The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 7, 2025

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/Learn more about the Data Center Coalition at: https://www.centerofyourdigitalworld.org/texasLearn more about The Beer Alliance at:https://beeralliance.com/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Trump's Address to Congress Features Honored Texans, Lawmaker DisruptionsProject ConnectIVF Embryo Reporting Requirements Filed in Texas HousePay Dirt: Corruption, Nepotism Accusations Lobbed at State Conservation Agency, Board MemberCampus DEI Offices Discussed in Texas House Higher Education Committee Hearing'THC Ban,' Compassionate Use Bills Hear 10 Hours of Testimony in Senate Committee HearingFormer Uvalde Mayor, Now-Lawmaker Files Priority School Safety BillTexas Lawmaker Proposes 'Enhanced Penalty' for Criminal Activity While Masked and DisguisedTexas, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Debate Radioactive Waste Storage at U.S. Supreme CourtFree Speech Organization Sues Texas A&M for Cancelling Campus Drag Shows ‘Michael Jordan of Politics’: Valentina Gomez Brings Brazen Brand from Missouri to TexasAnd more!

I would call it very spicy. Well, if you were to describe this piece with like three adjectives, the story, how would you describe it? Weird, wacky and wild. Howdy folks, Mackenzie here at Brad Cameron and Mary Lynn's. That really rolls off my tongue now. Mainly it's just me remembering what words to say. That's the frame really just start going.

Which we know is always a big lip for you. That's true. Matt, okay. Maslin the other day said, "'Oh, Mac, you were on fire on Smoke-Filled Room "'and the intro is hilarious this week.'" And I was like, man, I must have had some good zingers. Come to find out the intro was literally just a compilation of me not having the right word to

say. And we played it in the office and I was humbled very, very quickly. But that's the nature of the beast, I guess. You're always so haughty that, you know, you have to be brought down to earth here and there, right? I do. How are y'all? Does it feel like a more chill week than last week? A little bit. Yeah. You know not as many things going on but you know there's always news to cover. Oh for sure. Legislatively more chill. Yeah. I would argue. Yeah. More committee hearings happening this week rather than, um, you know, there were some big ticket items that were happening, especially with the Texas lottery stuff that was going on, the suspension of the constitutional order.

None of that this week so far. Yeah. So, um, hopefully we can cruise into the weekend without anything crazy happening. I'm not going to wood right now, Cameron. Um, Brad and Mary-Lise, y'all feel the same way? A little more chill this week? Yeah, a little bit more chill. There was the 10 commandments and prayer in schools hearing that was very long, but interesting. There were a lot of different people testified. Um, Tuesday? I think it was Tuesday. Okay. Yeah. So, but yeah, definitely more slow. I think it's been busier for me, but overall it's not as... Cameron's not, you know, his

hair's not on fire this week. Yeah, I'm not running back and forth to the Capitol for covering press conferences and things like that. I think a lot of time spent in the chair, in my little corner of the office, they're just locked into my computer. So yeah, but I like it. It's all good. I think Brad, I think when you left last week, you were so tired on Friday.

Yeah. What did you say to him? You said something snarky Brad to Cameron as he was leaving like you look tired but it was more snarky than that. I don't remember what it was. I don't recall. Yeah. I don't either. Okay. Well I say so many clever things that snarky does not equal clever. It just doesn't register in my mind. It just rolls off the tongue. Just rolls off the tongue. You know, kind of like you flubbing your words. That's the opposite of rolling off the tongue.

Well, no. Flubbing your words rolls off your tongue so easily you don't even remember you do it. Oh dear Lord. Hence the intro that you just mentioned. I think that's a bit of a stretch but we're gonna run with it. Well, speaking of words rolling off the tongue.

Yeah. The president addressed Congress this week, Cameron. Tell us what happened. Also, that was a pretty darn seamless transition. Yeah, that was. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, I'm sure all of our listeners have seen the clips. There was a lot that happened besides the speech itself, but this joint address to Congress, not exactly a state of the union since Trump in his second term in office now has only been in there for less than 50 days. So not a lot to update people on.

So it was just a joint session. And before everything even happened, as Trump was making his way up to the dais, we saw a Texas representative, Lance Gooden, snatch a sign from another congressional member because there was a lot being rumored beforehand that Democrats were going to stand up and boo and hold signs. Lance Gooden snatched one of those signs. That was caught on camera. I thought that was pretty funny. But a few minutes into Trump's speech we saw another Texas

representative, Al Green. He rose from his seat and started to yell at the president during the address. Quickly he was warned by House Speaker Mike Johnson that if he did not stop he would be removed. Rep Algreen did not stop and he was removed. He didn't just yell. He was shaking his cane. He was shaking his cane and you know the last time a cane was shaken in the in a chamber in the capital Let the people know when that when Preston Brooks beat up Gosh, what was the senators? Yeah Back in the olden days When was that like the 1800s this is like right before the civil war.

Yeah. Um, they were fighting over slavery. And even then, I don't know if he was, were they removed from Congress? Sumner. Sumner. Yep. He got, uh, he beat Sumner near to death over that.

And, uh, I don't think he was sentry. Well, maybe it was, I don't know. Uh,ured well maybe it was I don't know but Rep Al Green in the days following his Green did not hit anybody with he did not hit anyone he was just shaking it but he's been censured so that's the latest update on Al Green there but also another Texas representative, Jasmine Crockett, she was doing a 24 hour live stream to counter the Trump address. She also left the chamber with a number of other Democrats and she said after she left the chamber, Trump was, quote, spewing all kinds of nonsense. So lots of, uh, Texas elected officials making waves during the address, but

there were some really bright moments for Texans at the address. Alexis, uh, Nungeri, whose 12 year old daughter Jocelyn was murdered in Houston last year by two Venezuelan illegal immigrants. She was present at the address and Trump commemorated her daughter by signing a executive order during the address to rename a wildlife refuge in Jocelyn's name. So that was a bright moment there. Also, DJ Daniel, a 13-year-old

cancer survivor, he was diagnosed with a rare brain and spine cancer and Trump made him, quote, officially a member of the U.S. Secret Service. so DJ Daniel is currently on duty protecting the president you said this I'm envisioning and DJing yeah even though he's not a DJ no his name's DJ but that was where my mind went it reminds me of the movie Hustle and Flow you know how he says his name is DJ but it's spelled DJ. No I've not seen that. How old is he? 13. 13. So some bright moments for Texans at this address. Trump it seemed like he was doing a campaign speech almost hitting all the high points He was doing a campaign speech almost, hitting all the high points, whether it be issues of reducing illegal immigration.

