The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 1, 2023

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week, the team discusses: Trump and Biden making dueling visits to Texas’ Southern border Mitch McConnell stepping down as Senate minority leader and Cornyn announcing his run for the position The 13 ballot propositions Texas Republican primary voters have to considerSupreme Court hearing oral arguments in a lawsuit over Texas social media lawsWildfires forcing evacuations and a disaster declaration in the Panhandle Abbott pledging to review IVF regulations following the Alabama Supreme Court decisionPaxton suing an online pornography group alleging a violation of an age verification lawThe potential for Texas electricity demand and capacity to double by 2050 The attorney general succeeding in challenging congressional proxy voting for a 'pregnant workers' provisionThe top races to watch as Texas primary election day looms next week

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup. This week, the team discusses Trump and Biden making dueling visits to Texas's southern border, Mitch McConnell stepping down as Senate Minority Leader, and Cornyn announcing his run for the position. The 13 ballot propositions Texas Republican primary voters have to consider. The Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in a lawsuit over Texas social media laws. Wildfires, forcing evacuations and a disaster declaration in the panhandle. Abbott pledging to review IVF regulations following Alabama's Supreme Court decision. Paxton suing an online pornography group alleging a violation of an age verification law.

The potential for Texas electricity demand and capacity to double by 2050, the Attorney General succeeding in challenging congressional proxy voting for a pregnant workers provision, and the top races to watch as Texas primary election day looms next week. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, happy, happy Friday, folks. I'm here with Brad. I'm here with Cameron.

I'm here with Matt. We've already gotten off to a ruckus start here at the Texan. I've been called Elizabeth Holmes. I'm wearing a black turtleneck. Matt made that comment very quickly upon seeing me on the webcam. Cameron and Brad, I would recommend for those who want to know what the day-to-day of the Texan is to go check my Twitter for a video of Brad and Cameron. And it's only like a minute and 42 seconds long. This went on for a good probably eight minutes. Usually these discussions go for

much longer. What were you guys discussing, gentlemen? We were trying to figure out how Bitcoin works. And my 90 minutes of research last night was not sufficient. For Brad's line of questioning? Brad wants to know a whole lot more than I actually know about Bitcoin. One of my favorite things about Brad, just as a human being, is whenever he asks questions, it's not just like, okay, so how does this work? It's like, how does this work? He's asking as if you've offended him in some way, but you're not.

He's just frustrated. He doesn't know the answer and isn't getting the answers he wants. Any comment on that, Bradley? Gosh, you know me so well. Just gets frustrated. But it's's nothing perfect well is it personal bradley maybe a little bit i don't know he's a big federal reserve guy you know i'm a bit more yeah we need only government currency yeah no like I mean, I get, as you can see in the video, I understand the currency side of it. It was the intricacies of Bitcoin specifically in mining that I didn't understand. But Cameron, when we got to the point where that was the paper trail, like a dollar bill is the paper trail for the physical proof that a dollar is a dollar that made more sense i'll have to go back

through my notes i i looked much more into bitcoin years ago um back when it was the hottest thing on the block well block okay also i'll send you some stuff you You'll send me some stuff. That should be, you should coin that name for something. Coin that name. Man, there's too many puns. Okay. Also, folks, we're even talking about Bitcoin because there's a story we might hit at the end. We might not, depending on the time, but go to the text and dive in. After this intro, probably not.

And read the cryptocurrency piece from Brad. Yes. Great. Okay. Well, we're going to go ahead and start off with the news. Matt, we're going to start with you. The southern border here in Texas with Mexico is in the national spotlight again. We have dueling visits from former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden. Give us a rundown of who's in Texas and why.

The crisis at Texas' southern border will be at the center of attention this week, with President Joe Biden announcing plans to visit Brownsville, just after former President, likely GOP nominee Donald Trump, announced his intent to visit Eagle Pass. Both scheduled for today, Thursday. Biden's selection of Brownsville comes as the number of illegal crossings in Texas is falling under the expansion of Governor Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star. However, I should mention that as of this morning, there are reports that the sector Biden will be visiting is seeing several hundred illegal crossings per day still, but this number is compared to the thousands that

were crossing per day prior to the state border surge. And now those high numbers are spiking in other states that are not taking similar actions to Texas, like in California. The Trump campaign blasted Biden's decision to, quote, follow him to Texas, pointing to poll numbers that show the president is hurting with voters due to his handling of the border crisis. Biden is expected to promote a recently failed bipartisan border deal that was rejected by House Republicans due to the bill containing several provisions of foreign aid and changing existing laws to allow up to 5,000 people to enter the country per day illegally before authority would kick in for the president that would allow up to 5,000 people to enter the country per day illegally,

before authority would kick in for the president that would allow him to close down the border. The GOP says that the president has that power now. He simply chooses not to use it. With both presidential contenders set to appear right on the southern border today, all eyes will be watching to see what each side takes policy-wise to address the ongoing crisis, especially as both head in to the November election. Yeah, absolutely. Very big stuff here in Texas, and we'll stick on the federal news here. Thank you, Matt. Cameron, we're going to pivot to you, some major federal news. Mitch McConnell announced he would be stepping down from his position as Senate Minority Leader in November. Tell us what this means for particularly one Texas Senator who's had his eye on this role for a while. Yeah, that's right. We saw this big announcement

come down this week. Mitch McConnell said he was going to be leaving his post as the Senate Minority Leader in November, but he is planning on staying in the Senate until January. And there immediately was rumors circulating online of John Cornyn potentially wanting to succeed McConnell in that position. And those rumors were not unfounded, really, because we actually reported on this back, I believe it was in 2021, that Cornyn had said he is willing and able to succeed. And even after we published, we saw the official announcement come out. And that was into my inbox. I put that out on Twitter.

