The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - May 14, 2021

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

On this edition of our Weekly Roundup podcast, the reporting team covers constitutional carry, critical race theory legislation, the Pandemic Response Act, alcohol to-go, religious service protections during disasters, and tax incentive extensions. Governor Abbott gets a primary challenger, hundreds of House bills face a midnight deadline, Austin’s homeless camping ban reinstatement comes in waves, the NRA’s Texas relocation hits a roadblock, and the border crisis intensifies.

Welcome to this week's Weekly Roundup podcast at the Texan. Mackenzie Taylor, Senior Editor here. Our team covers constitutional carry, critical race theory legislation, the Pandemic Response Act, alcohol to go, religious service protections during disasters, and tax incentive extensions. Governor Abbott gets a primary challenger. Hundreds of house bills face a midnight deadline. Austin's homeless camping ban reinstatement comes in waves. The NRA's Texas relocation hits a roadblock and the border crisis intensifies. Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell and Brad Johnson.

We are nearing the end of the legislative session. We have two weeks and some change left to go. So we are in the office ready to go. All sorts of things are happening this week. So we're going to get right down to it. Daniel and Hayden, y'all wrote a piece this week detailing the latest development in constitutional carry. We've been watching this bill throughout the course of session. As it's bounced between the House and the Senate, it landed back in the House this week. Hayden, give us a little bit of an update of what happened. Well, on Wednesday night, the legislation moved to the next phase in the process, which is the possible House approval of the Senate amendments. And the House ultimately chose to not approve the Senate amendments and instead send the bill to a conference committee after Representative Matt Schaefer's layout of the bill was cut off by a point of order. So there are three things I want to make clear about this bill and that first the bill is alive and well. So Matt Schaefer approached the well to lay out his signature gun rights bill after the Senate amended his bill in their own, they added their own amendments after the House passed

its own version. So, this is just the regular legislative process. And what ended up happening was a conference committee was appointed to finalize a version of the bill since both chambers have passed a different version. So, those conferees will be Representative Matt Schaefer himself, as well as Terry Canales, Ryan Guillen, Dustin Burroughs, and James White. So those will be the conferees for the committee. My second point is that Chris Turner is the one who made the point of order. And so this is another Chris Turner factor. He's a Democrat of Grand Prairie who has made many points of order throughout this session,

and he will likely continue to make points of order. These are parliamentary moves to try to kill amendments or pieces of legislation. And the election reform bill was actually the Democrats because he's the chairman of the Democratic caucus. So sometimes he'll fight pieces of legislation with points of order like he did this time. Other times, like on the election integrity bill, he'll work with Republicans to broker a deal. And they ended up moving through that pretty quickly instead of a long, drawn out floor fight over amendments. So the Chris Turner factor was here in this bill as well. And finally, the Texas constitutional inspiration. So, of course, the Second Amendment is the broader inspiration for this, but it's called constitutional carry because the Bill of Rights of Texas actually lays out the right to keep and bear arms as well. Article 1, Section 23 states, quote,

every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the state, but the legislature shall have the power by law to regulate the wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime. So they believe that gun safety measures, gun restrictions are usually the way to go while Republicans generally emphasize the gun rights portion of that and the integrity of the Second Amendment itself. So those are the three things that I took away from the gun rights bill. I like it. And the Senate will choose, you know, with conference committee, essentially, we have members from both chambers coming together to say, okay, let's hash out our differences. If a bill doesn't get through, that's quote unquote, clean, they have members from both chambers coming together to say, OK, let's hash out our differences. If a bill doesn't get through, that's quote unquote clean. They'll call it a clean bill. Right. Whereas identical in both chambers, they have to go through this process.

Daniel, let's step into a 30,000 foot view here. What are the next steps for the bill? More specifically, how you know what's the probability of it passing? Give us a little bit more of just the status and the update of this bill yeah so like hayden said the the house appointed their conferees interestingly even the the two democrats on the committee terry canalis and ryan guin are both democrats who supported the house bill i think they were even co-authors or joint authors on that and so uh it'll definitely have support from the House side of the conference committee. We'll wait to see who is appointed by Dan Patrick on the Senate side to be the Senate conferees.

I would presume that Senator Charles Schwartner will probably be the chair for the Senate side since he was the sponsor in the Senate. And then they'll probably add some other people who are on the committee. If it goes through the committee, then they'll choose which amendments they will keep and which ones they'll reject. And then it'll go back to the Senate and the House for final approval. One of the hiccups that we saw earlier this session when it was going to the Senate was there was some concern that there wouldn't be enough Republican votes to pass this legislation. But they worked out some kind of compromises to add these amendments on there, I think, to sway some of the Republicans who might have been on the fence to support the bill. If the conference committee decides to

lop off some of those amendments that were kind of appeasing some Republicans. It could put it at risk, but there is a little bit of wiggle room to get a conference report passed. You don't need the 18 votes that was originally needed. You just need a simple majority. We saw this happen in previous sessions with similar gun bills where it was supported more broadly with amendments. Um, and then once it came to the conference committee and those amendments were taken off, then it lost some support from the Republicans, but it still had enough to pass. Uh, so we'll see if they can maintain 16 Republicans in the Senate, uh, after they decide how to, to go through. Um, and then, you know, they have,

uh, another few more weeks until May 30th to get this bill passed. At this point in the session, I would say that there's a really pretty high chance of it passing. I would be really surprised if it didn't pass. That's just my take on the situation. Now, if you'd asked me at the beginning of the session, if I thought it would pass, I'd have the opposite answer. It's a whole different story. So anything could happen. But right now it has a lot of momentum. And it'll be interesting to see which version comes out of conference committee.

