The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 3, 2023

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Gonzales Flag t-shirt 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.  This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Gov. Greg Abbott expanding his special session call to include teacher pay and school fundingThe upcoming special election to replace an expelled representative from the now-vacant House District 2A federal judge’s restraining order preventing the federal government from cutting Texas’ border concertina wireThe Legislature passing a ban on employers mandating COVID-19 vaccines for employees and contractorsCongresswoman Kay Granger announcing she will not run for re-election next yearA poll showing how different political and racial groups across the state view school choiceAttorney General Ken Paxton’s felony securities fraud trial set for April 15, 2024A trial set for April 2024 in the Texas Medicaid fraud case against Planned ParenthoodContenders coming out to challenge Texas lawmakers in next year’s primary electionsA Texas senator opposed to a new Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife rule regarding captive deerOur interview with former president and current presidential candidate Donald TrumpAnd more. 

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLillo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup. This week, the team discusses Governor Greg Abbott expanding his special session call to include teacher pay and school funding. The upcoming special election to replace an expelled representative from a now-vacant House district. A federal judge's restraining order preventing the federal government from cutting Texas's border concertina wire. The legislature passing a ban on employers mandating COVID-19 vaccines for employees and contractors. Congresswoman Kay Granger announcing she will not run for re-election next year. A poll showing how different political and racial groups across the state view school choice. The Texas House being without a quorum for two days in a row this week. Attorney General Ken Paxton's felony securities fraud trial set for April 15, 2024.

A trial set in the Texas Medicaid fraud case against Planned Parenthood. Contenders coming out to challenge Texas lawmakers in next year's primary elections. A Texas senator opposed to a new Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife rule regarding captive deer. The Capitol Express Central Project to expand I-35 in downtown Austin and our interview with former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Matt, and Hayden. Brad, you had quite a day today.

Thursday's always going to be a busy day in the office for us, but you had a particularly interesting day. You know, there's a saying. There's three guarantees in life. Oh, Lord. Death, taxes, and Thursdays being absolute cluster. Why was it that way? And that's what held true today.

Why was it that way today? Well, you have this special session standoff. That's a thing that's ongoing, right? You have campaign announcements coming out left and right for sure so we're still waiting on today yeah yeah we'll see if when that potential yeah ones drop you know um so yeah that's pretty much it bradley just spill the beads uh i had a 15 minute phone interview with former President Donald Trump. And that was quite the thing. Yeah.

You say that so nonchalantly. I know. We just had a casual conversation with the former president. Just chatted with the former president of the United States. I kid you not, I almost vomited three times. During? No, no. God, no.

That would have made things complicated. He was entertaining during it. Yeah, it was awesome was awesome i mean he's there's a reason that he is so successful in the campaign trail after having no political career so vomiting because it was very

intense and etc yes yes it was for what it's worth you didn't seem that nervous this morning when you came in you seemed very organized and put together poker face have a good poker face. Well, that was not accurate. Well, we'll talk about it more later on, and that's what we'll spend a lot of our Twittery section. But folks, definitely go to the texan.news.

The article with the transcription of the interview is up. Lots of spice there. Talking about Ken Paxton, Dade Phelanan ron desantis the border texas politics at large potential endorsements his involvement in races in 2024 lots of stuff you just ran the whole game yeah we don't need to talk about it but i give no spoilers this is the no spoiler zone anyways make sure to go check that out folks at the texan.news and we'll talk about it a little bit more later but cameron we're gonna go ahead and jump into the news here and start with you. Governor Greg Abbott has continued to champion school choice amid disagreements between the House and the Senate. Tell us the latest

developments. Yeah, well, he had announced he was going to expand the third special session for universal school choice to include school finance, teacher pay raises, school safety, special education. And he had said this expansion of the third special session came after productive discussions with both the Lieutenant Governor and the House Speaker. But just recently, there was new comments from Brad Buckley, who is the chair in the House of the Public Education Committee. And during the floor session, this happened Wednesday, he cast a bit of some doubt on if school choice was going to pass at all this special session, third special session. He had said, it's too tight for the House to be able to move something in this special. The House has rules and we are up against the timeline, which is a bit odd because earlier in the day, Abbott had a press conference saying that there would be a bill coming from the House, and that bill

never came. And so Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, he then went on Twitter and lambasted the House for not getting school choice done and took shots at different people, which then followed with feeling with holding the house at ease. And that, again, upset some people. There was a letter that was penned by some individuals in the house, Tony Tenderholt, Steve Toth, Brian Harrison, Nate Schatzlein all signed on to this letter saying they're ready to get things done. So we're kind of in this limbo with school choice. It's not dead totally, but there doesn't seem to be any agreement between any of the big three in Texas politics right now. And we only have until Tuesday next week to get something

done. So we shall see. Absolutely. There you go. Well, Cameron, thank you for your coverage. Brad, coming to you next week, voters in House District 2 will decide on a successor to expelled Representative Brian Slayton. What is the race shaping up like? There are six candidates in the race. Jill Dutton, Brent Money, Heath Hyde, Doug Rossart, Krista Stroud, and the lone Democrat, Kristen Washington. The two frontrunners are Dutton and Money. Both have raised over six figures and have received a number of top-level endorsements.

