The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 27, 2026

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Paxton Calls for Comptroller Hancock’s Firing After Muslim School ESA Program Dispute Newly-Elected State Sen. Taylor Rehmet Complains of Lack of Interim Senate Committee AssignmentsTexas Lawmakers Request Cruz, Cornyn Pass Federal Online Child Safety Bill While Preserving State ControlFort Worth Asks Voters to Approve $845 Million Bond Package, Salary Increases for Mayor and Council MembersTEA Announces New Fort Worth ISD Superintendent and Board of Managers As Part of State TakeoverDallas Removes Rainbow Crosswalks After Exemption from State Directive DeniedDallas and Williamson County GOPs to Return to Countywide Voting After Primary Election Day ConfusionCorpus Christi City Council Moves Forward with Resident Petition for Removal of MayorWhite House Announces $16 Billion Investment For East Texas Power FacilityDallas Police Warn Residents about Traffic Violation Text Scam

Folks, it's McKenzie here with Kim, Meredith, and Mary Elise on another edition of the Weekly Roundup. We're so excited to be back with y'all. I think we're all in different parts of the world here. But Kim, I do really quickly, I want to plug the Blue Bonnet Bulletin because in it you always give us an update on your state park adventures and where you are in your effort to visit all. How many state parks are there in Texas? There are 88. There are 88.

And you are at what number in terms of your visits? 56. 56 the state parks, isn't it? Do you have a favorite? Oh gosh. I like different ones for different reasons, but my top three would probably be Paladuro, Garner, and I really, really like Palmetto. It's very unique. It almost feels like a Jurassic Park experience. I would highly recommend people go there. Kind of like otherworldly? Is that how you... Yeah. Very, very, very, very ferny, very, yeah, it's very otherworldly, in the middle of central Texas, not where you would expect it. Interesting. You're making me really want to go and visit them. But in Blue Bonapoleton, which is a subscriber exclusive newsletter that Kim publishes for us at the Texan, once a month, it definitely

is worth subscribing just for the Bluanna Bolton. But it is so fun because oftentimes she'll give us an update on where she is in the St. Park journey. She puts that a little bit before we started recording and so I thought we would just, you know, let listeners know where we're at in the state park, um, Robert's family journey. It's amazing. I really want, I have a list on my phone of the national parks I've visited and growing, I'm sure Meredith feels like growing up in the Pacific Northwest, you just kind of like visit a lot of national parks because there's a high concentration of them up there.

But in Texas, I, I have not up to my game and visited that many state parks. So I kind of want to make that. activity. Two national parks in Texas. I've been to both, but we have 88 state parks, so highly recommend. Very diverse. It's Big Bend, and what's the other one, the national park? Guadalupe Mountains.

Oh, yes, of course. Okay. Yeah. And I just visited that one recently. It's on the border with New Mexico out kind of north of Midland and very beautiful, but very hard to get to. Not on anyone's route to anywhere, really. Right.

And Big Bend is not like it's. that close to, yeah, Big Bend in and of itself was a huge ordeal to visit. So, regardless. Well, Kim, thanks for, maybe we'll just make like a section of our website, Kim's State Park visits, because I think folks would be interested. Well, let's jump into the news here. Meredith, let's start with you. This is fascinating to watch this all kind of unravel, but there was an issue between the Attorney General Ken Paxton and acting comptroller Kelly Hancock that exploded on social media. through what happened and where we're at now. Yeah, I definitely peaked at, I was looking at Twitter

when I got home from something Tuesday night, and you just see these really aggressive text. And it's almost like a needle scratch, like, okay, how did we get here? What happened leading up to this? So, just a little bit of background before I kind of jump into what happened on Tuesday is that there's been an ongoing issue related to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts, so our ESA program and Muslim school inclusion. So there are a couple of lawsuits. There have been allegations of exclusion. And then on the day of the student application deadline on March 17th, a federal judge ordered an extension until March 31st because he said he found it troubling was the word he used, that there were no Muslim schools on the list. And so we did clarify, there's some coverage of that.

I know Hannah did a piece, I did some pieces, and that you can get caught up on that. And some of the background for Hancock and Paxton and their interactions related to this issue war, it starts back in November where Greg Abbott, Governor Greg Abbott designates care in the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations. Then we fast forward to December where Kelly Hancock asks requests from Ken Paxton a legal opinion if he can use, like if schools with ties to those can be excluded from the Texas Education Freedom Accounts Program or TIFA. And so he requests that. In January, Paxton returns that legal opinion, says, yes, use, you know, go for it.

Like, if you have that, we want to make sure you had some pretty, like, agreeable language. We want to protect schools from these things. And so, okay, it seems like everyone's on the same page. Well, March 24th, Hancock sends a letter to Paxton, which he talks about, he addresses the judge's restraining order and the Muslim school issue. And he points out there were four schools that were,

what he said, I believe he said they were temporarily given access. That's the piece that Hannah wrote. And he had concerns about one of them, the Houston Quran Academy. So he points to this school that was temporarily allowed to participate. And he claims that he used the word scant evidence that had been presented to the court, that they had not been aware that there were documented ties with that school to the Muslim Brotherhood. So the contacts and allegations for this are that Hancock cites this 1991 memorandum that's describing the Muslim Brotherhood's goals. And so there were things like a quote from there

is, Islam as a civilization alternative and support the global Islamic state wherever it is. That's one of their goals. And it would be accomplished through what they called a civilization jihadist process. And so some of the other language describing it, saying that they wanted to be eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within

and sabotaging its miserable house by their hand. and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. They really focused on the idea of an Islamic political party, banks, military organization, and schools. And they listed, they said one individual from this council they have, they identified as a brother among us that would help the process of settlement to be completed was brother Hamid al-Ghazali. And so Hancock writes that Mr. Gazzali is the director and principal of the Houston Cron Academy, the school that is one of the four schools that's been accepted, and that they are now required to register for participation for that. So he points to Paxton's legal opinion and said, you know, in the past you had boasted, he used the words of, you know, to confirm the exclusive authority of the comptroller's office, like go for it.

