The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - May 7, 2021

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup”, the team gives updates on constitutional carry, the Heartbeat bill, homeless camping, federal overreach, transgender athletes in public schools, and bail reform. They run through the results of local elections in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, as well as Austin’s homeless camping ban initiative, Lubbock’s abortion ban, the 6th Congressional District, a controversial amendment to a rural broadband bill, and the Texas Senate’s mask mandate.

Welcome to another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. Mackenzie Taylor, Senior Editor here. We have a very full docket of news for you this week. The team gives updates on proposals of constitutional carry, the heartbeat bill, homeless camping, federal overreach, transgender athletes in public Antonio, Austin, Dallas, as well as the results of Austin's homeless campaign ban initiative, Lubbock's abortion ban, and the 6th Congressional District. And finally, updates are given on the Texas GOP's priority items, a controversial amendment to a rural broadband bill, and the Texas Senate's mask mandate. Thank you for listening, and we hope you enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Isaiah Mitchell, Hayden Sparks, and Brad Johnson. There's been a lot going on at the state capitol this week and we have an even interesting terms of election so we have a lot to talk about and we're going to jump right into it but Daniel will you start us off with talking about what the

latest on constitutional carry is? It passed the three weeks ago uh which i think it came as a surprise to some people um it wasn't you know this republicans um gun gun second amendment advocates have been pushing for this for years uh and there has been a lot of pushback in the past few years but this year it actually made it through to the house floor for a vote sent to the senate and then the senate was like what are we supposed to do with this? Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said that the votes were not there a few weeks ago. And on Wednesday, the votes turned out to be there. Of course, that did come with a few amendments, but all Republicans rallied around the bill and actually got it passed

got it and this was something that we weren't even sure if it would make it to the house floor and once it got to the house floor being the you know the political makeup of the house if we pretty much figured okay it'll probably pass right yeah but something the sweeping of a of a gun reform is this you never know right there could be some republicans who at the last minute opt not to vote for regardless making it to the floor in and of itself was a big step for the bill. So in the Senate, as you've mentioned, there were a lot of different hoops that had to be jumped through in order to get it, one, heard on the floor, and two, actually worked through the process. What changed in the bill? What's different in order to get it to, in order

to see that it actually did pass? So one of the big things that I noticed was that the House of Democrats had pushed for certain amendments on the House floor. And those amendments were rejected by the bill author, Matt Schaefer, and they were rejected by the Republicans in the House. But when it came to the Senate, it was actually the Senate Republicans who put this amendment out that was very similar to what Democrats were asking for. And all the Republicans unanimously, the whole Senate voted for it. So that big one that I noticed was the removal of an oral notice provision. So under current law, thanks to a bill that passed last session, uh, if an LTC holder walks into a place, a private business that prohibits the open or concealed carry of a

gun, and they don't see the sign that prohibits that, there's kind of, I don't know if it's a defense prosecution or something along those lines where the private business owner needs to tell the person first to leave before they actually be penalized. And it's not just like automatically a misdemeanor if you accidentally carry into a business that you're not supposed to carry it. And Matt Schaefer and the House Republicans wanted to include this in the constitutional carry bill so that if you're carrying, of course, this is now without a permit and you carry into a business that prohibits the carry of gun or other places like a hospital school something like that um you have people who might not be aware of that law and they have to have a oral notice or they actually added i think it was right before the third reading they added a bill to allow for a written notice of like someone walks up and hands you a card if they don't want to like confront you um directly

but having some kind of a direct confrontation of you're not supposed to carry a gun here, please leave. Right. Before a penalty kicks in. And so Democrats, you know, first they wanted to have this be specific for certain places like a school or hospital, places like that, where it would automatically be a penalty if you walked in. And even if you didn't know, it would automatically be a penalty if you walked in. And even if you didn't know, it'd still be a penalty. And you'd still, you could get a misdemeanor charge for that. Got it.

And so Republicans, presumably in a way to appease this to the Republicans who might have been on a fence, on the fence, voted for this amendment in the House that would basically strip that oral notice provision. There were some other changes as well that they made to the House version. One of those being the House version would have made it legal for a person to carry a handgun while intoxicated so that they wouldn't be charged if they get a little drunk and have a gun with them. The Senate version with the amendment that they put on, put that back on. It doesn't apply if you're on your own private property. If you have a handgun and you're intoxicated, that doesn't apply. But if you're out in public with it, that's when it does.

Another thing that they did was they created, they're going to require the Department of Public Safety to create a free online firearm safety training course so that people can take that, learn how to properly store a handgun, yada, yada. Another thing that they did that was pretty big was increasing the criminal penalties for felons and those convicted of family violence offenses who illegally carry a handgun because they're not allowed to possess the handgun in the first place. That was something that law enforcement kind of pushed for so that they could use that to kind of be a little bit more aggressive towards criminals who are carrying illegally. Those are the big ones. They also removed some amendments from House Democrats that were added on the floor with support from Republicans. One of those was to expunge certain criminal records, and another one was to add in a section that would

prohibit police officers from stopping individuals based solely on the carrying of a firearm. So they took those two Democrat amendments out. And those are the major ones that they added. And that's the big differences. Of course, the House could reject these. It's still kind of up in the air what the final version of the bill will look like. So on that note, what are the next steps in the process? It's not just as simple as the House passing it, the Senate passing their version and then coming together, right? What needs to happen? So the next step is that the Texas Senate will be sending their bill back over to the House with the amendments that were added to it. There's been talk about potential point of orders raised on the Senate amendments,

if some of them are not germane. And it's not really clear. I don't know the rules well enough to understand how that might affect the delays and what all might happen with that if it has the potential to kill the bill. I don't think it does, but that's yet to be seen. But besides the potential point of orders, the main thing is it goes back to the House. The House can either accept the amendments and then the bill goes to the governor or they can accept some of the amendments or none of the amendments and send the bill to a conference committee where a few members from the House

and a few members from the Senate will convene and kind of work out the differences in the bill and then have a final version, a conference committee report that will then be sent to both chambers for final approval. And then if the chambers both agree to pass that committee report,

then it goes to the governor for signature. Got it. And we even saw the bill author representative Matt Schaefer in the house last night, make a comment about amendments that could be potentially problematic in terms of getting the bill through the process. Either point of order could be sustained, something along those lines that could kill the bill effectively. So still a lot of things to be ironed out. We're not sure exactly what that all looks like right now, but we will continue to keep an eye on it. Yes.

