The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 10, 2025

Episode Date: October 10, 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.Congressman Wesley Hunt Joins Cornyn, Paxton in the U.S. Senate RaceRobert Roberson Execution Halted by Texas Court of Criminal AppealsJudge Blocks Trump from Federalizing State National Guards After Abbott Authorizes Texas DeploymentsPaxton Announces Investigation Into 'Left-Wing Political Violence' Following ICE Attacks, Kirk AssassinationUvalde Shooting Partially Motivated Would-Be Supreme Court Assassin Sentenced to Eight-Year ImprisonmentNorth Texas Senate District Special Election Sees Big Donations from Pro-Casino, Anti-Gambling InterestsNew Seawater Desalination Plant Planned for Galveston BayEight Indicted in Connection with Arrested Houston Midwife Accused of Providing AbortionsCorporate Proxy Voting Becomes Red-State Lightning Rod in ESG Fight

Good morning, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, senior reporter here at The Texan. I've got Cameron Abrams and Mary Elise Cosgray with us this week for this installation of the Texans' Weekly Round of Podcast. Guys, how's it going? It's going good. Happy to be here. I just berated Rob in the office for a couple of things. First, he Venmoed me.

Venmo requested me 75 cents. for a cookie in the lunch order that he placed. 75 cents, Cameron. Would you ever do that? If I was really hurting for... Like back in college? Strap for cash. Maybe.

Yeah. But 75 cents, you can find that. Now that we're in the real world, I think we can... You know, just let 75 cents go. Yeah, we'll let it go. You know, the amount of times I've bought in Rob lunch and just forgiven, because he didn't have Venmo to pay me back. Right.

You know, like, I think it evens out. All right? Yeah. The other reason was he is wearing an interesting style. He's got dark brown dress shoes on. They look nice. They're good shoes. Yeah.

But he's wearing ankle socks with them. They're like, volume-wise. Rob. What are those? What do you have to say for yourself? You're cringe, Brian. Oh, am I? Yeah, you are.

Oh, he has the no-show socks. Yeah. Oh, okay. See, I thought he was totally barefoot. It looks like that, but no, I think he does have socks on. But it's just, like, decision after decision that sometimes bullying works. Absolutely. Yeah.

And we're just looking out for Rob. You know, he needs to be course corrected. Yeah, well, if you're going to try and be fashion forward. with the no show, with the dress socks, it has to match the entire outfit. Yeah. You know, if you're just wearing casual khakis, you know, and like a polo, then, you know, I don't know if it kind of works together.

Yeah. But I appreciate him branching out, trying something new. Hey, right? That's true. You got to get your toes wet sometimes before you really jump in the pool. Yeah. Right? So, yeah.

Well, this has been kind of a, I wouldn't, say busy week. It's had a couple big things happen. Yeah, some highs and lows. Yep. And I would say it's kind of been sandwiched. We're, of course, recording on Thursday like we always do. And then we are, at the beginning of the week, we had some big news drop. But it's between then, it's kind of been not a lot happening, you know. Yeah, there's some days we're in here and we're chatting a lot, just reading random articles online, you know, kind of waiting to see if something's going to drop. Something's going to happen. But we're not really actively working on breaking news or anything. And then there's some mornings like today where you come in and boom, huge thing

dropped. Over the day. Yeah. And so that's all you're going to be talking about. But there was other things that happened earlier in the week. Well, get to that what you're talking about, which is the Robert Roberson situation in a minute. But first, let's talk about the news that broke the beginning of the week. Wesley Hunt finally jumping in to the U.S. Senate race. Huge. He'd been flirting with this for months, running ads across the state out of his district. You know, the writing was on the wall.

And, you know, the disposition of many people watching this happen was either do it or stop teasing us. Like, just do it. You know, put your money where your mouth is. And he is. He's now jumping in. He came in with some messaging that I thought was interesting the way he's kind of positioning. himself in this race. Of course, John Cornyn and Ken Baxter have been on the race for months.

Jackson has been in since April. Cornyn's been, you know, running for re-election this entire time, despite, you know, speculation that he would drop out because of originally the polling deficit. We've seen that polling deficit narrow, and now we have a third candidate. And so this thing is barreling towards a runoff for sure. And there's no way either candidate is going to eclipse 50 with Wesley Hunt in the race. Yeah. But in rolling out his, his announcement, Hunt told, I believe it was the AP, quote, what I've seen in polling over the past few months is people want an alternative and I'm going to give it to them.

And so now there is an alternative. And he's trying to be the best of both worlds for, you know, the more conservative reputation voting record wise and then the less personal baggage side of things versus Paxton. Well, yeah, that's what I was going to ask. is, because I originally thought with Paxton and Cornyn facing off, it was going to be two sides of the coin here, the more establishment versus the more insurgent MAGA-type candidate. What is this third dimension that Hunt adds that is different than those two? I think it is. he is the anti-both candidates

and kind of how I spelled it out where you know, Cornyn has a conservative problem, conservative view problem and the polling, I think it was the SLF and their polling memo they put out. They acknowledged it specifically. They highlighted it like we know Cornyn has this problem among Republican primary voters. They see them more trending towards the moderate and respect. Yes, and it's not popular to be a moderate Republican these days. And so Cornon is trying to

distance himself from that that reputation and you know we see the ads about voting with Trump 99% of the time just blasting everywhere across the state and so that's been his main so far main effort to try and you know realign himself with the president and the head of the party yeah um on the Paxton side Paxton while this surge has happened for Cornyn at least in you know, reducing the gap between them, polling wise. Paxton has had a rough summer story-wise. And, you know, his wife... His personal life has become the story.

