The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - June 24, 2022

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) being booed at the Texas GOP convention, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick taking aim at the House, the reelection of Matt Rinaldi as state Republican chairman, testimony from law enforcement officials on Uvalde, a Texas senator suing the Texas Department of Public Service, Cornyn working a gun control and mental health bill through the U.S. Senate, Republican-affiliated mayors asking Abbott to call a special session on gun control, the leader of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn movement facing a legal challenge, record numbers of illegal immigration, the comptroller predicting a surplus when the legislature convenes in 2023, an update on improved STAAR scores, and how charter school approvals by the state are faring.  Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses Senator Cornyn booed at the Texas GOP convention. Dan Patrick taking aim at the House. The re-election of Matt Rinaldi as state Republican chairman. Testimony from law enforcement officials on Uvalde. A Texas senator suing DPS. Cornyn working a gun control and mental health bill through the U.S. Senate. Republican-affiliated mayors asking Abbott to call a special session on gun control. Thank you. in 2023, an update on improved star scores, and how charter school approvals by the state are faring.

As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Also, make sure to check out the special editions of the podcast we are releasing with our conversations with elected officials, candidates, insiders, and grassroots leaders at the Texas GOP convention. Several have already been dropped and a couple are still on the way. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks. I knew something. Oh my gosh, you went right into it.

You want to tell the folks what I just did? Yes. How I saved the day. So I just pressed record and it did not record our podcast recording device failed us i said oh my gosh i don't know what to do brad came in save the day flipped a switch on our sd card and it literally worked so against my better judgment i'm going to say bradley well done not to oversell this but this is the greatest thing i have ever done yes yes don't want to don't want to do that yeah exactly um also hayden is remote today and i totally forgot to press record until just now so his joke that he just made to brad will not be uh recorded except for in the background of our mics here in studio whoopsies it's called the backup plan that's okay

hayden anytime you speak now you will be heard that's really sad that the world won't hear my incredibly clever joke that i just told i'm actually pretty sad about it i'm just sad when nobody hears hayden that makes me sad also this is our first pod without daniel in like an official report capacity it does make me i remember daniel what do you remember about him his voice uh it rings in your ears but you know i try to cling to it but he just grows fainter by the day for those who missed our announcement last week daniel is now officially the marketing and media manager here at the texan and uh is passing on his reporter uh beats to the rest of the team here and we are hiring so if you want to work at the texan as a reporter

uh send us your resume daniel has moved on to greener pastures as it were he's in a better place really this is great really glad to be here with you all okay gentlemen well let's actually jump into our stories for this week brad we're going to talk with you last week we recorded a ton of content at the republican party convention we are still releasing podcast interviews conversations with legislators candidates and insiders from that week we've released a couple already senator ted cruz chatted with us and we have another podcast released that is specifically elected officials conversations with elected officials we'll have candidates and insiders and grassroots leaders out next those are the next two episodes that we will be releasing

as special editions so we have all sorts of content even in terms of what happened during convention um y'all were covering that all week let's talk through some of those big stories specifically um now that i've sufficiently plugged all of our other content you hit every single nail on the head there thank you so much yeah but there's a very viral moment that happened during convention when senator john cornyn took the stage and gave a speech in front of the delegates. Talk to us about what happened. Yeah. So if you were living under a rock and didn't happen to go on social media at all during this, you will not have seen that Senator John Cornyn was booed by the Texas GOP delegates during his speech at convention.

This made national news. It was a big thing. The reason he was booed was his work in the discussions within the Senate through this bipartisan group of senators to pass some sort of legislation responding to the uvalde shooting there's a bunch of stuff in it a lot of appropriations made for stuff um as at the time that this happened we did not have a final draft of a bill we just had kind of some bullet points that they were working from um but cornyn said it seems like he kind of

knew what was going to happen at least a little bit uh because in his speech he said i will not approve any restrictions for law-abiding gun owners and that's my red line and despite what some of you may heard that's what our plan does and that itself was booed as well the people in the audience did not believe that um Um, it was also interesting to see, like he, he goes up there on the stage and for like a minute and a half stand there, not, not starting a speech and just booing. Um, that's how it started. And it went through the entire thing. So that was, um, that was a site I've never seen before. I know you were in there, too. It was just something crazy to witness, I would say.

I think Hayden and I both tweeted out videos of what was going on from different parts of the convention hall. And I will say it was talking to delegates who are right up front and at the stage. They said they couldn't hear the senator while he was speaking. The boos were so loud. Now, further back, of course, it was not the same um there weren't as many people further back and so the crowding and the booing was not as prevalently heard and you could definitely hear the senator's speech um but it was very interesting to watch and i will say right before like a couple of things just being at convention right before senator cornyn was walking around the exhibit hall where

all the booths with the vendors were where our booth was and uh talking with people folks were coming up to him shaking his hands and certainly there were most of the delegates were in the hall so there weren't that many in the exhibit or exhibit hall but it was interesting watching him kind of just walk around and you know he was totally uh free to be spoken to and um there wasn't much guarding him from being uh accosted by anybody verbally and you know 10 minutes later he was up on stage and also another interesting note the lanyards that you're given when you check into convention as an attendee a delegate press whatever with your credentials all were John Cornyn-branded lanyards. And it was very interesting watching some booths there or vendors offer alternatives

to delegates because of the unpopularity of the senator among delegates there. A lot of folks switched out their lanyards as kind of a gesture of disapproval toward Cornyn, which is very interesting to watch, too. So a lot of kind of inside baseball there. Yeah. Another gesture of disapproval toward the you know to toward corinne which is very interesting to watch too so a lot of kind of inside baseball there yeah another gesture of disapproval occurred right after corinne left the stage attorney general ken paxton uh went up and gave his speech and the two those two officials have sparred quite a bit in the public square for years but also especially in the last two three months or so. Paxton previously said about the discussions going on with Cornyn that Texas would be the first to sue the federal government should anything restricting Second Amendment rights pass.