And another thing that I would like to note, back in the last session when they passed a disaster carry bill that would allow people to carry without a permit. You had this similar process where some Republicans were on the fence and the Senate passed a kind of a stricter version than the House did. And then after it went to the conference committee, the conferees agreed to just go with a House version and took out all the Senate amendments and then sent it back. And when it goes back to the Senate amendments and then sent it back. And when it goes back to the Senate, you don't need the same supermajority threshold with the conference committee report. So there could be some room there for the House Republicans to get things in

that some of the Senate Republicans didn't want. Perfect. Thank you, Daniel, for covering that for us. We'll keep an eye on it. Isaiah, let's go to you. The heartbeat bill has been something you've covered extensively and is a bill, again, that a lot of Republicans in the state care a lot about. We've seen many other states. What's unique about this one, it's going to be enforced by lawsuits rather than government action. And this, according to Hughes, hasn't yet been tried. And I think he mentioned some case back in the early 2000s that was struck down by the Fifth Circuit or something. But essentially, there's no law like this right now in the country. And by enforcing it through civil lawsuits instead of government action, that can slip past a lot of court precedent that protects abortion access right now because of the undue burden standard. For those of y'all who don't know what that is, this is basically, I'm trying to use a word that's not a law. Essentially, a law that has arisen from court precedent that forbids governments from placing an undue burden on women seeking abortions. Got it. So, this is a bill that we saw go through the process.

It passed the Texas House. You know, previously, it's already made progress in the Senate as well. Now, a couple of amendments were added to the process this week as it passed the House. What were they and what did they do? Yeah, I'll explain those real quick, though. It just passed on second reading. There are three readings. The first reading is just where a clerk gets up and speed reads through the subject. And so that's really nothing. And what happened yesterday was the second reading where that's actually the first vote that happens. And it is expected that the third reading will, for the most part, follow that same vote and pass the House on final passage is what it's called. So the amendments that were added, both from Slauson, who's carrying the bill in the house, she'll be Slauson from Stephenville. In the original draft of the bill, these lawsuits could be filed up to six years after the abortion was performed. Slauson with an amendment knocked that down to four years after the procedure was performed. And her second amendment, I should have noted this in the

first point, anybody can bring these lawsuits against a doctor that performs an abortion on a child with a detectable heartbeat, or anybody that aids or abets it, pays for it, anything like that, except for the mother. The mother can't be sued. And Slauson offered an amendment that would remove, you know, standing to sue from fathers who conceived the child out of rape or incest. And so if there was a father that raped or, you know, committed an incestual act with the mother, and that's what conceived the child that was aborted after detectable heartbeat, those guys would not be able to bring the lawsuits. But other than that, anybody else in Texas could. Got it. Well, thank you for covering that, anybody else in Texas could. Got it.

Well, thank you for covering that for us. We'll continue to watch it. This is, again, definitely something that a lot of folks in the state care about and is a big pro-life reform that activists have been wanting to see move for years. Thanks for covering that for us. Bradley, let's talk about homeless camping. There are multiple notes of news on this front. But first, let's start with the local elections on Saturday here in Austin.

The homeless campaign ban ordinance was on the ballot. What happened there? Yeah, it was overwhelmingly successful. It finished with 57% of the vote. And obviously in Austin, which is a very democrat heavy place that's quite notable and um you know it's it's been 23 months in the making um the group behind the petition effort has been gathering signatures for over a year now and um they uh the first effort they failed but the second one they they succeeded in getting on the ballot.

And they had a big victory on Saturday night. And Austin voters affirmed their belief that the city did not like having this lax homeless camping policy where you see tents all over the place on any public property. Certainly. So, you know, the mayor had issued multiple statements and said multiple things on social media, implying that this was a move made by Republicans, that it was Republicans, older voters who are coming out to the polls to make their voices heard. What kind of, you know, validity did that have at the end of the day? It turned out to have none. When he tweeted that out specifically, the most pointed of his remarks on that was during early voting. He was advocating voters go out and cast their ballots early. And he said something along the lines of we're seeing a larger uptick in early votes cast, which was accurate.

By the end of it, it was basically double of the 2016 early voting turnout, which was the most recent higher profile local election. The local elections since were vastly lower than that. But about 103,000 people voted early. And so he said something like, you know, the people who are turning out to vote are disproportionately Republican and older. And so he was wanting more progressives and younger people to go cast their ballots. But when it was all said and done, total, about 40% of Austin Democrats voted for the ballot proposal, along with 88% of independents and 92% of Republicans.

