The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - May 19, 2023

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: The House passing a ban on biological males competing against women in intercollegiate sportsThe House’s version of the Senate’s property tax plan, featuring major changes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sending state officers to Texas to address the border crisisGov. Greg Abbott threatening a special session to pass school choice The release of the Legislature’s conference committee on the state budgetThe Senate taking up a House bill to prohibit banks from specially tracking firearm purchasesA Houston Democratic club censoring a lawmaker after she voted to ban child gender modificationThe Legislature sending its local government preemption bill to the governor’s deskLt. Gov. Dan Patrick saying the Senate will not consider legalizing casinos and sports bettingHouse members pushing forward an alternative plan to subsidizing natural gas power plantsA bill to expand state surveillance on jewelry purchases criticized by civil liberties groupsTexas lawmakers turning to procedural “points of order” to kill each other’s bills as session comes to close

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses the House passing a ban on biological males competing against women in intercollegiate sports. The House's version of the Senate's property tax plan featuring major changes. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sending state officers to Texas to address the border crisis. Governor Greg Abbott threatening a special session to pass school choice. The release of the legislature's conference committee on the state budget. The Senate taking up a House bill to prohibit banks from specially tracking firearm purchases. A Houston Democratic club censoring a lawmaker after she voted to ban child gender modification.

The legislature sending its local government preemption bill to the governor's desk. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick saying the Senate will not consider legalizing casinos and sports betting. House members pushing forward an alternative plan to subsidizing natural gas power plants. A bill to expand state surveillance on jewelry purchases criticized by civil liberties groups, and Texas lawmakers turning to procedural points of order to kill each other's bills as session comes to a close. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode.

Well, howdy folks. Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Matt, and Hayden. Hayden's already laughing and we haven't even done anything yet. And he also keeps trying to keep threatening to move my microphone around when I get it in just the right spot. Sounds like a personal problem. Oh my gosh. It probably is. But gentlemen, is this week a lot slower than last week? Have you been able to catch your breath a little bit? For me, it has been. And you have documentation that last week was crazy week for me. Should I tweet that video one day? I will not be happy if that video ends up on the internet. That makes sense. In fact, I might never speak to you again.

It's very possible. I think you've threatened that before. And I never follow through. So I've lost my credibility. That would make podcasts very difficult, but interesting. Because Hayden wouldn't be directing everything he says to me. Remember that podcast I tried to shun her and it lasted for a grand total of 4.1 seconds. No, that's probably why I don't remember it.

Yeah, it didn't work. Well, there you go. I don't know. That's probably why I don't remember it. Yeah, it didn't work. Well, there you go. I don't think it's been calmer. You don't think? Well, that's true because you have a lot of your issues this week have been on the table like HB5 this morning, property taxes later today, recording on Thursday. Yeah, it's been pretty steady stream for me. Yeah.

Karen, what about you? I feel like you just have a social issue a week. You just got here just every week. You know, it's been pretty steady stream for me. Yeah. Karen, what about you? I feel like you just have a social issue a week. You just got, you're just every week you're on. It's every week. It's something new. Yeah. Whether it's in the legislature

or on social media, something new is popping off. So I'm busy all the time. He says with a tremble in his voice. And Matt's there busily making his podcast dockets. We will let him continue to do that. But he did have a viral tweet later on. I hope we'll talk about that. Cameron, we are going to start off

Oh, he's going to talk about that? Like, it's not all we've heard the past 24 hours. See, I've been out of the office last couple of days trying to recuperate. It's only on their minds because they're staring at my Twitter all jelly-like. That crazy engagement.

Anyway, we're spoiling what we're going to talk about later. Cameron, we're going to go ahead and start with you. Protecting women's supports continues to be a topic of national interest, and the legislature has made some decisions on that this week. Tell us about what happened. Yeah, so the Texas legislature on Wednesday voted to pass a bill to require college students in the state to compete in intercollegiate athletics according to their biological sex. The Save Women's Sports Act was subject to long debates in both committee hearings in the Senate and the House, and the floor vote this week was no different. Yeah, absolutely. Talking about the debate on the House floor, what were some of the conversations about? Well, interestingly, there was lots of amendments proposed, multiple points of order. But John Busey

proposed an amendment that would have effectively killed the bill. And many Republican lawmakers chose to speak against it, which led to a conversation about the definition of woman. And Busey is a Democrat from Austin, correct? That is correct. Okay. And during the back and forth between the lawmakers, Busey repeatedly answered the question by saying that he trusted people to accurately identify themselves. And additionally, when asked how he can take a pro-woman position

and not support this legislation, he would respond with saying, I believe in an inclusive Texas. Yeah, that was the big argument for a lot of the time on the floor. That amendment was debated for a long time. What was the final vote breakdown and how did some of the Democratic lawmakers choose to vote? So it passed by a vote of 93 to 49 with 10 Democratic lawmakers voting in favor of the legislation. And now the bill will await a, as at the time of this recording, a ceremonial final third reading approval before it finally passes. Yeah. And bills have been defeated on third reading before, but it is incredibly rare that it happens. Basically, it just means you have to sign your name to that bill two times in

a row and say, yes, I support it or yes, I am against it. And then it gets passed and sent over to whichever chamber or committee or whatever it has to be sent, it's sent there. Thank you so much for your coverage. Real fast, do you have the names of the 10 Democrats who voted for that legislation? Because I know that even in the child gender modification, the notable big name there was Sean Theory. And she was, you know, the one who gave a speech on the House floor and tried to ensure that she, you know, gave her position as to why she broke from her colleagues. But I, you know, on this bill, it was a little bit different. I'm trying to find it myself here. Me too. But it was like 10 lawmakers.

