The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - June 3, 2022

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses law enforcement responding to the tragedy in Uvalde, Gov. Abbott calling for the legislature to create new committees, Texas lawmakers calling for a special session to address gun control measures, two students arrested for terroristic threats, trends with teachers unions and State Board of Education races, the governor reportedly skipping the Texas GOP convention, the Supreme Court halting a social media censorship law, and how GOP groups competed spending big money in primary runoffs.  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 law enforcement responding to the tragedy in Uvalde. Governor Abbott calling for the legislature to create new committees. Texas lawmakers calling for a special session to address gun control measures. Two students arrested for terroristic threats. Trends with teachers unions and state board of education races. The governor reportedly skipping the Texas GOP convention. The Supreme Court halting a social media censorship law.

And how GOP groups competed, spending big money in primary runoffs. If you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks. It's Mackenzie Taylor with Hayden Sparks, Daniel Friend, Brad Johnson, and Isaiah Mitchell. He's remote this week, but he's still here with us and we're grateful for that gentlemen i think i'm the aside from annie the only person and rob rob was interested too but um annie and i were very into the amber heard johnny depp trial between y'all the four reporters who was the most um apathetic about it and who cared a little bit more i feel like hayden may have did you i feel like you i would have made more of a concerted effort to follow the case but i have been

preoccupied with other things something like this would typically um draw my attention i have kept one eye on it but i was uh really interested when the verdict came out yesterday and i immediately thought of you and annie and wondered what y'all had how y'all had reacted we watched it in my office like i was like it was a like a spectacle which is largely what this trial was was it was pretty it was nuts well and then the jury forget to fill out part of the verdict form or something yes so we got so excited it was 3 p.m the jury was going to come in and talk about you know or talk about the sentencing and damages was going to be the verdict um and believe it or not we get in there i say we as if we were there we were not we were watching on youtube and the judge is like well the damages aren't filled out okay so you have to go back to

your room and they were like oh okay it's like how do you not fill out the paperwork it's ridiculous but that kind of gave us an insight into that you know there likely was a clear winner very interesting to watch but and what i wondered is did that mean that they hadn't talked about it or they just hadn't written it down or did they really go back there and like um okay let's see 10 million that sounds like a good number when they went back we were like i don't know how long this is going to take will this be like a you know a 10 minute deliberation are they going to be back there for like two hours determining how many millions of dollars people are going to have to deal with i but it was very fast so i think they just forgot

to fill it out because it was like 10 15 minutes max yeah um yeah brad didn't care daniel didn't care brad was sending me hate tweets about caring about the trial i got most of my information about this from memes from my friends most of them related to amber heard's notorious uh defecation on a bed yeah um alleged alleged yeah um so that was my exposure to it and you telling me stuff that i i was gonna say i get no credit yeah you're welcome brad for enlightening thank you for for enlightening your life yes there you go brad always says i do that to him or no that he does that to me he likes my life daniel also didn't care i really didn't yeah i thought i might because i am interested in movies but i'm really not that much i guess pirates fans i enjoyed

the the franchise yeah isaiah also did not care aquaman though blows every pirates of the caribbean out of the water you literally are just trying to get me all riled up. Ridiculous. I mean, what is there not to love about sharks shooting laser beams? See, I haven't even seen it. I don't know. I'll give you this. Like, Aquaman was one of the better DC movies in recent history, which...

Is saying something. Yeah. Just because so many other movies have really sucked yeah this is true this is true and it's sad that's a movie with people riding sharks and fighting crabs is that really what they yeah that's ridiculous fighting crabs is uh you know the it was fun to watch it was a good summer blockbuster i had some popcorn interesting i'll give you that it was different than the usual michael bay explosions everywhere a little bit different like it was underwater okay

so by definition the explosions are a little bit different interesting hmm well annie and i were very team johnny depp from the get-go because i think 93 percent of the populace who was paying attention to this ended up being but you know who knows that's the thing and in large part it's just sad to see all this dirty laundry aired out in a marriage like that is just awful and the fact that we watched it all so closely is something else welcome to america in the 21st century. Yeah, that's very true. Very, very true.

Okay, gentlemen, let's get into news that actually pertains to Texas. Hayden, we're going to start with you. There's been a lot of follow-up after the events of last week, a lot coming out about law enforcement investigations, the response from law enforcement in Uvalde. Talk to us about Director McCraw's commentary on the Uvalde shooting. Director Stephen McCraw of the Texas Department of Public Safety offered a few comments after a regional director of DPS had given an update and had made the remark that a teacher had propped a door open and that was how the gunman entered Robb Elementary School. But the focus of McCraw's news conference was two elements of that day. First, the timeline of events that led up to a Border Patrol tactical unit killing the gunman and then a timeline of 911 calls that enlightened

the circumstances surrounding the law enforcement response what he revealed is their investigation has indicated that the mass murderer entered the school at about 11 33.m., and federal agents did not kill him until nearly 10 to 1 p.m., so about 12.50 p.m. And this news conference happened five days, or excuse me, it happened just a few days after the shooting, happened three days afterward, and it was, in a way, seemed cleaning up from prior breaking news and prior events that had occurred that week, because there had been a lot of conflicting statements. What he said, though, that really stunned many people is he reflected on a decision by who he referred to as an on-scene commander to delay confronting the gunman instead of barging into that room however possible and taking him out before he harmed