Well, he got up on stage and he didn't mention Cornyn by name, but everybody knew who he was talking about, at least the main person he was talking about. And he basically said that there are a lot of Republicans who are, quote, running from the fight to preserve gun rights. And next time they're on the ballot, we need to remember their names. And so it was very interesting to see, obviously, the reaction from the crowd and a reaction from another elected official and to be fair cornyn and paxton have been at odds publicly over many issues and cornyn criticizing the attorney general for his you know the scandals that have gone on surrounding his office the legal battles he's entrenched in there are certainly those things to consider as well

that these two have very often and very publicly traded criticisms of each other. So let's talk about another moment of conflict when Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took aim at the Texas House at a convention. Talk to us about what he said. Yeah. So in his speech, he talked about the incoming class of senators and how it was quote going to be the most conservative class ever. Uh, but he also took aim at the opposite chamber from him, which he has done. He, this is not new for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.

Uh, but specifically, well, he, he starts that section of his speech saying, I'm not here to point fingers right before he goes on to point fingers at the Texas house for a medley of things. But the main one was focuses on the election bill that was passed last year, specifically an item.

A category of illegal voting was reduced from a state jail felony to a class A misdemeanor by in an amendment by by a house member now that was left in the final bill and had to be approved by the senate so um it is not like the house just got one over on lieutenant governor patrick um this was put in and approved by the opposing chamber as well. Now, it's something that a lot of people in both chambers want to try and restore to a felony next session. And Patrick is probably the highest ranking one of those people. And so, he said that is going to be his first priority next session to put that legislation through making all categories of illegal voting a felony there you go now talk to us about um you know a lot of the business of convention that is conducted has to do with party administration um specifically the leadership of the state party

um chairman matt rinaldi won re-election unopp last week. How did that develop and what was the reaction to his reelection? So I did a preview of the convention and reported in there that at least one person was considering challenging Rinaldi. That was Tim Wesley, the former RPT historian and the second place finisher in the land commissioner race. That didn't come to fruition he apparently didn't get enough support behind the scenes to even merit a half-hearted challenge and at that point you know if you're trying to challenge the incumbent chairman you will need to have been working for months on whipping support among delegates for yourself. So that was the most anticlimactic part of the convention, I would say. The vice chair race was a lot more interesting, came down to the wire.

Dr. Dana Myers, the vice chairwoman of the Harris County GOP, won that. And so she will, for the next two years, team up with Rinaldi in trying to advance the party's priorities, whether that's legislative priorities or election priorities. And so that's the main part of convention. It's kind of the 1A category of items that the delegates take up, 1B being the platform itself and the legislative priorities which we saw come out i'll have a list on that on the back mic this week which at this point of this being released will be on our website so you can go see what made the cut there absolutely and some notable absences from that list as well um well thank you bradley very interesting to watch all that happen and it was one of the first

times in a long time that the chairman has run unopposed oftentimes there's a big fight over who wins the chairman's position and the factions of the party are pretty divided. And we did not see that this, uh, this convention. And that, that part along with it being in person was quite the change from two years ago with the dumpster fire that we saw.

Yes. Yes. So the virtual convention and the very heated, uh, chairman's, uh, race between Alan West and James Dickey. Yes. So the virtual convention and the very heated chairman's race between Allen West and James Dickey. Yep. Well, thank you so much, Bradley. Hayden, we are going to come to you.

There is new Uvalde testimony, new storylines. I feel like coming out weekly, almost daily on what happened at the Robb Elementary School shooting. Talk to us about some of the highlights of Colonel McCraw of Texas Department of Public Safety's testimony.

Well, you're correct that there are a lot of headlines coming out of the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting. Stephen McCraw, the director of the Department of Public Safety, testified on Tuesday before the Texas Senate in a special committee that was formed by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. He, the committee is titled the Special Committee to Protect All Texans. It's sort of an optimistically named committee, but they are seeking to get more information out there about what happened and hopefully use that as the perpetrator was inside. And McCraw expressed really astonishment that some of the responding officers did not try to open the door. And he also repeated his criticisms indirectly of Chief Arredondo,

who was the, according to McCraw, the on-scene commander. He has, or Chief Arradondo has said that he did not consider himself the on-scene commander, but McCraw stated, quote, there is compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we've learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre, end quote. And he has made critical comments in the past about Iredondo, but this one, I think, is stronger because it goes to the whole of the response and not just specific missteps, but the fact that, according to him, if things had been done differently, then fewer children and fewer people would have died. But McCraw also said that there were

many signs that this perpetrator was a risk to others. Of course, he was 18 years old, but he had threatened family members, he had messaged people on social media that he intended to commit violence or that he was thinking about committing violence. And McCraw stated that he was disappointed that some of the social media companies were not more proactive in identifying some of these problems and potentially preventing some of the carnage that took place. Um, but astonishingly enough, he stated that the grandmother of the perpetrator, though she was shot in the face and her jaw is still, um,

was really blown away, um, was what the message that he imparted in this testimony, um, that she has signaled she's willing to give an interview, but of course physically cannot do that yet, but police are hoping to interview the grandmother of the perpetrator. It seems that there is a conflict emerging between the DPS response and some of the local officials, and we'll talk about that later. But those are some of the highlights of McCraw's testimony on Tuesday. Now, in a related story, a state senator is suing a state agency. Who is Senator Roland Gutierrez, and why is he suing DPS? Senator Gutierrez represents the district that includes Uvalde and Uvalde County.

