The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 10, 2023

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup 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 on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Congressman Tony Gonzales being censured by the Texas Republican PartyPaxton associate and real estate developer Nate Paul being sentenced to jail for contempt of courtSpeaker Dade Phelan releasing more priority legislation, including a ban on “sexually explicit” library booksA parliamentary maneuver to let lawmakers adjourn for extended periods of timeNew bills filed to ban taxpayer-funded lobbyingRep. Steve Toth filing a bill to restrict online access to abortion-related materialsSen. Bryan Hughes filing a bill to crack down on social, political, or ideological investingRep. Jeff Leach filing a bill to require healthcare coverage for gender “detransitioners”Sen. Kevin Sparks filing a bill to reform local governments’ means of issuing new debtA Florida federal judge blocking a Biden administration “humanitarian parole” program to keep noncitizens in the countryA lawsuit before the state Supreme Court to prohibit Austin from paying union employees with public fundsFive women filing a lawsuit against the State of Texas and Attorney General Ken Paxton over Texas’ pro-life laws

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans' Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses Congressman Tony Gonzalez being censured by the Texas Republican Party, Paxton associate and real estate developer Nate Paul being sentenced to jail for contempt of court, Speaker Dade Phelan releasing more priority legislation, including a ban on sexually explicit library books. A parliamentary maneuver to let lawmakers adjourn for extended periods of time. New bills filed to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying. Representative Steve Toth filing a bill to restrict online access to abortion-related materials.

Senator Brian Hughes filing a bill to crack down on social, political, or ideological investing. Representative Jeff Leach filing a bill to require health care coverage for gender detransitioners. Senator Kevin Sparks filing a bill to reform local government's means of issuing new debt. A Florida federal judge blocking a Biden administration humanitarian parole program to keep non-citizens in the country, a lawsuit before the state Supreme Court to prohibit Austin from paying union employees with public funds, and five women filing a lawsuit against the state of Texas and Attorney General Ken Paxton over Texas's pro-life laws. As always, if you have questions for our team, email us at editor at thetexan.news.

We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy, howdy, folks. Mackenzie here with Cameron, Matt, Hayden, and Brad, again, at our new office. And we have pop filters. If you don't know what a pop filter is, Google it. They are annoying to work with, but we're making it work and it makes Daniel's life easier. Some of us have pop filters. of us do not that's true well that's because we're sharing a mic here it's true you gotta make it work i know you do you're swinging this mic all over the place it sounds like chain mails being handed across the room when i'm trying not to touch the microphone or

the stand it's well you guys will hear what. What's funny is how Cameron is sitting perfectly still, trying not to touch the microphone. When he doesn't have a pop filter and it doesn't matter as much. Yeah, whereas we actually can't touch it. Anyways, we're learning. That's how I feel. I feel frozen. I just sit here so I don't accidentally bump the mic. Last week it was Brad hitting the mic a lot.

Bless his soul. And every time he got so angry at himself i felt bad i felt bad brad on behalf of you thanks okay we want to try to emphasize okay well cameron we're gonna go ahead and start with you here. Last week and over the weekend, Congressman Tony Gonzalez was in the news. You were actually at the Texas GOP SREC meeting where all this was going down and kind of walked through the censure. We're there listening in, hearing what was going on. So give us a little bit of an inside scoop as to what happened with Congressman Tony Gonzalez last weekend. Yeah. And first off, shout out to all the subscribers that I met there. There was quite a few people that were giving big props to the

Texans. So that was fun. So Gonzalez, he was previously censured by the medina county republican party for some of his votes in support of same-sex marriage gun control policies and against some border security measures and the medina county republican party had accused gonzalez of lack of fidelity to our founding principles our national and state constitutions and the republican party of texas so what the republican party of texas um has is a policy platform they have a set of principles and if a republican lawmaker um starts to veer away from those um because what they're supposed to do is follow in alignment um with those principles in their voting so they had called him in um for a vote uh on a censure over the weekend so the the Republican Party of Texas voted a censure. What does that mean?

What kind of teeth might a motion like that have? So the meeting was held with both local and state party officials. And a censure is where there is a vote to confirm that there were violations of the party's platform. And so they call everyone out of the room and it's just the party officials, just the local party and state party officials that are involved in that. And so what happens now is since the central was confirmed uh they can pull financial support from his campaign and that money can go uh towards the opposition in the upcoming primary election and we have already seen uh there are some names that are going to be in the running so yes absolutely now was gonzalez present for this

whole debacle was he at the meeting? He was invited, but he did not attend. It wasn't explicitly stated he wasn't going to go, but the day of the meeting, he was posting that he was at an event in his congressional district. Yeah, out in the district doing his business. Has he commented on the censure? And who from the Republican Party of Texas has said anything? So the campaign spokesperson for Gonzalez's team actually put out a statement and an interesting portion of that statement was they said the Republican Party of Texas would be wise to follow his lead and do some actual work. So, of course, that is going to cause a response from the Republican Party of Texas. And Matt Rinaldi, the chairman, said, perhaps it's time to look inward instead of blaming other people. And so, since that vote, there's been a variety of different people who have decided to jump into the primary race for 2024. Right now, at least three people have jumped in,

so he's going to have some competition coming up. We expected Congressman Gonzalez to face some competition just because of those votes. If you see that kind of political and policy division in a party, there's likely to be a primary challenge, but I think the censure was the tipping point for people to jump in the race or, hey, it's time we can get more publicity for our announcement when all this is going on surrounding the incumbent. And this is actually only the second time in history the Republican

Party of Texas has voted the censure. A sitting politician, the last time was in 2018 when then House Speaker Joe Strauss was censured. There you go. I remember that day very, very well. Okay. Thank you, Cameron. Hayden, an associate of Attorney General Ken Paxton will begin a jail sentence next week. Spicy stuff. Tell us about the contempt of court charges against Nate Paul.