And he said he wants to succeed McConnell. And that was an official announcement that he sent to his Senate colleagues. And so we'll see what happens because right now a lot of the conversation online appears to be in opposition to Cornyn. He is one of these Senate members for much of the grassroots sort of populist uprising in the Republican Party right now that sees him as part of the establishment. And so we'll see if that has any impact on him stepping into this new leadership position potentially. But I think it's important to mention as well with McConnell that in recent years, he at least has caught the ire of quite a few in the conservative media space. But in reality, he has done a lot as a senator, especially on the judicial front, whether it was blocking Obama wanting to appoint Mayorkas to the Supreme Court and really helping to guide Supreme Court appointments.

So he's done a lot. He's also been the whip for the Republican caucus. Yeah. So he does have quite an enduring legacy in his tenure in a leadership position. Oh, I'm sorry. You were talking about McConnell, weren't you? Yeah. Okay.

He was not the whip. I was thinking you were talking about Cornyn. Oh. It's going well right now. My head's still spinning from the Bitcoin thing. See, I was just going into my... Your next bullet point. Improv mode, like yes and.

Oh, it's so good. But yeah, he has an enduring legacy in the Senate when it comes to judicial appointments. And I think that's really what he'll be known for in the future. Yeah, absolutely. And notable, too, to remember, Cornyn appeared in 2022. Was that the last?

Yeah, 2022 was the last Texas GOP convention. He was booed by delegates there. He appeared on stage. He went up there, gave a little speech, did his whole thing, and was booed for his entire the entirety of his speech i believe well and he knew he was gonna be booed but he still went up there and spoke so you know kudos him for that i guess he showed up and he was walking around the convention center absolutely yes and a lot of folks um it was notable he did he just actually walked around the convention center and was present and you know a lot of others um who even would be received far

better than cornyn would not do that so notable um and again there's this kind of schism between how the grassroots might uh regard an elected official in texas and republican primary voters are certainly a base you have to um appeal to and deal with when you are running for election as a Republican official. But then in D.C., he's a very powerful member as well of the Senate, as we've seen for a long time, part of the leadership apparatus. So, yeah, and there there might be a bit of a separation from what is going on on social media and what actually happens. Really? Shocking. But as we saw with the battle over the house speaker, you know, we could see people like Matt Gaetz really be engaged with

feeling the pulse of what grassroots and social media type people were saying, which was impacting what was happening at the federal level. So, you know, there's potential for those sorts of things to continue to have an impact is we'll just see what happens. Absolutely. Also, I was distracted over here. Thank you, Cameron, because Matthew decided to show on his phone in the little webcam, a photo of Elizabeth Holmes. So I just looked down and it's me and Elizabeth Holmes in the frame. And we do today bear striking resemblance to one another. So I'm sorry for distracting you earlier, gentlemen. Matt, we are coming to you. Voters in the Republican primary, we are very close to the primary now, just a few days away. We'll see 13 non-binding

proposition questions to vote on at the bottom of their ballots. What are the details? Help us understand what we're voting on. Well, state law allows each major political party to pose non-binding ballot propositions to primary voters every two years, a mechanism that helps political leaders and policymakers gauge popular support for each measure. While the Texas Democratic Party has not put forth any measures for their primary voters to consider, the Republican Party of Texas often makes use of the process, putting forward a slate of propositions for their voters to consider, including the selection cycle. In our story, we highlighted how a few of the propositions actually relate to legislation that was considered in the previous legislative session, but that failed to pass.

Some of the examples we give, such as House Bill 20, the state's Border Patrol unit that failed to pass the Texas House, and a number of other bills, such as ones that gave power to prosecute election-related crimes to the Texas Attorney General's office. All told, there are 13 propositions, and I can just kind of really quickly highlight them through, but we have the full list of them on the story. But there's a question about eliminating property taxes. The second one is creating the state border unit, using E-Verify, ending all subsidies

and public services, including in-state college tuition and enrollment in public schools for illegal aliens. That's Proposition 4. There's a number of them in there that relate on the state's position on congressional policy, not just the Texas legislature. Another one is a school choice related one, Proposition 11. we reported on that banned the sale of land in Texas to citizens and governments that were are hostile to the United States, such as North Korea, Russia, Iran, etc. And that's Proposition 13. Texas should Texas should ban the sale of land to citizens, governments and entities from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. So I'm guessing we'll see what the results are on these propositions. And if they pass handedly, like propositions have done in recent years,

you'll see those issues come back in the legislative session. Absolutely. This is typically, like you said, Matt, they're non-binding. So typically they're used as a gauge for support on issues that are then brought up during the legislative session to say, OK, Republicans, your primary voters agreed on these issues. The vast majority supported this, so let's get some legislation across the finish line. It's kind of used in that way. Thank you so much for your coverage, and folks, definitely go to thetexan.news and read about all the propositions. They're all listed there all the information and if you still do not know where to vote or how to vote we have information as well at the texan.news cameron coming to you but we're just going to skip brad

for a little while today yes please do i need recovery time recovery time okay let's talk about content moderation on social media it's been a long contested issue and especially for many on the right tell us what happened during and especially for many on the right. Tell us what happened during oral arguments this week in the U.S. Supreme Court. Yeah, so the Supreme Court took up oral arguments in two cases this week, one involving Net Choice versus Paxton, and another one involving a Florida law that also dealt with content moderation on social media. What was interesting is I'll first kind of lay out the differences between what Florida's content moderation law did and what Texas's law did. The biggest difference is Florida's law deals

with banning or de-platforming political candidates, whereas Texas's law requires social media platforms to publicly disclose their content moderation policies and provide detailed reports on removed content, along with, you know, these are very big laws. That's just general differences there. And one of the main arguments that was brought up in the oral arguments was this idea of common carrier. And so when you think of a common carrier, I think in telephone companies, mail delivery services, and the NetChoice presented the first set of arguments calling the common carrier notion of social media just fundamentally wrong, which was interesting because Ken Paxton, leading into these arguments,

was routinely making this analogy of social media platforms being akin to common carrier companies and even likened them to the telephone companies, Postal Service, Telegraph. So it was interesting just right off the bat, they were saying it's just fundamentally wrong. And I got a chance to speak with one of the attorneys involved with NetChoice's case. And the individual I spoke with, Carl Sasbo, he called the common carrier argument a dumb pipe. And he said, websites are not dumb pipes. And this is him here saying, the content that you see when you go to a website is heavily edited, customized, and personalized, making it anything but a dumb