additional lives. And that's why it took nearly or over an hour, nearly an hour and a half before he was finally killed. The gunman was killed. But here's the direct quote from McCraw. He said, quote, with the benefit of hindsight, where I'm sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period. There is no excuse for that. But again, I wasn't there. But I'm just telling you from what we know, and we believe there should have been an entry at that as soon as you can, end quote. Of course, McCraw was not on scene and he was not in charge of this, but because the Texas Rangers are leading this investigation, he's commenting on the decisions that were made at that time. It was later reported that the on-scene commander

in question was Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, pardon me, and that was widely reported ariodondo ostensibly believed that he was no longer an active shooter and that they had time to get in there um and what ultimately happened is they were rifling for the janitor's keys to find a way to unlock the door where this this mass murder is inside with school children. Obviously, that has drawn a lot of criticism and a lot of questions. And we're going to talk about some of the more serious responses so far. But I do want to mention also, it has been reported that that door that the perpetrator ostensibly entered through had been closed by the teacher. It had initially been

propped open, She closed it, and then it didn't lock. So again, a lot of facts are still unclear, but McCraw did provide an overview of the timeline of events that they knew at that point. A very emotional press conference and very difficult to watch for many reasons. Tell us about the federal government's response. A few days after McCraw illuminated this timeline to the public, a DOJ spokesman from the U.S. Department of Justice said that the DOJ's Office of Community-Oriented Policing will be conducting an inquiry into the local police response to this and investigating the agencies involved. The federal government indicated that it will publish a report of its findings.

And I am sure that as part of this investigation, whether or not Arradondo's decision was made in good faith or if there were other factors that were leading into that decision, I'm sure will be a subject of this investigation. And whether the school district police department was prepared to deal with the situation, I'm sure will be part of their review. Yeah. So then what did DBS have to say about Uvalde authorities' cooperation with the investigation? This is probably one of the most recent developments of this case. And a department spokesman for DPS, Travis Considine, told CBS News, and I believe he told some other outlets as well, but the statement I have currently in front of me is the one from CBS News. He said, quote, the Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde School District Police have been cooperating with investigators.

The chief of the Uvalde School District Police provided an initial interview, but has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago, end quote. And I believe that statement was given Wednesday to various news outlets, including CBS News. So it seems that while Arradondo is not necessarily jumping at the phone to get back with DPS and helping them with their investigation, the other officers surrounding him and the other departments are in cooperation with them. And I imagine they're feeling a great deal of pressure as the feds have announced their own inquiry, which will probably become the subject of a lot of commentary when that report is finally released. Yeah, absolutely. So what we're seeing, we talked about this last week, you know, the back and forth of information and trying to figure out what actually happened. It's still happening.

And, you know, I think it would shock a lot of people when you have these different law back and forth of information and trying to figure out what actually happened. It's still happening. And, you know, I think it shocked a lot of people when you have these different law enforcement agencies, you know, one claiming that another is not cooperating with an investigation into a horrific tragedy, shocked a lot of people. So we'll continue to watch. And Hayden, I appreciate your coverage of this just unimaginable tragedy. Isaiah, in response to that, the governor made a big announcement regarding a potential legislative response to the Uvalde shooting. What's going on in the Capitol?

Abbott asked Dade Phelan, who heads the Texas House, and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who heads the Texas Senate, to form new committees in each of their chambers to consider possible responses to the mass shooting in Uvalde and the phenomenon of mass shootings in general. The way Abbott phrased it was, we as a state must reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence. So the letter lists five topics for the committees to review, but says that they may also address other topics. But top of the line, according to Abbott, are school safety article was published, but we know by now who will be on Dan Patrick's committee. We don't know who will be on Dade Field's committee. But let me put up a, let me pull up Dan Patrick's letter. Yeah. It's going to be chaired by Senator Robert Nichols, which is interesting.

The co-vice chairs are Senator Brandon Creighton and Senator Lois Kohlhorst. So Republicans are leading this committee. But the other members include Paul Bettencourt, Brian Birdwell, Donna Campbell, Juan Chui Hinojosa, Brian Hughes, Charles Perry, Royce West, and Judith Zaffirini. Got it. So remind us, how is the formation of these special committees different from calling for a special session? So if you'll recall, aside from the every other year schedule that the legislature is on when they can convene regularly, outside of that, they can only meet and convene when the governor calls a special session

and that would allow them to pass bills, pass legislation and so we've we had you know three of those last year. Committees can consider other topics at any point in the year but obviously a committee on its own cannot pass a bill. They can meet and do and hear research from experts and things like that and discuss and review topics at any point. But without an actual special session in place, there's not going to be a bill that's passed. Abbott said that these new committees are meant to make recommendations to the legislature of possible actions that the legislature might take. But at this point, you know, without the whole legislature being convened in a special session or a regular session, committees are mainly researchers at this point, right? Bringing public information to the forefront.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Isaiah, thank you for covering that for us. We'll continue to watch the legislature. And speaking of a potential special session, Hayden, we've heard a lot from Texas Democrats asking the governor to call a special session. Abbott after Senator Roland Gutierrez told the governor at a news conference that they were going to send a letter. But the senators who signed it included Senators Carol Alvarado, Nathan Johnson, John Whitmer, Judith Safrini, Eddie Lucio, Royce West, Chewie Hinojosa, Jose Menendez, Boris Miles, Beverly Powell, Sarah Eckhardt, Roland Gutierrez, and Cesar Blanco. They contended that due to recent mass shootings and other shootings that have occurred and