I have it here. It was Canales, Dutton, Guerrera, King, Longoria, Martinez, Morales, Munoz, Raymond, and Theory. There you go. Theory got at it again. Thank you so much, Cameron, for your coverage. Fascinating to watch some of these social issues become bipartisan in some of these votes. Brad, we're going to come to you. The Texas House upped the ante this week on the debate over property tax reform. What happened?

The two chambers have been locked in a stalemate over their respective property tax plans. The main dispute is that the House wants a reduced and expanded appraisal cap, and the Senate is vehemently opposed. Both chambers largely agree on the main facet, rate compression, but have very different plans for the appraisal reform aspect. With their bill not having moved at all in the Senate, the house took their plan and added to it a key component of the upper chamber's plan uh in their committee sub for senate bill three the house replaced the senate's language with their basically house bill two language the one that has stalled out in the senate but added to it a 100k homestestead exemption. Now, that's double the Senate's exemption increase, and that was where the House preferred the appraisal cap, the Senate preferred homestead exemption.

And because the House has basically taken that portion of the Senate's plan and just doubled it, it'll be interesting to see what the Senate does in reaction. Does that make them more amenable to what the House wants in this potential compromise? Overall, the new House plan's fiscal note is $16.3 billion in new reform. That's on top of, I think it's $5.3 billion roughly in the state budget for continued compression of previously done. And so it's $12 billion towards the $0.15 additional rate compression, which is the state buying down local M&O tax rates, and $4.3 billion towards the exemption increase. Compare that to the Senate's, which is just below 10 billion in Homestead and I believe compression.

Actually, that's the compression. Homestead was like $3 billion. So it will be up for a vote on the House floor Thursday. I think the first version we saw only have five nays. I think we'll have even more support for this one. We saw Chris Turner, Democrat. He was the lone no vote in committee on the first House plan. He voted for the bill, this one in committee. So I think this will be as close to unanimous as we'll get in the Texas House. Why do you think the House made this move?

So their plan wasn't moving at all. Lieutenant Governor made it clear just before their version passed that it was dead on arrival in the Senate. They've made clear the big thing they want is the appraisal cap the House has. And this is an effort to kind of meet the Senate halfway. The question is, will the Senate bite? The issue probably has to get settled during the regular session. I don't think it absolutely does. But they can't really put this off to a September session

when so much of it is tied to the budget and the new fiscal year starts in September. So I think this will be hammered out in some fashion in the next 10 or so days. What that'll be, I'm not sure, but this is an effort to put the ball back in the Senate's court, make them act on something instead of just pocket veto what the House wants. It'll be fun to watch the debate on the floor today. Brad, thanks for your coverage. Hayden, coming to you, the state of Florida stepped in this week to help Texas respond to illegal immigration. What kinds of resources is the Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers in teams of 40, 20 game officers, 800 National Guard troops, 20 emergency management

personnel, and then other resources that included equipment such as fixed-wing aircraft, monitoring equipment, and aviation crews, mobile command vehicles, and 17 drones, and then 10 vessels is the word it used, including airboats, shallow draft vessels, and mid-range vessels. DeSantis has been on board with stronger border security measures. He said in his news release, quote, the impacts of Biden's border crisis are felt by communities across the nation, and the federal government's abdication of duty undermines the sovereignty of our country and the rule of law. He continued, at my direction, state agencies, including law enforcement and the Florida National Guard, are being deployed to Texas with assets including personnel, boats, and planes. While Biden ignores the crisis he created, Florida stands ready to help Texas respond to this crisis.

All of this is after Title 42 ended, which the enforcement encounters with Title 42's end, they escalated to more than 10,000 per day and then dropped down to about an average of 4,400 per day. So still thousands of encounters with illegal immigrants following the expiration of Title 42. But the drop in enforcement encounters Governor Abbott, credits to Texas border security measures. Then, of course, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is taking credit as well, saying the decrease is due to the emphasis that he is placing on the consequences that are still going to be enforced under Title VIII and that are being enforced, including expulsion, deportation, a five-year ban on reentry. In fact, now under the Title VIII rules that have been dormant because Title XLII has been used, if someone is trying to seek asylum and they cross the border illegally, not only will they be denied, but there will be a higher threshold for them to meet.

Mayorkas characterized it as a presumption of ineligibility that can be overcome. So they will have to have even more hoops that they jump through if they try to cross the border illegally. So that's what the federal government's doing. Florida is stepping up to help Texas in this regard and supplement some of the measures that Governor Abbott has already taken. Of course, Governor Ron DeSantis has been widely considered a White House contender. What is the latest on his potential candidacy? DeSantis is trying to raise money. And according to reports, specifically and exclusive with NBC News,

he is about to move his campaign headquarters to a different facility in Tallahassee that will require him to spend more than $5,000, which will trigger campaign finance regulations that require him to file paperwork with a federal agency explaining why he's spending this money and all of the different requirements that have to be met for federal campaign finance rules. And that will be the paper and ink that confirms his intention to run for president. There you go. Thank you, Hayden. Cameron, coming to you, a special session seems inevitable as of now that Governor Greg Abbott has voiced his concerns about passing meaningful school choice legislation during the normal session. The regular session, tell us what has happened so far.

