The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - June 13, 2025

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Texas Officials React to Anti-ICE Riots, Marines Deployed to Los Angeles'Best Session I've Ever Had': Abbott Recaps 89th Legislature, Hints at Property Tax CrusadeReforms to University Governing Boards in Texas Await Governor's SignatureTexas Secretary of State Refers 33 Alleged Noncitizen Voters to Attorney GeneralKumbayas, Defused Bombs, Third Rails: A Review of the 89th Legislative SessionIbogaine Research 'Consortium' to Treat Opioid Addiction Passes Texas LegislatureExpansion of Border Crime Landowner Compensation Program Awaits Abbott's SignatureUranium Mining, Nuclear Energy Expansion Bills Headed to Abbott's DeskCollege Athlete NIL Agreements Updated in New Texas Law

Howdy folks, it's Mackenzie here with Mary-Lise, Cameron, and Brad on another edition of the Weekly Roundup. We have a bit of a different setup this week. I'm remote, Mary-Lise is remote, which will be normal for Mary-Lise for a little while. Cameron and Brad holding down the office, holding down the fort in Austin. Boys, what's it like not to have any female presence? Wonderful. Wrong answer. Yeah we've just thrown our clothes all over the office, the trash hasn't been taken out,

there's dirty dishes. Rob's eating his sardines. Okay, Robin has sardines. Somebody has to stop that boy. Is he actually eating that much of sardines this week? It's a good week to do it. No, he's made an adjustment. He was eating mackerel.

Mackerel? Like a filet of mackerel, not canned. No, in a can. Fun fact about Mackerel. My ex-boss got sent to federal prison and he eventually got out and I saw him last year at some point, probably around Christmas, and he told me that the currency within prison is cans of Mackerel. And that's the fiat currency there. Wow.

Yeah. It seems like an odd update to volunteer to a former employee after you've gotten out of prison. I was asking him how it was and you know. Yeah well food, I've actually heard this that food is the currency and like the rare flavors of top ramen are actually worth a lot. Yeah. Interesting. Well, there you go.

The more you know. But we have some fun news, Mary-Lise. We are entering a new season for you, which is super exciting. What's going on? Well, I'm going to have a name change to Obar in a couple of months. So yeah. Here we're acting surprised. Yeah, surprise.

Wow. You want to see the first you're pointing out? This is news. This is the first time I'm hearing about this. Wow. Oh, you're a great actor. But Mary-Lisa's engaged. It's so exciting.

Yep. Yep. Dropped off. Pretty exciting. A legislative session covering all of the things happening in Texas. But Mary-Liisa's engaged! It's so exciting! Yep. Yep. It's pretty exciting. Drapped up a legislative session covering all the things happening in Texas politics, goes home, gets engaged.

Yep. It's been a whirlwind of a year. Well, we're so excited for you and we couldn't go on the pod without mentioning it, of course, with your permission. It's exciting stuff, so we're pumped. I love the reaction from Connie, Kim, and Holly who knew but didn't know things were happening in your life and were like, wait, tell us about this boy. What's happening?

What's his name? What's going on? It was so cute. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, don't want to distract too long from the news, but it's out. It's out. I'm engaged. Hit the presses.

That's the update. It's a fun update. Okay. Well, appropriately, we're going to start with you, Mary Lee, to cover some news for us. Texas officials are weighing in on various riots going on around the country. This is dominating the news cycle nationally. Give us the details of what the response has been here in Texas. Yeah, I mean this has been difficult to miss if you're paying attention to the news at all

recently within the past week. There's been all sorts of protests and riots specifically happening in Los Angeles, California. That's really been the epicenter of all of this. But there's also, there was recently some, a bit of rioting, a bit of protesting in both Austin and Dallas the other day. So we've got all sorts of Texas officials, representatives, our governor weighing in on this and talking about what Texas's response would be to the situation. It's also this isn't in the piece, but there are some protests planned for January 14th, not January, we're in June, June 14th. And Governor Abbott has said he's going to deploy our National Guard. So that's not in the piece. That's just a recent development. Governor Greg Abbott specifically applauded President Trump's decision

to deploy 4,000 of California's National Guardsmen, and that was against Governor Gavin Newsom's wishes. But Abbott weighed in on that. He said he thought that was a good call. He said, an organized assault has been waged against federal law enforcement officials, and then said that it's time to put an end to it. We also saw different representatives, and we saw our federal Senator Ted Cruz weigh in on it. He said that he thinks it's perfectly clear where the two sides stand. He says the Democrat party is a party of illegal immigrants and of Venezuelan gangs.

There's a long quote in there, you can read the full thing, but he said, he thinks that California is sending the message that if you're an illegal anywhere in America, you're welcome in California. Another individual that weighed in was State Representative Jose Menendez. And he took kind of a different angle here. He applauded the protestors for raising issue with the deportations going on, but he said, you have to do it peacefully. He said, so work to protect your neighbors who could be deported, but also do this peacefully. We shouldn't be setting cars on fire, throwing rocks at police cars, things such as that, and looting stores that have been happening in a high, unalarming level in Los Angeles.

But he did say that he thinks the Trump administration is actively hindering their right to protest. So he was still pushing for folks to keep protesting but do so peacefully State Representative Mitch little also talked on it He was specifically raising concern with this size and what he thinks is an organized nature of these protests Suggesting that there's some folks funding this and organizing it that whose name might not be out there He said that he thinks eventually we'll get to who's funding these protests, but he thinks that the goal of these riots is to extort the public into believing that there's another political vision that's more acceptable than the one that they live in now. So this piece just collects a whole bunch of reactions from our different Texas folks on these riots that are happening specifically in LA.