and he goes on to urge three different things that he wants to happen. He urges Paxton to present more information to the court and to highlight the full details of the terror ties with Houston Chron Academy and anything similar to any of the other plaintiffs that are on the lawsuits. And he said, this is where it gets the spicy parts is he adds in as he makes these requests how he feels Paxton has handled them. He said to our knowledge in defending the Comptroller's office, efforts to implement the school choice program against legal challenges, your office has not explained

Mr. Gazzali's role. And he says the court can't protect against threats that it doesn't know. So then he also asks him to take immediate steps to strip the corporate charter for Houston Cron Academy and any other schools that are documented to terrorism. He urges him to use the tools of the Attorney General's office, which is something that Abbott had also directed him to do when it came to nonprofits and care. So he kind of like references back to Apple. And he says, you know, as far as I'm aware, you have not taken such steps against care of any other Brotherhood affiliates. I'm writing to urge you to use these tools. It's time to prevent abuse of the Texas school choice program.

And then the third thing is he brings in SB17, which talks about people buying land that have some of these connections. And so he also brings that in and wants him to take action to prevent Brotherhood affiliated entities from what he says, taking root in Texas. And he said that he doesn't think there was a single, the Fifth Circuit Court recently concluded, Hancock said that there was not a single step taken by the AG to enforce that law. And so he warns, you know, Texas cannot be asleep at the wheel as radical Islam spreads. And please use this to like hold extremist groups. So some critiques that are very pointed at Paxton and his handling of the situation. He also copies multiple high-level White House.

He has the FBI. He has Abbott on there. He has all these high-level people. And so this is his first action. And then pretty quickly after, I want to say less than an hour, a minute, it was like 8.40 at night. I remember that one. Paxton, so it's after office hours, which cracks me up. So Paxton quickly responds and has a really aggressive, I think, is the appropriate.

appropriate word response and he calls him and Hancock an incompetent loser who's an embarrassment to the position of chief clerk that he holds. He calls for him to be fired and he officially calls that he wants Governor Abbott to immediately replace Hancock with the person he said Texans actually voted for to become troller Don Huffines. So in the primary Huffines did defeat Hancock getting 57 point almost 57.4% of the vote. Hancock only received less than 25% of vote around 20%. 24%. And so he, you know, says Hancock was rejected by Texans because he failed to do his job. So that was a, that's a spicy tweet, kind of late at night that you get. And he also adds that Hancock, he said, this is a quote, failed to take me down during the impeachment and his career is over. So this is referencing that Hancock was one of two Republican senators who voted in the Paxon impeachment to convict supporting 13 of the 16 articles against him. So just a little note, though. under Article 15 of the Texas Constitution, a statewide official, like the comptroller,

would need to be removed through impeachment, with charges brought by the House and tried by the Senate. So yeah, it was just a fun little Twitter. Twitter, you called it a spat. I liked that, but there's some serious, like, legal and, like, implications here that they're gonna have to deal with. Absolutely. And then even if it's not about the actual removal of an elected official, not an election official,

excuse me, that somebody who's acting in an official capacity on the state level, even if that does not come to pass the all the back and forth and the, you know, the role of the office of the attorney general, how to, you know, deal with these specifically legal issues relating to Muslim schools, of course, so it's all ties into the education freedom accounts that you've covered extensively merited. Like there's so much here pertaining to this issue and it doesn't just deal, you know, it's not just a spat between elected officials like you're saying. It's a lot of other things as well.

So we'll definitely keep an eye on this. It's spicy nonetheless. And I think we were all surprised when we saw Huffines come out victorious and pretty crowded field for comptroller without heading to runoff, right? And doing so pretty decisively. But keep an eye. It'll be interesting. In the election, of course, I think it was obvious that there was a lot of, you know,

friendliness between the governor and Hancock. And there were, you know, tours that were happening around the state related to the education freedom accounts. You know, you kind of watch. And obviously the governor did endorse Hancock, but the, you know, the friendliness between those camps was obvious. And so now watching this and Pakistan being the center of it, it's just more fault lines among state leaders. So thanks for covering that for us and keeping an eye on all of it. Kim, let's come to you. This is going to be a Kim heavy podcast. And so Kim's fans buckle up. This is going to be a good one for you. Tell us about this dust up between a newly elected senator.

and the Lieutenant Governor speaking of SPATS, specifically in relation to interim committee assignments. Right. So a little background for our listeners who may not know, you know, the legislature meets every other year for 140 days and then any specially called sessions. But during the interim, there are often committee hearings held about issues that the legislature may want to study and possibly address during the next legislative session. And Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick recently released his list, which I think Hannah wrote about, of interim committees, interim committee assignments. But one newly elected senator was not on it, and that is Senator Taylor Remit, who won a special election on January 31st to flip a seat from Republican to Democrat that was vacated for Senate District 9, State Senate District 9 in North Texas. vacated by the aforementioned Kelly Hancock, who became the acting controller of public accounts.

Now, Remit complained about the lack of assignments and the lack of representation for SD9 on the committees. He said that, quote, after months of Senate District 9 having no voice in the Texas Senate, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has chosen to silence our district even further by refusing to assign me to any committee. This decision reflects the kind of petty partisan politics that too often stands in the way of delivering results for working families. He wrote that in a press release. So the lieutenant governor did not stay silent about the issue. He chose to respond to Remit saying Senator Remit was well aware he wouldn't be appointed to interim committees, pointing out that Remit was filling an unexpired term that will be up for election again in November.