He highlighted some of the efforts of Doge during the speech, and it seemed like public polling was very receptive to what Trump was talking about this week. CBS News YouGov poll found 76% of viewers approved of the speech and Trump spent quote a lot of time on issues that watchers cared about according to 63% of those polled. So like I mentioned at the top less than 50 days into his second term now There's still a lot of time to go, a lot of movement on these executive orders, a lot of movement on these campaign promises that will need to be fulfilled now.

So a lot to go still. But that was the address. I watched it in full. I think I've watched it twice now because I watched it in full. I think I've watched it twice now, because I watched it once, just without commentary, watched it a second time, listening to people break down some of the stuff he was saying. Very different approach. Yeah. Very different experiences watching with commentary versus not. Well, Cameron has a great rundown of the entire address and Holly Hansen has a great

rundown of the Al Green Center. So definitely go check those pieces out at the Texas.News. Cameron, thank you. Bradley State lawmakers are again, trying to outlaw the tax maneuver that created project connect. What are the details? Texas legislature will take another stab at putting the final nail in project connects coffin. That is of course, Austin's $11 billion in rising light rail plan and specifically

targeting the tax maneuver that was used to implement this and what happened was typically when you're having a capital project you issue bonds and they're approved or rejected at the ballot box and those bonds the tax increase associated with those bonds runs until you pay the bond off and then it goes away. Well Austin when they did this they tried something different because bonds had previously been rejected by voters for a light rail project. They instead instead of going on the interest in sinking side which is where debt incurred by capital bonds is paid

off they went to the other side of the property tax rate the maintenance and operations that pays for maintenance and operations and they implemented a 20% tax increase for the city property taxes there but that's in perpetuity. And so even after the prospective Project Connect would be paid off, the tax rate would still be levied and collected. And then the city could conceivably file that in to whatever it wanted down the road without it being itemized specifically for this piece of debt. So that's what happened. It's convoluted, but it was a unique and at the time new maneuver deployed to try and

pass a tax increase for this. Well fast forward a few years and Project Connect still hasn't broken ground. They've run into a number of problems, specifically cost increases from inflation, design flaws, or things they didn't account for. They later had to plan into the blueprint specifically. They were going to build a tunnel on Congress Avenue, but they realized that that would block the Capitol corridor corridor which is this view of the Texas Capitol down Congress you can't obstruct that it's a state law well they didn't account for that so then they were like crap we have to extend the tunnel a mile

which of course costs a lot more money billions more dollars in order not to block that so a bunch of different problems have come up with this. There have been lawsuits filed against it in the way the maneuver was was applied and state lawmakers have tried for years to preclude this and ban the kind of maneuver that the city of Austin deployed. Well, Ellen Trachs-Claire, Republican from Lake Way, former Austin City Council member, has filed HB 3879. It would prohibit the use of property taxes collected under the maintenance and operations rate to pay off debt incurred for capital expenditures, specifically

by these local government corporations. That was the other part of this, that tax revenue would be transferred to the Austin Transit Partnership, which is a corporation created by Austin to build the project. And so, Truxcler said, this is a statewide policy that would apply to all local governments in Texas. We don't want this happening in any cities in Texas. It sounds to me like Project Connect is a mess. The OAG's office won't approve their bonds. The Texas Solicitor General has been signed

to a lawsuit against the project's financing plan. The other side of this argument is that all these changes that I mentioned to the plan they've substantially altered what voters approved in 2020. And so the argument is that this is false advertising that either there needs to be a referendum election on this or just needs to be scrapped entirely because what voters approved back then is not on the table right now. And so this bill is an attempt to try and you know preclude all of that and prevent similar things from happening down the road in any city.

Austin's Project Connect is just kind of the face of it. So we'll see. It didn't pass last session. It died something similar, although a differently aimed bill died by a point of order in the House because Senate amendments were judged to have materially altered the original purpose of the bill. So... Yeah. Mass transit is something that sounds great in theory, right? But it seems as though many of our large cities across the United States just haven't been designed to facilitate these types of mass transit projects just because

urban planning of these cities are designed to be car-centric. And then also the models in Europe, the urban sprawl is not as spread out as they are in American cities. So everything's more compact, which makes the cost of building these things or expanding them a lot easier to afford. But here it's a lot more expensive. And then you have the problem of, do people actually use this thing? Like in Cincinnati when I was there, they had this big fight over a streetcar. And they ran into similar problems, cost overruns, they

didn't plan correctly, inflation caused problems, and eventually the thing they actually built was a shell of what they had planned. It was significantly smaller and people don't write it. And like that's a problem. If you're going to have a mass transit, you know, rail plan, railway, you need people ultimately to ride the thing. And if it's not ingrained in us to use it, you can't really put the cart before the horse on that. Yeah, especially in a city like Austin,

that is a relatively young city for its growing urban population. If you look at a city like New York, it's a much older city that has a history of the residents there using the subway system. Or in San Francisco, they have the BART railway system and a lot of people do use that. But they have been there for generations. It's baked into the city's DNA. It's in the city's DNA and people are

used to using it, not so much in a city like Austin. Well, and this is, in Austin, there is a railway and nobody rides it. You look at it whenever it goes by and there's one or two people on it all the time. That's it. And so they're trying to, to quote one of my favorite movies, they're trying to make Fetch happen.

Oh my gosh. And it's just not going to happen. It's just not, um, you know, they would, they're, they're, the plan Austin has is, you know, you establish this, you establish a supply and demand will meet it. Maybe that's possible decades down the road, but trying to make Fetch happen, Cameron. Doesn't sound very brat to me. It doesn't sound very brat to me.

Oh my gosh. I don't think you have any issue finding quotes for this week's newsletter. I think you're right. I need to write both of those down and worth mentioning as well. If you didn't that representative Troxclar is a former Austin city council member. So this is something that she's, have you, did you mention that? Yeah, I said that at the top. Well, I didn't hear that.

Somebody wasn't listening to me. Sorry about it. Classic. Well, in case folks also did not hear that, which they probably did, and I'm just repeating myself. There you go. Probably good coverage. I listened to so much of it. You did a really good job. Mary-Liess, we're gonna come to you. A state representative filed a bill outlining IVF reporting requirements. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about a piece you wrote outlining most of the bills that had been filed. This one is a newly filed bill from a Republican. Tell us about it. Yes.