debates that have happened after those, that the governor is past due in calling a legislative session to address what they believe to be a widespread problem with gun violence and that the gun itself is the source of that violence. So, they stated, quote, after each of these mass killings, you have held press conferences and roundtables promising things would change. After the slaughter of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, those broken promises have never rung more hollow. The time to take real firearm to 21, mandating universal background checks, as well as enacting what are referred to as red flag laws. The specifics of what would be included in that were not proposed in this letter. I'm sure they would hash that out if it did come to a special session, but more or less giving government officials the ability to remove

a firearm from someone who's ostensibly or believed to be dangerous or suicidal and implementing another policy is implementing a cooling off period and regulating the this is the quote from their letter quote regulate civilian ownerships of high capacity magazines end quote so those are some of the policies that the democrats outlined they contend that those would reduce the possibility for violence at the hands of people with guns. And a common argument in favor is that where there are fewer guns, there is less gun violence. So the more restrictions, the better. Although they did stipulate that they are not seeking to revoke Second Amendment rights, they stated that that's not their intention. Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, the Second Amendment and anything related to gun control and gun ownership is very partisan. So talk to us about what Republicans have come forward and have any Republicans backed the idea of a special session? There were a couple of Republicans that I saw who backed the idea of a special session, they did not specifically get behind the concept of enacting additional gun control. Representative Jeff Leach,

Republican of Plano, said, quote, Texas lawmakers have work to do, conversations to engage in, deliberations and debates to have important decisions to make. And the best way to do our jobs openly, publicly and transparently is in a Texas legislature special session. Texans expect and deserve this, and the time demands it, end quote. And then Senator Cal Seliger said, quote, do something the FBI or Texas Department of Public Safety believe will lessen the chance of the next Uvalde tragedy, end quote. So again, more cautious, not necessarily mentioning gun restrictions, but getting behind the idea of lawmakers being called to Austin to do something legislatively

in response to the tragic and horrifying events in Uvalde. Yeah. Now, I think it is fair to say, you know, of these two Republicans, it is far less surprising that Kel Seliger is the one coming out and saying something in support of a special session for this issue. He is certainly one of the more liberal Republicans in the Senate, kind of wears that badge proudly, has gone to bat against the lieutenant governor on many different issues. And we're not necessarily as surprised to see him come forward on this. But Jeff Leach is an entirely different legislator. Now, he certainly often will come forward as statements on basically, you know, many things that happen in the state. He often has a lot to say about these issues, but it's not. He's a little bit more on the conservative side of things in terms of rankings from, you know, different organizations. Mark Jones, you know, basically, it's just interesting to watch him be one of these legislators. It's also coming forward. He was definitely more of a surprising voice in this conversation. So we'll see what happens.

But Hayden, thank you so much. Bradley, we're going to come to you on the same day as the shooting in Uvalde, a school attack plot was uncovered in Donna. Tell us what happened. Yeah. So on May 24th, authorities in Donna, a border town, received an anonymous tip about students plotting to attack their school. Barbarito Pantoja and Nathaniel Montelongo were arrested along with two juveniles for the plot. Pantoja and Montelongo were charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and are being held in Hondalgo county jail on 750 000 bond the other

two juveniles the records are sealed because they're juveniles um but they were went before a judge uh late last week from what i saw what they're charged with i have no idea um but uh they did go before a magistrate originally reports said that an AK-47 and a hit list were found in the home of one of the students. This came from sources from one of the local newspapers. But police later said that no hit list was found and did not specify the type of weapon. I have a feeling more details will come out down the road as they release the findings of their investigation. But things are usually pretty clouded as we have found with Uvalde shooting.

Police are usually tight knit with, with information on this stuff. But Donna ISD canceled school after that and reopened on tuesday this week for the final stretch of school um all schools are a heightening their um securities going into the after uvalde but also it's almost summer break so um there were some schools that that uh had a threat like this that just canceled school entirely uvalde was one of them, but there were others. But in Donna, they reopened this week, and either this week is the last or next week. But luckily, they stopped that before that happened.

Yeah, absolutely. Praise the Lord for that. Thank you, Brad. Isaiah, we're going to pivot away from Uvalde news and start talking about our other pieces from this week. Let's kind of cover a little bit of a campaign angle here. This year is a particularly active year for SBOE, State Board of Education races, mainly because of redistricting. An interesting pattern emerged in some of those runoff elections for these seats. Tell us about that. Yeah, so just to clarify first,

because I don't personally, I always get confused about elections and dates and things like that. These are still for the primaries, which are held on March 1st, and candidates that didn't get a majority of the vote went to a runoff with their runner-up. And so that happened in four of the March 1st primaries. Three of them were on the Democratic side, and one was on the Republican side. So the American Federation of Teachers is a very prominent national teachers union that has chapters everywhere, including the Texas chapter. And the Texas chapter endorsed in those three Democratic runoffs. And all of their endorses lost, which is interesting for a number of reasons. But I'll just go ahead and name them real quick. So in District 1, the outgoing member, Georgina Perez, is known as one of the more outspoken liberals on the board.