So Patrick added, if Remit wins in November, he would then be assigned committees like anyone else at the beginning of the next legislative session in January 2027. Patrick said that he explained this issue to Remit and that Remit said he understood. However, that didn't stop the two from going back and forth. Patrick also pointed out that this is the precedent, that when other senators have won special elections in the past, They did not get assigned committees in the interim that they had to wait until the session started to get assigned to committees. So I would recommend our readers go look at the article. It has a few more details that I didn't include here. But it was a little back and forth, and we'll see how the election turns out.

Obviously, the lieutenant governor is supporting Remit's opponent in the November general election. And so that's another little detail that shouldn't go unnoticed. absolutely and not just in the November general election but let's think governor's been very supportive of lee walmskons for many months now even in the initial election initial special election or you know it was the two Republicans and a Democrat fine for that spot so all eyes will be on Senate District 9 come November as course that was a huge encouragement for Democrats both in Texas and at the national level when remit did win that special election so we'll keep an eye on what that looks like was it a fluke was it a special election in which turnout was increased or is this indicative of trends for November. We'll see. It's going to be interesting. Kim, thanks for your coverage. And Kim covered that election all the way up to the get-go. So definitely go watch all of that. Mary Elise, let's talk about Texas, let's go federal here. Texas lawmakers wrote to Congress about a bill related to child safety online. Tell us why. Yeah, this was kind of an interesting intersection of the or Texas lawmakers contacting

Congress about legislation that they're looking at. So Texas lawmakers giving their opinion on a congressional bill. So this is kind of displaying the struggle between federal versus state government control over all this advancing technology, whether it's AI or just the internet in general advancing. And then legislation that's being crafted in response. And so that's kind of the fight that's brewing here around this specific bill. So this was a bipartisan. bipartisan, equally bipartisan, a coalition of Texas state senators that wrote to U.S. senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn. And so they asked them to reject the current form of this legislation, which is called Kids Online Safety Act, known as COSA. And the goal of this legislation

is just the baseline goal is to protect children online, so to implement some guardrails to make sure that children are more protected online, and that platforms are, um, doing what is necessary to protect minors, taking those necessary steps. But specifically, their issues with this piece of legislation, the version that was just marked up by the House specifically, the issue with it was that they said it would have a negative impact on state's legislative autonomy. And then they also had some other issues with some of the provisions saying it removed certain protections for minors that was in the Senate bill.

But the big thing here was that it was going to affect state legislative autonomy. So this letter was kind of led by state senator Angela Paxton. And so they wrote to, like I said, to Cornyn and Cruz and talked about specifically the U.S. House's markup of this bill, the COSA bill. Yeah, so they're arguing that it's going to kind of handicap states and being able to make their own laws related to child safety online. And so they say it's kind of that kind of tarnishes the bill's positive direction, even though everyone's kind of united around this general idea of we want to protect children online.

Of course, there's a lot of different ideas about how we should go about that and which government should be given more control. So the original provisions in this bill, there's a couple of them among the most notable, are one that creates a requirement for companies to default to their strongest privacy settings when they're dealing with a minor user. So if they've got a minor user on a platform automatically default to strongest privacy settings. It also establishes a duty for platforms to minimize the promotion of harmful activity. And it lists several different things that could be considered harmful activities,

such as eating disorders or self-harm, et cetera, and then requiring that these platforms have a dedicated route for parents to file complaints or report bad actors on the platforms or report different content that's promoting these things that could be considered harmful for minors to consume. It also specifically addresses social media company's usage of algorithms for suggesting content, which if you're a social media user, you're very familiar with algorithm, whether it be X, Instagram, Facebook, you see how it's specifically crafted for the user that's on the platform. And so they kind of acknowledge this and talked about how the companies have a certain amount of control over what they're

showing a certain age user. So the letter that was sent on Fridays arguing that the House version of COSA is, quote, considerably weaker than the Senate version. They say that the latest version doesn't really meet the bar on the child's safety front. They say it, quote, removes a duty of care to prevent online harm to children. And then they said, noted that it replaces it with this broad preemption language that they said would prevent states from enforcing any laws that conflict with federal provisions. And so this, of course, is a topic that's just going to keep blowing up, but this came just a couple of days within a major development within kind of the same policy fight. We saw the White House introduced its national policy framework for AI,

which essentially called on Congress to establish a blanket federal approach to AI regulation. avoiding allowing states to freedom to kind of design their own laws on the matter. So this was specifically AI, but it's all kind of under the same umbrella here. The issue was kind of highlighted by Paxton in an ex post. She talked about the Upper Chambers version of COSA. She described it as being a bill that balances federal standards with state rights to enact stronger protections as technology evolves. So some positive words from Pakistan there and the general idea of COSA.

She said this language is crucial. The online landscape evolves rapidly, and states must retain the flexibility to respond. So like I said, the signies of the letter included the chamber 31 members, a bipartisan group, equal partisan breakdown of we had 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans signed on to this. So along kind of the same lines of this letter, Senator Paxton has sent letters such as this addressing this issue of state control when it comes to regulating the online world. She specifically sent some letters related AI to Cruz and Cornyn, such as one that was in November 2025, and she was requesting that they reject what was going to be a federal moratorium on state's regulation of AI for a certain amount of years. She was arguing that it would

strip the state's protective measures. She also sent a similar letter a couple of months earlier in 2025 when she it was also having to do with a moratorium on state AI regulations but that was having to specifically pertain to the one big beautiful bill act back when that was being discussed and she was urging the two that you need to pull this provision from the bill although it ended up not being successful in the end So of course, as we see AI developing so much, just the online world, just racing forward, the clash between state and federal control is just going to be ramping up to become more spicy because, of course, we see kind of a clear messaging from the White House on how they like to see this issue handle,

at least with their AI framework that they just put out, it's in a pretty clear message about wanting a blanket federal approach to this. and kind of limiting state control. But then we've also got lawmakers, such as the ones that are signed on to this letter, who are saying, look, we need to leave kind of the reins in the state's hands on this to allow them don't tie their hands behind their backs when it comes to this issue. So we'll see. We'll cover where this legislation goes, but this is just an interesting development because it's not all the time you see Texas lawmakers kind of weighing in on something going

on at the congressional level, especially a very specific piece of legislation, and specifically talking about a chamber's markup of this piece of legislation. So that speaks volumes, I think, about how important this policy fight is. Absolutely. Maryleys, thanks for covering that for us. And, you know, I'm just going to plug newsletters all day long on this podcast, apparently, because if you're also interested in the federal side of what's going on in D.C., Marylees has a phenomenal newsletter called The 40, specifically detailing all the actions. of the 38 Congress members and the two senators from Texas, the 40, and what they've got going on. So go subscribe to the Texas and get that in your inbox every Thursday morning.

