The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 14, 2025

Episode Date: November 14, 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/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Congress Votes to Reopen Government Through January After Record 42-Day ShutdownAbbott Unveils Priority Property Tax Reform Slate Including Local Spending Limits, 3 Percent Appraisal CapNewsom and Abbott Tout Legislative, Electoral Victories at Post-Election Day Events in HoustonFamilies of Deceased Children and Counselors File Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Camp MysticTexas Congressman Jodey Arrington to Retire After Decade in U.S. HouseTexas A&M Board of Regents to Vote on New Definitions of 'Gender, Race Ideology'Texas Highway Patrol Enters Into 'Task Force' Agreement to Enforce Immigration LawLt. Gov. Patrick Announces Audit of Texas Southern University, Alleges Widespread ‘Misuse’ of Taxpayer DollarsTexas Attorney General Sues Roblox, Alleging Online Child Safety ViolationsOverture Life Headquarters First-of-its-Kind IVF Robotic Conception Clinic in Dallas

Well, howdy folks and welcome back to another edition of the Weekly Roundup. I'm McKenzie and I'm here with Mary Elise, Brad, and Cameron. Thank you all for joining. Hopefully Mary Lease will get a few more words in edgewise this week and not feel quite so third and fourth wheels on this podcast. I sure hope so. We'll do our darndest, despite the boys being, you know, in cahoots over there in person. It is harder being remote to interject and make ourselves heard, although certain people

in the office don't seem to mind to that fact. Well, Mack, I can tell you that Cameron and I, our top priority of this podcast, is to listen and learn. Yes. Really? Yes. I've heard a very different narrative about two minutes ago. I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, I'm glad to hear that, you know, publicly you're not stating that you're the one who's going to be listening and learning and Cameron will be listening and learning and no other combination of people will be prescribed that approach. So thank you for that. Okay, well, let's go ahead and jump into the news. Mary Lease, the government is officially reopening. That's kind of a big deal. Walk us through it. Yeah, I mean, this was a record long shutdown, 42 days. So it officially

opened last night. So we had the house finally pass. this funding bill. And that happened last night around 7, 8 p.m. And then President Donald Trump signed it into law about an hour after. And that was when it became effective. So it had closed. We talked about this before, but it closed back on October 1st at midnight. And that was after negotiations, kind of stalled out in the Senate. And the House had previously passed this funding resolution and they had left town and they actually when they returned I believe it was yesterday in session it had been eight weeks that they hadn't been in town but yeah so the house had been they left because they passed the resolution and the senate wasn't able to get it through

this continuing resolution the republicans were kind of marketing as this is the clean CR we need to vote for this get this across but of course it failed and then we were sent into this government it shut down. The Senate passed this bill on Monday. There were eight different Democratic members that joined the Republican caucus so that they can meet the 60 vote requirement for the funding bill. And so that was what made it possible there. And the resolution passed last night in the House by 222 votes in favor and then

two nine against. There were two different Republicans that voted against it, Congressman Massey and Congressman Stu from Florida. and two members just didn't vote. So we saw, of course, states were affected differently, of course, across the board by this. But some things that states shared were the decrease in airport services. I think Cameron wrote about this, but I believe we had four of our major Texas airports and then 36 others in the United States that saw a 10% reduction in air traffic.

This was a result of the staffing issues that were connected to the. shutdown. One aspect I want to mention about the funding bill that kind of made it through there, it's been getting it more attention recently, but it didn't seem as though many folks were aware of it before it happened. It was related to hemp-derived products, closing this loophole, and so banning most hemp-derived products from sale criminalizing it. This was something, of course, we talked about Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick. This was an important issue for him during the legislative session, and he was really harping on this and sharing online, look, you know, Congress, this was a priority for them, and he was saying that's why it was one of my

priorities. Congressman Rand Paul kind of put up an interesting fight against it, and it was ultimately unsuccessful, but he did put up an amendment that would strike the hemp-related part of the funding bill there. Notably, Senator Ted Cruz, our Texas senator, was the only Republican that voted against tabling Paul's amendment. So he kind of joined linked arms with Paul there. But yeah, the bill ultimately passed the Senate and then it passed the House last night. And the government is officially reopened after breaking our record for the longest government shut down. Wild.

That it's not, y'all. I got a question for you. So, yes. Dan Patrick tweeted out, can you explain the hemp stuff? because he tweeted out kind of a victory lap about Delta 8, Delta 10, and candy, snacks, gummies with high dosages, intoxicating THC are all banned. So what, I don't understand it. How did that happen legislatively?

So I believe it was put into the agricultural section of the funding. And so there's, you know, the different departments in this funding bill allocates the different money. But I, apparently there's a loophole. within this that's kind of had been slipped in before via the agricultural funding that allowed sale of hemp derived products and so by removing that loophole

I guess it as a result criminalizes certain hemp products haven't gotten super into the weeds with it there but it is a pretty big deal that a lot of hemp drive products have just been banned and there wasn't much conversation about it beforehand. But the way I understand is that it was able to be slipped in alongside the federal funding for the agricultural departments. Good clarification. And while that this is the longest government shutdown, I feel like

any time a government shutdown happens all the time. We see this over and over again as like a pattern in the federal government, wild that this actually was the longest in history. And Mary Lee, thank you for covering it. Encourage folks to go check out your piece at Texan just to get all the lowdown of the details of it all. And I'm sure folks are hoping that this happened just in time for holiday travel to kind of go back to a little bit of holiday travel is never simple, but maybe a little bit more normalcy with air traffic control and delays and all of that too. So I know that's kind of an everyday top of mind issue for a lot of folks heading into this season. So we'll keep an eye on all those things.