So, you know, it was clearly a – it was just an incorrect statement to make, and he was proven substantially wrong. Well, and when you have – the math in and of itself doesn't check out because Austin is a historically progressive and blue city. With a turnout like that, even if all the Republicans in the city turned out right, I mean, it would be a stretch for that kind of margin to be made. They might be able to hit 20 percent if that. Right. It was a very interesting bipartisan push from residents in Austin. Now, the state legislature also made moves of their own to address the issue. Walk us through that really quickly. Yeah. Austin. Now, the state legislature also made moves of their own to address the issue. Walk

us through that really quickly. Yeah. So as we record, it still has to go to third reading. But on Wednesday night, the homeless camping ban statewide bill passed. It had a hiccup last week. There was a point of order that caused it to be recommitted to committee and fixed but they did that brought to the floor this week and it passed and along the same lines of the uh what we just talked about with the bipartisan support this had eight democrats vote in support and they were rafael and chia ryan guillen abel herrero john turner terry meza tracy king eddiecio, who was a joint author, and Richard Pena Raymond. So it's clearly not a popular policy, regardless of political identity. And the state just needs to pass it one more time, or the House just needs to pass it. Then it'll go to the Senate, and the governor will sign it.

Awesome. Thank you, Brad, for covering that for us. A beat that had two hits this week. Quite a quite a slate for you. Daniel, we're going to go to you. Let's talk about the GOP priority legislation and where it is at in the process. Something that a lot of, you know, folks look at is, OK, what do state leaders prioritize? What is the state?

What do state parties prioritize? And being that this is a session led by Republicans in both chambers, where are the priorities of the party at this point in session? So just as a quick reminder, session will be ending on May 31st, Memorial Day. That's the last day that lawmakers have to pass bills. And there's some deadlines in the weeks before that, that will also come into play. So it's kind of the final run for lawmakers right now. The Texas GOP listed out eight top legislative priorities at the beginning of session, and they have numerous bills that they have backed underneath all these categories.

So a quick rundown on all of those categories. There is the election integrity, which is the one that they listed first. The top two bills in that, of course, are HB 6 and SB 7. Those are the omnibus bills with the House and the Senate, respectively. Right now, the Senate has passed SB 7. That went through to the House and actually passed through the House committee. But Representative Briscoe Cain, the chair of the Elections Committee, who also is the author of HB 6, took the text of HB 6 and put it into SB 7. And so that's where SB 7 currently is. I think they voted it out of the committee, so it might be in calendars right now. They also voted out HB 6,

and HB 6 is going to the floor as we record on Thursday. So it could pass, likely to pass, on Thursday and then final reading on, likely to pass on Thursday, and then final reading on Friday after this podcast is released. The other, the next section, of course, is religious freedom. They had, the GOP had a lot of bills listed on here. There's not any, like, one significant one that I think stands out from all the others. There's a few that have made their way through the starting to make their way through the chambers, but there's none that have made it through both chambers yet. As an example, SB 797 from Senator Hughes would require

the display of the national motto in public schools if the poster with that text and then some other requirements for the poster were donated to the school. That passed the Senate and is scheduled for a House committee hearing, or I guess it had a House committee hearing. The next category is children and gender modification, which Isaiah has been duly covering this session. Bless his heart. Thank you for taking that off my plate.

I've covered this beat in the past. It's a difficult one. Yeah. Now, the big one in this, I think, is SB 1646, which would essentially list puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgeries as child abuse. That passed out of the Senate. The next category Isaiah is also covering, and he just mentioned that earlier with the abolition of abortion, one of the big ones there, of course, is the Texas Heartbeat Act,

which, like he just mentioned, passed out of the House this week or is passing out of the House. There's two other big ones. There's one from Senator Angela Paxton. I don't remember who has the House companion one. But it would basically create a trigger ban on abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court. And I think that has had some momentum as well. The next one I touched on earlier, so I won't go into too much detail, constitutional carry. Of course, the big one there is HB 1927. Monument protection bills. There have been several that have passed out of the House

Committee, but they haven't made it to the floor yet of the House. I don't know. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of momentum there. But there is one bill from Representative Andrew Murr that would clarify and expand the civil penalty for altering or removing historical items. That's in the custody of the Texas Historical Commission. If the person who does this doesn't have the commission's approval to remove that or modify it. And that bill is actually going through the local and consent calendars, so I think it might have some more likelihood of passing than the other ones.

There are two school choice for all bills that were filed from Representative Mays Middleton and Senator Paul Betancourt. There has been absolutely no movement on that and probably won't be at this point. There's also the next two categories left, a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying. Senator Paul Betancourt's SB10, I think, has had the most movement, and the Senate passed that out in a 17 to 13 vote with one absence. i don't remember who that was i'm guessing a republican no yes no you know what never mind uh and then the last uh the last category on here is executive overreach and the republican party is

focused primarily on uh the texas disaster act Act and kind of the governor's overwhelming power with those powers under the Texas legislature to convene in order to renew a disaster declaration for any major disasters that's really affecting like a third of Texas. Another bill, of course, on that the party has kind of opposed is HB3 from Representative Dustin Burroughs. That is actually going to the House, probably going to the House floor soon. It's working its way through the Calendars Committee, which Burroughs chairs. So expect to see that on the floor sometime soon, I imagine. And that has been amended also from previous versions with feedback from a lot of conservatives who have been criticizing it. So we'll see if the Senate or House act on that. Of course, the priority for the GOP is Birdwell's package, but I don't know. We'll see.

We'll see what happens. And it's been surprising. We thought executive power, particularly at the state level, would be a bigger issue at this point in the legislative session. So we'll see if that changes in the next weeks. Daniel, thank you. Let's keep on this subject. Hayden, speaking to the Texas GOP, you attended a presser in which the chairman and several other members of the party talked about the session so far and some of their priorities. Walk us through what happened there. Well, first of all, does anyone care to drop down and give me 30 pushups before we start? No, thank you. Just kidding. Although someone did. Chairman Allen West yesterday declined to announce any plans for 2022. He said he was focusing on the current legislative priorities of the Capitol,

though he was trying to tout the accomplishments of the Republican Party of Texas, specifically as it relates to the heartbeat bill and a ban on sex changes for children. This press conference included Alan West himself and representatives Brian Slayton, Tony Tenderholt, and Republican Party legislative priorities chairwoman Jill Glover. And I also had a chance to speak briefly with James Younger, who was at the center of the sex changes. James or Jeff Younger? I'm sorry. I spoke with Jeff Younger. James is his son. And so I had a chance to say hi to him. If y'all have been following the legislation to ban sex changes on children that he has been at the center of that movement here in Texas.