The cage match has turned into quite the Texas political proxy war. Dutton is backed by Rick Perry, Lance Gooden, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a number of leadership-aligned House Republicans, Texas Alliance for Life. Money, meanwhile, is backed by Ted Cruz, Ken Paxton, some House Republicans that are on the politically right end of the caucus. Steve Toth has one. I think Nate Schatzlein's another. And Texas

Right to Life, which we have I did a back mic last year during the races and it's interesting to see the opposed endorsements in races, GOP races between Alliance for Life and Right to Life. So, again, they're on the opposite sides of this.

Additionally, Dutton's consultant is Murphy Nazca, and Money's is Axiom Strategies. Both are very prominent firms. Murphy Nazca is based in Texas. Axiom is based in Kansas City, but both are very active in the state. Murphy Naska also has House Speaker Dade Phelan as a client, while Axiom has Cruz and

Paxton as clients. These various upper-level feuds that we see playing out very much at play in this race itself trickling down, leading to competing endorsements between these two candidates. And it is because it is on the only one on the ballot, the only actual election between two individuals at the state level, it has received a ton of the focus of this

intra-party clash that we see playing out within the Texas GOP. Which direction does the party go? Well, both sides see this as an opportunity to move the ball closer to their end zone. Is there anybody else notable that's joined the fray in these campaigns? So the embattled conservative PAC defend Texas liberty and that'll because it is mired in the scandal over a meeting between anti-Semitic commentator, right wing gadfly, Nick Fuentes, and it's now former former president, the PAC's now former president, former rep Jonathan Stickland that is continuing to reverberate through Texas politics. But the PAC has come in on money's behalf, Brent money's behalf, sending out mailers.

And I believe I saw a digital ad as well. They donated 35K to his campaign in the latest period, which is over half of what he raised. So they're very much involved and they quite obviously prefer money to Dutton. And, you know, they want to prevent the leadership aligned house candidate from winning. You know, they're at war with Speaker Dave Phelan and this is why they're getting involved in this race. The district is an R 82% according to Texas Partisan

Index, which means unless something crazy happens, both of these candidates that eventually make the runoff, if someone doesn't eclipse 50%, they're going to be Republicans. However, Democrats are trying to coalesce behind one candidate while the rest of the field and the Republicans are split between five.

And so their strategy is to try and make the runoff with Washington coalescing behind her, not watering down their votes like might happen with Republicans. But most bets are that it'll be a runoff between Dutton and money. It's just a question of who finishes first and second in this initial primary. Absolutely. Bradley, thank you for your coverage. Hayden, we're coming to you. The state of Texas has ongoing litigation against the Biden administration over the destruction of concertina wire. What is the most recent development in the case? As we spoke about on a recent edition of the podcast, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a complaint against the Biden administration on account of its alleged destruction of concertina wire placed

by the Abbott administration to deter illegal immigration. In a surprising ruling, a U.S. District Judge, Alia Moses in Del Rio, issued a temporary restraining order agreeing with Attorney General Paxton and the state of Texas that the U.S. government should cease and desist the destruction of concertina wire pending a November 7 hearing on the merits of the state of Texas complaints. This is a preliminary measure Judge Moses has put in place in order to prevent further damage to the state's efforts against illegal immigration. The temporary restraining order lasts until November 13th or until a further order of the court. And as I mentioned, there will be a hearing on November 7th for both sides to argue whether there should be a preliminary injunction in the case. So a more permanent measure while the litigation plays out in the lawsuit.

What did Attorney General Ken Paxton and others have to say about this? Attorney General Paxton obviously was pleased with the decision. He said, quote, The federal government's outrageous escalation in response to our lawsuit demonstrates Biden's disturbing contempt for the state of Texas, for the citizens of the United States, and for our country's entire foundation of the rule of law. By acting quickly and monitoring their actions closely, we were able to secure a restraining order, and I am confident we will continue to prevail. End quote. Paxton alleged also that after this lawsuit was filed, the Department of Homeland Security escalated its efforts against Texas border security measures by even using a forklift to remove concertina wire that state authorities had placed there. State Senator Roland Gutierrez, however, also weighed in. He's one of the Democratic candidates in the primary for a U.S. Senate. He said, quote, this ruling is a mistake and will not hold up on

appeal. The United States should be able to remove the razor wire at the border unimpeded. Barbed wire and endless litigation are not solutions to our immigration issues. Women and children are dying at the border. Every day this razor wire is up, our border patrol agents are in even more danger. Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott know, and they just don't care because this is a political stunt and nothing else." This is, of course, following up on prior allegations that the Abbott administration has denied that DPS troopers and National Guardsmen were more or less tolerating or even causing the abuse of foreign nationals who were trying to cross the border. Those allegations were denied, but Democrats such as Senator Gutierrez have continued to follow up on those allegations. Absolutely. Thank you, Hayden, for your coverage.

Matt, you've had a busy week watching some of your beats here in the legislature, and most recently, legislation banning COVID vaccine mandates by private employers has passed the final legislative hurdle after being amended in the House. What will the bill do once it becomes law? So we've previously reported on Senate Bill 7 by Senator Mays Middleton every step of the way through the legislative process for the special session. And now it's on the homestretch to become law once it's signed by Governor Greg Abbott. The legislation prohibits private employers from requiring employees take the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment. And additionally, it prohibits them from taking an adverse action against an employee. So let's

say they're questioned regarding whether they are vaccinated or not, and they say no, and the employer does something to punish them for that short of firing them. That would be prohibited under the statute. The enforcement mechanism in the bill uses an indirect method as opposed to a direct method such as a civil cause of action that would allow an employee to file a lawsuit to enforce it. So under the bill, an employee may file a complaint with the Texas Workforce Commission, who then conducts an investigation. And if they find an employer violated the act, they're required to give them an opportunity to become compliant. If the employer refuses to comply, then the Workforce Commission may levy a fine. If they still do not stop, the most extreme action the Texas Workforce Commission can take is to ask the Attorney