Mary Leas, thank you. Brad, let's talk about Governor Abbott. officially kicking off his reelection campaign last weekend and talking about some major policy topics. What are the details there? Yeah, so he he'd already been running for re-election, of course, but this was his official campaign kickoff event. Mary Lease was there, and I think next segment, she's going to talk more about what that looked like and also the Newsom rally that happened the day before. But on the policy side, the governor rolled out this. slate of property tax reforms that he is now it's going to be his next crusade like we saw last year um the school choice issue yeah and now he is looking to use his political capital and actual

capital i presume money will be a part of this too and he has plenty of it 90 million dollars in the bank at least um at this moment uh he is going to go to the mat on a lot of these property tax reforms in elections. So I don't think, I'll get into the details of the proposals he has, but this is not as straightforward of a campaign as the school choice was. Because that was one issue, you're either up or you're down. Right now, it was complicated to try and get it across the line and find the compromise, but this is a six-item slate that Abbott has proposed here on property tax reform. He said, quote, in his speech, We're going to turn the tables on local taxing authorities, put the power with the people, and end out-of-control property taxes in Texas.

A couple observations. We've been making – the legislature has been passing large property tax cuts and reforms of the last six or seven years. And here we are still, hey, we need to put a big dent in this. It is. You talk to all these legislators, they say, especially Republicans. But they said that this is the top issue, that when they go door knocking, this is what they hear about most. It used to be the immigration issue, the border issue, but now with Donald Trump in the White House, it's property taxes hands down. And so the governor is making this centerpiece of his campaign for governor, but also in terms of how he gets involved down ballot.

Right. So it's not as straightforward of a crusade as what we saw last time. But if anybody can make headway on this, it's probably him with that much money. Right. And he realized this past session, he proposed a couple of these items during session. It went nowhere. Right. Went absolutely nowhere.

We went back to the old strategy of increasing the homestead exemption. and increasing compression, which is what had been settled on by past legislatures. So what's different about what he's proposing now? It's a lot more significant in terms of reform. It's not just tinkering at the margins, which the increased homestead exemption or compression is. And I don't mean that is to make it to make that sound trite. Like, there was a lot of money they put into this. $51 billion in all.

Now, it wasn't how much new relief they provided this year. But in all in the budget, there's $51 billion in property tax-related reductions. But these are, like, significant reforms. First one that he listed off was establishing spending limits on local governments, either it's the lesser of population and inflation or 3.5%. And saying that you cannot go above that, I think, without voter approval. So we've seen some proposals about limitations on tax increases. But this would be on the spending side.

Interesting. So there was- Putting some guardrails on these local governments because of a lot of things that have been coming out about this explosion and spending on different, you know, local agencies or initiatives and things. Yeah, local governments, yep. Second one is this is something he pushed for in a state of the state, and it didn't go anywhere in the legislature. A two-thirds vote requirement to pass any tax increase. and that he did mention that in the state of the state and it just yeah I don't think it got any traction whatsoever and that would need to be done legislatively legislatively yep the next one he's proposed

is a tax rollback petition election system where if you get enough petitioners signed on in a certain area they can put on the ballot an election to roll back the tax rate so giving more power to people going out and petitioning and getting signatures and things. Yes. Yes. And on the appraisal side, he proposes appraising properties once every five years. Now, this is interesting to me because currently, I think it's between one and three years. It depends on the local jurisdiction. How often they do it. But this would push it off further. So practically speaking, if your house isn't appraised for once every five years, you're going to be at that appraisal for five years,

and that's going to be great as a taxpayer. Your bill isn't going to go up as much. But when you do hit that five-year period, you're going to reset to the market value. Now you'll have reductions in terms of homestead exemption and things like that, so you're not paying taxes on explicitly the market value, but it will reset.

And that'll cause some sticker shock, I think, every one of those five years, Whereas, question is, which would you rather have? Would you rather have the five years of four, five years of pretty steady non-growth and then one drastic reset? Or would you rather have a methodical increase to where you're going to end up at five years anyway? I don't know. I'm sure different people have different opinions. But that one functionally was pretty interesting to me to think about, this is the big one.