Yes. State Senator Angela Paxton, his wife, filed for divorce, you know, insinuating that she had discovered some infidelity, some more infidelity than had previously been, you know, made public in whether it was the impeachment or other reporting. And then we saw the Daily Mail put out an article about, you know, an alleged affair that Paxton was having with a wife, mother, Christian influencer. Right. And so that is compounded alongside the just small fortune that the pro-Cornan side has pumped into the race, just dominating the airway, is constantly blasting voters with pro-Cornan or anti-Paxon messaging. And so that is combined into this, well, it looks like the race is pretty tight now. And so now Hunt is going to have to try and find a lane. You know, theoretically, you might see a better lane for Hunt if Paxson was still up by a lot. And Cornyn was foundering and not gaining any steam, but he has been gaining steam.

So the question is, what is Wesley Hunt going to do here? how is he going to differentiate himself? Yeah, well, that's, yeah, that's the question, right? Because it's, because Wesley Hunt, at least in my reading of things and how he sort of positioned himself over the past few years is being very much in alignment with the Trump agenda, the MAGA agenda. But Paxton has done that here in the state as well. So how does, in your mind,

Wesley Hunt position himself differently from Paxton. Maybe he doesn't do it on a policy front. Maybe he does it on a personality front or personal front. What do you think it is? It's more of, so the stuff that will be said is the more policy differentiation from Cornyn. Right. That he'll try.

I think the stuff that will be left unsaid is the lack of personal baggage compared to Paxton as a candidate. So it won't be, you don't think there's going to be like the person. attack ads like we've seen from the Cornon side attack in the direction of Paxton from the hunt camp or do you think we might see stuff like that as well things can always change and you might see strategy shift but I think based on a comment I saw in a Texas monthly interview with Hunt he basically said if it's me or Paxton I'm fine with that as long as it's not Cornyn so that is at least right now how he is approaching this race however he did say in

one tweet after announcing, quote, this race should be about more than a personal vendetta between two candidates. The race is and will be with my candidacy about Texas. So obviously, there's no love loss between Cornyn and Paxton. Frankly, the only reason Cornyn, it sounds like, is still in this race is because he very much does not want Paxton to succeed him in that Senate seat. And there was a lot of talk, and it was legit talk about Cornyn's not running again or stepping out. But he views it as him. He's the only person that can beat Paxton in this race. And I think so far, Bowling probably backs that up.

But in the responses to Hunt's entry, you can see who at least thinks they're helped and thinks they're hurt by this candidacy. The Corning camp said came out with pretty scathing statement along with the other outside groups that are backing Cornyn with similar statements. But Corny camp said Senator Cornyn has soared ahead in. the latest polling and will win this election. Wesley Hunt is a legend in his own mind. No one is happier this morning than the national Democrats who are watching Wesley Hunt continue his quixotic quest for relevancy,

costing tens of millions of dollars that will endanger the Trump agenda from being passed. We've seen, you know, the pitch made from the corn inside that Hunt's entry would, which then they think, would make it easier for Paxton to be, the nominee would hurt down-in ballot Republicans. That's kind of what Democrats are betting on running against Paxton because they view him as more damaged goods and an easier target.

But, and I think some of the polling that we've seen, you know, at least is directionally correct in that way. You know, this is still our 58 state until proven otherwise, right? Yeah. So that was Kornham. Then the Paxton camp said, we welcome Wesley Hunt to the. race. Primaries are good for our party and our voters. And Wesley and General Paxton both know that Texans deserve better than the failed anti-Trump record of John Cornyn. What does that tell

you, Cameron? Very different tact there. And that the Paxton camp is just positioning this race as being anti-Coronan, right? They are seeing, they just want to get Cornyn out of that seat and so they're happy to have Wesley Hunt jump into the race well and they think Wesley Hunt is going to take more votes from Cornyn entering this race and provide that lane for Paxton to come out on top the runoff aspect of this is also notable because Paxton believes if he gets Cornyn in a runoff he's got it easy you know um Cornyn generally believes that as of now he probably has to beat Paxton in the primary now runoffs are weird they can go very cut various ways and Cornyn could

could win in a runoff but the electorate in a runoff is different than a primary because it's smaller it's the more interested electorate and the ones who are the most active and

motivated to turnout and so that at least in the broader estimation of Politico's bends towards Paxton in his favor, that runoff potential electorate. We saw, you know, there's history to reference in this, which with Ted Cruz, winning his Senate race in a runoff race. So, of course, he was the more conservative candidate.

I think that was against David Dewhurst, Lieutenant Governor in that race. And so just based on that history, they believe that. a runoff is a win for Paxton. And Cornyn thinks he needs to beat Paxton in the primary. That is why you see this juxtaposition of these two statements about Hunt's candidacy. One side's really pissed off about Hunt getting in. The other side's not pretty clear. So, Mary Lisa, I'm going to bring you in on this topic because you wrote a section in your newsletter on a polling that came out this morning from the University of Houston and Texas Southern University.

Give us the top lines of what this new poll showed. Yeah, this was a really interesting poll put out just this morning, early this morning, by Texas Southern University and University of Houston. And it looked at a couple different Texas election trends. And there were a couple of takeaways that we focus on in the newsletter that have specifically to do with the federal races, U.S. Senate race. I'll just mention a few that I found particularly interesting. there was one part of the poll where they put Cornyn in a two-way with Paxton.

