discourse over this generation nonsense is to get one over on the generation you don't like, whether it's young people hating on old people or old people hating on young people. And I constantly see this, you know, well, it was the greatest generation.

Not all of them went to war and fought and sacrificed. There were a lot of scumbags that were part of the quote greatest generation and the and the people that actually did sacrifice and go to war do not do not deserve to be lumped in with the people that do not fit that description and so i reject this uh this framing and um i still am wondering if post malone is a post-millennial he would be he was a 95 baby so yeah no i think Brad has a good point because the and the same goes for for Gen Z as well I think Gen Z gets a really bad rap because you know we're perceived as being on our phones all the time and not and being not caring over emotional and apathetic or we're speaking out of turn all the time and I don't

think everybody in Gen Z is like that. Maybe that's our generation's challenge is to kind of rein it in and listen to the older generations more. But every generation has its flaws. So that's a very good argument. There are scumbags in every generation. That's just how it is. So in your efforts to provide a nuanced explanation to your argument, you, I think, oversimplified it.

But that's okay. Well, wonderful. It's not nearly as complicated as pineapple pizza, Mackenzie. Wow. You're so right, Hayden. My mind was just blown. Well, folks, I want to end this podcast in a little bit of a different way. Sarah White's last week with us is this week.

And Hayden, will you pass your mic over to her? I'm going to just say hello, thank you, and goodbye. She, each week, makes sure that our podcast is recorded and produced and does all sorts of things behind the scenes. So, Sarah, just tell the people, you know, your fans, what you have to say to them. Well, I clearly have many fans on this podcast weekly i do get stopped like oh my gosh you are the sarah white it's true they hear you order a chipotle and recognize your voice they just know it um i'm very popular on this podcast a lot of unspoken things that i have just i've held in my heart for you guys that i'm in these conversations

just in my head silently. Wow. That was so deep and profound. That was so well done for someone who was put so rudely on the spot by me. So well done. But Sarah, we adore you. We're going to miss you already. And thanks for all your hard work. Absolutely. It's been an honor. Folks, thanks for listening. And we'll catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter, tweet at The Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively

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