The staunchest opponent to charge of school expansion on the State Board of Education. And all of these runoffs, another interesting phenomenon, are in seats that were vacated voluntarily all by Democrats. There are no Republicans that were vacated voluntarily, but there were two that were ousted in the March 1st primaries. But that was another story a long time ago. So in District 1, Melissa Ortega, a women's and gender studies professor, won the Democratic primary runoff, and she was actually the incumbent Perez's endorsee. So she was kind of dubbed as a successor. Her opponent, Laura Marquez, was endorsed by the AFT. In District 2, the likeliest to flip parties, actually, in that Democratic primary runoff, vacated by Ruben Cortez, same deal. AFT endorsed, he lost, and the last district where that occurred

was in District 4. And District 2 incumbent and the district four incumbent, neither of them endorsed candidates. So there was one candidate who was endorsed by a major teachers union that did one. So the AFT endorsed against the Texas state teachers association in district one. So Melissa Ortega, who won in district one was endorsed by the TSTA, but the AFT had endorsed her opponent Marquez and also the two losers in District 2 and District 4. Got it. Now, why else has the AFT been in the news recently?

So teachers unions pop up in the news a lot, along with other associations, because they lobby for political goals regularly. That's kind of what major public unions are for. However, they kind of took a new spot in the political limelight last year when emails revealed that the AFT directly influenced COVID mitigation guidelines developed by the CDC and adopted by schools all around the country. And these guidelines included the masking of children, recommendations for closures or delayed reopenings, and other decisions that have since come under scrutiny. The CDC recommendation for near universal masking in schools actually outlasted masking recommendations in all other public areas. So some of the more recent guidance that we've written on regarding the recommendation that children remain masked in schools,

that actually stayed in place a lot longer than recommendations for masking in universities or in courthouses or just other public spaces. And that guidance actually did not come with any political data, but it was revealed that the AFT had been influencing that guidance. So that upset certain people. And they have a very clear political stance on the left. They only endorsed in the Democratic runoffs. And once again, this is not to say that the opponents of AFT and Dorsey's were that ideologically right. This is still a Democratic runoff.

It's still in one ideological corner. But it's interesting that this union's and Dorsey's, especially with all of power nationally and and pull that they have on clout all lost so interesting phenomenon yeah absolutely well i say thank you for that bradley we found out some big news concerning the upcoming republican party of texas convention which hey it's in person after a hot minute here disaster of 2020 disaster of 2020 exactly um but what happened there what kind of news have we been seeing on that front so last night being wednesday night um the texas gop put out a statement thanking gop statewide officials for agreeing to speak at its convention in houston this month that's happening june 16th through the 18th now they added an interesting note um

they said to date governor abbott has not accepted our invitation to sponsor the convention or address the delegates so the top elected republican in the state not speaking at his own convention or according to this not donating to the sponsoring the convention at all. That is quite interesting. Now we know that previously the governor and the current chair of the Texas GOP have not butted heads before. Matt Rinaldi, who succeeded Allen West after after west was very confrontational with abbott and eventually primaried him um rinaldi had endorsed don huffines another primary opponent of governor abbott and now once rinaldi won this position he rescinded that endorsement to to uh try and

unify the party and make sure that the party itself is not getting involved in a primary yeah um now the governor's camp responded uh telling me governor abbott is sponsoring the welcome reception for the convention thursday evening for delegates alternatives and guests they said it's going to be, if not the largest gathering, one of the largest gatherings, um, at the convention this year. Um, and that they're spending a lot of money doing it. Um, now he, he, he's certainly, they've been advertising it. He's hosting this gathering, uh, as I said on thursday but he's not said whether it's explicitly associated with the party um once the convention starts though it'll be clear

whether the governor is holding this separate event or if it is in conjunction with the party because we'll see his name on like sponsorships uh banners that the party will have thanking whatever candidate or whatever officials donated to them for this event. And I, you know, we'll see whether the campaign has a booth reservation. We'll see whether the governor first and foremost speaks to the convention goers. So there is clearly some antipathy there on both sides, and we'll see if that gets massaged out by the time Republicans convene in Houston. As you said, the first one since the infamous virtual convention that had so many problems because the city of Houston canceled it at the last moment, which is still the source of ongoing litigation. The party is trying to pull money back from that. So we'll see where this goes.

But the sitting governor, Republican governor, not speaking at his own party's convention is certainly notable. I mean, to put this in perspective for people who may not be as familiar with Texas state politics in terms of like the party apparatus itself. So it'd be like if donald trump or joe biden didn't go to the rnc or the dnc right convention like that would be the equivalent on the state level something related that's not quite an equivalent was when ohio governor john casick didn't attend the rnc in cleveland yeah um this was back when i was in

ohio so i had a front row seat for this that's not like that's like not going to the family reunion if it's at your house yeah exactly exactly so um yeah it's it's a weird situation it's hard to overstate how odd this would be um very much and we'd have to go back and look at previous precedent and see okay when has a sitting governor not gone to his own party's convention this is the top elected republican in the state opting not to go to a convention and largely like there are incredible faction you know maneuvering within the party at all times and the democrat side as well that's just how this goes there is conflict for all political parties a hundred percent um and there's conflictements um different candidates who support each other and others who don't and money is thrown around and funneled to different campaigns it can be

very dramatic and it can be petty as well what's fascinating here is that there are going to be potentially 10 000 republican voters it's the largest political gathering and not just voters not just voters but the most engaged voters in the state for abbott's political party fascinating if he does not end up going and we'll see now that this is out there and bradwell done breaking the story but you know not this is out there something changes in the governor's camp but who knows at this point and it would be getting pretty late it's getting late and that's the thing is that the governor typically in terms of planning to go to convention doesn't let the you know the party chairman know two weeks ahead of time hey i'm coming that's not