Absolutely. And of course, we've seen some rioting in Austin, some action happening in Texas itself. And so law enforcement responded to that, the governor responding to that. There's a lot going on across the country, but that it does not preclude Texas from being part of that conversation. So Mary-Li, thank you so much for your coverage and we'll continue to keep an eye on all this that's going on. Bradley, we're recording Wednesday a little bit earlier than usual and you were on a roundtable today with the governor kind of discussing a lot of different things, press availability. Walk us through some comments that the governor made to you in that media roundtable. So right off the top, in reviewing the 89th legislative session, he said, quote, it was

the best session I've ever had, and it'll be transformative for years to come. He specifically talked about education, obviously, education savings accounts, that program is for him the biggest achievement of the session. He put in millions and millions of dollars and you know went around the state stumping for his chosen candidates to try and flip enough seats and he in the conversation cited that that it went from 29 votes for to 86 over the span of two cycles. Not all of that was election turnover but a good amount was. More than anyone else, Abbott can take the credit for getting that across the line

with how much he went to bat for it in the primaries. We'll see how that is. The program is established and implemented, and that's going to be an interesting facet to watch with this open comptroller seat and then the comptroller race that is already underway. We're still waiting on to hear if Abbott's going to appoint somebody or well, he will appoint somebody who he's going to appoint once comptroller Glenn Hager leaves at the end of this month, I believe, to go to Texas A&M to be the president of this university system. But he also cited SJR 5, the bail reform. He also stated that all of his emergency items passed. So I think that you know those are overall in education he also mentioned the funding, the school finance teacher pay combination bill, $8.5 billion. And he also mentioned the school discipline bill.

And we'll see how effective that is down the road to try and make classrooms safer and less prone to disciplinary problems. But those were the top lines. Then he got into some other things. He touted the property tax stuff. It was interesting. He specifically Put the onus on localities for raising property tax Excuse me for raising property tax taxes, which of course they do Geez excuse me and taxes, which of course they do. Excuse me.

And, uh, the state has to kind of ask to buy it down either through raising homestead exemptions or through compression. And it's an indirect way to provide tax relief. He said he doesn't think that, um, it's been properly explained to the public yet. Now, there's a reason it hasn't been. It's difficult to explain why the property tax system is the way it is and how weedy it is. You know, I've spilt a lot of digital ink trying to explain this topic for years now and it's just very difficult to grasp because it's layered on top of layered of different You know factors it's a root and equation between tax rates and

Appraisals, so it's all it's very convoluted. It's not as simple as oh the state has a you know a six and a six point two five percent sales tax you know that's really simple to understand yeah right so because you're absolutely right it's incredibly complicated I sit with you in the office every day I still don't understand it as many times yeah I've asked you to explain it to me I'm wondering if either we could do this another news outlet or maybe even the government themselves can come up with just an easy explainer of property taxes, but then a way for individuals to plug in like, yes, I own this home, it's worth this much, I have a homestead exemption. So at the end, they can understand,

okay, this is the number that I'm getting relief on. I think there is a bit of that. The central appraisal districts usually have some sort of calculation of why, what's contributing to your tax bill. So it does exist, I think, but I'm sure it could be made clear or marketed better But overall it's just you know that this at root what raises your taxes more than anything else is the rates that are adopted

by these localities Right. I mean your if your home value goes up from a hundred thousand dollars to a million that itself is not gonna Cause your property tax bill to go up. If the locality adopts a no new revenue rate, your property tax bill will stay flat. But if they don't, if they adopt anything above that, then your tax bill will increase. The localities, they adopt tax rates after they know what the appraisal rules look like. And so one comes before the other, and therefore the onus is more on the latter half than the first half. And that relates actually to what one thing Abbott mentioned that didn't get across the line was the two-thirds vote requirement by voters at the ballot box to approve to any property

tax increase at the local level. And this was mentioned in the State of the State early on in session, and it just really never got any legs. They did pass HB 30, which closed the disaster loophole, which is something I've written on a lot about over the last few cycles where you know there's a loophole in law, it's there to be used when in a state of disaster you can actually, the localities can exceed the caps that were set in place in 2019. And so you know there's been a lot of disasters in Texas and that gives a lot of ability to, um, uh, to, to, for localities to raise taxes above the, the 2019 limits.

And so they, they fixed that. Um, are people complaining that localities are taking advantage of that quote unquote loophole? Yeah, they have been for years. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what really highlighted it was COVID because the entire state was under a disaster loophole, but it existed before then. This was in SB2 in 2019 that passed. So, yeah, so that was fixed,

but the governor still wants the two-thirds requirement and he said Flatly that he might have to campaign on that like he did ESA's and bail reform It's that important is that important to him. So coming to a campaign stump near you The governor on his reelection campaign pushing for that. So there's there's property taxes. He also addressed a SB 3 This was pretty short. He said for that. So there's there's property taxes he also addressed SB 3, it was pretty short he said he has not decided which way he's gonna go on a veto or not. He said I haven't tackled this one yet I'm going to give it the thoughtfulness that it deserves this is a time I'll put my judicial hat on and hear arguments from both sides. Basically intimated that he'll make a decision on that after he

gets through some more bill signings and bill vetoes. And then he'll address the third rail, which is SB3. A couple other highlights that I'll run through quickly. I asked him what the most underrated bills were this session. He highlighted the Texas Cyber Command creation in San Antonio and then he also highlighted the 20 billion dollar and water investment item at HGR 7 and so Those are two things that he thought weren't getting enough Attention and so he highlighted them

