The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 24, 2023

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Get a free 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: The Texas Senate passing and sending to the House its property tax relief planNew bills to rein in the governor’s emergency powers and ban vaccine mandates A Texas lawmaker’s bill to crack down on politicized “public nuisance” lawsuitsAttorney General Ken Paxton claiming Texas’ “Blaine amendments” violate the First AmendmentPaxton criticizing the request for a timeline for him to pay a settlement to the “whistleblowers” suing himThe Legislature considering bills to encourage investment in “carbon capture” technologiesA spike in reported Chinese nationals being stopped at the southern borderA House ballot access bill serving as the proxy fight between factions of the Texas GOPNew lawsuits setting new precedent on public information law requestsThe Municipal Utility Districts boasting millions of dollars in debt across TexasA parent’s accusation that her child’s middle school had the students participate in a “sexualized” role-playing gameA Gulf Cartel-connected cocaine trafficker receiving 15 years in prison

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses the Texas Senate passing and sending to the House its property tax relief plan, new bills to rein in the governor's emergency powers and ban vaccine mandates, a Texas lawmakers bill to crack down on politicized public nuisance lawsuits. Attorney General Ken Paxton claiming Texas' Blaine amendments violate the First Amendment. Paxton criticizing the request for a timeline for him to pay a settlement to the whistleblowers suing him. The legislature considering bills to encourage investment in carbon capture technologies. A spike in reported Chinese nationals being stopped at the southern border.

A House ballot access bill serving as the proxy fight between factions of the Texas GOP. New lawsuits setting new precedent on public information law requests. The municipal utility districts boasting millions of dollars in debt across Texas. A parent's accusation that her child's middle school had the students participate in a sexualized role-playing game, and a Gulf cartel-connected cocaine trafficker receiving 15 years in prison. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode.

Well, howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Cameron, Matt, Rob, and Hayden. Rob, welcome back. It's been a while since you've been on the pod. You are standing in for Brad today and you've already been impersonating him. I'm putting you on blast right away for the last five minutes. They were good impressions as well. Thank you very much. It's good to be back. I've got some big shoes to fill taking for Brad's stories this week, but I hope I can get it done. You just were doing an on-the-mic impression of Bradley and you were doing his head tilt, how he will speak with his head like kind of pointed down and back and forth. He's going to listen to this and be like, I don't do that. But he totally does because we all recognized it right away as a Bradley thing.

But you are joining us today specifically to cover Brad's story since he is on his way to back home and to Ohio for this weekend. So let's go ahead and start off with you. Property tax relief has been on the top of voters' minds here in Texas, as always. As we've heard time and time again in the last few legislative sessions, what plan does the Senate have for delivering relief to taxpayers? So the Senate has passed their property tax relief plan. It's worth about $16.5 billion for additional compression, about $3 billion to raise the school district homestead exemption, $500 million to raise the over 65 and disabled homestead exemption, and about $1.5 billion to increase the business per personal property tax

exemption and create an inventory tax credit. So all four measures passed the Senate unanimously. So of the 31 members, all of them voted in favor of each of these measures. And just as a reminder to folks in Texas, for the one constitutional amendment, for that to pass and become law, it needs to pass by two-thirds of both chambers and then moved to a vote of the people of Texas. So it takes a little

bit longer for that to become law. How does this relate to the House's plan? So Senate Bill 5 is the Senate's answer to a portion of the House's proposal that would reduce the appraisal cap from 10% to 15% and extend it to all property. Currently, it's just for homesteads. The Senate's preference is to raise the business personal property tax exemption, which is levied on all property a business owns other than the land just on which it operates. So they want to raise that from $2,500 to $25,000. It was only $500 until last session when they raised it to $2,500. So the senators and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have said that they used to favor reducing the appraisal cap, which is currently what the House wants to go for. But the upper chamber says that they've since really changed their minds and

now want to focus on this business personal property tax exemption. And notable in that the House and the Senate have been going back and forth all session about this, but there has been a lot of discussion and not much movement in either chamber to see the other chambers proposed or preferred method talked about. So they're very much staking their claim in their respective plans. Rob, thanks for covering as Brad is out this week. Matthew, let's talk with you about a couple of bills passed this week. They're making their way through the Senate and the House related to reforming emergency powers used in responding COVID-19. Big topic of conversation. Last legislative session that never ended up going anywhere or it never was passed into law.

And medical freedom related bills were also a topic of discussion. Walk us through the latest. Right. And now these issues are carrying support from some of the top state's top leaders, such as Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. To start off over in the upper chamber, the Texas Senate, Senator Brian Birdwell, a Greenberry Republican, is carrying several of these top reforms, including Senate Bill 29, which is within Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's list of top 30 priorities. This bill would prohibit any local or state official from closing private businesses or mandating masks or vaccines, but all specifically as it relates to responding to COVID-19. It does not limit the government's power in exercising these powers in relating to non-COVID issues. Now, Senate Bill 29 was given approval by the Senate Committee on State Affairs this past week and now heads to the Senate floor. He has another notable bill along these issues that's much more broad in application, Senate Bill 1104, which has also been approved by the State Affairs Committee and carries 14

bipartisan co-authors signaling strong support in the upper chamber for this version of emergency powers reform. It reserves the power to restrict businesses or close businesses during a state of disaster to only the legislature and then on top of that the legislature can only do it by getting the consent of the county judge where the disaster is affected. In addition, the bill limits the governor's power to suspend state law during the first 30 days of a disaster and limits that suspension to three specific codes, the penal code, the code of criminal procedures, and the election code. However, the election code provisions such as voter qualification and other certain items may not be suspended. Now worth mentioning, the governor's emergency powers under existing Disaster Act laws are presently facing judicial

challenge before the Texas Supreme Court, which I've previously reported on with several local governments challenging Abbott's authority that he exercised during the past several years in response to COVID-19. Meanwhile, over in the House of Representatives, there's a number of bills moving forward focusing on the COVID vaccine itself. House Bill 1313 by Chairman Representative Dustin Burroughs from Lubbock has a highly anticipated vaccine transparency-related bill, which is being backed by some of the state's top medical freedom organizations, such as Texans for Medical Freedom. founder Jackie Schlegel, who said that she was very thankful for Chairman Burroughs' legislation that would essentially require state health officials to study the true efficacy of the vaccine and issue a report on its impacts and what it does. She also pointed to two other bills in our interview with her, House Bill 44 by Valerie Swanson, a spring Texas Republican, and House Bill 81 by Representative Brian Harrison of Midlothian.