pipe and anything but a common carrier. So this idea of common carriers not having any sort of intervention into the content, you put a piece of mail into your mailbox, that same piece of mail comes out on the other side. Whereas with social media, they are operating with algorithms that are going to place certain posts at the top. They can ban posts or derank certain posts. So they're saying there's a distinct difference there, and they shouldn't be thought of as common carriers in that same way. One of the other arguments that was interesting was the Section 230 argument. And for those who are

unfamiliar, Section 230 grants limited federal protections to providers and users of, quote, interactive computer services. And this is sort of the platform versus publisher arguments here. And with how algorithms are used within social media, the net choice arguments were saying that the way speech works within Section 230 protections on social media, there is a distinguishing social media is actually having editorial abilities with these posts, then they would enjoy the Section 230 protections. So they were actually, so when I spoke with the Net Choice attorney, he said Section 230 is actually needed in this case. So it's a very complicated case. I'm trying to be as clear as I can, but... And it's odd because you have these incredible different legal arguments that are really, in a lot of ways, trying to address something that hasn't had to be nailed down with precedent before. Really what we're just trying to do is

say, what are these platforms and how do we treat them under the law? This is new, even though these platforms have been around for like a decade or more at this point, it's, it's just precedent that we haven't had to deal with in this, in this way. And so all these arguments are just almost trying to relate social media platforms to something we have previously understood legally, which is not how this works. Yeah. And I reached out to a First Amendment lawyer and professor at SMU, and I spoke with him. And he gave me this great quote that might be able to shed some light on the potential ruling here. And this is what he told me. He said, I think you'd have two questions that the courts are going to decide. The content moderation and the individualized explanation point. But within those points are all these issues, defenses,

and counter issues. He said he, this is Tom Leatherbury from SMU speaking here. He said, I'm concerned about the stingy approach of some of the justices towards facial pre-enforcement challenges to laws. So they're attempting to rule on this without the laws being implemented yet. So they don't actually know what the effects are going to be. They're trying to predict what's going to happen. Yeah. So this is Tom Leatherby speaking again. If the courts were to reach the merits, he would be more optimistic that the laws will be struck down based on the tenor of many of the questions, including some of those justices who might be persuadable. So, that's really the challenge in this case is we don't know what these laws look like in practice yet. They're making a facial challenge pre-implementation. So this could have

wide sweeping effects on social media, you know, if they rule against net choice in this case. But we'll have to wait and see what happens. It's been very interesting to follow. I go into a lot more detail on the piece. Yeah, definitely go read it. Cameron has great input from a lot of experts. Yeah. So I'd encourage everyone to go check it out. Yeah, definitely do so at the Texan news. Cameron, thank you, Matt. We're coming back to you. This is the Cameron and Matt show so far. Let's talk about the wildfires raging across Texas in the Panhandle. We certainly have some breaking news and just some new developments that we want to chat through. Now this fire has become one of the largest, if not the largest in state history.

Matt, give us the update. When I began writing on this story yesterday on Wednesday, the Smokehouse Creek fire in the Texas Panhandle was at half a million acres burned. By the time I was ready to publish, we had to tweak it again, and it didn't take that long, but I had to update that number to 850,000 acres burned. And now, as of this recording Thursday morning, the fire has taken its place as the largest in state recorded history with over one million acres burned. I actually saw a map a little while ago. The fire is roughly 93 miles across. Some of the video images and reports of the devastation that we're seeing

are just absolutely heartbreaking. But this isn't the only fire being fought. The Texas Forest Service reported on five major fire fronts, each thousands of acres in size, but they also included a list of smaller fires that they have successfully contained. Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for the affected counties and cautioned Texans to be fire-wise, saying that forecasts were expected to promote hazardous fire conditions. Fortunately, some prayers are being answered today as conditions have changed to help firefighters bring the situation under a more manageable status with lower temperatures

being brought in by a cold front. And now I'm even seeing some reports of snow coming down in the Amarillo area. However, I have not heard whether or not they're getting moisture in the key areas being impacted by the Smokehouse Creek fire. We'll keep an eye on this story as it continues to develop. Once again, as of our recording this Thursday morning, the fires are still surging away. It's a horrendous incident. One of the things we did note in our story that I do want to mention here is State Senator Kevin Sparks, who lost their homes due to this fire or businesses that have been burned down or livestock that, you know, needs food, etc. He provided a list of places that are official places those want to help and donate to can donate confidently and know that that money is going to go towards helping those in need. Absolutely. And definitely go check out Matt's reporting. Our prayers are certainly with those in the pain handle and we'll continue to keep an eye on

everything that's happening. Matt, thanks for bringing light to what's going on there. Cameron, coming back to you, a huge story this week. Nationally, Alabama's Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos used in IVF are now considered by law to be human lives, which has sparked a range of opinions from folks all across the political spectrum. Tell us what Governor Greg Abbott here in Texas had to say. Yeah. And so for those unfamiliar, I'm sure you've heard of the term IVF, but what it is, is actually a type of assisted reproduction used to help individuals or couples conceive a child. It involves the stimulation of ovaries, retrieval of eggs, fertilization in a lab,

and transfer of embryos into the uterus. Embryos are often frozen during this IVF cycle to preserve them for future use, allowing for multiple attempts at pregnancy without the need for additional egg retrieval procedures. And what Abbott said in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court decision is he mentioned President Trump's statement because Trump had come out and said something about it and Abbott said that I think a lot of people agree with and that is that a goal that Abbott has and we all want to achieve is it to make it easier for people to be able to have babies not make it harder.

