The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - May 23, 2025

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/Learn more about the Data Center Coalition at: https://www.centerofyourdigitalworld.org/texasThe 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.Texas Legislature Strikes $8.5 Billion Deal on School Finance and Teacher Pay Raises'Life of the Mother Act' Clarifying Texas Abortion Law Exceptions Passes House Senate Bill 3Veterans, Parents, Liquor, and Beer: The Complicated Lobby Fight Over Texas' Proposed THC BanTexas House Passes $140,000 Standard, $60,000 Elderly Homestead Exemption IncreasesTexas Launches Investigation Into U.S. Masters Swimming for Allegedly Allowing Biological Male in Women's RaceTexas Senate Passes ‘Uvalde Strong Act,’ Establishing Uniform On-Site Chain of Command for Active Shooter ResponseAttorney General Paxton Closes Superior HealthPlan Investigation, Finds No Illegal ConductFederal Judge in Texas Rules Against Biden Title VII Transgender Anti-Discrimination GuidelinesTrump Signs Cruz's 'TAKE IT DOWN' Act Banning 'Revenge Porn' Into LawVIDEO: Rep. Angelia Orr on ‘Deadline Day’, State Budget, Speaker’s Race

Howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Mary-Liz Cameron-Brett on another edition of the Weekly Rundown Podcast. There has been no legislative action at all to get to talk about. You guys were definitely not on the floor until 10 p.m. last night. Well rested I'm sure feeling like man the sessions you really speed up. Well yeah it was it's been a crazy week for all of us I think. Cameron was getting real frustrated. Well you know I was telling Mary-Lise because we were walking back to the office last night at 10 o'clock like I spent I get

to the press box at 930 to stick out my spot and you don't leave all day and so you get up in the chair basically has an imprint of your legs in it. You know, you're waiting 12 plus hours for one bill. It doesn't even count the previous day when the bill was actually supposed to be heard. At this point you're waiting like a full 24 hours, not more. But I was thinking it was going to be a little bit more rambunctious in the gallery with sb3 But it was actually kind of quiet probably because it got delayed so many times and ended up being kind of late at night There were probably people that had planned to be there. Yeah, that didn't make it. It's a good once you pass business hours

It's a little bit tougher. We were talking about the THC band build That's what we're talking about here at SP3 We'll get to that in just a little bit There hasn't been a moment where the gallery has been super rowdy has there except for like deadline night when it's a bunch of staffers and that's not actually anything policy oriented right we haven't had like a child gender modification moment we haven't had a jory city's moment no real big outbursts like there was last session that i remember so well come on people give us a show. I know. Whoa. Careful

what you wish for. Remember the show that occurred in the gallery last session during gendermon stuff? I did. And, but only after I said this and, um, didn't you take a photo of it? I did not know, but people did. And then send it to me and it was horrifying. I feel like the Texan has a photo but didn't mean to have a photo. I can't remember. I know I got a photo of the guy getting arrested. Maybe that's what it is. Somebody thought it appropriate to pull down their pants in the gallery, which of course

was not a good thing. There was a full moon show. How sergeants appreciated very much Moon show at noon, that's exactly right. Well on that note should be well not on that note at all actually Nothing to do with what you're just talking about on the note of busy legislative action Let's start with Cameron and Brad here a deal was struck between leaders at the Texas legislature on public school finance this week This was something that folks were waiting for all week. It was like, when's this going to drop? When's this going to drop? We finally know details of the deal. Tell us about it. Well, this was something that was being discussed really behind the scenes as

SB3, as we mentioned, the ban on THC was continually being delayed, and this was happening on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. And people were sort of wondering like, what's going on here? And there started to be some conversations about HB2 being part, not directly involved with the SB3, but sort of tangential to this sort of horse trading that occurs at the end of session and how there's these different groups within the Texas legislature that really wanted public school financing to pass and then other

groups that really wanted this THC band to pass and so We got some information Brad was able to Get some insight into what was included in this deal on HB 2 which is public school finance. It's gonna be a 8.5 billion dollar deal which is about 800 million dollars more than what the house passed, right? Right, and some of the, you know, HB2 has gone through a number of revisions through the house, through the senate, you know, it's exploded in some senses, it's been narrowly tailored in other ways. Lots of different

things included. I'll go through a little bit of what is included in this deal is there's going to be 3.7 billion for teacher pay raises, which is really important to many of the elected officials. Lots of conversations concerning increasing salaries for teachers. There was also conversations about what to do with the basic allotment, how much to raise it. So what's the basic allotment is the per student. Per student basic allotment and that'll be increased by $55. That's not as much as in the original version, but the reason why they're doing that is because they've organized this package of school financing in such a way that is going to allow for schools to be more flexible with how they

are able to utilize those allocated funds. So for example, under the Senate version, they put most of this money into the teacher pay raises and the teacher incentive allotment, but that amount of money is not flexible. You can't use that, you can only use that for teacher pay. You can't use that for the corresponding contributions that the state or school districts have to

make into the pension fund, the TRS pension fund. And so that is one reason why the school districts preferred the house version because it just put more in the BA, which is a really flexible fund. They can use that to pay for a bunch of stuff. And so that was kind of one of the big breakdowns between the two chambers on this and between the two sides on it. You know, the Senate's position was, well, we want to make sure this goes to teacher pay. Right.

And so that's why they wanted to emphasize the TIA. But on the flip side, I heard from some school administrators that, you know, let's say, okay, so you get the teacher pay, but you don't raise the BA enough, the basic allotment. And so the program that a lot of these teachers were, we're doing, whether it's our class, gym class, whatever it is, you have to lay them off because you don't have enough for the program, choir teacher, you know, whatever it is. You have to lay them off because you don't have enough for the program, choir teacher, you know, whatever it is. And so what's the point of giving more money for teacher pay if you can't keep the teacher itself, right? So they kind of found

a middle ground, it seems. Yeah, they found a middle ground with segmenting off a lot of how the allocation is sort of distributed. 500 million for other staff pay increases. There's going to be 243 million dollars towards the Blue Bonnet curriculum, something we've written about here. There's going to be 135 million for teacher preparation training. Again, another thing that's been discussed a lot in these public education committee hearings when someone like Mike Morath from the TEA comes, how important that is. $318 million in small and mid-sized school allotments. $850 million for special ed funding. $433 million to address reading proficiency,