So he has had a very intimate. He's had he's been very close to what's going on in that community, and he has attended many of the funerals for the victims of what happened at Rob elementary school. But, um, he has made reportedly, he has made open records requests to DPS. And when an agency receives a request for public information, they have 10 days to either answer it or seek a decision from the office of the attorney general of Texas. And he did not, he alleges that they are stonewalling him and not giving him the proper answer according to law. In his statement, in his news release, he didn't specifically detail which records

that he is trying to get his hands on. But reportedly, these are probably body cam videos and other documents that might add insight into why these officers, which McCraw stated had really had the tools to confront the shooter did not go and confront the shooter because they had ballistic shields they had rifles they had all all the weapons and material they needed there were dozens of dps troopers on scene um macross stated in his testimony um and they're seeking and gutierrez reportedly is seeking more information that could add insight to this. But Gutierrez is not just seeking information about this particular incident or this particular shooting, excuse me. senators who are asking for legislative changes that would ostensibly make it less likely for something like this to happen again. But he said, quote, by not taking common sense gun safety measures to prevent such atrocities as this, the state of Texas failed

21 Texans, their families, and countless others touched by the tragedy. We must not fail these families again with cover-ups and misinformation, end quote. So he's characterizing this as an intentional cloak that DPS is placing over information that would alleviate some of the anxiety on the part of people who want to know more about what happened. Of course, DPS and MACRA has said that they're trying to conduct this investigation as professionally as possible, and that when it is concluded, they will submit all their materials to the 38th Judicial District District Attorney, Christina Busby, who will then make whatever decisions need to be made on the basis of the results of their investigation.

Very good. Well, Hayden, thank you for giving us the summary of that. We're going to continue talking about a story that you wrote this week about legislation that has been offered federally in response to the Uvalde shooting. What are the bullet points of what this legislation would do and kind of who is at the head of this discussion? Earlier, Brad talked about the angry response that Senator John Cornyn faced in Houston. that has been characterized as a gun control bill, um, that would create restrictions such as broadening the definition of a romantic relationship for the purpose of domestic violence. Um, and, and that would be in the context of revoking someone's right to purchase a firearm if they have, um, if they have been accused or if they've committed an act of domestic violence. It's also called the boyfriend loophole. And that's intended to protect people who,

particularly women who have violent ex-boyfriends or current boyfriends who are, they are concerned about committing a violent act on them. But this bill also adds billions of dollars in funding to mental health, to programs that are intended to provide mental health services, such as, such as Medicaid. But there are provisions in the bill that would clarify and make it, make more stringent the process for obtaining a firearm for someone under 21 who might have something in his or her juvenile record that would preclude them from doing so. And so the,

there was not Senator Cruz voted against this bill. Objections to these restrictions include that if there's, even if you continue to add mental health appropriations, that this is not a problem that the government can solve by, you know, with more spending. And the objections to some of the firearms restrictions is that they could be easily misused to rev people who are familiar with domestic violence and the related issues to that. And they contend that these are widely approved of and that we have a lot of public support. Absolutely. And it's interesting as well to watch the division among Texas, our two Texas senators here, Senator Cornyn being one of the top officials to be in discussions about this on the Hill,

and then Senator Ted Cruz voting against this proposal. In our conversation with him during convention, he said, I can't make up my mind till I see a bill. And after seeing this bill from from Cornyn and Chris Murphy, another senator, and he's a Democrat from Connecticut, I believe, you know, he ended up voting against the proposal. So interesting to watch our Texas senators be divided on an issue when they're both belonging to the same political party. And just one note, the bill has not passed per se. In a 64, I believe 64 to 34 vote, they gave it the initial seal of advancement, more of a procedural... The initial seal of advancement, more of a procedural. The initial seal of advancement. I like it.

Well, I almost said approval even, but I couldn't, you know, I just said it wasn't approved. But they gave it, they granted it the preliminary stamp that it needed to move forward, but they still have to pass it finally out of the assent. There you go. Well, we'll continue to watch. Thank you so much, Hayden. Bradley, speaking of gun control proposals, a group of big city mayors penned a letter to Governor Abbott asking him to call a special session to pass various gun control measures. This group included six Republican mayors. Who are they? But let's also talk real fast about the partisan breakdown of

local officials. Yeah. So real quickly, they are nominally nonpartisan. Like on the ballot, if you go vote for one of these people, they're not going to show up as a Republican or Democrat, but they are affiliated with the Republican Party. At least these six are. The other ones are affiliated with Democrats. Among those includes Mayor Steve Adler in Austin, Sylvester Turner in Houston, Eric Johnson in Dallas, and Ron Nurnberg in San Antonio. But these Republican mayors, they are Maddie Parker in Fort Worth, Ginger Nelson in Amarillo, Jim Ross in Arlington, John Munns in Plano, Ron Jensen in Grand Prairie, and Joe Zimmerman in Sugar Land. In total, I think the number was 13.