I thought, I was surprised to see this on, a 3% appraisal cap on all property, not just homesteads. So currently, the appraisal cap, you cannot increase the taxable value of a homestead more than 10% every year. And that limits the growth, of course, but that too, when you sell a home, I think, my understanding is it resets the market value when the new, new homeowner it buys it when it changes hands. So you have that sticker shock again. Right. Politically, we just

had this fight in 23. And it was one of the things that tanks did feel in speakership, not specifically on the policy, but because that got him really crosswise, even more crosswise with the lieutenant governor who then you know, really

attacked him constantly. right um so i i find it kind of confusing why they're going for this yeah policy wise i you know there's arguments for it and that provides um it's yet another down piece of downward pressure on the growth of of tax bills but the senate's not going to go for it it seems and i didn't see a single senator or the lieutenant governor come out and rally around the governor's property tax plan so house members do it yeah but not the not the lieutenant governor or the senators right so that's that's notable yeah i think that tells you where this is going to go this spells disaster yeah yeah or maybe this is just the starting point for negotiations i think

that's probably it you know mountain bailey strategy but in this and this is remembering this is a campaign promise, right? What are people wanting? Yes. Property tax relief. He's listening to people. He's making that his flagship issue during this campaign season. Yes. Yes. All the, all the details can be negotiated later. But as long as the top line is property tax relief. Well, also, keep in mind that the item that was pushed forward by Speaker Phelan and the house in that 23 fight was a 5% appraisal cap on all property. This is going further than that. down to 3%.

So, yeah, it probably is a negotiating strategy. But I was shocked when I got this ahead of time. I was shocked to see that on there. Yeah. And then last one, this isn't too surprising, I don't think. He wants to see an election on the ballot. I'd have to pass the legislature first, but to eliminate school district property taxes on homesteads.

Interesting. So all of this property tax, all of this tax question. is where do you move the where do you shift the burden of paying taxes right do you shift it on to the businesses do you shift it on to the homeowners yeah we see different opinions particularly in the two chambers on this stuff well it's just so interesting like with that last uh proposition that you just brought up that would let's say that gets through legislatively and then you think about when that would go on to the ballot, there's going to have to be a huge, like, information campaign for people to be like, what does this even mean? And what is it going to mean to you, not just on your tax bill, but, you know, going forward?

Well, you know, I will say, I think the obstacle is the legislature, because they're the ones that actually have this nuanced policy debate. Yeah. Maryle has covered the constitutional amendments this year, all of them passed, almost all of them passed quite handily. And anything that reduces even nominally property taxes, I think will be voted for overwhelmingly by voters. Well, it'll be interesting once the legislature starts back up for the 90th session and these proposals start to be debated. Because you're talking about the nuance debate that's going to occur between the legislators themselves. but how does that nuance flow back down to the people and how they are going to interpret those debates that'll be interesting to see yeah good luck trying to inject nuance into any election whatsoever i think it's pretty futile well also noteworthy sorry brad go ahead

i was just say that's that's the whole array of what he wants and now he's putting his political might behind it and it's also obviously a very good thing to campaign on yeah for Sure. I think it is also notable, like you said, it's one thing for the Speaker and the Lieutenant Governor to have their preferred property tax approaches and to spar over those publicly, right? We've seen that over and over again. And in large part, we've known where the governor stood on this issue, even if he's been a little bit more withholding on some of his public rhetoric. But it's very different when the governor puts forward a plan of his own and says, this is what we're going to do. This is what I'm pushing for and kind of, you know,

hedging my bets on and for the Senate not to react that's huge it's a very different animal than what we've seen um previously even though these lanes are already established yeah and you know in the 23 fight the governor basically sat it out during the regular session he he came in and picked aside after things had fallen apart and we went into specials but um yeah he basically told them y'all figure it out i'm good with whatever that's not the case and how he's laying out a proactive slate. Well, do you know who helped the governor craft these property tax relief proposals? Because I know in the past, TPPF was really involved with, you know, the sales tax, you know, that might provide some relief.

Do you know this time around who was helping influence the policy decisions? I am quite sure TDPF had a role in it, but far from just them. Yeah. You know, they've been pushing for years for elimination of the school district M&O tax. Yeah. They had a plan about, you know, 90 cents of every dollar goes towards buying it down to elimination. You know, I think that they did the math and it worked. But when you actually try and apply this stuff, practically, it's more difficult.

It just is. It's not as simple as a calculation on a page. Yeah. For example, like, if we're leaning that heavily into state spending to buy this stuff down, well, what happens if you have an economic downturn? Right. And the amount of sales taxes drops significantly. It's possible. It doesn't mean it's going to happen, but that's something you ought to contend with.

That's something lawmakers have to contend with when they're designing this. But, yeah, I'm sure it was more than just. I'm sure the big businesses were involved. Yeah. You know, on this appraisal fight last time, it was pretty interesting to see the big businesses backing the Senate plan and the increased homestead exemption versus the House plan that had the appraisal cap. But the businesses that wanted the appraisal cap were the small businesses. So you had these two, you know, often, not always in alignment constituencies that are very much a loggerhead. on this issue and it's a different of philosophy and money too right which one benefits more you know

so um that was a that was a wrinkle that maybe we'll see again yeah well bradley thank you for your coverage at that i'm sure we'll be following it over and over and over again for many many months so appreciate the context mary lees let's go to you these are some big happenings over the weekend very two very high profile political gatherings were held in houston over the weekend notable if they happen at the same time, dueling political parties. Tell us about this. Right. As Brad was just talking about, one was Governor Greg Abbott's re-election campaign kind of kickoff, also announcing the property tax reform plan that he has. And the other was California Governor Gavin Newsom. He came in on Saturday and had an event alongside the Harris County Democratic Party.