So basically, Swanson's legislation would prohibit discrimination against a Medicaid recipient or child plan program enrollee based on their immunization status, which is seen as a medical freedom issue, while Harrison's bill prohibits anyone from being compelled to take a COVID-19-related vaccine. Now, all of these bills are being actively heard and approved in committees and are making their way to the respective floors of both the Chamber of the house of representatives and the texas senate support is is growing this is an ongoing active issue and it's something that we're going to continue to monitor here at the texan as these very visible issues progress yeah and i think last session was when a lot of folks saw movement on these issues as imminent and now we're seeing it as this session is actually the session where leadership

and statewide officials are willing to tackle these issues. Sure. We've reported how, you know, some of these issues made it in Lieutenant Governor Patrick's top 30 priority bills. Some of these issues were mentioned in Governor Abbott's State of the State Address. So definitely some heavy hitters bringing a lot of weight to bear in both chambers. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Matthew. Brad, we're back to you. Exactly. Thank you. Very good to be here. Let's go back to you, Rob, as you're covering Brad's pieces this

week. What are these public nuisance lawsuits that this bill that Texas lawmakers have filed is trying to crack down on? So public nuisance common law dates back to 15th century England, where it was originally used to provide a path for the preservation of public land use, such as prohibiting someone from blocking the use of a road, right? The whole point is you can't do something like this that would be a nuisance to the public as it were. And I'm ecstatic that Brad decided to include this part because as you all know, I do love history. So this was great to get to include. I for a second thought it was you who included that fact and not Brad from his piece. I'd forgotten. But yes, it does sound like a Rob fact as it does also a Brad fact. So the thing is some people nowadays are using these public nuisance lawsuits

for more political purposes, such as targeting firearms or fossil fuel manufacturers, claiming that the products that they create because they cause harm to people are in and of themselves a public nuisance. So that's what this bill is taking a look at right now. Got it. So talk to us about the specific aim of this bill. So the bill's aim is to prohibit lawsuits from being brought against a claim that a product endangers the health. I'm sorry, the proposal would prohibit the suits from being brought against a claim that a product endangers the health, safety or welfare of the public at large or has caused injury to one or more members of the public or a claim based on the health, safety, or welfare of the public at large, or has caused injury to one or more members of the public, or a claim based on the manufacturing, distributing, selling, labeling,

or marketing of a product, regardless of whether the product is defective. See, these public nuisance lawsuits, you can sue if the product that they're providing is defective or if it's not doing what it's supposed to do. But the thing is, some of these people are suing, for example, a gun manufacturer on the claim that people use guns to commit violence, but the gun itself is not a defective product, you know, um, or they're suing because they believe that the fossil fuel manufacturers are, are, you know, contributing to climate change, but in and of itself, the product that they're making the oil or gas or whatever it is, is not in and of itself a defective product. So for example, there've been lawsuits from certain Californian cities against Exxon for, for, you know, carbon emissions.

Exxon sued those cities in Texas courts, but the state Supreme court dismissed Exxon's Exxon, Exxon trying to sue them back. I believe it was trying to sue them back. So it's an interesting issue to see how they're, they're trying to crack down on this. But yeah, we'll just have to see how that goes. Yeah, a little bit of skewed grounds there they're trying to address. Rob, thank you for your coverage. Cameron, let's talk about an opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton that made some waves this week. It came unexpectedly and garnered a lot of attention. Can you tell us what this opinion is about and what the Blaine Amendments are? Yeah. So, Blaine Amendments, which are included in multiple state constitutions, actually prevent the use of government funds for religious institutions. But there have been multiple decisions over the past few years in various states that have proven that Blaine Amendments are in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. And so, as I was looking into this, Texas actually has two of these Blaine Amendments in the state constitution. Brandon Creighton, had requested this legal opinion to determine whether the Establishment

Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Blaine Amendments in the Texas Constitution would be violated by the Senate School Choice Plan that they proposed. Well, Paxton concluded that the Blaine Amendments themselves are in violation of the Free Exercise Clause and that any law, action, or policy implemented to comply with them is unconstitutional. And Paxton said this about educational savings accounts, that offering parents and students education assistance payments that can be directed to public and private schools, including sectarian schools that offer parents and students a genuine and independent choice to select a private religious school does not violate the Establishment Clause.

So what does this mean moving forward with school choice propositions in the legislature? Well, so after this issue has been given an opinion by the Attorney General. The Senate's school choice plan can now claim to stand on firm legal ground. And as it continues to move through the legislative process, they can go back to this and use it as support for their plan. There you go. We'll continue to watch how this all goes down. Thank you so much, Cameron. School choice is like the topic this session.

