The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 25, 2022

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses the Texas senators questioning Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Beto O’Rourke making contradictory statements on the campaign trail, a new poll regarding Hispanic Texans’ opinions on border security, allegations of misconduct at a Bastrop shelter for female sex trafficking victims, a redistricting challenge making its way to the Supreme Court, O’Rourke responding to allegations of defamation, and a professor fired for criticizing microaggressions continuing his legal challenge. Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on next week’s podcast.

Howdy howdy, Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, our team talks about Texas Senators questioning Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Beto O'Rourke making contradictory statements on the campaign trail, a new poll regarding Hispanic Texans' opinions on border security, allegations of misconduct at a Bastrop shelter for female sex trafficking victims, a redistricting challenge making its way to the Supreme Court, Beto responding to allegations of defamation, and a professor fired for criticizing microaggressions,

continuing his legal challenge. If you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan dot news. We'd love to answer your questions on our podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Daniel Frentane, Sparks, and Isaiah Mitchell. Why are you laughing so much?

Because it's already been crazy and we are 12 seconds into this podcast and our listeners won't know it's prior to recording but y'all have already put me through my paces we're all pretty calm right now yeah i don't know why this is gas lighting is what this is yes this is actual gas lighting gentlemen you ready for to talk about many things to use many words to pontificate well i only have three things that i'm talking about so i don't know Gaslighting. Gentlemen, you ready to talk about many things? To use many words? To pontificate? Well, I only have three things that I'm talking about, so I don't know that that's necessarily a lot. But the things that I am talking about, I'll probably talk about a lot.

Yeah. But three things for 12 topics, which we don't usually get to all 12, is about average, you know? I suppose so. Yeah. Makes sense to me. There's four of us. Three times four. I wasn't a math major, so it's four it's probably about that like 12.2 or something yeah yeah exactly if you if you round down yeah got it okay we're really good at math

here at the texan what's funny is you actually do have to do a lot of math in your job for the different things that you provide our readers yeah the tpi or the war room you actually have to do a lot of math the teachers are always oh, you'll never have a calculator with you everywhere you go. Joke's on them. I have it built into the spreadsheet. So I don't even have to do the math in the spreadsheet. It does it for me.

You know, that's pretty awesome. It is. That's pretty awesome. Okay, well, now that y'all are done absolutely raking me over the coals, let's begin our podcast. Daniel, we're going to start with you. So the U.S. Senate held hearings on the Supreme Court nomination Absolutely raking me over the coals. Let's begin our podcast. Daniel, we're going to start with you.

So the U.S. Senate held hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Katonji Brown Jackson this week. How did John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, our two Texas senators, approach questioning her? Yes. Luckily for Texas, or at least for my ability to stretch out this content into writing a more thorough article, they're both on the same committee, the Judiciary Committee, which is the one that is actually hearing all the Supreme Court nominations. So when a SCOTUS nomination comes through, Texas does have an important role there in that both of our senators are there. It is interesting how Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz kind of have a little bit different approaches in their line of questioning to the Supreme Court justices, especially in this case, where you have a

nominee from a Democratic president. I think the big differences was that John Cornyn really focused more on Judge Jackson's judicial philosophy. That's a lot of J's in one sentence. Judge Jackson's judicial philosophy. I got it, though. You did. Yeah. Well done. So he really focused on those kinds of more thorough matters, whereas Ted Cruz took a little bit more of an aggressive approach.

He had a lot of the things that Republicans are very concerned about right now. He talked about critical race theory. And then he also talked about some of the more hot topics that we've seen come out of this hearing specifically related to Judge Jackson's record on sentencing criminal offenders. And so those were kind of the two different approaches that they took. Now to get into a little bit more detail about that, I won't go as in-depth as I did in my article. But to give you just a little bit about what Cornyn talked on, this hearing, for context, it was spread across three days. The first day was basically just opening statements.

And then the next two days were lines of questioning from the senders. Each sender had a little bit of time that they could ask her questions during that time. So on the second day when they actually began the questioning, Cornyn really started to probe Jackson's judicial philosophy. One of the big things that he talked about was substantive due process, specifically looking at kind of how judges interpret parts of the Constitution, especially the 14th Amendment. That has become kind of a way that the courts have issued some landmark cases. So what is the 14th Amendment?

So the 14th Amendment, this is going to go into a long podcast. Just make it quick. As quick as you can. So that was one of the amendments back during the post-slavery era when they were trying to give due process rights to slaves, freed slaves. And so abolishing slavery during that time, that's kind of the context. But it has been used for many different things since then. One of the most recent ones that Cornyn brought up was the Supreme court ruling in, uh, I always butcher this name.

I don't know how to pronounce it. Oh, Berger fell. Oh, Berger fell. I can't imagine how you would not know how to say something, uh, you know, something related to the Supreme court.

Those words are so easy to say all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Don't tempt me about putting in some bloopers. Yeah. Okay. Um, fun fact, actually, oh, Bergerell is running for state house in Ohio.

Really? Currently, yes. Interesting. Well, anyways, that's Supreme Court ruling, which the Supreme Court said that states cannot ban same-sex marriage, and they had to allow that. That was based partly on the 14th Amendment because of substantive due process. So when Cornyn opened his line of questioning with Judge Jackson, one of the things that he asked her was like, do you think judges should be policymakers? Do you think a person wearing robes should be a politician? And Jackson was like, no. She said that they should not be

policymakers. They should not be that uh, that kind of thing. And so Cornyn's point was, okay, if you don't believe that they should be policymakers with this particular thing, which some view as a, a way to kind of secretly inject their own policy views, uh, into their interpretation of the constitution. Um, so that was, that was an interesting argument that he was making uh you can read some more uh thorough stuff on that in the article itself go to the texan.news yeah it's a fantastic website if you haven't heard about it wow yeah i'm glad to know well talk to us about next steps in the nomination what can we expect in the days to come okay so we're skipping over

the juicy parts then well add in the juicy parts go. Well, add in the juicy parts. Go for it. Okay, so like the big juicy parts, you had some of the questioning from Cruz, who was really hammering her very hard on her record of when she was a trial court judge sentencing criminals convicted of child pornography. And in most of her cases in those, there were about eight cases that he cited. Her sentencing was much lower than what the government recommended. He pressed her quite hard on this both days. In fact, in the second day, he got very aggressive. And there was there's a lot of people who were both happy for him for or supportive of him for his aggressiveness.