usually how this works yeah um and statewide elected officials usually get very large booths in the exhibition hall and those have to be reserved like there's just logistics to work out so very interesting um to watch this uh play out yep no doubt okay thank you bradley daniel we're gonna come to you daniel we're so glad to talk to you hi hello yeah welcome to this podcast thank you you didn't like my i chimed in on aquaman and that was about it yeah well and i didn't even really like that little chime in very much sorry yeah it's okay we'll get over it how dare you like aquaman i didn't say that i liked it i said that i or did i say that i might have said that you said that you enjoyed it i enjoyed it yeah which i think is a fun take yeah which is fine it's just the the context with which he uh in which he said

that made me a little salty yeah that's what the saltiness is coming from. I feel like it's a you problem. It usually is. Yes. Okay. Daniel, let's talk about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court weighed in on Texas's social media censorship ban. We've been watching for this. What happened there? Yes.

So House Bill 20 has been going back and forth in the courts. First, it was brought to a trial court in Travis County. There was an injunction issued against it that basically stopped it from going into effect as the case continued. The state appealed that to an appellate court, and the appellate court, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an order early in May saying that the injunction couldn't stand, and so then the law basically went into effect for a few weeks, and now the Supreme Court has stepped in. And in a five to four decision with some unique votes there, they said that the injunction could be in place. And so the injunction is once again in place.

So the law is no longer effective. So once again, we're back and forth on this issue. So does this mean that the case against the law is a done deal? Is this over? Is the envelope sealed? No, not quite. The case will continue at the trial court level as they actually discuss the merits of it. So basically, the plaintiffs in the case, which is Net Choice, basically a lobbying firm for a bunch of social media tech companies, they are arguing that the bill violates the First Amendment rights of the social media companies, whereas the state is basically saying you need to protect the First Amendment rights of the users on those social media companies. And so there's a debate there of whether or not it violates the Constitution.

So that will be debated at the trial court level. The trial court is probably going to rule against the bill just based on what they've said so far. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, if it goes back up to the Fifth Circuit, we'll see how they rule on it. Eventually, this case will probably go back to the Supreme Court unless the state decides it's not worth the time to keep on appealing this. And so if that happens, then it could be a done deal. But if it does go back to Supreme Court, which is also a very likely situation, the ruling from the Supreme Court, the 5-4 decision indicates that there will probably be a pretty strong majority on the

Supreme Court who rules against the bill at the end of the day. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that will be the case. That just seems to be the inclination based on their votes. You had Justice Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh all say that the injunction could be back in place. You also had an interesting vote in the 5-4 decision this week where Justice Elena Kagan, who probably you would expect to be on the other side, she actually said that the injunction, she voted on the opposite side with the more conservative justices saying that the injunction could remain in place. The speculation there is that her vote was more about the procedure in the Supreme Court and less related to the actual case itself. So if that would be the case, it could be a six to three decision at the end of the day.

So we'll see. Wow. Very crazy. Well, thank you for covering that for us. And we will continue to watch. Bradley, we are coming back to you. In this recent runoff election, we saw different factions. Speaking of factions of the GOP within the party take center stage. What did that look like? So as we've talked about, all political parties have different factions fighting over control of each one with different preferences and priorities competing against one another but in texas's dominant political party the republican party it holds especially holds implications for the actual policy that the legislature will pass allow through when it reconvenes next year and especially so in the house because it's more chaotic there in the senate things are more uh written out by dan

patrick he controls a lot more uh dade phelan does not have the iron fist control that uh dan patrick does over his chamber so um with these factions it's often seen as a binary establishment gop versus grassroots wing and broadly that's probably true but we see a lot of different uh dividing lines than just that in these in these races um and so looking at some of the pack money that was dumped into these house runoffs uh you can see a both more of a more clear picture about who's getting involved in what, but also more interesting dynamics race to race. Yeah, absolutely. So who are some of these PACs? Talk to us about the money that's being spent. So the two biggest spenders were the Associated Republicans of Texas, largely backing more establishment-type candidates in these GOP

runoffs, and the Defend Texas Liberty PAC that's run by former state rep Jonathan Stickland and funded largely by Tim Dunn and the Wilkes family, two of the foremost conservative donors in the state. And they went head- head to head on seven races they both dumped in well over half a million dollars probably much more because finance reports have only gone up to may 16th and so there's almost 10 days of spending that that was not recorded in that and usually you see a huge uptick in the homestretch stuff but uh sticklin's pack in in when they went head-to-head sticklin's pack won four

and art won three another interest while he's not a pack uh how speaker date feeling has a big interest in these races because um if candidates win that are not supportive of him that cuts into his majority as speaker uh whichever way they fall um but he had pretty substantial success his endorsed candidates won seven while three lost um but each of the three incumbents he backed very heavily one uh that's glenn rogers stephanie click and uh kyle casal uh the only incumbent he didn't really support that wasn't a runoff was phil stevenson and he lost yeah so you can read more about it on our website i go into more detail about other uh different groups wading into these things i will say one i i've alluded i alluded to earlier races where the establishment uh grassroots conservative dividing line didn't

really fall that evenly one of those was hg 52 it had caroline harris versus um patrick mcginnis and harris won harris is a staffer for uh brian hughes and so that wasn't one where you had the typical the prototypical uh liberal republican versus conservative uh challenger right uh both of the candidates are pretty conservative um harris received more of the establishment uh backing but she was not the quote establishment candidate chosen candidate in the primary that was nelson jaron and he did not win the he did not make the runoff so um i spell out more in the piece i recommend you go read it it's interesting to see where these dividing lines fall. Absolutely. A lot of fighting in the GOP right now. Um, even just rhetorically.