I think that's the big question on people's minds is, okay, what sticks and what doesn't. Yeah. Right. Awesome, gentlemen. Well, thank you so much for covering that for us. Isaiah, we're going to come to you. Another very uncontroversial topic in critical race theory. Right.

But remind us how this bill works. There was a bill on the floor from Representative Steve Toth this week that garnered a lot of attention. Walk us through what happened. Right. It's House Bill 3979. And I think the easiest way to understand it would be to divide it into four parts. And the actual limitation on teaching critical race theory is just one of those. So the first one would be understanding the founding of the country. And the way that he

originally introduced this bill was that students would be required, it would be to change the state curriculum, first of all, and add new requirements to it, to require students to understand the founding in terms of the culmination of a philosophical tradition instead of, say, a historical process of tangible factors like taxes and land and, you know, the more tangible motivations of the founders that we can speculate from, you know, their position in society and such. My education personally in high school was kind of both of these, but a little bit more on the historical side instead of the philosophical side. So understanding the founding is the first part, and it requires engagement with the founding documents. Second part would be discussion, and it requires that discussion be balanced and that teachers would not be compelled to engage in controversial discussions of current heated topics.

Right. But if they do want to choose to discuss those in class, they'd have to explore from diverse and contending perspectives. So on the floor, and this is kind of an aside, I'm curious, what examples of current heated events or topics were given? What would fall into that category well um on the floor most of the discussion actually centered around the first part strangely enough and we'll get to that here in a minute yeah uh when we wrote our first piece on this the examples that i mentioned that gained media attention were um for example there was one i believe it was a civics or a

journal it was a journalism class in a texas was a journalism class in a Texas high school, I believe in North Texas, where the teacher had the students act as mock jurors on the George Floyd murder trial. So the Chauvin trial. And so a lot of parents were uncomfortable with that. And I think personally, that would actually be acceptable under this bill since to be on a jury requires balanced discussion. Right. Right. And so, um, the idea is that, you know,

Toast introduction of the bill as he presented it was that he didn't want indoctrination or promulgation of certain topics. And, uh, so the third part would be teacher training. It's pretty, that's a pretty light part of the bill. It just says that teachers cannot be trained in sexual or racial stereotypes.

And, um, the fourth part deals with the same topics more for students and it's more fleshed out where teachers cannot push certain concepts like collective guilt based on race or sex, the idea that one bears responsibility for certain historical actions based on one's race or sex. And that was really the meaty critical theory part of the bill. Yeah, for sure. So what happened in the amendment process? It was very spicy debate on the floor. Give us a little bit of insight into what happened.

Sure. So Toth rejected a lot of amendments that would have removed fundamental movements of the bill, moving parts and actions of the bill. But he accepted many amendments to expand what counts as America's founding documents or founding figures. And so originally what he had were the Declaration and the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates. And one might note that the Lincoln-Douglas debates are not, you know, those took place when America was already solidly a country for four score and seven years and such. But I think personally, just some light commentary that probably opened the door to his acceptance of a lot of other amendments of non-contemporaneous sources for what counts as America's founding documents and founding figures. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is a United Nations document, fairly recent. I think it dates to the 70s, but I'm not sure.

Not the 1770s. The more recent version. And so Toth generously, one might put it, accepted a lot of amendments to vastly expand this list. And I think probably the most notable part of this amending process was when Representative Mary Gonzalez, who sparred with Toth a lot on how to define critical theory and whether or not from the El Paso area, yes, and whether or not it's beneficial or, you know, causes harmony among a classroom. She claimed that Alexis de Tocqueville justified slavery in his democracy in America. And later, a Democrat representative, Nicole Collier, presented an amendment to remove Tocqueville from the founding documents part. Forgot to mention him earlier, but he was the fifth part of that. And Toth accepted

that amendment. Got it. So basically, the narrative post, you know, bill passage was, well, this Republican author accepted a lot of Democrat amendments on this bill. It's been severely watered down, right? That was essentially the messaging that was heard from a lot of conservatives in the state of saying, well, this bill started as something that really, you know, went after critical race theory in ways that legislatively hasn't been done in Texas in a long time. And now it's a little bit of a different, insert your idiom of choice here, right? It's a different situation. But what's next for the bill? Well, since it was amended, it's got to go to the Senate.

That's the typical legislative process. It also has to go to the Senate because it's a House bill. It's got to pass over there to have a chance. But I bring up the amendments because the Senate may strip a lot of these away. And that was a concern for a lot of Democrat lawmakers who tacked on these amendments to the bill. I should note that that did not earn very many Democratic votes for the bill. At the time that I was tweeting out this thread, the actual tally was unofficial. But I saw that, you know, there are so many Democrats in the House, and there are so many that voted against it. Yeah, exactly. There were like 20 that added amendments to this bill, and many of them did not vote for it. So, there's a little bit more detail in the article on that. I like it. Well, Isaiah, thanks for covering that so thoroughly for us. Daniel, we're coming back

to you. Another big piece of legislation that's had a lot of eyes on it all session, but has not moved for a long while, is the Pandemic Response Act. What is it and what's the latest on it? It is an interesting piece of legislation and has changed quite a lot since it was first introduced. This is something that would basically, it looks the Texas Disaster Act, Chapter 418, the government code in Texas, and it puts right next to it a whole new section of code specifically related to how the government should handle pandemics. uh he his legislation was essentially a codification of the governor's handling of the pandemic uh there wasn't really any necessarily new legislative checks on the governor's powers that was something that a lot of conservatives and a lot of people on the right and even people on the left too lots of Democrats wanted to see increased checks on the governor and the power that is granted under the Disaster Act. And that wasn't really there in the first draft of the bill.