$153 million for career and technical education, $430 million in school safety allotments, $200 million allotment for charter schools. So as you can see, just being more precise and direct with the allocations of these funds, I don't know if you want to talk about- Did you mention the cost, the fixed cost thing? Yeah, so the new fixed cost funding allotment is intended in part to fund per employee contributions to the TRS, right? Windstorm insurance and utilities and transportation at Texas public schools. So a lot of these ancillary costs that aren't directly related to either

operations and maybe like operations. It's going to be $1.2 billion. So like this fund allows them to pay for basically what I was talking about that these schools were worried about they couldn't afford through just a modest basic allotment increase right. This seems to be kind of the middle ground that they struck creating this new fixed cost allotment although somebody told me it's not really fixed costs so they need to find a new name for this. That's what they came up with and it seems like everybody's mostly okay with it. They have a nature of compromise, right? You're not going to get everything you want. The House not just got the amount of money they wanted in total, they got an increase in that.

And the Senate got what it wanted in keeping a large amount of that focused on teacher pay raises. And it seems like we're moving to, moving in the direction of school finance system where these specific, you have a bunch of different specific funds that are used for specific purposes. Teacher incentive allotment, you can, money deposited in that can only be used for teacher pay. It's cost allotment.

Whereas it used to be focus on the basic allotment, right? And you can use that for whatever. Well, it makes me think this idea is just coming to me now as we're discussing it, but it makes me think this could provide opportunities and sessions moving forward to address specific issues that might come up. And so maybe it there will be legislation filed in sessions future that address specifically raising the amount of money allocated towards teacher preparation training or that fixed cost allotment. And so it's a much more targeted way

to address policy issues. Instead of just saying, we need to put together these large omnibus education funding bills. I don't know, that's just sort of a possibility. A possibility. Well, and we'll talk about SB3 and whether it was tied to this at all. There's data points going both directions.

You know, first, these are the last two kind of really big, like really, really big items left to pass, right? So, of course, they're going to be used as horse trading. But on the other hand, you know, the Senate got what it wanted on SB 3 and They got more the house didn't make out like a bandit on It didn't just straight up get its version of HP 2 right so you can say oh the house got rolled on this or Maybe these were Done separately these weren't well. I think tied together or it's done separately, these weren't tied together. Well, I think maybe the compromise there is we saw,

I know we're gonna get to the SB3 conversation, but during the debate, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick put on social media that he was going to fully support the expansion of teacup. So it's, they get- The compassionate use program that folks are concerned about. Conc SP3 impacting. So you know if people were worried about the access and availability of these low dose THC products for medical treatment

and that being not available with this SP3 ban going into effect. Dan Patrick saying he's going to fully support expanding T-Cup. Those demographics that were opposed or those legislators who were advocating on behalf of certain individuals who wanted access to the low-dose THC for medical purposes They can continue having that access to the tea cup program essentially Yeah, and so everyone's sort of getting a little bit of what they want not everything but They get some they have to that's kind of done, right? Yeah the Overall though like HB2 was gonna pass It's just a question of what it looks like and was it sufficient for everybody, right?

This bill, after what happened last session and it just falling apart and not passing because they tried to tie it to school choice, the ESAs, the pressure was on to do something. And they have, they've increased it by eight and a half billion school funding by eight and a half billion dollars and quibble with the details all you want but that's a large amount of money and that's also money that they're gonna have to commit to going forward and so you know what happens if we get into a really bad budget situation I don't't know if that'll happen, but it's certainly possible. And what was it in 2011? I think they had to actually make cuts to public schools.

There's arguments about whether we've even gotten back to that level, accounting for inflation. But regardless, this was always going to pass because they just simply could not leave this session without increasing teacher pay and increasing school funding in some form or fashion. And they've done that. I don't think I think it was a foregone conclusion that it was going to pass. It's just What version? How much money in what buckets? And so that kind of makes me think of the opposite of whether it was explicitly a horse trade with SB3. I don't know. But I think there are other things that might be more obvious, but I don't know.

We're all speculating here. Exactly. Which is part of the fun. And that is what happens at this point in session is those behind the scenes conversations are happening. A lot of members who are even very, I mean, they're on the floor, they're members of the House, the members of the Senate aren't even privy to some of these conversations or find out after the fact, hey, this is actually what happened or this thing that got added

at the last minute. That was a request from so and so and it's usually one of the leaders of the chambers kind of making those requests. So yeah, I got, I got wind of this deal early on, what was that, Wednesday morning, and the deal was struck at 10 p.m. the night before, and members on the floor the next day had no idea about any of this. Literally no idea.

Not even that, oh, hey, I heard there's a deal. That's, wait, there's a deal? What? Right. And then once I got the dollar figure, that was even more of a surprise to them. So this really was. Does that give you a rush? Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. Kind of important. Yeah, I mean, so clearly this was carefully negotiated between a very limited number of parties. This was not, hey, house House member should send us your ideas. This was Dan Patrick, Dustin Burroughs, and a few others hashing this out. Right. And they did.

Yeah. So. We most certainly did. I think it will come to the floor today, it sounds like. Mm-hm. Come to the Senate floor today. And then it will have to be, go back to the House for them to approve the changes. And then that will be that.

And that will be the second step of the Texas two-step. Well done, Cameron. We've been waiting a while for the second step. That was a good cap off. That was well done. In your primary, Brad, I think the next press release you send out is, as a legislator, part of these negotiations, who needs to be primaried,

I think you should put out a press release that says, everyone's mostly OK with it. That should be the title. You said that earlier. I think we should return to more modest campaign rhetoric. You're going to be mostly okay with the decisions I make. Yeah. That's reality.

Right. Not this it's everything's the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. Actually, no, I won't. That's ridiculous. I know there's no getting it out. So, well boys, thanks for covering that, breaking it down.