And then there were Democrats and people on the left who were very mad at him for this. So it was a kind of controversial issue. But the big thing that he was probing was trying to ask her why in these situations did she consistently issue a sentence that was much lower than what the government had recommended in these cases. And so Judge Jackson, her initial response throughout the whole thing and something that she repeated over and over was that she was looking at many different factors in these cases, looking at not just the offense itself and the statutory requirements and whatnot, but also the character of the defendants and different circumstances there she also said that the probation probation offices also gave a different recommendation uh cruz has said that the committee has not been able to see those uh those records of the probation recommendations tried getting that

from the committee chair the committee chair uh was a little bit hesitant to open up more records citing concern for victim privacy. So that was kind of interesting. And then on the second day or the third day of questioning, when things got really heated between Cruz and Jackson, he was really trying to press her to give some more examples in specific cases. Okay, like what are the circumstances that led you to, in this specific case, to issue a certain sentence that was lighter? And she did not provide any specific context. She just referred to her broad answer of like, she looked at all the things. So there wasn't really like a specific concrete example of these are the factors in a case that I took into consideration. So that was the spicy part. Now, on to your quick thing of the doubt, the next steps in the nomination.

The Senate is in a 50-50 split right now with Vice President Kamala Harris being the tie-breaking vote. This is definitely going to be a partisan nomination because of precedent that the Republicans have set previously using the nuclear option of just not having a filibuster requirement of a 60 vote to get a nominee through. This will likely go through with the 50 votes from the Democrats. The Judiciary Committee is going to be voting on her nomination on April 4th, and then the confirmation vote is expected to come later that week. So in a few weeks, we'll probably see this vote go through the Senate. Very good. Well, thank you, Daniel, for covering that. It'll be very interesting to see how this all shakes out brad democratic candidate for governor beto o'rourke a familiar name around here is amidst

a statewide town hall circuit he's on tour essentially you've been following it what have you seen what have you heard so he's stumping across state going to uh community communities in every corner of it. I know that was a big theme of his candidacy back in 2018. He's largely doing it again this time. We all know Texas has 254 counties because of Better Works 2018 campaign. During this, he's campaigning on issues like increasing school funding, expanding Medicaid, harping on the power grid, and criticizing state officials' responses to the blackouts, and legalizing marijuana. But on other issues, he's kind of waffling between positions. The biggest example of this is on guns.

During his 2018 race, he declined to support a gun buyback program. Then in 2019, during his brief presidential stint, he made the infamous statement, hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. When he jumped in for governor late last year, he said he wasn't backing away from that statement. But then in February at one of these town hall stops, he told someone in the audience who asked him the question, I'm not interested in taking anything from anyone. So that right there is already changing back to his 2018 position, basically, during the Senate race. And then at South by Southwest, he was asked to clarify his position once and for all.

He said, trying to kind of thread the needle between these two positions that are obviously at odds with each other i do not believe that any civilian should have an ar-15 or ak-47 that he said that as like his personal belief he added that if he can find consensus in the legislature should he become governor for a buyback program he will do it so that's where he is on that at the legislature, should he become governor for a buyback program, he will do it. So that's where he is on that at the latest moment. Who knows if that's going to change again? Maybe it does.

Maybe it doesn't. Maybe he tries to adjust it slightly, especially depending on who it is he's talking to, which is kind of what I wrote the piece on, um, this noticeable theme of, of not just picking and choosing what he's talking about to, to, um, audiences, but really adjusting his position on something based on who it is he's talking to. Certainly. Now, what other issues has he flip-flopped on or have there been other issues? Yes. A couple others, um, that I saw I saw. And he's criticized the efforts to remove sexually explicit books and institutional racism-themed teachings, critical race theory type stuff from schools. He's criticized them, both of those, as efforts to lie about history and just not teach kids what should be taught in school, whether that's sexual curriculum or this racial history stuff. But earlier this month, he told a crowd in Victoria that he doesn't think CRT should

be in the school curriculum. Obviously, there's a lot of debate about this. There are a lot of people that say, oh, it's not actually taught in schools. But when you look at what's actually being taught, it's the themes of it, right, as they are heavily imbued within these school curriculums, whether it's materials for teaching teachers and administrators or the students themselves. And so he's struggling to find a coherent position on that. On energy, obviously something massive in Texas, O'Rourke has tried to thread the needle on supporting a transition away from fossil fuels, taking the position that it's exacerbating climate change, and avoiding open hostility with texas's prolific oil and gas industry and those that employs most specifically victoria he said he wanted to texas

to ramp up its oil and gas production this was in response to a question about russia and ukraine the situation there he wanted texas to ramp that up to supplant Russia's hold on Europe's natural gas supply, which in turn is causing natural gas prices to jump globally because it's a global market. And so what we're paying here for natural gas is being affected by what's happening over there and vice versa. But a few days earlier, he painted a picture of Texas powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. Now, he's not going as far as his position during the presidential race, which was basically echoing the Green New Deal and thinking that is the proper way forward, getting to net zero emissions. If pressed, he probably would still support that. It's just, you know know how do you get there um back then he was very much in favor of this broad transition to uh renewable power