So Hunt wasn't included in this. Of course, Hunt's in the equation now, which we were just discussing. But Cornyn won the two-way with Paxton by one, which isn't interesting. And then there was also head-to-heads with Paxton and Hunt and then Cornyn and Hunt. And in both of those scenarios where it was Paxton going up against Hunt and then Cornyn going up against him, both Paxton and Cornyn collected 50%. And then also something we had discussed in the newsletter previously was Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.

She had been kind of thrown around the idea and folks around her, throwing out the idea that maybe she'll be looking at a U.S. Senate run potentially. And she recently in an interview said, look, you know, I'm going to have to see a poll that looks at my odds in a general race. She said, you know, I'm not interested in the primary. I want to see what my level competitiveness would look like in a general. And this did put her up in a general for the U.S. Senate. And it did show her within.

It was around five to six points behind the Republicans. So that'll be interesting to see what Crockett's response is there, because that's just far enough behind it that she might look at that and think, okay, this is doable. I might jump in. She would definitely make the race very, very, very. interesting. Of course, she's grabbed a lot of headlines recently. Another one that, another aspect of this poll that was really important, maybe Brad will dive more into it,

but it showed that the Latino vote overall has moved away from Trump. And so this question was framed in a way where if we were up again in the presidential election and you could choose to vote for Kamala Harris or if you could choose to vote for Donald Trump, you know, which one would you pick if you had to do it over again? And this was among Latino voters. And Kamala Harris won it in this poll. And of course, that's something that really helped out Trump during the presidential election. And so the Latino vote is pretty significant. It'll probably have a ripple effect in other areas of politics for sure. But yeah, the newsletter went out this morning with that section.

Yeah, Cameron, what do you want to add? Well, I was going to point to you. I was going to say, what is that polling what the Latino voters indicate to you, especially I'm talking about this in context of the congressional redistricting. Yeah, right. And that's exactly what came to mind when I saw this number because Republicans have bet a lot on the gains in South Texas, specifically among Latinos, continuing in order to win all five of these new seats provided it's not tanked by a court, the new map.

But they drew the race, the districts based on Trump performance, not overall performance. And I've mentioned Tilling Blue in the face that Texas 28 is actually still lean Democratic. And so in order to get that across the line without Trump on the ballot, you'd need to continue the gains that Republicans have made among the Hispanic population. I will say this poll on this question to not separate it from, you know, North Texas Latinos and South Texas Latinos, right? Yeah, which are different voting population. Right. But I think it's inarguable that this is occurring in the context of broader U.S. policy that's being done, whether it's the ICE stuff, deportation stuff, or the tariffs and the effect they have on South Texas, which take LaRaea. That's the largest, I think, commercial bridge in the, maybe in the country and more goods

move across and trucks move across that than any other place, if I recall correctly. You could also bring in the entire issue regarding visas and the issuance of those. So, you know, that doesn't mean this trend is the same at election time next time. You know, you might see policies, the effect of these policies, get the desired results that Trump administration wants, and then opinions change, right? Who knows? But as of now, it's clearly having an effect. Yeah, elsewhere in this poll, Hunt is at 22 percent. That's consistent with where he's been in other polls in a hypothetical matchup.

Also, this was done before Hunt jumped in. So I think the runtime for this poll was September 19th to October 1st. So that was about five days. That concluded about five days before Wesley Hunt jumped in the race. So keep that in mind. I thought it was interesting, not just that All Red leads Tala Rico. And I saw someone ask me on Twitter why in their mind that doesn't make any sense because they're probably a Tala Rico supporter and they view him as having more momentum. Keep in mind that Allred was on the statewide ballot just last year.

So more people are going to be familiar with him. Talarico also hasn't spent any money. So the fact that Talariko's only four points behind Allred in this poll, I think, tells you a lot. And it doesn't necessarily suggest Talarico has the upper hand. But he has an advantage. He has a higher floor that he's starting from, presuming that this poll is accurate at this moment. So I thought it was a fascinating poll. There was a lot of stuff in there.

There's also the AG race in there that had Chip Roy at 40%. And everyone else, either around 10% or significantly lower. So check it out on Twitter or in Marylees' piece. I thought it was a fascinating poll to see. And it's a stipulated it's a long way out. Things can change pretty drastically. So thank you, Marylees. Cameron, let's move on to you to the big news that broke this morning on the

Robert Roberson case. He was supposed to be executed next week. Now it's not going to happen. Why? The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the execution of Robert Roberson. And this day, like you mentioned, comes before he was said to be executed next week, October 16th. And his case has just been thrusted into the national spotlight. There are national outlets doing podcast series.

We have had celebrities doing feature. on their shows, even many coming to the state here to give testimony on behalf of Roberson. So this has become a whole media circus, really, around his case because of all the big names involved. His execution has been delayed multiple times over the course of the past 20 years. Just to remind people, he was convicted of capital murder. and sentence to death in 2003 in connection to the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in 2002. He had originally an execution date for October 17th of last year, but like I mentioned,

lots of involvement from activist groups, most notably the Innocence Project has really championed Roberson's case on the grounds that a portion of the evidence used to convict him is now a junk science or a debunked theory, that piece of evidence being shaken baby syndrome. And that has sort of been held up by these activist organizations, these nonprofit legal organizations, and also many of the Texas Republicans, you know, it's been a bipartisan effort here in the state,

but really a lot of attention being paid to this by the likes of, state representative Lacey Hull, Jeff Leach, and Brian Harrison, who have been involved doing media hits on television or holding press conferences, really calling for a retrial in this case based upon not just it was shaking baby syndrome. They really hit on that a lot, but then there's been other things that have come out in recent weeks where they say he wasn't given due process. there's been other Republicans, you know, most notably someone like state representative Mitch Little has tried to counter some of that messaging on social media.

