The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 7, 2025

Episode Date: November 7, 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.Election Day Arrives in Texas with Special Elections, Constitutional Amendments, Bond Proposals on BallotAll 17 Texas Constitutional Amendments Pass, Including Bail Reform, Water Fund, Tax Exemptions‘This is a Blowout Victory’: Austin Voters Stamp Out Tax and Spending IncreasePro-Casino, Anti-Gambling Interests Go All In on Texas Senate Special ElectionWambsganss, Rehmet Head to Runoff in Texas Senate District 9 Special ElectionAmanda Edwards, Christian Menefee Head to Runoff in Houston Congressional District Special ElectionBexar County Voters Approve Venue Tax Raise for New San Antonio Spurs Downtown ArenaCruz Calls for Federal Judge Boasberg's Impeachment Over FBI 'Arctic Frost' InvestigationBell County Treasurer Candidate Promises to Eliminate Office, Following Galveston CountyNew York Judge Dismisses Paxton Legal Challenge Against Abortion Pill DoctorSinaloa Cartel ‘Boss’ Captured in Mexico by Federal Task Forces in Collaboration with Texas DPSand more!

Howdy folks, it's McKenzie here with Mary Lease, Brad, and Cameron and Winston. We got a full house this week. It's great to be back because my first podcast post-internity leave. And if I understood Brad and Cameron's pre-podcast banter last week, I have a lot to live up to. I need to really get this down, not be rusty, make sure I can string a sentence together. And there were a myriad of baseball related, no, not puns. They were like metaphors. I don't even know how to describe what you guys were saying last week.

But regardless, I'm excited to be back with you guys, full-kind, back in the saddle. And thanks for having me back. Thanks for not kicking me out. Welcome. Welcome. We hopefully left this place for you better than you left it for us. But I guess it's true to still have on that. Got it. Well, I'll have to do an audit when I circle back.

My goal was to leave it in shambles, so I hope that that was accomplished. Definitely. I have to say personally, I'm very grateful to have you back on the podcast, and I'll be the only woman on this. It's just, it's great to have you back. What is the plight? Explain the plight of being the only woman on this podcast, Mary Least, please. Well, you mentioned all of the baseball references, and that's kind of an isolating feeling. with all of the jokes kind of back and forth between Brad and Cameron that I don't get. It's definitely entertaining, but it's good to have you back to that.

Mary Lees, have you thought about being better? Brad, you just interrupted a woman. I hope that that is very clear to the audience that Brad just interrupted a woman. To be fair, it is virtual, so we're oftentimes talking over each other, I think. No, Mary Lees, no. He interrupted you. He knew what he was doing. You're being too kind.

That's true. You know, being the only woman. on this podcast is not for the being of her. I'm glad you feel that way. Yep. That we can be back in cahoots with each other. For sure. Well, it's a solid week to be back for many reasons, but the foremost of which is certainly

that it was an election week. Big, big day here at the Texan, big week for those all over the state heading to the ballot box. We could talk, turn out all day long and say not in many turned out as in so many other elections, regardless, it is still a very big deal. So let's chat through. our takeaways. Mary Lees, you kind of wrote an overarching rundown of what exactly was on the ballot. Why don't you run through your piece and then gentlemen, I'll pivot to y'all for some takeaways. Yeah, so I wrote up a piece just kind of saying, you know, what's on the ballot for Texans?

Of course, depending on where you live, there were a couple different local elections. There were two special elections, which will cover more in depth, but it was Senate District 9 and then Congressional District 18, which was replacing the late Congressman Sebastian, Turner. There were also 17 constitutional amendments, and that's something that I kind of focused in on. So 17 statewide constitutional amendments, the Texans all voted on. And they did all pass in the end, which was interesting. And some of them, you know, were less noteworthy than others, but they had to do with different tax exemptions and prohibitions. But probably the most high-profile races that were going on in Texas on Tuesday were the two specials. elections, so Senate District 9 and CD 18, especially that congressional race. A lot of folks

were watching that, even kind of on a federal level to see who would be elected. And there were a plethora of bonds. Meredith has written a lot about this. It was interesting to see a different school bonds. There were some pretty large ones that voters cast their vote on. So quite a number of items. Something I think is interesting that I saw the secretary. of state. She said this morning that there was a record amount of voters in Texas that voted for constitutional amendment election. It was nearly three million on Tuesday. So great takeaways, Maryle. And I encourage folks who want just an overview there. We have multiple pieces giving a rundown at the Texan, but this piece from Mary Leafs really does give insight into what was on the ballot

and what folks are voting on all throughout the state, not just in your area, but all throughout the state. So Brad Cameron, walk us through. your takeaways, what were your just thoughts postal lunch today that we've had a couple of days to process all the results? Well, I, for one, am shocked that a Democrat won the New York City mayoral race, just Florida. Now, obviously, that wasn't a shock. Everyone who paid any, the slightest bit of attention knew that was coming, particularly with how little Andrew Cuomo was actually campaigning.

Yeah. So I did hear today, one interesting takeaway from that is that Maldani, actually underperformed as a Democrat, particularly among black voters and Jewish voters. And there are various reasons for that, but we're not a New York City podcast. And so for him, though, it was actually a bit underwhelming, even though he won by a wide margin. But that was to be expected for a Democrat in New York City. Yeah, and I'm sure everyone has seen a lot of the post-election polling and stuff that has come out, where it's showing certain age groups voted overwhelmingly for Mom Donnie.