At that event, my impression was much more that it was kind of a victory lap, doing it in Houston after California successfully passed Proposition 50, which was in response to, it was their own redistricting in response to Texas' redistricting. So that's how the main message kind of came off was Gavin Newsom saying, you know, look, this is how California is responding. And a lot of the different speakers that were there, there were a couple different Congress members, including Jasmine Crockett, Lizzie Fletcher. They were talking about how grateful they are for Governor Newsom and him taking action and that they're hoping that they can essentially take Texas back. And that was kind of the overarching theme was take it back.

That was the phrase that everyone was repeating. And they had signs saying, take it back. At the other event, Governor Abbott's event, it was much more like, let's maintain this. Let's maintain Texas as our state. Let's maintain our conservative victories here in Texas talking about the different legislation that was passed during the 80-9 legislative session. Governor Abbott talked about a lot of different items that were passed during the session that he was proud of, including bail reform. I mean, he was noting that that passed just recently on Election Day. One of the bills related to bail reform passed.

He also talked about the education savings account, school choice. Before Governor Abbott took the stage to formally announce his re-election, there was kind of a, they called it a roundtable. It was kind of a fireside-style conversation between some Houston business leaders and activists. And they were just discussing Governor Abbott's time. as governor and the different legislative items that he has made sure that they've gotten across, or at least he's brought to the table. There was a lot of discussion about bail reform. There were different individuals who were activists involved with it. One woman who had

experienced, one of someone related to her had been the victim of a crime, and she was speaking about her work in bail reform, how important it was to her. But it was very interesting to be these two events within a day of each other because it's just good. I wrote this in the 40, but it's very helpful as a reporter just to be there and to observe the way that the different people at these events interact with each other, the music that they're playing. I mean, it's very different the music they're playing, the venue they choose to hold it at. Governor Abbott's was at kind of a golf range spot that was really beautiful, had the Houston skyline in the background, big Texas.

flag. Governor Newsom had his at a workers union location in Houston. And they had a turnout of about 800 individuals. And that was all the people that could fit inside. I was talking to some people on their team and they said they hadn't quite anticipated this turnout because it was more so of a last minute event. And there were a couple hundred left waiting outside. The estimation was about 200 people left that weren't able to fit into the venue. And then Abbott's event, I believe, had about 700 attendees that were present there at his campaign kickoff. There were other elected representatives, House representatives, Lacey Hull, Valerie Swanson. And I also saw chairman of the Republican Party, Abraham George. Then, yeah, security was pretty high at both

events. That's just kind of a fun fact there. The security was definitely at high levels for both of those events. But like I said, the main focus for Newsom's rally was kind of touting that they passed Proposition 50 and saying, we can do this in Texas too. We can have these Democratic victories in Texas, but we need to take it back from Republican leadership right now. And they also were talking about the election where there were a couple different Democratic victories like Zoran Mamdani in New York City. So they spoke up. about that. But then with Governor Abbott, he was more so celebrating the different conservative wins and saying, you know, we're headed in a great direction. We've done great

things so far. And he did warn against a bad election, though. He said we can easily lose these things, though, with a bad election. So very interesting events. Two pretty high profile figures in Houston within 24 hours of each other. I mean, certainly not. Coincidental. the least. Mary Lease, thanks for going and thanks for your coverage. Cameron, let's go to you here, families of deceased children and counselors who drowned during the flooding over the July 4th weekend have taken legal action. This is a huge story. Tell us what's happening. Yeah, there was a petition filed this week where families of five children and two camp counselors are suing Camp Mystic for what they allege saying here, quote, these young girls died because a for-profit camp put

profit over safety. And like you mentioned, over the summer, there was rapid flooding that swept through the hill country and took the lives of more than 130 people, including camp counselors and many children at Camp Mystic. And there's been lots of legislative action that we saw over the 8th session we covered that extensively all of the hearings and committee hearings there so this is a big next step because the lawsuit is a wrongful death suit and so the they go on to state that camp mystic quote to order its campers and counselors as a matter of policy to stay in these flood plain cabins regardless of life-threatening flood So some huge accusations being made here. We did reach out to Camp Mystic and they provided a statement to us here at the Texan. I'll just read part of it here.

Quote, they said, we disagree with several accusations and misinformation in the legal filings regarding the actions of Camp Mystic and Dick Eastland, who lost his life as well. We will thoroughly respond to these accusations in due course. So this is a big development in the devastation that occurred over the summer on July 4th. And we'll definitely keep covering it as more information comes out. Thank you for doing so diligently. Cameron, we appreciate it very, very much. Mary Lees, let's go to you. Yet another Texas congressman is retiring.

We're seeing lots of this happening ahead of election cycle next year. Give us the details on who this congressman may be. Yeah, this is Congressman Jody Arrington. He is not seeking re-election in 2026 he announced. So he'll be retiring from Congress at the end of his fifth term, which he's currently serving. And that'll conclude his 10th year having served in office representing the 19th Congressional District of Texas. So he is the chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee, a pretty powerful important position. He's had a key role. And the one big, beautiful bill, as they call it, the federal funding bill. He authored that, actually. And he noted that in his announcement that he was proud to author that and worked alongside Trump's administration in this. So he was first elected this position back in 2016.