But several state representatives had some things to say about recent developments. And then there was a lighthearted moment there at the end with a CBS Austin reporter. Yes, that yes. Walk us through that. Lighthearted might be a generous word for it. Yes, I would say so. And I think that also, you know, you tweeted out the video and immediately there was also backlash from folks saying, you know, one criticizing his form, which was so funny. But there were a lot of different reactions to this kind of show at a press conference. Would you say that the overall tone at the presser was approval of what the legislature has done thus far?

Would you say it was critical? Where was the chairman and where were the state reps and other stakeholders at? Well, there were definitely some grassroots folks there to support Allen West. The sentiment of Mr. Slayton's remarks was if we can't get or if the Republican Party cannot get this ban on sex changes for minors passed through the legislature and approved by the governor, in his opinion, the state should start over with new Republican leadership. In fact, he said he hopes he gets voted out of office if this doesn't happen. He said, quote, when we get to sine die, accountability begins on the elected Republicans who serve in this building. And Representative Tenderholt also touted the heartbeat bill saying, quote, we will no longer have people murdering unborn children at the time they can detect a heartbeat. And of course, that legislation has not been signed by the governor, but he was emphasizing the accomplishment of the legislature.

And then toward the end, Chairman West, who, as we know, is a colonel in the Army, ragged on a reporter from CBS Austin who showed up late to the press conference. He was there, arrived toward the end, and he asked him if he wanted to do 10 push-ups, then 20, then 30. And then finally, Chairman West dropped down and did the push-ups on his own. So it's definitely a political event, definitely with some media. It was definitely a media event. And this was for the Republican Party to tout its accomplishments and get itself out there. I like it.

Hayden, thanks for covering that for us. Brad, we're going to come to you. Speaking of overreach at the state level, let's talk about federal overreach here in Texas. Walk us through a bill that passed this week. Yeah, so a bill by Representative Mays Middleton has kind of been waiting in the wings for a while and finally got free of the House. Basically, it's aimed at executive orders at the federal level. Obviously, Republicans are very concerned. Most Republicans are very concerned about that. But Republicans are also guilty of using it as well.

Donald Trump issued quite a bit, quite a few during his four years, as did Barack Obama and basically every president in the modern era. So this bill would require the attorney general, that being right now Ken Paxton, to send to analyze all of the executive orders every month and that are issued every month and supply a report to Austin elected or Texas elected officials, statewides and the legislature. The only, that's kind of a passive aspect of the bill. The only active one is if there is case law that directly contradicts or decides against a certain executive action, then it forbids Texas's political subdivisions and agencies from participating in whatever the executive

order commands. So that bill got through the House pretty quickly. I have a feeling it's going to go through the Senate pretty quickly. And I have a very good feeling that Governor Abbott will sign it. So it'll probably become law. Well, thanks for covering that for us. Isaiah, we're going to go to you. We've spoken about this before, but remind us about this bill specifically dealing with trans athletes in public schools, what it would do and where it's at in the process.

Sure. And I won't name any publications specifically, but from time to time I've seen headlines that suggest or say outright that this is a ban on trans athletes, which is not quite the case. What it would do is mandate that all students, including trans athletes, compete within their own sex. There are obvious exceptions for girls to jump to boy sports, as in football. Red Oak, where I went, had a girl kicker. Oh, this bill failed to make it out of the House Public Education Committee. I forgot the central part of the story, which may spell doom for that. That might have just killed it.

But yeah. So, you know, walk us through how this would codify UIL rules, essentially. And how is the bill different from existing UIL rules? So the way UIL rules work right now is that they determine gender based on birth certificate, and that's it. And in Texas, you can change your birth certificate through the DSHS, and the UIL will respect the changed document. This is the case in a lot of states. The original draft of SB 29 by Charles Perry would not. It specified more or less that the birth certificate had to be original.

So the committee substitute that the House committee failed to vote out did not include this provision. And by the way, for those of you who don't know, committee substitutes are altered versions of the bill that have been tweaked to practically make them, you know, more likely to pass the committee. Got it. Or correct errors or smooth out wrinkles. Right. And so this committee substitute would also have respected change birth certificates, which is really the only big difference between the bill and UIL rules now. And this little adjustment was made by Representative Kin King, who actually isn't carrying the bill in the House. Cole Hefner is.

So essentially, what happened in committee, right? How did this all boil down? So, Hayden, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but just yesterday, Alan West blasted Dave Phelan for sending the bill to a committee controlled by a Democrat. He did. Yeah. And that committee is chaired by Representative Dutton, who's a Democrat from Houston. Right.

And anybody who's paid attention to the last two or three sessions can see where West is coming from on that point. But Dutton arguably was not the bill killer. He counted himself present but not voting when the vote took place and i guess in theory he could have voted for it but he is a democrat right and every other democrat voted no so he was actually kind of the dissenting party in that part it was a six to five vote and a 13 member committee so they only needed one more vote dan huberty a republican who i assume would have voted for the bill, was not in the room.

He had left previously. And a second part is that Ken King rejected an amendment to the bill that would have earned him at least two yes votes. So James Tallarico offered an amendment that would have required a study on the law, if it were passed into law. Right. Comparing it to Olympic policies and NCAA policies. And King said that would have gutted the bill. He rejected it. But Tallarico and another representative, Gonzalez, both said that they would have voted for the bill. And Tallarico predicted it would have been passed out unanimously. And King rejected that amendment.