Most people, when they think of contempt of court, probably have in their mind's eye a scene of somebody in a courtroom lashing out at a judge. But this contempt of court happened because of something that happened outside the courtroom. Nate Paul is an associate or at least a former associate of Attorney General Ken Paxton. He was at the center of the misconduct allegations against him. Paxton was accused of using the Office of the Attorney General to benefit Nate Paul, who is involved in other litigation with a non-profit foundation. Judge Seufer ordered him to pay a $2 million judgment to this non-profit that had sued Nate Paul for fraud. And as part of that judgment, Mr. Paul was ordered to provide monthly expense reports to the court and not spend over $25,000 per transaction without seeking prior

approval to make sure that he was making good on this judgment that he had been ordered to pay to the foundation. And Judge Seufer's staff accused Paul of not filing these expense reports for five months in a row and making transactions that were well above the authorized limit, including in the seven figures, or almost in the seven figures. So he was ordered to jail for 10 days, a jail sentence that begins on Wednesday. And he was also ordered to pay a six-figure fine for the violations of Judge Seufer's orders. And one of her staff attorneys sent a letter to the parties involved with very critical words for Paul, accusing him of perjuring himself, sitting just feet away from Judge Seufer, and explaining that he would not be allowed to continue to violate the court's orders. Is there any word on the settlement

negotiations with Ken Paxton? It's ironic that he would be ordered to jail just as the settlement agreement with Ken Paxton seems to be falling apart. Ken Paxton was asking the Texas Supreme Court to keep this case, his case, on hold, and not to be confused with the litigation that Paul is involved in. He is in his own lawsuit with the so-called whistleblowers who accused Paxton of fraud while they abusive office while they were still employed with the Attorney General's office and then were subsequently fired. Ken Paxton, as I mentioned, asked the Texas Supreme Court to put the case on hold while they worked out a settlement. That settlement was to cost $3.3 million, and there were other concessions that were to be made. But Ken Paxton needs the approval of the legislature for this settlement. And as I understand it, the parties said, we're not going to wait indefinitely while you lobby the legislature for this money.

And if you can't get that done, then the Supreme Court, they are asking the Supreme Court to continue considering the case. So the future of that settlement, it was never really certain to begin with, but it is now even more uncertain, especially given Speaker Phelan's comments that he doesn't think the taxpayers should have to pay this at all. So the settlement with Ken Paxton is now in peril. Spicy, spicy stuff. We'll continue to keep an eye on that. And Hayden, thanks for your coverage. Bradley, speaking of the speaker, the bill filing deadline comes tomorrow or when this podcast comes out as Speaker Phelan has chosen to announce his chamber's priority bills in batches. What did he announce this week?

So there were three slates announced this week. He has kind of grouped them in themes. And so the first batch this week was focused on infrastructure. There was a $5 billion appropriation to broadband development that was filed. Another one creates a couple of water infrastructure funds, one of them to create new supply, and then another one to beef up current supply, current pieces of infrastructure on the water side. streamline building processes such as you know zoning codes the hoops different um the hoops builders have to jump through in order to build residences or commercial buildings things like that so that was the first grouping the second was juvenile focused um one create would create the Mental Health and Brain Research Institute of Texas

with a focus on not only but largely on mental health for children. The second one would reform the juvenile justice system and then the third by Representative Jared Patterson would

prohibit sexually explicit materials in the school libraries this is one we've heard a lot about obviously with you know the fights going on in a bunch of different school boards between parents school board members or school board members themselves amongst themselves that's something that the speaker has. This is one of the more culture war type of issues that the speaker has backed. And so this one is making the House priority list, even though it's a higher bill number. It's not within the first 20 bills, but it is in this list list and so the third slate of bills focused on schools two are school safety funding bills they they deal with uh hardening schools things like that

they have different purposes but largely it's the same broad uh aim in both of those. Another one raises teacher pay. And then another one of this group provides a cost of living adjustment for teacher pensioners. And so before the session, the debate was, does the legislature provide another 13th check

or do they provide a cost of living adjustment? 13th check would be a one-time sum of money. A CO check would be a one-time sum of money. A COLA would be in perpetuity. And so... Do people actually call a cost of living adjustment a COLA?

Yeah. That's cool. The more you know. The more you know. Is it a COLA or is it a POP? I'm sorry. Or a COKE. Or a COKE. I think it's a COKE. But, alright. Okay. we've debated that before on this podcast we have okay yeah i'm done sorry we're done i'm sorry go ahead back to the cola

so it seems like the legislature is going to move forward on the cola not the 13th check although dan patrick has said either he's happy with either. But being the longer term, more permanent reform, this one appears to be what they're going with. I prefer root beer, actually. Root beer is very good. Yeah. Dublin Dr. Pepper. Oh, I don't even know what that is. What?

I don't know. Don't you know that Texas is like the original home of the Dr. Pepper? Well, yes, but Dublin Dr. Pepper? Dublin Dr. Pepper. Okay, they don't make it anymore. Okay. The bigger Dr. Pepper company got like, I don't know, angry and ruined my childhood by telling Dublin that they couldn't make the original Dublin Dr dr pepper anymore but to satisfy um the torch wielding minions uh like yourself like myself uh you can occasionally go to a grocery store that stocks you know the glass bottle

uh made by made with sugar dr peppers um which is in my opinion as a dr pepper aficionado actual dr pepper in this as my dad would put it, this fake stuff on the grocery store shelves is just a Dr. Pepper impersonation. Again, the more you know. Hayden, there was recently a dust up in the Texas House over the pace that lawmakers are working. Give us an overview of the order of business set forth in the state constitution. If there was a go-to topic to illustrate something that almost no one cares about, it would probably be parliamentary procedure, but it has a greater impact on people's lives than they might realize. There was, as you mentioned recently, a quarrel on the House floor over the constitutional order of business.