I encourage y'all to go read their piece on that the Texan dot news Alright, let's talk about another piece of legislation much anticipated Clarifying the state's abortion laws are at least aiming to clarify the state's abortion laws passing the house Yesterday or on Wednesday tell us about it Yes, so this was laid out by representative Charlie Garen It's also it's Senate bill 31, but it's also called the Life of the Mother Act and was authored by Senator Brian Hughes, but Representative Charlie Garan laid it out

on the House floor. He authored the House version, House Bill 44. And this is answering a problem that has been brought up so much recently, especially during the last election cycle, are our abortion laws clear enough and do our lawyers and do our doctors know how they should perform in their capacity in relation to these laws? So Representative Guerin laid out the bill on the floor and the first thing that he noted was that this bill brought together a lot

of different groups and he noted the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, Texas Right to Life, Texas Alliance for Life, and then the Texas Hospital Association, the Texas Civil Justice League, and he said, you know, these groups don't necessarily see eye to eye, right? But then he explained, you know, this is a bill it's bringing together a lot of different folks from either side of the abortion argument. He said it's simple, we don't want women to die from medical emergencies during their pregnancy, and we don't want women's lives to be destroyed because their bodies have been seriously impaired by medical emergencies

during their pregnancies. And this was something that kind of was the theme that a lot of the debate revolved around was what constitutes significant impairment of a bodily function. And one of the things that was brought up was does fertility constitute an important enough bodily function that would constitute as a reason to have an abortion.

And people were asking, they said, could a woman come in and say, I'm concerned that I won't be able to have children in the future, whether the concern is rooted in medical fact or not, and would she be able to go get an abortion based off of that concern? And so that was raised by multiple House Republicans, and they were saying, look, we want to support this bill, but we're concerned that this isn't necessarily super clear. They're worried that it would end up being a loophole that would allow for more elective abortions. And so multiple members came at this from slightly different angles. But in the end, Representative Mitch Little went up and he kind of said, okay, I think this is what everybody is kind of arguing these folks that you would otherwise have on board. He said, I think this cuts right to the heart of the issue.

He said, the collective fear is that a doctor is going to say, my patient came in, she's worried about being able to have her next baby. So rubber stamp, abortion granted. And he asked Representative Guerin, is that what's going to happen under this bill? We had heard similar arguments during the bill's committee hearing. Some pro-life individuals worried that this would cause a loophole. And Representative Guerin said that impairment of fertility by itself

would not constitute an acceptable reason, exception to have an abortion. It could only be if the reason that the fertility will be impacted is a life threatening situation. So to clarify that that's fertility on its own would not be a reason to have an abortion under this law. Well, didn't you say something about the Supreme Court ruling that? He did, but then he later, when Mitch Little went up there and kind of said, hey I don't think you're communicating this clearly enough for these folks, he did

say that it has to meet the life-threatening qualification. Did he draw a distinction between those at all? Because between... Sounds like he's contradicting himself on that. With the fertility. Yeah, yeah, like the Supreme Court has ruled that... Fertility constitutes a major bodily function. Bodily function, but then he said that to little. Yeah, he did say both of that and I saw later online there were some people going back and forth with Texas right to life president John

Segoe, Dr. John Segoe and Some of the folks who voted present not voting there were ten individuals I saw them messaging back and forth or posting back and forth with dr John and they said this confusion over this fertility question is why they voted present not voting, okay, and Dr. Segoe was clarifying that it has to be life-threatening. That was his determination of the situation. Okay. Because it did seem as though members were left a bit confused after Representative Guerin's explanation of it. And wasn't this also the question that

Representative Tinderholt brought forward too? Yes. It was very similar. Just quite the specific part was I think questioned by several members. Yeah actually Representative Tender Holt said while he was talking to Gary he said like I'm gonna go get on a phone on the phone with some pro-life groups and ask them about this because I'd like to have clarity on. And he came back didn't he after a while so I just got on the phone. Yeah he did he did and he determined I I believe, that the fertility issue would have to be life-threatening. But, I mean, evidently there were members that left that debate confused, and that's why they white-lighted the bill.

Can I ask something real quick? Yes. There's something parallel I'm thinking about as we're talking about the Life and the Mother Act here is if I remember correctly, there is a bill that was presented on the House floor that had to do with comments made on the House floor that can be used when judges are trying to come to some sort of conclusion in a legal challenge. Is that correct? Yeah legislative intent That bill the legislator. Yeah, oh the statutory construction act

so is that is that what I'm thinking about where there was arguments about if that is proper use of By judges that yeah, what is being discussed on the floor debated on the floor can influence how they Come to some sort of legal conclusion. Yeah, it's HP 113 by a Coney the suit. Well, so it makes me think with the life of the mother act here like those sort of Contradictions you were just bringing up in some of the debate that was occurring Contradictions you were just bringing up in some of the debate that was occurring You know the life of the Mother Act definitely something that would be challenged in a court of law Yeah, and so that those sorts of contradictions that are coming between the front and the back mic on this issue

could create more confusion When a judge is trying to handle a lawsuit pertaining to the life of the mother. Yeah. Right. I don't know, just it's just a sort of interesting parallel to what that bill and what's going on. Well that's a reason why that bill's so important to watch, consequential to watch, it would significantly change how these debates happen. Yeah. And whether reading something into the journal for legislative intent matters at all, right? And that, the possibilities are endless on what that affects, right? So not many people paid attention to that bill, but

they should have. It was huge. Especially on an issue like this where there's been so much controversy regarding the interpretation of the letter of the law when it comes to when a doctor can and cannot provide the sort of care needed during a pregnancy. I know the Texas Medical Board has done their best to try and come up with some sort of guidelines for this and even still there's lots of confusion. And now we've seen the confusion on the House floor. I mean so representative, I double checked the votes,

representative Tony Tinderholt did vote present not voting. He marked himself PMV. So even after those conversations with the pro-life groups, and it did appear when he came back to the mic that he was more confident, but he did mark himself PMV. Yeah. So it ultimately did pass with 129 votes in favor and then six against. And then we had those 10 present not voting. That was on second reading so it'll be brought up again for a third reading but past initial passage. There were two representatives in particular that spoke very adamantly against it, Representative David Lowe and Bryan Harrison. David Lowe was speaking, he was questioning Garen over

the dignity of the of the preborn child and asking you know should a doctor be allowed to quote kill a human being over cancer because Garen had been describing how some pregnant women have been denied cancer treatment because the doctors are afraid of harming phone keeps slipping of harming the fetus and then um, running a foul of the law of the law. So David Lowe was saying, Hey, what do you think about this? He said, Should we allow a doctor to kill a human being over cancer? And then he ultimately said, I'm gonna be voting no because he viewed the life of the Mother act as creating loopholes to recharge the pro-choice industry in Texas and Representative Harrison's

statements were pretty much along the lines of that was I believe this is going to create loopholes Harrison especially noted noted that our state's abortion laws he felt are clear enough. They don't need clarification. And that this bill is not necessary. And real quick, one aspect of this bill that was passed, Life of the Mother Act, that we've mentioned before, but in case you missed it, it has continuing medical education

and continuing legal education, so that both doctors and state attorneys are very well versed on the state's abortion laws. So that's one aspect of the bill I think that everybody could pretty confidently unite around saying okay we're gonna help train our doctors our lawyers so they're well versed but it was this aspect of the wording with life-threatening and substantial impairment the bodily function. So yeah and very interesting debates and I'd encourage folks to go read your piece.