Actually, I'm going to ask you about that real fast. I know you spoke this week, throwing this at you out of the blue with former Governor Rick Perry about this issue with school choice. We'll have a piece coming out with some of his comments, but tell us a little bit about that interview and why the former governor is all of a sudden deciding to join the conversation about why school choice should be passed this legislative session. Yeah. So he has always been in support of school choice. When he was Lieutenant Governor in 1999, they tried to get a school choice plan pushed through, but they weren't able to get a school choice plan done back then. But now there's been

a lot of momentum, as you mentioned, multiple school choice plans with different parameters and different stakes set in. And so really the main reason it seemed when I was speaking with him is he sees the momentum and he wants to put his support behind it. And it was, we'll have a full piece out. And he gave a lot of insight into the things that he really liked and some of the comments from Greg Abbott, who has supported education savings accounts. So Perry was really interested in just putting his support behind school choice. Yeah, interesting to watch that happen. So much momentum for school choice this session,

and there have been committee hearings, all sorts of stuff. We'll continue to cover the issue. Your coverage has been wonderful, so thank you, Cameron. Hayden, we're going to come to you next. This employees are suing Ken Paxton because they believe they were unjustly fired in retaliation for reporting their suspicions of bribery and abusive office to federal investigators back in 2020. This suit has been going on for a number of years, and recently it entered into settlement negotiations. At the request of the parties, the Texas Supreme Court decided to abate the case and let them work out a settlement which was to be $3.3 million and Ken Paxton was going to lobby the legislature to have that paid out. However, the plaintiffs in the case asked the Supreme Court to take the case back up because they believed Ken Paxton was slow moving to get those funds for

the settlement. Paxton, in his own filing this week, said that his opponents in the suit knew full well that procuring legislative funding for this settlement would be a drawn-out process and that it could take months or even multiple legislative sessions. On Monday, we recently hit the bill filing deadline, which means that the legislature is now able to take up bills that were not emergency items. And the House Appropriations Bill, in fact, is set to be heard this afternoon at 2 p.m. So Paxton argued in this filing that it was unreasonable to expect him to be able to expedite the timeline for securing that legislative funding. And he opposed the motion for the Supreme Court to take up

the case again and to lift the abatement. And he had some interesting words for his opponents in the case. He said, quote, indeed, no timing provision can be imposed upon the Texas legislature for any appropriation without running afoul of the Texas Constitution. And then another notable quote was, and whatever time limitation respondents may try to read into the mediated settlement agreement, it is inconceivable that the parties contracted to allow themselves mere weeks and less than one half of a single legislative session to run the bureaucratic and legislative gauntlet that securing approval of the MSA will require, end quote. Also of note, he accused them of violating confidentiality by paraphrasing,

quote, oral communications, end quote, in their motion to abate the case. There you go. So what is the chance of the legislature doling out this settlement? We're in the second half of the session. As I mentioned, the appropriations bill is set to be heard in committee today, and it has already been in subcommittees. Speaker Phelan said he does not believe it is a proper use of tax dollars. I obviously cannot predict with a crystal ball whether or not lawmakers will put it in the budget. It is an uphill battle, though. House Appropriations heard testimony from Paxton and his staff on the settlement.

They said it is the least expensive option. So from a fiscal standpoint, they may decide to do it. But it obviously does not sit well with some that the state, the taxpayers would be paying a settlement on Ken Paxton's behalf. Yeah, absolutely. Hayden, thanks for your coverage. Rob, we are coming back to you. The legislature is currently considering several carbon capture bills. What is carbon capture and why is the legislature interested in it? So carbon capture is when man-produced carbon dioxide is pulled from the air or caught before it's released. You know, industrial processes produce all kinds of emissions, including carbon dioxide that has decreased substantially since 2007. But carbon capture is increasingly viewed as a way to further reduce those emissions without actually stunting the oil and gas production in the state, which is very important

to Texas's economy. You know, we've known that legislators are willing to take steps to protect the oil and gas industry in Texas, considering how vital it is to the state. So carbon capture allows them to sort of negate, or at least try to negate the negative effects of the potential negative effects of carbon dioxide emissions without actually having to cut down on the emissions themselves. However, this has also drawn criticism from some anti-fossil fuel environmentalists who think that carbon capture is ultimately not a good solution to the problem because they want to see fossil fuel production itself cut down to as much of a minimum as possible. It's an energy-intensive process, and it's also quite

expensive. So the legislature is looking to give it a financial boost with certain tax incentives. What kind of proposals is the legislature considering? Well, I'm very glad you asked. So Texas already has a 50% tax cut for using captured carbon, which is intended to incentivize the technology on the back end. But they're also looking at more proposals this session to encourage investment in this industry. So they want to create credits for carbon sequestration on Texas parks and wildlife controlled land. They want to establish a tax exemption for property that is used for carbon capture. They want to add carbon capture to the Clean Energy Project franchise tax credit, exempt carbon capture from the tangible personal property tax, and prohibit the application of public nuisance lawsuits to carbon capture projects,

which relates to the public nuisance issues that we brought up earlier. Because there are, again, environmentalists who are not really in favor of carbon capture, because they think that it's sort of skirting around the problem rather than doing what they think we should be doing, which is cutting down on carbon emissions in general, not trying to sort of negate negative effects of it. So overall, their plan is to use tax reductions to encourage investment in the industry. In a session dominated, as we talked about, by property taxes as well, I think the legislature is looking for opportunities to use tax incentives to produce better outcomes, I suppose, and just looking to cut down on taxes in general. Yeah, certainly. Well, Rob, thank you for your coverage of that issue, and certainly worth going to thetexan.news to read more about what the specifics you mentioned mean, because this is a lot of gibberish to a lot of us. And it's important to know what the legislature is considering on this issue.

A lot of jobs in Texas are affected by this industry, obviously. And so, make sure to go to Texas Front News. We have a lot more information. Absolutely. I can't, unfortunately, do justice to Brad's stories. They are better than anything I could say on here. So he goes into great detail in all of these things. So I can everyday Texans, to keep doing our jobs. When you subscribe, you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published so that you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month.

