The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - June 23, 2023

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Texas flag hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/texas-flag-hat/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: The Texas Senate adopting rules for Ken Paxton’s Senate impeachment trialFormer Texas Congressman Will Hurd running for the 2024 presidential GOP nominationThe Texas GOP condemning the impeachment of PaxtonThe Senate passing a new $12.7 billion property tax plan in the midst of its standoff with the Texas HouseFederal judges hearing arguments over removed books in a Texas public libraryDemocrats vying to replace Cruz challenger Rep Colin AllredPalestine’s mayoral candidates defending themselves from accusations of wrongdoing and criminal historiesGov. Greg Abbott breaking his personal veto record with 76 vetoes for the 88th regular sessionThe Texas Education Agency’s proposals to update its school district rating systemAbbott signing a law to increase Texans’ online user data protectionsTexas Christian University teaching an elective course on drag performances

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses the Texas Senate adopting rules for Ken Paxton's Senate impeachment trial. Former Texas Congressman Will Hurd running for the 2024 presidential GOP nomination. The Texas GOP condemning the impeachment of Paxton. The Senate passing a new $12.7 billion property tax relief plan in the midst of its standoff with the Texas House. Federal judges hearing arguments over removed books in a Texas public library. Democrats vying to replace Cruz challenger Representative Colin Allred. Palestinians mayoral candidates defending themselves from accusations of wrongdoing

and criminal histories. Governor Greg Abbott breaking his personal veto record with 76 vetoes for the 88th regular session. The Texas Education Agency's proposals to update its school district rating system. Abbott signing a law to increase Texans' online user data protections. And TCU teaching an elective course on drag performances. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the Texan dot news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast.

Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Brad, with Cameron, with Hayden, with Matt. I'm starting right off with Brad's news that he just shared with us, which I'm thrilled about. I cannot believe you agreed for me to mention this on the podcast. I will say me asking you, I think, was a very nice thing. So I'm going to pat myself on the back because I could have just done it without your consent. You would have done it anyway. Yeah. But I asked. So this is such a low bar.

No, I asked. I asked. You agreed. A keyboard elf could clear it with one step. That's is such a low bar. I asked. I asked. A keyboard elf could clear it with one step. That's how low a bar we're talking. I just feel like I should pat myself on the back for my kindness I've extended to you today. Tell us what you just told us. I understand that sentence was weird. Tell our listeners what you just told us.

I said that the topic of Cornwallis charles cornwallis from the revolutionary war came up and yeah that in fifth grade i went to school dressed as charles cornwallis for the revolutionary war day it's just too good it's just so good you didn't dress up up as George Washington. You dressed up as... Listen, I have this thing where I cannot jump on a bandwagon. And so, for example, my favorite Detroit Tigers player has never been Miguel Cabrera because I can't stand jumping on the best players bandwagon. And so the same rule applies here.

So you've been this. You had that clarity. That wherewithal. Of your own identity as a fifth grader. I don't think I realized it at that point. Okay. I realized that after the fact. Got it.

Well that's impressive. Yeah. So. I will say. It also came up because Hayden's just out of the blue said. I'm glad my name's not Cornwallis. I feel very blessed. Which was also just a gem of a thing to say.

Blessed us today. What was that even in reference to? It's in the docket for our podcast. Somebody's last name is Cornwallis. I didn't read the whole thing. Oh. Oh. It's a candidate is Cornwallis. I didn't read the whole thing. Oh. It's a candidate that Matt will talk about later. Well, shout out to that candidate. I think the last name Cornwallis is awesome.

I apologize to all Cornwallises. I did not mean to. Well, I think I have a good last name. Barks is such a good last name. It really is.

Okay. You have to be a young adult novel writer now. I do. That's your. I understand that reference. Thank you. I never did read a Nicholas Sparks book, but I understand the reference. He is well known in the genre.

Genre. That's not the right word. What word am i looking for the genre that's music i don't know i guess i i can think of as canon for a literary term anyway okay well hayden sparks with the phenomenal last name sparks we're going to start with you huge news after two days the texas senate finally adopted rules that will govern the impeachment trial of suspended attorney General Ken Paxton. What immediately stood out to you about these rules?

After two days, the Texas Senate deliberated and approved rules for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton's trial by a vote of 25 to 3. The three no votes were Senator Paxton, Senator Sarah Eckhart, and Senator Bob Hall. And there were a few things that stood out to me about the rules at first blush. First, the burden of proof will be on the House of Managers, and it will be a beyond a reasonable doubt standard, which is notable because this is not a criminal trial. This is not a civil trial. This is a political proceeding, and they're setting a very high bar for proving that Mr. Paxton committed the offenses that are laid out in the 20 charges. They could have chosen clear and convincing evidence, preponderance of the evidence, probable cause, any other type of evidentiary standard,

but they set this high bar that the house managers will be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Paxton is guilty. Also, charges can be dismissed summarily by a majority vote, and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick cannot make a decision unilaterally on that. He must submit it to the chamber, which is called the Court of Impeachment, and the resolution, for simplicity's sake, I'll call it the Senate because this is a political proceeding. And while there's a lot of courtroom lingo and judicial terminology being used, this is not a judicial proceeding. It is a political proceeding, and while there's a lot of courtroom lingo and judicial terminology being used, this is not a judicial proceeding. It is a political trial. The Court of Impeachment or the Senate will have the ability to throw out a charge by a majority vote, and then they would not proceed to trial on it. There will be live witness testimony at the trial. This is a denial of a request by Mr. Paxton's legal team that testimony be presented by deposition. Witnesses will be able to be subpoenaed by the parties. In other words,

they cannot choose not to testify. They are required to testify if the Senate orders them to do so, and if they disobey, they will be held in contempt of the legislature. Most notably, however, Senator Paxton will not be able to vote on the articles of impeachment, which will be either sustained or not sustained at the end of the trial by the Senate. If the articles of impeachment are sustained, Mr. Paxton will then be considered convicted and a separate vote will be held whether to permanently bar him from running for office in the future. But if he's convicted, he is automatically permanently removed from the office and his wife, Senator Paxton, will not have a say in that decision. However, she will be counted for the purpose of determining the vote threshold for the number of votes required to convict Mr. Paxton, which is a two-thirds vote. If she is absent from the vote, then it lowers the number of votes required for conviction.