Yep. Get all the deets and go maybe go watch it back. It's very interesting to hear all of this. We heard out about it. So it's not everyone's cup of tea. If you want, if you want the rundown, just go read Mary Lee's piece. Yeah. Thank you for your coverage, my dear.

Cameron, let's talk about, we've already delved into this a little bit, but let's talk SB3, the THC band. This was long awaited, especially for you. At one point yesterday on the floor, you messaged me and you're like, Hey, I can do other stuff. Like I've been waiting for this for so long. Can I write about this? We're like, yes, absolutely.

So walk us through what all went down on the floor with this bill. Yeah. Uh, a lot of people were waiting for this bill to come up. Uh, like I mentioned, it this bill to come up. Like I mentioned, it was supposed to come up on Tuesday, was delayed, delayed, delayed, supposed to come up early Wednesday, delayed, delayed, until finally got it presented on the floor. And I think everyone knows by now, SB3 is essentially a ban on low dose THC products being able to be sold in Texas.

That legal limit is 0.3% THC. These are essentially hemp derived THC. It comes in all sorts of forms, different consumables, beverages, gummies, things like that. Been a lot made of the proximity of these products being sold to schools. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has been beating the drum on that, showing maps of where these retailers are located in proximity to schools. He has said this is a life or death issue for the Texas Legislature to pass. So he's been going full steam ahead trying to push this thing through. We saw the original version of the bill be 18

pages then exploded to 120 pages in the committee substitute and what we finally saw once it was laid out on the floor is there is this amendment that was circulating and representative Tom Olristen he's a physician anesthesiologist anesthesiologist thank you for the clarification so he a physician, but he's not like a general practitioner. Right. But he has medical training. Yes. Yes.

And he was circulating this amendment that he said would bring it back to the original intent of the bill, essentially the full- The Senate version. The Senate version, which is a ban on all products because in this House committee substitute there they made some changes where beverages were going to be allowed different like ointments and things of that nature but this returned to the original intent a full ban he got 50 plus co-signers on this so there was a lot of energy behind this amendment. Once it hit the floor, immediately started seeing parliamentary maneuvers, points of orders being called,

lots of discussion and debate happening. One of the big things that I think people were observing is there was lobbyists and activists arguing that if a bill like this were to be enacted into law, people who need access to these products, like veterans, who are using it to treat PTSD, for example, or different physical ailments that they might have incurred, that would be removed, and they need access to these. And so, Rep. Tom Olverson, he was asked about this on multiple occasions and I'll just say in one response he said, quote, our veterans will have 10 times the access at a minimum that they currently have access to through T-Cup.

And that was a big point of his retorts when he was being pushed on this issue is the expansion of the Texas Compassionate Use Program, which is a bill that is currently being moved through the legislative process right now. In the expansion, it's going to create more licenses, expanding the satellites, retailers or not retailers but facilities that can facilitate individuals getting access to these low dose THC products. So essentially trying to mitigate some of the concerns that folks have with this bill. Exactly. But it's totally separate piece of legislation.

And essentially boiled down to is, Alverson said, again, in essence I'm paraphrasing that, he wants to remove the ease of access, the self-medication that is occurring with these low-dose THC products, and he wants to create greater access for patients and doctors to come up with a medical plan. And if that includes low-dose THC products products, Tea Cup will provide that for them. Well we saw during as this was being laid out and initially debated, we saw Lieutenant Governor Patrick put out a tweet saying I support, like you said earlier, support the full expansion of Tea Cup but also that we're gonna put 50 million dollars towards a experimental Ibogaine program of Ibogaine, which is another drug that has been

used, that veterans have been using increasingly to treat their PTSD symptoms, right? Yeah, and that's something, the use of these more, you could say psychedelics as treatments for mental issues that have occurred for veterans. That has support now here at the state level, but it also has a lot of support at the federal level. We've seen someone like Representative Dan Crenshaw get really much behind this. Yeah, well, and sorry to cut you off but

think about this strategically for the legislators right? If you're going to pass a very comprehensive ban on this stuff for the communities that need it to actually treat things not just to get high for fun you need a replacement. And so the replacement is teacup and the replacement is Ibogaine. And so that gives them cover to then vote for the THC, the fuller extended THC bit, right? Exactly. And that, that's the distillation of much of the debate that was happening with Alverson at the front

mic answering questions from members. And so it did, that amendment that he called a floor substitute, it did end up passing by 86 to 53, three members registering as president not voting, reps Brian Harrison, Penny Morales Shaw, and House Speaker Dustin Burroughs. The bill itself, so the bill with this floor substitute amendment passed 95 to 44, with Harrison as the lone Republican voting against it there.

And we saw almost immediately a hometown hero, which is like a Texas-based cannabis group, they put out on social media that they're already ramping up plans to launch a legal challenge to this piece of legislation. Well also something that was said during this was that this is still the stuff, Texas can ban it, but because the federal government is okay with it, all you gotta do is kind of like the abortion pill stuff is Mail it in to the state Okay, you don't have the pop-up shops, which that's been a visceral

Example of why Patrick one Patrick and everyone else sports this Perry Senator Perry wanted ban this stuff because they just, everywhere you drive you see it. Well, this stuff will still be shipped in by these companies because it is not federally illegal. And the USPS will not police itself to prevent this stuff from coming to Texas because it's a federal entity. It's not illegal. So... it's a federal entity. It's not illegal. So, um. Well, do you, mentioning that, I'll ask, do you think we could see something in the future, in a future legislative session where, like, how they've addressed MIFA per stone being shipped through the mail? Do you think

something, uh, someone could file a, a fill to, I'm sure, yeah. Well, in, in the mailing of low-dose THC? One thing we've seen increasingly with Texas legislature, strategy-wise, in trying to fill these holes is increasing civil enforcement mechanisms. So we saw that with the Heartbeat Act. That was the kind of unique twist that got them around Roe v. Wade as legal precedent and avoided that getting shot down legally, because it wasn't the state enforcing it, right? I could very well see them passing a law next session, or at least trying to pass one, that allows, let's say, parents of people who buy these products from someone out of the states, and then have a bad reaction to it being able to sue.