And we just brought back that fan favorite merch item. You've heard me talk about it before. New subscribers will get a free fake news stops here mug. By far, our most popular merch item of all time. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Do you ever get tired of me reading my ads? Actually, it's been a little while since I read an ad, so maybe y'all aren't tired of it, but sometimes I get tired of hearing myself talk about the ads.

Sometimes when I'm driving home, I just put on a podcast and skip straight to the ad. That's all I want to hear. Honestly, but for the Texan, you should. You should skip to the ad and you should subscribe to us. That's just the point. If you haven't subscribed, let's just pretend the ad is still going. You can still subscribe now while this ad is quote-unquote

still going. Make sure to go to thetexan.news. Thank you for listening and thank you for supporting us. And it costs less than a meal at Wendy's, by the way. That's true. I'm just saying. $90 at Wendy's? No. Okay, for a monthly subscription.

I'll modify. If you look at my Wendy's bill, it might be cheaper. Maybe Hayden can eat at Wendy's for about $7.50. Rob, however, likely is not able to say the same. This coffee I have right now costs $7.50. Oh my gosh. I know. Is it just like a cup of plain black coffee?

No, it's a latte. It's an oat milk, white chocolate latte. I know. That better be a heck of an oat milk latte. Wait, what did you call it? Oat milk, white chocolate latte. That better be a heck of an oat milk, white chocolate latte. Coffee has gotten, like lattes specifically, have gotten so expensive.

I think it's very much an Austin thing also, which don't get me started on the Austin coffee scene. I will complain about it, but I do partake. So I am part of the problem. Would you call yourself a hipster? Do I look like, well, actually I should not, I should not ask that for a coffee. I was about to say, do I look like a hipster? And I was like, I probably should not say that with my blue light glasses on today. It's probably the wrong day to ask that. Lord in heaven. Let's go ahead and get back to the news here. Hayden, there has been an increase in the number of Chinese illegal immigrants stopped at the border.

What are some of the highlights of those numbers? I'm just, I'm too distracted by coffee to talk about this anymore. I'm it is expensive i love my coffee they're delicious yeah but they're so good let's talk about illegal immigration i guess let's talk about it which is more expensive this coffee or the illegal immigration crisis at the border right now your coffee definitely There were 4,366 encounters with illegal immigrants from China in the southwestern U.S. from October through February, according to Customs and Border Protection's monthly operational update. 1,136 of those encounters occurred in Border patrol sectors anchored in Texas. At this point during the last fiscal year, there had only been 421 Chinese nationals encountered at the southern border, with 175 of those encounters in Texas. So a precipitous increase in Chinese illegal immigrants being stopped by border patrol agents.

There you go. Why could it be significant that there are increased illegal immigration numbers from China? Well, it's no secret that the relationship between China and the U.S. has been tense lately. There obviously was the incident with the Chinese surveillance craft traveling across the United States and being shot down off the coast of South Carolina. And the federal government just a few months ago in October, ironically, right before this increase began, announced charges against Chinese nationals who are accused of using harassment and coercion to try to repatriate individuals back to China, even though they were lawfully in the United States. There were also, as part of that same

announcement, individuals charged with trying to obstruct a federal investigation into a Chinese company and others who are accused of trying to recruit American university professors as assets to feed them intelligence. And the Department of Justice was very strong against China in that news conference stating that the United States respects the rule of law and that it is in fact not... The gist of what they said at that time was that China views our respect for the rule of law as a weakness. And the DOJ was emphasizing

that it would not tolerate this type of conduct, which is a sentiment that they also frequently express in these types of situations. But they are seeking charges against these Chinese individuals. So that occurred right before this fiscal or in the first month of this fiscal year. And then there was the incident with the Chinese surveillance craft. So there may be those who are looking at this information and raising alarm about China's potential malice intent. But obviously, I haven't seen any evidence thus far that the increase in illegal immigration is somehow being orchestrated by the Chinese government. So I do want to be careful and

make sure that I'm not implying that CBP is saying that, but there is this increase while relations with China are already strained. And then of course, there are those who are concerned about increasing hate crimes against Asian American individuals, which did increase in from 2019 to 2020. Although hate crimes against black and white individuals also increased significantly during that time. So there just isn't an increase in what the DOJ would call hate crimes overall. Certainly. And I would say also your piece contextualizes all of this in the broader scope of what is happening at the border. It's a great piece if you want a lot of detail on who's coming from where. And also a good reminder as well that the crisis at the border is very nuanced and complicated. And there are a lot of different nationalities represented by

those who are coming across the border illegally as well. And something I'm sorry, I forgot to note is that Governor Abbott mentioned when he declared fentanyl traffickers to be terrorists is that many of the subcomponents of fentanyl are manufactured in China and come through Mexico. So that is also a factor to consider in this discussion. Though, again, that's not to imply that these Chinese illegal immigrants are coming in with backpacks of fentanyl on. That's not what I'm saying. It is a concern with the Chinese government and one of the reasons why suspicions about China are raised at this point. Certainly.

Thank you, Hayden. Bradley, are you ready to talk more? Oh, I was born ready. You've grown quite a bit since the last time I saw you. Yep. I couldn't think of a snappy comeback to that. I feel like I'm all out of snappy comebacks. You're pretty speedy too.

Rob, how tall are you? Six four? I am six foot four. My sister insists that I am 6'5". Well, let's listen to your sister and just go for the taller number there. 6'5", sounds good to me. Let's talk about a proxy fight going on between different factions of the Republican Party of Texas. What are those factions and what is their conflict over? So in the simplest of terms and the most convenient definitions, there's tension between the state Republican Executive Committee or the SREC, which runs the state GOP and the GOP officials

in the legislature. So the SREC wants GOP politicians to more strongly pursue the party priorities, whereas in the legislature, politicians tend to be a bit more pragmatic about what they can and can't get done. So there are more partisan and less partisan people on both sides of the divide, but that's sort of a broad overview of this conflict, this tension. The party that wants to be more involved, get their priorities, all that stuff, and the politicians in office who are a bit more pragmatic. Or doing their own thing. Or yeah, just straight up doing their own thing.

