The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 11, 2024

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

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.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Here Are the Five Top Themes of Texas’ Latest Campaign Finance ReportsBiden Administration’s Appeal over Emergency Room Abortions in Texas Declined by SCOTUSAbbott Proclaims 'Day of Observance for Israel' On Anniversary of October 7 Hamas AttackRepublicans and Democrats Lean Into Partisan Social ‘Wedge Issues’ as Election NearsTexas Calls on Federal Government Provide Citizenship Data for Voter VerificationDallas GOP Activists Suggest Voters ‘Abstain’ from Voting for Embattled House RepublicansAlamo Cenotaph Now Officially Owned by General Land OfficeCandidates Square-Off in San Antonio DebatesCozen O’Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

This comedy show and the guy's doing crowd work, the comedian, and he starts talking to this guy and he's like, hey what do you do? He goes, I'm in politics. He said, oh what specifically? I'm a lobbyist. And he goes, who do you work for? And he goes, whoever pays me the most. And then the comedian goes, he's of course joking around, he's like, oh so this guy's a scumbag yeah i was hoping it was more like a zodiac situation peter almost died i had to turn the thing all the way to the brightness howdy folks and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Roundup Podcast. I'm Mackenzie DeLillo, here with Brad, Mary Elise, and Cameron.

Welcome back, guys. Brad, how are you today? I'm good. I'm certainly not seething with rage, but... Yeah, that's not happening. It never happens. The steam you see coming off the top of your head just because it's a weird atmosphere. Yeah. Temperature. It's because I have dramatically less hair to catch the steam.

I would say that if Brad receives an email that could potentially make him angry, it could also potentially be the rage he feels be balanced out by, I don't know, Brad, what happened this week that could have potentially balanced out that rage? Hmm. Well, as we sit here, yesterday on Wednesday was the very well-known and popular holiday of Leif Erikson Day.

Whoa! Yes. Celebrating the greatest explorer in the history of the world. And that's quite a feat, isn't it, Cameron? It's huge. It was quite surprising that the White House was putting out a press release celebrating it. Hey, that's how big it is. Yeah.

Everyone needs to celebrate. Please, Brad, could you enlighten me what you're talking about i'm entirely lost it is a bit from the show spongebob and there's an entire episode where spongebob wakes up and he's excited because it's life erick Day. And that has turned into an actual holiday, in air quotes. I guess I live under a rock then. Yeah, like Patrick Star. Yeah. So yeah. It's okay, Mary Elise.

The only reason I know what that, even what those three words mean, are because of Brad. So I'm with you in that. My friends and I are celebrating Leif Erikson day tonight. We're having a nice hearty Viking stew. So yeah, we're taking the bit, the full length of the field. Yeah.

And drinking a beer out of a horn. Not just beer, mead. Mead. Yes. Okay. Yes. Oh my gosh. Hey, when we commit to a bit, we commit to a bit.

We commit to a bit. That's exactly right. Mary Elise, I want to ask you a question because we've done, I wrote about this last week in my newsletter, but we've done some shuffling of roles at the Texan where Brad is actually overseeing a couple of our team members and you're one of them. How has it been being directly edited by Brad? Is it insufferable or are you doing okay? Give me an update on the status quo, Mary Elise. Well, honestly, this puts me a little bit on the spot, but I actually really like Brad's supervision and it's really just been smooth sailing so far

um but I will definitely keep y'all posted we'll have to we'll have to check back in but so far it's been great we'll just we'll just continue the uh I love hearing it but you know we'll just do check-ins every once in a while to see how it is. Since Daniel left, he did bequeath his title of war profiteer to me. So I do have to take that relatively seriously. I don't really know who. In this instance, all I'm really doing would be stoking discontent that already exists between Brad and I in this conversation. So I don't really know what my aim is. I'll need to really distill down my aim. But I'll check in, Mary Elise. Thanks for letting

me put you on the spot. Okay, well, Brad, our newest member of the editor's team, let's talk about the 30-day campaign finance reports that came out this week. You had a busy week getting a lot of information out to folks about what we should be looking at, what to expect going into November. We are inching closer and closer to the general election. These 30-day reports, what themes did you notice? What did you see? So I wrote a piece, I listed out five plus a bonus one. But the first one was not exactly related to the 30-day report, but it kind of coincides with it. It's the U.S. Senate race in Texas.