Now maybe you can already do that, I don't know specifically, but that is generally how the state has tried to enforce but not enforce these bans. Right. That's what we're trying to do with the, like you said, the chemical abortion bills with the Senate bill 2880. It's still in committee, so I don't know, I don't know if it's going to make it out, but that is the key aspect of that bill, is that it increases the ability for civil lawsuits and for shipping abortion pills into the state, purchasing them, distributing them.

Well, in two years, I'll keep my eye out for a bill like that. Yeah. Well, it was an interesting debate, and there are good points to make on both sides of this. I would probably highlight two specific speeches, both by people who are veterans in the House. One on one side, David Lowe, Republican from Fort Worth, and on the other side, Josie Garcia, Democrat, both served their country and they both have very different opinions of this. David Lowe got up there and said basically stop using people like me as a

crutch to then advance to stop you know this bill from passing right? And then Josie Garcia made the argument that this stuff has a real benefit for people, especially people who have served the country. And it's a lot better for them to use this rather than to use what they used to use, which was alcohol and opiates. You know, if you have an option between a low-grade THC product and that, there's one that's far more addictive than the other, the opiates. So that was the general arguments.

And then of course, you know, Representative Rafael Enchia said that you ban this and it's not going away, whether it's the, what I mentioned about mailing stuff in, or if you actually, you're just creating an actual black market. Well that's why I think with the teacup program expansion sort of the olive branch for those who were voting for this total ban so they could kind of get them get their yes vote that way. Which was interesting watching Representative Oliverson who laid out the amendment that changed the bill very substantially. I think it was Representative Jolanda Jones, Democrat from Houston, who's at the mic and asking some questions about the

compassionate use program bill that were more directly related to that bill I should say. And Oliverson was like I'm sorry I don't have that bill in front like that's not related to the bill and he should say. And Oliver Simm was like, I'm sorry, I don't have that bill in front, like it's not related to the bill. And he understood the questions he took them and he answered as best he could. But I mean, these two bills go hand in hand so closely, even though they're related to very different things. The concerns that are levied against SB3 are supposedly addressed, right, or attempted to be addressed in the other bill. So all around very interesting. But Brad, or attempted to be addressed in the other bill. So all around very interesting. But Brad, you talked a little bit about the the lobby fight behind the scenes on this

issue specifically and kind of the strange alliances and divides. Walk us through that. Yeah, so the it was an example like we see when a lot of these things of strange bed fellows. It was an example like we see with a lot of these things of strange bedfellows and it's on one hand you had veterans groups you have put it simply potheads who just want to get high but also these these business owners who their businesses are literally going to go away overnight when this bill goes into effect. You know, they're all on one side and then you have on the other the like law enforcement, grassroots conservative groups, but then you've got like beer distributors. So there's an internecine business fight here.

It's not just over philosophical differences, whether we like this or don't like this. There's bottom lines to protect here. And you have the beer distributors full stop against it Because it's competition for them in terms of intoxicating substances, right then you've got the packaging stores that were for I believe the Kenking committee sub because it permitted these THC infused drinks, which these packaging stores, liquor stores, do sell. But they're okay with banning the cake shops. Right.

Right, the cake shops don't want any of it. You have these fights within the lobby groups, the hemp lobby groups over competing interests. Do we all stick together and stand against anything and keep it as is or do we cut bait and let the cake shop guys get screwed so that we can preserve our little market share of whether it's the drinks or whatever it is. It always happens on this stuff because this is such a big business. I mean, the, I think it's $8 billion, this industry right now in Texas, and it's

going to, it would expand if this, if this isn't passed. Um, but they, I think they were behind the eight ball on this. Um, first of all, I don't think they foresaw this becoming such a big issue. And I don't think any of us did until Patrick really pushed the envelope on it. He put out that video. Yeah.

Going to one of those Austin shops. Yep. I have some more in the piece on the lobby stuff, but it was interesting just reading the looking at the witness list for each bill in committee and who is supporting what, who's opposing what, how that changes from the original ban or the original bill in the Senate to the committee substitute. It's just, of course, it's that way because there's so much money to be made or lost in this fight. Yeah, and I think just the fact we can

substitute the word pothead for marijuana maximalist, let's say. You know, but yeah, it was interesting in your piece, how you highlighted these different groups you wouldn't think would be on the same side of or opposed to this issue, sort of finding common ground. But ultimately, it's going to come down to this total ban. We'll see how they react. We'll see what happens if, because of course, we're going to come down to this total ban. We'll see how they react. We'll see what happens if, cause of course we're going to see lawsuits being filed, what happens there. And then also what happens with the tea cup bill.

And so there's still a lot to go here with how things are going to shake out. Absolutely. Well guys, we have successfully spent 45 minutes on the first three and a half stories. So we'll go fast through this last bit, get to as much as we can. Before we do, we're going to take a quick break in here from one of our sponsors. Did you know data centers support 364,000 jobs in Texas and contribute $3.5 billion in state and local taxes? These critical facilities boost the state's economy and power

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rapidly advancing technological landscape and with the state's booming economy, businesses are expected to generate twice as much data in the near future, making data centers a vital investment for the future of Texas prosperity. To learn more, visit centerofyourdigitalworld.org. Okay and we're back. Property taxes. Another huge issue. This session always seems to be, but Brad give us an update as the house gave final passage to at least one half of the property tax bill.

Yeah. I mean, we, we talked extensively, extensively about the details of this whole deal they struck on the exemption stuff last week. So I won't go through it all, but the sent, the house did pass the sentence version this week, which we were waiting for. It increases the standard Homestead Exemption for school districts to $140,000. It's a $40,000 increase. It increases the elderly and disabled Homestead Exemption for ISDs to $60,000. That's a $50,000 increase.