So like you said, there were a lot of bills regarding IVF that had been filed by Democratic members and there had been one filed by a Republican, but we have a new one filed by a Texas lawmaker, Republican lawmaker, and it outlines the reporting requirements for IVF providers. And so it would include, just a brief summary of that is that it would include the number of embryos created, how many are discarded, and then the reasons for their destruction, and it lists out a few different reasons about about that you could select on the report of why they were discarded whether it was due to being an undesired gender having an undesirable handicap or other preferential factors. So this is House Bill 3132 and it was

introduced by Representative Daniel Alders and so it's yeah it's one of the first IVF related bills filed by a Republican so this is definitely definitely interesting because it doesn't make any moves to ban IVF right but it's just outlining reporting requirements so it would be an annual report that these IVF providers clinics have to submit to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and that would include all these forms of information specifically regarding the handling of embryos over the preceding calendar year. Alder said that as pro-child and pro-family efforts continue to advance, particularly with aid of technologies, we must continue to be diligently pro-life.

By requiring thorough IVF reporting, we affirm the dignity of every human life and also ensure that parents and families receive the most comprehensive information possible as they endeavor to welcome a new life into their home. So he's indicating that these reports will help families to understand what they're getting into when they move forward with IVF to understand,

okay, this is what it looks like, how many embryos you might lose along the process. This House Bill 3132 defines an embryo as a distinct and living organism of a species homo sapiens from the moment of fertilization until death or eight weeks gestation. And so the IVF provider in this annual report would have to report the total number of embryos created through each of these cycles, through each of these IVF cycles. And then what happens to each of them as we mentioned, and how many are quote, negligently, negligently, negligently destroyed. Thank you, Mackenzie. That's a word you read in your head and you've never said it.

And I hear it all the time. Yeah, exactly. Destroyed each year due to the failure of a tanker, technical or human error. So it has a few different options that you could report about what happened to these embryos and how many will perish due to pre-implantation genetic testing and how many are intentionally destroyed. So that would be included in this report. And then like we mentioned the reason behind any instance of destruction of these embryos. Like we said because of gender handicap. And this is we talked about this last time but President Donald

Trump issued an executive order. So on February 18th about a month after he came to office, that was expanding access to IVF, but this executive order didn't, it didn't implement any specific policy yet regarding IVF, but it did say that it orders the assistant to the president for domestic policy to submit a list of policy recommendations on protecting IVF access. So there's the, we mentioned the other Republican that filed legislation that's regarding IVF. That was Representative Pat Curry, and that was HB1084,

and it says IVF can only be conducted if the individual is planning to carry each embryo to term, and that the preborn children cannot be aborted in cases of multi-fetal pregnancies, which are a very common occurrence in IVF. And I saw there was an article I was reading by the dispatch, there was the director of an IVF kind of think tank said

that they would formally oppose any IVF mandate that placed limits on the intentional destruction of embryos that they don't think the government should be in the business of limiting patients choices regarding their medical care. So it's interesting because this bill here is just you know it just asks that you report the number of embryos that are destroyed and the other Republican filed legislation that would say you can't if an embryo cannot be created if it's not carried to term. So it's interesting to see how these are gonna all connect and what the IVF supporters are gonna think about this,

what the different parties will move forward with. You wrote a piece before on all of the different bills filed. Do you think there's a much chance that any of these pass, whatever it is. I'm not seeing much. It doesn't seem like. Yeah, I mean, obviously I think it's gonna be, it'll be legislation filed by a Republican most likely that gets across. I think that these reporting requirements are, I would imagine that IVF supporters are gonna be very against this because I think it might end up bringing out some numbers that they think should be privatized.

So we'll see. But yeah, I'm not I'm not feeling too optimistic about any of the state officials have kind of gone silent on it, too. Like they said, originally, we're going to do something on this. What exactly who the heck knows, but. Which is shown in the fact that so few Republican lawmakers and a Republican led legislature have actually filed bills addressing to this issue, right? That's a huge indicator that's kind of dropped off. Well, I think because of the language present in Alder's bill, where it categorizes the embryo as being a human life is going to possibly facilitate a larger debate or discussion on the issue of life, especially in a state like Texas that has such strong pro-life legislation. And so if these IVF clinics

are destroying these embryos and these embryos are categorized as human life. That brings up some legal contradictions. So I could see that possibly being addressed in future legislation if there needs to be a recategorization of embryos that are artificially created. I don't know necessarily how the language would work out there, but created outside of a womb, as opposed to life created in the womb. So I think that could bring up

some really interesting conversations, not just on the floor, if these bills are brought to committee or eventually to the House floor, but also between legal minds on how to work out this issue. Well, the thing you've on this broad issue of abortion, the thing people have actually talked about is clarifying the abortion exceptions. And that seems to be the thing that's actually getting any traction whatsoever. And this is, you know, seems to be the thing that's actually getting any traction whatsoever, and this is, you know, getting buried beneath all of that. And so that is probably taking out all the oxygen for Republicans wanting to do anything

on abortion in this session because of what they've passed in the past. Well because does there need to be a new category of what or a new definition of what falls under abortion? Because if these embryos are created outside of the womb, is an abortion only confined to the termination of a pregnancy when it's conceived naturally in the womb of the woman, or is destroying an embryo that was created

outside the womb still an abortion? So that's a legal question for these lawmakers. Well it's also so interesting because we've had, you know, like you said, we've been pretty much radio silent as far as it goes with Texas state representatives, but our senators are like federally we've had a strong showing. Senator Cruz has obviously, he's been on the front lines pushing for IVF along with Senator Katie Britt and then John Cornyn has also thrown his support behind him. So really interesting.

They've been very vocal about that. While the state's almost silent. Yeah. It's been a while even since the governor himself who stepped into this conversation after the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. We've just been kind of waiting to hear anything from him and he even teased a legislative proposal and nothing. So we'll keep an eye on it. Maybe it'll be next session. Maybe we're just waiting for something, but the bill finally did line is coming up very quickly. It's very silent. So I don't think there's

much next Friday. I don't think there's much room for that to be a big legislative fight this session. Who knows? Okay, folks. Well well on that note, here's an ad break. The Beer Alliance of Texas is proud to support its members, who help deliver an annual economic impact of $35 billion and provide over 200,000 jobs to hardworking Texans. From local tax revenue to direct economic investment to charitable contributions, their members are heavily invested in the success of our communities and our state. The Beer Alliance is dedicated to ensuring the safe distribution of alcohol throughout Texas. For more information, visit BeerAlliance.com. Wow, that was a great ad read.