Her presence will keep that vote threshold at 21 votes, but she will not get to have a say in the decision. So they, in essence, decided this dilemma for her. And we talked about this before of her either being there and participating and possibly being a conflict of interest or not representing her constituents and making it easier for her husband to be convicted. And the Senate has resolved both of those things with these rules. So what are some of the other highlights of the rules that will guide this? Very historic. And I mean, it was surreal watching the Senate lay this out last night. It was very surreal watching Governor Dan Patrick talk about it public.

I mean, we just have heard so little from the Senate on this, as many senators have come forward and said, we will not be making, they've issued statements saying they won't issue a statement, right? And viewing this as a trial. And so hearing it actually happen and even just the impeachment of a statewide official

is just like you said, historic. All that to say, what are some other highlights of the rules that will guide the proceeding? Well, I will say this. We, in these podcast segments, we present this often as a news broadcast, but this is a little bit more informal. So I will say that when I make some of these observations, I do not care whether Ken Paxton

is convicted or acquitted. I have no stake in this and I'll get the same number of hours of sleep, whether he's found not guilty or guilty on any of these charges. But I will say that this process, if the Senate follows these rules, will be considerably more thorough and there will be considerably more due process than there was on the House side of things. They are able to suspend these rules by a two-thirds vote. So the Senate is known for suspending its own rules. I doubt that the Senate will do that in this case, because they need to promote the legitimacy of this trial because of the questions about the

way the House impeached Paxton in the two-day time frame that it did. But members will not be allowed to use their cell phones during the trial. They are under a gag order. They cannot discuss this trial publicly with people, especially not the parties involved. They cannot comment on social media about their opinion about what's going on. There's a schedule for pretrial motions, and Lieutenant Governor Patrick makes most of the decisions. He will decide on pretrial motions. He will decide on incidental motions, and he can hire legal counsel, and the members of the Court of Impeachment, i.e. senators, can hire legal counsel. But those people cannot be lobbyists for obvious reasons.

There will be time limits in place for the presentation of evidence. A total of 24 hours is granted. There will be time allotted for rebuttal witnesses, opening statements, closing arguments, and cross-examination. Several of the articles of impeachment dealing with the securities fraud charges will be held in abeyance until the end of the trial. I'm not quite sure why this is, but my gut says that they don't want to interfere with the criminal prosecution. So if I had to guess, make an educated forecast, they are probably trying not to interfere with the criminal prosecution against Mr. Paxton if they don't have to. Interesting note, it requires that motions be printed in 12 times New Roman font.

So they are. Which I can appreciate. I can appreciate that. Yes. They are really planning out every detail of this trial. It was 29 pages long. These rules were. Yes. 29 pages and 31 rules for 31 senators, I suppose.

Yeah, that does seem very poetic. It does. So the lieutenant governor did make a statement following the adoption of the rules and the votes. What was his sentiment regarding the process that he had just gone through for, I don't know, 48 hours, whatever it was? You know better than I do, but you were there 9.30 the night before. You were there the whole time. But what was the lieutenant governor's sentiment? Well, thank you for giving me a little bit of extra time to talk about this,

because it was interesting that they kept taking a recess. They obviously thought that they were going to finish this up sooner, but they kept needing to give themselves additional time because of all the issues they needed to hash over. Patrick seemed pleased with the results of these negotiations. He said, quote, I've never been more proud of the members of this floor and how you came together on this set of rules and how seriously you're taking your responsibility. I'm proud of all of you and the citizens of Texas can count on the Senate rules, and Patrick thanked him and all the senators for their work on these rules. It seems the Senate is seeking to portray to the public that they are taking this seriously and that they intend to be an impartial court of impeachment. And to be fair as well in the rules, and I may botch this, so correct me where I'm wrong, because undoubtedly I will be. But there was a provision in the rules as well where the

lieutenant governor can appoint somebody else as, I don't know, president of the trial or something along those lines, which it sounds like would be a senator. I think it explicitly states it's a senator who would not be up for election in 2024, meaning that the aim there is to potentially relieve some of the political pressure that could be placed on somebody presiding over such a trial, right? This person would run for reelection in 2026. That's correct. Patrick is presumed to be the presiding officer over the trial, but it says, quote, in addition, the president of the Senate may appoint a jurist Correct. Patrick is presumed to be the the presiding officer over the trial. But it says, quote, In addition, the president of the Senate may appoint a jurist who shall not run for reelection. Excuse me, shall not run for election in the 2024 election cycle to serve as the presiding officer of the court.

So interpreted narrowly, that seems to mean reelection for Senate, but interpreted broadly, who shall not run for election. Yeah, it doesn't say Senate, actually. Yeah. So if a senator had plans to run for something in 2024, they would not, it seems, would not be permitted to serve as a presiding officer. So you are correct about that. There is a provision of these rules that take care of that. Yeah. Matt, do you want to hop in? Yes. The word is jurist, correct, Hayden? It says jurist, and that did throw me a little bit. It doesn't say member.