General's Office to go to a court and obtain an injunction stopping the employer's violation of the act. So talk to us about the change up with the fine in the bill. increasing that fine to $50,000. Originally, Representative Jeff Leach, who was the House sponsor of the legislation, didn't think that amendment would be supported by the Senate author, Maize Middleton. However, Representative Brian Harrison told Leach on the floor that he had just talked to Middleton and he got the okay to increase the fine. With that amendment added on, there was a rumor started that the Senate would not concur with the bill and that they would strip the $50,000 amendment out in conference committee. But that proved untrue this week with Middleton moving to concur with the House amendment and the bill passed the final legislative stage. With that, the bill heads to Governor Greg Abbott's desk, where once it's signed, it will go into effect to state law on February 7th, 2024.

Pretty wild stuff. Real fast, Matt, tell us the difference between this and the vaccine mandate bill that was passed during the regular session. A lot of folks seem to be a little confused about why we're talking about this issue. Yeah, so Senate Bill 29 was by Senator Brian Birdwell, and it prohibited a variety of things, mask mandates, et cetera, et cetera, including a COVID-19 vaccine mandate by governmental agencies and local governments. So a governmental college would be prohibited from requiring vaccines as well as a school district or city government, et cetera, et cetera. But that bill stopped short of including some other things such as private employers. And during

the summer, we saw people like Representative Brian Harrison and some different doctors who are medical freedom advocates, you know, pointing to companies such as Baylor Medical requiring other employees be vaccinated with the COVID vaccine or face termination, which was something you saw, you know, heavily during the actual pandemic, but has continued to linger on. So that's in turn provoked, you know, a lot of advocacy from, you know, medical freedom activists saying, you know, the state needs to address this once and for all more comprehensively. And kind of a testament to how loud those voices got, you know, it got that governor to add it back on to the special session call. So, and for those that don't understand my point, you have to have a lot of clout behind something to get the governor's attention and get him to add it on an agenda.

So it's something a lot of people wanted. Well, we all knew that school choice would be added to a special session. That's the governor's big issue. He's been spending a lot of the year and even prior to the session last year talking about, but it was really the question of, okay, what else will he add? And so vaccine mandate ban in this capacity being added was a big deal. It was, you know, we were all watching, wondering, you know, what is the governor's office experience, you know, experiencing input wise, you know, on this? Because, you know, you look on social media, et cetera, et cetera. It looked like it was it was allowed in a lot of people.

And I think that was kind of a verification that they were probably getting their phones burned up over it. Certainly. Thank you, Matt. Bradley, coming to you. Longtime Congresswoman Kay Granger of Fort Worth made a big announcement this week. What'd she have to say? Granger, who's been in Congress for 26 years,

announced she won't seek reelection in 2024. She said in a statement announcing the decision as the first female mayor of Fort Worth, first Republican U.S. congresswoman from Texas, and the first female Republican appropriations chair, I've been able to accomplish more in this life than I could have imagined. And I owe it all to my incredible family, staff, friends, and supporters. As I announced my decision to not seek re-election. I'm encouraged by the next generation of leaders in my district. It's time for the next generation to step up and take the mantle and be a strong and fierce representative for the people.

What does this mean for next year's race? So Paxton ally John O'Shea has already been in the race as a primary opponent to Granger before she made this decision and he remains in the race other potential candidates neither of which have made any kind of decision yet on

this they include Chris Putnam who lost to Granger in I think it was 2020. Right. The primary there had a sizable campaign, raised a lot of money. He lost by I think it was like 18 percent, but it was a lot closer than any previous primary challenge against her had been. And then the other name that's kind of been floating around is state rep Craig Goldman. And Goldman has been in the house for state house for a decade, maybe slightly more. And he put out a statement thanking Granger for her service, calling her basically a titan of Texas politics, specifically naming how she managed to get the F-35, I think, to be produced in Fort Worth.

And he said, you know, we look forward to welcoming you back home full time and left it at that. So no official announcement there, although there are rumblings about that. But so far, nobody else. Yeah, there you go, Bradley. Thank you. Cameron, let's chat school choice again. A new poll on the issue came out this week and it was quite comprehensive. Can you break down some of the numbers? Yeah, absolutely. There's been a lot of school choice news and it keeps coming. It keeps coming. And so this new poll was a joint poll from University of Houston Hobby School. We've seen a lot of polls from them before. This was done in conjunction with Texas Southern

University. And they asked about a number of different issues related to school choice. And they broke down the demographics to quite a granular level. And so it kind of gave a different sort of insight into how the public feels here in Texas about school choice. So when it comes to giving all parents, all parents tax funded vouchers, they labeled school choice vouchers in this poll. There's another way to describe school choice as education savings accounts. They use the term vouchers. So I'll be using that. They asked the question, all parents tax funded vouchers they can use to help pay for their

children to attend private or religious schools. 47% supported that policy while just 28% were opposed. As for providing vouchers to just low-income parents, it jumped again to 49% expressed support and just 27% were opposed to that proposition. And so, like I said, there was a comprehensive breakdown of respondents along race and ethnicity, and it shows Black Texans greatly support school choice policies, even when it was aggregated for partisanship. So they broke it down by race and ethnicity and if they were Republican or Democrat. And so black Republicans reported a super majority, that's what the poll said, of support for school voucher policies for all parents at 79% and 59% of Latino Republicans