um and now as you can see when he's campaigning to a texas audience it's slightly adjusted um slightly different and less pointed towards not just the oil and gas industry, but specifically the people who depend on it for their livelihoods. This is all a product of his previous two campaigns that were substantially different in policy orientation. And he is on these specifically, and I'm sure others, he's struggling to find the right position for him. Well, and it's unique in that you know in 2018 as you said

beto was really running as a unifier against ted cruz that was a lot of the messaging it was okay let's go to every county in the state of texas which he did i believe is go you know visit every county and let's talk about how we can you know be brought together let's not be you know there's no no dissension like let's try and make sure that this, you know, you have a center that represents you as an everyday Texan. That was the messaging. And then when you go and you run for president on the national level, and obviously Texas Democrats are a whole different, you know, just kind of voter than national Democrats at large. Which are largely driven by coastal um positions absolutely stuff you know an iowa democrat is much different than democrat in california 100 absolutely or even east coast i

mean they're they're so different um and so on the presidential level you're competing in a democratic primary where you are trying to be the most progressive right i mean primaries just trying they really do force you in some ways to take more extreme positions and you're like competing to be the most liberal or the most most conservative to show that you are stalwart essentially and so then to come back to texas after an experience like that however short it was is not an easy task yeah um when you have voters here who believe some of the positions that you took on that national stage were far too progressive and others who really love it, right? A lot of the, like the

Austin voters here, a lot of the big city voters will love those positions he took. But when it comes to actually, you know, swaying a statewide election, will he be able to do that after all of this? He needs, we've seen in the last, the last cycle, least, in a lot of these statewide races, to pull some of those voters uh to eliminate that um that advantage republicans have there and or have had um but you know his position's taken in the presidential race when he's in that race to the left basically which is what they all did yeah it wasn't just him right um you know that's not that doesn't jive well with with voters here in texas at least most of them. Especially in the Valley, when we're seeing a lot of voters start to be open to voting for Republicans.

It'd be interesting. Speaking of that, Hayden, let's talk about the results of a poll showing Hispanic Texans' beliefs on border security and law enforcement. Talk to us a little bit about what those results showed us and where the poll came from. The Texas Public Policy Foundation commissioned a poll that was conducted by WPA Intelligence, which is a polling and data science firm based in Washington, D.C. They surveyed 608 Hispanic adults from February 14 to February 23, and the poll had a margin of error of 4%. It found that border security and immigration are supremely important to Hispanic Texans, and education also topped the list of the three top answers when respondents were asked an open-ended question about what issues are important that the Texas legislature should address the next time they meet.

And border security, immigration, and education topped the list. They indicated in the poll that 51% supported an increase in border security measures and only 13% supported a decrease. But 32% said that the security measures that have been implemented should remain the same. There has also been a lot of debate about whether what's occurring at the southern border should be characterized as a crisis. And a majority of those who answered in the poll said that it is in fact a crisis. And 64% said that they definitely plan to vote on election day. So when it comes to border security, it is important to Hispanic Texans that law enforcement address the surge in illegal immigration at the border. And that was also accompanied by a support for law enforcement because most,

in fact, about three quarters of the respondents said that they were treated fairly by their local law enforcement. And that is about the same amount that agreed that there is a border crisis. Only 23% disagreed with the characterization of a border crisis. So those are a few of the border related issues. There were some interesting other observations made by the poll, such as that 72% said that Texas history, like the Alamo and the Texas Revolution, is a major part of their heritage. And 57% agreed that the American dream is as accessible to Hispanic people as it is to white people. But 40% disagreed with that statement. And then 87% described themselves as proud to be an American.

84% described themselves as proud to be Texans. So a lot of interesting observations in this poll put out by Texas Public Policy Foundation. Certainly. And while we will say it anytime a poll was talked about on this podcast or just in our news cycle, they certainly can inform how we think about different issues, but they're not the end all be all of conclusions to be drawn, right? I mean, that's not the service that they provide, but they are interesting and they do give an indication of where, you know, different people stand. And I think it's interesting in that, you know, minority communities are far more complex than, and their tendencies and beliefs and perspectives are far more complex than

national media would have you believe as well. Now, talk to us about what the poll said about President Biden and his policies. The approval rating of President Biden given by this poll, and again, like you just observed, polls are tricky. This is not an absolute science. And this agency, not agency is the wrong wrong word but this firm that conducted this research it's definitely a conservative firm it's not a ideologically neutral organization as is the think tank that commissioned it certainly of course and they they word questions in a certain way and it would probably be worded differently if it was conducted by a left of center think tank or a left of center research organization. So you're absolutely

correct when these results should be taken with that context in mind. But the approval rating that was given for President Biden was 47%, while 46% indicated disapproval. So that's within the margin of error. And it reflects a toss up as far as whether Hispanic Texans approve of President Biden's job performance. And again, this is just one ethnicity. You know, this doesn't include white Texans or black Texans or, you know, people of other ancestries and national origins. But as far as the respondents in this poll, it was about a toss up and 61% attributed inflation to bad policies. And 27% said that inflation is just a normal part of the economy. So that goes to the debate of late about whether many of the things that are happening right now, like increased gas prices, are truly the president's fault or

go with being a part of a dynamic economy. And then there were also a couple other issues I wanted to mention that were surveyed, and that was property taxes and public education. 71% of the poll said that property taxes are a major burden, and only less than a quarter disagreed with that. And then more than three quarters said that essentially they agreed with school choice, that the tax dollars should follow the student to whatever school or public charter or private school that the parent chose. And only 16% opposed this idea, again, defined by the survey question that this firm formulated. And so there were, you know, some notes in this poll where people had general consensus. And then then other issues that were a little bit,