Mary Alis, thank you. Kim, let's go back to some local news here. It's municipal election in bond season. Spicy, if you don't mind me saying. It's a spicy time. And Fort Worth has several items on the ballot for its residents. Give us those details. Well, to quote, Tip O'Neill, all politics are local.

if anyone on the podcast, listening to the podcast knows who Tip O'Neill is. But anyway, I'm showing my age. Bringing it close to my home for Fort Worth, and there will be many bond packages on but ballots around the state this spring. But residents of Fort Worth specifically will be asked to approve an $845 million bond package and nine charter amendments, including a pay increase for the mayor and city council. And that election will be held on May 2nd. So there are six bond propositions, and the largest of those covers more than half of the total package,

$511 million dedicated to streets and other transportation infrastructure projects, kind of the meat and potatoes of city government, making sure people have streets to drive on. The second largest of those bond propositions for $185 million is for $185 million, is for parks, recreation, and open space. I know there's one for public libraries, there's one for homeless solutions, so take a look at that. There are six different bond propositions listed in our article,

and the city will be holding meetings throughout the next few weeks to allow residents to learn more about those bond propositions and what they'll be used for. Now, there are nine city charters. The city charter is like the constitution, for the city. It's governing document for the city, and they are proposing nine different amendments. And the one that's most likely to garner the most detention is proposition G, and that would

more than double the mayor's salary. Mayor Maddie Parker is the current mayor of Fort Worth, and she currently gets a salary of $29,000 annually, and that would be increased to $60,000. And then the council members' salaries would increase from $25,000. 5,000 to 50,000. Now just a little background for our readers. There was a proposal to raise the salaries by a larger amount. I think they were going to raise the mayor's salary to about $90,000 in 2022 and that measure failed. So they're trying again with a little more modest increase for the mayor's salary and we'll see how the residents of Fort Worth react to that. But I just encourage our readers to keep an eye on coverage at the Texan. We'll be covering a lot of these municipal elections and bonds.

very important. They affect people's tax rates, property tax rates, and they are very important to keep an eye on and learn about so that they can vote in an informed way in the May elections. Absolutely. And Kim, you're at the forefront of all. Thank you so much. Meredith, I'll come to you. Last plug, I promise. Meredith has a phenomenal newsletter called Report Card, and it details an education issue from that week, and it's fascinating to deep dive on any given thing. It's either in the news or top of mind for Meredith, who covers education so beautifully here at the Texan. So definitely go check that out as well and subscribe to get that in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Let's talk about the Texas Education Agency.

It named a new superintendent and appointed a board of managers for Fort Worth ISD. Bring us up to speed on that situation. Yeah, so Fort Worth ISD has been under state intervention or a state takeover since October, and they announced that they would be doing this. So they went through the process and recently just told us who is going to be taking over. So the new superintendent is named Dr. Peter B. Lakata, and he recently was serving in Florida with the sixth largest school district Broward County Public Schools. And in the press release, they mentioned that he led them to an A rating for the first time in over 14 years.

And he has over 30 years of experience. And it sounds like he's kind of done it all. so teaching and coaching and ending with being like the superintendent and also university professor. So he kind of has run the gamut of educational roles. And so he starting this week, he's taking over. He is now the superintendent taking over for Dr. Karen Molinar. So there was, I think, some hope amongst people, the current council, the elected council, and Mayor Maddie Parker were very supportive of Dr. Karen Molinar.

She was invited by the TEA to be a part of the process. And then we reported, I think a week or two ago, they said that she would not be moving forward, so we knew we would be getting a new superintendent. You can go check out just a little bio about all of the different, the nine member board. The one that stands out is Bobby Adia, who is the dean of the Texas A&M University School of Law.

So he kind of brings the biggest name recognition there. And he does a lot in that role. they mentioned that he oversees graduate students in health care energy finance as the chief operating officer at Texas A&M Fort Worth specifically. And so yeah, there was a few legal, there's about three or four people that had legal backgrounds. There was a handful, a few with business and finance, and then a couple that were more of the community non-profit type. So they kind of let you know where they went to school, what their background is. There was I think at least two parents that are current parents at Fort Worth ISD that are on the board.

There's over 300 people that applied. And so, yeah, it's, we're in the middle of like a rash of takeovers in the last six months. There were four and then Houston a couple of years ago as well for specifically academic purposes. And there's a couple on the horizon that we're all keeping an eye on to see what will happen next. So this is something that seems to be just picking up speed and we'll see if this is like a normal part of educational processes in the future. Hopefully, yeah, we'll just see like which, who else will be in line for this type of intervention. Yeah, I remember the Houston story being so, I mean, and it still has such a big deal. But then watching more school districts face the same fate is so interesting.

Now it's just like, okay, another takeover. It's a little bit less of a headline. And it still is, but it's become more commonplace so interesting to watch. And they take over districts for other reasons. There's been some that they make headlines, but it's more like under not understandable, but it's like if there's financial mismanagement, if there's some kind of something that's illegal or there's been, yeah, there's been some financial reasons they do that or, yeah, some scandals or things like that.