support the same. Black Democrats supported vouchers for low-income families at 57% with just 16% opposed, while 43% of white Democrats opposed vouchers for low-income parents. And again, one last stat here for you, black Democrats supported vouchers for low-income families at 57%, with just 16% opposed, while 43% of white Democrats opposed vouchers for low-income parents. So the racial and ethnicity breakdown shows quite a contrast that both Black Republicans and Black Democrats are supportive of vouchers in some capacity, either it be 57% of Black Democrats and the super majority of Black Republicans supporting, but white Democrats are opposed to vouchers in majority

of these cases. I thought that was very interesting that came out of this poll. And so this came out the same week as the story we talked about at the top of the podcast. So hasn't moved many minds at the Capitol, but it's still very interesting to see that the public wants school choice. Now it's just up to the legislators to do it. Yeah, there you go, Cameron. Thank you so much. Brad, let's talk about the legislature and kind of the drama that happened this week. Give us a brief rundown of just this week in general in the legislature.

So the first two days of the week, there was, stop me if you've heard this before, no quorum in the Texas House. I know, right? So they gaveled in on Monday and there was clearly not a quorum, but they all registered in and it showed a quorum. Members voted for other members who weren't there. This is common practice.

It happens a lot. I thought it was ghosts. Maybe it was that too. It's possible. Um, but then when they got to a motion by representative Charlie Guerin to allow committees to meet fairly standard, not really,

it's not, it's not legislation, right? It's not a bill that was on the floor. Uh when that happened to Democratic members, one of them was Anna Maria Ramos called for strict enforcement, which means no voting for yeah um and so when that happened showed no quorum the motion failed and no other business could be taken up so they basically had to adjourn until the next day when they got there the next day there was also no quorum this was halloween and so the there was a house house Republicans held a presser. They announced there that the governor had expanded the call of the special

to include teacher pay raises and school choice funding increase. Well, that was, that was announced at the press conference at which they were lambasting their democratic colleagues, especially for not showing up. And the numbers, you need 100 in the House for a quorum. There were 21, I think, Republicans absent. So it wasn't just Democrats, but there were 51 Democrats absent, and that is enough to

prevent a quorum. So there was fighting back and forth about who's responsible for this. Well, there are Republicans absent too. This is Democrats being absent and causing the quorum not to be had. Ultimately, if those 51 Democrats had showed up, there would have been a quorum. If those 21 Republicans had showed up, there still would not have been a quorum. Fast forward to Wednesday. And in the meantime, the two chambers are feuding over school choice legislation. On Wednesday, the governor says, oh, I think you mentioned earlier, the governor said, we have a deal. Turns out there was no deal. We get to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, and the House gavels in. There is a quorum, though. But the speaker says we are going to stand at ease until Monday or Tuesday.

And I'll let you guys know 24 hours in advance. Before then, we were waiting on movement of bills in the Senate. And so what started with this week as a standoff just continued to be. And at this moment continues to be, uh, the Lieutenant governor has since replied to feeling and basically said, this is all the house's fault. Um, you know, as per usual with this ongoing feud between the two.

So, um, where does that leave us? School choice is dead, at least at the moment, unless something crazy happens. And now the HP four border bill is very much up in the air, whether that can pass or not. And Lieutenant Governor just put out a statement saying it's not strong enough.

I think the term he used was just glorified catch and release. So the House obviously views their bill as substantial enough and strong enough. It has removal language where the state officers can take member or take illegal immigrants they catch back to ports of entry. But ultimately, is this going to pass? I have no idea. And nobody knows which that part may have may have been removed from the committee substitute, which is why the House did feel in the House, did its maneuver to basically say, fix this. Which, by the way, if I may, a lot of these parliamentary maneuvers and motions, I think it's gotten lost to that. All of these things have legitimate principles behind them.

A quorum is designed to ensure that a small group of people are not making decisions for the whole state. Points of order are legitimately designed to make sure that the House's rules are followed. A lot of these parliamentary procedures have been commandeered to manipulate policy, but because the public is generally not very aware of parliamentary procedure or the rules of order of the Texas House, it can seem on its face that these are all little tricks that were buried in the rules manual so that the minority could manipulate policy. And that's not the purpose of these rules. They can be used that way and they can have that effect.

But things like quorum busts, they are clearly becoming more part of the lexicon and more part of the political dynamic because of what happened a couple of years ago in 2021 and what happened in 2003. But a quorum is intended to make sure that the business of the public happens with enough representation in the legislature there. It's not designed for the minority, whether that's 20 Republicans or 51 Democrats, to manipulate policy outcomes. And then there's a big difference between the two chambers and how they operate. In the Senate, they have a super majority.

They suspend rules all the time. They move very fast. The House, you need 100 members. Republicans do not have that. And so you cannot operate like the Senate does in the House. It just constitutionally does not work that way. And so you see this dichotomy between the two and it turns into this political fight.