Well the cyber command bill is something we've covered a Well, the cyber command bill is something we've covered a few times here at the Texan. The reason why I think he's highlighting that as something that's been under covered potentially is there's been lots of reported cyber attacks from many of these hostile countries, especially places like Russia and China. There's a story we wrote about maybe over a year and a half ago now about a cyber attack on a locality on their water tower. So that's what I... He mentioned that. Yeah, exactly. One thing he said was, you know, that we get hit with tens of thousands of cyber attacks every day in Texas and we have to be perfect on every one. They only have to get it right once right and then we have fronted to be big problems

If I didn't mention it SB 3 is the THC ban That Dan Patrick really went to the mat on We'll see how that goes, but there's a huge fight. There's a poll put out this morning showing I think it was 47 percent of Republican likely voters oppose the hemp ban and then compared to 35% I think percent, 35% Republican likely voters supporting it. So it's still, you know, there's a clear difference of opinion on this. Yeah. But more people based on this poll are opposed to it than supportive.

And one last thing he was asked about at special session, there's been a lot of talk about redistricting. I've been talking about this for a few weeks now in various podcasts and newsletters But the New York Times reported that the Trump administration has been pushing for Redistricting in various states. I can tell you that is absolutely true In Texas is one of them So now the question is does Abbott agree to redistrict and specifically congressional maps Mac and I talked about this on Smokefield room and how you keep Democrats even in town for this

it you know, it sounds like there's a lot of legs to it being paired with the the 11 12 billion dollar border funding reimbursement from Congress in the Funding bill, bill. I'm not gonna call it that stupid acronym. Even though it is good for marketing I'll say. So on the special session he declined to answer really he said I haven't identified the need for a special session yet. Very politician-y answer. And then he was asked if Trump has asked him for that and he said I'm not gonna disclose what the president has talked to me about and

there you go. I mean a lot of talk about it being in July and there's legs behind this. Doesn't mean the governor is ultimately going to do it, but this is not just mere rumor. So we'll see where it goes and I'll have a piece on that. Just general round table and all those comments up on the sites. So go check it out. Go read it Bradley. Thank you for your coverage and always interesting to hear kind of a postmortem from the governor on all these different issues and we'll continue to hear from him. As time goes on, Cameron, we're going to come to you. A bill that will reconfigure the governance structure of Texas universities was passed this session. Tell us about it. I love that question reading there.

I thought I did a really good reading off of our docket. Because you know sometimes our rights of questions doesn't really make sense. You really cleaned that one up a bit for me. Yeah, this is SB 37 by Senator Brandon Creighton. He's the leader on all things education in the upper chamber. And what this will essentially do is enhance oversight authority of existing governing boards for public institutions of higher education here in the state, requiring them to conduct a comprehensive review of general education curriculum every five years and granting them the power to, quote, overturn any hiring decision made by the positions of Vice President or Dean. And this has been directly related to these faculty councils at institutions of higher education here in the state. Within the bill it says these faculty councils will be restricted to quote an advisory role so that has really caused a big stir

in the higher education community. There was actually an amendment that was made during the policy process here where it will require Texas universities to, they cannot require rather, or attempt to require a student to adopt a belief that any race, sex, or ethnicity or social, political, or religious belief is inherently superior to another. And this was, with it being such a low bill number, it was a priority for the lieutenant governor. And this has been a long-standing issue actually for Dan Patrick. He actually brought up a 2021 confrontation

between himself and what he described as quote, Marxist UT professors. This was in a tweet that he put out he said quote, with the final passage of Senate Bill 37, the faculty Senate at the University of Texas at Austin had the power strip and found out the legislature does not have authority over faculty Senate's after all. So this is giving more power to some of these appointed positions these governing boards at Texas universities withdrawing some of the authority to a purely advisory role of these faculty Senate so really a restructuring of how the upper echelon at Texas universities will be operating.

And I'm sure we're going to see some downstream effects of this as the legislation starts to become implemented in terms of the hiring and firing and the recommendations for some of these positions and for what's going to be included in college curriculum courses. So a lot to be determined here, but a very interesting law that's gonna go into effect. That makes me think back to when teacher tenure

was the lieutenant governor's big issue a couple of years ago. While to think where we're at now and how that's the priorities that he pushed across the finish line really did get across the finish line of the session. So great coverage, Cameron, I encourage folks to go read your story. Higher education is one of the education session coined by a lot of folks, but I think higher education took a little bit of a backseat in terms of headlines.

This is a very interesting piece of legislation. So go check it out, folks. All right, let's go ahead and talk about some interesting campaign updates. Certainly wasted no time. Candidates and lawmakers and making announcements ahead of the 2026 election cycle. Give us a rundown of the most interesting announcements so far. So I put out a running spreadsheet on all these races that I'm tracking. You can see it on Twitter.

It's the pin tweet. Bookmark it if you want to see updates. But there are some interesting threads already. You know, first you have in congressional races, you know, the Sylvester Turner race is just, there's so many people in it. First of all, it's a special election and then we'll have another election. It's going to be quite the sight to watch. Jolanda Jones is the most recent one to jump in, she's a state rep in Houston. So there's that. Then you've got Congressional District 2 that's held by Dan Crenshaw.