Either or, for sure. So the intra-party fight is over a bill from Representative Dustin Burroughs that would prohibit party officials from, quote, denying a person eligible to affiliate with a political party the ability to affiliate with a political party, the ability to affiliate with that party. So in other words, it would prevent local parties from being able to block someone running in that local party just because they didn't like them. So for example, a local party would not have the ability to prevent someone from running as a Republican in that county, just because they didn't approve of their policies. So on one side, you have people who believe that the party's sole function is to hold primary elections and fundraise for candidates in the general. On the other side, you have people who

believe that the party should play a larger role in the legislative process, identifying priorities and lobbying for them in the legislature. And that includes sort of making sure that candidates that they don't like are going on the ballot. Candidates that they think are not standing up for what their party believes in. There you go. Also, I'm thinking there you go is my new good stuff. I need to stop saying that or else I will get an angry email from someone because I've said that like four times. There you go. There you go. I'm a fan of there you go. I just became very self-aware of that as I said that word. What were you saying, Rob? Sorry. I said I'm a fan of there you

go. I think I say that a lot. Maybe I got it from you. Do people still send you angry emails? Well, always. Not about my podcast performance, thankfully, but I mean, now that I've said that, I'll get four. So we'll see. So I started to listen to your

Alec Murdoch podcast series. And I went back and I started at the first episode. And at the end, she goes, make sure to send me a note unless you're going to make fun of my vocal fry. And I felt guilty because the entire time I was thinking, man, she has a bad vocal fry. I don't even know what a vocal fry is. But yeah, she did get a lot of hate for that which was funny but i have gotten emails previously i said good stuff every time

someone ended and that was my transition and i had no clue we're so unaware of how we speak typically and i just realized my there you go is my like placeholder while i find my spot on our docket so i should be more prepared is really what it comes down to. Yeah. Mine is as it relates to, I use the phrase way too much. I say essentially, I'm like,

that makes me sound smarter than, um, but it's the same exact thing. Yeah. Um, words. Oh, my Atlanta.

Okay. Rob, we're getting back to your story here, uh, or rather Brad story, but your story, let's just give it to you for this, for the intent of this podcast. Sure. I just, I'll just be Brad. Just take it. Absolutely. Why would local party officials

want to block certain people from running on the ballot as a Republican? So many Republican politicians really just sort of don't live up to the standards that local parties and the state party want them to. They're either, as I mentioned, they're more moderate than the party is, or they're really sort of doing their own thing. They're not really paying attention to the party's priorities. I remember last year when we went to the state Republican convention in Houston, you know, there was a big hubbub on social media about the priorities that the party released. A lot of more moderate and liberal people were not big fans of the platform. They weren't in favor of the priorities.

But there's also the fact that a lot of Republican GOP politicians don't pay as much attention to the party platform and priorities as perhaps the party themselves would like them to. So, you know, Congressman Tony Gonzalez was recently officially censored by the SREC after the Medina County GOP censored him for a variety of votes of which the two bodies both disapproved. So that doesn't mean Gonzalez can't run as a Republican at this point, but the county and state parties don't really have to be impartial about it. They can say, like, we're not in favor of this guy. So it's just an interesting example of some people like to imagine that Texas is this solid red state and the politicians and the party and everything's lockstep churning out conservative Republican legislation. And in many ways, it's just not really true.

You know, it's it's there's a bunch of there are factions within the sort of GOP world in Texas that are competing with each other that have different interests so it's interesting to see how that plays out especially during a session year and especially in the texas house i would say the senate is a lot more in lockstep just based on the size and the makeup politically of the chamber and who leads it um you have a statewide elected republican leading versus somebody who's elected by the members of the House that are very politically diverse. So just like to your point, it's a very interesting and far more complicated than folks might assume, especially those out of state. I mean, a lot of Texans also think that Texas is more in lockstep with conservative priorities than it actually is.

Rob, thank you so much. Matthew, hello. Hello. A law we at the Texan are very familiar with is the Texas Public Information Act. It actually is. Rob, thank you so much. Matthew, hello. Hello. A law we at the Texan are very familiar with is the Texas Public Information Act. Why are we familiar with the Texas Public Information Act here? Because we use it all the time. To get information. It sets the standards and requirements for governments to release public records, which is where we come into the picture. Recently, Texas appellate courts issued rulings that set important precedent on how those seeking public records can force governments to release it. Give us those details. So two similar but unique cases were recently settled, resulting

in rulings that impact those who seek to force the disclosure of public records by governments really need to be aware of. The first of those two cases, well, before I go into those two cases, let me give you a quick synopsis on the Texas Public Information Act, or TPIA as I'm going to refer to it from here on out. A synopsis of the process under that act is that once a written request for public records is submitted to the governmental body, the government has 10 business days to produce it or else request the Texas Office of the Attorney General to review the record if they believe it contains non-public records and redact or withhold the accepted information from the release. Whatever the AG says must be released, they are supposed to turn over. If they don't, the act gives the person the ability to file a lawsuit against the governmental entity seeking what's called a writ of mandamus, forcing the public record to be released. This case, this story is about two cases on these mandamus relief lawsuits. The first one is Putnam versus the city of Georgetown. Resident Terrell Putnam heard

claims from his mayor that a renewable energy program was a significant financial benefit. And after speaking with some other people who are familiar with it, he was encouraged to request records that would show whether or not the mayor's statements were true. These were financial records about the program. And there was a city councilman that actually encouraged him to request the records. Putnam requested the records and was denied access, with the city claiming their disclosure was accepted under a clause in the TPIA that allows information to be withheld if it gives a competitive utility company a competitive advantage in bidding out contracts. He doubted that it qualified for that exception, so he teamed up with attorneys with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and sued. After he filed a suit, the city turned the records over and said, here you go.