people were split. Like 46% said there was no difference in the accessibility of the American dream compared to five years ago. And 22% responded that it was more accessible while 30% said that it was less accessible. But more than four in five agreed that America is a land of freedom of opportunity. So even though there was some disagreement about, you know, whether things

have improved or gotten worse over the last five years, more than 80% agreed that America is a land of freedom and opportunity. A lot of interesting information in this poll. It will be interesting to see how seriously the campaigns and the two political parties take this research and if they adjust their campaign strategies accordingly ahead of November. Absolutely. Hayden, thanks for covering that for us. Isaiah, we are coming to you. The head of a Child Protective Services Division resigned recently after a hearing in the Texas Senate over accusations of sexual misconduct in a central Texas shelter. Remind us first of the incidents that took place at the shelter. So the name of the shelter is The Refuge. It's based in Bastrop, and it's for female victims of sex trafficking. There was a court document that came out on March

10th that included a lot of allegations regarding sex trafficking at the shelter, sexual abuse at the shelter, and some other incidents that we'll get to. The Texas Rangers afterwards said that they found no evidence of sex abuse or trafficking, but acknowledged that criminal investigations would continue against some employees for a couple of incidents. One of those incidents is there is a female employee who we learned in the Senate hearing, her boyfriend had trafficked her and she sold nude photos of the girls and traded them for drugs and money. And there's another incident where workers of the shelter helped some residents, some of the girls run away.

And so criminal investigations are proceeding for based on those two events. But the ranges ruled out the trafficking and the abuse. So additionally, records show that the DFPS let these accusations go unaddressed for quite some time. They received the initial notification called an intake in DFPS lingo in late January on one of these incidents, just to give you a sense of the scale. And the letter that revealed these incidents to the public that was written in such urgency came out on March 10th. So that was really what they were probing at the Senate hearing, was why did it take so long for this to get addressed. And at the hearing, DFPS leadership told the Senate committee,

this is the Senate Committee on Child Protective Services, a special committee, that the bottleneck in communication was in a particular DFPS office, and they blamed two particular staff members. Wow. Now, afterwards, one higher-up employee in DFPS resigned and spoke out against what happened at the hearing. What did he say? This was also revealed first in court documents. That was where it went public initially. And there was another DFPS worker, I believe a former worker, who submitted to the court some text messages that Justin Lewis, who is the director of the Child Care Investigations Division of DFPS, wrote about Judge Janice Graham-Jack, who is overseeing the long-running,

like decade-long case regarding the foster care system against the state. And so, and we'll get to that too. But that same worker who turned in those text messages to the court also included in a document submitted, I want to say that same day, right afterward, Lewis's letter of resignation, in which he said, a phrase that really stood out to me was he said, I cannot acquiesce to the political nature of the job. And the specific problems that he cited that led him to resign was that at that hearing, he says that DFPS leadership put two of his staff members on display and made them scapegoats when, in his opinion, there were all these other parties involved in the process that weren't mentioned

and should share in the blame as well. So he specifically mentioned single source continuum contractors. So the whole foster care system is divided up into different regions of the state. And most of the state right now is under what they call the legacy system or it's still primarily run by dfps and but they're phasing in this new model called community-based care which is active in four regions of the state and that's there's less government intervention that's a very very reductive definition but we've got other articles explaining that are linked in this one. And in these regions, the duty of placing children falls to single source continuum contractors instead of the state. So Lewis named one of these organizations, among other groups, responsible for the lack of upward movement in information.

The region that includes the refuge, that includes Bastrop, is still under the legacy model, the state model, and not under the community-based care model. I was not able to get in touch with Lewis to get some more elaboration on how an SSCC, when there's not one operating in this region, would be responsible. But he also pins some blame on the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which does have direct responsibility that's clear all across the state. This is the agency that is responsible for licensing the staff that run foster care facilities like the refuge.

So he said that these parties should also have shared some of the blame, at the very least been mentioned or put on display to the same degree in the hearing that his staff was. But DFPS leadership at this hearing said that the staff in this office received the intake, the notification and refused, or I should say, failed to move it up the chain in master's own words, because their supervisor, they said that they knew their supervisor would give them more work. Wow.

If they were to address this intake in particular. And so that's, that was master's argument as to why this went unnoticed for so long. Lewis said that there are a lot of other factors at play. So. Wow. Now, very quick, remind us about this case and the judge's role in Texas foster care reforms. Yes. I mentioned Judge Jack. She is the judge overseeing the litigation that's been proceeding for about a decade now against the state for dangerous to children in the foster care system. That's the allegation at hand. And in 2015, Jack started issuing her remedial orders. One of those remedial orders is called the heightened monitoring. That's the system that it implemented where centers that are not up to

snuff, care centers, residential treatment centers that are up to snuff have to undergo greater scrutiny. And in addition, the court, or Jack, I should say, employs monitors of her own that report back to her. And generally, these monitors are at odds with the DFPS over the degree of oversight that's proper for these centers. And that's really the enduring question in the case is how much regulation does it take to fix the system before you squeeze all the capacity out of the system? So one of the more pressing problems recently that's kind of being alleviated right now, fortunately, is a CWOP, kids without placement or children without placement. And the problem there that Senator Lois Kohlkost, Representative James Frank, have theorized

about and other members of the legislature is that after heightened monitoring went into effect and kicked in, there were a lot of providers that left the system. And that meant there were over a thousand beds that left the system with them. And so then the question is, where were these providers trying to hide? Is it good that they've left? Did we kick out bad actors? And so that's, again, that's kind of the strait that they have to navigate is between regulation and heedlessness. And the same thing is applying here. The same subject is coming up in these hearings. My gosh, it's so complicated, The same subject is coming up in these hearings.