But it's just a reality that can't be gotten around. And unless Republicans take, what is it, 15 more seats in the House which that would be very difficult which is the way maps are drawn right now and so um yeah i mean that's it's the way it is it's there's no getting around it and worth noting too that the reason hearing the word quorum bust makes us a little bit nervous in texas is because two years ago like like Hayden mentioned in 2021, the Democrats not only busted corn, but they fled to D.C. over an election integrity bill. And that was national news for many weeks as we waited time and time again for Democrats to return to Texas and begin legislating again. They had a severe apprehension about the bill that Republicans

were pushing for election integrity post 2020. So it was some Democrats stayed, most went to D.C. and elsewhere to break quorum. And that was very coordinated. This was less so. But it made everybody nervous because we hear

quorum problems and we're like, what's going on? Yeah, I mean, I think it's largely chalked up to members who don't want anything else to pass just not showing up but also having an excuse given the holiday the halloween holiday being there with family for trick-or-treating although there were many members that were here so um it was while it still was a lack of quorum it was not what we saw in 21 um although kind of had the same effect, at least for two days. And again, part of being a state representative or a state senator is when the governor calls a special session, there is an obligation to come to Austin and show up for

the policy discussion. So it may be kind of like last week with Representative Harris making the motion to limit a debate. It may be unusual to have a special session right before Thanksgiving, but it's valid for the governor to do that. And there is a constitutional obligation for members, Republican or Democrat, to show up for that session. And I just want to throw in that, like, whenever you raise your hand and say, you know, I want to run for the legislature, you're agreeing to be subject to a special rule where you can be compelled to be there. You do not have a choice unless the body allows you not to be present. And to enforce that, you know, the head of a chamber can issue an arrest warrant and have any sheriff or constable or peace officer in the state literally force you to the chamber and stick you in the chair and make you be there.

And we saw, you know, the speaker feel and issue arrest warrants for the first time I've ever seen in a quorum bust last time. And now this session, they had a change in the rules where if you do a quorum bust you can be fined what is it five hundred dollars a day yeah something around there yeah so pretty pretty serious they're pretty um pretty serious uh you know financial penalty there if you don't show up today or to do your job plus you know the the speaker can have you arrested. So, yeah, it's it's it's interesting, you know, whenever you say you want to do that job, it's it's you got to be there. Absolutely. And when Hayden was talking about house rules and their intent, it's also worth noting that the house rules can also be altered if there is a quorum bus. They

can add things to the rules to prevent certain things from happening in the future. So worth noting as well. It's a mess. That'll sum it up for you. Amen. Brad, thanks for your coverage. And gentlemen, thank you all for piping in. Hayden, we're coming to you. The attorney general is still facing a very perilous road ahead as he is prosecuted on securities fraud charges.

What are the latest developments in his court case? Attorney General Ken Paxton appeared in a Houston courtroom this week to move forward with criminal charges against him on securities fraud charges. The state district judge in the case, Andrea Beal, set the trial date for April 15, 2024, which happens to be tax day, interestingly enough. The criminal charges will be almost a decade old by then. Paxton was indicted back in 2015 on charges that he misled investors and failed to register as a securities advisor when he sold stock for a startup tech company in 2011. There was an SEC complaint and he did in fact pay a fine to the state securities board. I believe the fine was a thousand dollars after he did admit to wrongdoing. He didn't necessarily admit to criminal wrongdoing, but securities fraud in Texas is a first degree felony. If the amount

in question is more than a hundred thousand dollars, he's facing two counts of that first degree felony charge. And then a third degree felony count of failing to register as a securities advisor. This case has been in the courts for years. And as I'll cover in a second, there have been delays, but it's hard to point to one party and place the blame for the delays. One report we saw this morning was that the judge agreed with the special prosecutor in the case that they should be paid by Collin County authorities for their work on the case. And that has been a major part of the delay is the dispute over the compensation of the special prosecutors. So talk to us about the reality of whether or not the attorney general could go to prison over this. Yes, he could go to prison.

First-degree felonies in Texas are punishable by up to 99 years in prison or life in prison. He could also face up to a $10,000 fine. I did, however, speak to a criminal defense attorney based in Fort Worth. Benson Varghese has plenty of experience defending defendants in criminal cases. He explained to me that it is highly extraordinary for someone in Paxton's position to go to prison. People generally in white collar crime accusations don't have any criminal records. There's also the reality that if the sentence is 10 years or less than 10 years in prison, the judge could choose to probate the sentence. And again, white collar defendants usually don't have criminal history. So while this is a first degree felony case, that is a broad category taking into account all of Paxton's circumstances.

The judge in this case might not choose to impose a prison sentence. It is notable that this is being tried in Harris County. The district judge here is a Democrat and a Biden supporter. It's unclear how much hay Paxton supporters will make of that, but a huge part of the quibbling in this case was over where Paxton should be tried. And the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas ultimately decided that Paxton should be tried in Harris County as opposed to his stomping grounds in Collin County, where he likely would have faced a more favorable jury.

Harris County has been portrayed as a more middle-of-the-road territory for this trial to take place. Obviously, the electorate in Harris County is Democrat-leaning, and that could potentially be used to show political bias in this trial, which is an argument that Paxton has made. But on the other hand, the special prosecutors in this case said that it would be way too favorable to try him in Collin County where his wife is an elected senator and where he has a lot of name recognition and political history. So here in five months or so, five or six months, we will know whether Attorney General Paxton will be able to put this case behind him or if he may have to sustain a criminal sanction for securities

fraud. Absolutely. Hayden, thank you so much. Cameron, coming to you, a trial date has been set for a Medicaid fraud case involving Planned Parenthood. Give us some of the details. Yeah. So this case involves U.S. District Judge Matthew Kazmarek, and he's involved in a lot of high-profile cases here in Texas. This Medicaid fraud case, he was involved in the Mifeprestone lawsuit. He was involved in the ESG case. Well, he set a trial date in a Medicaid fraud case involving Planned Parenthood. Reuters actually reported that the order is actually now sealed. And I checked and yes, the order was all blacked out. So Reuters actually found the order before it was sealed. I got a chance to track it down, and yes, it was all blacked out, darked out. And Kazmarek found that the organization Planned Parenthood is obligated to return certain funds to both Texas and Louisiana. He did not rule