But we're not admitting that we think that these are public records and we reserve the right to withhold these from you again anytime in the future. Seeing that as problematic, he pressed forward with the suit and got a judgment from the court saying that those records that they turned over were in fact public record and ordered them to be paid their attorney's fees. So the city appeals that to an appellate court and the appellate court ruled that when the city turned the records over, the case became moot since there was not a valid trial to go forward. And the wording of the act requires the lawsuit to be substantially complete to award court cases and attorney's fees. They were not entitled to that and reversed the award of attorney's fees. And this case had gone on for years by the time it had completed that. So apparently he spent a pretty good chunk of change trying to get basic public information.

So he appealed that to the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court recently left that appeals ruling in place. Meanwhile, over in West Texas, a parent company of a newspaper, the Odessa American, was suing the city of Odessa seeking a similar court order because they had requested public information in the past that took a long time to get. And instead of asking for a court order to force the city to turn something over, they were asking for a court order to force the city to turn things over quicker in the past. Now, one of the reforms that prompted this was that the city was making police reports readily available at the municipal court. And according to the city of Odessa, they became aware that there was a lot of information in these police reports that they had a duty not to release confidential, such as juvenile crime victims' identities and things like that. So they required all police reports to go through

an information portal so that it could be reviewed by attorneys before release, which takes time. In reviewing this case, a state district judge dismissed it, saying the TPIA basically doesn't grant you this type of relief. It only acts to give you a court order if they continue to withhold something, which there wasn't. So the newspaper appealed this to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and in a two-to-one ruling, they concurred with the state district judge and basically said, you're not entitled to a court ruling for prospective relief for future issues. Even if you may have argued that historically they had a problem with getting new records on time, the TPIA only says what it says and doesn't say what it doesn't say.

And so they affirmed the lower court and left that position in place. So the key distinction between these two cases is with Georgetown. Georgetown was withholding public records until they filed suit. The city of Odessa had released everything finally, and then they filed suit, simply asking the court to, in the future, release the information. but both courts agreed that once a governmental entity turns the records over, the cases become moot and you're not entitled to recover attorney's fees and court costs. Wow. Quite the situation there, Matt. Thank you so much for your coverage. And obviously, we have a little bit of extra interest in what goes on with these kinds of cases. So thanks for following that for us and for our readers. Rob, we are coming back to you. Man, you here in the docket put reference to a lead that I almost struck from Brad's piece,

and he knows. We talked about it. He would say the exact same thing. He'd probably put that in there as well, just so he could say it on the podcast, or he would make me say it on the podcast as you're doing to me right now.'m a big fan of the lead so i think i'm excited to hear you say yeah this is the problem with making or allowing you guys to formulate your own questions the state of texas is covered in mud municipal utility districts you have to give it more passion than that. I can't do it. What are MUDs and why do they matter? And for folks, definitely go read the piece.

It's a cutesy little lead from Brad. It's well-written, well-put-together. I just can't handle some of this cleverness from Brad sometimes. Well, a MUD is an entity created to build and operate infrastructure to manage an area's stormwater, floodwater, and the waters of its rivers and streams, for everything ranging from municipal sewage and civil use to irrigation and power generation. There are currently more than 1,200 muds in the state of Texas used to address the growing infrastructure needs of a state that's adding around 300,000 people a year, which is about the size of Corpus Christi. So the state's growing, needs infrastructure. The first use of MUDs came about a half century ago in places like Harris County, whose population boomed at a faster pace than the city could keep up with. So MUDs have the power to tax and issue debt in order to get money to build and operate in this infrastructure.

So as the state of Texas has exploded in population in recent years, these muds have become increasingly important to making sure that there's enough money to have the infrastructure needed for all those people. But it does come with some problems. Yeah, absolutely. Well, what's that problem if they can provide what's needed for all those people, but it does come with some problems. Yeah, absolutely. Well, what's that problem if they can provide what's needed for infrastructure in these cases? So one issue is that, you know, besides the fact they can tax, they can issue enormous amounts of debt. As of August 2022, water districts in Texas, which include MUDs, have the third highest amount of outstanding debt in the local government category with around $60

billion in total debt service. For a long time, developers also paid individuals to squat in an area that was about to become a mud. They had these people register to vote, and then they got their approval for the establishment of the taxing entity for which they'd been brought in. So in order to create the mud, they had to get a vote. They would have somebody basically squat on the land. You could have some muds which were created by a single person voting. And that, for example, in 2010, a man named Ryan Latham casted the lone vote to create the Midland County Freshwater District number one, a district that had the ability to issue $375 million in debt. And that's just one person voting on in favor of creating this. So 2015 law by representative Will Metcalf restricted voter

qualifications in Mudd elections and prohibited payments from developers to the voters. And it also prohibited the developers themselves from voting in the election in order to discourage this kind of thing from happening where where a developer who wanted to build something could just send someone out there, get the loan vote they needed, and then get their permission to start issuing this debt to build this stuff. So this has become a bigger deal than it was previously. It passes in and out from under the political spotlight. But because the legislature is so focused on property taxes right now and tax relief, MUDs have sort of got back up on stage as something that's a case for maybe how do we crack down on this? How do we reduce that amount of debt and taxes that people are dealing with? Rob, thanks for your coverage. Cameron, a mom in San Antonio is claiming a role-playing game

is grooming her child. Tell us what's going on with this accusation. So, Laura Marie Gruber has alleged that the KIPP Academy that her child has been attending is exploiting her child by engaging them in a role-playing game titled Bear Hunter Hooker. Well, this game asks students to pose in front of the class as a seducing hooker. Well, this game asks students to pose in front of the class as a seducing hooker with another student playing a hunter and another a bear. The aim of the game was to show control over the pose demonstrated by the other students. As the role-playing hooker and hunter are engaged in the game, the hooker wins by seducing him gruber alleges that the school is normalizing prostitution and sexualized violence as a

team building activity the school did admit that the role-playing game took place but they denied that the game was sexualizing children can you tell us why these types of games are a part of school activities? So the mother claims the incident took place in a SEL or a social emotional learning class. And the KIPP Texas Charter Network highlights restorative practices and SEL as part of their academic philosophy. So a restorative practice, according to Kip, are in schools as they begin with relationship building and equitable learning environments. Their culturally relevant curriculum is part of the mission to prompt conversations about timely and relevant topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement, immigration reform, and elections and politics. And again, I will reiterate, this is all according to the KIPP