Both candidates put out their fundraising numbers ahead of next week's filing deadline, so we'll know all the details next week for these two candidates. But the top line is, you know, Allred raised $30 million. He's continuing his prolific fundraising year, and, you know, that's making him competitive. It really is. He's outpacing Beto from 2018 by a substantial margin. I read that his haul in this quarter, this third quarter of 24, was slightly less than Beto's haul in the third quarter in 18, but he still brought in a lot more money. Now, the question is, how much does he have left on hand?

Throughout this, Allred has had quite a big burn rate, which is the amount of money you burn through of the total you raised. So you're going to need a lot of money in this last month before Election Day to keep your ads up, get your message out, especially if he has any intention of actually upsetting Cruz so Cruz on the other hand has raised 21 million across all accounts and he has 16 million cash on hand if I can ask something about burn rate does it break down where they're spending their money

whether it be on television advertisements or mailers or yard signs? Does it have a breakdown like that? The summary of the report does not. Okay. You'd have to get those numbers from the media buy companies or look through the individual transactions in the reports. And that can be, especially with $ dollars a thousand page report so it can be difficult to find that but it's safe to assume that most of this is going to TV

ads especially for all red you know Cruz made a six point seven million dollar ad buy along with the Republican Party of Texas earlier this month. Maybe that was the end of last month. Regardless, it just happened. So people are across the state getting inundated with these ads. And that is, of course, because they're raising loads of money. So we'll see what the reports say in more detail next week. But, yeah, an expensive race is just getting more expensive.

Speaking of expensive races, SD27, that's the lone competitive seat in the Texas Senate, that has already been very expensive and it's getting more so again. Morgan Lamantia, the Democrat incumbent, her family loaned her another $2.5 million in this report. That puts it up to, I think, $9 million total. And that's quite a sum for one family alone, right? Well, her family owns one of the largest beer distributors in the state. And business is booming. So they are backing La Montilla heavily.

They're determined to keep this seat, and it's one Republicans really hope they can and think they can flip. And from polling I've heard is Hinojosa is anywhere from up a little bit to tied. Hinojosa is the Republican challenger. So this is a very competitive race their ads are up constantly in the valley so as for Hinojosa he raised a million dollars

with $250,000 coming from each Texans for Lawsuit Reform Texans United for Conservative Majority the group that used to defend Texas Liberty that's interesting in that those two groups hate each other, but they're both pumping a lot of money into Hinojosa's camp. And then there's also 250K from this group called the Coalition for Texas that was founded in, I think, 22, looking back at these reports. It's a project focused on South Texas from big donors like John Now.

I believe Now is Greg Abbott's campaign treasurer, prolific donor. Harlan Crowe, a Dallas businessman, also a prolific donor. And then Dick Weekly, who runs, who's the head of TLR, the big money guy for TLR. So it is clear that Republicans think they can flip this seat. And why do they see this seat as being flippable? Well, the partisan breakdown of it for our TPI is, I think, D52, but it's trending towards Republicans. So the ratings you see on our site, it doesn't tell the entire story because it's just a snapshot of two general election results and an average of those.

So in SD27, it went from less close in 20 to more close in 22. And the average there puts it at d52 so even with that it's really close but getting more um more republican now it doesn't mean lamentia is going to lose she may still well win especially with all this money but um that's you know why republicans see an opportunity here and that's pulling one poll i heard done by Hinojosa Camp had him up four points. If you're looking for a political podcast that goes beyond the headlines, check out the Beltway Briefing. I'm Howard Schweitzer, CEO of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies.