Steve Toth is all but jumped in to that race. He has said on the radio that he will have an announcement to make in July and he is very much close to jumping into that race against Dan Crenshaw. If that happens, Christian Collins, who once ran for Congress, I believe, I forget the number, but it's the seat Marcus Luttrell holds, I think that's eight. He ran in that race, lost, but he will run for HD 15 if Toth runs for Congressional District 2. Over in the Texas Senate, you've got Rhonda Ward already filed. She's an SRAC member With the Texas GOP. She's filed to run against Robert Nichols and incumbent senator There's a lot of rumors as there have been for a couple cycles now that Nichols isn't gonna run for reelection There's nothing one way or the other on that firm

And this I think as far as we know now we should assume he is running for reelection so Ward is running against him for the moment and we'll see where things fall as they come. In SD9 there's a lot of talk about Kelly Hancock being appointed as the comptroller. The governor has not made a decision on that yet. If that does happen Nate Schatzlein is looking at a run for SD9 and he obviously would require Hancock to move elsewhere, but he is very much preparing for that. One of the announced candidates in Senate is Dennis Paul, SD-11, that's the Mays-Mittleton seats. Milton, of course, is running for AG. Paul got the Texans for lawsuit reform endorsement this week.

Also notable, Chairman Greg Bonin, who had been mulling a run for SD-11, and there had been text going out in SD-11 that was outside of Bonin's district with Bonin, like touting his accomplishments. There was polling that was done. So he was very much exploring it, but he has decided to just run for re-election for his state house seat. In HD1, the big question is whether Gary Vandeever will run again. A lot of talk about him not but again Jerry's out

he has not said one way or the other and These guys don't have to make their decision now. This is starting really really early for a lot of these people But they're in no rush to make a decision on this But big question in that race is will Chris Spencer run again He was the Abbott back candidate that pushed van Dever to a runoff but lost in the runoff He is very much considering a run And I think if especially if Van Dever doesn't run again Spencer will but he probably will run anyway HD5 big news there was Kristen Bentley an SRAC member who had been

Talking a lot about potentially running against Cole Hefner, she decided not to run. HD8, also in East Texas, Chris Woolsey, a course Kansas City Councilman, has filed a CTA to run against Cody Harris in that East Texas seat. Just announced today, or not announced, but filed a CTA today that I and I have heard that she was going to do this for the past week or so. Kathleen Wall is going to run against Angela Orr and so that will be a very expensive race if for no other reason than that Kathleen Wall spent nine million dollars of her own money in 2020 in the Texas 22 race for Congress against Troy Nels.

She lost that. She also ran in the 2018 race against Dan Crenshaw, which he won. That was his first year he won. So between those two races, she spent $15 million for money. So she has just oodles of money to spend on this stuff. Um, and imagine that being dropped into a state house district. Insane. So off the top of your head with how she accumulated that, that some money. I don't. Okay. I don't. Um, yeah, it's all right.

I'll have to look it up after this. So that one will be one to watch. I didn't mention on the Van Dever seat, but he was one of two Republicans not to vote for the ESA plan. The other one of course was Dave Phelan. Also a lot of talk about him not running again. Again, that's just speculation. Don't know for sure one way or the other But that's a theme between those two John Boucher has already announced against Will Metcalf and HD 16 Boucher is the Montgomery County GOP vice chair, I believe We'll see if another if other candidates jump in

HD 47 this is a Democratic held seat by Vicki Goodwin who is running for lieutenant governor Pooja Sethi who is Goodwin's chief of staff is running for that seat in HD 85 that's held by Stan Kitzman Dennis Giesemann and Alexandra Schilling have both filed to run against him. And that'll be a race to watch. And there'll be a lot of it was funny when Giesemann announced on the floor, he, Kitzman immediately went and gave a speech on or a line of questioning that kind of turned into a speech on the anti-communism bill and

Kissman does not frequent the back mic if I've ever seen him on it at all But he gets up and he gives his thing and sure enough ten minutes later. It was up on social media The same morning that Geisman announced for this seat, but that be an interesting race to watch. One that is going to be very nasty is HD 94 that's the Tenderholt seat. Now Tony Tenderholt is obviously running for Tarrant County Commissioner. He is retiring from the house. Cheryl Bean who ran against John McQueenie in 24. That was in HD 97, same County, different district. Uh, she lost to McQueen. She narrowly won the primary outright and then lost to McQueenie in the runoff.

She moved districts to go to 94 to run there. She was endorsed by Tinder Holt. We also saw this week though, Jackie Schlegel announced for the seat. She's a, a vaccine choice activist. There was a split between the two vaccine choice groups. Texans for vaccine choice was the original one that she helped found, I believe. There was a split, there was a lawsuit. I'm sure we'll get into that later. All the details of that.

Um, but she splintered off and started Texans for medical freedom. Um, she became rather close with the governor in terms of this policy and getting stuff across the line since COVID. And this race, especially in the conservative hotbed that is Tarrant County is going to be very nasty between those two sides. We saw John, former state rep, Jonathan Stickland wade into this calling it one of the worst, Schlegel's decision to run one of the worst political mistakes in history. There's gonna be a lot of money spent here. It's gonna be nasty. So keep an eye on that. HD 106, that's Jared Patterson's seat over in Denton County. Larry Brock has filed he is

notable because he was arrested For he's one of the January sixers arrested there charged Arrested for actions. They're charged eventually got pardoned by Trump. I believe arrested for actions there charged eventually got pardoned by Trump I believe so he's running against against Patterson the question this race is does JCR bro jump in that's the name that's been floating around I can tell you he is considering it does he do it we'll see but that would be one of the most

watched house district house races next year then you've got HD 118 which is the the this the San Antonio Bear County district that was very tight last cycle it was rated even it moved to our 51% in our TPI rankings. That'll be a rematch at least as it looks right now both both John Lujan, the current Republican incumbent, and Christian Carranza, the Democrat who ran last time, both announced real election campaigns this morning. Not re-election, but 2026 campaigns this morning for this seat. That'll be much watched across the country once we get past the primary. And then finally, last one I'll mention is HD129, that is Dennis Paul's seat.