But in general, the ones where it's like the kids are not performing, the academics are not there, that definitely gets the most backlash from the parents and the boards and the local, like the local elected officials because it doesn't seem quite as cut and dry, right? Because it's like a big district, a lot going on and they're just going in. So those are the two sides there that some people see it as a good thing. And then some people obviously see it with the local control issue as a horrible thing. Totally. And it's a great distinction, Meredith, that there are many reasons for a takeover, and it's not always the same. Like, each takeover is so individual, and it's not always the same as, you know, the big one, the Houston ISD situation.

They're all for all sorts of different reasons. I have different receptions as well. So thanks for keeping an eye on that for us. Kim, let's talk about, we're still on DFW here. Let's move to the other side. Let's talk about streets in Dallas and why they made news this week. Yes, McKenzie. It's a topic that has happened around this. state and now it's Dallas's turn. Last fall the Texas Department of Transportation otherwise known as Tex. Dot issued a state directive about removing decorative pavement markings that didn't comply with state standards. Just a few days prior to that Governor Abbott had issued a directive to TextDOT to make sure that markings that were associated with political ideologies were removed from

streets. And so Dallas has about 30 rainbow crosswalks in the city and the rainbow crosswalks were painted in around 2020 and they were meant to honor sort of the LGBT communities in and around Dallas. And so they sought an exemption to not have to remove these rainbow crosswalks, but TextDOT did not grant that exemption. So the city of Dallas had to develop a plan for the removal of about 30 crosswalks. They issued a memorandum on March 20th, so last week explaining their plan, and that started on this past Monday, and they'll be working on that through about the end of April. They're going to do some of it to coincide with other street work that they already had planned, especially in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas. And other cities, like I mentioned, have already

done this work, the City of Houston, in the City of San Antonio, had to remove theirs as as well. They've already completed that work. Austin appears to still be seeking exemptions for some of theirs, and so those are still pending, so we'll see how that turns out. But this is kind of the anti-DEI, anti-political ideology movement that was in reaction to a lot that grew up in the 2020 timeframe. And so this is one of the things that's a result of that. Absolutely. Kim, thanks for your coverage. Marylees coming to you. Two county GOPs announced a change in the way they'll be conducting the primary runoff election.

This follows some big news after the March elections. Walk us through it. Yeah, we're kind of staying in the Dallas area. So two county GOPs announced that they're going to be changing the way that they conduct the primary runoff election because of a whole lot of confusion that happened on election day. So this is Dallas County. Williamson County GOPs. And so they're working to return to countywide voting for the May primary runoff after their new system, which required voters to vote in their assigned precinct versus just anywhere in

the county. It caused a lot of confusion for voters on Election Day. They said, Williamston County Republican Party said on a Facebook post on Saturday, they said, we listened to your feedback, your frustrations, and your anger. We heard you loud and clear, and we made the necessary adjustments to our primary runoff contract to reflect your needs as Republican voters. So something that we've covered was how the Democratic primary U.S. Senate kind of was hanging in the balance pretty late in the night after a lot of races had been called.

I remember that night, we ended up writing a piece just explaining this voter confusion and why this race had not been called yet. It's probably around 1 a.m. or something. So it wasn't determined yet because reports, reports have been circulating that large numbers of voters in Williamson and Dallas counties were showing up to the wrong voting locations due to confusion over those new requirements. Like I said, that it required local residents to cast their votes in their precincts versus just anywhere in the county, which most Texas voters are probably used to doing.

You can just go anywhere in your county and you'll be able to vote there. There were around 13,000 Dallas residents that were reported as having shown up to the wrong polling place in election day, so 13,000. In response, a Dallas County judge, this was on election night. A Dallas County judge extended the voting hours until 9 p.m. And this was actually fulfilling the request of both Democratic primary contenders, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and then State Representative James Tullerico, who were running against each other that night for Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

And of course, polls everywhere else closed at 7 p.m. as they usually do. then Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stepped in as his own results in the primary for U.S. Senate. As we know, he, yes, Kim. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Mary Elise. Part of the confusion, I think, was that countywide voting was happening during early voting. Is that right? And then it switched to precinct-level voting on voting day? I believe that's correct.

Yeah. And so that creates a lot more confusion because a lot of folks were used to one thing when they were voting just not that much earlier or when their neighbors were voting and then and then it kind of switched and so that's pretty that can be confusing especially when you're just trying to fit in time to vote before after work I think one of the concerns was of course that people will make one shot at showing up to a voting location you know after work or something wait in line but if you show up to the wrong location odds are that a lot of people are just going to leave I'm not trying to go find the right one, not bother with that.

But so Ken Paxton did end up kind of stepping into this dust up. He filed a motion with the Supreme Court of Texas that night to try and halt voting and then require that any of the votes that were cast after the originally scheduled end time of 7 p.m. Be separated and that was granted to him. Ultimately, which we covered, the race was called for James Hilariko before the situation was resolved. but that was because the, I believe, about 90% of the votes were accounted for when it was called, and he had collected 53% of the vote against Crockett. So that's why a lot of platforms came out and just called the race for him.