And, yeah, it's just, I think you laid it out very well in your takeaway's piece about how now that Mom Dani is going to be the mayor of New York, you know, the largest, is it the largest city in the United States? You know, it is setting up to be a perfect foil for the Trump administration. Right. And that was one of my two takeaways from this election was first now, we're. Republicans have the person they're going to label all of their opponents with. We saw that even before the results came in on Election Day, the NRCC sent out a bunch of, or NRSC sent out a bunch of emails, labeling each of the Democratic challengers or incumbents in competitive Senate races across the country as Mondami Democrats. Well, it's interesting. Including James Al Rico. Yeah, but it's interesting because the Virginia governor,

was not a Mamdani, a mere of Mondani. She's very moderate. Very moderate, right? And that's something you would expect in Virginia. You're not going to have a more radical candidate because that's just not the makeup of the state. Whereas in New York, it's much more, you could say it trends much younger, much more culturally diverse, maybe has more left-wing style politics there.

And so it'll be interesting to see, though, in future candidates if they try and take up this mantle of Donnie. Because he really emphasized, you know, there's a lot of the socialist shading that has been done. But listening to him, he really stuck on the point of affordability. And it's sort of something that's going to be interesting, I think, in my mind, not just what I mentioned about future Democratic candidates, but you could call this left-wing populism versus is the right going to take up a sort of, you know, the Trump right-wing populism. So is that going to be the showdown in the future? Well, and, you know, the other aspect of this is Democrats, inarguably had a good night across the country. They swept all the big races across the U.S. California too. Prop 50 will

cancel out or gain on what Texas tried to Texas Republicans try to do with their mid-decade redistricting. Also, we're still waiting on that. Ruling to come out. I've been saying this for a week now. Where's the dang ruling? It hasn't come yet.

So we'll see if that map even survives. But it's inarguable the Democrats had a good night. But it's also not, I would say not that surprising because this was the first election after Donald Trump got back in the White House with a Republican Congress. And of course, there would be a lot of energy among Democrats in their base to oppose the Trump administration to send a message, right? Well, and even though I just mentioned how Mom Donnie focused on this idea of affordability, but what we did see across the country with Democrat issues is they framed everything as being anti-Trump. And that seemed to have worked with voters.

Yeah. And we saw something similar in 2018 when Democrats had a wave across the country. We'll see if that has any staying power for next year. But this is the thing Democrats are wanting and wanted out of this election was kind of a sign that, hey, yes, we can turn this opposition into political gains. And we'll talk more about the Senate race in North Texas and in Tarrant County. But that is a perfect example of Democrats being energized and enthusiastic to vote with Republicans. less so yeah well I don't know if we want to get further into your piece here because I think another interesting aspect of this whole thing though is as you've been mentioning democrats one across the country but when it comes to these really hyper local issues like with prop queue you know we sort of saw a bipartisan coalition come together to take it down is that sort of yeah it wasn't sort of it was literally a bipartisan coalition I think 40% of Democrats who voted in the Prop Q election, which was the homeless, mostly homelessness related spending tax increase in Austin, 40% of the Democrats who voted, voted against Prop Q.

And then almost all Republicans did. And then many independents did. And so that's how it went down with 68% opposed, which is wild to see. So, yeah, in these certain areas, certain races, you were. had a more localized effect that, you know, is not, does not go, you know, tow the line of the broader national dynamic that we saw play out. So, yeah, I mean, exactly. Like, when you get down to the really local level, there can be wildcards.

Things can happen that don't go the way you expect. And then you look at the constitutional amendments, they all passed. Yeah. Right? And Republicans are counting that in Texas are counting that as a win. at least a lot of them. So, hey, what, Democrats had a good night. They got the sign that they wanted

that maybe causes more money to flow in for the cycle next year, but that's no guarantee that they succeed at all next year. It's just looking like a better cycle, certainly than we saw for them last year, in 24. I don't know if we want to, I know you said we're going to get into this later. Do we want to hold off on getting into that SD9

Yeah, let's hold off on the specifics of the races and go through kind of in the order we've got. Well, let's, you guys mentioned the props, the constitutional amendments. Maryleys, I want to home in on that quickly. There were white a few on the ballot on Tuesday. Give us the rundown on what voters decided. Talked a little bit about it, but give us specifics on exactly what folks are voting on. Yeah, well, all 17 of the statewide constitutional amendments, all Texans were voting on, they all passed. So, like Brad was saying, most Republicans are kind of.

that as a win a couple of the more noteworthy ones that were on there had to do with well one was proposition three which had to do with bail reform it was kind of had come out of that whole bail reform effort that's been going on for several sessions so this specific one allows judges to deny bail to defendants that are charged with first-degree felony sexual offenses and other certain violent offenses and that's if the district attorney's office presents clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is either unlikely to return for a court hearing or that they pose a threat but it doesn't important clarification here is that it doesn't mandate judges to give detention without bail and just allows them to in these cases another one that got

attention for a couple different reasons was proposition 16 and it was clarifying that in order to vote in the state, one must be United States citizen. People who, some people were responding to that and saying, you know, that's already exist in Texas. Why are we voting on this? And other people were saying this is a huge win for voter integrity. But that was Proposition 16, and that alongside the other 16 amendments passed. One that I followed pretty closely during the legislative session was the establishment of a dementia prevention, a research institute of Texas, allocating $3 billion towards this institute

so that Texas can increase its research, its focus on diseases such as, of course, dementia, but also Alzheimer's and Perkinsons. So that was one of the propositions that was on there. And then another one that had a lot of attention from both sides was Proposition 4 that had to do with allocating a billion dollars towards the Texas water fund. And there was a lot of, you know, discourse around this one because folks were saying, how are these funds going to be used to increase the waters, the state's water supply? And then also, you know, some of the conservatives were saying that they think this is just raising taxes. But that had to do with the Texas Water Fund.