Yeah. So after a second version of the Texas House Substitute of the Senate School Choice Plan was released, Governor Greg Abbott announced that he would veto the bill if it made it to his desk. And, well, why did he say this? Because the second version of the House School Choice Plan is eligible for an even smaller portion of students. And to be eligible for this new program, the ESA Education Savings Account Program, a student must have been a public school student who attended an F-rated school or is special needs. The plan also allocates $200 million for education savings accounts, which caught the attention of some legislators online, especially Representative Briscoe Cain, who commented, we're spending four times that on movie subsidies. So the second plan from the House is already a big deviation from the first House substitute,

which was reformulating many aspects of the original plan, including creating a tiered funding strategy, removing the ban on sexually orientation and gender identity curriculum, and changing the protection focus away from rural districts towards special needs and low-income students. What else has been said by those in the legislature about Abbott's comments? Well, after Abbott commented last weekend that the latest version does little to provide meaningful school choice, this is Abbott speaking, legislators deserve to know that it would be vetoed if it reached my desk. And Tom Olverson said he spoke to Abbott and said that, I am convinced that no one is going home without some meaningful school choice measure, and doubting Abbott's resolve on this would be a mistake. He also said, this is Olverson,

I do not believe running out the clock on SBA is an effective strategy, and I would encourage my colleagues to keep working on this issue. If the plan is to get the signed die without passing anything, my advice would be to extend your leases today. Going to be a long summer. And I do know Public Education Chairman Brad Buckley also made a comment to the Tribune earlier this week that he said he has no plans to bring the bill up either. So SB dead for now. SB dead. That was a 48 slip there. SB 8 is.

SB dead. Start the hashtag trending right now. But SB 8 is all but dead for the foreseeable future. The chair recognizes Ms. DeLulo to speak on her bill. SB dead. I'm sorry, proceed. Cameron, thank you so much for your coverage. Brad, we're coming to you now. We discussed property taxes earlier. Something that is largely dependent on that outcome is the state budget. A mostly final settlement between the two chambers was announced this week on the budget. Give us those details. So the 10-member conference committee released

its settlement this week, but questions still remain. The conference kind of punted on property taxes. Each had a rider for their respective property tax plans, and which is adopted or ultimately compromised on will determine the outcome of the standoff on this budget rider. There's also a question about school choice. As Cameron mentioned, the Senate had a rider in there, $5 billion overall for education issues. I think $600 million of that was line item for an ESA plan. But that appears dead. We'll see if the governor convenes a special session to address this.

But that's also kind of on hold at the moment. Other highlights of the settlement include $18.7 million for salary increases for employees at the Office of the Attorney General. There's also a prohibition in there against using appropriated funds to pay for a whistleblower settlement. That, of course, is related to the ongoing Whistleblower Act lawsuit against Ken Paxton by former employees. They announced the settlement, then they kind of backtracked on it because there was something that was all of a sudden not agreed upon anymore. It's still very much up in the air, but this says that if ultimately Paxton has to pay a settlement, that he cannot use Office of the Attorney General funds to do that.

That's another wrinkle to that debate. We'll see how it kind of folds out. Elsewhere in this plan, $343 million more toward construction of the southern border wall. That's Texas's southern border wall, different from what was the federal governments. There's 1.5 million to develop or enroll in an existing interstate voter cross-check system. A rider previously specific to the electronic registration information center was not included. But they expanded the language to this more broad topic. There was actually a bill that died on the House floor yesterday that dealt with Eric. So the state of Texas might be soon developing its own voter cross-check system.

Elsewhere, there's a prohibition against using state and federal funds for the promotion of COVID-19 vaccinations. Both chambers had a prohibition against using these funds for diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, specifically in institutions of higher education. And there was also a prohibition against appropriated Medicaid funds paying for gender reassignment surgeries. So there's a lot in there. It's still not finished because of all these other decisions that have to be made with legislation that's pending. So there's no final budget yet, but we're getting a lot closer. And we should have a fuller picture once the legislature adjourns on sine die. There you go

thank you sir matthew coming to you a measure that is aimed at protecting gun rights is is posed to become law one of the few making its way to the finish line this session give us some insight on that piece of legislation did you like the pun in there um it's aimed at protecting gun rights. I did not even notice, which is right over my head. I try so hard. House Bill 2837 by Representative Matt Schaefer, a Republican from the Tyler area, would prohibit financial institutions from surveilling, reporting, or tracking firearms, purchases, ammunitions, or accessories through the use of certain merchant category codes, which he says is ripe for privacy abuses.

And he kind of goes in and gives some of the examples of the ways this could be abused. For one, they could say people who own firearms or purchase firearms could be subject to higher costs or charges or that their data could be leaked out for shaming or that it could be shared with the federal government, et cetera, et cetera. He also said that ordinarily, as in the past, firearms and that sort of thing are usually listed under generic codes such as sporting goods, but a push from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren resulted in the expansion of these codes to collect more detailed information. And so he's trying to prevent that from being expanded upon and going further. Now, the bill has already passed the House of Representatives and is in the Texas Senate where we just checked a little bit ago.

And as of this recording Thursday morning, it's been in placed on the intent calendar for today. So we'll keep track of that and see how it goes. But it's, you know, one of the few gun rights bills that seems to be on the verge of making it across the finish line this session. Moving its way through the process. How would y'all describe the difference in the calendar? This is for all y'all, the difference in the calendars in the House and the Senate, because the Senate intent calendar is literally just that. We intend to get to this. Whether or not we do, they suspend the rules anyway. In the House, it's pretty much down the line, right? Anything to add?