What a fantastic ad read. Wow, truly. Bradley, let's talk. You published a piece this week on something going on at an obscure state agency. I'm laughing because this happens to you frequently. You probably know about obscure state agencies. Tell us about the, oh my gosh, Brad here has the question is what's the skinny? Yeah. I was going to say you didn't read off what I wrote you there.

So Brad, what's the skinny? Well, the skinny is, what's the skinny? Yeah, I was going to say, you didn't read off what I wrote you there. So Brad, what's the skinny? Well, the skinny is pretty fat. Actually, there's a lot to it. Brad's saying trying to make Brad's trying to make fetch happen. And also asking me to say, what's the skinny? I am a multifaceted individual. A man of culture. A man of culture.

So I wrote it. It's pretty lengthy piece. I'm not going to go into all of the details. If you want to read the details, go to the article and read it. But the son of a state agency board member filed multiple complaints against another state contracted company with whom he was previously employed, which halted work orders for existing projects. The company he was subcontracting with was also given a

higher rating in a bidding process than a longer tenured company with the state which offered to do the job at no cost. So there is the 70,000 foot overview. So the Texas Soil, Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, they manage conservation efforts and environmental projects. Specifically, they have been tasked with managing the Carrizo cane eradication program that was created by the state, I think, in 2015. Carrizo cane is a thick reed that is prevalent along the border. It's actually an invasive species and it cartels use it quite a bit to hide in, hide drugs in. Um, it's just, it's very thick and very difficult to see anything.

And so state officials have appropriated money to, um, they told me eradicate is actually a misnomer. There's no eradicating it, it's more like management and mowing your lawn and killing weeds basically. So this Soil and Water Conservation Board manages the contract for that. There's a company called IVM Solutions that has been contracted to conduct those treatments. And they do that in partnership with a more local water conservation board called the

Bacan Bayou SWCD. Well, IVM and some members with the Pecan Bayou SWCD have accused the state board of, or at least someone on the state board, his name's Barry Mahler, of helping his son Matt Mahler basically screw with the company conducting this. And the reason it happened is allegedly, in their estimation, the younger Mahler used to work for IBM. There was a falling out overcompensation. He left, then he filed some multiple complaints against IBM and that has caused problems with the eradication program.

And Mahler, the younger one, alleges that IVM is up to no good. There's been a lot of back and forth on that. You can read it all in the article. But ultimately, there are accusations of nepotism and corruption going on here. The later on, there was a reason this kind of became a publicly known situation is because the state board issued an RFP last year in 23, one of the recent years, to study, to map where all this crazy cocaine is. Well, there was a bunch of bids submitted and IVM offered to do the job at no cost because they were already there

and it would have been more, it would have been beneficial for them to just know where it was to begin with so that they could then treat it. Well, they, in the first set of bids, they finished fifth while the company that Matt Mahler was now associated with in the bid, while they scored a lot higher, while even though they were, the amount of money they wanted was like $450,000 to do this and

the length of time was a lot longer was significantly longer than what IVM was offering I think that's the most eyebrow raising part of the entire piece because then they often do it for zero dollars Yeah, yeah, yeah and in 45 days. Yeah, and then I think this other company was 40 or 54 days or whatever another eyebrow raising part of this though that company Their name is air data solutions days or whatever. Another eyebrow raising part of this though, that company, their name is Air Data Solutions, they told me that they had no idea Matt Mahler was, the president, had no idea he was related to a board member. So Mahler didn't disclose that to this company who was submitting the bid, and then the board, they ended

up rejecting the bid on conflict of interest grounds, but they never told Air Data Solutions that. They never told them, here's why you were rejected. They just said your bid was rejected. We think highly of you. Apply to future ones. So there's not a lot of transparency going on here. It's quite a situation going on. I would call it spicy. I would call it very

spicy. Well, if you were to describe this piece with like three adjectives, the story, how would you describe it? Weird, wacky and wild. It's very true. I encourage folks to go read the entire piece. Brad turned in this story at, I don't know, 4 30 one night, one evening and Rob was working on other things and I knew it was going to be a bear, like it was going to be a lot to look through and Rob opened it completely unknowing, it was like, Oh my gosh. You can hear Rob go, is this eight pages? Yeah, that's exactly right.

Um, but it is absolutely worth checking out and very interesting. And, um, we joke that it's boring about an obscure state agency, but it's really not, it's pretty interesting stuff. So check it out. Bradley. Well done. This is also a piece that Brian has had on his docket for a very long time. So giving it published is always very good.

Well Cameron, coming to you DEI offices, a hot topic this legislative session and discussed during a House committee meeting this week. Tell us about it. Yeah, I was tuned into this Texas House Higher Education Committee for that exact reason because during the 88th session Senator Brandon Creighton introduced and ended up passing a ban on DEI offices. We also recently saw Creighton along with Senator Paul Betancourt issue a letter that had said some of the compliance with SB 17 hasn't been up to snuff essentially. And so at this House Committee hearing, there was gonna be a number of university systems providing testimony, giving updates on enrollment and budgets and all sorts of things,

but I just knew DEI offices were going to be a topic of conversation and a few moments it was. We saw the UT system was asked to provide some insight into the implementation across their 14 campuses. Well, the representative didn't have the information in front of them, said they would follow up. So that's something I'll have to keep my eye on if there's some numbers published from the UT

system or some information. I also heard from Texas A&M University who had said they reassigned 17 people and had just one person leave after this SB17 went into effect. So two updates there from two big university systems on the implementation of SB 17. And to piggyback on the letter that was issued by Creighton and Betancourt, Rep Tony Tinderholt reiterated that if the reports that were expected to come out, um, weren't satisfactory, then he will quote, do everything possible to take away funding, additional funding and old funding. So sort of reiterating what Creighton and Betancourt wrote in their letter. Uh, we, we did a story on a report that came out from the Goldwater Institute

about how some of these Texas universities have essentially shifted the DEI offices and some of the ideas being espoused from those offices and incorporated them into courses that are required for graduation. So we have a lot of information up on the site right now about SB17 DEI offices and how universities have been reacting. So I encourage everyone to go check out those multiple stories that we have. Absolutely. Always developing all the time.