And there were several different tax exemptions, tax prohibition, there was one on here that's going to increase funding for Texas's a technical college system, which is an interesting one, and then the Prental Bill of Rights Proposition 15. So these all passed, and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick commented on this. He said, it's a great night for the future of Texas. He said Texans support common sense conservative policies, which is why Texas is the most important state in the nation. And so he's, of course, you know, very glad that all of these amendments passed

because these were all priorities of his in the Senate. There are huge priorities of his in the Senate. And we talked at length about the lieutenant governor having a slate of things he specifically wanted to see pass this legislative session, which is not unique, but it was unique in the scope and, you know, the extent to which each was pushed. So very interesting to watch this all go down to the ballot box and how voters respond to it mary lees thank you for covering that for us broadly let's talk you don't talk to a little about prop q let's hit that one more time what else on exactly um it's our brad's messaging me distracting me

um what else did you want to add to the crop queue discussion that y'all haven't already talked about obviously a uh decidable defeat for a proposition in a city where this kind of thing does not often go down yeah um you know hindsight's obviously 2020 and it's easy to look back and act like, oh, yeah, it was always going to end up this way. I don't think that's the case, though. I mean, it's Austin, typically big voters green light, almost every taxing spending increase that is before them. I think there's a few takeaways for why it failed here.

First of all, the affordability thing, the Democrats are making their flagship message, right? You know, it's pretty clear that even though the stock market is doing well or seems to be doing well, there's costs are not going down and people feel that and so they're they're seeing you know the amount of spending money they have if they're they have any spending money uh is either not going up or dwindling and then they look at the austin city council saying hey give us a tax increase for all this basically to close the budget deficit yeah and you know the average person looks at and says heck no yeah right so that from that respect it's not surprising. It's made for an easy message.

Well, and then the Austin American Statesman story that broke. That too. Yep. The statesman story was that the city council members were using tax dollars to fund various things like trips and money given to political allies, things like that.

And so the first thing that you have to do in order to win a campaign is have a good message. And sometimes that's a lot easier said than done. Sometimes you have to really manufacture a message. This, they didn't, the state of Austin now and the other group supposing this did not have to manufacture a message. It was right there for them. Then the second aspect of this is it's

another bipartisan coalition on homeless related issues that, you know, I mentioned this in the story, but this didn't translate to the police reform ballot initiative that was tried here years ago in 21 where save austin now after getting the uh camping band reinstated tried to set a minimum police staffing line that went down overwhelmingly um so there's this crossover appeal on the homelessness issue that we don't really see uh translating to other issues yet other policy issues at least so far yeah but that was very much a play here um and so do you think prop q going down is more indicative of the issue being something that made people go out to the polls and vote against it? Or do you think it's more representative of the electorate in Austin?

That they have, it's not just Republicans only voting on Republican issues or Democrats only voting on Democrat issues. It showed this was sort of a crossover appeal with Prop Q. Is it more the issue or is it more of the electorate isn't what we might think it is? Well, Austin is such a heavily Democratic city that in order to win anything, you have to get a sizable number of Democrats and they got 40, 50 percent of Democrats voting their way. You know, there was a part of the piece is going through all the behind-the-scenes details on how, like what the campaign apparatus did to get this across the line. And if you're interested in that kind of thing, you can see it.

But broadly speaking, they mobilized their Democratic past supporters on the homeless issue. And that is where the crossover appeal came. I think you probably also saw Democrats look at their own representatives on city council and be like, we're talking about affordability across the country, and yet you're trying to raise my tax. Right. How does that make any sense? So there's a few different wrinkles to it, but it was a resounding blowout victory, as Adam Lowy described it on election night. He said flat out as a blowout. Well, it's not mince words here. It was a blowout. Yeah. And it was. That's exactly right. I think would you guys have predicted this before election nine? What was your, what was your perspective on Prop Q passing or failing? Well, I had seen some early vote analysis from the anti-Prop Q side, and that showed it was going to pass with close to 60% opposition, but this was 68% opposition. So I guess to the shot, is the extent that I was going to pass or it was going to fail.

Sorry, it was going to fail. To the extent that I was surprised, it was how much what the percent opposition was that hit 68. Yeah, I was expecting it to go down, but that's only because I exist in a certain social media bubble. Totally. It's hard to gauge based on anything social media says, but sometimes you can find some indicative points that are helpful. But, yeah, I thought it would, our neighborhood specifically were out in West Austin, and I was surprised by the folks who are very much, um, uh, I think typically not would not vote against something like that who were rallying against its passage and it was very interesting to watch. So, and look at that, 68%. Well, Brad, let's keep talking about this.

Let's, you all mentioned Senate District 9, SD9 up in North Texas, obviously a huge race and one that I think most people around the state who were engaged in the election were tuned into. What did you make of this result, Brad? Well, first of all, a Republican will ultimately win this seat. It is an R-60 district, even in a catastrophic election cycle for Republicans, it's hard to see that actually being held by a Democrat now. Special elections are weird, which is part of this, right? It was a jungle primary, had two Republicans, one Democrat, and Republicans still made up in a very bad election for them, still made up a majority. of the district vote in that special election. It was among the Republicans, 52% among the Democrat, 48%.

So that tells you it's still a Republican favorable district. Of course, we saw Lee Wamsgons, may get to the runoff with Democrat Taylor Remit. A couple of takeaways I have on this is, first of all, this is a perfect example of the enthusiasm that Democratic voters had, Democrats had on their side. the it's an r60 district which means average wise it's a 40% Democratic district well remit with almost no money outperform that by eight points which is a huge difference yeah um so that right there is a big takeaway and that is something that we see Democrats across the state looking at and saying we can do that in our race too whether it's a statewide or a state house seat or what what have you

so they are going to rally around him perhaps we see a lot of democratic money like act blue get mobilized and come in for remit for the special election which we don't know when that's going to be yet the governor has to set it but it there is a chance that remit wins this seat in the special election I wouldn't give him a high chance because it's still a Republican district and now he has to go up against one Republican versus two who were splitting the vote. So, but just the fact that, uh, this candidate got 48% as opposed to the 40% that was supposed in a R plus 60 district. Yeah. So overperforming in the jungle primary. And overperforming by a lot. And if the more money comes in, better targeted messaging, maybe a, um, they take some

of the things that Democrats were doing in other states and they apply it. in this election. Who knows? It is a very small chance, but just the fact that there is a chance is notable. And I think in all likelihood this thing probably reverts to the mean. We see something closer like Wams Gons winning 55% to 45% in the special. It's hard to maintain that level of enthusiasm, but not impossible.