Every week on the Beltway Briefing, our team of former Republican and Democratic presidential appointees, Capitol Hill veterans, and political advocates shares behind-the-scenes perspective that cuts through the noise. If you want the inside scoop, subscribe now to The Beltway Briefing

here or wherever you get your podcasts. Wow, I think up a few points, 3-4. So that was back in May, a long time ago. Who knows where it's at right now, but it's definitely competitive. Another race that Republicans feel like they can make waves in is HG74. That is along the border, a very large geographical district. Eddie Morales is the Democratic incumbent. He faces Robert Garza. The partisan breakdown is D53. And so that is another one that's really close. And the school choice guys especially are coming in heavily for Garza Governor Abbott, obviously this is his big issue

along with Associated Republicans of Texas who's constantly trying to help Republicans win in these swing districts, flips seats in the Texas House there's a lot of money coming in for that, for Garza, that I didn't see coming in before. Governor Abbott only lost that district by.8 points in 22, so it's right on the edge there. They're putting their money where their mouth is,

and this was one I did not foresee being a race that they would really go balls to the wall for, but they are. Two more things, real quick. Outside Democratic money coming in heavily for especially Mahala Playsa and Avery Bishop. Playsa is the Democratic incumbent in HG70. She faces Steve Kennard, Republican, and then Avery Bishop is the Democratic challenger in HD 112. She faces Republican state rep Angie Chen Button. Leaders We Deserve PAC, which is created by David Hogg. He's now a heavily progressive activist. He was, I think, in the Florida school shooting.

He was one of the students in there. Yeah. Survived that. I don't remember the school name. Yeah, and came out and became a big activist. So that group is getting involved there. Texas Democratic Party gave PLACA 100K. And the Texas Majority Pack is coming in to a few handful of races pretty heavily.

That is the George Soros-funded group. Also, Soros gave them $2 million. AB PAC, which is related to Michael Moritz, another progressive big-time donor, gave them $2 million as well. So Democrats feel the opportunity to flip some seats or preserve a couple battlegrounds. Just like Zoom out, do you see the trends and the flow of money going more towards Democrats, more towards Republicans, or is it sort of even at this point? Depends on which level you're talking about. If you're talking about the senate race democrats both senate races that i mentioned there house races i think more towards republicans

although there are some races where the democrat is uh raising a ton of money and like avery bishop in 112 she's one she raised six hundred thousand dollars that's a ton for a House race in one report. So it varies based on what you're talking about. But I think if you were to include it all, it's probably pretty close. But it's top-heavy for Democrats, right? All reds bring in a ton, substantially more than Cruz. And then one more. $8 million was put in the Judicial Fairness Pack. Holly Hansen has a piece on this with us on our website.

But that's a lot of money going towards 15 appeals court candidates. So that is a crazy amount of money for just appeals courts. But that's something to watch. And Republicans feel like they can either flip seats or preserve them there. And we're seeing this battle go from kind of the court of criminal appeals in the primary to now these state court of appeal districts across the state. I'll just mention one thing when it comes to what the finance reports come out. I came across this interesting story in Reuters where someone at Reuters was briefed that the Kamala Harris presidential campaign has raised $1 billion since she became the Democratic candidate. So just crazy amounts of money flying around during election season.

Yeah. Unreal. The floodgates opened once she became the nominee. But it's also interesting, the momentum seems to kind of fade away. That was the big question, right?'ll see yeah i think brad or excuse me cameron and rob are going to be chatting a lot about the the presidential race on send me some stuff i'll tease it now folks monday we have a new episode of send me some stuff coming out it'll be great and uh i saw the stories they're talking about really interesting stuff and definitely tune into that because there's a lot about the presidential race kamala's recent media blitz um particularly after she'd been you know reticent

to appear on some shows peering on a lot of different a lot of different platforms a lot of different audiences so definitely worth checking out and of course trump pretty much always in front of a microphone so very different there. And it'll be fun to hear the boys take on all of that. Marylise, we're going to come to you here. SCOTUS ruled against hearing the Biden administration's appeal in a case dealing with Texas and emergency room abortions. Tell us about it. Yes. So according to the Supreme Court's ruling this week, Texas emergency room doctors cannot be required to provide abortions under an act called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or known as INTALA. This all began back when Roe v. Wade was reversed in June 2022,

and the United States Department of Health and Human Services then issued a guidance to hospitals across the nation that said regardless of the caregiver's conscience, and I quote, if a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department, like an emergency room, is experiencing an emergency medical condition, as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment for the abortion. A little bit of background on the act.