And this is a quote from Abbott here. And the IVF process is a way of giving life to even more babies. And so what I think the goal is to make sure that we can find a pathway to ensure that parents who otherwise may not have the opportunity to have a child will be able to have access to the IVF process and become parents and give life to babies. And what happened in this Alabama Supreme Court ruling is that frozen embryos, like you mentioned, are now considered children under state law, allowing for liability in cases of accidental destruction. And that was because there was a decision that came down from a wrongful death lawsuit brought by three couples whose embryos were lost at a

fertility clinic in 2020 when a patient, quote, managed to wander into the center's fertility clinic through an unsecured doorway and then remove them from a freezer before accidentally dropping them. So like you mentioned at the start of this, it's caused a wide range of opinions online, those more or less in favor of the IVF process just generally. And what was interesting too with Abbott's comments is he is going to be urging the legislature to come up with laws that deal with this question and if to keep IVF legal or not and he brought up a wide range of different situations that might occur that laws might have to address. Just the sheer fact we don't know how many frozen embryos there currently are in the state of Texas. So there's so many different scenarios that could occur with IVF. So all our listeners should expect an IVF discussion to be had in the legislature upcoming. Yeah. Yeah. And the next year. Absolutely. Well, Cameron, thank you. We'll

stick with you. We have another story to share with you. Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing an online pornography distributor for what he alleges is their non-adherents to a recently passed law here in Texas. Give us the rundown. Yeah. So we've seen this company called ALO be in headlines because they oversee a lot of the large pornography companies, Pornhub in particular. And with this new lawsuit, Paxson is saying they're in continued violation of a Texas law, this Texas law being House Bill 1181, which was signed into law this past legislative session, and it requires a website that intentionally publishes, quote, sexually material harmful to minors to verify the user's identity through digital identification or third-party verification system. And so what Paxson is challenging is that this entertainment group, adult entertainment group, ALO, was not instituting those age verification checks. And we actually saw HB 1181 be challenged

previously in court, where the representative of that lawsuit for those pornography companies called the health warning requirement ideological. They called just the law more generally overbroad and fail strict scrutiny. And it was actually blocked by a U.S. District Court judge here in Austin. But Paxson appealed that and the Fifth Circuit sided with Paxson in that case, which allowed the law to go into effect. So we continue to see Texas, the legislature, the attorney general battle with these pornography companies. And this is just another step in that legal back and forth. Yeah, absolutely. Not going away anytime soon. Cameron, thank you. Bradley, you ready to chat? Yes, I've had enough time to recover from my mind being blown. I'm glad. I'm very glad. So you wrote about a new study on the future of energy

here in Texas. Give us the rundown. So Texas's electricity load is expected to double by 2050. And there are four general policy paths to cope with it, according to a new report by the Austin-based think tank, Texas 2036. By 2050, Texas 2036 estimates the collective electricity load will reach 1,000 terawatt hours per year. To put it scientifically, that's a lot of electricity. Okay, thank you. Yeah, there you go. That's double its current level. A large amount of that growth is driven by an estimated shift

towards electric vehicles and other forms of transportation. In this analysis, they used a computer model to track estimated growth in various sectors, economic, population, transportation, which is the electric vehicle side. Funnily enough, when they were running me through this, they found that by 2050, every model had 100% electric vehicle usage projected now they said there's no way that's going to happen there will always be people that want gasoline cars and so they kind of capped it at 90 but it immediately went up to 90 so uh you know in what is it 25 years so, it'll be interesting to see how legit that became. But on the aggregate, a large amount of the growth in electricity load is driven by, like the massive Samsung plant, that drastically increases the amount of electricity we use. Also, as our previous topic was, you know, cryptocurrency miners use a lot of electricity.

And so overall, the state's going to have to cope with this. And Jeremy Mazur, who did this study with Texas 2036, said the data indicates an energy expansion approach that includes a broad diversified energy portfolio opens the door to greater production economic output in emissions reduction opportunities. This study, they said, was meant to just provide kind of four general pathways that policymakers can kind of stick to when they're making these decisions down the road. One was kind of status quo where we are right now. Another one was energy transition, which is heavy on renewables, phasing out old and currently in use thermal sources of energy. A fossil, advanced fossil, which includes a lot of development in carbon capture, things like that. And then the energy expansion, which is kind of the colloquially all of the above approach that we hear talked about a lot. And so it's an interesting roadmap, a lot of interesting data in there. but this is just kind of to serve as a very basic blueprint for what they expect to see the state is going to develop into.

And it's so interesting, like with you mentioning, they're expecting 100% adoption in some of their models of electric vehicles and with the expanding of green technology it's so it's primarily reliant on the use of batteries right in those it the battery the energy storage and just EVs generally they they use batteries and what are those batteries need rare earth minerals so I'm wondering if in those in that study they did or if they factored in, like, where's the lithium coming from? That's a good question. Not really that I remember, no. But, yeah, that is something that's going to determine a lot.

Can we source this lithium cheaply. I think Daniel wrote an interesting story back when he was reporting on this massive trove of lithium and other rare earth minerals in Texas that's under a lake. Right. So we can't get to it. But that would be really cheap if we could. We can't get to it because of environmental protections?

No, because it's under a lake. No. Well, I'm saying they can't get there. You don't understand, Cameron. There's like 100 feet of water, and it's underneath that. No, I see what you're saying. I'm not sure. I don't remember all the details but uh the indignation no cameras it's under a lake i didn't think it came off that play it back play it back okay but throw the flip throw the replay flag um but i just think

it's so interesting with the what they saying, 100% adoption EVs potentially, or making a huge transition towards green energy. It makes the Texas energy system part of a global system because of where we get these rare earth minerals. It's not just from Texas. It's not just from the United States and it's not just from the united states it's from other countries yeah i mean i guess in a way you could say the same thing about the natural gas part of this that's a global market right now most of it that we use we produce in texas but i doubt all of it um just depending where you are geographically it can be cheaper to pull it in from elsewhere than you knowian. But that holds true for the rest of the country too. Massachusetts doesn't necessarily get their LNG

from Texas, just depending on what's cheapest and most available. But overall, the power grid itself is a really big issue in the state. And one reason that we're seeing that I've talked about ad nauseum is the production tax credit. Now, they assumed in this model that that's going to expire in, I think, 2032, because that's when it's set right now. Now, we've seen that renewed at least once. I think the IRA was the first time it was renewed, but it was also

expanded. So how does that affect what kind of actual thermal generation we see developed here? And that's the very uphill battle that state leaders are trying to fight against in some of these state incentives or tweaks to the ERCOT market that they're making. It's fascinating. It's interesting. Yeah. I just let you guys run for a little bit. Get out of your systems. Brad, thanks for your coverage. Cameron, we're going to come to you now.