Desk tax is an intra GOP fighter. Three guarantees in life. We haven't heard that from you in a while on the pod. It kind of came out of left field, like the Spanish inquisition. Wow. You just mix so many Brad isms. I just,

I want to vomit. You want to vomit? Yeah, for that. That's like your thing. Like, we just... Well, they each have their own role and niche. And when you just throw them all together like a toddler throwing food at the wall. Wow.

That was an insult. I know. That was an insult to you, Daniel. I know. I was trying to... I hope you take that very personally. I know. Now I'm going to have to join you on the bashing Brad segment. I know. I was trying to do an honest good said. I hope you take that very personally. I know. Now I'm going to have to join you on the bashing Brad segment.

Thank you. We'll just add an extra segment on the end of this podcast specifically, and we'll make it run a little long. Yeah. Okay. I'll side with you, whatever it is. Wonderful. I really like that. The war profiteer at his finest.

Water always finds its level. So it's natural that it gets back to it. It's like everything you say, just at some point is just drives me crazy. Just drives me absolutely crazy. Lord in heaven. Okay, well, we are going to head to our Twitter segment. Talk about what's going on on Twitter. Daniel, there's some spicy stuff that you have zeroed in on.

What did you find this week? So thank you to Isaiah for pointing this out. I often like I'll share tweets in Slack and I'll just forget about these tweets. And then come podcast day when we're going to talk about twitter i forget what i want to talk about and he pointed out you should talk about this one on the podcast so i'm going to talk about it anyways there was some back and forth between uh two state representatives jared patterson and diego bernal uh they got into some heated political arguments about all the stuff in Uvalde and gun laws and Beto O'Rourke interrupting the press conference last week.

And Diego Bernal, in a now-deleted tweet, said that I bet he, meaning Beto O'Rourke, wins Uvalde, which caught my attention because I was like, I just did a county Texas partisan analysis of Texas, all 254 counties. So I was like, I wonder where Uvalde falls because I'm pretty sure it's not blue. And I was right. It is not blue.

If you actually, another article that has been trending, the mayor of Uvalde actually endorsed Don Huffines in the Republican primary. And Huffines is, of course, running to the right of Abbott. It's amazing how much Huffines' run is like bleeding into the political discourse now. I mean, it is really fascinating, right? Even like the Texas GOP stuff, the convention, convention rinaldi like there's just a lot of uh fallouts too strong of a word but a lot of implications it was strange to suddenly see that article from a year ago start trending on our website yeah that that mayor mclaughlin suddenly

gained you know through oh this horrible event all this new uh notoriety it was really it was really strange yeah Yeah, absolutely. It was odd. And I think, too, there wasn't that much coverage of this mayor. And when people are Googling him, that's like the article that shows up. Right. And fascinating. And then all of a sudden he's on stage with Governor Abbott after a horrific tragedy.

It's just unbelievable. Sorry, Daniel. I had to interject there. No, that was good. It gave me time to actually find the data that I was going to pull up. Perfect. We planned that. Yeah. It had, you know, in 2016 to 2018. gave me time to actually find the data that i was oh good perfect so you plan that yeah it it had

you know in 2016 to 2018 texas partisan index now on our website on its own page go check it out yeah you can go to the texan.news and just like in the top left hand corner where there's like an elections tab click on that and you'll see a drop down menu It's right there. Hard to miss. Love it. But in 2016 to 2018, the county of Vuality had a TPI of R55%, which is still kind of in the purple zone based on my metrics. But it's leaning towards Republicans. In 2018 to 2020, the data from the latest cycle, it actually shifted right even more to R57%. So I bet Bernal is is wrong i bet maybe that's why he deleted his tweet you realized he was wrong maybe he looked at your tpi he might have i don't know um so i imagine that abbott will win uvaldi uh in the fall um we could see anything

could happen but based on the tpi it's swinging right yeah absolutely fascinating to watch hayden what about you what did you see on twitter this week that caught your eye well in the same um on the same topic i think there will be increased media coverage of uh shooting events any type of gun violence i think is there's going to be increased media coverage. That's just the way the news media works. And I noticed a tweet from Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi. He said, quote, don't give an inch on Second Amendment rights GOP, not one. And I think a lot of Republicans are going to take that stance and that posture. You mentioned earlier, Senator Seliger being a little bit more of the liberal, one of the more liberal members of the Texas legislature on the Republican side. There will likely be a lot of tension coming up soon between those who think that there needs to be a middle ground and those who say that the media's coverage of shooting events does not justify implementing poor policy to quell public fear. And I think

that is the next conflict, much like during the COVID-19 pandemic, when there are restrictions put in place to ostensibly control the spread, but also to respond to public fear of the virus. And some saying that a more measured, a measured, more measured, reasonable response that took into account all sides and then had a more moderate result was appropriate. And then those who said there should be no leeway when it comes to violating the Constitution. Yeah. So, I think similar dynamics will play out in the gun debate. Absolutely. Well, thank you for that hayden isaiah we are going to come to you what did you find on your favorite social media platform slash website

this week in my absolute favorite i love it here um well this is kind of because i think rhapsody's gonna write about this one but stay right rep Matt Shaheen told out something to NASCAR after NASCAR put out this kind of apology saying recent actions have not aligned with NASCAR's missions to be a welcoming sport for all, which seems to be a tacit apology for the presence of Governor Greg Abbott at a NASCAR event. He waved a flag ceremonially, something to that effect. But Shaheen said, hey, NASCAR, as a participant in the Texas Event Trust Funds Program and a recipient of Texas tax dollars, I would like your that NASCAR gets state money for their events.