Well, let's talk about another piece you wrote this week, Cameron, a ban on cannabis products endured a very lengthy committee hearing this week as well. Tell us what happened there. Yeah, this is another big issue, a priority piece of legislation for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick Senate bill number three, banning THC in Texas. That was a large focus of this committee hearing in the State Affairs Committee. There was also a large portion of the conversation that focused on modernizing the Texas Compassionate Use Program.

If people aren't familiar with the T-C cup program, it essentially allows physicians to prescribe low THC cannabis to patients with certain medical conditions. But there was a fairly balanced discussion, THC is banned, essentially marijuana, cannabis, but there are different offerings that can be sold such as CBD, CBG, Delta-8 THC, Delta-9 THC. These are sort of derivatives from the actual, um, cannabinoids that are present in marijuana. And so right now those can be sold, but the Lieutenant Governor has

been pushing back against us. And during the committee hearing, we heard lots of testimony, lots of debate from the bill author, Senator Charles Perry, talking about how these synthetically altered Delta products, they're essentially being exploited by these retailers. being exploited by these retailers. And so we heard from Texas DPS mentioning how there's issues with their crime laboratories, how to conduct forensic analysis on evidence regarding these different variations of THC or CBD

just because they're changing so rapidly. There is also testimony from police chiefs talking about how some of these labels on the products don't reflect the actual level of THC inside the packaging, so they're having issues there. Heard from child physicians talking about how young people are using these products, even though they're supposed to be sold to people over 18. They're still finding their way into hands of minors.

So that was a big issue. And that is also addressed in the legislation, but we also heard from business owners. Uh, we heard from customers, like I report in the piece here about a disabled veteran who uses these CBD and THC derivative products to help overcome a opioid addiction. And so there are, there is a balancing act that comes with attempting to implement legislation like this. So there's two sides of this

committee hearing the banning of the THC derivative products but then also how to update the Texas compassionate use program so that people who need these products for some medical use have access to those products. So we'll see how everything shakes up. There, the both bills were left pending in committee at the end of the 10 hours that, because there was hundreds of people there that lined up to provide testimony.

So we'll see where it goes from here. Um, you know, is it seems so there's a changing in the public sentiment and how they view cannabis marijuana use. Um, so if that's going to be reflective in the Texas legislature, we'll see. TBD. We'll see. Thanks, Cameron. Bradley, another legislative proposal representative, Don McLaughlin's school safety bill was filed this week. Tell us about it.

Yeah. HB 33 was filed and it is a chamber priority. It's, uh, it's a blessed by the speaker. So, uh, that automatically right there gives it is a chamber priority. It's blessed by the speaker so that automatically right there gives it a lot of legs. The quote called the Uvalde Strong Act. It mandates schools and police forces develop active shooter response plans, permit inter-jurisdictional mutual aid agreements, acquires the creation of first responder mental health plans for

those to use after an active shooter incident, lays out $25,000 per entity grant program to assist law enforcement agencies with obtaining and maintaining active shooter preparedness accreditation. The main purpose of this is to establish some form of uniform chain of command when a situation like this happens and that was one of the biggest problems at the Uvalde shooting school shooting at first on the scene were the the ISD officers and then they hesitated because as they said you know they thought everyone in the classroom that the shooter was in was dead they never never went in. Turns out not all the children were dead.

Eventually they would all be killed because of the, you know, the wait time. And then you had problems with like state police got on scene, federal agents got on scene. Nobody knew who had chain of command or at least nobody took assertive command. And so this is an attempt to try and require something some sort of blueprint for a chain of command on scene at a situation like this. McLaughlin said what happened that day was a failure of duty leadership and preparedness law enforcement hesitated communication broke down and innocent children and teachers were left defenseless. We must do what we can to ensure these mistakes are never repeated. The Evalde Strong Act is about guaranteeing that when a crisis

strikes so there is no confusion and no delay, only immediate decisive action to save lives. Of course, Laughlin was the mayor of Uvalde when this happened so this is you know quite personal for him. Also the speaker chaired the the investigative committee about what happened with Uvalde, the House investigative committee which put out a report. So I think this thing is going to move pretty quickly through the process and maybe some alterations here and there. We'll see what the Senate prefers to put in if there are any changes. I don't know but Overall, I think this thing's gonna move fast and with good reason.

Yeah, and always very meaningful when somebody who represents a community so closely is the one authoring the legislation. Yep. Thank you Bradley for covering that. Cameron, Texas lawmaker wants to do something about criminals who wear masks. That's such a good summation. Tell us about it. Yeah. So Rep. Tom, Tom Olverson, he filed house bill 3061 and the bill is designed to enhance

punishment for certain criminal offenses when the offender is both, quote, disguised or masked and congregating where others are a similar disguise. Essentially, the intent is to address situations where concealing one's identity may facilitate more dangerous or premeditated criminal behavior. An interesting aspect of this bill though is the punishment portion of the bill details that the defendant can't argue the disguise was for a legitimate celebratory purpose such as Halloween or a masquerade ball. So don't worry if you're out on Halloween and dressed up, you're not going to be sad for this. So, uh, this comes on the heels though, of Donald Trump has been putting out on social media, some thoughts on how he wants to stop illegal protests that have occurred on college campuses.

And as everyone's aware, over the past year, many pro-Palestine protesters have used face coverings during their protests. And we saw here in Austin, there was arrests associated with these protests, these mass protesters. So sort of interesting overlap between what is coming out of the White House, what's gone on over the past year and a half or so here in Austin, and now with this bill. So we saw the American Civil Liberties Union actually publish a letter in response to one of Trump's social media posts where Trump in Trump's post, he was saying So, some pushback from some organizations like the ACLU to what Trump has been saying, but here locally in the state, the ACLU has been saying that the president has been saying

that the president has been saying that the president has been saying that the president has been saying that the president has been saying that the president has been saying that the president has been saying that what Trump has been saying, but here locally in the state, um, we have a response by Tom Alverson and we'll see what happens with this law. I just thought it was interesting with the number of issues overlapping just in this one bill. Absolutely.

Thank you, Cameron Cameron for your coverage. Bradley, you've been following a lawsuit between the state and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, another really interesting body, I think that you are just at the forefront of coverage for. That's right. What's the latest? Yada, yada, yada, Texas and the federal government are suing each other.