So for someone over 65 or disabled, they will have a $200,000 homestead exemption for many of them that will either make their property tax bills negligible or erase them entirely depending on the value of your home. And that's been a goal of the lieutenant governor for a while and he's got it. As we talked about last week, the Senate passed the business focus plan that the House put out. The only thing left here to see is how much compression they go with and that's statutory so you don't have to amend the Constitution to do that. The current plan as it stands is about almost $10 billion in new property tax relief.

That's part of the $51 billion that's in the budget for property tax relief overall. That's to maintain past levels of compression and other in-homestead exemption increases. But that is about $3 billion less than what we saw past in New Relief last session. Excuse me, I was frankly surprised that they were able to get to $10 billion in New Relief because that just seemed like a steep hill to climb budget-wise with all the other stuff they had to spend money on, but overall this thing's getting across the line. The only thing left to see is how much compression they put into this. We Well check it out. Thank you Bradley. Let's move on Mary Lee's.

The Attorney General opened an investigation into the U.S. Masters Swimming. Tell us about it. Yeah so this is an investigation launched by Attorney General Ken Paxson. It's rather a short piece because this is I mean the investigation has just begun. We'll see how it develops in the future. But he said that he started it after reports of a biological male competing in women's events during US master's swimming, 2025 spring national swim meet, which was hosted in San Antonio. So he said that he's going to be looking into their policies, which do allow, he said,

men to compete in women's events. He called it reprehensible and is concerned that it violates Texas's consumer protection laws. And so, it's on their website. They have a policy called Transgender Swimming Inclusion, which does allow, they say, transgender swimmers to compete and be recognized for accomplishments in the gender category in which they identify. So you can read more about their technical policies on there. They have a few exceptions

for biological male swimmers. You can read that in the story and we'll see how this investigation develops. But just more on this front of biological male, biological female, what does it mean to be male, female, like we saw with House Bill 229 where we defined male and female as the two biological sexes. I think that was last week that was a bill by Representative Ellen Troxler so remains a hot topic so you can check out more details on the investigation there. And notably lots of these social issue type bills that are super hot and are debated at length,

like we've talked about on the podcast before, have been, have made it to the House floor of the session and have had their moment, which has been very interesting. We don't always see that. So very fun to watch those debates happen. Bradley, we're gonna come to you. The Senate passed the Ivaldi Strong Act this week. How close is that to actually becoming law?

So the Senate passed a slightly amended version, so they will have to go to conference, or no, they will have to send it back to the House for them to either concur with or send it to conference. But this thing is passed with overwhelming support in both chambers. It's whatever they settle on. There's no risk to it not passing. A recap of the bill generally.

The main part is it creates a uniform statewide chain of command for on-site active shooter incidents situations. One of the big, not the only big, but one of the big problems with Uvalde was that you had all these different law enforcement agencies on site. Nobody really knew who was in command. There were different, you know, was it the first people on site, which were the ISD police, or was it, you know, DPS when they get, you know, clearly a more comprehensive and larger law enforcement agency. So this will establish that and it's an attempt to try and prevent a screw up like that from ever happening again.

So this thing is going to become law. We'll just see exactly what language is adopted. I think the House might just accept the amendments, you know waste further time on a conference committee but we'll see. Good job Bradley. Thank you. Was that succinct enough for you? I'm really actually proud. You did a great job. Let's talk about the Attorney General again Mary-Liess. The investigation of superior insurance has come to a close. Remind us what this all dealt with in the first place and tell us what he found. Yeah, so this all started out with a rather fiery committee hearing in the House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency.

An insurance company, Superior Health Plan, came in for, they had to do, they were discussing with the legislators about a contract they had with the state and that's that's laid out on some of our prior pieces but they the committee members found out during the hearing that there had been information collected by this company about them and um journalists and some other private citizens and so concerns were raised that this is confidential information or that they had been performing surveillance and shortly after the superior CEO Mark Sanders was fired and right after that Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the company to

determine if they had been performing surveillance or collecting confidential information and Paxton found that while their activities did involve researching and consolidating publicly available documents, it does not violate Texas law and they did not collect confidential information that they were not legally allowed to have access to. And this was something I think everyone was kind of waiting to see what's Paxson going to find, a really hot topic there for a couple of weeks.

We have multiple pieces about this, about the hearing that happened. We've got a link to the emails that the committee members got to read and found the information that had been collected about them, which is on these emails. And then also a couple of weeks ago, Chairman Giovanni Capriglione called for an immediate pause in Medicaid contracts for this company, Superior, until the results of Paxson's investigation were determined.

And they have been determined. He found that they did not violate Texas law and The investigation is closed. We kind of we kind of knew for a while nothing illegal happened but if Nothing illegal happened nothing. It was just kind of unseemly But if all was kosher, then why was the guy fired? That's my question for him Because he got caught. Yeah. He made the company look bad. Just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it should be done.

Well people get fired all the time for not doing stuff illegal but just making their company look bad. Well sure but their their argument is that this was all above board. They did say immediately after he was fired they said to be clear that nothing illegal happened but this is not representative of our company and its policies its standards so essentially it made the company look bad but it wasn't legal. So they shouldn't have been doing it in the company look bad, but it wasn't legal. So they shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. Yeah, but it's also something we know in here is that this practice of hiring a private investigator to look into claimants is

pretty much an industry norm. The average citizen doesn't know about it, but it seems to be pretty common. The difference is these weren't claimants. Yes. These were lawmakers, right? Well, I just think it highlights just how much information is online You know, like they didn't do it spirit into anything legal everything was publicly accessible Someone just decided to look into it

So I think it for people just, like maybe you check your digital footprints. What's out there? Absolutely. Well, thank you for your coverage, my dear Cameron, a ruling came down from a Texas federal judge that will impact workplace guidelines. Tell us about it. So this is in regard to a Biden era guidance called the enforcement guidance on harassment in the workplace and it created

enforcements on how sex-based harassment includes harassment based on quote sexual orientation or gender identity. Soon after that guidance was issued we saw a legal challenge from attorney general Kim Paxton and the conservative group Heritage Foundation where they were arguing this was unlawfully compelling employers to adopt quote transgender mandates. We now saw US District Judge Matthew Kazmierke issued the order last Thursday finding the guidance contravenes the plain text by expanding the scope of sex beyond the biological binary, male and female. So people, if they're interested, they can go read the piece. I get more into

what was written about and what sort of led to this because there are some additional Texas angles. Greg Abbott, Sid Miller, Donald Trump's executive order regarding the biological reality, male and female. Um, so lots of information in there. I can't go through it all now, but encourage everyone to go check it out. All the texts and dot news. Kill on cam. Mary Lee is coming back to you.