My gosh, it's so complicated, these issues with CPS. It's unbelievable. But thank you for breaking it down for us. Daniel, speaking of very complicated things, a redistricting challenge has made its way to the Texas Supreme Court. What is that case about and what are the main arguments in it? It's not so much that it's complicated as it is that I don't know where to begin explaining the context. It requires a lot of context, but it's really not that hard to understand. There is some redistricting cases. They were all consolidated into one at the state level. There's also federal lawsuits going on as well. But several state lawsuits were consolidated into one.

It was placed under a trial court that consisted of two trial judges and an appellate judge, which is kind of an interesting situation. We don't see that too often. But these lawsuits are really dealing on two different types of things. So the first thing that we're dealing with is a, and this is more the meat and potatoes of it, there's a complaint that the state when they passed their state house map last fall they actually violated the county line rule down in cameron county now the kind of line rule says that essentially how it's been interpreted in the past is like you have to stick with the county lines as much as possible um as long as you have like

votes proportional to the number of people in the county. So that's why if you look at the House map versus the Senate map versus the Congressional map, the House map is always following the county lines much neater, much nicer than the other maps. Now in Cameron County, previously what had been the case was there had been two districts that were wholly within Cameron County, and then there was another district that was split between Cameron County and Hidalgo County. Now what you have under the new map, you have a county or one district that is within Cameron County entirely, and then you have two districts that are partially in Cameron County. And so basically what the lawsuit that is brought by the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, MULC, they're arguing that this is a violation of the county line rule. There should be two districts wholly within Cameron County. So that's the first lawsuit.

The second lawsuit that is kind of wrapped up in this as well is something that at this point is a little bit behind us. Earlier, before all the redistricting actually began, two state senators actually said, hey, the Constitution says we must conduct redistricting in the first regular session after the census numbers have been published. And the first regular session after the census numbers have been published hasn't actually happened yet. That actually happens in 2023. What typically happens is the census numbers come out during a regular session, but because of the delays, it got pushed back. Now, the state has interestingly conceded that, yes, lawmakers actually do have to conduct redistricting in the next regular session. So they actually have said, come out and said, this is the Office of the Attorney General has said this representing the governor. So, you know, that's the state is saying that lawmakers have to conduct

redistricting in 2023. Now they have a little caveat on there and they say it was completely lawful for the state to also conduct redistricting during the special session. There's just because the constitution says it has to be done in the first regular session doesn't mean it can't be done at other times. And they point to previous precedent where redistricting is done partway through a session. We saw that actually in the past decade after a court ruling, the state comes back and says, okay, we need to fix this. They draw a new map. So there's actually redistricting that happens midway through a decade. Another thing to remember in this context is that back in January, there was a redistricting case out of Harris County that was trying to challenge the Harris County Commissioner's

Court maps. And the Supreme Court basically said, hey, it's really too late to do anything about redistricting now. There might actually be some legitimate issues here, but it's too late in the election cycle. If we made any changes now, it'd throw everything into chaos. And so they said, you know, we can't mess up redistricting now. So everybody has gone into this lawsuit with basically the expectation all sides are basically saying, yeah, you know, the Supreme Court could issue an injunction and say, hey, this map needs to be fixed. But nobody really expects the Supreme Court to actually do that. More than likely, what's going to happen is we're going to operate with the maps that the legislature passed as these issues continue to be litigated. So that presents kind of the first of the three arguments

that are kind of what this case is about. And the first thing the state is saying is like, okay, if it's the case that the Supreme Court is not going to issue a temporary injunction, they're not going to come in and say, hey, you can't use this map in this election. And the lawmakers are actually going to come back in the next legislative session and redraw the maps anyway. If the Supreme Court or the trial court issued any order, any declaratory judgment saying this map is unlawful, they're saying that all that would amount to would be an advisory opinion, which the court doesn't actually have the authority to do. And so they're saying, you know, if the courts just say that lawmakers need to follow this,

you're just kind of taking the legislative prerogative away from them to do the maps the way that they want to. So that's the first argument. The counter to that from Malk and the other plaintiffs is basically like saying that it's not just an advisory opinion, but this is the map that's the law on the books. It's illegal. And so the state, regardless of whether or not they issue an injunction, they need to rule against it and say, hey, this is illegal because that's the map on the books.

Now, the second issue that's really a big key here, and this is actually what the hearing on Wednesday at the Supreme Court was about, is really whether or not these plaintiffs actually have standing. The state is arguing a couple different things with respect to the first case, which had to do with when redistricting takes place. They're saying that essentially no one has standing. There's not really a situation where someone would have the standing to challenge the constitutional provision here. And so the Supreme Court justices were a little bit, they seemed a little bit iffy to take that. I think it was Justice Jeff Boyd who was like, that's kind of hard to swallow to say that no one has standing ever on a constitutional question. Now, the state attorney continued to say that's only with respect to the first lawsuit.

The second lawsuit with respect to the really the county line judgments or issue there. She said that the two plaintiffs that are basically trying to argue that they have standing there is Malk through kind of their association with Representative Dominguez, who's the current incumbent with HD 37, one of the districts that's being affected. And then the other person who's affected or that has standing is Ruben Cortez. He is actually a Democratic candidate for HD 37 in the current cycle under the new map. The state says because Alex Dominguez is not running for reelection, he actually ran for the state Senate. He actually lost that. But since he's not running for reelection. He actually ran for the state Senate. He actually lost that. But since he's not running, he doesn't have standing. The other representative in Cameron County, Eddie Lucio III, he's not running.