It was enacted in 1986 to ensure access to emergency room care regardless of a patient's ability to pay. Hospitals have to comply with them to allow requirements in order to receive Medicare funding. So after this guidance was issued by the HHS, Texas then sued them, along with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, also known as APOG, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. And their lawsuit essentially alleged the HHS was attempting to use federal law, excuse me, use federal law to transform every emergency room, and I quote, in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic. So a district judge heard the case. He ruled in favor of Texas. He granted them a preliminary

injunction, which meant that the HHS guidance could not be enacted until the court, the case proceeded in court. Then the case moved to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and they upheld the injunction. And following that, the Biden administration sought to appeal the ruling. And that's what the Supreme Court declined to hear this week. I spoke with the communications director at the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses, and he expressed a general concern that they were just watching this case to see how it would develop because it could affect their practices in emergency rooms and healthcare in general. And he said, this was never about emergency care or medical necessity, in his

opinion. All 50 states protect access to life-saving emergency medical care. He saw it instead as the federal government attempting to force health care providers into becoming unwilling participants in these elective procedures that violate their deeply held beliefs. So I would definitely recommend reading the actual article. It has all the details in the lawsuit and everything, but that is the summary. Great coverage from Mary Elise. Certainly go read the whole story at the texan.news. Thank you, my dear. Cameron, coming to you. Monday marked one year since the deadly Hamas attack on Israel. Tell us a little bit about what the governor here in Texas did on

the anniversary. Yeah, so Governor Greg Abbott, he issued a proclamation for the one-year anniversary declaring a, quote, day of observance for Israel. He wrote, on the solemn one-year anniversary, I ask my fellow Texans to remember those taken too soon and to recommit to the shared values that unite Texas and Israel. And in this proclamation, he also listed out the number of Americans who are still being held hostage and being held by Hamas. And this is since the one year since this attack, there's been lots of things that have gone on related to Hamas, Israel, the Palestinian conflict. And President Joe Biden, he actually released a statement also in remembrance, reflecting on the loss of life, the ongoing suffering and the U.S. commitment to Israel's security. And he also mentioned the impact on

the Palestinian civilians and the ongoing efforts to attempt to secure peace in the Middle East. We also saw Senator Ted Cruz say that it was, quote, one of the darkest days in history. Congressman Allred, who is challenging Cruz for the U.S. Senate, he also wrote about October 7th saying it was a dark day in history, and today we honor the lives lost since Hamas's brutal attack on Israel. So Texans from all levels of government, all the way up to the president, remembering the one-year anniversary. And like I mentioned, there's been lots of things happening here in Texas in that one year since the Hamas attack we've seen both chambers of the Texas legislature condemned the violence they passed resolutions we've seen lieutenant governor Dan Patrick and Texas

Comptroller Glenn Hager they purchased purchased Israeli bonds. But we've also seen a lot of campus protests, especially here in Texas on the UT Austin campus that caught national attention. Just a month after the initial attack last year, we actually saw 10,000 individuals gather on the Texas Capitol lawn protesting in support of Palestine and calling for a ceasefire. We've seen Governor Greg Abbott in the following months issue an executive order to address acts of anti-Semitism on college campuses. So the Middle East conflict has affected us not just domestically on a federal level, but also locally here just in Austin. And so the Middle East conflict, it seems to be escalating even a year later. And there has been attempts to try and come to some sort of agreements. And

as the presidential election draws closer, this will continue to be a point of conversation for both the candidates, both Trump and Harris, about how they are going to handle the conflict in the Middle East, as now it's involving many Iranian proxy groups, Iran itself. So it's yet to be seen what is going to happen. But, yeah, one year anniversary since the deadly attack, and hopefully we'll find some sort of resolution in the near future. But, you say, how can we get potentially voters who may not typically vote for us to vote for us? You've noticed this messaging theme. Walk us through what you mean when you say wedge issues. Go into a little more detail. And what exactly are you seeing? So a wedge issue is something to divide a group who supports a candidate.