And six of six Republicans were part of that. And so, yeah, they asked the governor to call a special session specifically for their list of proposals that they have. So talk to us about the policies that these mayors are calling for. So they list out five things in their letter, uh, in order they are required universal background checks for gun purchases. That's extending background check requirements to like private person to person sales, which currently you don't have to go through a background check on increasing

the age to purchase quote assault weapons by that. They mean like AR 15 type type rifles a big scary looking black ones basically um and raising the age to purchase those to 21 passing uh red flag laws to identify threats before shootings they say um we saw asden mentioned, we saw the federal government in this plan, they have funding to help, uh, states implement red flag laws, but that's something that has to be done on a state level. Uh, the other two items they have are significantly increased mental health support funding and train and properly resource school safety officers.

So aspects of the, of this list mirror what's being done at the federal level only in terms of the like actual statutory laws rather than just throwing money at whatever it is the federal government wants to coax these states into doing um but uh i i don't know how much of a chance this has. It definitely doesn't have really a chance to call a special session. Governor Abbott appears to have zero interest in that for anything, whether it's guns or, you know, vaccine mandates or whatever.

Gender modification. Right. Yeah. So likely this is going to come back up in the regular session when the legislature reconvenes. There's already been some expenditures made through the budget execution process but there's going to be a whole lot more done and a whole lot more expenditures made but also probably some law changes what those are i don't know but we'll see absolutely thank you bradley isaiah we're coming to you long awaited chat with

you about a story that you wrote this week. Mark Lee Dixon normally comes up in our stories or your stories that you so often write for us about Texas City's passing local abortion bans, the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn movement. He's kind of at the head of that entire movement here in the state, but his name also comes up and showed up in the Texas Supreme Court's docket last week. What's that case about? Yes, for those of you who aren't familiar, Markley Dixon founded the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn initiative as it's titled in Wascombe in 2019. He convinced the city council to pass a local abortion ban. And since then, dozens of cities in Texas and a handful in other states as well have passed similar bans. So he's a pro-life activist, and the Wascombe Ordinance is really the important one for this case. It and a few other early versions of the ordinance for the next, you know, eight, ten cities included a provision or a section that specifically listed several abortion funds and providers like Whole Women's Health, Planned Parenthood,

and the Lilith Fund, the Texas Equal Access Fund, and the Afiya Center, these three abortion funds. I named them in particular because after that, they sued Mark Lee Dixon over the statements in the ordinance, which declares them to be criminal organizations, and also for Mark Lee Dixon's following social media posts where he repeats similar claims. And so it's a civil defamation suit, and that's really the basis of the lawsuit. A lot of this hinges on two things, you know, in terms of the definition of what defamation is, whether or not Dixon's claim that their criminal organizations was false and whether or not it was meant to be a statement of fact, as opposed to, you know, hyperbole or opinion or exaggeration or things like that. Got it. Talk to us about how the two sides of this case kind of are divided generally. So I'll get to the way it made up to the Supreme Court here in a little bit, because that's kind of interesting.

But these are actually two different lawsuits. One is the Lilith Fund, Suing Dixon, and the other lawsuit is the Equal Access Fund and the Affiliate Center, Suing Dixon. But they all regard the same basic claims. And the Fund's argument is that these declarations are defamatory because they're false. Among other reasons, they say that calling them a criminal organization is false because Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. And the ordinances forbid direct punishment of abortion until rows have returned. So the word they use in their petition to the Supreme Court is that these ordinances purport to criminalize abortion or ban abortion and not actually ban it. And that's an important word choice because if it's true that abortion is criminal in these places, then it's not defamation.

It's got to be false, right? So there's that. And then additionally, the other factor that's important here, right, is whether or not it's hyperbole. And they're arguing that since it's in the text of Ornith's past officially, a reader is meant to take that literally as a statement of fact. So that's generally the abortion fund's argument. Dixon's argument, it's a pretty simple and direct clash in this particular case. He argues that abortion remains criminal under Texas law and the local ordinances, even though Roe has effectively blocked governments from directly enforcing these laws. The local ordinances do use civil enforcement mechanisms, similar to the

Harbid Act. So in other words, citizens can sue somebody for performing abortions in these cities, even if, unless rows overturned or other legal thresholds are met, municipal officials cannot directly penalize violators. So, but interestingly, in his court briefs, Dixon's team, I shouldn't say Dixon himself. He's not writing these, you know, in any court cases, he's got lawyers and such. But his general argument doesn't focus so much on the argument that abortion remains criminal under Texas law. He does mention it and it's part of it. He does. He's I mean, yeah, he argues that the Fifth Court of Appeals, where this case came from, aired when it says Texas law does not include abortions in its definition of murder. So he lost to the Fifth Court of Appeals.

We'll get to that soon. But a lot of that hinged on a judgment that abortion is not considered murder under Texas law. And Dixon has been arguing, well, you know, under Senate Bill 8, the Heartbeat Act, certain kinds of abortion can be murder. And so under that law, you know, under Texas law, these abortion funds can count as criminal if they violate SB 8, for example, things like that. So the focus is more really on hyperbole and exaggeration. Dixon just quipped to me personally when we interviewed him at the convention that it's legal to call abortion murder in one part of the state and not another. But we can get to that here soon. So talk to us about how this ended up at the Texas Supreme Court.