The Dallas County Democratic Party shared just about a week or two ago. They said they would no longer be pursuing the case in the Supreme Court of Texas related to the provisional ballots. They cited, quote, partisan hostility of court. So they said it's just not worth it financially. They said they don't think it's going to go anywhere significant. They said the chair, Cardo Coleman, said, furthermore, continuing to pursue this case in a hostile form would incur massive legal cost resources that are better spent on the ground protecting our voters. So they essentially pivoted there to determine that their resources weren't best spent on this case with the Texas Supreme Court. The Dallas County GOP was the first one to come out and announce, okay, we're going to return to countywide.

voting for the runoff election. That was on March 17th. And that was just a couple days before Williamson County GOP similarly announced, okay, we'll be doing this too. They said, all the GOP remains committed to ensuring voter integrity, and this is Williamson County. Our first and most important duty is to ensure victory at the ballot box. They said one vote lost is too many. And in a crucial midterm election year, Republicans must be united behind the goal to win. The Texas Democratic Party, responded to this kind of pivoting in course said after confusion and long lines in March caused by the Republican Party, this reversal shows what we said all along. Making voter, making, excuse me, voting harder only hurts Texans. So the Williamson County election administrator needs to

sign the amended election contract. I spoke to when this piece went out with Williamson County GOP chair, Michelle Evans. She confirmed that this is only for the primary runoff. So to not be confused with that this is definitely going to be the way it is moving forward, this is specifically going to be the case for primary runoff. And then she also said she expects that this contract will definitely be signed by the Williamson County Election Administrator. And so this is necessary for the election contract to be approved, to be able to switch from this assigned precinct method versus the county-wide casting of ballots.

the another, all add in another statement that Williamson County GOP said, they said, Republicans cannot afford to conduct preceived level voting unless and until we are absolutely confident that everyone who is eligible to vote has the opportunity to do so. So I think both Democrats or Republicans could get behind that, that, you know, one vote lost is too many, but we'll see how this pans out on primary runoff day, which is May 26, if I'm not incorrect. And so we'll see if kind of the confusion is resolved there. I am curious to see if there will maybe be a little bit of confusion just because

of the way things wound out to be on election night. And now this switch, but definitely folks are more used to voting countywide. So we'll see how this pans out. Absolutely. Mary Leas, thank you. Kim, let's come back to you some more local news that has statewide, some statewide implications. Corpus Christi's been in the news now for water issues. for a while. And this week they voted something else that kind of developed the story is very newsworthy. Walk us through the details. Yes, McKenzie. So it has been in the news for water

issues about a desalination plant. But this week, the main issue in the Corpus Christi City Council was a petition to remove Mayor Paulette Guajardo. So on Tuesday, March 24th, the city council voted five to three to move forward with the hearing. They didn't move forward to remove her. They're moving forward to have a hearing about whether or not to remove her. Now the removal hearing is based on a citizen petition and according to this Corpus Christi City Charter, a citizen position signed by at least five registered voters can ask for and must be granted, a, it says shall be granted, alleging that the petition alleged that the mayor knew about either forging, or altering federal documents involved in a tax incentive case granted by the

Corpus Christi-C seated counsel. So let me explain a little bit about the petition. It was filed by a resident named Rachel Caballero, and it claims that the allegations arose during a civil lawsuit. So it gets a little confusing. There was a civil lawsuit by a hotelier who was trying to get a hotel development named Ajit David that he filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Corpus Christi. And during those proceedings, certain information came out during depositions that led to this citizen petition for removal of the mayor. The petition alleges that the mayor violated the law by knowingly accepting tampered federal documents, but also violated the Code of Ethics required of her as an elected official. The documents, the main one was a FEMA map,

a federal emergency management agency map that appeared differently on the FEMA website than it appeared on a PowerPoint presentation made to the city council, and they voted based on the altered, what they called the unquote unquote altered map. And the citizens believe that the mayor grant, she voted in favor of the tax incentive. that was granted to a different hotel developer named Philip Ramirez, and he is allegedly a campaign donor of the mayor. So there's this whole interaction between a campaign donor and these allegedly altered federal documents

and her voting for this tax incentive for this hotel that was being promoted by her campaign donor. Now, the Corpus Christi Police did look into this matter. They didn't bring any charges. They said nothing rose to the level of criminal. activity. However, the city's threshold is much lower than a criminal case would be, and so the city council did vote to move forward at least with the hearing. And so they'll be voting on April 14th to set some of those parameters for that hearing, procedures that will be followed.

The mayor is entitled to certain due process protections, just like you would be in any court case, things like knowing what the written charges against her will be. They may or may not differ from those in the citizen petition. She has a right to a defense. She has a right to call witnesses in her favor. She has a right to notice of the time and place of the hearings, all those kinds of things. And the burden of proof will be on those who brought the petition for her removal.

So just very similar to a court case. The city council will act as a triers of fact. They'll be the judge and jury in the matter. And she can only be removed by a majority vote. And she also may not be removed. take different actions. Removal is only one of the actions they could take. They could vote not to remove her. They could vote to censure her. They could vote to suspend her for a while. So there are different remedies available if they do decide that something needs to be done. Meanwhile, one council member,

Mark Scott said he voted against moving forward. He said that he feels like citizens are looking at them and they're fiddling while Rome burns, to quote him, because these water shortage issues are such a big deal and meanwhile they're voting about the mayor. So one of one of the issues is that the state has given the city of corpus from the water development fund over 500 million dollars in grants and they voted not to proceed with the desalination plant. We have a lot of coverage at the Texan about these corpus christi issues. This is just the latest but this city is kind of in a little bit of a turmoil right now and I think I read that that the democrats are going to meet there for their convention, right? So use up some water. That'll be interesting. It will be interesting.

Kim, thanks for covering that for us. Meredith, let's come to you here. East Texas will soon be home to a $16 billion gas-fired power facility as part of a larger U.S. and Japan investment agreement. Walk us through the details here and what this means for the state. So Anderson County is getting this significant facility and it's part of this US and Japan agreement that includes it came from a meeting between the Japanese Prime Minister and President Donald Trump in October and the deal includes things like a 15% tax on Japanese imports and 550 billion dollar Japanese investment fund into the US and so this is one of the projects that they've tapped and so we'll be going

in to the anderson County it's going to be built operated by Next Era Energy Resources and it has the capacity to generate up to 5.2 gigawatts of energy and serve large-scale energy demand that Texas is having. So the natural gas is going to be supplied by a group called Comstack and the facility eventually can potentially consume nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2031. So it is a big one. The White House said that this facility is going to be able to provide dispatchable power, support economic growth and supply chains, and even strengthen national security. This is coming as this huge data center boom here in Texas. There's just been a lot of increase in demand for power. And I was at this event called

Forward, Fort Worth, where Governor Greg Abbott spoke about all of these types of related issues. And he was just emphasizing Texas's energy capacity, he said that Texas has more electrical power generation than any other state by far, even more than the second and third combined. And he's just like, we're gonna continue to add more gigabytes every single year. So that, you know, forward, that's the title of the meeting.