So it is certainly doable, especially if money comes in for remit to, to win that. Well, that per vote breakdown you did. Yeah, we don't mention that. The cost per vote of this was insane. So Taylor Remitt got 48%. Wams Gons had 36%. Huffman

had 17%. We'll talk about the Republican un-Republican dynamic there in a sec. But the cost per vote, Remit, a dollar and 16 cents cost per vote. Reasonable. And totally raised like less than $70,000 or spent less than $70,000. Yeah. WOMS-Gonz was $43.39.

Cost per vote. Wow. She spent, her side spent close to $2 million. Huffman, his cost per vote, was $167.61. He spent $3.2. He and his ally spent $3.2 million. That's a massive amount of money to get walloped, right? In my view, the biggest reason why,

going into this, we knew Remit, based on all the polling I heard, Remit was going to finish first because Democrats would vote in a block and they were motivated and everybody knew that. It was not a surprise that he placed first in this jungle primary.

But I, going into this, thought it was going to be very close because that's what I was hearing, that every poll went one direction to the other but they were both very close for Huffman and Wamskons to get into the runoff, but it was not. And ultimately, I think using last year as an example, the biggest difference between them, yes, there was

casino gambling at play and the money, but they weren't using that as a campaign ploy really either side. It was the Trump endorsement. Donald Trump endorsed Lee Wamskans, not John Huffman, and that, when we're talking about Republican voters, plays heavily. Yeah. So I guess it was a surprise because of all this money and thought maybe the casino spending would would work to some degree. But in hindsight, based on how the Trump endorsement really changed the Republican primaries last year, I don't think it's a surprise that she won by as much as she did, given that factor. If you look through the finance reports, you see multiple mailers with multiple Trump endorsement mailers listed out right there.

right um i'm sure it was on the ads on tv on digital all of that so um it plays heavily it still does absolutely quickly i want to know um you may have already mentioned this on a previous podcast but quickly define jungle primary um for listeners so it's a free for all um california has a system the democrats and republicans run against each other in the top two candidates get to the runoff And typically in party primaries, you see however many candidates jump in. And if nobody hits 50, then you go to a runoff. Well, the same thing here, only it's all in one. There's no split party primary.

There you go. Thank you. And secondly, I want to say as well that after the results came in and the Democrat did certainly outperform expectations, you could see the tone change in Republicans congratulating the candidates. It was a totally different reaction than. Yeah. It was it was it was not just like, okay, great, you know, Senator elect essentially, you know, Lee Wamskons, congratulations, which is kind of what folks expected to be the reaction after this election. It was very much a change and a pivot to let's get out and vote. Let's get out and vote. Let's make sure to vote for their problem. Let's make sure to vote. And it was a rallying cry as opposed to a congratulatory, a strictly just congratulatory sentiment. I think that's very notable. Yeah. After that results.

and shows that Republicans are not, or should not and are likely not going to take this for granted. But also, Democrats, like, to Cameron's point, they come in and change a few things, spend a little bit of money and get turnout to where it needs to be. There's always a shot. So it's an uphill battle, absolutely, but it is special elections are where upsets happen. So everyone knows that. Let me say one more thing on this. A lot of talk about how much money Las Vegas sand spent on this race. And they did, and they got walloped.

The candidate got killed, and I think the biggest reason is the Trump thing. But they're not, I don't think they're going away. They're looking on a, they're not going to let one weird special election destroy their long-term plan, which is. Wait until Dan Patrick's not the lieutenant governor. Wait out Dan Patrick. And in the meantime, win enough seats that you have support, right? They've got plenty of money, more money than probably anybody else. To throw into this political fight, they're looking at multiple cycles.

They're not looking at one race in one off-year election to say, all right, I'm not going to worry about Texas anymore. Well, and they have public polling on their side, too. Yeah, like if this thing ever gets to a vote, it's probably passing. Now, that's before any messaging has been spent on either side, but just based on the polling, it's pretty clear. Texans would vote to approve at this moment. So they're

not going to go away. They're playing the long game. They're playing the long game. The other aspect of this is next year when we see a ton of races on the ballot, you might have one race that's like this where both sides are so heavily competing, but

resources are going to be spread out. We're not going to see $6 million in this one race Now, we might see that on the tort reform issue in San Antonio with Markle Hood, but on this casino gambling thing, both of these sides are going to be spread out further. So it's not going to be such a concentrated fight over casino gambling like we saw this time. But also, you know, we'll see more complications on Trump endorsements, right? This one was easy because it was an open seat. There was no incumbent.

No incumbent that had voted. for school choice that then got the Trump endorsement. It's just hard to see this replicated in any broad manner next year. And I think Sands will take their ball and go home on that and come back for the primary. Well, shout out to Kim Roberts for covering that race so well. Certainly go check out her reporting at the Techland. Great information there for folks interested in the race. Mary Lees, let's talk about a piece written by Holland Hounson.