He's not saying juror. He's not saying juror. He's saying jurist. So my initial reading of that or my impression was that he may appoint somebody who is a judge of the state to preside over the Senate. Not one of the members who are jurors, but the plain reading of that word, I understand it to mean he can appoint a judge to serve, just like in the U.S. Congress under an impeachment trial, the chief judge of the U.S. Supreme Court presides over it. So that was my interpretation of that rule where it was giving Patrick the latitude to allow it to serve similar to a U.S. impeachment. Yeah, that's interesting that it might even be meant to mirror the federal protocol there. Yeah, Matt, that's an interesting point. That is correct. There may be room for interpretation there. So perhaps the senator

may or may not be able to run for reelection. That may be something that needs to be explained further because it says the president of the Senate or a member of the Senate designated by the president serves as the presiding officer of the court. In addition, the president of the Senate may appoint a jurist who shall not run for election in the 2024 election cycle to serve as the presiding officer of the court. So there is some ambiguity at first blush. It sounds like it applies to the senators, but it may not. It also just might be our bias or inference that's coming into play there, like watching Senator Birdwell lay out the rules or whatever it is, because Senator Birdwell, I looked it up, he's not up for reelection in 2024, it's 2026. So it may just be the context clues making us think those things, but jurist is a very specific word. Hayden, thank you. I would encourage folks

to go read Hayden's article at the Texan. It gives all the details. The rules are embedded in the article, so you can read the rules, all 29 pages if you so choose. But we'll continue to keep an eye on this. There will be a lot to come. Brad, we're going to come to you. The Texas Senate made another move this week in the property tax fight between the two chambers. This is the other big story of the Senate this week. What'd they do? The Texas Senate revamped its plan in the property tax fight between the two chambers. This is the other big story of the Senate this week. What'd they do? The Texas Senate revamped its plan for providing property tax relief this week. The new version amounts to $12.7 billion total.

That's about $400 million more than the previous plan. It includes about $7.4 billion for new school district rate compression, $5.3 billion to raise the homestead exemption to $100,000, raises the franchise tax exception from $1 million to $2.47 million. So any business that brings in less money than $1 million currently doesn't have to pay franchise tax, and this would raise that bar to about $2.5 million. It also notably reduces the school district voter approval rate from 2.5% to 1.75%. That was something that I'd missed originally trying to figure out the appropriations for compression and homestead exemption that we've been fighting over for weeks now. But that is a pretty notable addition to this bill. In 2019, the legislature reduced the voter approval rate for school districts from 8% down to 2.5%.

And that was one of the big reforms in recent memory that the legislature has done on property taxes. This would reduce it even further. Bettencourt said at a press conference after the Senate passed this bill, this is simply the best tax package that we've produced. When you have this type of agreement from your Senate colleagues, I think it speaks volumes. we've produced when you have this type of agreement from your senate colleagues i think it speaks volumes patrick added that the senate is not going to give up its homestead exemption obviously they haven't done that yet they haven't given in and accepted the house's

plan that it passed on the first day of this special session that is all rate compression and still they insist they will not do that uh notably patrick at the press conference called this the largest property tax cut in the history of the world which was quite the statement yeah and i think it's safe to say it's not accurate um now when they're calculating all these numbers like the senate has said that this is an 18 billion dollar uh property tax cut that includes the 5.3 billion dollars that was itemized in the budget to continue compression that was passed in 2019 so it's kind of stacking pre-existing relief on top of uh new relief so but overall the the line item for it would be 18 billion dollars including that um that segment in the budget so i'm not really sure it seems like the house has very little intention of passing this first and foremost

because they are not back in Austin, at least as of yet. There seems to be no indication that they're going to come back to Austin during the special session, so we'll see what they do. How'd the governor respond? So the governor has been clear,

a spokeswoman for the governor said the governor has been clear that his goal is to put Texans on a pathway to eliminate their school maintenance and operations property taxes and the best way to do that is to devote all property tax relief to cutting property taxes she added that the two chambers need to work together to get something to his desk that's consistent with the governor's message this whole time. He prefers the all-rate compression plan because he saw it as a compromise between the two chambers' positions during

the regular session, and now this is what he has chosen to go forward with. It's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the new Senate plan, this statement, but with now only a few days remaining in the special session, who knows if this will be enough to get the House to come back. Looking like not, but, you know, stranger things have happened. Really quickly, let us know the news regarding Speaker Phelan and property taxes this week. The Speaker announced the creation of a House Select Study Committee on Sustainable Property Tax Relief. It will be tasked with evaluating the various strategies of property tax relief and the sustainability of eliminating maintenance and operation taxes in 12 years. bills and then vice chaired by democrat rep sean theory it also includes three public members galveston county tax assessor collector cheryl johnson former executive at the tdcj brad livingston and restaurateur skeeter miller who owns county line barbecue franchise so i'm not really sure what the timeline is for this,

whatever the study results to come out, but this is something the House is now working on. Thank you, Brad. Hayden, coming back to you on Paxton, let's talk about some reactions we've seen on the whole proceeding. A statewide executive board for the Republican Party of Texas had some choice words for Paxton's impeachment. What was the result of its vote? The Republican Party of Texas State Republican Executive Committee voted to condemn the impeachment of Ken Paxton by 53 to 11, much different than the House vote to impeach, which was 121 to 23, with only one more Democrat voting for impeachment than Republicans. So while there was mostly Republican support in the House for impeachment, this political board overwhelmingly voted to condemn the impeachment, doing so primarily on procedural grounds, concluding that the process was not conducive to Mr. Paxton's right to be attorney general and not have that interrupted through a rushed process.

More or less, that was poorly worded the evidence that was presented to the House. And notably, they wanted to see that I believe they wanted to see the charges summarily dismissed instead of to proceed to trial, as other local parties had urged. And that drew the ire of at least one Republican member, Justin Holland, said that nobody in real Texas politics cares about the SREC or its chair. That was his exact quote. So quite a conflict between supporters of impeachment and opponents here. Absolutely. Does this have any significance for the trial at all? no official effect. The target audience here is Republican primary voters, which are frankly the most important part of Texas politics because of the way the state leans politically. And at this point, the most recent poll said about half of registered voters feel the impeachment was justified. I don't know the exact figure for