Then it failed in a six to five vote, you know, failing to get a majority. Got it. Well, thank you for covering that for us. And just like you said, there, you know, the Republicans in the past have been very critical of Republican leadership, allowing Democrats to chair committees. So it's interesting that the dynamic here and that the Democrat who did chair the committee was present not voting. And, you know, there was a lot of dynamics at play there that may not have been just attributed to the chairman. Thank you for covering that for us, Hayden.

Let's talk about some spice with two of our top state leaders. You know, Ken Paxton came under fire this week after he supposedly said that he would not support Governor Abbott in his reelection bid if he was to run for reelection. Again, we still are a little bit out here for any sort of run for either of these folks. But walk us through what happened here and what was quoted in The Times. Well, I will say this, a combination that never goes well together is large out of state media organizations and Texas Republicans. And that was manifested this week between the New York Times and Ken Paxton. This was a long piece in the New York Times Magazine about different conflicts within the Republican Party. And the author of this piece quoted Ken Paxton saying, quote,

the way this typically works in a primary is it's kind of everybody running their own race. Quote, I don't think he supports me. I don't support him, end quote, referring to the governor. And a spokesperson for Attorney General Paxton told the Texas Tribune that the New York Times took him out of context and that the sentiment of what he was trying to say is Republicans statewide generally stay in their own lane, in their own races, and they don't endorse in other races. I haven't been around long enough to know whether or not that's true, or to what extent that that is an unspoken rule. But this article was followed, I believe it was released on Tuesday, and Paxton followed it with a tweet that said unequivocally he supported Governor Abbott.

And I imagine that he is trying to avoid a public feud with Abbott, who remains popular among Republicans. If my memory serves me, the last Texas Tribune UT Austin poll had Abbott's approval rating at 77% among Republicans. And Paxton's approval rating is less than that. Although it's important to note that voters are less familiar with Paxton than they are Abbott. So that doesn't necessarily mean Paxton is less popular. So I think the conclusion in this instance is Abbott or Paxton is trying to avoid a public feud with Abbott and took an opportunity to criticize the New York Times, which is always going to be an applause line in Republican circles. Yeah, absolutely. It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out, you know, come election season. And it is, you know, historically true that statewides don't necessarily donate to each

other's campaigns. So there is some truth there. So we'll see we'll see if if this shakes out where you know abbott's understanding or or if the attorney general really did say something uh incredibly controversial in the interview daniel let's talk about uh texas six so let's talk through elections we're going to pivot to the elections that happened this last saturday we'll start like i said with you daniel um who advanced to the runoff for this election and to give us some details on what happened? This is the congressional election in North Texas. It covers the southeastern portion of Tarrant County, Arlington area, and then as well, Ellis County and Navarro County. This district, Congressman Ron Wright passed away in February after a long battle with cancer and then COVID-19 hospitalization with that.

And so his widow, Susan Wright, decided to run for his seat. She was the top candidate in the primary race. She has gotten a notable list of endorsements from just elected officials in Tarrant County, GOP activists in the region, lots of different congressmen, lots of different support. And then to top that off, she was also endorsed by former President Donald Trump just right before the election day, which was kind of interesting in the timing of his endorsement. It came after the early voting, but before the election day, um, which kind of shows his influences is still significant. Um, uh, because it was just the early voting results, uh, that

the runner up would have been, uh, state representative Jake Elsey, who's from Ellis County. Uh, but he was only behind Susan Wright by 10 votes in the early voting. So it was kind of a very close race there for the top two spots. And then you also had a Democrat, Janeline Sanchez, who was just behind with the election day results. After Trump's endorsement, Susan Wright picked up enormous support or significant support, while Elzey's support kind of dropped a little bit, but still stayed ahead of Janet Lynn Sanchez. So it's two Republicans going to a runoff. Democratic voter turnout was really low while Republican voter turnout was high. So you have a Republican lockout here with two Republicans advancing.

It'll probably be a little bit of a contentious primary. It's not the first time you've seen Wright and Elzey on the ballot. Ron Wright and Jake Elzey competed in the Republican primary in 2018, and were also in a runoff then. I like it. Thank you for covering that for us. Daniel, let's move to the next item. Isaiah, you've covered sanctuary cities for the unborn extensively here in Texas. Something very big happened this weekend in that regard. Walk us through what happened in Lubbock.

Lubbock became the 24th so-called sanctuary city for the unborn in Texas. And this is a big deal for a number of reasons. One, now it's the largest sanctuary in Texas and the nation. There are a couple others in Nebraska of all places. So it's the 26th total. And more importantly, it is also the first one to actually have a working Planned Parenthood in city limits. The measure has been, you know, enforceable and in effect everywhere else, but it's been preventative because they don't have abortion clinics there and Lubbock actually does.

We've already done a lot of legwork on the enforcement mechanism when we talked about the heartbeat bill, because it's very similar. It is enforced primarily through civil lawsuits brought on the part of citizens. However, while the heartbeat bill would allow any Texan to sue an abortionist, the sanctuary ordinance only allows the living kin of the aborted children to sue. And it has the same exception to where you cannot sue the mother. It passed overwhelmingly in a rough 60-30 vote margin. Got it. So what path led up to this point?

How did this all lead up to this being on the ballot in the first place? It was very unusual because if you look at the past 24 cities, what happens is the founder of the initiative, Mark Lee Dixon, a pro-life advocate, will introduce the ordinance to the city council or the mayor or such. He introduces it to the city government, and then the city council voted in. Lubbock really shrank from this, the city of Lubbock. The city of council initially consulted with a Houston law firm who determined, their opinion that the ordinance would be unconstitutional. And so then they decided that they weren't going to even take it onto their agenda.