Yes. So the suits were filed in Travis County and Dallas County, um, favorable venues, both for the abortion funds, as you saw from the original trial court dispositions in each case. But there's a little mechanism, um, that I want to say is, is randomized where when cases go up from trial courts to the state courts of appeals, then they equalized so that, you know, generally the courts of appeals are sharing about the same number of cases. And that sent the case that was filed in one of these counties over to the Amarillo-based court of appeal. So it's a lot, a lot friendly to Dixon and less so to the abortion funds. So long and short of it is that both these lawsuits got appealed. One appellate court sided with the funds, the other one sided with Dixon. And so we've got

a conflict in the appellate court. So both parties actually were in agreement that the Supreme Court of Texas should take it up. Because like Dixon joked, the effect right now is that the one hemisphere of the state says that it's legal to say abortion is murder, and the other hemisphere says that, no, that's actually defamation. But that would not actually be a real consequence in this case, according to the abortion funds, who are arguing that their suit is targeted to Dixon because of the ordinances. So it wouldn't apply to just a very common, if we'll admit it, verbal comparison between abortion and murder. That's pretty common if you've ever been on social media at all.

So that's the funds argument. We'll see if the Supreme Court thinks about it. Well, awesome. Thank you, Isaiah. Hayden, we are coming back to you. More border numbers. How many enforcement encounters did CBP report, and how does this compare to the past? May was an extraordinary month for illegal immigration. And just a friendly reminder, this is detected illegal immigration enforcement encounters, not all illegal crossings.

This includes both arrests by Border Patrol agents and encounters at offices of field operations and ports of entry. There were 139,000 encounters in Texas Border patrol sectors in May, and a total of 223,000 illegal immigrants were encountered in the Southwest U.S. land border, a quarter of whom had at least one encounter before. And the Texas number, 139,000, is an increase from 129,000 in April. And there were reportedly more encounters in May than in any month in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's recorded history. Wow. So once again, a record-shattering month for illegal immigration. And Commissioner Chris Magnus attributed this partially to the fact that human smugglers are victimizing people and that there is a surge in migration across the

Western Hemisphere. And while Title 42 is still in place and it is being hashed out in the courts, there were 42% of the encounters, ironically enough, 42% were under Title 42, but 55% of single adults encountered in the Southwest land border were arrested and then expelled under the Title 42 order, which of course the Biden administration is seeking to abolish. But the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary to assert itself and turn away illegal immigrants. Many others echo his thoughts that the federal government is not handling this situation well and that illegal immigration will not decrease unless states do something aggressive to do so. But the US government is proceeding with its priorities, nonetheless. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that for us. Always a border-related story on our podcast. We should all take bets on, make predictions on when we will publish an edition of our podcast without talking about the border. There won't be one.

Ever. Even if the border all of a sudden just gets to be this calm, delightful no humanitarian crisis happening whatsoever. Then we would stop because we're not clickbait chasers. That's what I'm saying. When do we

think we will no longer have a border story on our podcast? Isaiah's hallmark. Hmm. Just take it off. We could just, we're going to make bets and then Rob and I will collude and we will decide when, um,

when our guests will be. Yes. And we will not have it on the docket for that week just so you're gonna read the game you're gonna 100% rigging the game yes but i'm owning up to it ahead of time so i feel like i should get some brownie points there but hayden thank you so much um bradley let's talk about another conversation that you had with a texas elected official um on our special edition podcast. You spoke with Comptroller Glenn Hager and he gave you an update on the state's fiscal projections.

Make sure folks to go and listen to that. What did he tell you? So quite notably, he said that by the next legislative session in 2023, he expects the state to have about 30 billion dollars between its treasury account and state savings account um that's quite a fiscal change um especially from two years ago when we had these just horrible horrible projections um talking about like a i think it was a 4.6 billion dollar deficit uh budget deficit the last uh budget cycle last biennium uh that didn't happen things improved quite a bit and they continued improving so much that um there's gonna be 30 billion dollars for the states to play with if they so

choose um there is uh there's a lot of proposals out there there's to be a lot of things on the legislature's plate. So we don't know what they're actually going to use it. They won't spend all of it probably either. You know, there's got to be some money kept in the state savings account specifically. But there's quite a bit that they have available. So let's talk about what you think they might spend this money on. Yeah. So shortly after the article published, Governor Abbott responded to the news saying that we must use a substantial

portion of this money to cut property taxes in Texas. How much is substantial? I don't know. The legislature already has $3 billion from the ARPA funding earmarked this next cycle for property tax compression. Which was a legal battle. Right. Yeah. funding earmarked this next cycle for property tax which was a legal battle right yeah that uh those on the right the center right conservative side of it won um because congress wanted to prohibit states from cutting taxes with this money so there's that three billion dollars um

in 2019 school district mno rate collections totaled 28 billion dollars so just under that 30 billion dollar total i think that has grown to slightly above 30 billion dollars since but you could put a significant dent in that in the mno school district mno rate is the largest single portion of the property taxes collected in the state so um abbott has previously called on the state to eliminate that component mirroring a tppf plan texas public policy foundation plan that would use 90 cents of every surplus dollar to buy down that rate to total elimination over 10 years that That would just eliminate that largest portion. It would significantly reduce property tax bills, but it would not eliminate them entirely. There

would still be some from counties, cities, and the debt service stuff for school districts. So we'll see how that shakes out. They're going to do something on that. Is it just kind of strict compression that we've seen the last couple legislatures, or is it something more ambitious like that TVPF plan? Don't know. We'll see. I'd also expect them to use some of it on school safety measures. something and i'm sure the legislature they already have done some issued some uh budget execution expenditures for like bulletproof shields um but that will be built upon by the legislature when they convene and as always there's a litany of other things that will be on the legislature's plate so always it'll be interesting to watch what the hot topics are come January. Thank you so much, Bradley. Isaiah, we're coming back to you.