Cody Harris, who represents the district, the area that this happened in? Cody Harris as well on social media doing these long threads presenting the other portions of evidence that were presented in the trial. And Paxton has been very, his office has been very active in opposing. Yeah. Any reconsideration? Yeah, absolutely. Kim Paxson last year in October his office issued a large tranche of documents along with the original autopsy report but also information regarding some of Roberson's prior arrests and some of his violent history as well so there's lots of competing narratives out there but we can go on at least where we're at right now what is being presented in court and what are the latest court rulings we have the

stay of the execution. There was some opinions that were published alongside the overall opinion. Yeah, detail those for us. Yeah, Justice Kevin Yerry, I've highlighted his October order where he called this not just a shaken baby case. He reiterated that in this latest. He dissented in part because what's important to recognize with this latest order, it was a consolidation of a number of different petitions trying to just take any sort of tact or angle to try and get a retrial. So he concurred on some of those, dissented in part, and he wrote here, quote, this case has never been one in which the state relied for applicants' conviction exclusively or even principally on the scientific theory underlying shaking baby syndrome.

He also details the evidence in this case, where the cause of death was blunt force trauma. There was also a dissenting opinion from Justice Gina Parker, who wrote, quote, the evidence that the child died for multiple, quote, hard impacts to the head was strong. The story about the child falling out of the bed lacked credibility and was inconsistent with the evidence.

Again, these are, you know, 10-page opinions. I'm not going to read all that here. But I will mention the concurring opinion from Judge Bert Richardson, who argued that the Rourke decision provides the proper legal basis for people to understand there was a case now labeled ex parte Rourke in which Andrew Wayne Rourke, who was convicted in 2000 for an injury to a child and sentenced to 35 years in prison based on the chicken baby theory, was eventually granted a new trial after new evidence was presented in that case. And so ex parte work was sort of the basis here for reopening the case. Like I mentioned

on this one ground. On this one ground, like I mentioned earlier in this segment, it's been shaking baby syndrome that's really been held up by both the activist organizations that have gotten involved in this case, but also those who have been advocating on behalf of Roberson in the public, whether it be lawmakers or celebrities or things like that. So, in the concurring opinion, Judge Bert Richardson argued that this Rourke decision provides the legal basis for reopening the case, adding that, quote, correct to stay the execution and remand this case to habeas court for applicant to develop his claim in an evidentiary hearing. So reopening this claim of shaking baby syndrome being a debunk theory that was used to convict

in part Robert Roberson is going to open up this case for possibly more, years and years of future litigation, new experts, recalling witnesses, taking new testimony. So this process, which we thought, everyone in the public, everyone who's been following this case thought was going to come to a conclusion next week, could be waiting around for years now as this continues to develop. So this was kind of my read on it after seeing some of this and talking to you about what you read in the opinions. So let me know if you disagree. It seems like the court, CCA, which has been very steadfast and sticking to its guns on this,

that Roberson was guilty based on all of the evidence presented and that this wasn't a conviction based solely on shaken baby. In fact, not even primarily on Shaken Baby. That's what they have said. There has been enough clamoring about the Shaken Baby aspect of this case that the court is basically C-Y-Aing before he's executed to put that to bed entirely, one way or the other, whichever way it goes. Yeah, and Judge Richardson mentions this in his concurring opinion. He calls, I'll just read from me here because I think it's important. He says, quote, there's a delicate balance and tension in our criminal justice system

between the finality of judgment and its accuracy based on our ever-advancing scientific understanding. A death sentence is clearly final and once carried out, hindsight is useless. Thus, when moving forward in such a way, we should require the highest standards of accuracy so that we can act with a reliable degree. of certainty so again because shaking baby syndrome was an aspect of the case wasn't the entirety of the case but it was an aspect of it that was presented in the hearing back 20 years ago and like you mentioned they want to make sure all their bases are covered especially in a case like robertsons where it has gathered so much national attention.

They just want to make sure everything is squared away so that whatever the resulting outcome be, whether it's upholding the guilty verdict or something else, they just want to make sure all their bases are covered. The other interesting aspect for onlookers like us and this is the strange bedfellows political side of things. And most notably with between, within the legislature.

And you have members like Representative Jeff Leach and Representative Brian Harrison who have no love loss between the two. We saw multiple scraps between them during the legislative session. They're on the same side. And then on their side you have the two we mentioned, Mitch Little, Cody Harris, who, you know, in my watchings of the legislature, they deal well together. Like they were constantly talking.

But they were on different sides generally. of the, of, you know, House leadership versus, you know, the right flank of the Republican caucus. And obviously, I've talked a lot, wrote a lot about how, you know, there wasn't just open conflict all the time. And they did work together in a lot to, and passing a lot of things. But they're still not on the same team, right? Right. And so you have, it's a fascinating case of strange bedfellows here because, People that you wouldn't have thought would be in alignment on anything, particularly personalities, are in alignment on this.