But here's another little detail that wasn't made explicit in the tweet. You'll never guess which particular branch of the government disperses the Texas Event Trust Funds Program. It happens to be the office of the governor, actually, which is kind of funny. And again, they didn't come right out and explicitly say, oh, we're apologizing for having Abbott wave the flag. But it's interesting that they have this event with the benefit of this fund that comes directly from Abbott and then apologize for Abbott's presence at the event. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Interesting to watch that kind of, I don't know, um, interaction and dichotomy kind of buckling to an online Twitter mob. Yeah. That's what it seems like. Wow. Buckling.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's very true. Um, well, very good. Isaiah.

Thank you. Bradley, what did you see this week are you going to cite one of your own tweets again i plead the fifth well we can see so this week we can see that the answer is yes wow but this is convention related is it not follow at brad j underscore tx what's your Follow at Brad J underscore TX. What's your handle? Yeah, that was it. Okay.

Good. Look at that. Yeah. It's just harder to remember. You sounded like you were guessing, but you were actually saying the correct handle. Well, I feel like I know it, but I second guessed myself. So if you're done with giving me crap, I'll go on. I'm never done, Bradley, but I'll temporarily pause. This coming from the guy who has an underscore in his Twitter. twitter it is so egregious i'm just teasing you eyesore

so anyway this is convention related so i'm not pulling it out of left field um the uh there's been an ongoing fight between the texas jop and the log cabin republican organization uh this has gone on for years of the lcr group trying to get uh log cabin republican is the collection of gay republicans and trying to get a booth at convention. They've been denied. They're denied again this year. But something weird happens. The LCR Houston chapter said that they had received an official email this week approving their application to have a booth at the convention in Houston. And so then they also said they subsequently received

an email saying it was rescinded. Obviously that would throw confusion into the situation. Well, the RPT told me that, um, they, uh, the notice was an error. It went out by accident the approval and it's not it's neither accepted nor rejected at the moment it's still pending although based on the other the track record for the state organization you could probably place a pretty sizable bet on it being rejected too but um it is still pending in front of the SREC officials committee. And so we'll see how that plays out. But this has been a brewing fight for a while between the Texas GOP and the log cabin Republicans. Different people have different views on this.

Very strong views. I saw Kat Parks, the RPT vice chair, said she will not be going to the whatever the areas where the booths are. Exhibition hall. Exhibitional. Yeah, conventional. Because LCR was rejected for their booth. That's obviously the second highest party official in the state of Texas. So this is a very personal issue to many and heated arguments on both sides but I don't foresee this going away yeah absolutely and it's been something that yeah it's been around for a hot

minute and just like you said and it's interesting too to watch you know people can't just reserve a booth at convention at the RPD convention and just go right it has to be um approved by party leadership it's so interesting to watch that behind the scenes battle kind of come to the forefront of the public eye a little bit make its way to twitter rather and on your twitter at brad j underscore tx um anyways you're so i'm here i'm plugging your twitter this is this is good stuff right here i'm going to talk about a tweet I saw from can go and report any sort of corruption happening at the school district level here in the state particularly after the election there was a big story that isaiah covered northside isd really advocating for their employees to go and vote

for a bond which is in many cases against the law and so he's been investigating to see if other instances of this have happened in texas and tweeted a texas superintendent emailed all principals urging them to quote have a strong push with staff and parents for early voting tomorrow and for election day unquote and informing them how many staff and parents have already voted and there's a thread there with all this documentation of emails going back and forth. The bond was approximately $174 million bond. Very interesting. There was an informational PowerPoint slide that kind of detailed a lot of this.

The deputy superintendent was the presenter. This is Belton ISD. So very interesting to watch this. And we will have a story up probably by the time this podcast is live. So definitely worth watching. And Corey is a very active Twitter personality. And there's a lot of information that he disseminates to his followers. So make sure to go give him if you're interested in this and the different instances of this kind of thing in Texas, feel free to go and check him out. And across the country.

And across the country. Yeah, he's been tweeting a lot about Virginia today. I've been watching. And particularly because I was trying to find this particular tweet and had to scroll very far down. Through all the Virginia tweets. Exactly. Wonderful, gentlemen. Okay, well, let's pivot to a fun topic.

So our very own Phil Burton uh having a big birthday party tomorrow which is awesome happy birthday it's a big 3-0 right exactly yeah the big 3-0 yes correct yes we're just gonna let that sit so our listeners can understand yeah just let it marinate well unlike Connie, he actually listens to our podcast. Every week, yeah. He's probably our podcast number one fan. Definitely. Yeah, he really is. Not Joe Hootman, all right.