And it's because lawmakers generally do not start voting on bills until after the 60-day mark in the legislative session. And Matt and I were discussing this earlier. Senators voted on a couple of emergency items yesterday. But other than that, it's been pretty quiet on the House floor in the first two months. It's mostly congratulatory resolutions, things like memorial resolutions honoring people close to lawmakers who have passed away. Texas Tech University celebrated its 100th anniversary on the House floor. There are all kinds of things that are mentioned on the House floor, but controversial policy items are usually not on the list during the first two months because of this constitutional timeline that is

set forth and in the House rules. But there was a disagreement over this recently on the House floor and it brought out some of these parliamentary procedure distinctions. You also said this is nerdy stuff for people who don't really care about parliamentary procedure. It reminds me of past times of yours when you were younger. It does. And we might talk about that later. I think that would be Kim making fun of me, but I think that would be a perfect segue. Yeah. So Speaker Phelan and one of his main opponents had a very tense exchange over this order of business. And like you were saying, there's kind of been this cloud of rhetoric that's been part of this discussion for both camps. And then there's actually what is required and delegated by the state constitution. What were some of the concerns raised specifically in this exchange, though? Well, as I mentioned, and this is in my piece at the texan.news, there's a calendar with some of the key dates of the legislative session. It's generally, there is a pace that lawmakers like to follow. And to give a little bit of

background information about this particular disagreement, Speaker Phelan's primary, I say primary opponent, that might be confusing. His main opponent in the House is probably Representative Tenderholt. He ran against him again in the primary. But I don't want to give the impression that there are these two sides that are warring against each other. This is primarily Representative Tenderholt and Representative Slayton, who are opponents of Speaker Phelan. Representative Goldman was presenting a resolution to allow the House to adjourn for more than three days, which is a technicality required in the state constitution. Both chambers have to give the other side permission to not meet on the floor for more than three days,

and Goldman was bringing up a resolution to do that. Representative Tenderholt went to the back mic and attempted to ask Goldman a series of questions about why don't we use the same instrument, a Senate concurrent resolution, to suspend the Constitution and vote on items before that 60 day mark. And Goldman and Phelan did not want to have that discussion right then and there. So Goldman pressed, while Goldman did agree to answer questions from Tenderholt, he pressed him not to comment on his question before asking it. Ultimately, what happened is Speaker Phelan decided that Representative Tenderholt's questions were out of order. And though Tenderholt was

trying to make the point that they could be taking up items of business before that 60-day mark, which according to him, the legislature did do until the 81st session in 2009, which incidentally was the year that Speaker Joe Strauss was elected. The exchange ended with Tenderholt saying, I hope everyone is ready to get to work like I am and we'll vote this down. But he and Slayton were the only ones who voted against it. So it was a tense exchange on the floor. We've talked about it on this podcast prior, but it's about to be a moot point because the bill filing deadline is for us, it's tomorrow. But if you're listening to this, it's today, Friday. So they will now be able to take up those items of business. But Tenderholt was highlighting the fact that there are items on the Republican Party's

wishlist that will probably go undone because of limited time and because of the pace that lawmakers like to follow. Did Phelan and Goldman have a solid basis for their objections to Tenderholt's comments? Like I said, Goldman was willing to answer the questions, but he did not like the fact that Tenderholt was commenting on the questions outside of the, that he was providing this commentary with the question. And usually Speaker Phelan, speakers do not provide, do not keep that tide of a rain on what's said at the back mic as anyone who's watched Texas legislature for an extended period knows. It's usually pretty casual as long as there's general decorum but the rules do give phelan the authority to decide that a line of questioning is not

germane that it's out of order and uh much like an attorney gives his client advice the parliamentarian is able to advise the speaker oh that's an interesting comparison yeah because and and there's a there's a misconception that the parliamentarian is the one who makes the call. She really gives the advice. The speaker is the one who makes the decision. And while she may be the expert in parliamentary procedure, ultimately it's Speaker Phelan who makes that final call. And so Speaker Phelan asked him to take his chair. And it was just an unusually tense exchange for this part of the legislative session, which is usually pretty courtly and chill. Very, very chill.

Yes. A hundred percent. And we haven't really seen these kind of fireworks since the Democrat chair debate. And this, again, was like a tiny, tiny compared to the extent of what that was. But regardless, it was very heated. Very, very heated. I'd encourage folks to go back and watch it, too. Like, it was very heated um very very heated i'd encourage folks to go back and watch it too like it was very fascinating it'll tell you a lot about that the dynamics of the house not just this session but

in general uh and like you said kind of give an idea of what the speaker's role looks like how much of a reign can he kind of take um there is a lot of discretion in terms of how the speaker operates and what kind of decisions they make or, like you said, what they allow to be spoken from the back mic. So very fascinating. Thank you, Hayden, for your coverage. Cameron, let's talk about a lawsuit that's gained a lot of attention against the state of Texas and Attorney General Ken Paxton over Texas's pro-life laws. It gained a lot of attention specifically this week. Tell us the details. So five women have filed a lawsuit this week claiming the Texas pro-life laws have caused and threatened to cause irreparable injury. And in this lawsuit, which was announced by

the Center for Reproductive Rights, and then they later had a follow-up press conference at the Capitol. Two women in the lawsuit alleged difficulties obtaining an abortion in Texas because of a unique situation of being pregnant with twins and having complications with one of the children in the pregnancy. Two of the women alleged difficulties due to unexpected medical issues, and the doctors were unable to supply adequate advice on what they should do. And then a third woman had her child diagnosed with a very unique medical issue who was told the baby was not going to survive, and the doctor was not able to provide, again, adequate advice on what the woman should do in that situation. So what are the details of what is being alleged in the lawsuit that pertains specifically to Texas's pro-life laws? So the language present in Texas's abortion laws does have statutes for physicians who believe a medical emergency exists that

prevents compliance. And with abortion laws, such as when the life of the mother is at risk, and the physician has a good faith and reasonable understanding of standard medical practice. And so there are statutes in the Texas Pro-Life laws that protect against a lot of these situations. So when I reached out to Texas Right to Life, I asked them, what is the issue? Why does this occur? the misinformation in the media and the fact that doctors are being given media misrepresentation about what Texas law actually stipulates and what needs to be done for these physicians is just better education on what the laws actually allow them to do. Yeah, there you go. Great coverage. We encourage you to go to the texan.news and read the article. Lots of great information there from Cameron. Brad, the past two sessions proposals to ban taxpayer funded lobbying have died in the House, but new proposals have once again been filed. Tell us about them.