Paxton in the news again in an opinion that could have much larger constitutional consequences. The Attorney General recently won a lawsuit challenging the federal government's passing of a $1.7 trillion omnibus bill. Give us the details here. Yeah, this was very interesting because the lawsuit, which was launched earlier this month, challenged a provision within what Paxson called unlawful signing and implementation of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. And there was the provision within that omnibus bill, the Pregnant Workers Fairness

Act, that the suit described that provision as, quote, epitomizing the impulse to give legislation a name that will discourage legislators from voting against it. Many such cases. Many such cases. And the opposite is the Thomas Massey tried to rename, I think it was a CR, the bill to kick the can down the road. Yeah. Continuing resolution.

Yeah, continuing resolution. Yeah. Well, which is happening this week too but um tail of love is time and so what happened here is this omnibus bill that was 1.7 trillion dollars it was passed without having a proper quorum present because in Congress, they adhere to a constitutional mandate of the Quorum Clause, which requires a majority of members of the House Democrats introduced a rule in 2020 that enabled the House to pass legislation without a physical quorum of members present. And this rule counted members who participated virtually or by proxy towards the quorum. And in the opinion, it states that, quote, even though less than a majority was physically present at the time of

the vote, no member objected that a quorum was lacking. It does mention Chip Roy raised the issue, but the Speaker Pro Tem informed him that there was no recourse. And what was interesting to mention is Chip Roy actually filed an amicus brief in support of Paxson's lawsuit. We've actually seen them on opposite sides of some arguments, but it appeared they found some common ground on the constitutionality of passing $1.7 trillion omnibus bills. And so Chip Roy argued in favor of Paxson's lawsuit here, Texas Public Policy Foundation was also involved. And what are sort of the bigger downstream effects of this is we've seen lots of discussion about actually having roll call votes on bills, especially when it comes to continuing resolutions or omnibus bills, whatever it may be.

Now with this sort of ruling, it actually ruled that the Appropriations Act was unconstitutionally passed. Even though Texas was not trying to block the entire package and said they were just trying to prevent that Pregnant Workers Fairness Act from passing, the opinion ruling that the act was passed unconstitutionally will have further downstream effects for having members actually present in the chamber to vote, which could be big. Yeah, huge. And to go back to the Chip Roy, Ken Paxton dynamic there, this is somebody, you know, Chip Roy formerly was Ken Paxton's right-hand man at the office of the attorney general. Fast forward a few years and he's calling on the attorney general to resign in his capacity as a congressman. very different uh relationship there that kind of formed over a few years and that call for resignation by congressman roy was in light of the allegations levied against paxton

and all the impeachment uh insanity that was last year so wild and then all of a sudden they're like you know congressman roy says hey good job on this one yeah fascinating dynamic at play um okay well we're going to skip over the bitcoin cryptocurrency story brad cameron i'm sorry about it but if you want to read at the texan uh the headline texas judge temporarily blocks a federal survey of cryptocurrency miners electricity use it's like y'all's two worlds coalescing yeah well maybe maybe we'll have to have an upcoming podcast just us two discussing. Oh, that's an interesting idea you got there, Cameron. We should monetize this is all I'm saying.

Okay. Well, we've gone this long without talking really in any detail about the primaries here in Texas. And this is the biggest thing on our plate this week. It's the biggest story of this year. The primaries are crazy this year. And that is the understatement of the day here. So we don't want to go any further on the pod. And I should have mentioned it earlier that we were going to get to this, but we don't want to go any further without talking about the primaries. What we're going to do is we're going to go

individually through what we think are the top two to three races to watch. I think we all have, yeah, two, three races here to watch come March 5th. So election day next Tuesday, we still have a little bit of time here for early voting, but it's about to wrap up. If you miss that, election day is when you can head to the polls. We've talked ad nauseum about the dynamics of the primary, the Paxton, the Abbott of it all, the school choice, the border. We have a lot at play. And we have a lot of race. Brad, you went from three races to five races to talk about. Oh, I could add more if he wanted.

No, it's okay. We'll start with you, though. I'm going to have a fire through these. No, it's okay. We got time. Okay. We got time. I'm just saying my estimation of two to three stories was inaccurate.

So I'm more so correcting myself. Yeah, I see your suggestions as more of guidelines. That's become very clear. Yeah. Yes. Okay, continue. Well, obviously, HG21 is the big one. What's HG21?

It's Speaker Phelan against David Covey and Alicia Davis. That is the center of all of this. And Phelan is kind of, he is shorthand, or at least being treated as shorthand for this broader fight over the direction of the GOP. Donald Trump backed his opponent, Covey. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is gunning for Phelan. He said, quote, he's heavily involved in the race. He sent in an endorsement ad for Covey, texted him into the district with his own campaign dollars. That's a dynamic we haven't really seen before. Lieutenant Governor getting directly involved against the sitting house speaker.

We've talked a lot about how they both, quite frankly, revile each other at this point politically. And this is kind of a referendum on the feeling of feeling speakership. You know, if he if he wins handily, if he wins outright, probably his majority is secured in the House. If he squeaks by, pushed to a runoff and then squeaks by that, you know, that's that's at least going to leave questions about whether, you know, other members are going to look at avenues to replacing him. From what I can find, there hasn't been a sitting house speaker that lost reelection ever. And if he does lose on Tuesday, that would be the craziest thing we've seen in a very crazy 13, 14 months. Without this challenge to Phelan, it would still be a wild election cycle. Absolutely. But there are a lot of questions coming out about, okay, how is Phelan actually set up in this race?