One of the special elections also very high-profile. was Congressional District 18? Tell us how that race went. Yes, Congressional District 18. So this was a special election to select a candidate who would serve the remainder of the term of late Congressman Sylvester Turner. And I have to say it's a little bit surreal observing this election because I went to the meeting where the Democratic county chairs were electing somebody to finish up Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee's turn. term. And that was Congressman Sylvester Turner. He was ended up being elected to serve the first full term after she had passed away. But so these are so for Congressional District 18, there

were 16 different candidates that jumped into this race. About a third of them were Republican candidates. You could have pretty easily predicted that a Democratic candidate was going to win this one with CD 18 just being where it is. So the two individuals that will not proceed. to runoff after this special election are Christian Menifee and Amanda Edwards. So Menafee collected 29% of the vote, and Edwards collected 26%. And so they'll now go into a runoff contest that will be scheduled by Governor Greg Abbott. There's been different. Rumors splitting around about when that might be, maybe at the very end of the year or very

beginning, but an official date has not been set yet. one of the candidates that came in third place was state representative Jolanda Jones and of course she's a House representative and she was running alongside you know all of those other candidates Republican Carmen Montiel Representative Jones won 19 percent and the Montiel 1 7 percent there was also Isaiah Martin he had become very popular online He was a former staff member advisor to the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

Of course, one who had held the seat for so long before Sylvester Turner. So Isaiah Martin had, he had garnered a lot of attention online. And of course, folks were wondering, okay, is that going to translate at the ballot, which we're always wondering when you see a lot of traction online surrounding one specific candidate. In the end, that didn't pan out for him. He came in fifth place with just under 5%. Menopi said on Tuesday night when he was with a crowd of supporters election watch party he said my message to Maga Republicans and Donald Trump in Washington DC is that we've got just one more

election left so he's referring to the runoff and then you're going to have to see me he's a Harris County attorney who's elected in 2020 so that's Minifie and then Edwards is actually a former Houston City Council member and she had been someone who um she had been someone who um she She had run against Turner when he was gunning for the seat after Congressman Jackson Lee had passed away. And she had actually proceeded to run off that night with Turner and ultimately lost. But she was one of the last two standing, which is notable there. So we'll see once this runoff is scheduled. Like Mack said, this is one of the more high-profile elections that happened on Tuesday night.

Also, something I'd like to mention is that Holly included in her piece was a poll from the University of Houston. It was taken in October, and it was kind of fielding around what the runoff might look like. And it said the results showed that 36% of the respondents said they would vote for MNFB, and then 34% said that they would choose Edwards. And then 20% were unsure, and 10% said they just wouldn't vote. So we'll see how that actually pans out, but that's definitely an interesting poll to get a general idea of what this runoff might look like. Absolutely. Big runoff news coming up.

And I think that's also, like Brad was saying, worth mentioning it is when these are special elections, when they don't fall on a uniform election date, there can be a little bit more money spent sometimes because there aren't other races competing for big donors, big dollars. We're going to see a ton of money spent in the primaries, but it will be spread over more people, more candidates, more races. So always interesting to watch how that materializes when you have a little bit of time between these specials and runoffs and the primary itself. So we'll keep an eye on. Thank you, Mary Elise. Thank you, Holly, for covering that for us. Ambron, we're coming to you. This is a pretty interesting proposition here that is certainly we're talking about.

You were covering the Spurs Arena proposition in San Antonio. Tell us what happened there. Yeah. So the proposition ended up being approved. And the reason why this was so interesting is because of how complicated all the different funding streams were going to be for this $1.3 billion proposal. And people can read the piece if they want to get into all those intricacies. But for Proposition B, Bear County residents were being asked to approve a occupancy venue tax increase. It would go from 1.75% to 2% and also extend the existing 5% car rental tax. And this was only going to contribute around $311 million or around 25% of that total cost of what I mentioned is $1.3 billion. They want to move the Spurs Arena, where it currently is about 10 minutes outside of downtown. They want to move it right into the heart of the city.

And this new Spurs Arena is actually part of a larger initiative called Project Marvel. And again, I encourage people to go check out the piece because, like I mentioned, this is just one aspect of the funding stream. The city of San Antonio is set to provide 489. million dollars through a variety of different funding sources the spurs ownership group is going to contribute a large portion of the funding as well so lots of money um involved in this new arena cost and um but as of election night prop b was approved so uh it's really the first big step towards uh the future of this construction absolutely Cameron thank you product marvel um what i mean i one of our immediately after Elsie was born we decided that we were going to watch every single Marvel movie in ZipSession that just reminded me of that

it is unbelievable how the quality just tanks after end game oh my gosh nerd it's it's true after the Avengers ends my gosh it really takes a hit have you guys watched

you doesn't even know what I'm talking about I saw end game that's it what's Marvel that's it Cameron, it's the only Marvel movie you've seen. That's the only one I've seen. Well, because once you miss a couple of them, you're just like, I'm not going to spend hours and hours and hours trying to, you know, make up this entire storyline.

And then it doesn't even make sense, right? Because people die and then they bring them back somehow. There's all these different timelines. It's so convoluted. It's too much. Cameron's got better things to do with his time, like reading some obscureful. on some random topic running an ultramarathon what are you going to do what are you going to do bradner least you guys have to tell me you've watched more than just a couple marvin movies

um i know i think that's the negative for me i don't think i have oh my gosh i'm shocked bradley i saved this oh yeah yeah i mean okay i think i stopped watching after end game and Yeah, I don't think I've seen anything since, so. Yeah, okay, so you'd agree that the quality tanks after endgame? Is that what McKenzie was saying? Well, I haven't watched after it, so I don't think I can judge, but... But that tells you a lot that you don't mean to watch them after end game. I was always more of a Batman fan anyway, so...

Yeah, specifically Christopher Nolan's interpretation, right? Yeah. I mean, got it. Well, thanks for... The movie dark Batman. just like Brad. Cameron, let's chat with you still here. Let's pivot away from some election news.

Shocker, other things happen this week, too. But there have been calls to impeach a federal judge over what was revealed in a recent investigation. Give us the rundown. Yeah, this was something that I've been kind of keeping my eye on as some information has been revealed about this Arctic Frost investigation. And what Arctic Frost is, is it's a FBI investigation from back in 2022, which was led by special counsel at the time, Jack Smith.