Academy website, KIPP Texas. The KIPP teacher resource guide actually lays out the culturally relevant pedagogy approach for their curriculum, And it spotlights an academic article written by Gloria Ladson Billings titled Towards a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as the guiding study for how KIPP has developed its instructional framework for their charter school network. And this culturally relevant pedagogy has begun all the way in their kindergarten curriculum as it incorporates a social justice and diversity group discussions where teachers are encouraged to ask the children in the class to deconstruct kids' stories. One example was about a bullfighter in Spain. And another example was in a KIPP kindergarten curriculum had the teachers involve students in a social justice and gender group discussion. So this SEL programming at KIPP

is all relevant to Gruber's case, as she said in a comment that I think they're the ground zero for grooming. They just have zero boundaries. Oof, quite the quote. Thank you for your coverage there, Hayden. As is often custom on this weekly roundup, we're going to end on a crime story from you. A South Texas man associated with a very brutal drug cartel recently received a 15-year prison sentence. Outline some of those details. A 39-year-old cocaine trafficker

is on his way to federal prison for 180 months. He was convicted of engaging in a scheme that involved trafficking cocaine from Mexico and Panama. His brother was a Gulf Cartel Plaza boss, which is a high-level official. Official is the wrong word. It's a high-level player in the criminal cartel. The Gulf Cartel is one of the most brutal and ruthless drug cartels in the world.

And this convict's brother was killed in 2013 by other members of the cartel. The convict had operated a stash house in mission, Texas, and received the 15 year prison sentence. Recently, he obviously is in custody and will be in custody until he is transferred to the Bureau of Prisons. How much cocaine has been seized by border guards so far this fiscal year?

Nationwide, according to the last operational update at checkpoints, there have been 269 pounds of cocaine seized in February and 1,119 pounds seized so far this fiscal year. Oof. Quite the numbers. Thank you, Hayden. Gentlemen, we're going to move on to our tweeter-y section of the podcast. Hayden, why don't we start with you? Move right into your tweeter-y for this week. Oh.

I'm throwing you back to back here I almost forgot what my tweeterie was also I know I texted you but I I had to google what vocal fry is I did not I heard that her talk about that over and over and I don't that just now yes because I saw your text yeah and I literally googled that now because I heard her talk about it over and over on the podcast i don't know what it is i wonder if any of us have vocal fry i felt i don't think any of us have vocal fry that bad um i felt guilty though because i was in my mind thinking you were already thinking that about her voice really bad and then she went on this long speech about making fun of somebody's voice is like making fun of their face i was like like, oh gosh, okay. I'm sorry. Can we define really quickly for the people listening and myself what vocal fry is?

It's like how you talk if you're sick. You have something like bristling in your throat. It's kind of like this. Oh my god. I think I see what you mean now. Gotcha. Gotcha. And some people just sound like that naturally when they talk really quietly.

But I think they're cool voices. I can see why people are very sensitive to how podcast voices sound because all you're exposed to is the voice. But I don't think we think about it as much if it's like a video we're watching. Does that make sense? Like you have multiple things that you're stimulated by if you're watching a video, whereas if you're listening to a podcast, it's just the person's voice. And even with people who have vocal fry, if they speak up, then it's not as bad.

So it is something I think with practice. It's a lower register. Yeah. It's if your voice is really low. Anyway, I don't know. I'm way out of my depth here. Yeah. And I brought that up for no reason.

Okay. You're a tweeter. Do we still want to do my tweet? We do. Yes. yeah and i brought that up for no reason okay you're tweeter do we still want to do my tweet we do yes um the huffington post i didn't read it but the huffington post tweeted an article you are part of the reason where you're a part of the problem we complain about these people all the time who comment on our articles just i'm sorry it's a tweet okay i couldn't not say that story on this it's so true huffington post tweeted an article yes that i didn't read i'm sorry um and the title of this article was opinion for black mayors any sign of imperfection means the

axe and uh mayor eric johnson um who is african-american retweeted this piece with screenshots of headlines that said, New survey shows Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson has a 77% job approval rating. And the next headline was Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson to run unopposed in May election, obviously directly contradicting the Huffington Post piece. And he just posted the thinking emoji, which I thought was pretty funny. It was a comical reply to an article that I didn't read. Well, and to be fair, you're commenting on a tweet, not just an article. I was commenting on Johnson's reaction to the piece, not the piece itself. Although if I had just taken five minutes to read it, we could have avoided this whole conversation.

But what fun would that be? Right. There you go. That's the purpose of the tweetery section is to have a little fun and rake each other over the coals, right? Yeah. You are totally free to do that for my tweetery. And making fun of people's vocal fries. Vocal fry.

Vocal fries. I'm just picturing like a little McDonald's. Okay, now I've got to go back and get on my Wendy's order. Yeah, there you go. Vocal fry. Vocal fries. I'm just picturing like a little McDonald's. Okay. Now I've got to go back and get on my Wendy's order. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Your very expensive Wendy's order.