Paul is the one running for SD11. Scott Bowen, who just lost last year his, or earlier this year, I don't forget when, whatever it was, lost his school board seat. He's now running for that. He's been scooping up a lot of endorsements. We'll see if anyone else jumps in. I'm sure someone will, but hasn't yet. So there you go. You can see all the stuff on

the spreadsheet and I'll be updating it every day. It happened so quickly. We pivot to campaign season and this year feels like it is even more rapid than usual, especially with the U.S. Senate race at the head of a lot of this conversation. Oh yeah, I didn't even mention that. But everyone knows about that. We don't need to talk about that. Exactly.

No one needs to care more about that at this point. But because of that, I feel like it just has amplified this conversation about elections so much ahead of 2026. So, Bradley, thank you for your coverage and you go check out his spreadsheet. We all love a good spreadsheet at the Texan. Mary Lies, we're coming to you. The Texas Secretary of State, Jane Nelson is reporting 33 voters who are alleged non-citizens to the attorney general.

Give us the details on the lead up to this. Yeah, well, there's, there's quite the lead up to this. It's been going on for a bit. There's been some back and forth between Secretary of State Jane Nelson with Attorney General Ken Paxton, and then also they're back and forth with the federal government under two different presidents. So there are 33 voters who voted in the November 2024 election, general election. And they are allegedly, Secretary of State Jane Nelson

is saying that they are potentially non-citizens. And so she's reporting them to Paxton for him to investigate, to ensure whether or not they are citizens because they did vote in the November election. And so this was made possible after Nelson gained access to this database that has all sorts of citizenship and naturalization data on the voters in the country. And so she's been seeking access to this for a bit. So this is the US Citizenship and Immigration Service, USCIS.

It's their systematic alien verification for entitlements, which is a little bit of a mouthful, but it's referred to as the SAVE database. And this is just an online service that's utilized by various government agencies to verify whether individuals are, what their naturalization status is or their immigration status is. And so she used this to cross-examine her voter rolls and to see, okay, who's a citizen, who's not. So there was, we covered this back in November,

September, 2024. So that was just a couple months before the general election. Paxton sent a letter to Nelson and he demanded that she request access from the federal government to the database so that she could confirm before the upcoming election who all were citizens

and to confirm who could be voting and who shouldn't be. And then she shortly after, I remember it was, I think, I believe it was within hours, she sent her own version of that letter to the USCIS and demanded that it collaborate with her office and ensure the integrity of elections, specifically the upcoming general one and just all future elections. And she asked that they give her access to the information promptly. Well, fast forward to President Donald Trump taking his position in January.

He issued an executive order in March and it included a whole number of directives to different agencies but specifically it required that the Department of Homeland Security ensure that agencies such as the Secretary of State have access, free access, which is an important aspect of that, that it be easily accessible and that it be free to information regarding voters citizenship and naturalization statuses. And then it directed the executive order, then directed the SOS to take all of the appropriate action to make sure that that information is also distributed to other local state officials. And Nelson said that they found out about these 33 individuals who are potentially non-citizens,

she said, within weeks of getting access to this information. She said, gaining access to this database has been a game changer. Not only have we been able to identify individuals who should not have voted in the last election, we've also been able to confirm naturalization of dozens more. And that was a press release on Thursday that they released. She also referenced something that happened during the 89th session, which was Senate Joint Resolution 37.

So it's a constitutional amendment and it would require that all voters in Texas must be US citizens. And so that's since it's a constitutional amendment, Texans will be able to vote on that in the November 2025 election. So that'll be before Texas voters in November. And she added that they're in the early stages of this program. So she said, I mean, this is within weeks of getting this information, but she said that

we're already seeing promising results. Then Governor Greg Abbott weighed in on it and he said, just reiterated that Texas will continue to monitor the voter rolls. And then he said, kind of backed up Secretary of State and said, whenever we find non-citizen voters, we'll refer them for a criminal investigation. To be clear, only legal citizens can vote. So that was Abbott's. Yeah, Abbott's saying the matter. There you go. Well, Mary Elise, thank you for your coverage. It's very interesting to

go read just even about how this is all trouble shot and kind of figured out and what information is available to state officials and how that access actually goes down the line. So thank you for your coverage of that. We appreciate it so much. Cameron, let's talk to you. Let's talk about some drugs. Drugs are a big conversation this legislative session in varying different ways. Let's talk about the research into psychedelic drugs for therapeutic effects addressed this session in specific. Yeah, it is interesting. There's been lots of conversation surrounding drugs this session, something you weren't expecting coming into it. Like we've already mentioned during the podcast,

there was SB3, there was also HB46, the T-Cup expansion bill, but there was also another piece of legislation, Senate Bill 2308, which will establish a consortium composed of a drug developer, Texas hospital, institution of higher education, to research and conduct clinical trials of Ibogaine. And for people who are unfamiliar with what Ibogaine is,

I certainly was not. I've heard of it, but I didn't know the particulars. It's a psychoactive alkaloid dried from the root bark of a West African shrub, and it's known for its- A shrubbery. Yeah. And if people click click on the piece we have a photo of it in its natural form. It's actually quite interesting like a elongated like orange fruit almost. And it's known for its hallucinogenic effects. It is scheduled, a schedule one substance. So there are lots of parameters surrounding

how clinical trials can be conducted on Ibogaine. And the goal really with this bill is to secure FDA approval for treating opioid use disorder, or other sort of substance abuse disorders. There are some early studies that have come out that have shown that, again, has been an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression. And so there's been lots of activist groups getting behind this legislation, not just here in Texas but across the country. A lot of veterans groups behind these types of pieces of legislation.