And it was the big crux of this investigation, Arctic Frost, was that they were targeting Republicans, elected officials, and subpoenaing their phone records and communications. And so after more and more revelations were coming out about this Arctic Frost investigation, Senator, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, his name was attached to one of these subpoenas and his phone communication. So after that was revealed, he was calling for the impeachment of the judge that signed off on these subpoenas, that judge being James Mason. Bosberg. And he has, he did this, he made this call at a press conference. He did it during a Fox News hit. There was support coming from some of his Texas colleagues, both in the Senate and the House. And we actually saw that freshman congressman, Brandon Gill, has filed those articles

of impeachment against James Bosberg. So this is sort of a story that, Hasn't really gotten a ton of attention yet, but I think it's going to be something that's really going to stay in the conversation going forward just because of the targeted nature of the subpoenas, but then also the impeachment efforts against a federal judge. So lots of different angles to this story. Something I'll continue to keep my eye on. thank you Cameron Mary Lease let's talk about a candidate for county treasurer launching a campaign with a very

interesting pitch very interesting platform for voters to consider give us the details yeah this was an interesting piece to write this is a Republican candidate that's running for Bell County Treasurer Adrian Hodges and her pitch to voters is that if you hire me I will fire myself eventually

by abolishing this very office because she's arguing that it's not necessary and that it's a waste of taxpayer funds so really interesting there to say kind of similar to what we saw with Secretary of Education Trump's appointed Secretary of Education she said

you know if I'm put in this position I'll promise you that I'll eventually run myself out of here so Adrian Hodges declared her candidacy on Tuesday and she says she's kind of taking notes from Galveston County where this successfully happened where the treasurer

Hank Dogey eventually did, as he had promised to voters, kicked himself out of the job. He limited office altogether eventually about one year after he was elected. She said, I'm asking voters to hire me so I can fire myself. She announced it at Brewery and Temple, the she and her husband built, and she said, because government should serve the people, not protect waste and redundancy. And then she said that the county is currently spending over $800,000 a year. year on a treasurer's office that she says duplicates work that's already being done by the county auditor and so for so galveston county the one that she said she's kind of modeling this

campaign campaign plan off of was the most recent of several counties in texas that did abolish his treasure position and that was in 2023 um and while that treasure was in office before he abolished that office he eliminated five different staff positions that were kind of under his jurisdiction before he booted himself from the office entirely. And that was, this individual from Galveston County was able to abolish the office through legislation that was passed during the 88th legislative session, and it was eventually approved by voters because it was placed on the ballot as a proposition. It was pretty close.

We were 53% of the votes in Galveston County said they were in favor of this, and then 47.1% voted against that. And so the Bell County Treasure position that Hodges is running for is currently held by Galen Evans. He assumed the role in 2019. He's serving his third term, and then he just announced he's planning to run for re-election in 26. So I got a statement from him, and he said,

he can respect that people have different opinions about the structure of county government, but he said he firmly believes that the treasurer's office plays an important and necessary role in maintaining transparency, accountability, and then separation of duties and county finances. And he said that he's just going to focus on continuing

to operate the office efficiently, responsibly, and transparently for the Bell County citizens. And Hodges kind of concluded her announcement by saying if a business ran its books that way, it would close, referring to the county treasurer position.

She said, if a family did, it would go broke. But government, it just shrugs and sends you the bill. So definitely a very interesting campaign pitch, and I'm super curious to watch it play out, see if she's elected, of course, and then to see if she can I really fulfill that promise to voters. You shrugs and send you the bill. What a line.

Mary Leas, thank you so much. Camber are going to come to you. There's an update in this legal back and forth between New York and Texas regarding abortion pills. Give us the latest. Yeah, this is the latest update on this back and forth. between Attorney General Kim Paxton and a doctor in New York that has alleged to have provided abortion drugs such as Mithra-Pristone to a 20-year-old pregnant resident of Cullen County via

telemedicine. And this has been an ongoing sort of battle between the two states because Attorney General Ken Paxton has been attempting to enforce this fine on the doctor. but the county clerk in the state of New York has refused to file the paperwork and refused to file the fine to enforce it. So there's been this back and forth, dueling lawsuit, and we actually, the latest update here, a New York Supreme Court justice actually dismissed the lawsuit that sought to fine this doctor. So what does this mean? It could just, you know, Peter out here, and that could be the end of it. But, you know, we can expect the Attorney General here to appeal this decision, and it's going to be going to a higher court. And this could be something that goes all the way up to the Supreme Court.

This is an issue of another state trying to enforce its. It's jurisdiction in a separate state, and it brings about some constitutional questions, especially when things are done via telemedicine. It brings in all sorts of interesting questions. So this is something that I'm sure we're going to be continuing to cover. Tamara, thank you. These legal back and forths are complicated. We appreciate you breaking it down for us.

I, for one, I'm very grateful for it. Yeah, and I hardly dove into it. If people are interested, there's all sorts of things with new laws here in Texas, but then also there's things called Shield Laws in New York. And I break all that down in the article, if people are interested, go check it out. Maybe we do a timeline, too, for these kinds of stories to give folks back insight. We'll talk about it. For something like that.

Yeah, add more to your plate. But thank you. That's perfect. Check out his reporting at the textant. News, everyone. Mary Lees, let's talk about a major high-profile fortel member being captured. Very recently, give us the details and explain the state's role in this. Yes, so this was announced by the Director of National Intelligence Office of Tulsi Gabbard. They announced that a suspected Sinaloa cartel boss was captured by the DHS. He was captured in Mexico, and this was done in collaboration with Texas's Department of Public Safety and several other agencies that collaborated over nine months to track down this individual. His name is Leonardo Daniel Martinez-Vera, and he's also known as El Pato. So he was captured in Mexico after all these departments collaborated to track him down.