Since then, it's kind of transformed a second committee or a first committee substitute for the bill, uh, introduced this idea of a, uh, essentially a legislative council that would include the Lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house and several chairs of some influential committees, uh, who would have a bit of a check on the governor. It still wouldn't have been the entire legislature since then, uh, with the committee substitute that was brought to the floor and then also with amendments that were added to it later on in the process it kind of transformed to also include a broader legislative check so that if a pandemic disaster continues for more than 90 days then it requires kind of the special

session legislature to come in and approve that renewal of the declaration. There's also some other checks, you know, specifically if the governor wants to issue orders related to closing businesses or a mask mandate or I think restricting different surgeries, that would also require the legislature to approve that. So there's a little bit more checks in there. One of the, I think, the other criticisms that's still lingering over the bill is that it only applies to pandemic disasters. They tighten the legislation so that the governor couldn't just say an epidemic, like it would be a pandemic if it's affecting one fourth of the counties in Texas.

But it's only for pandemics. It's not for, you know, if the governor wants to come in and issue a disaster related to immigration or race relations or gun control or whatever. It's very specific. So it's just for that. Another bill from Senator Brian Birdwell is a constitutional amendment that is a broader reform of the Texas Disaster Act in that it would apply to all disasters, all major disasters affecting a large portion of Texas and would require legislative approval for those disaster renewals.

So those are kind of the two bills that people are watching now that the Pandemic Response Act is out of the House. Now it's going over to the Senate. Now it's going to see, is the Senate going to act on the House bill or is the House going to act on the the senate constitutional amendment right they could act on them both that's possible um but you know i imagine one of them one of them might go through we'll see yeah absolutely and it'll be interesting to see which uh checks are in there and which aren't um and how hard each chamber respectively barters for their what they want in the bill um thank you daniel isaiah we're coming back to you um the house passed a constitutional amendment that aimed to keep houses of faith churches open during disasters and it's a little bit more broad reaching than that but walk us

through um a little bit about this bill and what it did yeah so there is a bill and there's a constitutional amendment in hjar um they actually passed the sjr version but um both both have the same goal they were filed expressly and transparently with the goal of keeping churches and other houses of faith open during disasters uh there were several local closures of churches as we'll get to later here um but the theR, the constitutional amendment that was proposed, would forbid any government, local or state, from prohibiting or limiting religious services. Very simple. And the other bill, the bill itself by Matt Shaheen, HB 525, is a little bit more stringent. It would forbid the same limitations on all religious activity in general. And it has some more legal mumbo jumbo in there.

It specifically waives governmental immunity and enable citizens to sue. So it sets up, it blazes that trail for, you know, citizens to define relief in court. And it also authorizes the attorney general to sue on their behalf. Got it. So what were the arguments for and against the legislation? You know, it was interesting. A lot of them are coming from Dallas, from the Dallas area. And I don't know why. Could the county judge have anything to do with it, potentially? I mean, I don't know. I mean, yes, I'm not a Dallas political insider, but he's his office has very little to do with what, you know, Dallas area lawmakers do in Austin. But we saw like Oak Cliff representative

Tony Rose was more lightly opposed to this. She just kind of pressed back a little bit from the back mic. But in committee, when it was being discussed, the only government official to speak against it was a Dallas City Councilman, Lee Kleinman. And he argued at that time that passage of these kinds of bills would prevent cities and local governments from enforcing regular old safety codes like fire codes, capacity codes, and things like that. So that was kind of the same argument that we saw on the floor. Senators Nathan Johnson from Dallas and Sarah Eckhart, who's from Austin, were the only two senators to vote nay on SJR 27. And when it reached the house, um, one of the members to speak most prominently against it was representative

John Turner from Dallas. And, uh, he made the same arguments that, that climate did. Essentially he expressly, he first expressed his great support for religious liberty and the practice of faith in general.

And he said, he doesn't want his differences with leach on the amendment to obscure that fact jeff leach is carrying str 27 by the way and um but he also argued that it would um prevent local governments from enforcing these important safety codes leach and other supporters argued that this kind of uncompromising wording was needed because with the way the law stands now, county judges and mayors and such are still able to shut down churches under the guise of enforcing these, you know, what would otherwise be regular old codes that nobody really has a problem with. Yeah. Real fast to end to wrap this portion up. Well, you know, was this a problem during the COVID-19 pandemic? At the local level, not terribly widely, but in Fort Worth and in other places,

Fort Worth might've been the biggest city where it happened, but local officials, county officials, and at the city level did issue shutdowns that applied to churches. Leach noted that sometimes here, a lot of the stories came from elsewhere. Churches were shut down while like, you know, in Vegas, for example, I think casinos were allowed to keep operating. And so that was the angle that he took. At the state level, they remained untouched. And so Abbott didn't shut them down, but he didn't really intervene in local shutdowns either. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Isaiah, thanks for covering that for us. Bradley, we're going to come to you. There was a bill on the floor, or actually not on the floor, excuse me, it was signed into law by the governor.

Walk us through what happened here and kind of the genesis of where this came from. Yeah, well, to quote Jimmy Buffett, it is 5 o'clock somewhere in Texas. Oh my gosh, Bradley. Lord in heaven. That doesn't make any sense. It's not even close to five o'clock. Okay, Daniel. So yeah, the alcohol to go bill got signed into law by Governor Abbott yesterday.