So, you know, if Dominguez had been running for reelection, they say he might have had standing. But because he's not, they're basically saying no one has standing. Now, the trial court rejected that argument already. And they said, no, like there's jurisdiction here. You can move forward. So that's something that the Supreme court will now rule on whether or not they have jurisdiction before it goes back down to the trial court. And then the third issue, if the Supreme court does say, Hey, there's jurisdiction here, then you move into the question of did the state actually violate the county line rule? And that's the debate that we'll see played out.

So complicated issue, but it will have impacts with elections, especially in South Texas, being the political battleground in this cycle. Yeah, I definitely stand by the complicated statement from earlier. I think it is pretty complicated. Especially at this stage. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely stand by the complicated statement from earlier. I think it is pretty complicated. All right. Okay. Especially at this stage. So boring. It's like.

Standing business. Who cares? Standing business. Well, I think more than anything, it's the complicated in that, like the context is complicated of it happening at this point when we're already this far into the election cycle, when maps really can't be shaken up. It's, and all the the arguments in and of themselves are i guess it's not complicated after you just sit there and take in all the

arguments yeah i think i think you're jaded in a really good way with all of the knowledge in your brain that's my that is that is how i that is how i see this but daniel thanks for breaking that down for us broad we're coming back to you and back to Beto. The gubernatorial candidate was sued for defamation by an energy company CEO earlier this month. He's finally issued a formal response. What does it say? So he has responded in the public square, but this is the first time that he has filed a response brief to the challenge from energy transfer CEO Kelsey Warren. O'Rourke's legal team filed its response this week against Warren's allegations of defamation. O'Rourke's brief dismisses them, the allegations as unprovable.

It centers on O'Rourke's accusations of extortion and bribery against Warren and Governor Greg Abbott on the campaign trail. And the allegations stem from Warren's $1 million campaign donation to Abbott and the legislature's response to 21 blackouts. Basically, O'Rourke is accusing Warren of basically bribing Abbott and the legislature to not properly fix the power grid it's a claim he's made frequently and continues to make even despite this lawsuit being filed now Texas has an anti-slap law which makes it very difficult to prove defamation or libel in a court of law.

But we'll see where this goes. Additionally, though, one interesting note in this filing was that Oreck also asked for a change in venue, alleging that Warren actually lives in Dallas County, despite his claim in the first filing that he resided in San Saba County. So the first filing was filed in San Saba. But O'Rourke, part of the petition, the response petition, was evidence that Warren, including fundraising or campaign donation records, was warren actually lives in dallas county and so that would be a change of venue and probably a friendlier court yeah you know when when people

take these suits to a particular court uh if you're a good lawyer you will basically you will choose the most favorable court to that you possibly can to file it in and um you know it's the uh the political differences of san saba and dallas are probably pretty stark so that's to say the least yeah um so if that should if that does move that will probably hurt warren's case even though it already is very difficult to prove defamation in the public square. O'Rourke also dismisses the accusation saying that Warren is a public figure. In his original filing, Warren tried to preempt that saying that his public facing aspect of his life is only played out in campaign donations. Other than that, he's a private citizen. So we'll see what the judge decides on both of these questions, whether to move the venue and, and, or the actual merits of the case. But, um, it continues,

continues to play out. And, um, it's, it's interesting. It's, it's not any run of the, not like any other, uh, defamation other defamation lawsuit that you'll see there's there's more details to it that that make it interesting even despite the fact that Texas has the anti-slap law yeah absolutely thanks for breaking that down for us Isaiah we're coming back to you we've covered the story of a UNT professor fired for criticizing microaggressions in 2020 he sued the school afterward. Remind us what happened initially and tell us how the case has recently developed.

So what happened in 2020 was, that very same year, well, in 2019, he had just gotten his PhD, and UNT, I want to say, was his first job as a professor, his first gig as a professor, an adjunct. And in the faculty lounge, somebody had left a stack of flyers attempting to discourage the use of microaggressions. And so Nathaniel Hires, who's a professor here, drew a little arrow on the blackboard and said,

please don't leave garbage lying around pointing to the flyers. And he was fired for it. We know that that was the reason he was fired because his supervisors were very candid about being the reason for firing him. That and also that he refused to recant his position. So what happened recently was the court ruled that he may continue his lawsuit against UNT on the grounds that the university violated his first amendment rights. His initial complaint, the initial lawsuit, threw quite a bit at the wall. Some of it stuck, some of it didn't. I want to say he had eight or nine claims in his initial lawsuit. UNT motioned to dismiss everything, and the judge in the case ruled that some of his claims should be dismissed and some shouldn't. So among the claims that the judge ruled can proceed is his claim that the university violated his First Amendment rights.

A lot of the case came down to whether or not the professor's message, Hire's message, related to a matter of public concern. UNT cited in their motion to dismiss some case law indicating that the government's breadth of power as an employer is a lot wider than the breadth of power as, you know, governing regular citizens, right? So in other words, if you're a public employee, the UNT was saying that you give up certain rights that you would otherwise enjoy just as a regular American citizen. And one of those conditions is that regarding political speech, including Hires' little message on the blackboard, it has to concern, it has to relate to a matter of public concern. And so the judge ruled that it did, which allowed Hires to continue his suit.

Well, thanks for covering that for us. We'll continue to follow it as developments arise. Did Kim originally write the first article? Was she the first? Yes. Shout out, Kim Roberts. But thank you, Isaiah. Okay, gentlemen, let's move on to Twitter fun.