It was one in office in 2017, January. And he focused on, of course, his role as chairman of the budget committee, but also focused on a lot of agricultural-related matters as representative of the mostly West Texas district. And this district, as we put in the article, is strongly Republican. It's rated R-78% from our Texas Partisan Index, and then it'll maintain that before and after the redistricting map. So I'll read you something here from Arrington. He said in his announcement, he said, it's always been my firm conviction that public service be a lifetime commitment while public office a temporary stint in stewardship, not a career. So he said, then after much prayer and

deliberation, I believe it's time to pass the torch to the next citizen legislature from the food, fuel, and fiber capital of the world. So he's kind of, you know, saying there that he thinks that he has served his time and he doesn't want to make a career out of this, which is interesting. Texas House Speaker, Dustin Burroughs, did comment on him leaving, thanked him for all of his work in West Texas, called him a strong partner and tireless advocate

for West Texas. Just thank them for his service and talked about his work with the one big beautiful bill, saying that that kind of will stand as a testament to Arlington's career to his commitment to American families,

small businesses, and rural opportunity. So, And as Brad noted, Arrington C. is now the 35th opening across both state and federal levels in Texas. So another Texas congressman is going to retire at the end of this term. Thank you, Mary Lease. We appreciate your coverage. Cameron, coming to you. There's some breaking news happening this morning. Talk to us about the Texas A&M Board of Regents voting on some changes to some controversial definitions.

Yeah, these definitions include gender ideology and gender. race ideology. And these revisions are, it appears to come after the public scrutiny that's been placed on the, really the flagship university and the Texas A&M system, Texas A&M. We covered quite a bit the classroom discussion and issues that was occurring between a student and a professor and the fallout that came from those leaks on social media. There was a professor fired. The president, Mark Welsh, ended up resigning. And now this is sort of a new development, and they're going to be changing some of these definitions to include.

I'll just read one here for gender ideology. It'll be updated to read, quote, means a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing and disconnected from the biological category of sex. Then also under race ideology, it includes an element of promoting activism in terms of how it's taught in academic instruction. So right now, as we're recording, they're going through this Board of Regents meeting. They are going to take public testimony, and then the Board of Regents will vote on either to accept or oppose these. updated definition so that's something we'll keep an eye on here at the texan thank you can killing with the breaking news we're going to stick with you here state agencies are now opting into federal immigration enforcement agreements walk us through this so the 287g program is something we've

covered extensively here uh this has to do with agreements between localities um and federal uh agencies specifically ICE in enforcing immigration law there's been some cities and police departments that have already come to agreements with ICE to enforce immigration law now we actually have seen the Texas Highway Patrol and the Texas Department of Public Safety's Criminal Investigations division have both joined this new 287 G task force and I go into because there's a few different models of agreements that these localities and law enforcement agencies can opt into.

I go into details there. The two I just mentioned, the state agencies are going to be part of the task force model. And so just an interesting development here. I know on the site, I've reported on it as well as Kim Roberts on how Dallas police have felt the pressure of trying to, of, you know, not joining the 287G program. So there's lots of developments here in Texas in terms of joining this new federal immigration program.

Thank you, Cameron. We appreciate it. Mary Elise, coming. Also, shout out to Cameron for not feeling super well and still killing it on this podcast. I just want to say, you're seriously doing a phenomenal job. Mary Lee is coming to you, the lieutenant governor. made an announcement this week about a university's alleged misuse of funds. This has been blowing up all over social media and in headlines. Tell us about the situation. Right. Yeah, Lieutenant

Governor Dan Patrick announced that he has been working with the Texas State auditor who has been actively auditing Texas Southern University over the past couple of months, reviewing their different financial processes, their procurement operations, inventory records, items, such as that. And he says that the state auditor allegedly found that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being, have been misused via thousands of unauthorized invoices. And so as a result of this, Lieutenant Governor Patrick is calling for the Texas Rangers to formally investigate TSU to determine if there's any state laws that were being broken throughout this. He said, over the weekend, I was informed of disturbing information suggesting the misuse of state funds.

He said, then they reached out to the state auditor, and then he said the information he received in return appeared to be accurate regarding the information he had been given. He said that the auditor confirmed that thousands of unauthorized invoices totaling hundreds and millions of dollars have been identified. So some of the data here that they collected, state auditor, collected one aspect of It was 743 invoices, which totaled $282 million. And so she described those as invoices for vendors whose contracts were listed in the database as expired. And then also over 8,000 invoices that totaled around $158 million with invoice dates prior to the requisition dates.