Republican primary voters. I don't want to speculate. I have a number in my brain, but I don't know for sure if it's correct, so I won't say it. But about half of registered voters said that they believe the impeachment was justified. So clearly the SRAC does not speak for the entire public or the entire voting public, but it is a data point for how this will probably be handled during the election cycle, which is every member who voted for impeachment is going to be hounded about it by the party. Absolutely. And if I were to break it down in words that may or may not make sense to most people, I'd say that the Republican primary block of voters, you have those who are incredibly involved at the local level, who are part of their local Republican club, who attend the state convention every two years, who serve as delegates, who know who their state rep is potentially personally. Those are thousands of Texans, tens of thousands of Texans who are involved at that kind of level. But you also have Republican primary voters who

are very loyal Republicans who are not involved in these kinds of party processes that the SREC is the head of, right? So you have these two different kinds of Republican primary voters who are potentially being polled in a poll like that. And we always talk about polls. They're very interesting. They can indicate data points, but they're not Bible, right? They give us interesting information, but there's a margin of error. You're still only polling maybe a few thousand people at most, typically. And it just kind of gives us a little bit of insight potentially and is not gospel. So who knows? This may be skewed. This may be anecdotal just based on my

involvement in politics over the years. But when I think of SREC and RPT and like local parties, I think of your teenage Republican clubs, your college Republican clubs, your retirees who are, have the time to, you know, dedicate all this, um, volunteering campaigns. And then when you think of like broadly Republican primary voters, I picture, you know, your average guy in khaki pants and a polo like at work who he might be, you know, not necessarily tuned in to everything going on at the party level, but he votes in Republican primaries. And that's obviously a totally subjective, anecdotal way of looking at it. But that's probably a little bit of the difference we're looking at here. I think there's like an average that can be like pointed to with that analogy pretty easily. Hayden, thank you for your coverage. Cameron, we're coming to you. We have not forgotten about you.

I'm still here. Yay. And Matt, Matt, we'll come after this. Laneau County has been at the center of increasing scrutiny over library book access. We've written about this quite a bit. Tell us a little bit about how we got to this lawsuit reaching a federal judge. Yeah, so the challenge began in April 2021 after seven citizens of Lono County challenged the county commissioner's court for removing books that were deemed sexually explicit from the county library. And they actually ended the access to them through the online ebook and audiobook system. And so the lawsuit first went through a U.S. District Court here in Austin, Texas,

where a judge issued an order that the removed books must be returned and made accessible. After that order of the returning of the books to the library shelves, the county commissioner's court considered whether or not to pull funding and actually close the library altogether. They ultimately decided to keep the library open, but the lawsuit remained open. So the lawsuit was taken up in a court in New Orleans where three judges examined the arguments from both sides in this affair. Yeah. So where does the lawsuit currently stand? So like I said, attorneys from both sides got a chance to present their arguments for the case. And with a lot of the focus of the arguments being on how the librarians conduct their weeding process, which means how they are looking through

and determining if books should be placed on the shelves or not. And it all came back a lot to the motivations of the individuals who are in charge of that weeding process. And so no decision was made at the conclusion of the presentation during those proceedings. But an issue on that order could be coming in a few weeks. Absolutely. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Matthew, we're coming to you. The Democratic primary for Colin Allred's congressional seat has already seen a crowded field of contenders. Give us some of the details on who is running. With incumbent U.S. Representative Colin Allred leaving his Dallas area congressional seat after announcing his bid for the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent U.S. Senator

Ted Cruz, the Republican, one of the two Republicans for the state of Texas, seven candidates have emerged to run for Allred's open congressional seat. State Representative Julie Johnson, a Democrat state representative from the Carrollton area, is the latest and most notable candidate to announce for the district, being the only member of the Texas legislature to join the congressional race for Texas' 32nd congressional district. 2nd Congressional District. Johnson joined six other Democrats, including Sandeep Sivarastava, Dr. Brian Williams, Alex Cornwallis, Jan McDowell, Zach Manning, and Justin Moore. We highlight how several of these candidates have previously run for elected office, including making prior congressional runs, as well as their

professional backgrounds in the story. Johnson's congressional bid also creates an opportunity for her state House seat in House District 115. Both her seat and the congressional district are considered Democrat strongholds. However, the House District 115 seat was held by Republican Matt Rinaldi prior to Johnson's successful to challenge to him in 2018. positions on the ballot will run starting mid-November through December 11th of this year for the March 2024 primary elections. So we'll keep an eye out to see who else joins the bid for these state and congressional district races. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Matt, for your coverage. It's going to be fascinating and a huge race as it is the I always picture these races where somebody leaves their spot to run for higher office. A prominent higher office is like the the daughter of that race. I appreciate your coverage and Brad glaring at me after I made that sentiment just totally threw me off. Yeah. Oh, well, that helps. I was trying to backtrack and figure out what you were saying. That actually makes me feel better than you sitting over there thinking I'm stupid, which might still happen, but I appreciate that more.

Have you seen my whiteboard that's so true hayden coming to you politics in east texas are starting to sound literally like an like an episode of of of ozark i can't say anything after brad glared at me for six seconds tell us what the latest in this race for mayor of palestine i thought you were hesitating because you didn't want to say that and i thought did she read it before I wrote it? Oh, my gosh. This is really rough. We're doing a really great job today.

Yeah. Yeah. I stayed up too late reading rules. Yeah. Hayden submitted a draft at 1.30 a.m. last night. There is a runoff underway in Palestine for mayor after no candidate received a majority in the May 6th general election. And a lot has been going on in this contest. One of the issues we've covered in this election was a criminal charge from 2005 against one of the candidates, Chrissy Clark, who was accused of stealing her teenage daughter's identity in 2005. And that criminal charge was later dismissed.