And it was very swift and swiftly moved through the process. And it was not really opposed by many people at all. But now Texans can purchase in perpetuity, can purchase alcoholic drinks along with their food orders at restaurants for takeout. Got it. When does it go into effect and what are the parameters? It goes into effect immediately because such a large majority of both houses both chambers uh supported the bill and the parameters are that you have to order food with it you can't just go to a restaurant or bar and purchase um you know drinks has to come with food. And these restaurants, they have to shortly after the ordinance or the bill was signed into law, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission sent out

this guidance on, you know, making sure that these respective businesses are up to date on their permits, the different kinds of liquor permits that you can have. And so there's obviously a lot of compliance that's going to have to continue to go on because a lot of it has already happened since this was one of the first regulations that Governor Abbott rescinded temporarily during his emergency orders during the pandemic. And it was built up steam. A lot of people liked it. Obviously, people being stuck at home constantly um they're able to needed a drink yes yes they needed a margarita and so abbott started

banging the strum on making it permanent as early as about a year ago now so roughly a month and a half into the pandemic itself um and then it just picked up steam in the legislature. And both, there were only two votes against it in the legislature, one in the House, one in the Senate. So it was pretty clear from the get-go that this was going to make it through. For sure. Thank you. Thank you. Isaiah, we're going to come back to you. This week, we saw the governor get a primary opponent and a pretty notable one at that. Give us a rundown of what's going on there. Yes. So former state Senator Don Huffines has announced that he's going to run against Abbott.

And he leaves behind a pretty conservative record as rated by different academic sides like Mark P. Jones over at Rice. And, you know, more opinionated sources like advocacy groups, advocacy groups like Empower Texans or excuse me, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. A very different group. Yes. And and young conservatives of Texas and other such groups that that publish these kinds of ratings. So tell us a little bit more about his career, high points in his career, what he's done before. So in his final session, the 2017, he co-authored a bill that successfully passed into law to increase punishment for certain acts of voter fraud. He's been pretty loud and strong on that issue. Yeah. This was not a bill that he successfully passed when he was fighting for it in session.

But after he left, there was a program that uh that was ended that he fought to end when he was in session that heaped on and multiplied surcharges for drivers that incur traffic tickets um this was actually there was actually bipartisan support to end this very annoying program yeah i think i can say with journalistic integrity um the aclu of texas and other and conservative groups are both against it yeah um so it was it was a revenue collection source for uh for the state and uh abbott ended that in 2019 but uh when he finds was in section he excuse me in session um he fought to end that program and um you know similar similar tea party priorities freedom-based that kind of thing absolutely so he's been very vocal in opposition to the governor and some of the governor's moves, particularly in this last year.

That's kind of where the genesis of this challenge comes from. Talk to us a little bit about those criticisms. I think one thing that's simmering is with regards to voter fraud. Abbott's a Republican, and obviously he shares those same concerns. But there are a lot of state leaders who are more concerned, one might say simply, that sued Abbott for making some certain last minute changes to rules. And Huffines, like Dan Patrick, offered cash reward for voter fraud tips in the 2020 election. He has clashed with abbott more publicly and explicitly

on his coronavirus pandemic strategy yes um he believes that abbott has allowed local governments to fill a void that where they have acted irresponsibly and created in his words a hodgepodge of rules that propagate more anxiety and confusion so this is from a widely syndicated syndicated article he wrote condemning Abbott's pandemic response. One line that he wrote in here is the overstep by Texas's local leaders was met with silence by the governor. Texas needs a unifying plan of definitive and clear rules, which can only come from a governor. And as Brad could mention, this is a constant battle in Texas politics, especially among Republicans. Yeah, local versus state.

Right. Yeah. And namely in this particular historical moment when the Republicans enjoy a state trifecta. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this will be interesting to see what happens. I think this will be a race in which quite a bit of money is spent. And I don't think we've seen the last of a primary opponent for Abbott. So thank you for covering that for us, Isaiah. we're gonna stick with you and daniel here so boys we have quite a

situation tonight in that uh tonight a lot of priority bills um die and or not die they well priority bills will die but we're talking specifically about house bills tonight at midnight that no longer have a chance to make it through the legislature. Talk to us a little bit about that and what this deadline is, and then walk us through some of the different legislative items that are on the chopping block. There are several bills on the chopping block. pointed this out earlier in a conversation we were having in the office where, uh, you know, even though these bills, you know, they have all these deadlines and the house will not be able to pass any more house bills after tonight, essentially after Thursday night, um, that these are house rules that they could suspend. Uh, if they had, I believe a four fifths majority, a wide majority, they could say, you know what? Forget forget the rules let's bring this bill back from

the grave uh it's not likely that that's going to happen um from my understanding that doesn't really happen very often and that would take a lot of votes yes it would have to be something significant you know like another texas freeze and lawmakers like oh we need to do something right um so you know if the state freezes over again, then we might see, then we might see something happen. Um, but yes, with the session ending May 31st, we have some deadlines coming up. It's a lot more, there's a lot more deadlines in the house than there are in the Senate. The Senate basically can keep going as long as they want.

They really don't pay attention to rules that much. Do they have a committee deadline to pass bills out of committee? No. That's what I thought, yeah. It's just, I think the deadline to pass bills is like the 25th, I want to say. For the Senate.

For the Senate. Now, of course, the House... Which is six days prior to sine die. And a little footnote on that is even though the Senate can pass bills out at that point, it doesn't do them much good because the House has a deadline for Senate bills that's earlier than that. So realistically, if the Senate wants to see some of their bills passed, they have to get it to the House before the House deadline on Senate bills, which is in another week or two. The House has all the rules and the Senate says, hey, we do too, but we don't follow them. Yeah. That's great. They literally make rules in order to break them yeah

and dan patrick does what he does and that's where that's where we end up speaking of which mckenzie could we suspend the rules and and rearrange the order of the docket certainly we made the docket i don't i object i think we should would rearrange it since we always yell that at the tv whenever someone says, are there any objections? I just object to whatever it is. Patrick never hears you. The Speaker of the House never hears. He must just not be listening.

I move to keep an order and continue on this topic. Great. Then sustained. Cool. Yep. Okay. Is there any objection? The Chair hears none, so ordered.