After that, a petition forced it onto the agenda and the council had to vote. And while many of the city council members personally expressed pro-life beliefs at this meeting, it was a unanimous no vote for the ordinance, so it failed on the city council table. After that, city law mandated that it go to a vote in a May 1st election, which just happened, and the voters, as I mentioned, overwhelmingly approved it in a 60-30 vote, showing a pretty stark divide between the voters and their elected city council, which is interesting. So it faced a lot of opposition at the government level, but pretty open-armed acceptance at the citizen level. Yeah. And I will say, too, a lot of the city leaders, not a lot, well, a good portion of them came out and said,

well, I support, or I'm pro-life, I support this in theory. They had concerns about, you know, legality,ality basically is what they cited right of saying uh you know we're going to make ourselves subject to lawsuit this could be very expensive for this city this may not be as enforceable as we think it might be so there were some arguments there and the citizens basically said hey we we want this and that was the mandate given by the citizenry thank you for covering that for us isaiah hayden we're going to come to you let's talk other city races um walk us through what happened in dallas specifically you know with candidates who were For us, Isaiah. Hayden, we're going to come to you. Let's talk other city races. Walk us through what happened in Dallas, specifically, you know, with candidates who were backed by police associations.

Well, it was a good night for candidates endorsed by the Dallas Police Association, and it was a good night for incumbents. The two incumbents that were endorsed by the DPA were Adam Mago and Kara Mendhn, and they crushed opposition to their bids to be reelected to the city council. Mago won with 91%, Mendelsohn won with 81%. In addition, the incumbent who recently said that the people of Dallas have an addiction to calling the police, Carolyn King Arnold. She did not win re-election outright, but instead she will head to a runoff with her opponent on June 5, and there will be a lot of other runoffs as well. So those were the two incumbents that were endorsed by the DPA, but there are some open races as well because council members Lee Kleinman, Adam Medrano, and Jennifer Gates were not eligible to run for re-election due to term limits. So in those open races, Barry Wernick, who we've covered here before, he advanced to a runoff and he told us that he is excited to campaign for

another month and continue to get his message out there. He also criticized his opponent, Janie Schultz, and the Dallas Morning News for endorsing two propositions that were roundly defeated by the voters. And those two propositions were to add a requirement that members of city boards and commissions had to be registered or qualified voters. I'm sorry, it actually would remove that requirement was the proposal and that lost. And another proposition that would have removed the requirement for individuals to be qualified taxpaying citizens on civil service boards also failed. So the voters rejected those propositions, Warnick criticized his opponents,

his opponents and the Dallas Morning News for endorsing those propositions. And there were also a couple other individuals who were endorsed by the DPA who advanced to runoffs. And that is coming up right around the corner. It's going to be on June 5. So there's still another month of campaigning in Dallas for the city council. Wow. Well, thank you for covering that for us. Let's keep it again on the city level. Isaiah, we're coming right back to you. San Antonio saw some contentious, you know, elections in their city. Walk us through what happened and, you know, who the mayor of San Antonio ended up continuing to be. Well, continuing kind of spoiled it. It's Ron. It's Ron Durenberg.

Buddy Ron. It's Ron Nirenberg. Buddy Ron. Yeah. So Ron beat out Ivy Taylor in 2017 and just began his third term as mayor after winning on May 1st. In the last election cycle, he faced the same opponent that he did in this one, Greg Brockhaus. And these local elections are nonpartisan, but Nirenberg and Brockhaus were perceived as vaguely left and right candidates, respectively. And that'll get important when we get to the cops. But there was a wide turnout, but a really, really muted election season. It was very tame. Specifically in regards to the last one, right? I mean, the last one was a lot more contentious in terms of what was being hurled at either candidate.

And this one was a little bit different. Yeah, and it was really close, too. Yeah. In this one, Nirenberg beat up Brockhaus by a wide 30-point margin. I like it. So, you know, walk us through what else happened in terms of propositions and, you know, basically just local issues and how those shook out. So a big proposition on the ballot that actually garnered a lot of statewide attention was Prop B. And Prop B, we've written about it previously, would strip collective bargaining power from the San Antonio Police Association, SAPD union.

And Brockhaus in 2019 fully had their support. And they didn't oppose him in this race now, but the SAPD association put a lot of their money towards fighting Prop B. And that's money that could have gone to Brockhaus, and it didn't. And there are some pundits who think that that might have hurt him. It's definitely a lot of money that he could have had in the bank that just wasn't there this time around. Probably narrowly lost. So SCPD still has bargaining power. But that was probably the most contentious part of the ballot. Yeah. And Brock House was just taking a lower spot.

Yeah, certainly. Well, thanks for covering that for us. Let's zoom back out and talk about the legislature. Brad, something that you covered this week that is quite, I don't even know how to explain it, complex, controversial. Layered. Layered. Broadband expansion has been something we've talked about a lot this legislative session. It's a priority of many state leaders. And not a very controversial topic. No, certainly not.

And monetarily, it can get a little dicey. But aside from that, it's really pretty dry. But something really happened this week that changed that up a lot. Walk us through what happened. Yeah, so in the House, when the Broadband Expansion Act creates the Broadband Expansion Office, which is just a state office that will facilitate federal money, awarding it to these contractors that agree to expand internet access to rural areas in the state. And so one amendment that was tacked on, though, is it was by Representative Jeff Kaysen.