in particular this was done by the DNI office and then its national counterterrorism center and that's kind of a program that's become pretty key and President Donald Trump's focus on cracking down on foreign cartels this individual is being accused of leading a wide range of illicit activities that include drug trafficking extortion kidnapping and murder the FBI was a part of this the customs of border protection air and marine operations were part of this tracking down this individual he was captured as he was laying an area that was under search and they were searching through two different homes that they thought were occupied by him and he was found alongside three other alleged cartel members the arrest itself was executed by the mexican national defense special unit but it was a collaboration of all these different agencies including texas's own dps to track down this individual. Tulsi Gabbard said, in her statement,

she said, you know, we're not going to allow cartel gangs who target Americans roam freely. She said that their team at the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism, is on the watch preparing for the moment to strike. And Trump had spoken on this before in the podcast, but Trump had signed an executive order. I think it was a day he was signed into office,

sworn into office. He declared all cartels. and other specific gangs, including the Venezuela gang, Trin de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. And so that, you know, kind of definitely sent him the message

that he was planning to focus on this and really cracked down on it. And recently we've seen the administration orchestrating different deadly strikes on several suspected cartel boats that have been in the waters off of South America. So this is a focus, of course,

and this individual has been captured in Mexico. I'm sure we'll see more arrests like this with just considering the presidential administration that we're under right now. Absolutely. Mary Lees, thank you for your coverage. Cameron, last but not least, let's talk about the University of Austin making a very major announcement this week.

Give us details. Major announcement, $100 million donation from billionaire and Republican donor, Jeff Yass. Maine keeps popping. up everywhere. Wow. But because of this donation, University of Austin is saying they're never going to charge tuition for students again. So this is just an interesting development in this whole story surrounding University of Austin. As everyone knows, they are this startup university here in Austin. They're just right down on Congress. And I actually got a chance to check out

where they're headquartered. It's, I went there for their inaugural Austin Union debate. So it was really interesting. They have some big names involved in their board of directors and things. But this is just sort of a big update for them in an attempt to try and recruit some new students away from the, the IVs, I assume. And, yeah, just, just an update there. huge update Cameron thank you

well let's move on to the tweetery section of the podcast we got some very interesting headlines here I'm curious to hear more about broadly let's start with you so there was a domino

that fell in the U.S. Senate race this morning Terry Vertz who's probably a B-tier not probably was a B-tier candidate among that race as a Democrat

I mean, obviously, all red in Tala Rico were 1A, 1B in this race, and R still, if you Jasmine Crockett gets in, there's been a lot of talk about that recently. She herself is talking about it. So I don't think it's any surprise that Verts saw his candidacy for U.S. Senate becoming increasingly futile. Like, the writing had been on the wall there for a while. But he didn't just drop out and go away. He is switching to the CD9, the newly drawn congressional district on the eastern side of Harris County. The two Republicans running are Briscoe Kaine and Alex Miller.

But this gives – this is an interesting dynamic to add to the race because in a very bad year for Republicans, that district could be competitive. I'd still probably give it to the Republicans, regardless of who the nominee is. You get someone who, he's an astronaut, so he's got an impressive resume. He's been doing the rounds around the state already. So he's got some name ID built up there. And now he's going for a smaller race. And so the money that he does have will be more applicable to that, easier to, you know.

More targeted. Yeah. And so I think it's a good move for Democrats. And whoever he'll face, he's the only Democrat that I've seen so far, file for it. Al Green's the incumbent there, but he's not running in that district. Mary Lease has reported that before. He's going to run in the 18th congressional district, which poor went out for whoever it is that wins that special election because they're going to have to go against Al Green.

I think Al Green's going to win that under the newly drawn 18. Well, is this going to force Republicans in to spend more money, too, if they're going to have to face a Democrat? You said this is the first Democrat that's announced? That's announced, yeah. And it's not just any Democrat. Like, he's a higher profile. Yeah. He's not a nobody, right?

Yeah. I know he hasn't gotten much discussion in the Senate race because he's outmatched in terms of the other two guys' profile. For sure. But this is a lot more his speed. And, you know, I think he could, particularly in one of these new projected GOP pickups, although this is among the safer ones, he could bring in energy and money to this race

that otherwise would not have been there, that otherwise would have been a cakewalk for whoever it is that wins the Republican primary. I think it's an interesting move. I think it's a smart move on his part and for Democrats, because when we see this with Sarah Eckhart running for the 10th congressional district,

Democrats need to get good candidates in as many of these races as they possibly can in order to overall energize their base and energize independent voters who lean Democratic and get them out to vote. And this is another example of that happening, I think. Well, yeah, and to build out the campaign machine in these newly drawn districts. Yep, absolutely. And, you know, the more the Senate campaign is not going to be on the ground, whoever the Senate nominee is, it's not going to be on the ground in East Harris County all the time, if ever, right?

And so you have, if you coordinate and you have data sharing between campaigns, all that stuff, his campaign, all the doors he knocks, all of that, all the voters he mobilizes, that will be an advantage for Democrats both up and down the ticket. So it's a smart move. Just like with Sarah Eckhart running for CD10, it's not going to change the entire dynamic of next cycle, but it is a building block for Democrats. giving them, you know, a better foundation from which to jump off the blocks next year. Yeah, long-term strategy. Yeah. Long-term strategy. Good stuff.

Cameron, let's go to you. What did you got for us? Much less politically focused. I, you know, we're past Halloween. And I wanted to look at what were the top costumes this past Halloween? and I didn't recognize any of them in the top five here. The top five were all from K-pop Demon Hunters. Do you know this?

I've heard of it. Yes. Who knows the most about it? Can you give us just like a 10 second explanation? It's a Netflix movie, isn't it? It's, I don't know the plot. Is it a show? But I know it's a show?

middle school girls are huge fans obsessed with it. It's all the race for like middle school and early high school girls. But some other top costumes here were

number seven was Labuboos. Oh. Those are weird. Donge Darko. What? That's like a movie from like the, I think it's from

like the 2000s like early 2000s um founding father was number 20 not that's just generic yeah they can't even pick one no did it did anyone in our office dress up for Halloween no no rob did oh rob did oh rob did do you have rob did do any of you guys have a favorite Halloween costume that you've dressed up as any of that really standout? I was Magnum P.I. A few years ago. Okay, that's cool.