There we go. Oh, thank you. Yep. There you go. Sorry to interrupt any, here's none. So ordered. There we go. Oh, thank you. Yep. There you go. Sorry to interrupt speaker chair, madam president. Given the deadline of Thursday night,

there are lots of bills, lots of house bills that they're trying to ram through. There's over 300 bills on calendar as we're podcasting on Thursday morning. And I don't think that they're going to get through them all. Now, there's some notable bills on there. There's some bills that are dead in the water. Like, we're not going to see a Texas secession bill come anywhere. We're just not at this point.

And that's not even set for our account. Like, that's not even set on the calendar. Yeah. I don't think it even had a committee hearing. So at this point, it's safe to say that that bill is dead. Yes. Now, Isaiah, you kind of went through. Does it look like any of, and I guess Brad and Hayden will get to this in the next subject, too, so you don't have to go too much in depth.

But the priorities from the governor, lieutenant governor, GOP, where are those at? So the governor's priorities are still breathing. Some of Patrick's are in dire straits. He has an appellate court reorganization bill, that's Senate Bill 11 by Joan Huffman, that is not looking too good. But the point of this bill was to, like anybody that follows court cases understands that when Paxton sues somebody and he's got a file in Travis County District Court, he will lose. And then later he moves to appellate court and potentially win, potentially lose. But the impetus behind Joan Huffman's bill was to, you know, sidestep this kind of typical process that happens at Travis County District Court. Obviously, Patrick's 31st

priority which is redistricting hasn't seen much action yeah surprise surprise yeah um but obviously it's not dead um it's kind of they could pass something without any numbers it would be weird yeah okay probably problematic yeah i don't know that it would hold up in court too well right got it awesome so let's let's go back to this. So in terms of house bills that are notable, that are set on the calendar, that may not receive action tonight. And again, there are hundreds of bills that we have to get through the house. We'll gavel in at 10 a.m. Midnight is the deadline.

So do the math. 14 hours there. What bills, what notable bills are on the chopping block potentially? So I think the big one that everyone watching is one that Isaiah has been following, HB 1399. Yeah, walk us through that bill really fast. Just give us a 30,000 foot view of what that bill does. So to remind you all, this is an effective ban on gender reassignment surgery and puberty blockers and prescriptions for children. If you count Senate and House versions as one, there were four different versions of

this bill. And you can divide them into two main groups. One of them would go after doctors and the other would go after parents. Yep. This is the one that would go after doctors. It would be prohibited practice for doctors. And it was the only one that made it onto a calendar the rest of them have languished in the house public health committee under representative stephanie click so house bill 1399 is the only one that has passed the public

health committee and made it onto a calendar the chosen the coronated bill to make it through the process to quote make it through the process we'll see what it actually does yeah it's got a pretty low spot on the calendar certainly um and how low it is like i'll tell you right now there are 258 bills ahead of that yes so the chances of us getting to that bill today are very very slim um and that will be a large uh you know source of contention among house you know house members and again just because it's down far on the list doesn't mean that Democrats might not chub. Chubbing is a process by which it's essentially filibustering. I thought filibustering takes as much time as possible to try and kill bills further along in the process. But Democrats will likely still do

that today just to kind of, you know, for safekeeping to make sure that that bill does not see the light of day. Lots of asking silly questions and probably on some silly bills too uh there there are some uh trivial bills that are on the calendar that are even ahead of this uh the one that everybody's watching hb 1399 you have uh you know for a couple examples there's one that would make uh dr pepper the official state soft drink i know we had a debate don't you mean pop they they specifically say in code or in the in the text of the legislation soft drink so you know that could be controversial in itself i'm sure there'll be some chubbing over the use of the term soft drink some chubbing um uh another another bill would uh make coding video games a kind of a priority with education. One of the things that you should try and teach kids, code video games.

Yeah, it was kind of bizarre. But it's on there. It could pass. Then there's some other notable bills from Republicans and Democrats alike, uh, that are kind of a little bit higher profile. I think that might gain a little bit of attention, uh, for some examples, you know, at the very bottom, you know, way below even, uh, HB 1399, there is one from representative Aaron Sweeney from Driftwood, uh, that would allow, school-issued IDs to be an acceptable form of identification when voting. So kind of, again, trying to expand the people's access to voting.

That's one of the Democrats' priorities. Another bill from a Democrat related to election, which is kind of an interesting bill, is from Representative Art Fiero, HB 740, which allows for a form of ranked choice voting. So essentially what this would do would be allow when people vote by mail to have an extra ballot where they can put their preferred candidates. And then if there's a runoff election, they just use that instead of having to vote by mail a second time. So kind of an interesting bill there. From a Republican that's kind of a prioritized from Democrats too, I think is a gun bill from Representative Charlie Guerin, which would create a state offense for lying on a firearm background check, kind of a notable bill there. You have right above Matt Krause's HB 1399, you have one from Representative Stephanie Click. There would essentially be a huge overhaul of the state's child abuse registry.