Yada yada yada. How about that? That's really good. Okay. So I'm actually in the process of tweeting another nuclear related thing, but I'll switch to this because you have beckoned and called me. Oh my gosh. So... I really love we're at least being here and being the first to respond to these kinds of things instead of me anymore. She's like, oh my gosh. So. I really love we're at least being here and being the first to respond to these kinds of things

instead of me anymore. She's like, oh my gosh. Oral arguments happened at the US Supreme Court this week in the long running case between the state of Texas and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the issuing of a license for the storage, the interim storage of high level radioactive waste. High level radioactive waste is the spent nuclear fuel, the stuff that is taken out of the reactor

that has been, you know, at the center of the energy producing process. It's of course highly radioactive and needs to be stored in water within these very thick concrete casks. This first started when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a license to interim storage partners, facility out in Andrews County, to store this stuff on an interim basis, specifically, I forgot the timeframe exactly, but it's like 15 to 50 years or so, something like that.

The reason this has popped up is because Congress, the federal government, have failed to create the Yucca Mountain permanent storage site that they have been planning for years. They've been trying to get off the ground and it has not happened. So we have all these nuclear reactors creating fuel and spent fuel and typically that's stored at the reactor itself but eventually we're producing so much that they're gonna need to find other places for it. That was supposed to be Yucca Mountain hasn't happened yet. So when this came up in 21, it was weird, the governor established a, or he put on the call for the third special session, I believe, this prohibition against storing nuclear, spent nuclear fuel away from the reactor. And so now you have a state law prohibiting it, the federal government

agency permitting it, who wins out? And that's the center of this case. Specifically, does the Atomic Energy Act and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act confer to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the ability to issue these licenses? The state says no, The federal government says yes. The arguments happen in front of the Supreme Court this week. One quote from Aaron Nielsen, Solicitor General for Texas, who was making the argument, what the NRC has just done is put a terrorist bullseye on the largest oil field in the nation. It's very strange to me that if the NRC has always had this power to issue such

licenses that it was never tried until a few years that if the NRC has always had this power to issue such licenses, that it was never tried until a few years ago. The NRC and its arguments have stated the court's decision to prohibit this, the lower court, to side with Texas, upends the commission's 44-year-old regulatory framework for licensing storage of spent fuel and it disrupts the nuclear power industry by categorically prohibiting the commission from approving offsite storage of spent fuel, despite the agency's longstanding issuance of social licenses. Overall, the point I think I'd like to make is we see in this session,

a concerted effort. In fact, that's what I'm about to tweet. A concerted effort to expand the nuclear footprint in the state of Texas for power generating purposes. Well, what comes with that nuclear waste? And you have to figure out something to do with it. Now one argument is it just needs to be stored at the reactor and other arguments are, well, eventually that's going to run out of space and we're going to have to do something else with it. Who wins out? I don't know. It looks like, it sounded to me like, especially the more conservative justices, I hate using that term because it's not exactly accurate, but that's how everyone classifies them.

The Republican appointed justices seem to be friendlier to the state's argument. And the state's argument there is, it's not the terrorist thing that Nielsen said. That's really the crux of the argument. It's did Congress authorize the issuance of these licenses? You know, that's a very textualist, originalist kind of argument that the state's making that didn't. Whereas the federal government's arguing that, you know, by implication, effectively, this the ability to issue such licenses was conferred to the NRC. Um, I think it's kind of,

it might break down along, you know, Republican appointed judge, democratic appointed judge lines on this. I don't know for sure though. That's just kind of the feeling I got listening to these oral arguments, but you know, there's a bit of a hypocrisy here that I can't help but notice because we both, we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to be, we want to have a governor.

I haven't said the nuclear Renaissance in Texas. What comes with that? The byproduct you got to deal with. And so the fight is over how to actually deal with this stuff and it's all very fair, you know, like I wouldn't want it in my backyard either. Yeah, I'll be interested to see if a potential solution to the spent nuclear waste is actually a company finding out a alternative use than just storing it. Maybe it can be used for something else, something I haven't looked into, but just a quick Google

search about some of the uses for these depleted uranium other than storage, something like using it for potential future reactor fuel or radiation shielding, things like that. I wonder if in a decade, this won't be a problem anymore if someone comes up with a brilliant idea of how to use the pleated uranium. So it's not just in a cement cask somewhere. Yeah. Well, it also, one argument has been that with the development of these small modular reactors, the waste is easier to handle.

I've seen arguments and I read paper yesterday, the other day, whatever it was, that that's actually not the case, that this stuff, because it's smaller in size, you're taking it out more, the spent fuel, and that's contaminating more things. Like more frequent exposure? Exposure to materials.

So like this facility out in Andrews County, it already exists, but they store low level radioactive waste which is like gloves and garments that they wear while they handle this stuff because that's exposed to radiation. Obviously the spent nuclear fuels is something entirely different but this I totally lost my train of thought but anyway this already exists

and oh this SMR so the idea is that you're gonna expose more you're gonna create more waste because you're taking it out of the reactor more because it's just smaller the scale is smaller that's also the argument for these new reactors because it's a lot cheaper to build and more efficient. Whereas we haven't seen a new large-scale power plant built in decades because it just cost ten billion dollars or more, it's just cost prohibitive and that's why we haven't seen it. A lot of difficult questions at the center of this stuff. And this is where the complexities of policy come in, trade-offs. And do we want to have to deal with this?

You can shout about how you don't want Texas to be the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground, and that's totally fair, but Texas is creating its own. And if lawmakers have their way, they're gonna be creating a lot more. Well, that's why I mentioned, I think, this issue could be solved by the power of innovation, technological innovation. Maybe someone can come up with some alternative use for this spent nuclear fuel.

That way, these policy fights over what to do with it, they can sell it to another business who creates something with it. Who knows? Yeah. Exactly. Think that'd be interesting. Lots of questions to answer here. and they can sell it to another business who creates something with it. Who knows? I think that'd be interesting. Lots of questions to answer here. Well, Bradley, thank you.

Did I rant enough on that? You did great, and you should tweet now. Perfect. Okay, great. Let's take a quick ad break. Did you know data centers support 364,000 jobs in Texas and contribute $3.5 billion in state and local taxes. These critical facilities boost the state's economy and power essential services.

From video calls and online banking to health care and government operations, data centers are the backbone of our modern lives, driving economic growth and ensuring seamless communication across the state. With Texas households averaging 21 connected devices, the demand for data centers continues to grow. In today's rapidly advancing technological landscape and with the state's booming economy, businesses are expected to generate twice as much data in the near future, making data centers a vital investment for the future of Texas prosperity.