There's polling floating around that doesn't look good for the speaker, but we haven't seen anything released from the speaker side. So polling can be very, it's just hard to tell with this kind of race, but it's a wild, even just the conversation surrounding the race by other members is very fascinating. Yeah. And I will say a good indication for what the speaker and his team believe their position is, is that he's going negative against Covey. You don't go negative if you're comfortably above runoff territory. What are the hits against Covey. You don't go negative if you're comfortably above runoff territory. What are the hits against Covey? They put out a couple accusations that he lied about his job status on a document, lied about his marital status. There's been ads run to that effect in the district.

On the other side, Covey's accusing the speaker of colluding with Democrats, being a, quote, rhino. The word that we see thrown around constantly in this cycle. And we've seen former Governor Rick Perry jumping in on his side, on Phelan's side. Perry does tend to be pretty active during primaries. Oh, yeah. And this primary is no exception. Especially so, I say in this i was getting very involved uh he's been

today he's going to be in in district for to get out the vote events with him um he ran an op-ed in the beaumont enterprise where he said you know southeast his pitch was southeast texas your guy is not just at the table. He's running the table. And this is why you need to keep him. It's a contentious fight. And you see Donald Trump jumping in, probably at the behest of the lieutenant governor. He's kind of been the skeleton key for any Trump endorsement in the state.

Not to mention the Ken Paxton at all. Yep, Ken Paxton backed him. It's just a mess. And it's certainly going to be the top thing to watch on election night. Others, HG60, this is such a personal fight between the two. State Rep Glenn Rogers against Mike Olcott. It's a redo rematch from two years ago when Rogers squeaked by Olcott. This time Abbott is on the other side. He endorsed Rogers last cycle. He's backing Olcott this cycle along with, again, Trump jumped in. I think Dan Patrick did as well. It's a contentious fight

and there's a lot of money being spent. And since it's such a rural district, I think you're probably seeing a lot of it in mail. In fact, Connie put out a video on Twitter of all the mailers she got at her house, and she's in HD60. And I think there was probably a dozen mailers, and at least half of them were from Olcata Rogers. And as an explanation really quickly about why you might see more mailers in a rural district versus TV or whatever that might look like, it's when you're buying, when you're making television buys, you're buying for a region. Typically, that encompasses a pretty urban or suburban area. And so for a rural race, in order to make your money go a lot further, you'd have to make sure that you're buying for a market that makes sense for your district. That can get difficult when you're outside of DFW or Houston or whatever it might be. So that's oftentimes why mail is more often deployed in more rural races.

Yep. And so that race, it's gotten really personal. Cameron, what he laughed at just a second ago was an image of him, of Olcott's face superimposed on Osama bin Laden or something. Oh, gosh. You know. The main season. Yeah. Rogers has hit him for owning a yacht, which really turned out to be just an extra-sized fishing boat, I guess.

I don't know. It wasn't super big, but, you know, Olcott has hit back that Rogers is, you know, I saw one time he said a shill for the teachers unions, or at least people on Olcott's side have said that, you know. So this is just haymakers being thrown back and forth constantly. Moving on to another one, HD11 out in East Texas, Nogdoches, Travis Clardy, State Rep. Travis Clardy is in a fight with Joanne Schaffner, and she is getting a ton of support from Abbott. The other school choice groups, American Federation for Children and the Club for Growth's School Freedom Fund are bombarding that district with TV ads. And that one is definitely going to be one to watch.

And an interesting dynamic there, Paxton has endorsed Clardy because Clardy voted against impeachment. So in this case, you have Abbott against Paxton, which we see in probably close to 30, I think, races. But I can't recall, I don't recall another race where Paxton is backing incumbent and Abbott's backing the challenger. So that's an interesting dynamic at play. HC-33 up in Rockwall is interesting. Justin Holland against Katrina Pearson. Dennis London's another candidate as well, but it's really just Holland versus Pearson, I think. And Holland's under fire from the right wing of the party for various votes he's taken, including school choice against that. Also voting to advance a gun bill, a raise the age gun

bill that didn't go anywhere after that, but he advanced it through committee. That one's getting pretty personal as well. Some of the ads being thrown around um that's one to watch that's an excerpt of of dallas county dennis london in that in that race has run against holland previously too yeah so part of the concern is okay you have a big name like katrina pearson on the ballot um and you have dennis london on the ballot who's at least somewhat familiar to voters going against an incumbent so the chance for a runoff increases if those factors are in play. Right. I think that one's probably pretty firmly in runoff territory, at least from everyone I've heard.

But again, who knows until we see the results roll in. And the last one I'd say is HG71 out in Abilene. That's Stan Lambert against Liz Case. The cavalry has come in for Case quite a bit. Abbott, I think she was a late endorsement for abbott but since then he's dumping quite a bit of money along with those other school pro school choice groups and from having from conversations i've had with them they firmly believe this is an opportunity a really good opportunity for them to flip the seat to it from anti-ESAs to

pro-ESAs. Again, we'll see if that happens. Lambert's been in office for a while. He's a known quantity. You know, he's got, he was a, I believe he's an athletic director at a high school there. You know, he's got a lot of roots in the area, but this cycle is just very strange. And, you know, you mentioned a lot of the polling that we've heard about. A lot of it doesn't look good for incumbents. But again, which that can change as you get closer to an election. But it's trending in a way that can be dramatic for some races. Yeah. But also the way some of the some of the thing whispers we're hearing about individual races, somebody don't know which side it is.

Somebody is pulling his way off. It's true. And we'll find out what it is on Tuesday. Yeah. But. And it also is telling too, if you see certain people releasing polling and certain people not releasing polling,

which is part of what we're going off of is like, okay, who's talking about it and who's not. Could polling still be way off? Absolutely. But it's, that is interesting to see who releases it and who doesn't. Very much so.

Very much so. And again, in many of these races, you're seeing the incumbent go negative. Yeah. Just like in 21. I will end on 21 with something I didn't mention, that Alicia Davis, she's from, I believe, Jasper County. In HG21, the Phelan race. HG21, the Phelan race. She's definitely the third of the three candidates, but she could force a runoff between the two if she gets enough votes, especially from Jasper County, where she lives. A lot of stuff to watch, but the center of it all is the House Speaker's race.