And it worked, I mean, a Tigers fan, so he was a Tigers fan, and he wore the Detroit hand all the time, so it was really easy for me. Yeah. But I couldn't grow the mustache, so I had to have a fake mustache. That makes it even better, though. I'm trying to think. This is a costume that's never been

realized that it's been my idea for a very long time. At the height of Maroon 5's fame, my family has five people in it. I tried to convince them to dress in head-to-maroon, like go to a thriftore, get maroon clothes, and number ourselves one through five. So we'd be maroon shy. No one bit it. They literally thought I was insane. I got made fun of for so long.

And then a couple years ago, my sister had the gall to say, remember that idea I had to have this older than this is Maroon 5? Oh my gosh. You have got to be kidding me. In fact, I'm going to text her right now and give her grief about it because it was. you don't believe you and you have an idea ever makes fun of you and then somebody else takes credit for it later there's nothing that steams more it just it was a lot so

really this is just a chance for me to air my gripe that's um I'm trying to think of another Halloween costume I was a pretty boring Halloween costume girl I was like a cowgirl as a kid I was a huddle um what else but I wore like a sock monkey

like pajama onesie around very boring type stuff I don't know. Mary Lees, what about you? Yeah, I don't know. I guess mine weren't that riveting, but I did one that was, I wore the Eeyor onesie.

I felt pretty cool then. Dark classic. Yeah, and then I was also, I think it was a chick-blay cow. Yeah, that was probably one of my better choices. I was also a scarecrow. That was an interesting one. I don't know why I picked that.

Was it like a scarecrow from any particular, like was it a, Or is it of Oz? Type scarecrow. No. Or was it just a scarecrow? A random scarecrow. So it was just basically overalls and braids.

And then I kind of like stuck some hay in my pockets. So I felt pretty cool at the time. Yeah. That's solid. Cameron, do you have one? Um, I have a, I have a few, but they might get me canceled. But I'll mention, one of my favorites was I was a giant corn on the car. gave me that's incredible yeah that's a picture of that yeah i also had i used to always dress up as

santa for halloween i had a santa onesie just to be ironic yeah i also had a uh i used to do like a turkey trot every year and i would dress i had a turkey onesie and that was always fun to wear around when i lived in tinsettie um i don't know if this is is accurate but it was often described as the largest one in the country but they have a Santa con oh it's a bar crawl across the entire city and everyone's wearing Christmas but mainly Santa outfits and that was fun yeah that was like December yeah not Halloween this is there you go uh Mary Lee's put you up for us well this is a really big topic change but I put for my tweeterie I was watching just some tidbits of Erica

Kirk, the wife of late Charlie Kirk, um, on Fox with Jesse Waters. And I thought it was there was one moment that was particularly interesting because of course there's all sorts of conspiracy theory surrounding his death. Um, and

some more wild than others. Um, but she, when she was asked by Jesse Waters, um, do you feel confident that the individual that they have arrested is the culprit? Um, and she didn't answer that question. She just talked about how grateful she is that they have very great teams that are on this

and that are working hard to investigate his murder. But I thought that was interesting. And, of course, the response is like, oh, my gosh, you know, people are just blown up. Like, she doesn't believe that this is the individual. But she might have other reasons that she didn't directly answer that. But, yeah, I haven't watched the whole interview, but definitely an interesting one. Yeah, absolutely. I want to quickly mention, we are nearing the end here,

but I want to quickly mention the fact that the Louvre security cameras, the password to them was Louvre. It was loose. And that it was possibly the most hackable security system in the world, guarding perhaps the world's most precious and high dollar. pressures and um i think that's insane so that is just something i've not stopped thinking about since the article came out but a an employee of the museum came out and said so i think it was in like french senate testimony um and that's just insane to me well maybe it was kind of like a

a psycho or like a reverse psychological tactic you know it's so simple that no one would ever put that in because of course it's not that but obviously that's um It didn't prove to be the case. It's like in space balls where the pass code to the Death Star or whatever their version of the Death Star is, it's 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah, it feels a little bit. Here's the thing. If no heist had ever happened, brilliant. Like, you're saying really simple, like almost just so under-engineered that it appears, it's like brilliant.

But when you have millions of dollars worth of, you know, jewels stolen, then you kind of got a re-enadowingly. Have you ever seen the movie Oceans 12 matched? Of course I have. I love the Oceans movies. Yeah, this entire story just reminds me of the Oceans movie. Well, the fact that there was literally a, like, the cameras in the Apollo Gallery, I could go on about this.

This is one of those rabbit holes I had gone down. But the camera wasn't even pointed at the window that the thieves came in through. And somehow they knew that. Like all these things are like so insane to me. And these guys like they're not, it doesn't appear that they are organized crime related. They lived in the suburbs of North Paris. One was like an unemployed garbage man. I'm like, how did these, like I just have so many questions about how they were able to pull this off.

Because it took seven minutes to get everything. and like you know to be fair they've been arrested at least um several of them having there are still a couple that they are at large but it's insane that this happened and yeah i'm ready for the netflix documentary i won it yesterday so no yeah chop chop enough with this k-pop demon hunters thing let's get on the let's get on the louv heist that's what i'm that's what i'm in for well folks thanks to have me back i appreciate it um i Yeah, I'm grateful to be rejoining your ranks. Yeah, except for all the mistakes and the bumbling.

But I'll take it. I'm back. Jumping deep end regardless. Thanks, Maryleith. Boys, we were texting during the pod that we feel like third wheels. Yeah. When we are remote. Well, you guys got to come into the office then.

It's true. Yeah, that's fair point. Easier for me than Mary Lease, but it does feel like sometimes we're just here. and you guys are carrying on having a lovely time. Yeah. Boys, we'll be boys. Well, folks, we appreciate you listening and we'll 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 the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team. to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter

or shooting us an email to Editor at the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.