Well, the Senate has the blocker bill, which allows them to suspend the rules and take up anything they want. The House will go and order on its calendar pretty much without exclusion or exception. That's the word. They do have occasionally items eligible for consideration that they can bring up. But generally, the House is more regimented in its adherence to what is written down on the calendar. My observation in the Senate is, is while I guess a senator could go up there and say, you know, I move to suspend the regular order of business and bring my bill forward or something

like that. Typically, you see Lieutenant Governor Patrick saying, you know, Senator so-and-so, you're recognized to suspend the regular order of business and bring forward Senate bills, so-and-so, so-and-so. So it very much feels like he's kind of deciding which one's next and which one's coming up. Yeah, I mean, it's negotiated behind the scenes, I'm sure. They all are informed and what's going to come up. And it is up to a lot more discretion once the calendar is written, whereas in the House, you know, they stick to it. And occasionally they will punt like they did a week ago or so. They adjourned at like midnight, but there were still bills remaining in the calendar. So they punted the rest of those till the next day.

But that's what they took those up immediately. So two different worlds, I'd say. Absolutely. Thank you. And the main reason for that is that the Senate has I'd say. Absolutely. Thank you. And the main reason for that is that the Senate has a supermajority. Yes. Whereas in the House, Republicans do not. And because Dan Patrick is at the helm.

That's a huge part of that as well. On just a kind of sort of kind of related note, have we discussed legislative deadlines? Yes. But not in like one fell swoop. Maybe we can do that toward the end. Cool. Yeah. I'll pull it up and have it ready for them perfect perfect perfect um cameron we're coming back to you we teased this a little bit earlier representative sean theory had a very memorable and moving speech explaining her vote on banning child gender modification notable in that she was a and is

a democrat but there has definitely been some fallout. Give us the details of what had happened there. So after her vote last week, the Maryland area Democrats, the Houston based Democratic Organization censured theory for her vote, citing she campaigned on being an ally to the LGBTQ plus community. Yet she has supported legislation which will harm this community and doesn't align with democratic principles. And that's directly from that organization. Tell us a little bit about what Theory said during her speech. So during her speech on the floor, she said that she is coming from a place of love and compassion and can only hope and pray that it is received in that same spirit. Because as she explained later, there has been attacks on her character because of her stance on this issue.

She continued that over the past two years, she has researched the issues related to banning child gender modification, and she thought the best way to protect those children suffering from depression and gender dysphoria was to vote in favor of the legislation. What's been the reception from her fellow House lawmakers? Theory was applauded for her statements on the floor. The bill's sponsor, Tom Olverson, called her speech one of the most intellectually honest things I have ever seen. And also said that the world needs more leadership like this, courageous, thoughtful, and genuine. And despite all that positive feedback from other House members, the Maryland area Democrats called Thierry's vote dangerous and said that she, this is from the organization, that she has already harmed transgender Texans by spreading misinformation that is not backed by science. Yeah. And there was, I think, Eddie Morales, another Democrat, and he is from the border, applauded her as well. He voted for the legislation and just said, you know, she followed

her conviction and that was his praise of her. But there have been a lot of folks, even national figures, I'm trying to remember who all, but, you know, quote tweeted her speech and made, you know, a lot of criticisms toward her about her stance on the bill. But certainly it has been kind of there's been duality in how it has been received by people. What's been her reaction to all of this? Well, I haven't seen her directly comment on the century yet. But after her speech on the floor, she did release a full statement on social media about her vote. And she said that this discussion has become polarized and politicized and that personal and even racist attacks on her being a African-American woman, she called them neither productive or persuasive. She continued with saying that it remains her legislative duty and moral obligation to vote the consensus and core values of my constituency. I have done this today with an

open heart and a clear mind, she said. There you go. Cameron, thanks for your coverage. Brad, coming to you, the legislature's very sweeping local government preemption bill is now on the fast track to Governor Abbott. What happened this week? The Texas Senate passed House Bill 2127, authored by Representative Dustin Burroughs and sponsored by Senator Brandon Creighton, a bill that would prohibit localities from approving regulations that apply to nine sections of code that exceed what the state lays out in that code. So I list out in the piece those nine sections of code. If a prospective regulation does not apply to those sections, then it is not

preempted, at least under this bill. So individuals or associations in counties of origin in which an offending regulation was issued, for example, if something happens in Austin, people who live or associations who operate in Travis County may bring suit against the locality to try and snuff out the excessive regulation, get it taken off the books. One stipulation is that if you're going to bring suit under this bill, you must provide the locality, the local government who adopted the regulation, give them three months notice in order to remedy the issue. So the bill passed along party lines 18 to 13, except for Senator Robert Nichols, Republican from Jacksonville, voting with Democrats against the bill. Now, let's go back to the House for the lower chamber to either accept the Senate's amendments or trigger a conference committee. If they concur, then it will move to Governor Abbott's desk, who's a big supporter of the bill.

If that happens, you can probably expect a pretty swift signing by the governor of the law. What's your gut on whether the House will concur with amendments or not? Well, I think there's one in particular that may cause some trepidation by members. Specifically, it's a prohibition against cities restricting evictions. And so I'm not sure how members of the House will address that. It's something that has been discussed about. It's actually a big reason why this bill was filed in the first place, because we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of these especially bigger cities issue eviction moratoriums.

And that is one of the examples of why boroughs in Creighton have brought this bill to session. But the bill in the House got eight Democratic members of support. I have a hard time believing that the addition of this amendment will dissuade any Republican members from voting for this bill. But I also think most of those eight will probably vote for the bill anyway, those eight Democrats. So that's what I think on this. I'm just curious. Yeah. What were the amendments that were tacked on?