Yeah, absolutely. Very good stuff, Bradley. Thank you. Cameron, let's pivot to some of the top races you're watching here. We talked a lot about the House with Brad. You've got a couple of Senate races that you're watching. Yeah, obviously a big one that I've been following, SD30. That involves Brett Hagenbaugh, Hagenbue.

Hagenbue, we think. We're 90% sure. Is it Hagenbue? Isnagenboo. Hagenboo, we think. We're 90% sure. Is it Hagenboo? Isn't that what he said in his ad? I think he himself said that that's how you pronounce his name. Brett Hagenboo. We got Kerry DeMoor, we got J.C. Arbor, and we got Cody Clark. And Hagenboo, he's got all the endorsements, it seems.

Dan Patrick, Donald Trump, you know, big names. But there's so much controversy surrounding him. Complications. Yeah, just some complications that have to do with his residency in the district. There's been all sorts of lawsuits and challenges. Carrie DeMore has gotten the furthest with her challenge. And there was actually a hearing that I went to that got rescheduled. And it's an ongoing thing. And so, but right now it appears Hagenbue has placed himself in the front of the pack, you know, based on big endorsements and... Self-funding. Self-funding.

And so it's going to be an interesting race to watch, though. It seems like the main challenger is the late the late entry into the race, J.C. Arbo. And so I'll be in SD30, it seems like, on election night. And so we'll see how things end up. But Carrie DeMore has been very vocal on social media, pushing back against the residency claims of Hagen-Boo. And so we probably won't, you know, most likely have an answer on that

until after the election, the residency question. But if it plays into the minds of voters, that's yet to be seen. and so that's sd30 where it is right now the other race uh in the senate that i'll be paying attention to is between nathan johnson and victoria victoria niave criado. So these are two Democrats running against each other, Nathan Johnson being the incumbent. And he's sort of positioned himself in the Senate, as you, Eric Johnson, switching from the spent time in the Texas House. And again, she's really been a much more progressive on some of her legislation and stances that she's taken. So they've had debates where Criotto accused Johnson of caving to Dan Patrick on certain bills. And Johnson has said that she's taken his votes out of context.

And he's actually argued for immigrant rights or asylum seeker rights and things of that nature where it seems there's the big divide between the two candidates. So that'll be a very interesting run or race rather between two Democrats. And then the last race I'll be paying attention to is a congressional race, Texas 23, just for the fact that Tony Gonzalez, the incumbent, has been embroiled in so much pushback from local grassroots groups. You know, he was censured by Medina County's Republican Party. He was censured by the state Republican Party. So it seems as though the base has been sort of pushing back against him for some of his votes. And Texas 23, for people who don't know, it's right next to the border and it's a huge district as well.

And so many people within, many voters within Texas 23 care a lot about the border. And Gonzalez, it seems, has sort of waffled a bit on how he's approached border legislation. You know, he did have a visit with Elon Musk down at the border. He showed him around. I forgot about that. So, and he did pen a letter saying that, lawmakers don't act soon, there'll be quote a point of no return, but he also had disagreements with Congressman Chip Roy over a certain border security bill. Um, and then he also labeled GOP colleagues as insurgents. At one point he accused 20 Republicans of planning to push,

quote, anti-immigration legislation. So it doesn't seem like he's very clear on his border security stances, at least that's my perception. But there's been one candidate who's challenging him who has a huge platform. And if people know who the AK guy is, Brandon Herrera, he has a giant platform. Over 3 million YouTube subscribers. Oh, wild. 360,000 ex followers. So the guy has a massive platform, but he's found himself in some controversy, too. Like, there was an incident where he reportedly left behind an inactive explosive device at a campaign event. My goodness.

Which caused the bomb squad to be called and all sorts of stuff. So, you know, we'll see if a giant social media following translates the votes. But it appears Tony Gonzalez, having pushback from grassroots groups, there's not a whole lot of love there. Is that going to translate to him being pushed out of office? We will see. Yeah. Big race. Absolutely. Okay. Well, Cameron, thank you. Matthew, we're going to come to you. Let's talk judicial races for a second. This is your bread

and butter and they tend to be, you know, not as high profile as a lot of other races on the ballot. But this cycle, that's a little bit different. We have some pretty big names jumping in the race here and some pretty big backers and lots of rhetoric and controversy around these candidates and their challengers. So walk us through the races you're following on the judicial side? Yeah, typically whenever you think of Texas's statewide judicial positions, they usually don't get a lot of interest. The races are usually pretty mundane, usually pretty collegial, and there's just not a whole lot going on. this race is, this cycle is a lot different. This has been a huge war machine assembled against the three incumbents on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. And what has precipitated this, as far as I can tell, is the lone 2021 decision by that court in Stevens v. State that the Court of Criminal

Appeals determined that the Texas legislature violated Texas's separation of powers clause in the Texas Constitution when it gave the Attorney General's office the power to prosecute election-related crimes, similar to the power that the Constitution gives local prosecutors. The effect of this has been Attorney General Ken Paxton on an absolute warpath against the three incumbents who are up for reelection. And he has assembled kind of a multi-layer machine. Of course, Paxton, everybody knows, is a close ally of President Donald Trump's. And so you've seen sort of that national level Trump apparatus get involved in this race on social media and in the news, just hammering away at the judges. And then closer to home, there are two political action committees that are really spearheading a lot of the attacks and messaging and also support for the three challengers that Paxton is backing.