So she wrote that in a letter to the Legislative Audit Committee, and that committee is made up of Patrick and then House Speaker Dustin Burroughs State Senators Joan Huffman and Robert Nichols as well as the House reps Reg Bonin and Morgan Myers so they were on this committee and she wrote in this letter that Patrick shared

I'll note that TSU shared this letter yesterday it was from the president to the university community and he said that While they have not received the interim audit report, they said that they have been cooperating with the state auditor in its evaluation, and they said that their own internal assessment, which was before the auditor's engagement, had already identified process deficiencies. And so then they listed out four different actions that they're taking to respond to this. And then they said, in addition to these things that they're trying to implement, such as a new procurement system, they said, with integrated.

checks and balances. So in addition to that, though, they'll be meeting with the state auditor's office to review the report and determine how to move forward. And Patrick did say that he would like to see TSU have its state-appropriated funding frozen to see it revoked, and that he intends to collaborate with both boroughs and Governor Greg Gabbitt to strike that from the budget language. So we'll see how this one developed. You know, TSU is saying that they're actively cooperating and that they're prepared to respond appropriately. But we'll see what the, when the Texas Rangers launch their investigation and kind of what comes of that. Absolutely. And a lot of these things that we're hearing about in the interim, this and other stories all will be in some way, probably a big topic of conversation come next legislative session.

So keep an eye on all of these things, certainly, and potential reforms and, you know, conversations among legislators, proposals, bills, all that, because this all could relate back to what we see in 2027. Maryleaks, thank you so much. Cameron, let's go to you. The Texas Attorney General has filed a lawsuit. Shocker, that's kind of what he tends to do against an online gaming platform. Tell us what's going on here. Yeah, this lawsuit is alleging that Roblox. I'm sure the parents out there listening are familiar with Roblox.

But Kim Paxson is alleging that this online gaming platform is, quote, overrun by predators and saturated with sexual content. So this was quite a shocking allegation. He has a very extensive amount of examples that he has filed alongside this lawsuit. and this is something that I've actually sort of kept an eye on in previous months just because this is not the first lawsuit filed against Roblox. A number of other states have sued or opened investigations against this online gaming platform. But Roblox has responded. They issued a statement saying that it's introduced 145 safety measures on the platform this year alone.

And it recently announced that it's working to implement age estimation for all users accessing chat features. So we have not just Texas, but a number of other states making these allegations against Roblox. Roeblocks coming out and saying they're trying to fix the problem. So we'll see where this lawsuit lands, but it seems like it's a bigger problem than just here in the state. to be in nature one. I cannot go a single Little League practice without hearing about Roblox.

It's incredibly popular with young people. It's... With kids. Yeah. Yeah. The youths. Is it... It aren't Roblox like a Lego

spin-off? Yeah, I think it's kind of like Minecraft, but different. Yeah. Tells you how much I know. Do you guys remember Bionicles? Oh, yeah. I love Brown.

Huge. Yeah, my brother did, too. I don't know why Roblox is making me to Cobionicles, but they are. Yeah, that kind of thing back in our day was valuable and a good form of entertainment, unlike Roblox today. The only video game I played growing up was Madden. I played Madden a lot. But I also played Guitar Hero a ton. Were you good at guitar hero, Cameron?

Were you like up there? Oh, yeah, expert level through the fire and flames. Okay. Absolutely. I never got into guitar hero, but it was everywhere. Call of Duty, okay. Luckily, those lobby room discussions aren't recorded. Yes.

So good. I played my Nintendo DS Light, and I played Nintendo D.S. Light, and I played Nintendo Dogs and Super Mario Bros. Those are my top two. I played Mario Kart. That was awesome. Mario, okay, actually, Mario Kart. I was undefeated in Mario Kart for many years. Really? Not to brag.

Yeah. But as soon as I switched, flat, like, switched gaming consoles, devices, I would lose. But on my DS, I was undefeated. So, you know, me and my little pink DS light, we're ripping it up that kind of thing. Okay. Well, Cameron, thank you. Let's Mary Lee's chat with you. Last story here.

There's a new IVF clinic in Dallas. Tell us about this company. this location. Yeah, this company is called Over True Life, and they just announced that they're opening their United States clinical headquarters in Dallas. And so it's going to kind of serve as their first dedicated U.S. laboratory. They do have clinical locations already in a couple different areas, including one in New Jersey, and then Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Turkey, that already use some of its automated IVF platforms. But, kind of their big thing that they tout is that they are responsible for the world's first

babies born via robotic conception processes. And so part of this clinic is they said to meet demand, increased demand for their egg freezing system, an automated process for both freezing and thawing eggs and embryos, on a timeline, and, of course, dependent upon the client's desires. Some of the data on this with amount of frozen embryos we have in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University, they found that there's over a million and a half embryos frozen in the U.S. currently, which is interesting, and that they also found that 1.7 million embryos

that are created through the IVF process were discarded between, This is back between 91 to 2012. And the U.S. doesn't really have a super consistent way that it's tracking those numbers currently. So there's something that we note within the article that John Hopkins found was that when embryos are thawed and prepared for transfer, there's a possibility that they'll be damaged or destroyed, a risk that's also present with what they call fresh embryos. And then the pregnancy success rate for these egg freezing processes range. from 2 to 12%. And so this is this clinic is their big thing is kind of that we have this egg freezing process and that there's increased demand for this that they say that they would say is superior to other products out there. So the head, the person who's in charge of this

cites clinical operations in Dallas said that she thinks that this clinic is going to kind of set the stage for similar IVF practices across the nation. They kind of speak about it as if they're kind of pioneering in a sense with the different technology that they're using. They said the infrastructure we're establishing here from our non-invasive embryo assessment technology to quality systems creates a foundation for scaling automated fertility care across the United States. They said that the central United States location will help them to facilitate their national logistics and will give them access to the biomedical engineering and data