It would prioritize these applicants who agree to put a filter in their service that they provide on porn websites. And so that got tacked on in the House, the Senate, they stripped it. And so the version they passed does not have that language in it. And so now it's going to conference committee. And this is the big, there are a few other very, very minor differences between the bills, but this is the big one and it's substantive. You know, it's kind of an either or there's no way to really bridge the gap there on the two. And so this is going to be the, the topic of conversation during the conference committee. And we'll see what, what comes out with whatever you know, whatever version they put out.

So what are the arguments? I mean, why, why are people pushing for it and why are people opposed to it or even just want to keep it on the down low i feel like it's almost not even necessarily voicing public opposition yeah but just kind of like oh gosh so the the argument for is obviously that you know if the state is involved in providing internet access then um you know children should not be able to easily access pornography on the web. And the legislation or the idea behind the filter, it's not an outright ban. So, like, you could still access pornography on the web on this service, but you would have to kind of, like, opt into it. You'd have to go out of your way to get the filter turned off.

And so on the flip side, opponents say that it's a violation of the First Amendment. People should be able to access what they want. Kind of the more libertarian mindset on this thing. And so that's really what it comes down to. I reached out to AT&T for comment whether this was something that they could actually do, how feasible it would be to establish a filter, which really anybody that went to public school, there were filters on the web anyway. This is not unusual. So it's not difficult. You can get private filters for your home. So this is, we'll see what happens, but

really the issue at hand is whether this should be done at all by the government. So we'll see what comes out. Yeah, absolutely. Role of government coming into play again with the public debate. Daniel, we're coming to you. Let's talk about the Texas Senate. We talked last week about the Texas House removing its mask mandate. Walk us through what happened with the Senate this week. The Senate followed through, or followed in the footsteps of the House. It was interesting that while in the House, several Democrats opposed the removal of the mask mandate. This removal actually was unanimously supported by the whole Senate, both Republicans and Democrats. I think there was one absence.

What was Whitmire's comment about being the favorite of the staffers? Yeah, yeah. And Whitmire's a Democrat too. Whitmire was the one who introduced the resolution, and this would end the mask mandate for the senators and staff. Oddly enough, there wasn't actually any mask mandate for the public. But at the end, after the vote, he requested a poll among all the staffers for a favorite senator, jokingly. Yeah, so that happened. The COVID testing rule is still a requirement

for public who want to go to the Senate gallery. You have to go get a COVID test out in front of the Capitol by the tents and get a wristband. Um, but you can now go in without a mask. Um, I'm not exactly sure why they're enforcing it or necessarily even if they were enforcing it, I think everybody just kind of assumed that there's a mask mandate in the house and it was the same in the Senate. Um, I'm not aware of anyone who actually tried challenging that, but I'm sure there was at some point. I'm sure there was. Yeah. But now, like, you can sit in the gallery without a mask. I like it. Well, thanks for covering that for us.

Bradley, we're coming back to you for our final topic. Uh-oh. Bail reform and just criminal justice reform in general has been a topic of conversation. The House Speaker laid out priorities and, you know, specifically bail reform has been on the forefront of a lot of discussion with localities um walk us through what happened this week and what this bill proposal would do yeah so like you mentioned bail reform is a a priority of both chambers and the governor and so it's being pushed wholesale on on this in this session and so um it's in response to a developing problem of people, of offenders, especially violent offenders being let out on PR bonds between the point of arrest

and their court date. And there have been numerous examples of people that have been let out and then commit another crime, sometimes really serious crime like murder. And so this bill by Representative Andrew Murr would prohibit personal recognizance bonds being issued for a litany of high-level offenses, murder, capital murder, trafficking, sexual abuse of young children, indecency with a child, aggravated sexual assault, a bunch of things like that. And so it's just meant to keep these people behind bars while they await trial. Now, the opposite argument is that this is denying their due process rights. It's assuming they're guilty before they are tried duly in a court of law. But it looks like it's got the legs behind it,

and it will go to the Senate now, and I'm sure it's on Dan Patrick's priority list, and so I'm sure it will get the fast track to Governor Abbott's desk. Yeah, it has a low bill number. It has all the ingredients to make it through the process quickly. And like you said, these offenses are not anything. It's not petty theft. Exactly. These are some pretty big offenses. What's the next step for the bill? Well, let's go to the Senate. And has the governor been vocal on this? Yes.

Yes. There was a press conference before the session that Daniel and I went to. And this was one of the things he mentioned, along with a statewide camping ban for homelessness. So it is among the top on his list of public safety priorities, specifically targeting, you know, localities like Harris County. Yeah, that was a big one that happened.

And another thing that Harris County did was they kind of, they let people out of jail indiscriminately because of COVID reasons. They didn't want it spreading in the jails. And so they were, Holly covered this quite a bit. And there was at least a few instances of very violent people getting let out on bond. And I don't remember exactly if any of them committed crimes while they were out. Multiple bonds. Yes.

But it's an evolving problem. And, you know, it's a problem outside of Harris County. It's been a problem in Austin. I've written about that. So this is really just a widespread issue that Republicans are trying to address. Good stuff. Thank you, Bradley. Well, gentlemen, for our fun topic today, we are going to talk about barbecue because

we've already been debating it this morning. So why not build upon the controversy already brewing daniel um let's give you the microphone first even though you all have individual microphones but walk us through your position on what makes the best barbecue first of all i love barbecue smart man food um i living coming from oklahoma and i was born in Kansas, never actually lived in Kansas oddly enough, but I do like more of the Kansas city style where you have a little bit of a, a sweeter sauce to it.

It's not as much about the rub. Not as much about the rub. A good smoky flavor to the meat is always good. It's always good if my preference is ribs and brisket. So if it's brisket, definitely that smoke and it is really good for the ribs. If it's nice and tender and the meat just like falls off the bone. My mouth is literally watering right now. And it's 945 in the morning.