But it became an issue again over the weekend after her daughter, who was said to be the victim in the 2005 indictment, posted a long post angry about people who continue to bring this up. She said, quote, My mother may not be perfect, but she's also not the monster you all are making her out to be. She is not a racist. She didn't murder any ex-husband and very much has a relationship with all of her children. This group has been ripping her to shreds and dragging my family into this mess. And nobody deserves that. If you feel so much superior, then why didn't you run for mayor? You practice love thy neighbor, but are a bunch of keyboard warriors, end quote. And that was only part of the remarks that she made in the social media post, which was addressed

to people who are commenting on the 2005 criminal charge and other things that we didn't print because they aren't verified. And the criminal charge is not gossip. Other things about it may be, but we have all the documentation about how she was charged and the circumstances under which the charge was dismissed and all of that's available at the texan.news. Yeah, absolutely. So what are some of the issues that were discussed at the candidate forum that you also covered? The candidate forum was probably almost seems like a footnote in this election at this point, but there are real issues that are being hashed over in this race. And there were disagreements between Clark and her opponent, Mitchell Jordan, on what kind of economic development to prioritize

in the city of Palestine. They talked about the merit of having something like a Schlitterbahn water park. Jordan thinks that that will attract people, tourists, and that will boost the economic vitality of Palestine. Whereas Clark said there needs to be more industry and things like manufacturing. She said the city's airport is a huge asset because it facilitates jet travel, which is conducive to business. And she believes that something like a water park is seasonal and would not provide the types of jobs that Palestine needs to grow. But a lot of this policy discussion has been overshadowed by some of the other things going on in this race. Both candidates have criminal charges in their past, but Jordan gave us a lengthy statement

about his criminal charge. He was convicted of a misdemeanor in his late teens and said that God used it to change his life. The DA and the judge had him go to school and do community service. And he said it was a great experience for him. And he believes that that set him on a better path in life. And it was, of course, in his late teens. And Clark provided us a lengthy statement about her criminal charge. mean that she was falsely accused back in 2005 and if the charge was dismissed on procedural grounds and that was not answered directly but she said that and I'll read the tail end of her statement here she said quote they are throwing it all at the wall here at the final stretch treating a 17 year old dismissal as a conviction or a deferral is a diabolical misdirection some of these Facebook groups have become cheap unedited tabloids written by anonymous

authors on Facebook. It is so ludicrous that local Palestinian news outlets refuse to give it in the air. It's a dismissal. The case is closed, end quote. So a very assertive response to those continuing to ask questions about this 2005 indictment. But there's so much more to this story. And I would encourage all of our readers to go to the texan.news and check out our coverage on Palestine's elections. Yeah, no kidding, folks. This is quite the saga. I know a listener, a frequent listener of our podcast responded to our tweet this week with a link to how to write

a screenplay for Netflix, which made me, well, made us laugh pretty hard. So shout out Joe Hootman. Okay. Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying our podcast, subscribe to The Texan right now while you're listening. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep churning out news. When you subscribe, you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published so you can be informed up to speed and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90 coming out to just $7.50 per month. And new product alert, new subscribers will get a free Texas State Pride flag hat with all sorts of color options to choose from. For more details, visit thetexan.news forward slash subscribe

or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Let's go back to our stories. Brad, we're coming to you. The governor has been quite busy this weekend slashing bills with his veto power. I like that. How'd that all shake out? As we discussed last week,

the governor threatened to veto a bunch of bills as penance for the legislature not settling on a property tax relief plan when the dust settled on sunday abbott had vetoed 76 bills a personal record for him and six shy of the all-time record set by rick perry i think that was in 2001 many of the bills were vetoed explicitly due to the property tax impasse, saying in the veto statement that the bills killed may be reconsidered at a future special session after the tax plan is passed. Most of the vetoed bills came from the Senate, the chamber that is opposing the governor's

preferred plan for tax relief. 50 of the veto statements mentioned property taxes. Yeah, no kidding. So were there anything else mentioned in those statements? Among the House bills vetoed, eight specifically mentioned that they may be reconsidered after school choice is passed. Or generally, well, now that the impeachment trial is set for September, who knows how that's going to affect it. But the broad consensus was that a school choice special would come in September.

That may still happen. It may not. I don't know. Each of those bills vetoed in this instance were authored by House members who voted against both of the test school choice votes in the House this session. Those were Glenn Rogers, who had three of his bills vetoed, Travis Clardy, Stan Lambert, and Ernest Bills. Were any of those members endorsed by Governor Abbott in the primaries?

Rogers was. He had a competitive primary. I think Bales was as well. Yeah, I kind of put you on the spot there. But basically, there are several. I know Rogers was as well. Yeah, I kind of put you on the spot there. But basically, there are several. I know Rogers was. Yeah. Yes.

And back in the primary, we talked about how some of Abbott's, not all, but some of Abbott's endorsements in the primary did not align with his priority of school choice. And Rogers is probably the most notable or prominent. You know, he published an op-ed during that, I think shortly after getting the Abbott endorsement that he is firmly a no on any school choice. Or as he phrased it, voucher plan. And so that has not changed. And I think you may see the governor sitting out of some primaries that he previously jumped into. And, you know, Rogers has gotten has had a tough race both times. He's won, but he's won both of them with the governor's support. So it'll be interesting to see if that continues come next year when we reach the primaries.

Absolutely. Thank you, Bradley. Cameron, a lot of the discussion around schools seems to deal with performance markers of students, and especially recently with the Houston ISD takeover, which we've covered extensively at the Texan. The grading system for the school district was a point of contention and reasoning for the takeover. So tell us how this new rating system works and the changes that the TEA made. Yeah, so the Texas Education Agency, known as TEA, calls this new proposal the 2023 A through F refresh and was developed for what they say was because of the disrupted learning during COVID-19. And so a lot of the changes were made to what they call cut points, which is a determining performance ranking. And cut scores are those performance markers that

grade the scale of performance of a school district in accordance with their rating framework. So notably, the TEA's refresh plan has raised the cut rate or the cut score for an A in college, career, and military readiness, so CCMR, to 88%. Their reasoning, they said, for this was because the CCMR performance has skyrocketed as the previous cut point for an A rating was set at just 60%, and the average now sits at 65%. So a big jump in that cut score. TEA also plans to change its methodology for rating school district populations, where previously each school district was rated as an overall population of students, now TEA will utilize a proportionally weighted average of ratings for each campus in the district, which means that each individual school will receive a rating and then a weighted proportion average of those scores will be the determining rating. What's been the response to