So there was that eviction one. But then there were two others. A loser pays provision, meaning that if you bring suit against the locality and you lose, you pay for the legal costs. Excuse me. That is meant to dissu for frivolous lawsuits in their increasing deployment of this private cause of action, increasing the amount of opportunities for individuals to bring suit against whatever entity in order to enforce a law that the state is adopting. The Third Amendment stipulates, it narrows who may be sued under this bill. The House version allows for local elected officials of these local governments to be sued. The Senate's version strips that and makes it only you can sue the local government itself. So that one, I have a feeling will not be opposed in the House at all.

But those are the only three. And given the kind of discussion about this bill, it's, I think, kind of surprising that those were the only three that were tacked on. Or at least there were a bunch of other amendments that were tried to be tacked on. None of them were accepted. But, yeah, now we wait for the House to make judgmented on. None of them were accepted. But yeah, that's now we wait for the House to make judgment on those. What was the reaction from senators on the Senate floor? So Democrats were uniformly opposed on the bill.

Senator Sarah Eckhart, Democrat from Austin, criticized the bill for setting both a regulatory floor and a regulatory ceiling. Eckhart believes that where state law is silent, localities should be allowed to regulate as they see fit. And of course, that has been the entire onus for this issue. It's the entire reason Republicans are ringing this bill, because they see local governments passing regulations on

issues that haven't been addressed by state law yet, and they see those as excessive, almost uniformly. Democrats, meanwhile, want these localities to be able to pass these regulations as they see fit, and the arguments have gone around and around and around. Nobody's really been convinced one way or the other. Everyone's pretty stuck in their way of thinking on this, i don't foresee that changing um creighton countered to that to eckhart's uh assertion that this would eliminate quote local control everybody take a drink another local control set on the house floor many times yesterday it's a game i played last session and i stopped playing this session um creight Countered, we're not in any way eliminating local control.

We're eliminating local out of control. The business community loves this bill so that regulations across the state will be more consistently applied. It's called the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act. Pretty descriptive. Yes, yes. And that is exactly why businesses got behind this so much. The NFIB has been massive in pushing this national organization. So overall, though, I think this thing will become law pretty quickly.

There's not enough opposition to prevent that. NFIB, National Federation of Independent Businesses, I believe. Okay, got it. Thank you, Brad, for your coverage. Hayden, we're coming back to you you're wreaking havoc on this podcast sir and i'm just calling you out because i am i am he says what did i do look at me in the face and act like you don't know what i'm talking about oh my gosh hayden

keeps sending me things on slack to make me laugh and then makes jokes i don't even remember what you've done i just know that you can't even confront me with any evidence that i've done anything i have if i open our twitter not twitter dms are this thing so if you open this thing there's unspecified evidence that i've done something vaguely wrong. These are inside of inside jokes here. Trust me. Sitting at the table here, we have no clue what these two are talking about. It seems to me you're the one wreaking

havoc. You just said that I'm being like Brad, which I don't know where that came from. I asked Hayden if he could write a story on a certain bill and he just responded, okay, lowercasecase no punctuation anything i said are you trying to be brad today he said take that back so it was just an impersonation thing that's just one of the things you've done

but let's talk about your coverage just one of the things i've done let's get into your coverage hayden what did lieutenant governor dan patrick have to say about the gambling bills you've been covering all session and for multiple years now they're finally making their way to the floor that passed the texas house this last week well there was legislation to legalize sports betting in the texas a sassy little head move. And it was passed on second and third reading, but it is dead on arrival in the Senate because Dan Patrick said he does not want to proceed with that bill. There was also a casino bill on the floor by Charlie Guerin,

and it would have put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to bring commercial casinos to the Lone Star State, but it did not. It passed two engrossment on second reading, meaning it got enough votes to go to a third reading and a second vote. But in Texas, constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority in each chamber of the legislature, which means it would have needed 100 votes to get past third reading. And Guerin rose and he kind of politely conceded defeat by moving to postpone the bill until 2027, which is just a procedural ceremony. Some people will postpone bills until their birthday or their spouse or their wedding anniversary or things like that.

It's basically just a graceful way of saying, I lost. Can we please not vote on it and make the loss even harder? So they didn't vote on it for another time. But the sports wagering bills did make it out of the legislature. However, Dan Patrick said that it's a waste of time and it's a Democratic priority. So he's not going to give it any credence or any hearing in the Senate for the last couple of weeks of the legislative session. So, I mean, technically, the sports betting bills could still pass if somehow Dan Patrick changed his mind. But because the casino bill did not pass the House, it is finished because they cannot

pass the enabling bill without the constitutional amendment. So casino legislation is officially done. Sports betting legislation is all but certainly done. Matthew, why are you looking at me like that? Sounds like Patrick's got a chip on his shoulder for this gambling. Oh, my goodness. That was physically painful. So that's curtains

for gambling this session. What does it mean for the prospects of this kind of legislation in the long term? Well Las Vegas Sands put out a statement to the effect of we're grateful for those who supported us this session, but we understand that this is a long-term project. And so I'm sure that they're already gearing up for

gambling and legislation for next session. And once again, this issue has been debated and talked about for years, maybe even decades, but they got a long way with it. The session and made it out of committee, made it to the house floor, and they almost got it completely through the house this time. So in 2025, if they continue with this momentum, it might happen in 2025. But of course, in 2021, I also said it might happen in 2023. So we'll have to wait to see if and when, how many more sessions it ends up on the ballot for voters. And we do know that Dan Patrick plans on running again, which is part of the difficulty of this legislation passing currently. Thank you, Hayden, for your coverage. Bradley, the House has begun to move a key power grid priority for the Senate.