Last year, Texas public school students got some historically bad test scores. You read about that. Then remind us why and talk to us about what changed this year now that the new scores have been released. Yeah, so this this is about the star, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Anybody that went to high school in Texas, public high school, is groaning upon hearing that just because of the Pavlovian conditioning of checking the STAR. It wasn't that bad, but it's administered in five subjects, Algebra I, Biology, English I, English II, and U.S. History. And as you mentioned, last year, there was a pretty steep

plunge in public student scores on this test. And this is, by the way, at ISDs and charters, just all public school in Texas. These are generally high school classes, but it's pretty common for districts to let students take Algebra 1 in the 7th or 8th grade and get a start early on certain classes, things like that. These are high school level classes. So as I mentioned, there was a big dip last year, and now we're seeing them tick up a little bit, but they're not quite at pre-pandemic levels. So the three subjects that dropped last year were Algebra 1, one biology and let me take a look at u.s history so english bummer that makes me sad quite a bummer something that makes me happy is

english one and two actually increased last year oh yeah so that was nice by the way throughout this segment um when i say drop or increase or anything, what I'm talking about are the percentage of students that passed in each subject. So it's not raw scores, other than that, that would generally correlate. It's the share of students that passed in these given subjects. So that's our metric here. And so more students failed last year, and a little bit more students in last year passed this time around. But we're still not quite up to the same passing rate that we enjoyed in 2019, which was the last time it was administered in the spring before COVID. It wasn't administered in 2020. run into TA Commissioner Mike Barath and some evidence on the federal side, generally a lot of evidence, was that students who were learning virtually tended to score lower than students who were learning in person. And that's obviously at the top of everyone's minds when we look at these

scores here. Students were overwhelmingly more so in schools physically this year. Virtual learning is pretty residual at this point. For the most part, we're all back in school and we're seeing scores tick up possibly as a result of that. The only one that went down was English 1. Rob and I were talking about how that's kind of a curious development. We've got our own theories about it. But yeah, English 1, after the sheriff's instance that passed rose at the 2020 to 2021 pandemic year, it fell since then in spring.

So that's interesting. But in all the subjects, we're seeing a slight increase in the number of students that can pass, but still not quite up to the 2019 levels. Got it. Well, thank you so much, Isaiah. Brad, we're going to talk about electricity this week the independent market monitor for ercot released a report showing that prices are on the rise what's causing that so per that independent market monitor electricity prices were up 550 in 2021 from the previous year that's a lot but taking out the contribution of that from the blackouts themselves and that increase is only 65%.

Still notable, not as drastic as it first appears. First and foremost, this increase occurred because of the grid's operational changes stemming from the response to the blackouts. The state has increased the amount of available capacity and the caution with which it operates reserve protocols. Both of those cost money after the blackouts the public called on officials to never let february 2021 happen again understandably so but ensuring it doesn't happen again especially in the short run is going to cost a lot of money and we're seeing that right now i spell all this out in much more detail in the article i recommend you give it a read also talk about the market reforms that that's the long run uh address way to address

prices and um that's coming down the pike later this year so i recommend you give that a read and i will say too brad does a great job on twitter of reporting you you know, the kind of demand that's happening, where generation is coming from. So if you're ever interested in like a day-to-day basis of what that looks like, check him out. I can't believe I just plugged your Twitter. And my tweet for this week is also a tweet from you. Must have been painful. It has been. Why is the tweet from him, too?

I saw that and it made me almost not choose a tweet from him because I saw that you had chosen a tweet from him. But Brad tweets a lot. Mr. Tweets lot searching weeks it's one of my biggest flaws it's one of your biggest uh you know it's i have so many thoughts i didn't have to have it for my job i wouldn't have it i know isaiah feels the exact same way speaking of isaiah um let's talk about charter schools every year the state board of education considers granting permission to a handful of new charter schools waiting to operate or basically wanting to operate and waiting for approval from the state in order to do so. How did that meeting go this year? Yeah, the way the process works is that

dozens and dozens, sometimes hundreds of prospective charter schools tell the TA, hey, we want to have a charter school. And the TA calls it down to the biggest I've seen in a given year since I've been here is eight candidates and they give those to the state board of education and the state board decides which of those can operate. So this year was a really particularly tight year in terms of the number of candidates that they approved. Last year, according to one of the members of the board, was the first time that they had rejected most candidates, four out of seven. And this year, according to one of the members of the board, was the first time that they had rejected most candidates four out of seven. And this year they rejected four out of five. So only one candidate or applicant actually made it through.

So that's an unusual ratio. Certainly. Now, one school in particular garnered a lot of attention. Which one and why did it have so many eyeballs on it? So the school is Heritage Classical Academy, which it hoped to open in Houston. I talked to the prospective superintendent and he said that they're not sure yet if they're going to go for another try. But this was actually the third try.

They played a role in the primary elections for some Republicans, actually, since, as I mentioned, this is their third try. Last year, they were rejected in that unusual four out of seven ratio that we mentioned. And that really became a millstone for the District 15 member, Johnson, Jay Johnson, and his opponent, Hickman, who defeated him in the primary, zeroed in on that and some other issues, generally framing him as, in his words, an ISD guy. Oh, interesting. Yes.