Yeah. So not only did they die in the House, but both times were killed by Republicans. successfully amended and a bunch of other republicans successfully amended the taxpayer funded lobbying bill uh to only apply to um certain counties um and so basically three quarters of the counties all less all on the lower of the population end were exempted from it and then representative mace middleton basically voted against his own bill because it had been watered down so much. And last session, Representative Chris Patty, chairman of the State Affairs Committee, basically commandeered Middleton's bill, changed it quite a bit, and then killed it on the House floor before deadline. So it's an interesting issue because it's not it's not uh really just a republican v democrat one issue it's republican v republican and so this time around maize middleton is once again filing legislation but this time he's in the senate as he moved to

the upper chamber on the house side his companion bill author is representative Ellen Troxclare, a Republican from Austin. Used to be an Austin city councilman. Middleton said of this bill, for too long, your hard-earned tax dollars have been diverted to the pockets of Austin lobbyists. Then lobby against both parents and taxpayers. Talking about tax reform or property tax relief and school choice and any other school-related reforms that Republicans want to push. Trask-Clair added, heavily utilized by larger liberal cities, this spending is not only lavish, it's also creating an uneven playing field for smaller communities here at the Capitol.

Interesting. So what else is different this time around for this issue? So the other big difference is that um banning taxpayer-funded lobbying is not on the republican party of texas's legislative priority list each cycle they pass eight issues and the last two uh tfl ban had made it made it this time it did not. It did not make it to last summer's convention. And so, despite that, the party is still behind this issue, behind these bills. RPT Chair Matt Rinaldi told me, as our platform states, we oppose using taxpayer dollars to hire lobbyists and are encouraged by Senator Milton's and Representative Chaklare's bills to ban this practice. We support their efforts and look forward to the bill's passage. It was included in the list that could be chosen as a priority correct correct yeah it did not make

the vote but it like was not chosen by the delegates it's like a top issue this this cycle and that means it's one of thousands of issues maybe not thousands hundreds of issues that are in the uh the party's platform there's a ton in there. And so rather than getting this special status, it's now among the many. And so I'm not sure if that's going to affect its chances. Probably won't do much for how it's going to play out, however that is,

because it's much more the fight in the house that is determinant of this because it's passed the senate so many times and um uh has not made it through the house yet but it'll be interesting to see if another effort to kind of water it down is successful and then how do these members who are supporting it react? Certainly. Brad, thanks so much for your coverage. I appreciate it. Matthew, we're coming to you. A federal judge in Texas closed a case challenging the federal ban on bump stocks, but the results left the winners perplexed. Give us those details. had an overwhelming victory before a full panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

in January ruling that a Trump administration-era gun control ban on bump stock devices, which are a stock that allows you to shoot a semi-automatic rifle like an AR-15 rapidly, similar to the rate of a fire of a machine gun, was an illegal ban on numerous fronts. The court remanded the case back to a federal district judge in Texas, instructing him to issue an order in favor of Cargill and cite basically the precedent that they elaborated on in their ruling. This past week, a federal judge for the Western District of Texas, David Ezra, did just what he was instructed to do, but it was sort of an unusual bare minimum. The single-page, four-sentence ruling basically says that he enters a judgment for the plaintiffs and setting the rule aside, issuing a nationwide injunction,

asking for a motion for summary judgment, and asking for all of his attorney's fees and relevant court costs. The ruling is silent on that, and it left Cargill and his attorneys scratching their heads. And he said he had spoken with attorneys all over the country since that single-page court order dropped, asking them, have you ever seen anything like this? And they said no. As a matter of fact, one seemed to think that it was a bit of a defiance of the Fifth Circuit on the judge's part, not wanting to carry forth the full duties that he should have. Now, Cargill says he's going to take it to mean that the court's granting him everything that he asked for in relief, but he's presently working with his attorneys to figure out the best route forward to clarify that end. Now, last month when we reported on the Fifth Circuit ruling in Cargill's favor, the federal government had the opportunity to appeal, and so the litigation was still pending.

We reached out to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, asking them for comment on what the status of their enforcement policies, whether or not they're treating bump stocks still as unregistered machine guns that carry a hefty 20 year criminal penalty prison sentence associated with them. And they declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. So since the judge closed the case, I reached back out to them and asked them, since there's no pending litigation. Can you comment now? And they replied back, no, but if you want to know what our enforcement policy is, they attached a link to their website citing their enforcement policy on machine guns, treating them as machine guns. So it was basically an implied, we're still going to enforce these bump stocks as machine guns.

So it was very interesting the way they presented it. We'll be looking forward to see what Cargill and his attorneys decide to do in response to this very brief victory. And he had a few entertaining quotes in reaction to it that you'll have to check out in our story. Yeah, that's exactly right. And we'll continue to watch. But needless to say, not much clarity was provided in all of this. So, Matt, thanks for your coverage. Cameron, we're coming to you. Representative Steve Toth from the Woodlands has introduced the Women and Child Safety Act. What is the purpose of this proposed law?