What's that? Not Joe Hootman. Oh, Joe Hootman. Yeah, he might. Might give Phil a run for his money. Might give Phil a run for his money. Phil always comments in our podcast group chat, and he's always really nice to us about our podcast the day after, which I always appreciate.

He always has a comment about something. I've always appreciated that. He called me out for quoting a tweet where there was an expletive, a very tame expletive, mind you, and said, oh, Max War. Your favorite one. It is my favorite one. We made sure to make a big deal out of that. Literally just quoting a Gene Wu tweet, I think is what it was. And Phil made sure to make that point very clear to everyone in case they had not heard the pod.

So happy birthday, Phil. Happy birthday, Phil. The man behind the curtain, as it were, of the Texan. That's very true. That is Phil Burton. Joe Hootman does send us gifts, but Phil pays our salaries, at least in part. Um, we, yeah, Phil, you're wonderful. So in honor of that, um, he and Connie are going to Fredericksburg and kind of going to do some fun Fredericksburg things. And some of us are going to go join them. Um, what kind of fun Fredericksburg

things do you guys like to do? What is there? I mean, I love Fredericksburg. I used to do a lot of work out there back when I worked for a legislator. Um, it's a wonderful town. What do you guys like to do in Fredericksburg? Well, I was just there for the Trox Claire Berry. That's right. Yeah. And I went with my dad, he was visiting visiting and he for some reason decided he wanted to go to the debate with me um but we went there and were able to do some things beforehand um went to the pacific war museum which was really cool we only got through like half of it yeah because it's so big yeah had you been before i've. It's so awesome. You've got to go back. Yeah, definitely. We also went to the, one of the two breweries. There are more than two.

Oh, okay. On Main Street? On Main Street. The Fredericksburg Brewing Company. I think that's it. Okay. Did you see signs that said more beer, less government? I was going to say that. Yes.

Yes. So that was a highlight. More beer, less government. And so uh felt at home there as i drank my half of eisen it was it was wonderful fredericksburg is great in that regard um yeah i love it i like how you were like there's two breweries i was like i feel like there's a lot more breweries in fredericksburg like that's what people got to do in frederburg, is drink wine and drink beer. And good German food, too. Oh my gosh, it's so good. There was one I was told to go to,

I can't remember the name for the life of me, but we didn't get a chance, because the farm went pretty long. I've only actually been to one of the restaurants there. I don't remember the name of it. It is a German one. It's right there on Main Street. street yeah let me find

it the oslander oh yeah the um it's not in fredericksburg but something's right outside the peach house das peach house yes it's really cool so cool and they have a like a tiny pond in the back it's really cute yeah it was fun to go there visit and hang out a bit and drink some peach cider yeah it was something i'd never had because we northerners just have apple cider fredericksburg peaches it was very good world famous they're huge too it's awesome we stopped i went out there with my family once and we stopped at some peach place. I mean, they're all over the side of the road there.

Oh, like a side of the road peach stand? Yeah. Well, it was actually a building. There was a structure. And they had homemade peach ice cream. Oh my gosh. Which was really good. I love me some ice cream.

Yeah, so does Winston. Yes, he does. That's awesome. Isaiah or Hayden, do you guys have any place in Fredericksburg that you guys like? There's a hot sauce store. A hot sauce store? Yeah. Oh my gosh, where?

They sell all kinds of hot sauce. I don't know where that road where all the other ones are. Oh, wait, I do know. I have been there. Yeah, and you go in and they let you taste some of them. And my dad and I left and we were like, dang, our mouths were on fire. But we loved it. It was so fun.

That's the joy of hot sauce. I don't know. Yeah, for you to appreciate. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. For people who actually like hot sauce. I have a recipe book from them. It just seems like if anyone here knew that there was a hot sauce store in Fredericksburg,

it would be Isaiah. Yeah. That feels like it fits a little bit. It does. It does. I like that that was also his highlight of Fredericksburg, it would be Isaiah. That feels like it fits a little bit. It does. It does. I like that that was also his highlight of Fredericksburg. There are so many things in Fredericksburg and the hot sauce stores is his favorite. Just because Isaiah has an affinity for cooking. He does. Isaiah is, yeah, he's, my favorite thing he's done is made biscuits and brought them in and those were delicious. Those were some good biscuits. Those were some good biscuits. Isaiah, we approve of your biscuits you just melted my heart

good old texas boy um hayden anything have you spent much time in fredericksburg i don't think i've actually been to fredericksburg not not to not to say but it's a wonderful town i mean any hill country town with like that german influence you get a little bit of piece of it but fredericksburg i think is like the biggest i almost said conglomerate but it's like the biggest concentration of those kinds of those kinds of things it's really fun um great grape creek winery is super fun there's a lot of great wineries out there hondos on maine is great there's usually live music there they literally bring out queso in like a big metal tub which like signed me up all day long um the margaritas are awesome if connie has not had a

hondo's margarita then we need to make sure that she does while she's there um but yeah fredericksburg is such a fun town such a fun town and fun to go at christmas time too go to fredericksburg christmas time it's delightful okay gentlemen well thank you for um obliging me and that I just wanted to talk about Fredericksburg now my stomach is grumbling thinking about a tub of queso sounds like heaven it does it does or um clogged arteries but either way it sounds delightful what's the difference well folks thanks for listening and we will catch you next week thank you to everyone for listening if you enjoy our show rate and review us on apple podcast spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and if you want more of our stories subscribe to the texan at the texan.news follow us on social media for the latest in texas politics and send any

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