Yes. Let's quickly detail this, um, take it down act that, um, uh, Senator Ted Cruz here in Texas had a lot to do with. Yes. So this is the take it down act and this was authored by Senator Ted Cruz here in Texas had a lot to do with. Yes, so this is the Take It Down Act and this was authored by Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Amy Klobuchar and they co-authored it, which kind of demonstrates how bipartisan this legislation was. The fact that these two folks who disagree with each other a lot of the time a lot of the time came together on this. So it essentially would, it cracks down on non-consensual intimate imagery that's dispersed online, displayed online for,

and some people call this deep fakes, and so it would criminalize this intimate imagery that's non-consensual if it's up on a website and also requires these websites to remove this contact once they're alerted within 48 hours. And that addresses a concern that a lot of the victims that kind of inspired this legislation, they said they reached out to these companies and they told them like this picture is being circulated of me, I need it to be taken down. And they either wouldn't respond or they would just move very slowly. That's what these victims were saying.

And one of the individuals, one of the victims, was a teenager from Texas, actually. Crew said that she primarily inspired this legislation. But she had, you can read about her story. It's pretty heartbreaking in this article. And so this is really addressing a new issue, having to do with the dangers of the online world and the fact that you really can alter any photo.

And this can, it's also called revenge pornography. So this is a whole new issue that we've never really had to approach but Senator Ted Cruz is really taking the lead there on this and it was signed. I guess I forgot the most important part, it was signed into law by President Trump this week. Carried the lead there. Yeah.

Whoops. So, excuse me. That's where we're at. Yep. Killed it. Attagirl. Whoops. So, excuse me. That's where we're at. Yep. Killed it. Out of girl.

And if folks have not tuned in, this will be our last plug. Well, we haven't plugged other stuff. I don't know. We'll see where the spirit leads. But this plug for the story section, Brad sat down with Representative Angela Orr this week. It's spelled Angellia. We learned that her name is Angela.

Learn something new every day. Yes, absolutely. But that's a great podcast conversation if you want to check that out. It's on all our podcast platforms, on our website. Check it out. She's more of a lower key member, at least in terms of being visible on camera like some of these people are. She's not one for really backmiking or anything like that. But she is interesting and has an interesting story. We talked about one of her bills that drew a pretty emotional testimony and just the general dynamics of the legislature. Always my favorite topic. Absolutely. So go check it out folks. We'll do one to the Tweetery

section. Cameron, what do you got for us? So I'm always coming across interesting studies that are being published. Came across this one that, you know, people, we've been talking about public school finance and school choice. I think everyone understands that scores of reading proficiency have either remained level or have gone down over the course of the last past decade, let's say. Well, it's now reaching into higher education where this new study is finding English majors are having

difficulty with complex novels and interpretations of text. I'll just read this one section here. I'm reading from a commentary on the study here. These problematic readers which again comprise 58% of English majors in the study cannot differentiate between literal and figurative speech in literature. When they encounter unfamiliar vocabulary, they sometimes leap to fantastical conclusions about the meaning of a passage as the participant who thinks the mention of quote whiskers refers not to a bearded man, but to an animal.

Oh gosh. Oh dear. Oh dear gosh. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Is this why homeschooling is great? Amen. Yeah, so just some interesting stuff here, because there was a story that came out, I think it was in the Atlantic, maybe two or three months ago,

that sort of touched on similar themes that is being presented in this study about how college students aren't reading any books in college. uh gosh does that account for audiobooks does that account for actually still consuming the information so that might be a loaded question that's a bit of a loaded question if you count an audiobook as reading a book right because there's a difference between i definitely don't cut it as reading a book. Right. Because there's a difference between. I definitely don't count it as reading a book.

But I guess my assumption then would be, oh, they're not consuming any information at all. Or there's a level of concentration that is required when you sit down with either a physical or a digital book. You know, if you're reading off a tablet, right? Then the passive consumption of an audiobook, driving in your car, exercising, whatever it may be.

And I think that's the big differentiating factor between audiobooks and actual reading of a text. But also, there's been studies that have been coming out, not studies, I'll say, but stories. I think it was in the New York Times, or it might have been the Washington Post, about how university professors are struggling with their students using AI to write papers.

But then in another story, I saw that a teacher was using AI to grade the papers and provide feedback on the papers. Double-edged sword. Oh my gosh. So the students are using AI to write their paper, the teacher is using AI to grade and provide feedback on the paper. I don't like it. Is there any human involvement? I don't like it. I'm a Luddite, ban it all. I saw one professor was just AI

proofing his assignments so that I don't know exactly how he was. Is that the same guy? That's the same guy but there wasn't any detail on what that proofing meant. Yeah but just that when you plug it into chat GBT it's not gonna really know how to answer the question. Right. Related to something you mentioned at the beginning so one of my favorite authors tells a story about when he was an editor at a newspaper, I think in Philly somewhere, and he had a new graduate come in and be a reporter, and she was spelling a word wrong. I forget what it was, but a basic word, she was spelling it wrong.

She happens, sometimes we don't know what a word is spelled especially if it's kind of tricky, but the problem was he told her this is how you spell it and then her mom came in and chastised the boss for chastising her about how to spell this word and for chastising her about how to spell this word. And the retort to the very reasonable response of, well, that's not how the word's spelled, was, that's how she feels it's supposed to be spelled.

Are you serious? I'm serious, that's, yeah. Insane, absolutely insane. That makes me angry. Yeah. Well, it reminds me of this story. I recently watched this movie called Shattered Glass about Stephen Glass.