Folks, we only got through seven topics today when we usually aim for 12. We're fat topics. We're fat topics. I told you I talk a lot. There was a lot going on there. Thanks for covering that for our readers. We're going to move on to the Twitter fun portion of this podcast and talk about some you know social media drama or just some new noteworthy tweets daniel yours is particularly fun i really like watching this all week this

back and forth between these two tarrant county lawmakers so talk you know talk to us about what exactly happened if you remember this ties back to redistricting my beat it's all over districting it was it wasn't during last session when I was just waiting and waiting and waiting and nothing happened. It was the Census Bureau. Anyways. Daniel was like, I have the redistricting beat. And he waited six months to write about it. It was sad.

But now I get to talk about it all the time. And in this instance, there was one Republican who actually got his district changed from a Republican-leaning district to a Democratic-leaning district. In the Texas House. In the Texas House. That is Representative Jeff Kasin. And so there's a little bit of backlash immediately following that among, I think, Jeff Kasin sent out a press release kind of accusing two members in particular. I think it was two. I know Representative Stephanie Click was one of them

because that's who this other member is about in the current drama. Representative Craig Goldman was the other one that he criticized. Got it. And then, so,

at a primary runoff forum, apparently Representative Click, who is in a runoff with a Republican challenger who's going quite hard against her. David Lowe, correct? Yes. Yes. So in that runoff at a forum, she said that Representative Kaysen actually apologized to her for suggesting she allowed his districts to go blue in redistricting. I found that interesting just because I remembered the votes from redistricting.

Of course you did. He actually put forward an amendment. This was one of the notable amendments that he put forward, just trying to keep his seat red. And that was shot down with only 17 members voting for it. Of 150. Of 150. There were several members who were missing. Regardless, yeah.

It was a lot of folks voting against it. 119 members voted against him. There were 14 Republicans who did support him. Stephanie Click was not among those 14 members. She was among the members who actually voted against this amendment. So, you know, it was interesting to hear her saying that kind of defending her position of not being the one to make his district go blue when she literally voted for an amendment that would have kept his district red. So that was interesting. Spicy. and lots of statements back and forth it was very fun to watch well thank you for that um broadly what about you what do you got so in the most entertaining race of this cycle

no doubt uh the railroad commission race which is now off what was that i well initially it seemed like sarcasm the railroad commission but then you're right you're just totally right that it is it's just funny because it's the railroad commission and like all the name does not yeah imagine if it was a comptroller right that might be even more the two spiciest positions in texas politics but anyway so uh commissioner wayne christ is facing Sarah Stogner, who narrowly, and I would say surprisingly, I wasn't expecting her to be the one to make the runoff, although it was kind of a crapshoot, you know, and none of the candidates were really high profile as we would describe them.

But she made it in. She pushed him to a runoff. And so they'll face on May 24th. She's been very punchy on Twitter. She tweeted at Republican Party of Texas Chair Matt Rinaldi with a picture of a

party fundraising letter. It said, at Matt Rinaldi, if you're going to send letters requesting this patriot to donate to the RPT, maybe you should consider this Patriot who is running for office instead of gossiping with the establishment who's trying to censure me out of the runoff and added the kissing face emoji so it is

very highbrow on Twitter as Twitter tends to be you know this is by far the most highbrow on Twitter as Twitter tends to be this is by far the most highbrow segment of our podcast but the central part she's referring to is I think it was the Williamson County GOP basically kicked her out

that happened actually earlier this week I believe if not it was late last week and they said the reasoning was they provided a generic reason but it was definitely um related code of conduct code of conduct the uh you know the infamous video that everybody knows about at this point um or at least that's how she took it and so the infamous video being um for those who don't know writing almost naked on a oil pump check yeah and filming it and putting it on social media as her get out the vote for early voting so not a typical campaign tactic certainly not certainly not quite so obviously she's peeved about that um and she's accusing the sitting party

chair of kind of working behind the scenes against her. Well, Rinaldi saw this, obviously, because she mentioned him in it. And he replied and said, as Texas GOP chair, I have a policy of not taking a side in statewide primaries. And then for the even more biting part, said, it's a policy that benefits you. And then she replied, right right not publicly taking a side so uh tensions are flaring in this this race is very heated a lot of personal accusations are being lobbed both ways and so i expect this to continue to be one of the most entertaining races, if not the most entertaining race in the state. And now the chair of the Texas GOP is being pulled into it. Yeah, absolutely.

Spicy stuff. Isaiah, what do you have? Well, this was actually a requested topic requested by you. Yes, Chris. Please. What could you possibly be possibly be talking about right now um well i actually first heard about this from brad who shared in our a little um workplace communication deal and um it's from uh jeremy boring who's the leader of the daily

daily wire why is that one of the daily wire yeah and which is ben shapiro's publication yes yeah and um so he's got this new company to sell razors and shaving stuff and whatnot and what inspired it was an acrimonious end to an advertising relationship their company had had with a company called harry's razors where um harry's decided to end their agreement because of one daily wire pundit stance on i want to say the transgender topic it was a michael knowles who's one of the top figures in the company had someone on a doctor of some sort on his podcast and the doctor basically called gender dysphoria, a mental illness.