To learn more, visit centerofyourdigitalworld.org slash Texas. Well, that was a really great ad break again. Another one. Just hitting home runs. Was this one you or was this one someone else? I don't know which one's which. Yeah. But I'm just gonna compliment both

so that when I do appear, hopefully, I'm ahead of complimenting myself. Cameron, there's been an element in a campus drag show band. Give us the latest. Yeah, I don't think we actually covered the resolution that was passed. But Texas A&M University System canceled drag shows after they passed a resolution where in the resolution, they say that these drag shows are, quote, inconsistent with the system's mission and core values.

Well following this resolution, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, otherwise known as FIRE, they filed a federal lawsuit arguing that this resolution actually violates two principles of the First Amendment. The complaint was filed in the Southern District of Texas and it was filed on behalf of a LGBT organization, the Queer Empowerment Council, and the issue at hand is essentially that this resolution is going to be quelling the free speech of this organization. And so this isn't something new we've seen from FIRE. They have been very explicit in defending many of these drag show bands that have happened on university campuses. We covered a previous on university campuses. We covered a previous story where they were representing a group of West Texas A&M University students who were denied

their request to host an on-campus drag trail. So FIRE has been intimately involved with this issue over the past few years. We will see if there's any movement on this case, uh, still the West Texas A&M, um, case is still pending. So, well, it'll be a few months before we hear something again, uh, on the legal front regarding the Texas A&M cancel. Absolutely. Uh, drag shows. There we go.

Cameron, thank you. Mary-Liis, I want you to quickly plug this piece that you published this week because it is such an interesting one. Texas has a new congressional candidate who's making a lot of waves online specifically. Tell us about her. Yes. So this is Valentina Gomez and she originally ran for

secretary of state in Missouri. And now she's announced that she will be running for, uh, the seat of Texas's 31st congressional district. So she'll be challenging Congressman John Carter. I would love if the readers would go check out the actual story because there's lots of details about her life. She provided a lot of insight into her path into politics and what it's been like since

then and she's really got some audacious comments in there that I think will definitely help you to get to know her better, get to know this candidate. And this will be a race that we'll watch closely because it's a it'll be fascinating. Yeah, if people haven't checked out the piece yet who are listening, go read the piece. Very interesting. People might just know Valentina Gomez from her Twitter posts. But Mary Elise was able to draw out know Valentina Gomez from her Twitter posts, but Mary Elise was able to draw out some more personal details from her. So you really get to know who this person is rather than just the, you know, 240 characters you get on Twitter.

Exactly. Thanks. Solid plug. Cameron quickly, issues at the border have continued to be addressed for both federal and state governments. Just quickly tell us about the visit at the border this week. Yeah, so we saw some cabinet members along with Governor Barry Gabbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxson make their way down to the southern border. I'll just mention this one comment from JD Vance who was talking about the increase in migrant

crime. He talked about fentanyl deaths over the previous four years, and he said, quote, cartels became more advanced, better warfighters because of the Biden administration, opened up the Americans to their border and allowed the cartels to turn it into their playground. So, I mention that because of the increase focused that is apparent now with Vance and also Pete Hegseth was there, Tulsi Gabbard was there. We saw Trump name a number of cartel organizations as being foreign terrorist organizations,

ramping up the ability for the federal government to intervene in some of their actions that have occurred at the southern border. So I think this is sort of laying a foundation for bigger things to come. Possibly there was a question about green lighting action on these cartels in Mexico. That's yet to be determined as Vance mentioned in his comments that I included in the piece, but people should go check out the article. They should also check out the newsletter I published this week that talks all about cartel involvement at the southern border to give people a better, just so people have

a better understanding of the decades of cartel activity that has occurred between Mexico and the United States. So I encourage everyone to go check that out too. Yeah, absolutely. It's a fun read. It has some references that are just fun. Very fun. Okay. Also, if folks have not listened to Brad's interview with representative Ramon Romero

this week on all podcast platforms on our website, I would encourage folks to go do so the YouTube videos up it's available on all podcast platforms on our website. I would encourage folks to go do so. The YouTube video's up. It's available on normal podcast platforms. And it's a really interesting conversation with the chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus just about session, the speakers race, very interesting conversation that is fun to listen to. So go check it out.

Let's go into the Tweetery section. Mary-Li, what you got? Well, this is something that Cameron flagged this morning and I just ran across it on X again, but California Governor Gavin Newsom has started a podcast and one of his first guests on was conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and they were discussing biological men and women's sports. And Newsom actually said that he is against that. Yeah he said that he thinks it's an issue of fairness and that's easy to call out the unfairness

of that were his exact words. So that's very interesting. It's a departure from how California has been addressing the issue. Big time. Well I also heard, I saw a clip where, I was laughing because Cameron was acting surprised. He's like, oh really? That's so surprising. I didn't know that. But I saw a clip also where, uh, Gavin Usum said his son had heard Charlie Kirk was coming on the podcast and was like, dad, can I like say, I don't want to, like, he knows who Charlie Kirk is. And it was an interesting conversation to hear, like the governor of California say, my son wanted to meet you. Like very interesting. Well, that is interesting. Well, there's been lots, just a quick aside on what you mentioned there. There's been lots of polling that's been done where it's showing that the younger generations now are becoming more conservative or right wing as opposed to Gen X or the older generations essentially. So is that a product of the ideas being more attractive to young people or is it

the medium of YouTube, social media, TikTok that is being used by right wing conservative individuals more effectively than maybe liberal or Democrat leaning individuals. So it's you know it's is it the medium or is it the message? Or is it a combination? Or is it a combination of both? For sure. Very interesting stuff. Bradley? Oh my gosh I didn't think you were going to come to me on this segment that you always throw over. I'm kidding. Well, shouldn't I throw it over to you since each of us talk at certain point during the

segment? Yeah, I was spewing nonsense. Okay, great. I just wanted to do that admission. So the Texas Politics Project put out a poll this morning on a bunch of different policy items and the typical fave-on-fave job approval ratings of officials. A couple things stuck out to me. First on the job approval ratings, so I'll go through this. Greg Abbott's at plus 11.

Three percent don't know who he is or don't know how they feel about his job performance. I was thinking, what? Patrick's at plus five, 11% don't know. Speaker Burroughs is at minus six approval rating. Now keep in mind the don't know is 27% and the neither approve nor disapprove is 28%. Pretty typical with a speaker. He's not a statewide official. He's also a first time speaker.