So just in brief, this would require internet service providers, so ISPs, to block internet access to information or material that would aid in the facilitation of obtaining an elective abortion, or obtaining abortion-inducing drugs. And so this brings up grounds for judicial review on the topics of data privacy, free speech, digital information, what it means to facilitate an abortion, could it be defined in both broad and narrow terms. Websites, platforms, what are going to be the definitions for those? And will they be held liable for instituting these regulations? Placing limits on the internet and content moderation has been a hot button topic for years, to say the least. What are the issues surrounding this bill specifically? So regulating website information through ISPs is going to be a difficult task to undertake as ISPs often do not process this online data that is being asked to track.

They usually outsource it to a third-party data broker who then will aggregate the information process and then license it. The content regulation related to the abortion information, which is the aim of Toth's bill, once litigated in court would likely come down to two separate Section 230 protections. And Section 230 has really been in the cultural sphere in terms of content moderation. And so one of the provisions is called the Good Samaritan Law, which stipulates no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on the account of, then it gives ideas for good faith action to restricting access, availability to material. And then the second provision, which is often called the 26 words that created the internet, is stated, treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another. And so these two protections in Section 230 are going to be litigated on in terms of toe spill. And with Texas's extensive pro-life laws and with Section 230 being in front

of the Supreme Court right now, we actually saw Justice Clarence Thomas had made remarks on Section 230, giving some insight, saying that we should consider whether the text of this increasingly important statute aligns with the current state of immunity enjoyed by the internet platforms. So this has a very interesting angle in terms of the effects of Section 230 across the nation. And as we will see this proceed along, this bill could actually stand on legal ground based on what happens with Section 230 at the Supreme Court. Certainly. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Bradley, we're coming to you. Senator Brian Hughes tried, or not tried, I misread your beautiful sentence here that you so kindly

wrote for me. Senator Brian Hughes filed a bill this week that is likely to be one of the legislature's main rebukes of ESG. What are those details? So Senator Hughes, who's been probably the foremost legislative critic of esg in the build-up to the session he's not the far from the only one that's criticized it but he held the hearing in december he's talked about he's on a panel about it at tppf's event last week um he's been out there quite a quite a bit um but he filed senate bill 1446 that that would prohibit state pensions or any agent working on their behalf from considering social, political, or ideological factors in their fiduciary decision making. How the decisions they make on investments, moving money from one investment to another, things like that. And so if passed, they would be required to only consider financial factors defined as decisions that would have a material effect on the portfolio's return on

investment. So this is a follow-up to last session. Senator Hughes has alluded to this quite a bit, but it goes further than that. It says a pensioner agent is considered to have violated this prohibition if it's reasonably determined to have made a financial decision based on those political factors, which includes public or private statements or joining a coalition that makes political statements we've seen a lot of a lot of companies and countries and local governments sign on to these things like the net zero coalition um it's especially prevalent on the energy climate change side of things but we see it more and more on other social issues such as abortion and things like that. But we see a lot of these entities joining these coalitions that are just broad statements of what their opinions are on a certain issue. And that is something that the Texas legislature wants to push back on. want their money going to um to fund those those kinds of statements especially with um with energy because oil and gas is so important to the state's financial health um there's like 400,000

some odd people employed by the oil and gas industry in texas the state has has really taken a business but state republicans especially has really taken a position, state Republicans especially, have really taken a position of protecting that. And so this is another step towards that aim. The bill would also require the Texas State Pension Review Board to track and make publicly available all the proxy vote information for each state pension system. And so that is something that is very difficult to find. The big pensions already provide that, but it's still difficult to make your way through to understand. So this is kind of a broad sweeping effort to streamline that, make it easier to understand and more publicly available, but also deal with the issue more head on. How will this fare in the legislature?

So last session, the ledge passed SB 13 with not very much trouble. That prohibited state pension investments in companies deemed to be, quote, divesting or sanctioning fossil fuels. This is the list that we have talked about and written about that Comptrollerenn hager published that includes blackrock this seems this new bill seems like the next step taking a more proactive approach to last session's reactive one another bill by by hughes that was filed related to this prohibits insurance companies from requiring political statements in exchange for financing. And so there's going to be, I think, multiple bills passed on this. It might just be those two, but more than one, I think. And then with Vanguard, one of the largest asset managers in the world, pulling itself from a climate coalition agreement last year, Republicans see ground being gained in this battle with the biggest drivers of

capital in the world. And so this is the next chapter in that. Thank you, Bradley Cameron, the trial gender modification issue continues to be a huge hot topic here in Texas. There are bill was filed this week that caught a lot of attention. What's different about this proposal?

So Representative Jeff Leach filed this bill that would require health insurance coverage for individuals who have suffered adverse effects of gender transition and who are seeking a gender reversal. And this, as I suspect, is being filed because there was the TPPF event last week that had a gender modification panel. And one of the panelists was Chloe Cole, who spoke about her experience and the negative effects of the process of her gender reversal and how she didn't have any support through the process from healthcare providers. How prevalent is gender modification and why does it seem like it has become so centered in our social issues? Well, just some interesting numbers that I came across. The number of teenagers who identify as transgender has risen

between 2017 and 2022. There are now over 300,000 children aged 13 to 17 who identify as transgender. And I got these numbers from the Williams Institute, which is a progressive think tank that focuses on gender issues. And one of the many hypotheses as to what is causing the sharp incline in identification is this idea of rapid-onset gender dysphoria. And what rapid-onset gender dysphoria is, is an emergent phenomenon where young people through social influence, poor mental health, neurodevelopmental disabilities, maladaptive coping skills, they will begin to identify as this opposite gender. And so what the medical community has done in sort of a reactive way, has adopted this idea of gender