Forward, going forward in that way, but there are growing concerns about some of the resources available. Like obviously, we were just talking about Corpus Christi in their water situation, which does relate, it touches up to some of these issues. But we highlighted a couple in the article. One was representative, state rep Helen Kerwin, who wrote a letter to the governor asking,

knowing that Texas does need to be competitive, and she said in the global race for advanced technology, but asking for a pause. She said, you know, we're just beginning to see large-scale data center development, rapidly targeting nearby areas of her district. They're looking for dependable power and water access, and that there's certain projects that are attempting, she said,

to move forward quietly before the communities have the opportunity to fully understand the potential impacts. And so she's just asking, could there be an immediate pause on the advancement of these large, you know, scale data center developments until the rural communities can really see, like, the impact that it's going to happen? There was a popular story that I saw online about someone being offered $26 million for farmland for a data center, and she had turned it down. And so that was getting people like, yes, we don't want everything to be taken over by data center. So there's like definitely the rural, but yet the forward motion of technology tension that exists there. Also, Representative Aaron Zweener from the Driftford area,

she announced that she's going to be having this working group in Hayes County focusing on data center impacts. And she just, you know, said our region's been experiencing a drought for years. waterways like Onion Creek and the Blanco River have run dry. And so, you know, people are cutting back on water use just to see, she said to see rates, she's talking about rates, skyrocketing energy rates for people. And so she is also highlighting this issue that will be something that in the coming, in the coming legislative session is going to be obviously a big deal. And so as they're attracting all these big global investors, there's this huge demand.

And so, you know, there seems to be somewhat of like a growing bipartisan support for some kind of pause or even just fully like investigating and looking into all of this to understand what's happening before it just takes off. Absolutely. And growing pains all around for a state that's always ranked in the top for growth in the nation and some of these counties that we're talking about are ranked in the top 10. So, Meredith, thank you so much for your coverage there. Kim, let's talk about text scams. The last story before you get our tweet. Walk us through the warning that the Dallas police issued regarding the text scam locally. Well, McKenzie, this was kind of personal to me because I got one of these texts.

The Dallas Police Department issued a warning to local residents and not just in Dallas, but in the area, about a text scam that is being sent. It's got a picture of what purports to be a citation seeking, payment for either a traffic or toll violation. It has a fake judge's name on it. It has a case number. But most importantly, it has a QR code at the bottom that it asks people to scan and send money to. And the Dallas police informed people that the Dallas Municipal Court does not send out these kinds of texts, that this is fake, and that they should not send any money to it. This is not new. Last fall, there was a similar text scam issue that arose in Harris County, the Harris County

District Clerk's Office. It appeared to be from them, but obviously it was a fake, asking again for payment. And then last July, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles put out a warning about fake text messages for unpaid traffic tickets. And these, you know, they threaten people that they're going to have their license suspended if they don't pay it and stuff. So they really try to make people afraid to not pay these so-called violations. The Dallas police gave the advice to never respond to them, to never send money to them, to delete the message right away. If they did fall for it and sent money to contact the police and also to contact their bank or their credit card that they used to make the fraudulent payment to try to get it stopped. So it's hard. They are investigating.

It's hard to track these scammers down. They aren't necessarily found all the time. But Anyway, local residents should watch out if they get a picture of a so-called traffic violation from the Dowlish Municipal Court or any other local court, they should not pay it. That is not how they'll be contacted if they have a traffic violation. So just a public service announcement. Public service announcement, Kim, thank you. Let's move on to our tweetery for this week. Maryleads, I want to start with you because this is what I was going to pick. So I'm a little, I'm a little salty about it.

But let's chat about, I can't wait to talk about this. Yeah, it was too good not to include Twitter. I'm sorry, though, that I bulldozed your idea, but at least somebody's talking about it. How dare you? So there are reports out that there are cocaine-fueled sharks that are on the prowl in the Caribbean. And scientists are blaming partying tourists. I can just see a movie writing itself here. This would be very interesting.

But, you know, I saw someone say something funny. about how, you know, this is why I don't swim in the ocean. And as someone who's not, who's a little bit scared of going too deep in the ocean because of sharks, this just adds fuel to the fire. I mean, like, imagine a cocaine-fueled shark, like not just a shark, but one that's on cocaine, that just, yeah, that sounds like something of a nightmare. But very interesting news. It is. I think it also says a lot about maybe these resort areas. Yeah. And what's going on in that's crazy Meredith what do you have

speaking of movies there is the movie called cocaine bear where a bear in the woods that's right yeah I didn't watch it not my vibe but so it has written itself not the first time something like this has happened the sequel I forgot about that

cocaine bear like I remember that trailer dropped I think I received it via text like four times People were, I don't know what it was about that movie that made people just, like that trailer just erupt and want to talk about it. But it was all over the place when it came out. And I definitely did not see it either. I didn't really care to see a cocaine bear on my screen. But I know I'm in, I know there are plenty of people who did.