And Kinsey naturally framed himself more as an outsider. But so that was definitely a campaigning point in that runoff. There's another member, Matt Robinson, another Republican, who generally does not like charter schools. He's quite candid about that. And as opposed to charter school growth, he voted against all last year except for one that is called Thrive Center. And it was going to open in Magnolia for autistic children. But every charter school, generally, Matt Robinson is unfavorable to for the most part.

And there are exceptions. But he believes and told the Texan that he was redistricted out of his original district as a vindictive effort, in his words, to kind of get rid of enforced charter school votes, including on heritage. Additionally, when they were discussing heritage, there's this whole bombshell where one of the members, a Democrat member of the board, brought up the social media post from five years ago of the Heritage Classical Schools board secretary. And we include the text of the post that they read in the meeting in here, but it's pretty politically charged and likens a particular

protest that was happening to Sharia law or wanting to usher in Sharia law. So this was characterized as a bombshell by board chair Kevin Ellis. And this was the reason that a lot of members sided for opposing granting heritage to the charter. So a bit of excitement at a usually boring monday board of education meeting right absolutely we always love a good bombshell at a state board of education meeting we need a little a little spice well thank you isaiah gentlemen we are going to move on here to our tweetery brad why don't you start us off so mine is a tweet by the Dinesh D'Souza the uh what no I don't know why the the was necessary

Ohio State because they call themselves the Ohio State University nobody in a million years would have ever gotten that as the reference my dad who listens to this definitely would well Mr. Johnson, there you go. So for Father's Day, that's there. Dinesh D'Souza tweeted, Breaking. One of the 2,000 mules caught by Project Veritas has been arrested,

facing 20 years in prison for election fraud. I was like, that sounds kind of familiar. Hmm. Look at it. And that is not breaking news that happened a year and a half ago in january 2021 something we wrote about yes i remember that yeah uh and this is this story is especially our story from that is making the rounds on social media, especially because she, this person who committed voter fraud was working for a Republican congressional candidate, Mario Garza in San Antonio.

And so he's getting that sent to him a lot in the replies, but just, this is not breaking news. And it's not like there's been an update in, at least not that I know of, in her getting convicted. This is about the arrest, which happened in January 2021. So, yeah, that's a lot. Great. He hasn't corrected himself, which he probably won't because he generally doesn't. Great. Wonderful. Yes. Delightful. Hayden, what about you? What do you have for us? hasn't corrected himself which he probably won't because he generally doesn't but great wonderful

yes delightful hayden what about you what do you have for us i have a tweet from the terry canalis um well it started with a tweet from elon musk about the birth rate in the US being below, he said, USA birth rate has been below minimum sustainable levels for about 50 years. And Terry Canales quote tweeted that Terry Canales is a state rep from South Texas. For those who don't know, he quote tweeted that and said, I promise you, us folks in the Rio Grande Valley are pulling our weight on this one. And that just made me laugh. I don't know why. It just hit me funny. So hats off, I guess, to the for that we're going to move on to the section of the podcast where unfortunately isaiah and i will both cite brad johnson the brad johnson isaiah what do you have to what do you have to say i'm basking in this well brad the johnson put out this uh press release from the patriot mobile action pack

and uh they're a conservative cell phone company not the phones themselves you know what they're about like a wireless service provider yeah that's that phones themselves, you know what they're about. Like a wireless service provider. Yeah, that's the one. And they announced that, well, there's a runoff for the Mansfield-Latite School Board, and the conservative favorite was a candidate named Craig Tipping.

If you recall, this is the one that Ted Cruz waded into, he endorsed Tipping. And with his victory, Picture Mobile's Action Pack went 11-0 on its school board races, with the other 10 already having won on May 7th. So they've got a perfect record of victory for all the candidates they endorsed for school board, which is getting a lot more attention. An interesting phenomenon that we're seeing here is, again, more and more attention gets devoted to this office around the state.

Absolutely. Well, and even we're going to be plugging our convention podcast a ton on this podcast but in our conversation with senator cruz it was interesting hearing about how he chooses the candidates that he supports all centered around school choice and centered on centered around wait what did i say you said centered around which is the right one no it's not stop gaslighting her i really love um working with you both um i really i really love it it's great to have it's just great i literally don't remember what i was saying uh ted cruz yes spoke about school choice how he how he chooses to endorse candidates in primaries and it was interesting listening to him speak specifically about how it is often a bad idea for federal elected officials

particularly senators to get involved in local races but that he still chooses to do so and specifically this cycle is making school choice the litmus test for his endorsement, at least in large part. Very interesting conversation talks about how his staff makes an Excel spreadsheet and kind of gets everything lined up so he knows who and who he will not support. So definitely go check it out. Okay, well, Isaiah, thank you for that. I'm going to talk about the um texas gop legislative priorities brad you listened in on this uh not quite a press conference it wasn't the chairman announced it was a brain of waltz from texas scorecard announcing the legislative priorities but the basically the

legislative priorities committee at the texas gop convention narrowed it down to a list of 15 i believe which then the delegates voted on all however many thousands of them and the top eight were chosen. Now, essentially, the legislative priorities for the GOP state party for the state party here in Texas is a list of policy items that the chairman often will go down to Austin and advocate for, or they are a list of items that the legislators will say hey we need to pass these because our delegates want us to focus on these issues it's basically a launch point from which legislators the chairman of the party can move