affirming care. And I know we've all heard gender affirming care as being this model for treating cases of gender dysphoria. That's because within this gender affirming care model, doctors will now support the idea that gender may be fluid and is not binary. So these sorts of definitions have made their way out of the universities, into the medical community, and now into people's individual lives. And it's having real effects. So contrary to a lot of reports that we've seen in different media outlets that will say child gender

modification options, such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, that they are reversible. Well, in actuality, they are not completely reversible because what we found out is some scientists are worried about putting off puberty in children may disrupt bone and brain development and reduce the bone density, which leads to cognitive problems also in the brain development. I actually found some of this information from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. And in a report, they said they have limited data on the use of cross-sex hormones and that there was associations with cardiovascular and metabolic risks when using hormone therapies. And so, is there coverage for people right now who are facing challenges with their health insurance and

trying to detransition? Well, Medicare covers hormone therapy and gender transition-related surgeries if it is deemed medically necessary. And as I just went over, there's been a change in a lot of these definitions in terms of gender affirming care. So we've seen a lot of these cases deemed medically necessary where previous years, we might not have thought of these as being medically necessary. So with the changing landscape of these definitions and what is becoming the norm in how these words are defined as medically necessary, this bill would now cover individuals who have had negative effects due to gender transition and are seeking gender reversal. Wow. Well, Cameron, thank you for your coverage.

Bradley, you followed the saga out in Amarillo last year involving an odd maneuver used to prove a quarter of a billion dollars in debt. Now the legislature is intent on striking back. Tell us about it. Senator Kevin Sparks filed this week a few bills related to local government debt, but the headliner is Senate Bill 1810. It restricts the conditions necessary for a local government to issue a tax anticipation note by forbidding it within five years of voters rejecting the project that it is intending to be used for. It requires its fiscal note to be no more than 5% of the local government's outstanding debt total or prohibits

it if 5% of the locality's registered voters total or prohibits it if five percent of the localities registered voters sign a petition opposing the issuance senator sparks said in a statement texas has one of the highest local bond indebtedness in the country i think it's about at this point fourteen thousand dollars per citizen and that's third to only new york and california unless we do something to change course texas will continue to be mired in debt so last year amarillo officials approved the 260 million dollar tax anticipation note to expand its civic center less than two years after voters rejected a 275 million dollar bond for the same purpose. They were sued in court and they lost. And so the judge, though, did not rule on the merits of them using this maneuver.

The judge ruled that they violated public notice requirements. And so technically, if they had adhered to those public notice requirements this could have gone through um but tans are like bridge loans meant to get a government through dry periods between points of inflowing revenues it's not intended to pay for capital expenditures but the city planned to issue certificates of obligation, another form of non-voter approved debt to refinance that TAN debt after its initial issuance. And one legislator called it the most egregious abuse of Texas financing law that I've ever seen in my long career. I think this bill is going to pass through both chambers pretty speedily. Thank you, Bradley.

Hayden, a federal judge in Florida dealt a blow to Biden's immigration policy. What could be the significance of this decision? In September of 2021, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his subordinates published a memo outlining an alternatives to detention program. As I understand it, these were more or less more lenient deportation guidelines for illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, and other foreign nationals who are seeking to stay here. One of the elements of this is a humanitarian parole program. This is not parole in the sense of being released from prison on certain conditions. It's parole in a different sense of people being allowed to stay in the country for extenuating circumstances. This is the program that was used to admit people from Afghanistan fleeing the turmoil there and Ukrainians fleeing the war in Russia. But the federal judge in Pensacola,

Florida determined in his opinion that this program is illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act and he blocked it, staying his decision for seven days, giving the federal government time to appeal. This judge is an appointee of President Trump, and the decision was notable for a quote that he included in his decision. which is that defendants have effectively turned the southwest border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speed bump for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing, quote, alternatives to detention, end quote, over actual detention. And it was a pretty long run on sentence, so I'm not going to read the whole thing. But obviously critics would say that that's a pretty political statement to include in a judicial decision by this Trump appointed judge. But he has, for the time being, blocked these more lenient guidelines.

There you go, Hayden. Thank you, Matthew, coming to you for the last story of the docket here. Several Texas taxpayers are asking the Texas Supreme Court to strike down a scheme by the city of Austin to pay union workers a taxpayer-funded salary. Give us the details. Litigants Roger Bruegel, Mark Pulliam, and Jay Wiley argue that a scheme by the city of Austin to pay members of the private Austin Firefighters Association Union a full-time taxpayer-funded salary to perform work solely for the union violates several provisions of the Texas Constitution, namely the gift clauses, which generally operate to prohibit public funds from being used for private purpose. Several major conservative organizations are assisting in the lawsuit, including the Texas

Public Policy Foundation and the Goldwater Institute. And another one that filed an amicus brief, the National Right to Work Foundation. Interestingly, the National Right to Work Foundation says that the city of Austin is also violating the U.S. Supreme Court findings in the landmark Right to Work Janus decision. And in their amicus brief with the court, they explained their reasoning behind that argument. Litigants argue that the Texas third court of appeals erred in siding with the city and their decision and are asking the Texas Supreme court to take up the case for review.

Woof. There you go. We'll keep an eye on it. Gentlemen, thank you for your coverage. Let's move into the tweetery section here. We're nearing the end of our podcast and we certainly want to get to the end of the fun topic here and talk about kim a little bit but let's start with um some tweets from the week that caught our eye

so brian why don't you go ahead and start us off uh mine pertains to more than a few tweets that were sent out um representative brian slayton filed his te his Texas secession bill this week. And as expected, it sparked quite a fiery response from people, both for and against. And typical of this issue, the exchanges on Twitter were not very enlightening. People took sides and stuck with it, and then things got pretty personal pretty quick. But the issue itself is pretty interesting, whether Texas can succeed if it wanted to.