For example, if I'm running against an opponent, a wedge issue I select is something that would dissuade some of my opponent's voters from voting for him or supporters from voting for him. Both candidates in the U.S. Senate and down ballot are deploying this right now. Democrats have had theirs for a while. It's abortion. And, you know, they staked a lot on abortion in the 22 election, and it didn't really affect anything. One theory for that is that it was immediately after Roe was overturned and these state laws, like Texas's trigger ban, went into effect. And so you didn't really have

a ton of examples of the consequences of these laws. You know, since then, we've seen a lot of data about what's going on and the reactions reaction of this mayor at least has covered this quite a bit abortions in texas at least elective ones have dropped uh basically to zero um then you have some some level of month-to-month abortions for life of the mother which is the one exception that texas's law trigger law has um but then you have these weird circumstances where usually it's the doctor not really understanding the law and what they can do or being hesitant about the details of the situation and its application to the law and the exception. And so you get examples like Amanda Zeroski, who sued the, and she had complications with the pregnancy.

I think hers was ectopic, and the doctor was hesitant to remove the ectopic fetus. But then there are others where just various sets of circumstances, and Colin Allred has made this a centerpiece. He launched Women for Allred. I went up to the Dallas event where he had each of these women talk and give remarks about why they're upset with the state's law and obviously use that against Ted Cruz and his candidacy. So polling shows that the state's current laws are not popular among the majority. Now, it varies based on what circumstance you're talking about, what kind of laws or reforms you're talking about. So like rape and incest exceptions, pull relatively highly. But on the flip side, allowing it in the third trimester pulls very low.

So when I've talked about this, generally, public opinion is generally for it, for abortion, the ability to get an abortion in the first trimester against the ability to get abortion in the third trimester. In the second trimester, it's kind of scattered. So that's what Democrats are betting on here, and now they have some stories to cite to justify this. Well, can I just? Yeah, go for it.

I'm sorry. It's just it's interesting seeing the difference, at least from, you know, you've been covering this for a long time. And I sort of follow your reporting on this to understand what's happening. And it's just interesting to see the difference in how both Cruz and All Red are signaling this issue because we saw in a post-Roe world, the Republicans are saying, oh, it's a state's issue now. The federal government wants to stay out of it. We have nothing to do with it anymore. But Democrats are saying, no, the federal government can do something about it. They want to reinstitute the Roe standards. And so I'm wondering how that's landing with people. Do they want a federal intervention on abortion or are they happy with fighting for abortion issues on the state level?

The thing I come back to on this is the status quo is just not linked, whatever the status quo is just not linked whatever the status quo is right now it's a patchwork of laws across the country no federal policy no federal case law really determining anything this is has been returned to the states we've seen states like ohio kansas red states institute a right to abortion their constitution it's not going to happen in texas because it first would have to go through the um the legislature, and who knows what would happen if it would actually get on the ballot. But, you know, same thing went for when Roe was in place. There was a lot of polling to suggest that the pro-life movement was winning that fight,

PR-wise. Now, it took five decades, right? But it was working. But now it's kind of gone the other way. So Democrats are staking a lot on this. And who knows? Maybe they have something to it. They want to make it a federal issue.

They do. Okay. Yeah. I asked Al Red about uh to see where he would draw the line he said we need to reinstate the roe viability standard um so that was that was his answer he answered that a lot more smoothly than beto oberk did in 2022 when i asked him the question and he said uh basically up until birth he wanted nothing no restriction so it's all right it's much more on message and you cannot get him off it it's

it's pretty impressive actually he's very good at that but so that's abortion and Democrats feel like they have a very substantial wedge issue there to dissuade independents and moderate Republicans from voting for Cruz. Because Cruz has been very pro-life in the past. He is very pro-life. He's avoided this issue, though, because he, just like Donald Trump, knows it's not a winning issue for them at the moment. So they're not running on it. Cruz has focused on, Mayor Lee has written on this a lot, about IVF and the ability to keep that legal. Which is even a wedge issue for people on the right. Yes, we don't give a that. That's a can of worms we're not going to open. But on the

flip side, Republicans have their wedge issue, and they're really, really leaning into it. It's running across the country, not just Texas, but it's up and down the ballot. It's the issue of biological men and women's sports, somewhat gender modification, opposition to gender modification, especially for children. Those two are running in ads everywhere.