Ken Paxton is at plus three, 10% don't know. Ted Cruz is at plus six, 4% don't know. And then what makes this interesting in relation to future elections, John Cornyn's at minus seven, 11% don't know. So that looks right there like a good, I haven't looked at the cross tabs for Republicans, specifically, but that right there is a bad sign

for Cornyn, a la the potential Paxton challenge in the Senate race. Off the top of your head, I don't know. Is there any historical trends with how Cornyn has pulled in the sort of unfave, fave? Well, Cornyn has previously performed a lot better than Ted Cruz, but that kind of flipped,

I think, in the middle of last year, if I recall. I don't have it ready for me. Depending on who you're polling, right? Depending on who you're polling. Yeah. It's like primary voters, I think in the middle of last year if I recall Right depending on who you're pulling yeah, it's like primary voters, but election voters until recently Cornyn was pulling a lot better than a lot of these guys maybe not Abbott, but now it's not that way and You know that indicates a pretty significant problem for him ahead of the election next cycle. Well, I'm also wondering how indicative fave-unfave polling is for eventual election outcomes.

Well, be mine, this is job approval, this is not fave-unfave. So it's slightly different, although you can kind of use it as a similar. As a proxy, yeah. Because you can have a job approval rating that is low, but then still get elected once election day rolls. You will see differences.

If you were to ask the fave, unfave, and job approval of Greg Abbott, you will see some differences, which is kind of odd. That's just because people are weird. You know, effectively you're asking them the same questions, just two different versions, they give you different answers. It happens all the time. Yep. The other one I want to point out was on education savings accounts, vouchers, school choice, whatever the heck you want to call it. I had a reader

send me an email about my newsletter this week because I talked about it and in the subheader he said, ESA's, vouchers or whatever the heck this is. That's how I'm gonna refer to it from now on. But UT asked the question do you support or oppose using state funds to establish an ESA voucher or other school choice program in Texas? It's pretty neutral framing. I would say about as neutral as you can get on this issue because you can have if you ask, do you support giving parents more freedom to determine the child's education outcomes? Of course you're going to get a ton of support, right? Who's going to say they don't support that? Then if you say, do you support giving taxpayer money to private

schools for tuition? Private or religious schools. Yeah, then that goes the opposite direction. So I think this is about as neutral of a phrasing as you can get. The support for that was 46 percent. Opposition 34 percent. Don't know 20 percent. What's that say to you, Cameron? Seems like the voting population is very split on the issue. You know, they don't know. Well, voting population is very split on the issue. You know, they don't know. Well, and I think it's just such a nuanced issue that it's hard to have a hard and fast opinion on it. You know, and you also, it's hard to have an opinion

on something that you haven't experienced themselves. So if you ask someone how they feel about an ESA, or a school choice program in the form of an ESA. Well, they they haven't been able to use a program like that. So they don't really know how to feel. So they're trying to form an opinion on a hypothetical. Yeah. So

I think this is where, you know, there's been lots of pushback recently at these town hall meetings, lots of pushback from Democratic lawmakers, but lots of support as well from activist groups, lots of grass root support for school choice, lots of support from Governor Greg Abbott. So I don't think you're going to find, you know, you're going to be able to pull the school choice issue either way, support and disapprove. You're going to find polls either way. So it's really going to fall to the lawmakers themselves,

how they feel about the issue is what's going to determine if it's, if it passes or not. Exactly where the fight is now. And this is all about, are they either providing legislators enough cover to support you or to oppose to support the plan or to oppose the plan. We see the governor out there really throwing a lot of punches at Democrats and not throwing punches at Republicans. That's quite notable because that he needs Republican votes for this Democrats are

just not gonna vote for this in the house and so yeah I I think that don't know 20% is pretty telling too yeah people have no idea what the heck this is yeah at least a large chunk well because it is complicated yeah even like the state dollars part you could I mean you ask, because at this point you could get so lengthy with how you ask the question, right? Because it's state dollars, but it's not to make you from public schools too, right? There's that distinction that's not even made in this poll, and I don't think it needs to necessarily, I agree with you that it's very neutral wording, but that alone is a point

of contention for folks, is where the money is coming from. And that's not even addressed in that question. So it just there's so much nuance to it and you can and it also depends on who you poll, what their district is, and if it matters whether or not it's a general election voter or primary election. Well and what they heard last because this fight is yeah the public fights become either this thing is going to solve all the problems in public education. Not everyone's arguing this right like there are people that are being Monest about you know what this can do, but it's either this thing is the greatest thing ever or the right side of our generation or this thing's gonna kill public education and

It's neither because it's a that's reality. It's policy Any legislation you're talking about, it's never gonna, you're all, I should say, almost never going to cause catastrophe or heaven on earth with a passing a law, you know? Like it's just not how this works. Yeah. So you either have improvements or, you know, problems that come from it and probably some of both right? Yeah and I think I'm cutting you all off after this. Okay I was just gonna I was gonna make two points but I'll just go for it. I'll just make them quickly I think Texas is in a maybe in a different

constitutional situation than other states that are attempting to institute school choice because the Texas Constitution requires the state to provide public education to its citizens. And the other point I was going to make was I think an interesting issue that mirrors the school choice issue is healthcare policy. You know, how you look at polling when you ask people should the federal government provide, provide healthcare or the ability for people to find treatments or whatever, you know, it, depending on how you ask the question,

either polls favorably or unfavorably. So I think that's an interesting sort of mirror issue is healthcare policy and school choice. People who are very strong on both sides of the issue. But when you ask the voting population how they feel, it really depends on how you ask the question. So yeah, I just want to make those points. Yeah, absolutely. Cameron quickly, what's yourweetery? We haven't gotten to yours. Yeah. Well, uh, it's been lots of reports that now that Linda McMahon has been, uh, confirmed by the Senate, the new department of education secretary, uh,

Trump is prepping an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. This has been a long-standing Republican promise to do this. You know, obviously it's going to take more than an executive order to actually follow through, but something like this is really a giant leap forward than previous Republican administrations have been able to do on the issue. So I'll keep my eyes filled with that. We're recording this March 6th. It's a Thursday, possibly could come out later today.

So people listening, you might see something up on our site before this even goes live, this podcast. So I'll be watching. I'll be watching. On that note, folks, thank you so much for listening to our podcast. So I'll be watching. I'll be watching on that note, folks. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We enjoy recording the weekly roundup and chatting every week. Stop trying to make Fetch happy. 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. week. Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at the Texan.News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.