So if you remember the whole Pardo case and the Pardo family was trying to get their name taken off, and I think they finally did get their names taken off of that child abuse registry through this long kind of cumbersome process. This would completely change that. It's, I think, like a 10-page bill that just completely changes the process for that. Yeah. So those are some of the big bills on the list. Awesome. Well, gentlemen, thank you for covering that for us. Brad and Hayden, let's go to y'all. Something that we've touched a little bit on today, but we need to go into a little bit more detail about is where state leaders priority legislation stands so at the

very beginning of the session the speaker of the house lieutenant governor and the governor all set their legislative priorities and say hey these are the things that i want to see passed in my respective chamber or in both chambers um walk us through where these things stand just give us a 30 000 foot view so i'll start with the governor's emergency items. Back when he gave the state of the state address, he listed out a handful of things that were, in his mind, emergencies. And by listing them as such gives the legislature more room to run with these legislation to address these issues. Among them were election integrity. That is working its way through. Hayden covered the Florida debate in the House last week, where the House passed the Senate's version, SB7, and so that's making its way through. One thing that went through really, really quickly was the broadband expansion bill. I've discussed that before. It creates a broadband expansion office to facilitate awarding federal grants to these companies that are tasked with expanding internet access kind of between the two chambers. It's an amendment that would prioritize companies

that create a filter for pornography on their service. And so that has to be hashed out in conference committee. ERCOT stuff is another really big one. This was added after the fact because his speech was before the winter storm. Most of those have made its way through both chambers or actually, no, they made it through one chamber and are well on their way through the other chamber. house had a slate of priority bills related to that specifically um then uh the house is also dealing with senate bill 3 um which is similar to a couple of the bills that they've passed

themselves so we'll see what makes it through um with those daniel mentioned the Pandemic Response Act, HB3. That included in that has coronavirus protection, lawsuit protections. There's another one that provides that explicitly from the Senate. We'll see what comes out with that. And then finally, there's the bail reform bill that was among the governor's initial emergency item list to restrict violent felons or violent offenders, alleged offenders from being released on low or priority or not priority, personal recognizance bond.

So that's where those stand. And then the Senate has a massive amount of priorities. Hayden, you wrote about that one. They had 31 priorities, one for each senator, I suppose. But Patrick, I like the word used earlier, coronated 31 pieces of legislation. And Isaiah already discussed a few of these earlier. But the two major categories I think that are important are the cultural issues and the budget, because the budget goes directly to the heart of where the state is spending its money, which reflects the state's values. So, the point person, I think, and I don't know, this is my first session, so I don't know how true this is,

but I feel like Jane Nelson is really the budget guru in the Senate. That may just be my perception, but she is the Senate Chair of Finance, and she is also, I believe, the Chair of the Conference Committee that has been appointed. She is serving on the Conference Committee with Joan Huffman, Lois Kulkhorst, Robert Nichols, Larry Taylor. And the House's conferees are Greg Bonin, Giovanni Corpiglione, Mary Gonzalez, Armando Wally, and Terry Wilson. And they're working out the differences between the two chambers on the budget. As far as cultural issues go, Isaiah alluded to this earlier, but Representative Harold Dutton recalled the bill that would require athletes to compete within their own biological sex, recalled that bill as an act of what he called consequence for some of his fellow Democrats defeating legislation that he wanted to see passed.

And then abortion legislation, very consequential, is also making some headway, but is also stuck at various points in the process at this point. The trigger bills, which would ban most abortions if Roe v. Wade or Planned Parenthood against Casey is overturned, have passed each chamber and they're now, they did a switcheroo, they're pending in each other's committees. And the heartbeat bill is now awaiting the Senate's approval or denial of the House amendments. And then there are some gun rights bills that have been passed by both chambers and that are also pending at various points in the process. So, just like with all other pieces of legislation, the clock is ticking, but they have made some progress. And those are the two big areas that I think the state should be looking at. The House took a different kind of approach than the Senate, where the Senate released one big list. The House has kind of dropped at various points these slates of priority legislation.

I mentioned one earlier, the ERCOT electricity-related stuff. Also, I referred to one with the public safety criminal justice reform. Then they also have released this healthcare priority list. A lot of those have been made through. One of them is related to the broadband expansion, telehealth expansion of capabilities. You know, also healthcare or hospital price transparency is within that. That bill is making its way through. That is something that a lot of especially conservatives want to see and that is among the more conservative uh pieces of legislation within the house's priority list here um and so the the slates themselves have been passed to varying degrees they're not um some are essentially dead and at this point definitely dead and then others are making its way through

so we'll see what happens there awesome thank you bradley good stuff team well thanks for covering that for us um hayden we're going to stick with you let's talk about the border really fast we'd be remiss to not talk about the border in one way or another on this podcast um you wrote a piece this week about a 20-year record being broken give us a rundown of what's going on yes really quickly uh three things about the border is the 20 year record, Texas numbers are virtually the same and COVID-19 and unaccompanied minors. So the 20 year record that was broken was the most enforcement encounters in a single month since the year 2000. In April, there were 178,622 arrests total. And the last time that was exceeded was, I believe, in March of 2000, when there were about 220,000 enforcement encounters under the presidency of

Bill Clinton. But the Texas numbers remained virtually the same. So the enforcement encounters increases were mainly outside of Texas. The number was 117,081 in March, and then 117,904 in April. So it was pretty similar. But the it did change a little bit the 15 there was a 15% increase in single adults enforcement encounters, while a 15% drop in family unit apprehensions and an 8% drop in unaccompanied minors. The agency also reported, the agency being U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement also reported that 63% of the deportations are under Title 42, which are the special immigration rules that were invoked to protect the public from COVID-19. And the government is not expelling unaccompanied

minors. The unaccompanied minor situation is looking up a little bit. There were 455 kids in CBP custody when they reported the other day. And that is compared to an average of 2,895 in April and 4,109 in March. And that is due to increased cooperation with the Health and Human Services Department and them kind of getting their ducks in the row to take care of these kids that are mostly from Central American countries. And that is the situation on the border. Well, Hayden, that was so concise. You were so on it. Thank you for covering that for us. Bradley, we're going to come to you. I think that we would also be remiss not to talk about the homeless situation in Austin on this podcast. But walk us through a little bit, two things. One, the group behind the ordinance reinstatement here in the city, and also what that reinstatement will look like going forward. Yeah, so as we talked about last week, the city of Austin voters elected to reinstate the public camping ban. That was set to go into effect this week on Tuesday. And it did, nominally, but the announced shortly before announced its plan for kind of a