Yeah. That's a good movie. I had no idea about this whole thing. Do you guys know about what happened at the New Republic? So this journalist, super popular. He was big. he was huge well it turned out all of his stories were just made up yeah fabricated all of them you know I really want to watch this now would you he got caught by I think a

Forbes reporter. Yeah Wow It's a crazy story. That'd be great to be the reporter that caught him. Yeah, that would be it's amazing There maybe we should have a movie night and watch it I'd be down. It's a good movie. Yeah. Well, you guys didn't like well, you guys you guys weren't Cameron and Marillys weren't here I tried to show reporters back in the day all the president's men a classic and They all were like this is so, let's turn on Monty Python. And it was insane to me. It was one of the, it's like a phenomenal film. Well, if you invited us, I think we would be nice about it. Okay.

I would enjoy it probably. Yeah, don't invite me. I think we'd be nice about it. Not even, I think we'd enjoy this classic film. I think we'd be nice about it. Cameron, have think we'd enjoy this classic film. I think we'd be nice. Cameron have you seen it? All the Presidents Men? I feel like you probably have. Oh really? Okay. It's really good. It's about the Watergate scandal and then you know. Okay. Who should we go next? Bradley, let's go with you. So on Wednesday a four-week trial began in El Paso at a federal district court in the latest big lawsuit over redistricting. The redistricting that happened in 2021, so we're four years out from that, but a bevy of groups, both individual plaintiffs and actual groups, one of them being LULOC,

are suing the state over their congressional maps, alleging basically that the maps shorted essentially Democrats to minority majority districts, one in Houston and one in DFW area. Basically what Republicans did was crack groups, like communities enough that it didn't, that it diluted their voting power to allow for Republican districts, you know, that Republicans now hold in Congress. Republican districts that Republicans now hold in Congress. They're making various arguments about that. I should say in every redistricting conversation, this is the most political thing we do.

There's no getting politics out of this. It's just a question of who draws the lines. And you see that happen. Take Illinois. Democrats are very effective at redistricting or gerrymandering I use that with air quotes because I think it's a silly term but there are real questions about whether federal law was violated right and so they're going to hash that out we'll see how that how that pans out in this four-week court case jury trial which is interesting in that it's not a judge that will be issuing a ruling himself it will be a jury delivering a verdict on this but that this has a lot of

implications for perhaps the legislature redrawing maps in the middle of this year in advance of next year's midterms to try and shore up some of these districts, especially in a year that's probably going to be not so great for Republicans, at least just based on history being a midterm with a sitting Republican president. And the that if the the district, well, they might be ordered to redistrict anyway, if the court finds that the Lulock case is persuasive and goes with that.

There's been a lot of talk about whether state Republicans are going to redistrict this session or this legislature. If it happens, it would come as like a directive from the Trump administration to try and move those shore up basically those two blue districts in South Texas to make them winnable or more winnable red seats or even safe red seats because as Mary-Lise has covered the dynamic or the margin in the U.S. House is so slim. So there's a lot up for grabs with this and you know if it goes the Democrats away on this then they might have two more seats in or two more excuse me two more gettable seats in 26. So this is gonna be fascinating to watch and yeah I

I just think it's interesting they Decided to go with a jury trial instead of a bench Because you know you don't When you're going through this jury selection process the what was it raw deer or something? I forget the actual term for jury selection. Oh, you know You don't know who you're gonna get sometimes. Yeah, I'm not sure why it became a jury trial. I don't know the inner workings of that, but I don't think that is common for these. I think all the redistricting

cases that happened before, they all went through just a district judge, then up to the appellate court, then up to the Supreme Court, right? I think that's how it went. But yeah. It's interesting. There you go. Very interesting. Mary Elise, last but not least. Wow. That kind of rhymes.

Yeah, it did. Dang. Um, the one big, beautiful bill, which is what the, uh, Republican Congress members in DC are calling it the federal reconciliation budget bill has passed. see are calling it the Federal Reconciliation Budget Bill has passed. And one big thing that's in it is it includes border security costs, reimbursements for states who incurred certain costs from securing their border during a president Biden's presidential administration. So we'll see how this is doled out to the different spots.

But of course, Texas is the prime one everyone's thinking about when it comes to border reimbursement. Um, and yeah, so this bill is covered it a lot in last week's version of the 40 and then we'll touch on it again next week, but this is a big success for the Republicans in Washington, DC. So there you go. Yeah. Mary Lee's.

Thank you. Okay. Well, we are far exceeding our time, so I'm going to save my Tweetery for next week. Oh, I thought we just roll with it. You know, we're going, going long today. I don't really have one. Yeah.

I was going to say it's blank. I don't really have one. Oh, well, no, it's not. It's not a tweeter. My husband and I went to it. We bought tickets to a concert this week. We were like, man, we really want to see Shane Smith and the Saints. It's a Texas country band. They're so good. Turns out we bought tickets to a bull rider's draft that the band that we love happens to be playing at. And so we went to it and we were super, we knew it beforehand, we knew like two days beforehand. It was my fault. I did not read the full description. Follow the tickets went, we were like, these tickets are kind of expensive for this band,

but we'll go anyways. Turns out it was a Bull Riders draft, it was PBR, like professional Bull Riders, the whole deal. I didn't know they drafted Bull Riders. It was actually really cool. And there are teams, like the Austin Gamblers is the team for Austin, like the professional bull rider's team. That's so bizarre. And I think that's like a new development in the last few years that there are actually teams that draft riders. See, I'm a fan of the Spurs.

The Spurs. I don't think they exist. But that was a really educated guess. But I do not think the Spurs exist. That's funny. The Kansas City Outlaws do. The the spurs exist. That's funny. Um, the Kansas City outlaws do. The Austin gamblers do. I forget Dallas's like DFW's team.

I forget what they're called, but it's a Texas something that kind of looped the whole state in. Anyways, we enjoyed it. We were Googling things the entire time. We learned so much. There were two brothers who were drafted. Their last name was Leather and they both were first round picks. Oh, are you, do you know these people?

Well no I just- The Australian. I just the Houston rodeo um they're these brothers that they might be a different family. I don't know it might be them. This is like a small world. I mean I'm sure these people all go to the Houston rodeo because that's where it's at but yeah it's a big deal. Yeah I don't know. Anyways, we had so much fun and Shane Smith and the Saints played for like a full concert after, so it was not just like a 15 minute showing. It was awesome. They were amazing.

So we had a lot of fun and we were out on a weeknight during session, which never happens. So it was very fun. Okay. Awesome guys. Thank you. Thank you folks. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week.

Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at 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 us an email to editor at the Texan.News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

God bless you and God bless Texas.