And what's interesting is the big Texas connection here is through the way of former Texas Governor Rick Perry. He was a very early proponent. He's on the board of a number of groups connected to Ibogaine research or advocating for it. He actually co-wrote an op-ed in Newsweek advocating for Ibogaine research. So just an interesting piece of legislation here. And I think it's important to mention as well, when there was this big discussion about SB 3, HB 46 during this session, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick actually endorsed this bill. This was back in May, he said he and House Speaker Dustin Burroughs had agreed to invest

an unprecedented 50 million in matching grants for this bill. So lots of money going into it, endorsements from some of the top people here in the state. Governor Greg Abbott is actually going to be hosting a bill signing for this piece of legislation, so he's drawing more attention to it. And there's advocates like I mentioned, Rick Perry, but also veterans who are elected officials in the federal government. Congressman Morgan Latrell, Dan Crenshaw, have also endorsed this, along with comedian Joe Rogan. So... Texans all around.

Texans all around. Just an interesting piece of legislation kind of connected to a lot of the conversation surrounding the therapeutic effects of things like THC or psychoactive drugs. So just something interesting for our readers here. Go check it out. Look at Texan.Names. Cameron, thank you. Mary-Lise, we're coming back to you. Let's talk about another bill passed this session that would expand the landowner compensation program. Give us its details.

The Landowner Compensation Program, give us its details. Yeah, this is an interesting development in the Landowner Compensation Program. We covered this, I think it was nearly a year ago, almost exactly, about Attorney General Ken Paxton's launch of this program that would seek to provide financial relief to Texas ranchers, property owners who experience border crime on their property, property damage. We also had a piece which is linked in this story just speaking to different Texas ranchers about some of the property damage they've experienced from folks coming illegally over the border, drugs that have been left on the property.

I mean, there's some graphic details about bodies that have been left on the property. I mean there's some graphic details about bodies that have been left on the property and this is included under this program to compensate for these different forms of property damage from an open border. So it offers a means of refunding these taxes so up to $75,000 in property damages. And this specific bill would allow folks who are renting or leasing their leasing property to also be covered under this. So it's kind of expanding this program to them. And then another really key aspect of it is it would seek to prevent insurance companies from

capitalizing on these claims that the ranchers, property owners are making. It's trying to set up guardrails there to prevent insurance companies from swooping in here. It states that if, I mean, going back to the insurance thing, if a company is setting rates, it can't consider whether a claim was made on behalf of a policyholder that's related to an event such as border property damage, border crime. And so this is Senate Bill 2601, and it was sponsored by State Representative Ryan Gain in the lower chamber on the House floor. And so we watched that during the 89th legislative session.

And the big thing here for this bill, its next step is to see what Governor Greg Abbott's response is to it, if he will sign it into law, if he'll choose to veto it, what approach he will take to it. He received it though on June 2nd, so it's kind of there alongside a whole pile of bills, of course, as we've mentioned. He's got a great number of bills to consider, and probably definitely some that are a bit more controversial than this one.

But it did pass the Texas House with 139 to nine votes on May 23rd. And then the upper chamber, the Senate actually passed it unanimously on April 24th. And then if Abbott decides he wants to sign this expansion of the landowner compensation program into law, it would go into effect on September 1st, 2025, and that's when it would start impacting

these Texas property owners and also Texas leases and preventing putting in that extra guardrail against insurance companies from capitalizing on this property damage. This is noteworthy as well to consider that the governor has 20 days after the end of the legislative session to veto bills or sign them. I believe if he does not sign them or veto them, they just go into law. So we'll keep an eye on this. But I'd also encourage folks to then go check out the Texans Veto Tracker on our website. We are tracking actively

bills that the governor has chosen to kick down the field, say, hey, no, this ain't happening. We're not enacting this potential legislation into law. So go check that out at thetexan.news and stay up to date on all of the bills that the governor's considering. And those he's saying, no, too. One of the tabs I keep open all the time. I'm so glad to hear that, Cameron. Although you could just turn around and ask Rob or I be like, Hey guys, is there a veto today and we could just tell you, you know, I'm trying to give suggestions

to our listeners when I say stuff like that, you're doing a really good job. And I just, I just, I just, job. And I just threw water on your marketing angle there. But Mary Elise, thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, we're coming to you. Of course. Let's talk about mining for crucial materials necessary for nuclear energy, a bill that was passed this session.

Tell us about this piece of legislation. Another bill that doesn't grab headlines, but is incredibly important. Because as Brad has written about extensively, the issues and the attention that's paid to our energy grid. And alongside that is the emphasis that's been placed on building up Texas's nuclear power capacity.