in this order the exact amount or that if Planned Parenthood knowingly broke the law, because that's what it comes down to. Did Planned Parenthood knowingly break the law? And the exact amount they might have to return is quite staggering. It could be up to or more than $1.8 billion in fines and penalties and repayments. And one outlet, Vox, if everyone listening is familiar with Vox, they said that large sum of money would be more than enough to bankrupt Planned Parenthood, not just here in Texas, but across the entire country and their national organization. So this is a very big case. And this, again, comes down to it actually originated in 2022 with the attorney general's office on behalf of an anonymous realtor who is alleging that despite the organization being removed from Medicaid, they continued receiving payments. So the trial is set for April next year, and we will see. This is a lot of money and a high-profile organization, Planned Parenthood, across the country, especially here in Texas. So it'll be interesting to follow. We'll keep an eye on it. Absolutely.

Bradley, coming to you, next year's primary field is starting to take shape. It seems like it's we're starting late here with all of the special sessions and attention has not really turned to the primary, but it's beginning to. What are some notable challenges you're keeping an eye on? So primaries, of course, always happen in both parties. But two factors that are driving primaries in the Republican Party this coming year are the Paxton impeachment and school choice of the 24 House members who voted for the Herrera Amendment, which would have prohibited state dollars in the budget from being used for a school voucher program.

It doesn't have at least one primary challenger so far. Among those include, I think, Ernest Bales, who is very outspoken against school choice, school voucher program. He has a couple. There's Glenn Rogers, who won very narrowly in 2022. He faces the same challenger, Mike Olcott, and then another one, Brandon Hall, I believe. But that's going to be a race to watch both on school choice

because he has been a very outspoken opponent, just like Bales. And also like Bales, they both voted for the Paxton impeachment. So we'll see how that shakes out. There are 60 Republicans overall who voted for impeachment and both sides of the GOP feud over that for and against impeachment are rearing to either flip seats or preserve the ones they have. You know, the speaker is going to be, I'm sure, very involved in protecting its membership. There are going to be some very high-profile races,

such as freshman rep Karanda Timesh facing her former campaign treasurer, Mitch Little, who was one of the Paxton defense attorneys during the impeachment. That's going to be a massive race. Another one you got that is explicitly about the impeachment is another freshman representative, Ellen Truxclare in Lakeway, whose district stretches all the way over to Fredericksburg. It has competition from former state rep Kyle Biederman,

who launched his challenge to her specifically because of the Paxton impeachment vote. So there's a lot still in flux. There's people that are thinking about running. I talked to a guy out in Lufkin yesterday who is floating, quote, floating the thoughts of challenging Trent Ashby, who's been in the House for a while. He's also, I believe, one of the 24 who voted for the Herrera Amendment. He also voted for the Paxton impeachment. So there's a lot shaping up. And obviously, the Speaker's race is a big one.

Can the Speaker fend off the most prominent challenger he's had to date in his time in the House? That's from David Covey. We act in the Trump interview that we mentioned earlier up top. Uh, I asked Trump if he was planning on, um, vote supporting the feelings, primary opponent.

And he didn't know who was running. But once I said who it was, he goes, you know, David, get ready or something like that. Like, well, tell David to get ready. Tell David to get ready. And so that sounds like it's it's happening, at least now. You know, like who knows if he actually falls through on that.

But that's going to be a massive one to watch, given everything that has happened. So and I think one more point, the X factor is going to be how much Abbott, Governor Abbott wants to get involved in over school choice, especially. He said, you know, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way was passing it during one or a couple special sessions. The hard way is passing it next regular session after primaries. So he has a massive war chest and we'll see if he uses it. Absolutely. Thank you, Brad.

Matt, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is coming under fire from both deer breeders and a state lawmaker over its handling of chronic wasting disease. Talk to us about this story. In reporting on this story, I had to study up on exactly what chronic wasting disease is so that our readers can better understand what's at issue. Chronic wasting disease, or CWD, is unlike other diseases that most of us are familiar with that are caused by viruses or bacteria. Instead, it's caused by a protein whose regular job it is to regulate communications between brain cells and how they function or act primarily with the nervous system in the brain. It is unknown how, but these proteins, some of them can somehow become misfolded, which at that point, it's known as a prion. These prions can then make other proteins

become misfolded, thus illustrating the contagious nature of it. The prions can spread through the blood, saliva, urine, feces, et cetera, and can survive outside the body. In fact, once introduced into the environment, they can linger in waterways and the soil. I've even read that they can make their way into actual vegetation that the deers later eat and then get CWD. So in short, it's a very difficult disease to control. It's along the same lines as something you're probably more familiar with, mad cow disease. If you remember back in the day, that was a big thing. It's a prion-based disease. So Texas Parks and Wildlife has adopted two different ways to contain the

spread of chronic wasting disease. The first is for free-ranging deer, which requires monitoring, and when one is found positive, free testing in the areas where the deer tests positive to try and control the movement of it. The other is for deer raised in captivity by deer breeders, which is an equally large industry. The problem begins with the later plan where deer breeders say parks and wildlife rules are not based on science and it benefits the competitive open range deer ranches while practically destroying their industry. In short, anytime a deer tests positive at a deer breeding facility and think of a deer feeding facility as a normal ranch, but with like pens and et cetera, where these deer are raised, or even at one of its associated facilities, Parks and Wildlife will issue a kill order requiring the entire herd to be killed and then tested post-mortem at the owner's expense, which is expensive in addition to the value