phased reinforcement they're going to go through 30 days of education and outreach to these homeless camps and the individuals living in them trying to inform them about where they can go for shelter and whatnot then they're going to do 30 days of kind of a trial run of enforcement itself. Well, they'll issue kind of warnings and some citations. And then after that 60 day period, then they'll start, they'll begin to actually really enforce the law itself, handing out citations more liberally. And then 30 days after that they'll it'll be according to the city uh you know like it was before july 2019 at least as far as the enforcement goes right and so they rather than just you know wholesale on on may 11th um you know reinstitute

the camping ban and its enforcement they have decided to do this phased implementation, which has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, especially ones that voted for, um, reinstating the camping ban. Now in their defense, you know, it's, it would be a drastic change at the drop of a hat, essentially, um, to go from one day having the band to the next or not having the band to the next having the band so um that's what the city is doing and we'll see where it goes from there how it actually rolls out um i'll give a quick plug to my uh save austin now piece it's kind of a profile of the organization itself um it's pretty long so i recommend you go read it i'm not going to explain it here but um it just goes dives into um the effort behind um you know reinstating the public camping ban and the petition that allowed that to happen what a political machine my gosh yeah yeah and um you know they're not going away they'll uh the two that founded it say they're

gonna uh remain a you know a staple staple in Austin politics and try and hold the city council's feet to the fire. An interesting pairing in that we have a Republican operative and we have a Democrat activist. Very interesting pairing there. An odd couple. Very, yeah, but an effective one. Daniel, let's talk about the NRA. It made news for reasons unsuspecting. Walk us through what happened with the NRA this week. Well, I filed for bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy judge in Texas threw the case out. Dang. That was really, really well done.

Why are they filing bankruptcy? Well, different reasons. You can speculate on your own whether the court's right whether the nra was being honest initially whether it's a mix of both i don't know i'll let you decide but i'll lay out the facts your tone right now is making me laugh really hard you're welcome so in january when they filed for bankruptcy in te in Texas, they kind of sent out a statement explaining why they were doing this, what the process was. And the National Rifle Association said that it was filing this bankruptcy as a plan to basically reincorporate in Texas. So they're in a legal mess in new york the new

york attorney general is going after them like nothing else and they went out shocker that political mixture makes complete sense a democratic attorney general in one of the most liberal states in the country is going after a gun organization that is incorporated there the nra yes so uh not really a big surprise there that they are trying to flee new york uh some people are like why haven't they done this sooner what an unfortunate place for the nra to be headquartered well they're not headquartered there which is an interesting fact they're incorporated in new york they're headquartered in virginia i did not know that so it's it's a weird mix of like they're going to come and reincorporate in texas and then they're also thinking about moving their

headquarters to texas as well and they're still thinking about that um all that to say you know why did they file bankruptcy and to begin with originally in january they said that this was uh to as part of their plan to reincorporate in Texas. Now the court, Judge Harlan Hale, in his kind of brief ruling, I guess, 40 page ruling, which is kind of interesting length for tossing out a bankruptcy case. So you can know that it's a little bit of a notable case there. He said that the, he didn't see that it was solely to just reincorporate in Texas. And he said,

even if that was the case, he'd have some problems with it. But that's aside from the point, his, his whole interpretation of the situation was that they were filing for bankruptcy specifically to use the bankruptcy code as kind of a legal shield against the regulatory actions taken against them by New York. So the New York Attorney General has this pretty intense case going against them in the state of New York. And to kind of shield themselves from that, this bankruptcy filing was part of that plan. So all that to say that the case was tossed out and that's that. Got it.

So they were trying to move to Texas. Do you know if they were getting any tax incentives? I do not know that, but I do know that the governor was welcoming them with wide open arms. I don't think that there's quite as many tax incentives for non-profit organizations. Yeah, that makes sense. That was an attempted transition to the next topic. I don't think I could roll my eyes more dramatically than I just did.

They almost rolled out of her head just now. They really just did. Brad is so pleased with himself. I didn't even get to the last question. Oh, I'm sorry. You literally cut the segment. That's fine. That's fine.

Go on. Real fast, Daniel, since we're the ones talking about this. What is next for the NRA? Well, I'm glad you asked. Oh, great, Daniel. I'm going to take my time on this.

We're taking my time. Or maybe I could use up time now and then. And then we don't have time to talk about chapter 313. This is an example of chubbing, actually. I love it. That's fair. Now, like I said, the NRA is still actively looking at moving their headquarters.

Not their reincorporation necessarily, but they also might be trying to reincorporate in Texas. The judge did leave an option open for them to try filing bankruptcy again, but he gave a very kind of loud warning shot with that. And he's like, if you do that, I'm going to be very suspicious of everything. And I may very well appoint a trustee to basically manage your business, manage your organization to oversee the business side of things, which, you know, that's a lot of oversight for a court to have in a bankruptcy case. And so, you know, that might keep the NRA away from filing bankruptcy again. In the meantime, they're going to be staying incorporated in New York and facing the wrath of the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, who is continuing down a warpath to dismantle the NRA.

Got it. Good stuff, Daniel. Well, thank you so much for that incredible coverage of a very interesting case. Speaking of very interesting things, let's talk about Chapter 313, Bradley. In all seriousness, what happened this week, particularly relating to tax incentives, there was quite a kerfuffle. Yes, that is one way to describe it. It's a fun word. tax incentive program where school districts can provide abatements, essentially cuts off the specific company's property valuation in order to attract the X company to the district itself. So it's used quite a bit.

The two biggest categories of companies that receive this are renewable energy companies and manufacturing companies in which oil and gas is for some reason put. I don't know why, but that's the way the comptroller classifies it. So energy is obviously a big thing for energy. Interestingly enough, we saw the two biggest think tanks and Texas-based think tanks, one conservative, one progressive, every Texan on the progressive side and Texas public policy foundation on the conservative side, both come out against this. They actually released a joint statement condemning the extension of this program.