Yeah, and it's not just within the Republican ranks either. It's Republicans who are calling for a retrial or a reevaluation of Roberson's case here, aligning themselves with many Democrats in the legislature. Joe Moody has been very outspoken on this issue. a state representative John Busey as well and so it's like you mentioned interesting bedfellows not just on the right but on the complete partisan spectrum here and I think just the fact that is this a going to require or is this going to bring up the death penalty as a topic during the next legislative session are because that has been a topic of discussion

as well especially like we see here as medical scientific evidence and advancements continue to occur can you ever be certain in a court of law that someone is truly guilty of a crime it's going to take some it it brings to the surface for many of these lawmakers who might have been hesitant about the death penalty to conduct some sort of re-evaluation of their same on that issue. And Roberson is just sort of the conduit. His case is the conduit for that conversation.

So I think that's something on the horizon we might see as well. And, you know, this case is incredibly complicated just because if we go back a year ago, we saw the criminal jurisprudence committee doing the subpoena actions of Roberson to attempt to delay his execution, which worked. which brought up, but also brought up a larger separation of powers issue, which the Texas Supreme Court did rule on. But it provided an example of how it could work. So is there future instances where something like this could occur again?

Just not sure, but there's so many different aspects to the Robeson case just outside his guilt or innocence. much broader questions that are that are brought up so it's it's very interesting for you know people who write about this yeah a lot of foddery now lots of angles yep now of course this will go back to the trial court to deliberate on this one question we'll probably see a lot of the things dredged up from 20 years ago you know you've got one juror from the jury back then who says he was convicted solion's shaken baby you have the jury foreman who you know you talk to and wrote a piece about who said that was absolutely not part of our consideration and then you

have the fact that it was 20 years ago so it's going to be a lot of memories fade yep yep so this thing will be as contentious as ever when if and when it gets to court so thank you cameron mary at least let's go to you uh Texas has a couple hundred of its guardsmen in illinois right now why is that and who authorized it yeah so this has been one of the biggest stories this week, both at a statewide level and federal level. And Texas has really been at the center of it in a lot of ways. So I'll start off with there was a memo sent out by United States Department of Defense or Department of War Secretary Pete Higgseth to Governor Greg Abbott. And in it, he requested Abbott for up to 400 members of Texas's National Guard. He stated that Trump had

found that, quote, violent incidents as well as the credible threat of continued violence. are impeding the execution of the laws in multiple states. And he mentioned specifically Oregon and Illinois. And the order within his letter, he said, would be effective for 60 days but would be subject to expansion. And he said that the National Guard units would perform federal protection missions where needed, including in the cities of Portland and Chicago. After that, the Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, made an ex post, and he publicly was calling on

Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to coordinate. He said, there's no reason that a president should be sending military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation. And Governor Abbott responded to Pritzker, and he said, he confirmed, I fully authorized the president to call it 400 member of the Texas National Guard to ensure safety for federal officials. He said pretty strongly, you can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas.

this guard do it. And so then there's the interesting legal aspect to this whole situation. There was U.S. District Judge Emergut had first issued a temporary restraining order to prevent Trump from using Oregon's own guardsmen to defend Oregon in the way that he saw fit. So that was the first TRO. And then after this became public that Texas was being requested to come into these different areas. She issued a second temporary restraining order ruling that guardsmen can't be federalized, can't be brought into places like Oregon. And then on Tuesday, Governor Abbott confirmed that Texas National Guardsmen are in Chicago. He said they're on the ground. They're ready to protect our federal officers. So what we've got here is we've got the Portland case and then

that was appealed by the Department of Justice midweek. And it'll be heard today, actually, that appeal by the Department of Justice. So that one's still pending and that will happen today. And then that first temporary restraining order that was issued by Emergut, Judge Immigate, that was temporarily stayed yesterday. And that's related to the Portland Guardsmen not being deployed to their own area by Trump. But then there's a second TRO that remains unaffected. and that prevents the federalization of guardsmen into Portland, which would be Texas guardsmen going into Portland. So the Chicago lawsuit will have a hearing today on the temporary restraining order that's against deployment. And that happened after Judge April Perry decided not to automatically prevent Trump from deployment,

which is, I believe, why we have Texas guardsmen in Chicago. but there will be hearing today on issuing potentially a restraining order against the deployment of guardsmen. So everything that is kind of hanging in the balance as we record this on Thursday. But it's definitely one of the top stories because people are, you know, Democratic folks are arguing that this looks like, you know, a takeover by the president. He's sending in these guardsmen from Republican states into states where their public officials do not want their help. They've denied their help. And then, you know, Republicans are arguing, well, you're not doing your job properly, so we need to step in here. But the courts will take a look at that today in both

of those cases. Cameron, you want to add something? Yeah, I think this entire thing is fascinating. Because one thing here is the Trump administration has been really acting in accordance with law, with orders with or against them, right? They haven't been acting contrary to any sort of court orders here, which I think is, you know, obviously a good thing. But another thing to remember as well is when these National Guard troops are being brought into these states, they're acting in accordance with federal law protecting these federal buildings or federal officers.