of the deer. Some of these deer, which tested negative while alive for chronic wasting disease, are easily worth up to $50,000 each. Yet the owners will be forced to kill them by Parks and Wildlife even while they are testing free just because another deer at their facility tested positive. One instance in McLennan County where this happened, there was a deer breeding facility owned by two men that say Texas Parks and Wildlife issued a kill order on all of their 29 deer that was valued at around $1 million. Even though they tested negative for CWD, the men filed a lawsuit against the agency and won

a court order injunction prohibiting the department from killing the deer for now. But now the department wants to expand their existing rules on chronic wasting disease in captive facilities in a way that State Senator Bob Hall says is draconian and indicates that there's corruption at the department, suggesting that open range ranchers on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Board are using their regulatory power to harm their competitors. The rule being proposed in the Texas Register allowed public comment on up until November 1st. We're now past that deadline. So we'll keep an eye out on what happens with the rule, whether or not it is incorporated in the Texas Register, what happens with the ongoing lawsuit, and also what happens with the controversy as it continues to unfold.

Absolutely. Thank you, Matt. Cameron, Texas's population boom and economic growth has created a necessity for improving transportation. Tell us what they plan to do with I-35. Yeah. So Texas Department of Transportation, they approved a $4.5 billion Capital Express Central project where they plan to build four additional lanes to the I-35 in downtown Austin. But there's been some pushback. Early, there was support by the Austin Chamber of Commerce, but later we've seen Austin City Council be more skeptical. They passed a resolution asking for a postponement of the project so there could be additional environmental studies, but to no avail.

The project is going to move forward, and they should begin construction, uh, as early as next year. There you go, Cameron. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, this is the part of the day where we talk about the Trump interview a little bit, um, walk through a little bit of what happened.

Each of y'all posted a portion of the interview you found to be particularly spicy. So Hayden, I'm going to start with you. What portion of the interview, um, between Brad and the former president did you find to be pretty spicy or noteworthy? Naturally, he touched on border security and talked about the contribution that Texas has sought to make to deterring illegal immigration. He said, quote, they ought to be suing the federal government for the kinds of costs that they're bearing. It's ridiculous for Texas, and I wouldn't be very happy about it if I were a Texas resident or taxpayer, end quote.

Trump's primary issue has probably been border security since he came down the escalator in 2015 and started promising to build the border wall. That and China are probably his two big things that he's been harping on since 2015. But his perspective here that Texas taxpayers are the ones bearing the brunt for the border crisis is probably a nod to a pretty major base of support of his. He's clearly leading the polls in Texas Republican primary voters. It's not even close. And Texas is the most populated state that voted for him in both his original election and his reelection bid. It's a large, um,

treasure chest of electoral votes for him. And I wouldn't call it a swing state at this, at this moment, it might be, uh, by the time November comes around next year, who knows, but, um, I just thought it was interesting that Trump seems to be empathizing with Texas taxpayers on the border security front. Absolutely. Matt, what about you? What did you find particularly notable from the interview? Well, Trump had mentioned the Paxton impeachment. Brad touched on that a little bit, but there was one particular quote in there that where he just saying Paxton's praises saying he's done a great job as attorney general. He said he thought it was very unfair what happened to him and give the comparison that, you know, it happens to me, you know, Trump being impeached twice by the U S house of

representatives. Uh, so any, so he said, I, so I understand it better than most. So, yeah, absolutely. Um it better than most. Yeah, absolutely. Cameron, what about you? Well, at one point they were talking about all sorts of different polling. And Brad asked him about DeSantis. And Trump compared him to a wounded bird falling from the sky. Not literally, but his poll numbers. But I just thought it was funny.

You know, they continue to go back and forth at each other. And the polling as of recently has shown Trump way ahead of every other candidate. No one's really even close. So yeah, I just thought that was funny. That comparison. Yeah. And in that section, I referenced a post midterm poll that came out just after the 2022 midterms. It actually, they did have a DeSantis up 11 points on Donald Trump. And that was big news at the time. When I asked the president about it,

he said, well, I heard about that. And that's a Democrat poll. Oddly enough, that poll is commissioned by the texas republican party uh cws research i believe is the one that did the poll and they've uh you know been doing a lot for that kind of wing of the of the gop uh especially especially focusing on primaries. But yeah, that was pretty funny. Another little aspect of it that just kind of makes it fun and very Trump is he said,

you know, Republicans have to start eating their own or young or something like that. And they have to stop it and they have to unify. And then he beat up on a few Republicans. So yeah, it certainly was part of the case. And he didn't have, you know, any love lost with the Speaker of the House. Went after the Speaker sizably. It's a huge portion of the interview. Yeah.

Like you mentioned, said David Covey, get ready, whatever that means. So we'll keep an eye out for that. See if he follows through on it. Absolutely. Overall, it was it was interesting. Yeah. Never been in a situation like that before, but it was cool. Hearing the former president jump on the phone and say, hey, Brad, was wild.

Yeah. That was wild. Super wild. But well done. And folks, remember to go to the text.news and check it out. Okay, Matt, let's go ahead and talk about, or actually, Brad, we're going to go to you. World Series. Real fast.