Tell us more. Senate Bill 2627 was voted out by the House State Affairs Committee this week. It would create a loan and bonus program for the construction of dispatchable power plants, mainly natural gas power. It's an effort to, quote, put new steel on the ground on new capacity quickly. SB 2627 is the Senate's second attempt at this after SP6 stalled out in the House. That plan is similar but would have directly subsidized construction of 10,000 megawatts of natural gas capacity. While this version comes as still sort of a subsidy, but it's a loan, so it does require repayment, whereas the previous plan would not have.

The first bill passed the committee on Wednesday. The bill first passed the committee had on Wednesday morning. And Chia, Representative Rafael and Chia from Dallas, was pretty upset that he didn't get to ask questions. And I'm sure he kind of raised some hell after that. But it got the bill sent back this morning on Thursday. They considered it again. They had about 10 minutes of questions and then summarily passed the bill unanimously this time. So they actually passed it along with SB 7, another Senate priority bill.

But yeah, so now it will move to the calendars committee and we'll probably see it on the House floor at some point. What are the differences between the two chambers' versions? So, the Senate's version provided a zero-interest loan for up to 75% of the cost to construct a power plant. It also lays out a completion bonus for those generators worth up to 20% of the cost. So, that's 95% overall of general financing. The house's version, by contrast, raised the interest rate to 2%. So, it's not a zero-interest loan, but still a very low-interest loan. And reduced the loan amount to 60% of the construction costs down from 75. It also adjusted the bonus to no more than $100,000 per megawatt of capacity built.

And so that's substantially different than the structure of the Senate's version. There are a few other minor versions. You can check it out on the piece. But it's definitely a step away from how liberal in the old sense of the term the Senate wanted to be with this subsidization, with these loans. Yeah, absolutely. Brad, thank you. Matt, we're going to go right next to you. Legislation creating a database of precious metal buyers and allowing the warrantless inspection of gold held by jewelry stores is drawing a lot of pushback. Give us some details. Independent jewelers, as well as a civil liberties group, are expressing

concern that legislation recently passed by the Texas House of Representatives will impose onerous regulations on small businesses and violate constitutional rights. House Bill 2382 by Representative Sinfronia Thompson, a Houston-area Democrat, passed the Texas House last week. It would dramatically expand regulations on jewelers, predominantly small business owners, that deal in crafted precious metals by requiring them to document every piece of crafted precious metals, such as gold, silver, platinum, they purchase and from whom, regardless of its value, and upload it to a searchable online database for law enforcement. That would include testing, weighing it, photographing it, etc., etc. We highlighted

what jewelers on both sides of the issue are saying, with one supporter of the bill saying it'll help prevent the trafficking of stolen jewelry, but it'll also have the added benefit of enforcing federal Patriot Act-like regulations forcing jewelers to document all of their clients, whether they buy a watch battery for $10 or buy a $10,000 diamond ring. Opponents I spoke with say it will unleash a bureaucratic nightmare on them. The law will become more about a regulatory thing aimed at them as opposed to helping catch stolen jewelry, that it violates privacy rights, and strongly oppose the warrantless inspection law that is enforced with a hefty criminal misdemeanor. We spoke with the Institute for Justice, a civil rights group who took issue

with the law, saying it seemed quite onerous and pointed to a Supreme Court case where a similar law allowing warrantless inspections was recently struck down by the high court. Now the bill has been referred to the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, where it is yet to be set for a public hearing. Very interesting stuff. Kind of a niche bill, but important for folks to know this is going down at their capital. Thank you, Matt. Brad, give us a brief overview of this piece you wrote this week. It was really interesting for those who have been watching the legislature and particularly as there have been many points of order called this legislative session, which are basically procedural maneuvers used to defeat a bill or send it back to committee on technicality, often just killing the bill outright, which is what Democrats attempted to do with SB14, the Child and Gender Modification Bill, multiple times this legislative session.

And you gave an overview of what exactly has been happening, why so many points of orders have been called and sustained. So tell us about your piece. Yeah. So this is a big discussion point among members right now in the House. A lot of them are very upset with how many bills are dying, especially related to one kind of point of order. That's the background and purpose statement in the bill analyses, which is just a supporting document for the bill. It doesn't really have anything to do with the bill other than just describing why it's being proposed and its purpose. Previously, bills have put on there, concerns have been raised as justification for why whatever law needs to be passed. But that has been, this session, a vulnerability for bills.

There's a rule in the House rules that says that there needs to be specificity or at least something cited by these background and purpose statements that is traceable instead of just pure conjecture. And so there's been a lot of bills that have died because they haven't provided that in their background and purpose statement. I think one of the points of order against SB 14 was that I think the second one was related to that. It was too it was too short to adequately describe it. The first one, of course, was a misspelling of an organization. But that was also in the background and purpose.

So there was a and I spell all this out in a lot more detail in the piece. But there was a moment, I think, on Monday last week or so, the Monday before the first House deadline, where Representative John Busey called a point of order against Representative Valerie Swanson's bill, one of her bills, on these background and purpose grounds. And kill it. And it kind of sparked this run on the background and purpose statement points of order by members. Oddly enough, the day that we published this Tuesday, there were like seven bills in a row that were killed all by that, or almost all by that. There were a couple others for different points of order. But it's kind of chaos on the house floor right now with this, at least as the members view it. I don't know if it sounded like the rule had been in place already.