the TEA's ratings proposal? 233 school districts actually penned a letter to TEA and Governor Greg Abbott expressing their concerns over the implementation of the new accountability rating system. Austin ISD issued its own statement where they indicated that their secondary campus and district A through F letter grades will decline by one to two letters due to these changes in the new TEA ratings plan. Is there validity to the claims by these school districts and why are they saying these things? Well, according to recent data, Texas has the second largest K-12 school population and spends $9,871 per pupil for a total of over $53 billion annually. However, Texas K-12 schools ranked 44th in spending and 39th in funding across the country. And in 2022, 38% of students in Texas performed at or above the National Assessment of Educational Progress

in mathematics and 30% scored at or above the NAEP, which is the proficiency level for reading. Got it. And we can expect to know a little bit more about how this all shakes out is the proficiency level for reading. Got it. And we can expect to know a little bit more about how this all shakes out. As we've said before, the special session on school choice will be happening later on this year. So, Cameron, thank you for your coverage. Brad, the first Texan entered the 2024 GOP race for president. Who jumped in? Did you expect to see this name in the news today?

Not today. Yeah. I was pretty sure it was going to see this name in the news today? Not today. Yeah. I was pretty sure it was going to happen eventually, but I honestly had forgotten about it. So I was surprised to see this morning that former Congressman Will Hurd announced his bid for the nomination, the GOP nomination for president in 2024.

Hurd served three terms, representing Texas' 23rd congressional district, which stretch and still stretches generally from El House, the Senate, and the White House. We all know Joe Biden will win again, pulling no punches and continuing his broadly, I guess, anti-Trump position that he's had for a while now. He's been quite critical of the former president in the past, especially so since he left office. While he was in office, he opposed some of the former president's policies, such as construction of the southern border wall. He instead preferred a technology-focused approach to securing the border, believing the wall to be too costly and inefficient.

So this is the first Republican Texan to jump in the race. Not the first Texan. That is Marianne Williamson, who is running against Joe Biden in the Democratic Party primary. So you can read more at the website. What's our website, Brad? I don't know. You're just like our website? Yeah. The Texan.News. Thank you. Happy now? I'm really happy website? Yeah, that. The Texan.News.

Thank you. Happy now? I'm really happy. Thank you, Bradley. Matthew, coming to you, a newly passed law will give Texans greater control over their personal data collected online and was just signed by Governor Greg Abbott. What all does this new law do? Well, that's a good question, Mackenzie. I got it from a really good source really smart guy i know you go straight for the the hard questions um i'll spill four by representative giovanni

capriglione and carried in the senate by senator brian hughes is known as the texas data and privacy security act and it was signed into law by governor greg abbott this past sunday is known as the Texas Data and Privacy Security Act. And it was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott this past Sunday. Now, the law is structured to where it will go into effect in two separate stages, and we'll explain more about that in just a moment. Now, the act creates a list of rights for Internet users over their personal data, including knowing when it's collected, the ability to correct and delete personal data, the right to prohibit the sale of your personal data, and all kinds of protections against being discriminated against or retaliated against by companies for exercising all of the enumerated rights under this legislation. Now, we only highlighted a number of the things that the bill does. A more detailed list can be found in the article, but shifting towards the enforcement end of things, the law will be enforced through a civil

fine brought by legal actions through the Texas Attorney General's Office of up to $7,500 per violation. Regular violations of the new law are set to go into effect where they will be enforced July 1st of next year, while portions of the act that are structured to be opt-in type or opt-out type provisions will not become effective for enforcement until January 2025. Both Capriglione and Hughes say their bill will give Texans some of the strongest internet privacy protections offered in the nation and hope their bill serves as a model for other states to follow. Now for once again for more complete details on what all new rights the legislation established and how the legislation works, check out our coverage on the texan.news. Boom. Thank you, Matthew. Cameron, we're going to end with this story. The Queer Art of Drag is a

course being offered at Texas Christian University, TCU, which turned some heads due to the content presented in the syllabus. Tell us about what you found. So as the course website explains, the goal of the course is to explore a lot of terms related to critical or critiquing social environments. And for our listeners interested, the focus on the word critical and critique is actually a reference to a subjective social perspective as a preferred method of understanding over objective analysis, which is normally what we would understand as a critical analysis is objective, but they're using a different definition for that term. I found in the syllabus as well. The desired learning outcomes for students are the focus on social construction of gender, sex, and sexuality, along with the term intersectionality, which again is a new term that has continued to pop up in our social consciousness. And what that means is, according to critical theorists, which we just touched on that word critical, is to explain how

individuals are oppressed by systems of authority and how different aspects of identity can intersect to create a hierarchy of inequality. Wow. Well, Cameron, thanks so much for your coverage. And folks, definitely go read more at the Texas.news. There's a lot more information to be found. Awesome. Okay. Let's move on to the tweeter-y section this week. Brad, we're going to start with you. You've heard of the rumble in the jungle.

I'm blanking on other massive fights. I'm just going to stare at you for six seconds like you did to me earlier. Okay. Leaving me absolutely hanging. That will not throw me off. Well, get ready for A new Blockbuster Clash between titans Of the titans

Of the tech titan Apparently Tesla owner Elon Musk and twitter owner He owns a lot I guess we're probably it's the clash between twitter and facebook That's what's happening Elon Musk is going to have a cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg.

Whoa. Wait, is this real? This is. This is serious. This is not real. Yes. This is serious. You didn't see them go under.

It is so serious, by the way, that I got an email this morning with the betting odds for this clash of titans and the opening odds show according to bovada whatever that is elon musk at minus 150 and zuckerberg the zuck at plus 110 so the zuck is an athlete though i don't know i think they're banking on musk's size over he can absorb the blows i know i don't know if everyone has seen the yacht photos of elon musk hopefully he's gotten into better shape since then but he has commented recently he doesn't work out he said the most he does to work out is lift his kids up off the cliff. What were you going to say, Matt? I'm going to place my bets on Zuckerberg because I think he'll surprise everybody with that reptilian super strength.