In every battleground seat you can find. Cruz and the Republican Party of texas that six million 6.7 million dollar ad buy that i mentioned earlier that's on the biological men women's sports issue so they're putting a lot of money behind that and from what i've been told polling behind the scenes shows that to be the biggest mover of undecideds so because i if i can sorry i keep jumping into this is so interesting because like um i feel like the abortion at least when i see polling abortion is a big issue for women but the men and women's sports issue crosses over with men and women as well in pulling do you see the same thing yeah Yeah, I think that's right.

That's a good observation. Yeah, this whole Senate race has been a contest to define Allred among the undecideds. He has such a large group of undecideds. Everyone knows how they feel about Ted Cruz. So for Allred, he wants to define himself positively for them and negatively for Ted Cruz, but that's less significant because people just don't, these people don't know how they feel about Allred. And first and foremost, to get a vote, that's the main thing you need. And then for

Cruz on the flip side, it's to define Allred negatively. And so you see him running these ads about men and women's sports, Allred, various votes on transgender policy in the military and the NDAA. You know, this is this is the social issue that now that abortion is kind of off the table for Republicans since they won legally. Now we still have the public policy and PR fight but they've won legally on that this is the new one they're putting their eggs in the basket on and polling suggests it'll work or at least it will have some effect

but that's what this is what Republicans up and down the ballots are running on at the moment Myra Flores was running an ad or the NRCC I should say running an ad for Myra Flores was running an ad, or the NRCC, I should say, running an ad for Myra Flores in Texas 34. Same thing in, I think, Texas 15.

HD80, Don McLaughlin just started running an ad on this against Cecilia Castellano. So it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And those are the two themes that we're going to see in the last 30 days of this race, or less than 30 days of this race. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to watch, and especially as the money pours in, where it's spent, and what message gets that result for these candidates. I think we're very curious to see the margin on Election Day.

Brad, thank you, and encourage folks to go read that story at thetexan.news. Mary Elise, we're coming back to you. Texas sent a letter to the federal government demanding that it provide citizenship data for voter verification. Tell us about your story. Yes, so this is particularly interesting with the election so close. I think early voting has already begun. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is demanding citizenship data from the federal government after it did not provide it to the Secretary of State, Jane Nelson, to help clean the voter rolls of non-citizens.

This all started in mid-September when Paxton sent a letter to Nelson requesting that she verify the citizenship of registered voters in Texas who are registered without verification of citizenship. And within the same day, Nelson sent a letter, her own version of the letter that Paxson sent her to the federal government, and she asked for information that her office in particular does have a right to access as the Secretary of State. She asked for formal assistance from the Biden administration to assist her in confirming the citizenship of 450,000 registered voters in Texas, whose citizenship remains unconfirmed, unknown. the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, requesting that they speed this process along and that they respond to Secretary Jane Nelson's request. And actually, yesterday,

there was a little bit of a development. A group of Texas congressmen also sent a letter to the same director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. And they demanded federal cooperation in obtaining this data on the registered Texas voters who have unconfirmed citizenship statuses. So this will be a really interesting one to watch because we're only 25 days out from the election. I believe it's 25 today. So this will be an interesting one to follow as it develops.

Oh my gosh, absolutely. And you're exactly right with the timetable there. It's going to be really interesting to watch all this go down right before the election and early voting starts soon. So folks, keep an eye out for that. Mary Elise, thank you so much. Bradley, coming to you, there's some very interesting internal GOP fighting going on in the last month of the election, specifically in Dallas County. Give us the details. So a group of precinct chairs in the Dallas County GOP are circulating a draft resolution calling on state reps Morgan Meyer, Republican in Dallas, and Angie Chen Button, who we mentioned above, Republican Richardson, to sign the contract with Texas. The contract with Texas, of course, is the list of proposed reforms to the House that some members and GOP nominees have signed in terms of voting for the next speaker. Top one is no Democratic chairs.