So when ICE or DHS is operating in these states, they're finding themselves getting resistance from street agitators, right? Let's say. And so they're needing protection, and that's why these National Guard troops are coming in. But I think the larger thing that I've seen a lot of people discuss online is, what happens because we've already seen I believe it was Illinois where the police were being ordered not to act in a protective capacity of these federal agencies in these officers that are operating in the state that's that's one step what happens if they're asked to act counter to how federal agencies are operating are operating in the state, which could bring up a whole another round of issues like state and federal issues. If a state governor in Illinois or in Oregon or in California, they are directing their National Guard troops to say,

you need to protect our citizens, you can't allow them to be arrested by ICE or anything like that. So it could bring up a hot situation if something like that occurs. Yeah, something to keep your eye on, definitely, especially if Texas National Guard members are operating in Illinois, because that's going to require a reaction from Governor Greg Abbott as something happens in that way where we're seeing state authorities directing their officers to work in opposition to Texas State National Guardsmen. So that involves the feds, Texas, and then the state in which they're operating. So lots of moving parts here. Thank you both. Cameron, let's go to you on a piece about an investigation from the Office of the Attorney General in Paxton, put a press release out, announcing an investigation into, quote, left-wing political groups and violence therein.

What's the story? So following the targeted violence that occurred at the Dallas ICE facility, something that we reported on here at the Texan, and then also in this press release, Compaxton highlights the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The Attorney General's office is going to be launched an investigation into, quote, various groups affiliated with left-wing political violence known to be operating in Texas. So these left-wing organizations in the press release, it's labeled as terrorism, saying they present a danger and really identifying what the Attorney General's office calls, quote, corrupted ideologies like transgenderism and Antifa, saying they're a cancer on our culture. and what's interesting about this is the basis for labeling Antifa specifically in this press release is President Donald Trump moved to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization on September 22nd. There was actually also an Antifa roundtable that happened this week at the White House

where President Donald Trump said he was going to consider naming Antifa a foreign terrorist organization, which would just open up much more broader powers by the federal government to investigate these, what the Attorney General calls terrorist cells. But especially here in Texas, we have reported on instances where Antifa has sort of popped up around different issues. You wrote a story about there was looting that was occurring in Austin back in 2020. Then we also reported on different instances where Antifa affiliated groups have attended these, quote, family-friendly drag show events, sort of providing security at them. And they are typically dressed in the black block style.

And so that's how you can sort of identify them. They also have patches and things. of that nature. So this, I think, is something that has energy behind it, especially with the federal government doing the designation, holding these roundtables. So I think this investigation could have some legs to it, especially as more energy is continuing to build post-Kirk assassination. It seems like people, both in the public and in the government, want to see some sort

action against these Antifa affiliated groups. Yeah, and we've seen the Attorney General launch a bunch of investigations. Right, and you never hear from it from them sometimes. Right, and I think it's hard to divorce it entirely from the fact that he's running for U.S. Senate. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to this, right? And we did see some reporting that there were some connections between what a Dallas Antifa group and what was it? Was it the kid who assassinated Charlie Kirk?

Yeah, there are some communications going on between these groups. And that brings up the communication channels in which many of these groups are discussing on. You'll see Instagram posts where they say we're meeting up with this group or that group. And, you know, it's across different states. But the communication happening on many of these encrypted apps like Discord. discord and things, which brings up an entirely another portion of a potential investigation that Paxton did announce earlier today that he is going to be looking into discord messages, which was an aspect of the the alleged Kirk assassin, the communication being on Discord.

So, again. Sometimes it comes up with nothing. Sometimes it's never mentioned again, but sometimes they do find stuff, right? Yeah, and I think the fact that Charlie Kirk's assassination involved, allegedly involved some of these groups and some of these communication platforms. And because Kirk's assassination has energized many in the Republican Party to want to act in a more assertive aggressive manner, there could be possible developments in some of these investigations. Yeah, thank you, Cameron. I'm going to shout out Kim for her piece on the SD9 race.

She's been covering it very well. She did a piece on the latest finance reports, and you can and should go check it out on our website. But this is, and I've talked about it before, This is a gambling proxy fight. And you have the casinos on one side. You have the anti-gambling expansion on the other. You've got Las Vegas Sands and their aligned groups backing John Huffman.

You've got Texans United for Conservative Majority, which is a Tim Dunn funded group, backing Wamsgons. You've got other throughlines. Dan Patrick's backing Wamsgons. He, of course, has so far been anti-gambling expansion. So there's a lot to this. This is a giant proxy fight. Although Kim mentioned something interesting to me that none of the advertising or mailers

that they're putting out mentions gambling, really. From both camps? From both camps. And her theory, and I think she's probably correct, is that, you know, Huffman doesn't want to be labeled as just the gambling guy, right? And then Wams Gons doesn't want to alienate the lots of people who do want expanded gambling. Because if you look at the polling, Texans are at large, want the chance, at least the chance to vote on a gambling expansion amendment. And that's not just Democrats. That's,

that's Republicans too. Now, there are more Republicans that oppose it, but it's a political reality that she has to deal with. And that's why she's trying to thread the needle on it. There's some other interesting stuff in there, and I think you should check it out regarding Wanzgans and her husband, a company her husband owned in another state. She replied to this criticism made by the Huffman camp. Also, you can see the fundraising numbers in it between the both sides. So check it out.

Kim did a good job on it. And there's going to be a lot more to go in that race. when in the month, less than a month we have left before the November special election. Yeah. Is gambling going to be the issue that divides the candidates or is it going to be something else, right? It's clearly the issue that's dividing the candidates behind the scenes. Right. But does it make its way into the political messaging that we see on TV and in mail boxes?