Well, I mean, a cage match. So what method are they fighting? It sounds like it's a UFC fight, basically. He said Vegas octagon. So like metal chairs? No, that's WWE. And that's fake. I know it's fake, but that's what I understand.

Like wrestling. Got it. Have you seen Mark Zuckerberg doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu? I have, yeah. My husband does jiu-jitsu. And one of the things he talks a ton about is how you can be very small and maybe not super muscular. And you can absolutely kick somebody's butt who's way bigger than you and way more muscular than you. So that's why I ask is because if they're doing wrestling or any sort of jujitsu type anything, which it sounds like they might, then it doesn't really matter.

Well, I don't know when this is happening. But I assume that Elon Musk is going to start training for this. Someone who said they would help Elon train is the infamous Cobra Tate, Andrew Tate, on Twitter said, Elon, I'll... Is he going to be able to do that from prison? From prison? Yeah, Lord.

From Romanian prison? My gosh. You know, the way I see this going right now is kind of like Jet Li versus a sumo wrestler. I think that's kind of the strategy here. A sumo wrestler wants to power you with size, and Jet Li wants to run around and tire out the sumo and kick it a bunch of times. How tall is Elon Musk? Because that matters, too. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. Let's see. I wonder. Aiden, who you got your money on? Six feet, almost two inches. Okay. Tall guy. And then Zuck is...

Zuck's got to be tall. Really? Do people call him Zuck? He's 5'7". Oh. I think he just looks like lean and tall in photos. Maybe he's just projecting. He's probably right now in better shape than elon musk yeah for sure that line is not taking zuckerberg on

that betting line it's not a bad bet yeah i would say i'm betting on zuckerberg right now okay how did this fight come about what was what motivated yeah what motivated this camera do you know well Of course Cameron knows. He's chronically online. Well, I saw someone posted a screenshot of Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram

story that Zuckerberg had screenshotted a Twitter interaction. I guess Musk had called him out or agreed to uh do some sparring or something with zuckerberg and zuckerberg said name the time and place and so it's all sort of just interesting went off from there interesting that zuckerberg's programming allowed him to say something oh my goodness far out of far afield well we know the advancements in ai that's he got his his uh software updated he's not a droid he's

a reptilian he's reptilian okay he's a reptilian droid maybe both gosh well we should we should watch when the date is and and play some around this office. Put some pork chops on the line. Hey, they did not legalize sports betting in Texas this year. It's true. Those are illegal bets that we were talking about placing on a public podcast. Nobody do this. Wink, wink, nod, nod. Great.

Matthew, what about you? What did you find on Twitter? I stumbled across a news article shared by Jordan Peterson about how the carnivore diet is becoming extremely popular. And that sounds like a pretty good idea to me. So I thought it was interesting. And the carnivore diet, if I'm not mistaken, is strictly just meat and nothing else. Correct? I think Jordan Peterson talked about this.

There's a little bit of other stuff that's allowed, but basically it's no carbs. Got it. Okay. High protein. Yeah, absolutely zero. So it's just meat. Just meat. Just meat.

Wow. Yeah. I tried it for a while. How was it? Not fun. Yeah. I can't imagine. Did you lose a lot of weight? Yeah, it must be pretty costly.

Well, I'll shoot a Costco. Yeah. Just buying bulk? You know, if you're buying T-bones. Reading the article, it says it has all kinds of benefits. You lose a lot of weight. It's water weight. Protein's's a huge deal it balances your hormones all sorts of good things for your body anyway okay this has been this has been this has been great thank you matthew uh that sounded sarcastic it was not i really did appreciate that one

i think the codover diet is super super interesting. Cameron, what about you? Oh, so I was just looking around online like I normally do. And I saw there was a strange law that got signed by Greg Abbott. And it's actually going to fine people if they try to pass off their pets as service animals. So I'm sure everyone has seen people bringing their pets into restaurants or on airplanes or they're like, oh, it's my service animal. I need him with me. Well well now if it's not an actually registered service animal you're gonna get fined for it oh so it's not cutting down on what can be registered it's if you say it's a service animal and it's not then you can be fined that's correct oh so if you register your emotional support peacock as well a service animal it will you will not be fined under this

i didn't look that deep into it i don't know if peacocks are on the list they're pretty dangerous like an aggressive if i'm not mistaken well there was maybe i'm thinking of ostriches i don't know are they as aggressive as orca whales i was about to go into the orca whale i have so many thoughts so many things to say we should we should hurry into the orcas and the time and the submarine okay anyways it's a they're cracking down a little bit on the fake service animal thing that's right good to know as they should hayden what did you see this week happy flag day is that what you have for us today that's what I have I'm sorry is there a song associated with flag

I already talked a lot on this pod so I'm keeping it brief well we do have a lot of things that we need to talk about have you ever watched the Big Bang Theory where he does the what Matt have you ever watched the Big Bang Theory

where he does the Sheldon's fun with flags no have you ever watched big bang theory without the laugh track it's very depressing by the way I really did link to a tweet I linked to our official the Texan flag day tweet oh that's really nice that's why I linked to it

that's really good that's why i linked to it that's really lovely okay well i'm going to pivot us to very interesting and incredibly horrific and potentially life-threatening stuff i'm sure a lot of you have focused um some of your attention this week on the submarine the submersible that has gone missing in its quest to arrive at the titanic um wreckage 12 500 feet under the sea wild we were talking about this a lot in the office this week um that's just over half a league yeah which not even close to 20 000 no one knows honestly we have spent less time talking about the specifics of this submersible and more time talking about what is a league and how many feet is 20,000 leagues under the sea. That's been far more of the topic of conversation around this office, which should surprise no one who knows the people who work in this building.