We can't go any further without talking about the Rangers. This was, it finished four to one, I i think was the final tally on the games but it was such a good series and if you watch the alcs that was amazing as well that went seven games but the texas rangers have finally beaten the um or finally won the World Series. They beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in, like I said, I think it was five games. But this last game, when they clinched it on Wednesday night, the Diamondbacks were thrown a no-hitter

into the seventh inning. I saw, I think it was John Moritz, who's with USA Today in Texas. He tweeted in the fifth inning, this is the most lopsided 0-0 game I've ever seen. And it was accurate. The Rangers were loading up the bases and balls were being hit to the wall, but not quite over it.

And the Diamondbacks didn't quite get a run. And then the Rangers managed to break through in the seventh inning and scored a few more in the following two innings. But yeah, congrats to them. It's a massive victory. And I am still not over what happened in 2011 when the Rangers knocked the Detroit Tigers out. Thanks to Nelson Cruz hitting a bomb. And I think that was game seven. And that was one of the best teams

that I've ever seen talking about the Tigers and they managed to beat us. No, they didn't win the World Series, but yeah, that still stings. I thought you were a Dodgers fan. You do this every time. Every time. I have just as much fun every time.

Death taxes and you making that stupid joke. It's a good joke. So they can finally join the Astros as World Series winners. That's true. That's fair. Matt, speaking of Matt, hunting season. Give us a quick preview of your piece

that's coming out. So yeah, we have a piece coming out I guess tomorrow? Friday? Yeah, tomorrow. So our listeners should be able to enjoy it once so saturday the big hunting season of the year opens in texas white tail deer season being a avid hunter myself it's one of the things i love working at the texan is i get to write about all fun things outdoors so a couple of big seasons opening up right around in here. As a matter of fact,

another one that some people get to have found or discovered the joy of it is sandhill crane hunting. Great big bird that migrates south. And a lot of people hunt them in West Texas and that sort of stuff, but they call them the ribeye of the sky because the the meat on this bird literally looks like two ribeye steaks wow yeah i had no idea they're very good so that one's that one's kind of a fun one and then you have you know a fall turkey season now and some quail season opening up and there's going to be a second dove season open up in uh mid-december so uh yeah and uh some good news for all my fellow outdoorsmen. You know, we've had some good cold weather across the state. Really sets the conditions just right for having an opening season.

So, yeah, everybody be safe. Have a good season. Oh, and Parks and Wildlife's predicting strong white-tailed deer populations across the state. So, yeah, plenty of game population to fill your freezers with. It's supposed to be cold until it's no longer cold before it heats back up again. Texas weather, you just don't know. That's what Texas is going to do, what Texas is going to do. That's exactly right.

Well, what a week. World Series champs, Texas Rangers, hunting season opening up, interviews with the former president. We didn't talk about Halloween. We didn't even talk about Halloween. Cameron, did you dress up for Halloween? No. Okay. I didn't either. I had no trick-or about Halloween Cameron did you dress up for Halloween? No I didn't either I had no trick or treaters come to my house

Somebody brought some Halloween candy to the office It was Rob's fault It is delightful though I act as though I'm angry about it Which I am but I'm not Well there was a big kerfuffle Let's say in the office about whoppers And things yesterday.

Maybe we'll talk about that in Texan After Hours podcast, if you ever put that out. I must have missed that argument. Remember when I was really mean to Kit Kats? Were you here for that? I think sometimes I space out when things hit a certain volume and there's fighting. I just kind of zone out. And so I lose the thread back to the substance of the argument. Well, that's fine.

This was very meaningless. And then I film the tell end of it and post it in Slack so that our contract writers and others who are not in the office can see it. Yeah. We have some interesting videos on our Slack slack but that's neither here nor there basically i made the statement that kit cats are not good and then it elicited some very strong reactions from folks in the office which i understand well that is an incorrect opinion so it would elicit strong reactions and i understand if you like the texture of kit kats more than whoppers but the

quality of the chocolate like i had not had a kit kat in a long like years probably and i had one yesterday and was just unbelievably disappointed with the quality of the chocolate which tasted like oil to me oh yeah so maybe i had a one-off kit kat there's something wrong with you you know a lot of these like hurt like the american chocolate just made from like oil and stuff right no i didn't but i have never eaten a kit kat and thought oh this tastes like oil well there's a do you mean oily chocolate avoid a very specific difference do you think they're cutting the chocolate down i actually they're cutting something into the chocolate i actually do yes what Yes. What do you think it is?

I don't necessarily think that, but if you look at the ingredients. Yeah. Which is funny because somebody had a Kit Kat wrapper in here. I'm telling you, like the quality of a lot of chocolate from these major, like Hershey's basically. Hershey's and its subsidiaries. It's not as quality as other chocolates. Subsidiaries.

It has a lot of subsidiaries. It does. Have you ever seen how chocolate's made i have it starts out as like this gross alien like pod thing yeah like really gross like weird and they make it and like these little you can't let them ferment too much because in the mold it's like a whole thing yeah it's so strange yeah it's so strange the way it starts out like so repulsive and then it turns into wonderful chocolate it's true it's very true well and if any listeners agree or disagree with our chocolate takes specifically mine because i know they're pretty bombastic then feel free to write in i

don't know why but i had this thought that you know like like i guess whenever i was young that like chocolate was a european thing and that's of stuff but it's a tropical fruit yeah totally that's a great point so the europeans just mastered it yeah we'll say so to speak european chocolate's very good so much for talking about this on the after hours podcast it just started well folks we so appreciate you listening what a packed week we have had and we will catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag

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