science talent that is concentrated in Texas. Of course, the IVF issue we've talked about a bit on here. It's been a very different topic when you look at it at the federal level versus with the Texas legislature. You see our Texas senators, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, has been outspoken and a support for it and wanting to advance IVF. Texas legislature is yet to kind of face this head on. We did see like there was one bill filed by state representative Daniel Alders. that we've mentioned before on here where he was kind of outlining the goal was to outline reporting requirements for these clinics because we don't have a super set standard for a way to report on the different success rate of these practices that are going on within these IVF clinics

and the reasons that embryos might be discarded or kept. So this bill was kind of to make sure we have a good way to collect data so then we can just learn more about this industry because it is so new. But that bill was ultimately unsuccessful. We'll see if this gets taken up in the future, some pro-life activists have indicated that maybe there will be some restrictions placed on the industry's practices in the future. But for the most part, everyone seems to be an agreement that they won't be discussing at any point. And then your future ban on IVF or anything like that. And we saw, of course, President Donald Trump recently pushing to make IVF more accessible to folks across the nation.

that's been something he's been focusing on. It's making it more affordable for the average American. So, yeah, this is a kind of first-of-its-kind clinic that's setting up shop in Dallas. So we'll see what sort of how that pans out for them and how they can kind of expand there in Dallas and what that looks like. Absolutely, Maryleas, thank you. Really interesting to see after this last legislative session. And I think the Life of the Mother Act was really what took up a lot of the, you know,

conversations surrounding the abortion issue this last session. We knew that IVF would kind of be the pivot for Texas lawmakers just because of abortion laws existing currently. And pro-life groups kind of starting to advocate and figure out where they stand on that issue. I think this next session, because the life of the Mother Act had not passed and some clarification has been made to previous laws, I think we're going to see probably a lot more conversation about IVF, and Texas lawmakers having to, as you said, kind of hit the issue head on. So we'll keep an eye on this, certainly, and you're at the forefront. So thanks, Mary Elise. Sure.

Let's pivot to our tweetery section. Cameron, bring it on. What's you got? For my tweetery, apparently a photo, video was going viral. Yeah, this got sent to me this morning. Oh, really? About Matthew McConaughey possibly running for governor. And I guess there was some campaign materials that were posted up.

But I'm sorry to burst everyone's bubble. The big McConaughey heads out there, this was all part of a TV series that he is filming. And so it's the TV series. It's called Brothers. And it's a series where him, he's running for political office. So, you know, someone took a picture of this material that was being used on the set, put it online. People went crazy, but we got some clarification here. But, you know, he's been floated out there as someone who could.

He's floated himself out there multiple times. He has not pulled the trigger. He's not going to. He's waiting for the end of Abbott's tenure, and then he's going to jump in, don't you think? That's not about taking. I don't think he's going to do it at all. Oh, no.

You don't think he has that ambition? I think he likes people to think that he would do it someday, but I don't think he will. Helps him sell more bucks. Yeah. I actually, when I was in all, oh, sorry. when I was in Austin I saw just a little fun fact I saw them recording or filming what was what you call it brothers I'm pretty sure that's what it was because I googled it and I think that's what they said it was they were wearing weird like bedazzled cowboy outfits so I heard other people saw them around town filming so very interesting I feel like McConaughey is kind of taken upon himself for many years now to be Austin's ambassador and It cracks me up.

It really does. And kind of Glenn Powell, too. Glenn Powell's kind of taking on that mantle. Talking about Austin all the time, which is so fun. Yeah. Bradley, what you got? Well, there was an interesting entry, first resignation and then entry, in the Railroad Commission race that typically provides a lot of weird.

weird themes like the 2022 railroad commission race there was the incumbent wing christian running he is a former gospel singer who is now was a house member then is now on the railroad commission you had sarah stogner who had of that video fame um you had unfortunately one of the candidates in the middle of the campaign die in a car wreck oh man um you had some other quirky individuals in the race too the Railroad Commission, in addition to being an obscure office that nobody really knows what they do, hint, not railroads, oil and gas industry, just has a knack for pulling out weird candidates and candidates that are quirky. Well, that happened this time around. Jim Wright, the incumbent, is up for re-election. and he had back in, what was that, 2020, he had one of the wildest victories. He unseated Ryan Sitton, who was the sitting Republican incumbent. He spent like $50,000 to Sitton's, I think, multi-millions in the race and beat him. Part of that was he had the same name as the former, I think he's dead now, but the long time U.S. House Speaker Jim Ray

from Texas. And he managed to pull off this upset, and it was wild. He's up again, and now we have a he's up against Beau French,

who was, until very recently, the Tarrant County Republican Party chair, Bo French is a controversial figure, and he likes that. He embraces it. He says a lot of, outlandish things and he basically is waging an all-front political war on the left, whatever that's constituted as in any given moment.