Okay. Well, that's good. I like that. That's very good. A good take. Isaiah, we're coming to you next. I have ranted before when we were talking about steak, about just growing up in blissful innocence, blithely,

not knowing that I had such strong opinions about this stuff until I got to Austin. And everybody's a connoisse opinions about this stuff until I got to Austin. And everybody's a connoisseur about this stuff all now. And they've got real hot sports opinions about the exact right, correct way that all of these things must be cooked. Yes. And so it's the same thing. My dad, both of my parents are excellent barbecuers.

Dave Barry has joked before about how With men They'll cook one thing a year And put like 12 hours of effort into it That is so funny That's my dad He smokes a turkey every Thanksgiving It's the best turkey I've ever had So the best barbecue I've ever had Has been in my backyard

And I feel like that's true for a lot of people That were born here But then you get to Austin And all of a sudden people are lining up Waiting hours To pay like exorbitant amounts of money for what should be cheap food, frankly. And they say, oh, if you eat it with a fork and knife and a napkin, then you're from New York or whatever. Anyway, so I don't know.

My simple opinion is that if it tastes good, it is good, and that's that. I personally also really like ribs and brisket. beef ribs i've had those like once or twice we usually had pork ribs growing up and so i haven't really developed an opinion on those yet because i had them in this place called cad like barbecue and like i think it was carolton that area and um it was just caked with rub it was like half an inch of rub crust and that was a little bit too much it was so salty um just like biting into a layer of of salt basically that was too much but um i'm gonna give him a better chance somewhere else maybe i like it now brad a lot of this boils down to the oh brad's already smirking the beef versus pork debate where do you fall on this well being

a uh dirty ohioan um i uh up there pork is the uh the meat of choice for barbecue huh pulled pork i'm just any any kind of pork base so our ribs big there too? They do have ribs, but the best barbecue you will find up there is not beef based. It's pork based. And so Cincinnati especially, they used to be called Porkopolis because they specialized in outsourcing pigs. That's interesting. Yes. But so the best barbecue I've ever had is in Cincinnati and it's pork. It was a pulled pork sandwich. It was amazing. Best thing I've ever had is in Cincinnati, and it's pork. It was a pulled pork sandwich.

It was amazing. Best thing I've ever eaten. Drenched in barbecue sauce? Yes, yes. I love barbecue in general, but I definitely prefer the pork, and obviously I know that is a controversial take here in Texas. I did have really, really good briskets at smitty's and lockhart the other weekend i was gonna say you've been to lockhart haven't you yeah okay yeah once so i haven't tried all the places there now the first barbecue i had in texas when shortly after

i moved down here in 2019 was salt lick and i was not terribly impressed so But I think you mentioned to me back then that you didn't realize that it was beef down here and not pork. Yeah, so I did get, I got a pulled pork sandwich and that was not very good. But I also got a beef rib. And so I was not impressed with that either. But I've had, since had better barbecue in Texas. But still, I will choose pork every time if, uh, if given the option.

Interesting. Hayden, do you have any sort of, um, strong opinion on barbecue here in Texas or elsewhere? I don't really have a strong opinion though. I will say, I think there's a controversy,

uh, over whether or not one barbecues verb or whether one eats barbecue noun. And honestly, I've used it interchangeably in both ways, but apparently that's... Is that a Southern thing to say that you eat barbecue? I don't know. Well, I think barbecue is a type of food if you're talking about ribs, brisket, pulled pork, things like that. Whereas when you're using about ribs brisket pulled pork things like that whereas when you're

using barbecues as a verb i think it usually refers to i'm gonna go throw some hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill okay that's my take yeah well i think people saying i'm going to barbecue and they stick some hamburgers and just like you said so hamburgers and hot dogs on a grill there's controversy about that right right? Controversy. Yeah. Or rather, people from out of state come here and say, yeah, I barbecued last week. And they were like, oh my gosh, do you have a smoker? And they're like, no, it was hamburgers.

And they're like, nah, that does not count. Not quite. Not quite. That does not count. I think it's still used by a lot of Texans. But, you know, if you run into the right texan who has a strong opinion on that you probably will be lambasted yeah i would not call hamburgers and hot dogs barbecue noun yeah but they were would you say they were grilled or barbecued i would like personally i would say they would they were grilled but if somebody says barbecues i

would understand right yes i will say barbecue i think uh two of the more underrated aspects of barbecue are smoked turkey oh my gosh so good they're right the good kind of smoke turkey it can be good and that's the operative word it can be good it takes what part of the turkey um gosh anywhere any part really i like the drumsticks they're really good yeah dark meat is better in my yes i agree i agree um but i think even turkey breast that's been barbecued and smoked really well is delicious as well i think um any sort of barbecued sausage oh my gosh is delicious and i think those are more underrated aspects of barbecue so i will stand up for them on this podcast

i'm doing my due diligence over here right um any any final thoughts on barbecue boys wonderful oh i knew we couldn't get away without offering a space for an opinion and silence i knew that would not be the case well kind of go back what isaiah was mentioning earlier about really lame barbecue restaurants that people line up at the door for. Yes, Franklin's. I was talking about this with some friends last night, and they pointed out that it's just like this restaurant gets in the food magazine, and then everybody's like, oh, that's the best place when the best places are usually like—

Hole in the wall. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. I think particularly in Austin. Yeah. If you have any sort of ambiance in Austin and you've been written up by a food blogger, you're probably going to be swamped. And Franklin's is good, but Franklin's is kind of in that same category of, you know, line out the door as soon as it opens. Which, despite just being a few blocks away from Franklin's, I still have yet to try.

Yeah, me either. So, we'll have to get it catered at one point. Okay, gentlemen. Thank you, folks. Thanks for listening. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at the Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us.

God bless you, and God bless Texas. Thank you.