Those two PACs include Texans for Responsible Judges, which as far as we can tell is closely affiliated with Paxton directly. And another one that's getting involved is Texans for a Conservative Majority, which from what I understand is one of the many entities owned by the former Pale Horse Strategies Empire, now known as West Fort Worth Management, and all probably most commonly known as the Empower Texans political empire. A lot of the messaging that you're seeing in these races are that unless the three incumbents are defeated, we can't ensure election integrity in Texas. Paxton talks a lot about all of the cases that he had pending when that court decision was coming down. You see him reiterating the stance recently whenever

a couple of school districts engaged in allegedly illegal electioneering, and the Attorney General's office filed civil lawsuits against them to stop it. But you saw Paxton lamenting in the press releases that he could not bring criminal charges himself directly against people involved in those races. It's been a huge amount of attention. A lot of money is being spent on these races. And I'm actually working on a piece right now addressing a lot of the technical aspects of what's being said, et cetera. For example, and I'll give you a quick sneak peek, we've gone through an election cycle under Stevens. We're going through an election cycle under the Stevens decision. And even if all three judges are replaced this primary, it's going to be another election cycle before a fourth judge can be picked

up, before you end up with a majority of the court that can overturn Stevens. So you're looking at, you know, sometime in 2027 at the earliest, the electoral route on trying to overturn the Stevens decision by influencing the court politically, which is the slow boat route. The quickest route is proposing a statute or a constitutional amendment through the Texas legislature, which will come back in the spring. If they decide to do a constitutional amendment, that would go on the November 2025 election ballot. And of course, then that would go into effect in January of 2026. So a lot of nuance to the rhetoric going on in here. And once again, it's just the scale of what we're seeing against these judges

and the intensity of the campaigns is unlike anything I've ever seen for a state judicial race. Oh my gosh, no kidding. And we have great coverage from Matt up at the Texans, so make sure to go check that out as well. Okay, folks, we're totally skipping tweetery this week, and I'm going to highlight a few races really quickly because we're already over time, but there's so much to talk about and I also want to make sure you know check in on twitter x check in at the texan we'll have a lot of coverage on election night a lot of coverage ahead of election night so just make sure you're tuning in to our reporters to our site making sure you're up to date on everything okay Okay, real fast, a couple of verses. I want to highlight House District 146, notable in that the incumbent, Sean Theory, a Democrat from Houston,

made a lot of waves when SB 14, the Child Gender Modification Bill, made its way through the Texas House. It passed. She got up there at the very end, right before the vote, spoke in favor of the Child Gender Modification Ban. And what was very shocking to a lot of folks, she spoke very passionately for about 10 minutes as to why she was supporting this very heavily GOP backed piece of legislation and very quickly became the target of progressive Democrats in the Houston area. She's facing a couple of challengers for her seat, Lauren Ashley Simmons and Ashton Woods. Now, Holly Hansen has a great piece at the Texan kind of detailing the different factions that are backing the candidates, but a very fascinating Democratic primary where we're seeing some social issues be the crux of the challenge. And then I want to highlight two other House races really fast.

These are Republican primaries that I'm watching, House District 55 and House District 65. Now, 55 is kind of the classic school choice battle that we've seen this cycle. House District 65 is the classic impeachment battle, the Ken Paxton impeachment battle. So two very different races. But I think they kind of are great examples of the two big issues that are dividing Republicans, both officials and voters, this cycle. So 55, the incumbent is Hugh Schein and the challenger, Hillary Hickland. Hugh Schein is facing opposition from the governor. Hickland has been heavily backed by the governor. He's there rallying for her. Cameron, you were at one of the rallies, and it was a fascinating sight for sure. She was the first candidate that he went out and did an event with. Absolutely.

And he's shown a lot of support for her and has, I think, returned to the district multiple times and is planning to do so again before election day, if I'm not mistaken. I could be mistaken there. But regardless, he's been very vocal about his support for her. She's garnered a lot of support from tangential groups and organizations as well. Shine has been in the legislature for a very long time. Cameron, I can't remember how long it's been, but it's at least double digits.

He's been there for a long time. I tuned out. How long has Hugh Shine been in the legislature? I'll have to look. I think he was there for a while and then he left and came back. Yeah, but regardless, it's been a lot. Come on, Cam. I'm sorry there's just the aoc comparison with what i know i'm getting i'm getting hounded

in our slack for wearing a black turtleneck because i resemble both elizabeth holmes and apparently aoc so there's there are threads going on in our slack about this currently and it's very distracting regardless big race big names, big names, big money. And this is the classic school choice battle where you see a very entrenched incumbent with a pretty moderate voting record being challenged by someone positioned as a grassroots social issues school choice advocate. A mom, that's the branding we're seeing from Hicklin's camp, and she's been supported very heavily by folks like the governor in her challenge. The other A65 that I was talking about, we have the incumbent, Krana Timich, who was supportive of impeachment, facing a challenger who was very much involved in Attorney General Ken Paxton's defense. Mitch Little was on his legal team throughout the trial, had some very big moments questioning witnesses that were very crucial for the defense of the Attorney General. So literally, Ken Paxton's lawyer is running against a member,

Republican member, who voted in favor of impeachment. Fascinating. Now, also very notable in that Little was Karanda Timich's campaign treasurer for the first time, Shira. And this is her, I believe, her first re-election bid. And when you do have a campaign treasurer, we talked about this before, Brad, you wrote the piece, but when you have a treasurer chosen on your campaign, that's typically pretty symbolic of, okay, this is a notable community member who is maybe, and they might dot the I's and cross the T's and take care of your finances, but they also might not. And it might just be symbolic of a supportive integral community member who's on your campaign team. So wild to see this happen.

I think to take that even a step further, they at least used to go to the same church and were even in the same Bible study. Wow. So. Very close to home to home yeah needless to say and this is where we see abbott and paxton at odds this is one of the races we see them at odds abbott is supportive of tmech she was supportive of esas which is the governor's big issue this cycle and so he is not in any way withdrawn support from that incumbency which we've seen him very willing to do so with other races so fascinating so this is this one's much more about impeachment versus and like democrat chairs uh challenging leadership versus hd 55 or yeah 55 is much more about school choice wild stuff okay folks Anything else before we leave, gentlemen? It's going to be a crazy Tuesday night.

Yeah, it's going to be wild. And like I said, make sure to check out everyone's Twitter feeds. Make sure to check out our Decision Desk HQ election tracker at the Texan. We will be busy that evening. We'll have gentlemen and ladies all throughout the state at different watch parties. It'll be a big night, big day, and lots of coverage to be had. So make sure to go to thetexan.news. Stay up to date on everything. Folks, thanks for listening to another episode of the Weekly Roundup, and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at TheTexan.News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at TheTexan.News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.