And what is not always mentioned along with that's been placed on building up Texas's nuclear power capacity. And what is not always mentioned along with those two issues is the actual critical materials necessary for producing that nuclear energy, mainly uranium. And there's been attention paid to this all the way up to the Oval Office. President Donald Trump issued an executive order to attempt to accelerate the process of this uranium mining because right now the import versus domestic production of uranium is incredibly lopsided. We're importing nearly 99% of the uranium necessary

for these nuclear power plants. And so with this new bill that's gonna be enacted, Senate Bill 1061 is going to adjust this permitting process and essentially streamline applications so we can begin to ramp up the mining of uranium. And Texas does have a few uranium mining operations but with this bill it's going to allow for those already established to begin to spread out their satellite projects and then allow for new mining projects

to come in. There is some parameters set within the bill because a big issue is the regional groundwater within the area because of how the mining process works. There's what you might imagine like an open pit mining, that's not necessarily what these uranium mining companies are using, they're doing a different injection type technique that melts, not melts but in some way kind of liquefies the uranium and then they extract it and that can cause some problems. So there are some parameters within this bill to help keep the groundwater supply tip top for

people using it within the area. So just an interesting piece of legislation with all the attention that is paid to our energy grid. There's also House Bill 14, which will bolster Texas's development of nuclear power through the creation of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Office, and we'll have a new fund to provide grants for new nuclear generation developers. So this session, lots of attention paid to nuclear energy, the funds, the streamlining of applications for mining uranium, it all comes back to making sure people

when they get inside their home and they flip that light switch it turns on. So but it all starts with making sure everything is up and operating. So this will help with that. Absolutely. Karen, thank you for your coverage. We're going to stick with you and talk about one more bill before we move on to our tweeteter-y section. The governor has already signed a piece of legislation that will expand NIL rights for student athletes. Talking about collegiate sports here, tell us about this bill.

Another interesting piece of legislation, like you mentioned, already signed into law, but it's going to impact how name image and likeness or people know it as the acronym NIL is going to be applied to college athletes here in the state and so this all really stems from there was a lawsuit House versus NCAA where some it's a couple different lawsuits but this was the main one where it's student athletes who are wanting to be compensated for some of their activities

or whether it was getting deals, autographs, things of that nature. So there was a settlement that the NCAA will now allow for universities to compensate their student athletes for participating on these sports teams. This essentially expands that having it now in state law gives permission to these universities to do that and so there are there are some members who did speak up and bring some concerns about this legislation, Representative Mitch Little most explicitly talking about some of the legal concerns he had. One of the concerns he expressed was that they're essentially making these student athletes

in some essence employees of the university, which could cause lawsuits down the line as we saw which allowed for this all come about so it just creates a increasingly complex legal situation for universities and their student-athletes so another piece of legislation that could have some downstream effects here and we'll have to see what happens once it begins to be enacted. I remember the debate on the house floor when this was going through the brothels. It was spicy. It was so interesting and hearing just the different arguments where it was pretty enlightening to kind of hear all of it from everybody. So worth going and checking out

Cameron's piece. He has a snippet of that in there as well. Cameron, thank you for your coverage as always. Let's move on to our Tweetery section here. Bradley, we're gonna start with you. I'm gonna go with something that Holly put out on Twitter. Former Houston mayor, Anise Parker, announced his campaign for Harris County Judge in 2026. In announcing against Lena Hidalgo, the incumbent, she said, I'm running for Harris County Judge

to keep our county safe, affordable and thriving said I'm running for Harris County judge to keep our county safe affordable and thriving I'm running to... jeez sorry I'm running to fight the chaos that is hurting our seniors families and small businesses I'm running to fight for us that'll be quite the Democratic primary I think in it for that seats Lena Hidalgo has gone through a tumultuous Last four years or so well not quite four years now, but she nearly lost in 22 to Alexandra Miller Alexandra Miller and now she's in for a tough primary and so I'm sure Holly will have a lot more coverage of that, but, uh, yeah, it's

interesting to see that Hidalgo was once considered the, the next up and comer statewide for Democrats. And now she's drawing a democratic component. So a lot happening down in ye old Harris County. She seems to wade into a lot of controversies too. Wasn't there something recently about her taking a trip to Paris or something? Yeah, I don't know the details, but yeah.

I think she mentioned it was a commissioner's court meeting or she was approving some budgetary items saying, hey, I have a trip, I think it was a trade trip that she spoke about in the Commissioner's Court meeting, and she said funds would be coming directly from her county judge budget, and that she was not asking for any additional resources, and kind of mainly flagging it for commissioners is how it came across, and then got questioned by opposing commissioners, and now she's in Paris. And it is, I forget what the event is, but she's there for an event.

And of course there's all sorts of criticism about her being there in the first place and a lot of conversations about her footwear, which was very interesting. I w I wasn't going to bring it up, but she does some interesting footwear choices. Okay. I will say those are, those are very popular now. Well, amongst some folks, but they're definitely on the rise. They have a niche.

They have a lane. Do they really? And they're really... Yeah, they have a niche. I would think they'd be a niche within the criminal community. You're trying to hide your footsteps. Like, oh, a person wasn't here, but maybe like some sort of animal with the hooves, like sneaking away, tracking the footprint.

With this, that's with the split toe kind of situation. Yeah, kind of hide your tracks. Mary, Mary-Lise is right, they're very popular among, or they have a niche, they have, they have a following, which I thought is very interesting. But yeah, the conversation is kind of pivoted a little bit maybe to her footwear, which is always very funny. Twitter has a way of turning conversations around. Bradley, thank you. Cameron, let's go with you. Some big news this week between the nation's wealthiest, or the world's wealthiest man and the leader of the free world. Yeah. Well, we didn't get to talk about it last week on the weekly roundup because it happened in the evening time after we recorded, but there was the big blow up between Musk and Trump.

Musk going hard against the reconciliation package. The Trump endorsed big, one big, beautiful bill. And since then, lots of tweets have been deleted. And we have now seen Elon Musk say, quote, I regret some of the posts about President Donald Trump last week. They went too far. And according to the New York Post, they were able to get a comment from President Trump saying, I thought it was very nice that he did that.