So that was what was on the floor this week. Extension of chapter three, one, three, every 10 years, it has to be renewed. So that is this time. And if it's not, then it expires.

And so there were two specific proposals on the floor, one that would just extend the current program two years. That passed with very little opposition. The other one that faced a lot more contention from the body was Representative Jim Murphy's bill. And it extended the program itself, Chapter 313, for a decade, but also expanded what you can use these abatements for to things like renovations to companies already existing in the district.

So the purpose of the program is to attract companies that aren't there to your area. And so this would expand the tax incentive to companies that are already there, have already created jobs and whatnot. contentious policy among especially conservative and progressive circles. And it died. It got point of ordered. And then it was postponed by Representative Murphy until after the session. So it's not going to come back up this session. Likely we'll see this fight happen two years from now in the next session because of the two year extension. So that's where that's at. Good stuff.

Thank you, Bradley. Well, gentlemen, let's pivot to a fun topic. And I have been told that my fun topics are not actually that fun. And I'm seeing a debate happen already in terms of one of these proposed fun topics. So my fun topic was going to be what has been the toughest floor debate so far this session?

And y'all's eyes rolled out of your heads. So let's go to all of our eyes are in our heads um thankfully we all still have actually do like that that's a good question thank you i think we should at the end of session though yeah that was my thought is maybe we did at the end of session just don't let me forget because y'all know my memory um favorite pizza toppings i'm sticking with this. A debate is already happening in this document, which I think Hayden just hid. Yeah, somebody just deleted my comment. I'm kind of spicy about that right now.

Isaiah is pointing to himself. Well, Hayden, start us off. Well, of course pineapple belongs on pizza. I don't know why we're talking about this. Think about the other things that we put on pizza. Mushroom, spinach, anchovies. I mean, why wouldn't you put put on pizza mushroom spinach anchovies i mean why wouldn't you put pineapple on pizza and so i just because that's even a question that's out there i'm gonna say pineapple

is my favorite topping on pizza what it's your favorite more than any sort of like protein right now it is my favorite because i feel like i have to stand for pineapple no but objectively like what's your favorite pepperoni's my favorite okay there you go thank you for the record yes right now it's pineapple yes for the for the sake of pineapple uh isaiah is staring off into the distance with misery and contemplation what's going through your mind you should be noted first that i'm not a big fan of pizza interesting but i am an even worse fan when it has pineapple on it oh because it just creates such friction with the whole you know like what the pizza is you got all these flavors that seem congruent and then bam you throw pineapple on there and it doesn't even

belong it just snuck in in a trench coat and a hat wow it. It doesn't, it just doesn't, I don't know. It clashes. I think you're casting unfair aspersions on the character of pineapple. For your, your view on like steak and barbecue sauce, which we share. Yeah. I'm really surprised by this because I'm also not, I really don't like pizza that much.

If you get, if you throw me into a cafeteria and there's a pizza and a hamburger or a hot dog. But that's cafeteria pizza. That's different. I'm just saying that as an example. You put me in a food court. You put me wherever. I'm going to choose a hamburger every time over pizza.

Agreed. Intriguing. Every time? Every time. If I'm given an option, I will. What if it's a bad hamburger but a good slice of pizza? It would have to be a really bad hamburger yeah i agree i did not know this about you and no i will eat like i don't say no to pizza like if someone's giving free pizza like i'll probably

go and have a piece but what makes it better for me is if there's pineapple on it thank you see i feel like there's consensus developing in this room you've got that weird acidic juice seeping into the cheese yeah it's not good i'm sorry but you've already lost your credibility because you said you don't like pizza in general so maybe it's the pizza you don't like if i'm being forced to eat pizza at some kind of gathering i'm even more disappointed when i have to peel off these disgusting floppy pineapples and then there's this like raw scabby part underneath where they've leaked their juices onto the cheese and there's a little dent there and it's all damp this is This is getting very descriptive. Wow. That was vivid. That was... Oh, wow.

Well, man, I feel like I was reading a Texas Monthly article about pineapple on pizza. Bradley? I'm a bit more nuanced on this. I enjoy pineapple. But I don't like the big slices on the pineapple. I like when they're tiny little cubes. I don't understand why this is so funny.

I don't either, Brad. I actually do agree with Isaiah's point about too much pineapple juice disrupting the feng shui of the rest of the slice. But having a little bit of sweet on the pizza is very good

and I enjoy having pepperoni, black olives and pineapple Brad you are so indignant and self-righteous about your opinions I wouldn't you're the one being serious and everyone else is just laughing. I have a super serial opinion here. TM.

Trademark. I really hate when you do that. There was a little finger movement that followed him saying, TM. Okay, this is overwhelming. I don't understand why my opinions make you so angry. Because you say them like they're the only opinions. Everyone else has opinions.

I'm a little bit more nuanced on this one. I mean, I have very un-nuanced opinions, too. Do you want me to rattle all those off? No, I don't. I really don't want to. On this particular topic, it is not a black and white opinion. Oh, my gosh. I think they're giving you too much hate

for no reason i know it's it's apparently fun but he brings it upon himself throw it at me michelle's pointed at me in in affirmation myself okay okay um i feel like this is workplace harassment i think so lord in heaven on that note folks um wow i'm like worn out from that it's on the last two minutes like i'm feeling a little little uh yeah brad you're asking for it okay on that note folks thanks for listening thanks for bearing with us if you made it to the end of these last two minutes we appreciate you sincerely um but thanks for listening we'll catch you next week. in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us.

God bless you, and God bless Texas. you