Meredith, what do you have for us? Well, mine was yesterday at Melania Trump hosted different. I think they were, I know that one was like the wife of the president of France, and I think they were all women. And it was about, she really made this emphasis. She walked out with a robot and then sat down and proceeded to, and I had to go look at the actual video to make sure it wasn't clipped weird or something like I wasn't understanding it. But she proceeded to suggest that humanoid teachers would be good for children to help. help them be a more well-rounded and, like, balanced human being. And that robots teaching our children is, like, some kind of future of education. And so the education, Twitter world erupted because, and people were like, I saw people saying, I was even hesitant to post this. It's so ridiculous. And I don't, you know, we don't make a lot of statements at the Texan, but I thought

it was a bipartisan, cute robot should not be teaching our children. I didn't know about that one. And, but she was so serious and talking about learning classical. education from a robot, it felt truly like a scene from The Hunger Games meets SNL. I just didn't know it was so odd. And then the robot introduced itself and breeded people in all these different languages. I think were represented at the table and had what people describe as this valley girl accent. I mean, like, beyond the new.

I mean, she just, I'm not a French accent's not amazing, but I just was like trying to listen. There was some kind of, I think probably Russian or Slavic language. that it was just so butchered, all of them, you know, and I just thought, it just felt surreal. And also, it's just such a bad idea. I just cannot believe it's coming from the White House. That's just, yeah, that was a weird, weird thing to watch. So. That's so hard.

Her accent cracked me up. I have to say the robot, when she introduced herself, it was just, it was hilarious because it sounded like maybe someone in high school that was like, hey, my name is, you know, whatever. And she's trying to tell me that kids will learn better from this robot about The Odyssey or whatever. She's talking about, the classic book, da, da, da, da, da, so they could go play sports and have more time. And I was just like, I'm not listening to. I'm a classically educated. My children homeschooled them.

And I guess I should have had a humanoid robot doing it instead. Yeah. I'm sure it would have done a much better job, Kim, than the. My children might think so. I don't know. Than their mother who knows her children. Wild. All I can think is Charlotte Mason is rolling over in her grave.

I think before I think that there could be some truly like both sides of the aisle of education agreeing on this. This was, I saw, forget, I mean, Charlotte Mason, of course, she's rolled over on a grave about a lot of things because she has a very specific style. But I think even public school teachers, people that are for AI and different things, this is, I think this takes it to the next level that is just. Okay, anyway, I'm done. That's my little box. That one was hard for me. Oh, that one's a tough one. Absolutely.

I do think that there are more and more things that have, like these dystopian movies are novels that have come out and like you think about the Hunger Games. And I mean, that's a very broadly accepted one. But I'm talking about all sorts, you know, dating back for far longer. And some of these trends in AI or humanoid teachers just kind of hit a little too close to home. It's a wild, wild time. Kim, what do you have for us?

I think this is appropriate considering how we opened up the pod. Yeah, I was thinking we could say we're circling back to the beginning of the podcast. But in my love of state parks, I saw this announcement that Caprock Canyons up near the Panhandle will be growing that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced that it had acquired more land to add to Caprock Canyons. I've been to Caprock Canyons. It's beautiful. there's actually a series of parks that the park ranger told you should visit,

and they're all part of the same geological formations. You should start at copper breaks, and then go to Caprock, and then go to Paladuro, and you'll see the geological formation grow. So just in case anyone's wondering, the order they should visit those in, we did it backwards. But it's still beautiful. The Texas buffalo herd, sorry, bison. Texas bison herd is there, and they're just wandering around among people, and you can take pictures really close up of them.

And it's a very beautiful park, and it's going to grow to over 17,500 acres. So I encourage people. I was excited to see that. It's part of the continued acquisition of land that Texas Parks and Wildlife is doing. And they'll be growing Caprock Canyon. So go take a peek.

But not in the summer. Too hot. And don't take a peek too close to the bison because we've all seen those headlines. Be smart. Don't be one of those people that's like taking selfies, you know. Keep your distance. That's right.

And feed away from a bison. It's just a recipe for disaster. That's right. I quickly want to hit interim charges. House interim charges came out while we're recording here. So Mary Lees has been diving into those even as we speak. But I don't have a ton of, I haven't been able to parse through all of them. But keep an eye out. We'll definitely have that up at the Texan by the time this podcast is out. So keep an eye on that. But interim charges are essentially what the legislature is tasked.

with investigating or researching, having hearings on ahead of the legislative session. So it's a lot of groundwork that's being laid ahead of the sessions that lawmakers can talk to stakeholders, talk to activists, citizens to ensure that they're hitting the issues that are top of mind or even approaching as potential issues for the state. So, I mean, this could be anything from water to social issues. I mean, this is everything. So the Senate's already released theirs. The house has theirs out now. And, It would be interesting to compare and kind of see what each chamber is prioritizing. But Maryle, are there any top-of-line takeaways that you have as you've skimmed?

Well, the speaker did, this is probably one of the more notable things. Speaker, Dustin Burroughs, did create three new select committees. So it's governmental oversight, health care affordability, and then general aviation. So those are three new ones that it'll be interesting to. I dove into what exactly those committees will be, responsible for and what he's listed under there. But we'll have that in the piece, I'm sure. Yeah, absolutely. Meredith, what you got? I was just peeking at the education ones and eliminating educator misconduct was on that one, which is a hot topic we've talked a lot about. And I just

posted that we've been following the Salina ISD. And recently they just took away and put the father and son, both on the do not hire registry, which we interviewed the new, we interviewed the new inspector general of educator misconduct and that is on the texan and so it's great to see that as a line of something that they're going to continue to look into oh my gosh absolutely timely as always and i think either whether it be student or educator misconduct or behavioral issues are top of mind for the legislature last session and now this session so they'll be interesting to see what the approach is and the angle for the legislation um i think it's kind of starting to take shape already but it will be um

These intercharges provide a lot of clarity on what people are thinking, what people are thinking. And as hearings happen, we'll kill for those as well. Well, ladies, thank you so much for joining another episode. We appreciate it. I'm loving this all ladies thing we've got going on. I know Rob stepped in for me last week as I was sick. So Rob, thank you for doing that. He's a rock star.

But regardless, great to be on another edition of the Weekly Roundup with you, ladies. Folks, thanks for listening, and we'll 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 the Texan. 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 the Texan. 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.