So far now. So move on, Cameron. You wrote a piece on a seawater desalination plan. This, of course, is a big strategy for the state in trying to cover its projected water supply deficit. Give us the details. Yeah. Well, I'll mention the deficit before we start here because the Texas Water Development Board projected in its 2022 Texas State Water Plan that by 2080, Texas could experience an annual water deficit of more than 5.7 million acre feet if new water supplies and strategies are not developed. By 2030, sea water desalination is estimated to constitute 6.1% of the total supply.

So where is this come into play with this story? Well, Epcore Utilities, they announced their intent to begin construction and eventual operation of a facility in Gavleston Bay, a region that is home to almost 8 million people. and they have begun a permit application process with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. And EPCOR is planning to construct a desalination plant on the San Leone Peninsula, which, according to a press release, will supply approximately 26.5 million gallons of fresh water per day. And we've seen a previous story that we talked about. There's been other cities who have been pushing for desalination plants being constructed, coming to find that there's lots of roadblocks and issues,

not just in the permitting process, but from residents themselves. And so this is just another desalination plant, taking that first step, that next step in the permitting process. and this was taken up actually by state lawmakers. You covered this issue quite a bit where they were labeling the 89th session, the water session. It was the water session, it was the education session, and it was many types of sessions. But the water session do impart to a few different bills where they were going to, they approved a constitutional amendment or voters will need to approve a constitutional amendment. Amendment to allot $1 billion a year from 2027 until 2047 to help bolster Texas's water supply,

then also some other bills to help build out the framework and infrastructure of water supply in the state, along with a focus on these desalination projects. So lots of emphasis on water in the state, desalination being a portion of that, And this is just a locality and a private operator attempting to build out some of this project through the permitting process. Thank you, Cameron. Mary Elise, go to you. There were eight individuals arrested in connection with an abortion operation in Houston, an alleged one. Yeah, this is a development in a story that we have covered recently.

It started off with the arrest of no, she's known as Dr. Maria, Maria Rojas, but she is a midwife. So there were Texas Attorney General Kempaston announced that in connection with her and her alleged abortion network of clinics that she was running in the Houston, Cyprus area. So there were eight individuals involved with this that were arrested and indicted this week. And their charges are specifically that they were practicing with our. a medical license while allegedly in the involvement of the abortions, providing abortions for women. So Maria Rojas, she was the owner of this alleged chain of clinics in Houston where abortions were being provided to mothers, or at least that is the, that's what they are alleging. And she was charged in March and indicted on 15 different felony counts in June.

and she was the first kind of a landmark as she was a first arrest as a result of Texas' abortion ban. And so these eight individuals, Pakistan said that they were specifically indicted for, quote, providing illegal abortions and practicing medicine without proper medical licenses. And then he also said that several of them were not U.S. citizens that they were foreign nationals.

He had a pretty strong statement about this, of course. he said, this cabal of abortion-loving radicals has been running illegal clinics staffed with unlicensed individuals who endangered the very people they pretended to help. So we've got a full list of all of their names here, the individuals that were indicted. So this individual Maria Rojas, midwife, she was arrested previously in Waller County in March, and that was for her running this alleged network of abortion clinics. several different clinics, including one in Waller, in spring, and then in Cyprus. And then her clinics were given back in March a temporary restraining order from the office

the attorney general in order to prevent any further legal activity, which they alleged to be abortions there. So because she's in alleged violation of the Texas Human Life Protection Act, which is our 2021 trigger ban, the outlawed abortions in Texas after Roe v. Wade was reversed. in 2022. Paxton is seeking at minimum $100,000 in civil penalties connected with each of her violations of the state's abortion laws. But again, these eight individuals that were arrested and indicted, it was specifically for practicing without a medical license. Thank you, Mary Elise.

Cameron, I'm just going to quickly plug your piece you wrote this week on proxy voting and the increased spotlight that has come on that related to ESG stuff. It's a good piece, and everyone should go check it out. It's particularly if you're interested in that nerdy issue, but it does have a lot of effect on a lot of things. Yeah, well, it's a complicated issue. It took a lot of research, a lot of reading, so just help me out. Click on it, read it, let me know what you think.

I took a lot of time on it. Yes, save Cameron's safety, just a bit. Cameron, let's go to you on Tweeterie first. What you got? Well, I mentioned this in a prior section, but Attorney General Kim Paxson, he's going to launch an investigation into Discord, and he mentions that this is because it has a possible connection

to the Charlie Kirk assassination. But he also mentions that the platform is, quote, addictive and has exposed minors to sexually exploitation and extremist content. And I just think this is interesting. Again, like I mentioned, there's been lots of energy gathering to try and coordinate some sort of response. after the Kirk assassination, there's been the focus on Antifa or other extremist organizations. There's been those communication platforms such as Discord. And so there's a few different angles that both state and federal officials are taking here. Is this going to come of anything?

I think they're just trying to cover all their bases and try and do a sweep. sort of scan of what the current landscape is. If they can do it via the activist groups, the sort of street agitators by Antifa, that's one way if they can go after the communication platforms that allow for the coordination to occur. That's one thing they can do, but they're just taking a lot of different angles at this.

And obviously, FBI, and DHS is involved in this as well in terms of trying to track down evidence that is related to the Kirk assassination. So just an interesting development and investigation announcement here. Thank you, Cameron. Mary Lees, before you get booted again, let's go to you on tweeterie. Okay, great. I'm happy to be back. I just got booted for like the third time.