I wrote a piece last year on that, or maybe 2021 on that. It's got a lot of nuance to it. It's pretty interesting. Obviously, that is a different question from whether texas should secede uh but these two things are kind of getting blended together and um it's it's leading to a a pretty uh gross news cycle i would say but um i think there are people on both sides that make very good points.

And I just wanted to mention that it's an interesting topic if that's something you're curious about. Yeah, absolutely. Lots of fun Twitter action going on there. Hayden, what about you? Well, I'm cheating a little bit because I'm linking to my own tweet, but I tweeted because I saw somebody else's tweet. So I think this is allowed. But anyway, I saw a tweet about a bill in the Arizona Senate that died that would have divided Maricopa County, which is the county where Phoenix is the seat, into four different counties. And the Arizona Senate voted it down 80 18 to 12 excuse me i thought that was fascinating yeah that county has been national headlines for years now so pretty interesting to see that all go down one of those counties i don't know how much of the population

of arizona is in maricopa county i it is most yeah people in arizona live in maricopa county it's a huge county yeah and it could probably be a state by itself if you isolated it out a little bit like Harris County. I don't know what its population is, but evidently there was enough support that they debated and voted on it, but they couldn't get it done. Yeah. My parents live in Maricopa County and my sister and brother-in-law and I sent this to them and some of them knew about it, some of them didn't but like it's just been wild to see this like they live on the outskirts so it's like quiet it's chill but it's Maricopa County is hugely populated it's one of

the fastest growing areas of the country um so much growth and like infrastructure, like they're really handling it well in a lot of ways, but the scandals or the just election type issues are what make Maricopa County the hotbed that it is. So very fascinating. And I'm very curious to kind of like dig into how that debate all settled out and who was on what side and the rhetoric that was being used to talk about it. So thanks for flagging that for us, Cameron, what do you have for us? I just see this in the docket and I'm excited about it already. Well, you know, we get so caught up in this milieu of bills and laws

definition. You know, we need to bring something fun, different to the podcast. So I came across a story that apparently 20 years ago, a volunteer at a zoo, just about an hour outside of Austin, just walked off with an alligator egg in her pocket and apparently has been raising this alligator in her backyard for the past 20 years and so um just casually just casually having an alligator in the backyard just a pet well i guess it grew to over eight feet long and the the texas parks and wildlife Department got a call like, hey, someone is raising an alligator as a pet. Can you guys come check this out? So they returned the alligator to the zoo.

It's being- After 20 years. After 20 years, being reintroduced to all its probably long lost brothers and sisters. And I thought this was interesting because can you keep an alligator as a pet? Well, I guess you can get a permit to have an alligator as a pet, but it has to be for educational purposes or for research. You can't just take an alligator egg from a lake or a river and start raising it. You mean you can't have an emotional support alligator? Maybe you could.

I could not imagine getting on a plane with someone. I just want to know if you're dating, what date is it that you bring up the fact that you're raising an alligator in your backyard that you abducted? Oh my gosh. Because it's going to come up, right? Because eventually you're going to have to mention it. So I just, I wonder how that works out.

Have y'all ever seen that Leave It to Beaver episode where he's got the comic book and at the back end of it, there's a send us a buck 50 or something like that. And we'll send you a live alligator. So he sends off for it. And sure enough, if they get a box, he and his brother get a box in the mail and they open it up and it's got a baby alligator in it so they didn't know what to do with it so they uh they decide to uh keep it in the toilet tank and so they they they start growing this alligator in the toilet tank and keeping it hidden from the parents and it finally gets too big to keep it in the toilet it was a great episode oh man i've never seen it um well that's fascinating i growing up i knew a couple of well i knew one

family and he was like we called him the reptile man and he would he had a bunch of alligators and snakes and pythons and just different things that he kept and he would go to schools or like classrooms and teach kids about the reptiles so i guess that might be like you can have a permit if you're gonna go show off your pets yes but you can't just have an alligator yeah exactly exactly that's wild i really love that matt what about you what did you find well i was uh sitting in the texas Senate yesterday, actually, and they took up Senate Resolution 280 that I tweeted about. So I'm mentioning my own tweet here. But I thought it was pretty cool because the Senate honored the 200th anniversary of the Texas constables. And there was 25 or 30 constables on hand from around the state for the passage of this resolution.

But it's a pretty cool resolution that was taken up by Senators Birdwell, Hughes, and Kulkors that kind of goes into the history of the office, how it was established by Stephen F. Austin in 1823 and is one of, you know, two peace officers established in the Texas Constitution and how there's 780 of them across the state and talks about, you know, how diverse the law enforcement agencies can be from just a single person to big agencies with deputies that do investigative stuff, how they're kind of known as the people's police. And I just thought it was kind of interesting because actually my dad was a constable a long, long time ago. And so it was pretty interesting going in and reading the

history of it and seeing the interesting role that this constitutional office plays in the state. So, yeah, it's definitely a resolution that's worth a read. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Matthew. Okay, gentlemen, we're going to pivot to our fun topic, which is also just a very sad topic. Kim Roberts, if y'all tuned into the podcast last week, you heard that she will be leaving our team. She published her last piece with us this week and is saying her goodbyes, which just suck. We don't like to say goodbye to our any member.

I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Man, Hayden has been dreading this for a long time but um regardless we just want to take some time and thank her for all her work that she's done to provide awesome coverage of tarrant county and just other statewide issues whether it be high-speed rail um or medical care during covid whatever it was she's just provided an incredible standard of journalism for our readers so we wanted to say thank you kim and she couldn't join the podcast this week she's off doing fancy lawyer things but we wanted to take a moment and

just commiserate and say uh she's just incredible and that we'll miss her dearly while she's gone um i'm trying to think my favorite story from kim i'm having a hard time picking just one. I have one that comes to mind. Bring it on. So as we were preparing for our event on the legislative event and our panel discussions, she has a bit of an expertise in public speaking and everything like that. So we were each sitting down getting a bit of a training with her and said, okay, well, you know, give us a minute speech or something like this and, you know, recite it to me like you're sitting in front of an audience and I will critique it. I was like, oh, okay. So, I gave this response and she goes, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, the first thing that I noticed is that whenever you speak, your arms are just like all over the place.