On social media. Yeah. So he resigned as Tarrant County Republican Party chair. Oddly enough, just after filing started, which typically is one of the busiest times for these local parties because they're fielding candidate filings for all these officers. He resigned and announced, and this has been reported, um, uh, corn report broke it first, but, um, it had been in the, in the water for a while ago, Bo French is looking at this. Like I first heard it like a month ago. Okay. And then the drumbeat got heavier. Right. Of late, of course. He puts out his, his announcement, I think that was one day. He says, quote, today I resigned as TCGOP chair and I'm running for the table. Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the Texas oil and gas industry, this will be the best way that I can defend Texas, stop the Islamic invasion, and defeat the left, end quote.

Okay. Set aside whatever you discreements about, any of the policy stuff he talks about or the issue he mentioned there, but Cameron, pray tell, how is a railroad commissioner going to stop the, quote, Islamic invasion? I'm waiting for the policy proposals that maybe state agency changes, you know, what he's going to do, but I'm not sure. Because when you think Texas Railroad Commission, they oversee the oil and gas industry, and Texas being ground zero for the oil and gas industry, does this office really have outsized authority? with overseeing the oil and gas industry. How much power does this office actually have?

It has a good amount. If you care about the energy industry, it does have the oil and gas industry. It has a lot of authority over it. And we're going to see, I think, the industry really backed Jim Wright against Beau French here because they do not want Bo French in there. Bo, from my understanding, his family

has been in the oil and gas industry. So he's not, like, totally new to this. Right. but it seems like so he has been talking a lot about Islam coming over to the country quite a bit like yeah like I don't like the biggest thing he talks about all the time I'm not sure what he plans to do like I can think of like a crazy idea like cut we're going to cut the power lines the epic city or something you know I don't know well the thing is railroad commission has no governing authority over the power lines okay public utility commission okay so even

Even that, like, what is he, he's just trying to shoehorn the thing he's been talking about constantly on Twitter into this thing he decided he wants to run for. Right. Well, it goes back to the discussion we started the podcast with in terms of campaign messaging, right? As long as that what the message resonates with the people you're trying to get to the polls to vote for you, the details can get worked out a little bit later. Yeah. But does it resonate? we'll find out I don't know right yeah um yeah I mean nobody knows what the railroad commission is so you don't market yourself as as specifically run for that it's

it's a proxy thing for something else right and I believe maybe just heel turns to say I'm gonna make the trains run on well when Jim Wright first ran if it oversaw railroad yeah when Jim Wright ran in 20 one of his most effective ads was hitting Ryan Sitton for being an anti-Trumper because he had said things critical of Trump back in 16 when Trump was, and I think more recently than that, at that point when Trump was first running, and that killed him. That killed him. That's a huge reason why he managed to to win that race. So that has nothing to do with the railroad commission. Well, as we know, the Trump endorsement still plays heavily here in Texas. Yep. So will Trump jump into the Texas?

Railroad Commission race and endorse a candidate? Well, Beau French has posted multiple photos of him at Marlago. Now, how much access did he have there? I don't know, no telling. But he's been there. So I guarantee he's going to try and get it. But we'll see. I don't know.

We'll see. It's just fun. It's a weird race. But, you know, in large part, these types of claims and campaigns, I mean, regardless of whether it's about a so-called Islamic invasion or the border, people can talk about issues unrelated to their position over and over again in these campaigns. And whether or not it resonates is an entirely different question, but they try their harvest to find the issue that does resonate. And even if it does not apply to the position that they're seeking, it doesn't

necessarily matter because voters are either unaware or they just want somebody in that position or whether or not it relates to the policy issues they're talking about who agrees with them on those policy issues because it gives them some trust that maybe they'll make decisions in that office that align with their ideology. So, you know, we see this over and over again in campaign season, but no wording nonetheless. Yeah. Mary Lease. Oh, go ahead, Brad. I was saying it it has to work, right? And if it works, it looks like it looks like genius. Right. And we'll see if it does. Maybe it does. Totally. Absolutely. Mary Lease, coming to you last but not least. Well, the Olympics just made an announcement, which is interesting, that they are planning to ban all biological males from biological female sporting events, which was a hot topic during the, I believe it was the Summer Olympics recently, where there were some sporting events where folks were wondering if there were biological males participating in the biological female events.

but they said that they have found a quote scientific evidence of advantages to being born male so a very interesting statement coming from the Olympics committee but I think that this is timely because the Winter Olympics are coming up which is not to pivot that's extremely exciting

the Winter Olympics are I think they kick off in January late January so super thrilled about that I did not know that. And I'm so excited now. Yeah. And they'll be in the Olympics. Yeah. It's going to be so awesome. I'd forgotten. That's that soon. Wow. Yeah. That's so exciting. Exciting times. Yeah. Seriously. Well, folks, we appreciate you listening each and every week. I want to quickly remind you that we will be rolling out a Black Friday sale very, very soon. So keep an eye out for that. It's always an exciting time of year with our biggest discount offered for subscriptions. of the year. So certainly keep an eye out. We'll continue to let folks know what's going on there on social media via email, all of the above. So keep an eye out as we approach Black Friday and Thanksgiving week in general. It's going to be exciting. Thank you, all three of you

for joining the podcast today. I know Brad would say he's contractually obligated regardless. I appreciate the time. Cameron, you killed it. Seriously, go feel better. Mary Lisa is always good to be in the trenches with 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 the Texan. News.

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