So maybe some reconciling going on between Musk and Trump. If people are interested in hearing maybe a political analysis of Elon Musk and his operations as a political actor. Go check out Redacted this week. I do a deep dive on the topic if people are interested. K, we're on YouTube launching soon. Mary-Li, what do you have for us? Mary-Li Yes. I have, so White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levitt, I believe she's holding a conference right now. But I saw that she said that they are officially investigating who's funding,

because they believe, and we mentioned this, that state rep Mitch Little thought that the riots were being funded by some specific groups. So I'm super curious to see if they come up with anything, or if this is really just grassroots, just kind of a natural protest and riot, or if they find out that there's some specific groups that are hiring people or funding people. I mean, who knows, but it'd be pretty fascinating if they find out anything.

Well, I'll just mention there's been, this has been an ongoing conversation about what's the source of these riots, right? And how do they get such a large group of people to organize all across the country? And so there's lots of reporting out there on this very exact topic. And it's hard to sort of follow in some sense because it's always this sort of company within a company with a connected group that gets funds from another place. And it all sort of mixes together. But it'll be interesting to see what the Trump administration comes up with if they come up with anything, but it seems like this idea that these local protests are actually being funded by outside groups. There might be some likes to it as there's been lots of conversation about this for many, many years now.

For sure. Yeah. Absolutely. For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, I have as usual, an animal tatery that I want to talk about. This is kind of it wrapped up at the end of last week, but we didn't get a chance to talk about it. There is a zebra on the loose in Tennessee. And videos of this zebra running down interstate in Tennessee went viral. He was on his name's Ed, Ed the zebra. Ed was on the run for a week and running around Tennessee. He was running down the interstate for a hot minute.

And then he went over to the woods and said, you know, this is probably a better place for me to hide and hide. He did for a week. Eventually he was found. This was a pet zebra also. So this is somebody's private... Oh, okay. Yes. And I believe he had just been moved to this person's home, just been brought there,

and escaped very shortly after. And I think the best part of all of this is once he was captured, what went viral then was no longer the video of him running down the interstate, but was a photo of this zebra, Ed, in a net, hanging from a helicopter with his little head poking out. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. It's so funny. I love that his name is Ed. I love that he was returned safely, all about it, all around, but seriously, it was hilarious and something that I took great joy in. Once again, I knew that the zebra was safe. Did y'all know this was happening? I'd been watching this and Holly sent me, Holly was the first one to tell me that Ed

had been captured, that he had been safely helicoptered away. I haven't been following it. Yeah, I had seen his adventure circulating. Sorry, Cameron. No, I haven't been following it. I saw the photo of him being helicoptered away, which was hilarious. So funny. Yeah. My question is if you guys could

own what because I I'm sure just like in Texas, Tennessee, they have laws surrounding exotic pets, right? You can own these sorts of animals. It's not like that in other states. So if you could own an exotic pet, like a zebra, what would you want? Would you want a zebra? Would you want, what would you want? You can go first, Mackenzie, since you are our exotic pet aficionado in the office. I would not go that far. I will take it. I will take it. Well, I would not go that far. I will take it. I will take it. I, okay, if I could do, I have always, golly, I've always loved dolphins and I have no infrastructure in which to keep a dolphin and I would much rather a dolphin room for even be stuck at my home.

But in terms of animals, I would enjoy having around the dolphins right up there. I mean, my husband and I are in Florida right now on a little pre-baby trip and we are, I saw dolphins, like we went fishing off the pier yesterday and all day that we were hanging out or all evening that we were hanging out and fishing, they, the dolphins were just hanging out down below and stealing fish off people's lines. It was so funny to watch them. They were like so playful, having the best time, so smart in how they get the fish off the lines and just like, just hanging out. They were having the best time.

We also saw like a, it did have been like a 10 to 12 foot long shark, which was super crazy. Yeah. Super, super great. And a couple of sea turtles. Also the, there was a dolphin that was definitely trailing the shark, which was very interesting. Dolphins don't tend to be super scared of these sharks, but very interesting.

All I have to say, I think they're just like fun animals and they're the best. What about you, Mary-Lise? You can own one exotic pet. What are you choosing? Um, you know, honestly, I think it'd be pretty cool to have an elephant. Especially if I could ride it. Yeah. I think an elephant would be really cool. You're gonna be taking up two parking spaces at the garage here. Yeah, seriously. But they're just so, they seem really friendly, but they're also just really big. I'm smart. Like they're big teddy bears. Yeah, they're also super smart. So

that's very true. What about you, Cameron? I think I go full Joe exotic. Get a get a get a lion or a tiger or something. But I'm talking full Joe Exotic. I'm gonna dye my hair, I'm gonna wear the bright shirts, grow out the goatee, little earring, and just really lean into the look. That was a cultural moment. Yeah, the Lion King. COVID of the all that was unreal. Is he still in that Fort Worth jail? I think he's still in that jail. I have no clue. All I know is he tried he likes to run for public office as well. He does. Yes. His affinity for that. Absolutely. Does Brad have an answer for this question he's been doing intense

research on the topic I don't know if he has come to an answer yet but for an exotic animal yeah hmm sea lion and armadillo what about a platypus? Platypus. Preferably one that is, you know, a secret agent. Oh. I love it. I'll go with a platypus. I also think it might be fun to just get a little sea otter, fill up the bathtub, just let him hang out in there. Again, a playful animal.

Yeah. A sea otter is such a great choice. Yeah. So good. Well, on that note, folks, thanks for bearing with us as we talk about absolute nonsense as we tend to do at the end of this podcast. We appreciate you obliging us as we chat through our favorite exotic animals and all the news happening in Texas. Folks, thanks so much for joining us and we'll catch you next week.

Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics. And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

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