But we've been watching. And I think the thing that shocks me the most is I just did not realize how deep in the ocean the Titanic wreckage was. It is so unbelievably deep. One of the deepest points that's been explored in the ocean is where the Titanic wreck is. That's unbelievable. Yeah. Interesting that you actually think the Titanic is down there. Whoa.

This isn't some PSYOP. We're going down a rabbit hole some people think jp morgan sunk the titanic we just use the word psyop on this podcast lord and by some people i mean nobody i bet you also believe that birds are real i just why i i just try to have a nice a nice little topic that we talk about together that we've talked about extensively during the week. And then I just, this happened. Let's talk about the update. There we go.

That's good. That's good. Apparently a robot found a debris field. And it is unclear to me from the CBS News article whether the debris field is the submersible in question. But the Coast Guard believes that while the oxygen supply was said to run out after 96 hours, that they could still be alive and that this is still a search and rescue mission. So it's possible that there may be survivors. And if the debris field is the submersible and they find it, they could still be alive.

Any comment on that? Anybody? Bueller? I think if the submersible imploded and there is a debris field, I think the humans have no longer... Well, okay. Obviously, I didn't mean that...

Oh, okay. If they blew up, that they're still alive yeah they're breathing underwater down there that was my theory and i'm sure they have some safety equipment i mean i don't know what debris field means in this context if it means that there's just something resting on the sea what is it called the sea floor sea bed but debris isn't debris by definition like particles like pieces of something that used to be whole i mean it could be pieces of the submersible that fell off i don't have any idea what that's true what yeah i was i was hearing some conversation that it it could be that

they landed the submersible it landed landed on top of the Titanic itself. And because of all the corrosive nature of being underneath Doge, it actually went into the Titanic. That would be an ironic death. Yeah, that would be horrible. Or they could have got their propeller stuck by an old door.

A what? A propeller stuck by an old door? Yeah, they could have got an old door. Is that a country saying? I'm not familiar with it. We aren't quite sure.

Only in West Texas. We aren't quite sure. Come on. Mechanic movie reference movie reference oh it's a reference oh wow if we are very dense this has been quite the podcast yeah right over our heads matt you were too you're culturally relevant your culture i can't even speak your culture there was there was definitely room for two people on that piece of driftwood yes there was is this a sore subject for you rose is the most selfish person that's ever existed i think i'm just still angry that i couldn't say your cultural relevance just sad oh boy that's okay i couldn't say Ozark. Or was that you?

That was me. That was also you. That was also me. Oh my gosh. I had trouble saying it too. Okay. Well, that's nice. I did read that the thickness of this submersible was like five inches of carbon fiber, which

is unreal to think about. Five inches of carbon fiber. I'm sorry. Can we go back to this? I still can't get over the fact that you thought that i was saying that they were under there swimming around waiting for the rescuers to get there this is 12 000 feet underwater their bodies could not handle that they're down there just swimming around playing building sand castles at the bottom of the ocean well that's something too

is like even if they find the submersible underneath like all the way underwater where the titanic wreck is somebody some expert who knows these things said that it would take eight hours for them to get the the submarine back up to the surface like it's an eight hour trip

maybe they're mermaids and they're oh they turned into the. Maybe they're mermaids. Oh, okay. The orcas, they're getting smarter. Help them. Yeah, we need to call in the orcas for this. We're journalists. We can make educated inferences. Absolutely. If there's a debris field and they could still be alive, they're mermaids and the orcas

are helping them. There you go. Giving them swimming lessons. That gives me some hope for these people. The behavioral trend of the orcas isn't to help it's it's been the other way around so maybe that's actually the orcas responsible for the missing bringing this back to reality here one thing i really don't understand is and i guess the only possible explanation is this the submarine is incapacitated but why don't understand is and i guess the only possible explanation is this the submarine is incapacitated

but why don't they just float up okay i was also reading about this thank you for asking there are supposedly seven ways that the submarine would float back up to the top if one failed so there are seven safeguards for something happening so that you have you have like a you have a seven time chance to find a way to float back up to the top so this expert who had had gone on one of these missions before or excursions or expeditions whatever you want to call it said that like he was very skeptical that the submersible was still intact and that something was wrong and that there was some leak or breach in the safety or external. I don't know.

Do you remember when the Columbia exploded? Yeah. That was just, I think, one tiny, not scale, but I'm envisioning like a scale on a fish but like one piece of the exterior was loose and that caused the I thought there was the O ring there was like the O rings because they decided

to launch despite a the cold temperature am I thinking of the challenger then or I don't know you know what I'm talking about it takes something very minor for something very major to go wrong y'all i all i get claustrophobic in elevators the thought of being in an underwater capsule that is leaking is so terrifying with four other people with four other people well your xbox controllers ran out of batteries i wonder too in these situations like

human nature is such a dangerous thing that if you're in like if you're trapped in a submarine underwater with limited oxygen supply, are you like, OK, these other people are competing with me for oxygen and something go wrong interpersonally with the people down there? I think that's a total possibility. Like their lives are at stake. I actually read that if somebody were to die that that would consume more oxygen than if they were alive but how would they know that though that's true

you know supposedly a submarine expert yeah anyways well we very much hope that people find yeah honestly and i hope hope hope beyond all hope that they find this um submersible intact and all everyone alive and well okay well folks thank you so much okay oh wait no we don't have time i was gonna ask you a question about whether you go okay

now we're gonna miss lightning round i'm gonna say your name and you're going to answer. No explanation, which is going to be hard for all of you because you're all reporters and all you do is use words. So I'm going to make this succinct and quick space or underwater. If you had to go on a mission to space or an underwater excursion with ocean gate down to the bottom of the ocean floor, which would you do?

Brad? Space. Cameron? Space. Space. Matt? Space. Space for me as well.

Okay, folks. Well, thank you so much for listening. We appreciate you listening to us blather, especially on this podcast where we could not put two words together and by we, I mean me. Thank you so much. And we will catch you next week.

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Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.