It's just either it wasn't enforced the way it is now or members never really discovered it until that breaking of the dam moment by Busey. And pretty interesting. You know, it holds a lot of implications for legislation that members have been working on for a long time. And for something that just amounts to an error in the summary of the bill that can kill it, that angers a lot of people. So check out the whole piece if that interests you. I understand there's probably a handful of people that actually does interest, but I found it interesting. And if you really want some behind the scenes debates and discussion about what happens in the Texas House on these

bills, check it out. Absolutely. Bradley, thank you. Let's move on to the tweeter-y section, gentlemen. Let's see here. Hayden, I feel like I can't say anything to you without you smirking today. What did you find on Twitter this week? about the Zodiac killer being identified. And he said, this is absolutely true. It was a response to a Daily Mail article about the FBI apparently had identified the Zodiac killer, who was a serial killer in the late 1960s. And there's a joke out there about Ted Cruz possibly being the Zodiac killer. And so him and he's tried to run with it. And so him commenting on this article was just amusing. Do you remember what the origin of that joke was on him? I don't remember it. I think I know what it is, but I'm not sure.

Sorry, I got distracted. Yeah. So Ted Cruz, once again, feeding into the rumors that he is the Zodiac killer, even though he was a toddler when all of that happened. He was a toddler. I'm very distracted right now. My husband has called me twice and I was like, what's going on? And he's like, these, this person's getting rid of their dog.

Do we want it? And we're wanting to get another dog literally as we're speaking right now. Um, usually it's the other way around in the relationship. What do you mean? Usually the wife is the one asking to get all the dogs. If you know, Andrew,

you know, his role has got to slow. You got to slow down his role. And that's my half of my job in our marriage. They are. They are. Oh, my God. He's an Aussie dude. I like poncho.

Oh, my gosh. This might be a second dog situation today. Matthew, what did you see on Twitter today? I made a tweet. Yes. Tell us all about your fancy, fancy tweet. It seems to have gone viral. It did.

It actually did. So I was over at the Texas Capitol yesterday and I happened to pop over to the house gallery because I wasn't wearing a tie. And whenever I walked onto the floor, the sergeant of arms came up to me and said, just to let you know, there will be no photos or videos from the gallery. And he says, I see your press badge. And he said, this rule applies to you too. But if you want to get a tie, you're more than welcome to go down onto the floor and take photos and videos from behind the rail. I thought, oh, can I tweet? And he said, yeah, sure, you can tweet. I thought, uh-huh. I knew automatically what I was going to do. So as I was sitting there watching the proceedings, they were stalled on one of the many points of orders for, I think it was Senate Bill 14.

So I drew a little portrayal of the proceedings and put it on Twitter, and it seems to have gone viral. Let's see here. It's at 133,000.6 views, 249 retweets, 36 quotes, 1173 likes. Yeah, it's been fun. That's a heck of engagement there. A lot of humorous comments too about my artistic portrayal and just how photographic I was able to capture the proceedings. So I have no idea why they decided to end photography in the gallery. I don't know if it's in place today. I'm going to find out. I might have to threaten them with more etch-a-sketches if they don't. But also,

I think this is- Did you draw on your iPad? Is that what you did? I drew on my phone. Your phone. But I think this has actually kind of also sparked an interesting conversation about First Amendment boundaries. There was a thread by Attorney Tony McDonald, and he was talking about chambers under their rules, such as filming, et cetera, et cetera. In this session, we've seen instances where when there was an outburst, Speaker Phelan cleared the gallery. Everybody didn't get to participate

but um you know and then under this circumstance today nobody got to or yesterday nobody was allowed to take pictures photos i don't know whether or not that's a permanent thing i'm going to try and find out about it but it it it is an interesting instance in which First Amendment rights and the right of a legislative body to adopt rules governing their chamber sort of collide. Yeah. And, you know, also, do these chambers have legislative immunity for decisions like that? It's so it's something that I'm going to try and research a little bit more just because I always like using a fun opportunity to find out something educational.

Absolutely. So, anywho, if you haven't seen the tweet, go on, check it out. It's fun. That's exactly right. Unless the algorithm already brings it into your feed because it has had a lot of impressions. most everybody seems to have already seen it oh my gosh matthew um cameron what about you what did you see this week well uh austin is going to be host to the first annual percy award for film and interestingly enough uh we're going to be covering it. That's right. This Friday. So the Academy of Independent Motion Pictures hosted or located here in Austin,

it's going to be awarding different nominees for independent films, best picture, cinematography, makeup, those sorts of things. And a lot of the directors and actors are native-born Texans. So it's going to be a black tie event. It's going to be very fun. I'll be there watching and listening. And it'll be a good time. That's so exciting. It'll be very fun.

We'll be looking out for your tweets covering that. It'll be a good break from the legislative session, too as that's largely what you've covered since you've joined us so it'll be fun to get you out there at a fun event um bradley yes actually i'm gonna go first before you yeah please do because i'm watching sp15 on the floor right now okay got it um the governor tweeted today i believe um oh my gosh, Daniel's tweeting photos of our office dogs. But Governor Abbott tweeted, the Texas National Guard took this picture in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. And he, I think he meant video, but it's this three second long, five second long video of a gator that's just surfacing and looking at the boat, the National Guard boat. And it is something else.