I just saw this announcement before we got on the podcast. I had seen a lot of rumors of people, different groups saying that they might do this. But you know how we're discussing that Bad Bunny will be performing at the Super Bowl halftime show? Well, Turning Point USA just announced that they are hosting their own All-American halftime show, performers and event details coming soon. So I'm very curious to see who they'll have performing and then to see how that works out on Super Bowl Day to see which one gets more eyeballs on it. Yes, the conservative halftime show.

I'm sure that's going to go over. I will just be walking to the next room and getting some food and drinks. Right. I will not be watching any halftime show. Well, most of the time, halftime for me was to go toss the football around. You know, go out to the front yard. know, recreate the pass or whatever, but I wasn't always, I was never really locked into the halftime show. I really didn't care. You know, most of the time, if stuff happened,

like the big Justin Timberlake incident, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Like, I wasn't watching. I was out playing some pickup football with my neighbors, so. Well, you kept your innocence because of that. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mary Lease. I am going to preview, And I should have a piece out on Friday morning when this thing goes out on what's going to happen Saturday, which is finally the meeting of the SREC, the Republican Party of Texas's executive committee where they will take up, I think it's 10 different censure resolutions, each one against an individual House member, Speaker of Dustin Burroughs is among that. He was censured by, I believe, a county party outside his district. and the argument is that he is speaker and so his applies statewide because that has a statewide effect even though it's not a statewide position so they're going to take these up the seven House Republicans I think some of them are among those getting censured potentially getting censored the Surrey C can vote whichever way on these they can reject them they could also approve them and seven House Republicans including the put out this letter responding that was pretty pointed that said in part removing elected

republicans from the ballot under rule 44 violates constitutionally protected rights to political association ballot access and freedom of speech so there's a couple different layers here of course they can just the s racy could deny these central resolutions right they could then also approve the censure resolutions but not move forward with any ballot removal and it's ballot removal from the Republican primary ballot. So basically, the party adopted a rule at the last convention that said, if you're censured, the party can prevent you

from running as a Republican during the election that you were censured. And that has been the goal of a lot of, you know, activists on the right, you know, past Republican Party chairs have said that, Abraham George, originally when he got elected, the current Republican Party chair, if not outright supported it, definitely tacitly did so. But now we're at this point where there's been a lot of kumbaya within the Republican Party. You can see it in the statements and the appearances between House leadership, other state leaders, and Abraham George.

There's been a real effort to try and mend relations. However, you still have this kind of, you know, a friend of mine described it as like Frankenstein's monster that is wanting to still move forward with ballot removal. Now, they've been promised that this is a viable option and that this is something that should be explored. And, you know, they still view the Republicans who voted for boroughs originally as they've, they've, viewed that as kind of an original sin, that that makes them not Republicans, and therefore freedom of association allows them to prevent those people from being on the ballot as Republicans. So there's a lot of legal argument here.

So on Saturday, really three outcomes. No censure, censure, but remain on the ballot, censure, taken off the ballot. Yes, and we have seen, particularly because of... Would that be separate votes, a censure, and then another vote? to remove them? I think so, probably, yeah. There has been, seen it from Republican Party leadership, George, but also General Counsel and other officials, members of the SRAC pushing back on this idea that they can actually

remove people from the ballot. You've also seen members pushing back on the censuring just generally, saying Rolando Garcia said this should be reserved for the worst of the worst offenders in his mind. However, he's, you know, classifying that. The Republican Party is looking back at this session where they got 43, 42 or 43 of their priorities passed, something they will readily admit they never thought they would see. So now they're like, why are we going to try and use the nuclear option in order to do something we said we were going to do before things changed politically, right? So that had been the buildup to this. There had been a lot of expectation that this thing was just going to not amount to much.

The SRC was going to deny most, if not all, of the censure resolutions. Well, then this letter got sent, and all hell is broken loose. People are pissed off in both sides, and these members are mad that, you know, from their point of view, that they are even being considered for censure in the first place, let alone the potential consequence of being removed from the ballot. If anyone is removed for the ballot, it's going to trigger a very expensive law. lawsuit. Alex Fairley, big donor out of Amarillo, his daughter's a state rep. He's promised to finance all of that litigation. So then you have the party, which notoriously is struggling with fundraising. There's no massive war chests that the party has. So they'd be financing these lawsuits against, you know, a $20 million pack that's paying for it. So there's a lot of competing interests and wrinkles to this. But this last, letter, this letter just probably needlessly piss people off, especially in the direction this was going.

Now, I guess you never know when you get in the room what happens. But we'll see if any of these members come and talk to the SRAC, which they've been invited. Abraham George sent them a letter asking them and urging them to come speak to the SRC when they consider this. We'll see if any of them do. Maybe the speaker does. But things have been building up to this for a long time. Yeah.

And now we're going to reach the point of resolution, one way or the other. Well, if any of that interest people, read Brad's piece when it comes out, because this is going to be a fascinating situation that goes down on Saturday. Yeah, it's kind of the capstone of the internal Republican fight. that we've seen over the last few years. There'll be more developments, I'm sure, like more feuds. But this is definitely a point to mark on the trend line of this political story we've been following. And I'll be there covering it on Saturday.

So follow me on Twitter as well for that. But that'll do it, I think, for this week. And we appreciate you listening every week to our Roundup podcast. and catch you in seven or so days. 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. see you and God bless Texas.