Like you really talk with your arms. And she's like, you were way up here at one point. And all this other stuff. She's like, you got to keep your hands like, otherwise you're just going to look very animated. And I thought, oh, snap, I do do that. Yeah. I am a hand talker. Totally.

And you don't notice those things until somebody points them out to you right it's hard to know these things about yourself just an example of you know one of many instances and in which she her input and her wisdom uh she's just been a fantastic colleague uh to work with and and will be greatly missed. And she's made me a better reporter. And I think a lot of us can probably share that sentiment as well. Yeah. She knows her stuff. I've worked with Kim. It's a little bit surreal to be having this conversation because I've known Kim for a long time. But I've worked with her for the past three or four years because before I even

moved to Austin, I coached high school speech and debate with her in North Texas at a new debate club that had been started. And I was introduced to that through some mutual friends, and Kim and I ended up coaching a parliamentary debate, which was a lot of fun. And that was how I ended up being introduced to the Texan. And so I also just appreciate Kim's advice and mentorship of me over the years. And that goes back to when I was in high school, she provided, you know, she judged speech and debate rounds that I was involved in, and she provided feedback that was so helpful. That's why that when we did have that workshop where Kim was training us on our speaking style, that was really nostalgic. And as far as fun stories go, I just, I always enjoyed all the times that Kim and Holly would tag team and slack and gang up on the rest of us.

And they would kind of be the the rebel group in slack and they would kind of get get things going. And it would be funny to watch some cause trouble on Slack. And even at our, Kim just has a great sense of humor, even at our company event last year that we talked about parliamentary procedure earlier. I think I mentioned that I was, that I had been involved in that in high school and Kim just relentlessly made fun of me. And it was a lot of funny to just watch her get a kick out of that. So we will miss Kim. I will definitely miss Kim. It's going to feel bizarre not working with Kim anymore, having

worked with Kim for so many years, but we appreciate her. And now that she's going to be practicing law again, it'll be fun to kind of continue to get her perspective on things as well. Well, that was one thing she was able to provide of continue to get her perspective on things as well well that was one thing she was able to provide in addition to her expertise of many different issues was her legal background of being able to say this is how the court system works or like just provide you know a lot of context for us who aren't as familiar with the system yeah i mean that's perfect transition to what i was going to say there was uh i a piece on the Texas-New Mexico lawsuit over the Rio Grande River and water coming from Colorado down into Texas. And I thought it was quirky and interesting, states suing each other over water.

Then she goes, it's an original jurisdiction case. Meaning this was the original jurisdiction of the u.s supreme court to handle disputes between states and i didn't know that um and so that was made an interesting aspect of the piece to write and uh wouldn't have done that without her saying that so yeah i second everything hayden said she knows her stuff i'll miss her dry sense of humor and the way she keeps us all in line particularly you boys oftentimes i am on an island as the only gal temporarily in this office and kim and holly have always provided well for the most part unless they're causing chaos specifically, Holly. But Kim has always provided a little bit of a backup for me.

And I've appreciated that so much. But she's brilliant. She knows what she's doing. She's written so well. And over the years, I mean, she's been with us for a very long time, even before Hayden, which is wild because Hayden's been with us for a long time, too. And for Kim, we likely wouldn't have connected with hayden as quickly as we did we're so grateful for that too but um throughout all of this she's really uh there's been a small army of people who very uh consistently will write her and thank her for her reporting and

she's kindly shared that with connie and, just different emails that she's gotten from readers praising her work or just thanking her for covering issues that so often mainstream outlets don't necessarily pay attention to. Nobody else has covered Texas Central. The way she has. The way she has. There's actually a pretty funny email. Good article. My family owns a piece of land that is been held hostage by this boondoggle. I suggest that the article should have been titled, Texas High Speed Rail Hasn't Moved an Inch or The Little Train That Couldn't.

There are just a lot of very sweet and endearing emails and responses that she's gotten over the years for her reporting and rightfully so. So Kim, we're just appreciative of all the work you've done to help us build this business over the last few years. We'll miss you. Don't be a stranger. And I think it's just bittersweet for all of us. I will say we've, again, because of Kim's network, very quickly found somebody to cover her beats, at least for the meanwhile. Seth Moorhead has officially joined our team, published his first piece this week. He did awesome work and will be covering Tarrant County and a lot of short term rentals. High speed rail. He's also interested in.

So there will be continued coverage of those issues right away. So we're very grateful for that easy transition. So make sure to go welcome Seth to the team. You can find him on Twitter. And he's a natural reporter. I mean, his first article was excellent. So I'm looking forward to reading more of his coverage. Yeah, I will.

I'm so grateful and we'll take him as long as we can get him. He's done a great job for us so far. So regardless, let's Kim's last week. I don't like it. I know. Every time you say it. No, no, I'll just text him but we decided we voted you can't quit sorry yeah exactly you have to stay the executive committee of the

texan is in this room and we've met you're not on it you don't get to say your departure is denied we decided we'd miss you too much exactly uh i don't think it'll be real for me until she's not on slack anymore and not yeah coming in with her little comments and i'm gonna i'm gonna think oh i need to tag kim oh i can't tag him on slack i know i'm making this way more difficult than it needs to be hayden can be like just warn me when it's her last day i need to know i need to know yeah oh Well, Kim, we're grateful for you. Folks, thanks so much for listening,

especially as we commiserated and got caught up in nostalgia here in these last few minutes. We appreciate you listening each and every week and we'll catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts,

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