Your $90. Cameron. What is your tweetery for this week? My tweetery is I saw the Project Connect debuted their five plans for the light rail system. Here in Austin? Here in Austin. And I'm really interested in the light rail project just because coming from Sacramento in California, there was a robust light rail system and it took it quite a bit.

Yeah, it attracted some unsavory characters, but, uh, it was very useful. I thought and the, a lot of these proposals though, that I saw, they, they're just North to South and they're, they're not connecting a lot of things in my mind. It's a lot of it goes back to trying to get people from downtown to the airport, really. So I don't know. I think it's interesting because it's a, I'm seeing here, multi-billion dollar project. And it was greenlit back in 2020. So they're just getting the plans out now. I would have hoped it came out sooner.

I'm sorry. I'm getting on you for touching your mic while you talk into it. And I did so very ungracefully. I just move a lot when I'm talking. It's just levitating. Oh, man. So good. Thank you, Cameron.

Your back looks uncomfortably straight right now. This is very uncomfortable. I'm going to suck hair uncomfortable. Oh, brother. Matthew, what do you have for us this week? Well, I stumbled across an interesting tweet from Texas Parks and Wildlife discussing a program they sponsor called the Texas National Archery in schools tournament. And I had no idea about this, but Parks and Wildlife helped sponsor a target archery training program in fourth through 12th grade physical education classes in schools across Texas. Something like 1,700 schools participated in the program across the state. And just recently they had an official tournament with 3,400 students participating in it.

And there's a short video on there of one of the competitions with a whole bunch of students with compound bows shooting regular competition-style archery. It looks like a pretty interesting program, and they have a lot of interesting information about it on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. So check it out. That's pretty interesting. Thank you, Matthew. Robert, we are coming to you next.

Please tell me what you found on Twitter this week to be interesting or worth or worth noting. So I love the account today in history. And today in history on March 23rd, 1775 is the day that Patrick Henry's famous quote, give me liberty or give me death is attributed to a speech he gave at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. I know a very famous quote from the American Revolution, but there's an interesting story to this, which is that this speech was not written down at the time that it was given. It was reconstructed from the eyewitness accounts of the people who listened to it. And, you know, who at the time when they were reconstructing this, you know, these people were

elderly. I believe it was actually over 40 years after the speech happened given in 18 years after Patrick Henry was dead that biographer William Wirt published a reconstruction of the speech. So it's a great quote. But the funny thing is, like so much in history, like so many of these great speeches in history, it is somewhat difficult to know if this was a real quote or if it was not a real quote. But I think that most Americans can generally agree that it is a great quote, whether or not it was an original from Patrick Henry. Yeah. That makes me even more justified earlier when I said that the history fact you quoted from Brad's piece could have also just been originated from you.

Well, history's cool. It's the best. And it reminds me of oh gosh, was it do you guys ever hear the fact about the British are coming? Like the how you guys know the story of like

the one if by land, two if by sea. Yes, the whole British are coming situation and how it was actually the regulars are coming do y'all know about that and not only that but paul revere was only one of several writers i guess he was just the one with the loudest voice so people are like is that paul revere going down there well at the time the uh like paul revere would have also and the people he was communicating with in the colonies would have also considered themselves british so saying the british were coming they

would have been like what's the big deal you know like but they said the right at the time the british infantry like the soldiers were referred to as regulars that was what they were referred to by colonists it would be as if the te Texans were like, the Americans are coming. Yeah, exactly. It wouldn't have made sense. But just in colloquial terms today, it's been further that it was said the British are coming. It was actually said the regulars are coming. Anyway, it's a fun history. Fact that I enjoy. Yes, Matthew? Well, I'm just going to weigh in on the fact that our awesome Texas history is backed up with proof because we got the victory or death letter. So no myth there. I'm going to do this one. Okay. This is a tweet from Caroline Welton.

I'm unfamiliar with her, but I do want to give her credit. She's from TPF. Representative Harold Dutton on his HB 1922, sunsetting municipal building permit fees unless they're actively renewed. This is a quote from a committee hearing from Dutton. Who knows how cities decide these fees? I call it the swag method. Systematic wild ass guess. i just love it it's just such a harold dutton quote to hear him say something like this i just loved it it made me very happy to read that this morning and it is like it does

that that is oftentimes i just want to hear him say that in his voice i know yeah i do too i need to go back and listen to the hearing but it made me happy also there's a picture uh circulating twitter that i would describe as a very exasperated dade feeling wearing jeans in some committee room watching the committee hearing happen he's like has his head in his hands and he's standing there with um greg bonnan and dustin burroughs two of his uh chairman it's just very It's a very funny picture. I'm trying to pull it up, but it's not loading. My caption for it is feeling exasperated

in jeans. It's just funny to see the House Speaker standing around in jeans looking so exasperated. Oh my gosh, it's not loading for me either. What if the tweet goes down now that I've mentioned it publicly on a podcast? Oh wait, I think it's going to go up. No, it's still up. I can pull it up you can pull it up okay it's funny

he's standing there with like two of his lieutenants just so and there's somebody circulating where this photo was to i don't know where like admittedly where this photo was taken or what the circumstances are but it is quite hilarious are you retweeting it where i can find it it's linked in the docket yeah go check it out burrows and bonin's facial expressions are also meme worthy this whole thing is me it is so me more well burrows looks concerned bonin looks amused phelan looks like he is absolutely exasperated it's hilarious what are we looking at i really wish i knew what this context was for this photo it feels like you've got to be kidding me it's hilarious um definitely worth checking out okay folks well we appreciate you listening and

we are actually at the end of our time so we don't have time for a fun topic sadly enough oh the fun topic was going to be spring and rob is dying from allergies there you go we did a lot of rapid fire fun topics it's true that was our tweetery section very true um folks thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next week thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple 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 an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

God bless you and God bless Texas.