from because their voters and their delegates are specifically interested in seeing policy on these items so that's kind of what the utility of this list of priorities is. In no particular order, they are protect our elections, ban Democrat committee chairs, abolish abortion, repeal school material with an obscenity exemption, basically citing the explicit and pornographic materials found in school libraries banning child gender modification securing the border school choice and defending gun rights now we spoke earlier about or alluded to earlier that there were some issues that had did not make the list that were very surprising now i will say i did not foresee a world in which some kind of property tax priority was not going

to make this list of topic we do yeah it's crazy now we heard that uh the property tax priority was not going to make this list of top eight we do yeah it's crazy now we heard that uh the property tax item was very very close to making it into the top eight um just a hair away but that's crazy i mean this is an issue that the republican party primary is basically built on right now is borders and property taxes those are the big issues and then factor in a bunch of social issues too but those are the two really big items i can't tell you how many republican primary candidates i spoke to who put border in property taxes as the top two whether they're flipped or not you know depends on the candidate but those were the top two among many and there might be some you know delegate fatigue uh primary voter fatigue in that these are tax and tax

refunded lobbying kind of factors into that, right? As your property tax dollars are going to lobbyists who lobby on behalf of cities and counties and go down to Austin and advocate against property tax reform. So that kind of ties in. But that didn't make the top eight either. And these are two issues that have been at the forefront of a lot of political discussion here in texas and um fascinating to see that that they did not make the top list and you know particularly in light of the fact that this is something that um polls very highly voters care

very deeply about and like i said maybe it is a situation where fatigue is just setting in where they've talked so much about property taxes that we might as well stick some new spicy uh priorities on the list i think taxpayer-funded lobbying was on the last two lists i believe legislative priorities right yeah so so we'll see but interesting particularly in light of the fact that you just spoke with the comptroller and kind of talked about where we're at fiscally in the state and uh there's always room for some of that yeah property tax buy down it's interesting now that governor abbott especially appears more uh keen than ever or at least than in recent years on specifically doing something to significantly reduce property taxes uh as in like getting rid of the school district M&O rate. As soon as that,

he reaches that base. This item falls off the, the Texas GOP list of legislative priorities. It is funny. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they've done stuff on property taxes the last two cycles, but not something like this.

Yeah. So some stuff being the key word is it's still talked about by voters and polled very highly because a lot of voters don't believe their property i haven't seen a change in their property tax bills right there hasn't been the relief that legislators are promising in large part which is where a lot of this discontent comes from but then it didn't make the top list of priorities which legislatively may not move the needle. Who knows? But it's interesting to see that not make the list of eight. So, okay. Well, wonderful. We have like two minutes here. I did want to make one mention of something. The fun topic for today was going to be office characters that we resemble here in the office. And I would particularly like to direct

folks to photos that were tweeted this week from my account, believe it or not, of Isaiah Mitchell looking so much like Moe's Dwight Schrute's cousin. I don't think the resemblance is that strong. I just got to say. And personality-wise, there's no comparison. That's fair, but the pictures were fun. I enjoyed them, and Annie did too. Annie made them.

Okay, Did she? Well, I can tell because the overlaying of Moses' picture on my badge is not at all even. Critiques. Yeah. I've got critiques. Okay. Have you let her know? I haven't let her know now.

Well, I guess I'm not since she's not here. She's not here. There you go. Okay. Okay. Any other quick office comparisons we want to we want to make or draw before we sign off for the day brad who are you you are grumpy who are you in the office he's stanley oh my gosh what do you think about that brad yeah it's kind of accurate it's kind of

accurate no you're really not standing because stan Stanley never actually gets fired up He does one time and it's a whole episode For you it's like every single day So Stanley just kind of simmers So I take that back Rob has something to add to this conversation He's commandeering a mic I think also Stanley doesn't really like his job

But Brad, you seem to enjoy your job At the very least Moderately so, depends on the day. It depends on the day. As he grins at me. I see how it is. We also give 110% and Stanley does not give 100% at all. It is.

That's very true. You do not know this, but that is another pet peeve of mine. You cannot give more than 100%. Okay, the fact that... That is physically impossible. Okay, Bradley, stop. The fact that you were just complimented by a co-worker of yours and then you choose to nitpick the phraseology that was used case in point there you go that was absolutely ridiculous also yeah speak right into the mic

rob if you're gonna speak into it i didn't want to be the one to make the comparison between brad and dwight so i'm glad isaiah made it there we go well as i start losing my hair i become more and more moon faced like dwight so interesting the the i will start resembling him more okay yes there you go well we'll continue to think about it um uh ann that she is, who did she say she was? Kelly? Easily. Yeah, 100%. I agree. She's also our Minister of Culture because we don't know things.

I know things. You and Brad know some things, but also you don't know a lot of other things. I knew what a Finsta was today. Yeah, I can't believe that. I'm still reeling from the fact that you knew what a Finsta was. Okay, gentlemen, thank you so much so much folks we so appreciate you listening it was so great to meet uh a handful of you at convention who came over and chatted with us and that was just really cool it was more than a handful it was actually a lot of people we so appreciate you coming over and

saying hi to us and introducing yourselves we see the numbers each week but it's totally different to see people in person and chat, shake hands and talk. It's good to know that there's actually humans on the other end of this listening to us bloviating. Not just numerals. Yeah, it's very nice. Real people. So we appreciate your support and you listening to us each and every week as we do bloviate on the topics of the day. So thank you so much and we will catch you next week.

Thank you to everyone for listening. of the day. So thank you so much. And we will catch you next week. and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you, so thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you, and God bless Texas.