It also looks like a pretty decently sized gator. Have y'all seen this? I'm just not looking at the boat um the national guard boat and it is something else it also looks like a pretty decently sized gator have y'all seen this i'm just not looking at it that is a really big gator yeah and i just have like a fascination with gators i love watching swamp people i love watching uh there's some random crocodile show people yes have you ever watched it no it's phenomenal television i highly recommend there's also a like a wild croc country show on netflix that apparently the guy that the lead guy in it the crocodile guy got um he's like now in jail or something for doing something really bad i don't exactly know so i stopped watching that but regardless i love gators crocs i think they're fascinating and so i just got really excited seeing this you wear Crocs absolutely never absolutely not I do wear Berks rubber Berks I don't know if I believe that

basically the same as Crocs yeah it is you're right but I can say that I don't wear Crocs you know but then I have to say that I wear Berks although I like Berks Okay. Bradley, are you ready to opine? Yeah, sure. Okay, let's do it. Go for it. So we get a lot of comments. This is going to be a long one. About, uh, just offhand comments about there's a paywall or sometimes people will just

say paywall and it gets pretty annoying because yes of course there's a paywall if we didn't have a paywall for our content we could not be doing this job and so someone after i think it was uh in response to the point of order article that i had that i tweeted out someone said paywall and so i was feeling particularly chippy and I responded, um, is that the right word? Oh, I think it was just great. I loved it. Um, particularly irritated that more specific. Um, so I responded and said, you know, basically this is what allows me to do the job if it was entirely free it would not be worth reading probably and

to his credit the anonymous person on Twitter actually seemed to be receptive to it but I don't know if he's subscribed but anyway it's a long way of saying yes there's a paywall and get over it my land why do you argue Yes, there's a paywall and get over it.

My land. Why do you argue with people on Twitter who say that stuff, though? I did that. It may have just gotten us a subscriber. So that I don't understand because my inclination, if somebody criticizes me, especially online, I'm not going to give them any amount of my time well this wasn't really a criticism of me it was a criticism of people who are supportive and positive about the about what we're doing so i just that's a i got a lot of positive reaction to this so maybe there's two ways to skin a cat there hayden there might There might be. There might be. But you got positive reaction to confronting somebody who was negative with you. And so I just, my philosophy, yes, the paywall is there for a reason.

And yes, people need to be reminded of that. But I just generally prefer interacting with people who have good things to say about what we do. Because there are plenty more of those people than there are the people who are critical of it always look on the bright side of life that wasn't quite the point i was making but thank you yeah i think that's also like you guys are so different in personalities too like you two sitting across the table from each other are so different. There are a lot of people I ignore. And here's the thing.

I was just about to say Brad in his mind is sitting there thinking Mac would be proud of me because I ignore 90% of the people. I only respond to 10% who make me mad. That's what he's going through his mind. But regardless, like the paywall. Yeah, I'm always happy to talk about the paywall and why it exists. And Brad, I think you hit the nail on the head with why it does matter that we have one. And it just allows us to actually speak like we're speaking right now. Very, you know, I think as down the middle as we possibly can about the issues and not have, you know, different advertisers, donors, investors behind the scenes that are, you know, pulling our strings one way or another. And plus, for those who are frustrated by the paywall, we have, for instance, this podcast,

free resources that do not require payment. We even produced a part of the interview I did last week with Doug O'Connell for free on Twitter. only only a portion of it was behind the paywall. So we do things as a public service in addition to asking for people to do their part so that we can continue to do this. And our tweets are free. That's right. Yeah. That's only if you find value in it.

Even my artistic renderings. I can't handle the fact that you keep calling it an artistic rendering. The way I described it is, and I like to describe it as, it's a product like anything else. You get what you pay for. Absolutely. That's that. And you don't have to, like Mackenzie said,

you don't have to deal with reading our stuff, thinking who has a stake in this article. Who influenced them to write this? Ourselves. Sitting around watching what's going on. No, 100%. Okay. Let's quickly talk about legislative deadlines.

Matthew, do you have them up and ready to chat about? That will be our fun topic this week is so fun. Let's see here. Deadlines and calendars. What is today? The 18th? The 18th, yes, sir. So tomorrow, according to our legislative deadline calendar, which I'll tweet out a link to it.

That way it's nice and handy in case anybody wants to find it. But it looks like the first one coming up is tomorrow. Last day for House to consider local House bills on local and consent calendar on second and third reading. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. For sure. Let's see. The next day, last day for House committees to report Senate bills and Senate joint resolutions. The 21st by 10 p.m.

House daily calendar with Senate bills must be distributed. Let's see the next big one after that, the 23rd. Last day for the House to consider second reading Senate bills on daily or supplemental calendar. And then the day after that is the 24th, and that is the last day for the House to consider local and consent Senate bills on second and third reading and all third readings of Senate bills and Senate joint resolutions. And then in particular on the 24th, it is the last day for the Senate to consider all bills and joint resolutions on second or third reading. So that's a really big deadline next Wednesday. That's right.

And if you're curious about what second and third reading, like what that means, go and read a piece from hayden a while ago about the constitutional requirements for these bills that are making their way through the legislature good explainer on what we mean when we say those things um and yeah after that second reading third reading those deadlines pass our senate bills it'll be conference committee reports making its way making their way through the legislature and the option for legislators to concur or to not concur with senate amendments or House amendments. And that's always fun. it through. The general regard is that those positions are some pretty valuable real estate. So lots going on, people trying to get bills that still haven't made it through onto those valuable positions. And then in the meantime, you have chubbing going on over in the Texas house where that calendar is getting slowed down. And so, yeah, this is one of the most intense moments during the session just because so much comes to a head right here.

And so, yeah, makes it fun. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Matthew, for running us through that, folks. We appreciate you listening to us each and every week. And we will catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send

any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the texan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.