And that was what caused Harry's razors to drop their advertising with daily wire. Yes. So this, um, is just our latest installment of like a particular, I feel like you can call it a genre at this point, a particular advertising genre that I want to credit first to old spice with

just this like over the top absurdist manly stuff, you know. Yeah. No, this is a watermelon. I didn't make that connection before. That is so true. There's a whole genre now. And Old Spice is just the earliest example I can remember because I've been seeing those. I've been watching Isaiah Mustafa pull soap out of random objects

for as long as I can remember on TV. Entertainment ads. Yeah, like on ESPN or whatever. Oh, all of a sudden, this guy's going to pull the soap out of a watermelon, you know. He's a centaur. Yeah, he's that too. He's a centaur. Anyway, so I feel like that's a recognizable genre of advertising that they're continuing here with a political bent that, I mean, if I'm going to over-interpret this short commercial for a shaving company for fun,

then it's interesting to see a political bent going the same grain as, it's obvious like why these kinds of ads have such appeal. It's because the ads that we're all used to from bigger companies, Gillette is one of the classic examples now, and one that I think he might name in the video, I can't remember. Yeah, he does. A very milquetoast approach, we're the right people, and just a whole general feel that we recognize as being, you know, I don't even know if I have a good word for it. It's in the same kind of corporate art as all the,

like the fat 2d characters that you see in every tech company website, you know, very bland. And then we've got these other companies that come along and, you know, give the double bird and say, Oh, you know,

we're going to be a centaur or, um, shoot a flamethrower at the logos of our competitors, which in this video is like Harry and Gillette, stuff like that. And it's just over the top. Um, also they're going to charge an arm and a leg for their stuff apparently it's kind of exorbitant actually i calculated it out for the the actual razor uh refills it's not much it's not actually any different than dollar shave club it's the initial

like you buying a pouch and the razor handle and all that stuff that's what oh it was so expensive when i made the comment holy crap this is well dollar shave club has the same deal black rifle copy company oh my i had another one right um something tipped my tongue i just thought of it i'll come back to me later i don't see it oh my gosh okay okay yeah but um that whole sphere of advertising you know a very rebellious tint to it and um yeah but it was fascinating to watch a media company have an advertiser drop and then a year later exactly a year was it on the day they were they announced jeremy's razors exactly a year after dropped their sponsorship to see literally a year later they come out with their own product as a competitor which i think is fascinating and totally something that instead of you know

i mean a lot of right of center texans have said that they are so tired of seeing corporations dictate how consumers can consume or just how this all works but not necessarily wanting government to be involved it's fascinating to watch this be their response is you know instead we're going to come up with a product that can compete with the person who dropped us originally it's just fascinating and the production quality of this video i mean no matter your political situation it is fantastic it is absolutely unbelievable yeah it's it's a lot of money it's a great production quality it's pretty darn hilarious worth watching the other company i was thinking of is duke cannon that's the company i was thinking of you see in buckies and yeah so forth boring actually did another

just a face-to-camera video that was different from the outlandish one you're talking about um and he talks about how um instead of just complaining about these decisions that like gillette made or harry's made go out and provide your own product um and fill that void and you'll make money on it and so that's what he's doing and you, you know, maybe it fails, but based on the Daily Wire's track record, I don't think it will. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Well, thank you for talking about that, Isaiah. Certainly fun to see that all happen on Twitter this week. It was very entertaining. Hayden, you attended a, well, let's just talk about what you have. What do you have for us here on your Twitter docket? So this morning I went to the Capitol for a press conference that was preceded by a lot of social media activity and um it was primarily spurred by representative jeff leach he's a republican from either allen or plano i've seen his hometown

change oh really yeah it's like i see it's R. Plano or R. Allen, depending on which article you read. But there is an execution scheduled next month, a very grim topic of a woman named Melissa Lucivo who was scheduled for execution for a murder committed in 2007. And there are serious questions about her guilt, whether she's actually guilty of the offense for which she was sentenced to death. And then Matt Schaefer tweeted in support of this coalition that was formed, both Republicans and Democrats. And Representative Leach shared this tweet.

What Schaefer said was, I believe that there are credible and compelling reasons that Melissa Lucio should not be executed by the state of Texas. Good work here at Leach for Texas, hashtag TexLedge. And Jeff Leach said, they don't get more principled and conservative than my buddy, Representative Matt Schaefer. Glad he sees what I see and grateful for his heart, his voice and his leadership and fighting for innocent life. And then today at the press conference,

I don't have tweets for them, but there were, Joe Moody was there, Speaker Pro Tem. He was the former Speaker Pro Tem. Famously. Famously. Lost that post after the famous quorum bust. But it's always interesting to see when Republicans and Democrats on a wide spectrum come together on an issue. And it's very rare at the Texas Capitol,

but on especially something as controversial as this. Um, and then that, you know, that support, um, you know, ends up,

uh, spilling over onto social media and the, and the general public, uh, ends up having access to that. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, absolutely.

I love it. Well, Hayden, um, well folks actually should go follow Hayden on Twitter. If you want all the details of that, he has a great Twitter thread about everything that happened in that car at that press conference thanks for the uh the little the twitter boost there so welcome hayden j sparks at hayden j

sparks hayden j sparks i've got the the pretentious uh middle initial and my twitter handle okay i do too but sometimes you have to if they're if your name's yeah definitely just the nature of the game my tweet of the day that i'm going to highlight actually speaking of our writers comes from isaiah mitch underscore tx oh my gosh who might that be this is his tweet i admit it the general makeup of a press event determines whether or not i describe my company as an austin-based women-owned media startup it made me laugh out loud when i read that which is so true yes it did it did. It actually did. That warms my little heart. But it's true.

We are an Austin-based, woman-owned media startup. Yeah. And I remember before I hit send on that one, I was thinking a thought that enters my head a lot. What if my redneck cousins see this? And then one of them did and liked it. And I thought, thought well my worst fears have been realized because now that's uh now i've described it that way to him you know like how will thanksgiving be oh my goodness that's ridiculous okay gentlemen we had a fun topic

we want to get to but we're over time so we're gonna save it for next week put a pin in it we're gonna put a pin in it was it kim we wanted to talk about yes it's kim and holly um they did if only they worked here if only they i'm kind of glad it worked oh my gosh we're not gonna talk about it because it would make me hungry yeah that's a good teaser daniel well folks on that note tune in next week for our fun topic that we will continue this conversation and don't let us forget don't let me forget gentlemen to talk about this in the next week's podcast folks thanks, thanks for listening. We will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening.

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