Then you have some other more niche, but also very important items in there. Removing the current parliamentarians. I wrote a whole piece on that as an issue and why that's a thing. You can read that on the website. But this resolution is circulating. There have been talk about censoring those two. I haven't seen that come into any fruition on this, but you know how these groups are, like it's at least suggested

if they don't choose that route. So that's always an option that these party apparatuses can take. And we've seen that. Dave Phelan was censured, right? And he, not only just by his local party, but by the state party. So there's that context. But the thing that really blew this up was a recording, secret recording of the meeting where they're talking about changes to this proposed resolution. And on the recording, one person says, we'll recommend that trying to add this language into the resolution. I don't know if it was added, if it passed, or if the final resolution we see presented on Monday, I think it's Monday meeting, if that will include it. But a person said, person said quote will recommend that

voters abstain from voting for candidates not signing the contract with Texas 25 days out from an election that's pretty pretty notable you know Republican activists at least one or two of them in this in this recording are wanting to push voters to not cast a ballot for the Republican in the general election. It's pretty self-defeating as a party, right? You know, basically what we're seeing there is the brawl from the primary continuing and bleeding over into the general.

And, you know, a lot of the top level officials and party figures are trying to get everyone to stay on the same page and not do that, not sacrifice these incumbent Republicans in order to get to elect Democrats. But that's one thing that was mentioned here. Then you can hear the person who is recording this. I don't know who it is. They say, so to be clear, we're saying we're okay with having a Democrat over a Republican who does not sign this. Then you hear the two women in this say yes. So clearly that's a real sentiment. How pervasive it is throughout the whole Dallas GOP, no idea. We'll see what they produce on Monday. But, you know, Meyer and Button are seen as feeling allies. They did not sign the contract with Texas. They did group that voted to endorse David Cook.

So for now, at least, they are still allies of Phelan, and obviously Phelan is not liked among these set of party activists. So it's just, it's the primary bleeding over to the general, and that's Republicans' worst fears on this. It's going to be really interesting to watch, especially when you know the margins in those districts are razor thin in a lot of instances, and certainly ones that Democrats have their eye on. I mean, we're talking very urban areas of the state that are still red.

And so we will certainly be watching this very, very closely. And that inner party drama never ceases to be an interesting story. So Brad, thanks for covering that for us. Cameron, Land Commissioner Don Bucking, officially signed a deed for the Alamo Cenotaph. And this goes all the way back to 2020. The city of San Antonio had requested to move and restore the Cenotaph as part of the Alamo project. There was quite a bit of pushback against this, and the Texas Historical Commission stepped in, denied a permit, leading to the departure of several wealthy donors and board members from the Alamo Trust. And now the GLO office has complete control of the Cenotaph. And in a statement Buckingham wrote back in May, said, quote, ensuring this precious piece of Texas history is preserved and remains standing tall in its place has been my steadfast promise to all Texans. want to keep the tradition of the cenotaph in place as renovations and changes to the grounds and the alamo itself to restore this historical monument or ongoing the cenotaph will stay in place and is now under the control of the general land office cameron great coverage and again we're

um grateful for at least now for this story to come to an end as we've been covering this. This has been a story that's been passed on through multiple reporters. This has been going on essentially since we founded the company five years ago. stuff but you were in San Antonio for a couple of Texas house debates this week super notable stuff what were the top issues discussed and what races were you at so these were this was held in San Antonio there's two competitive races there HD 118 which is along the south side and east side of Bexar County. That the incumbent is John Lujan, Republican, facing Christian Carranza, Democrat. The other race, it's HD 121, it's on the north side of San Antonio. That pits Markle Hood, Republican, against Laurel Swift, the Democrat. And by far the biggest issue, the most discussed issue in these sets of debates that was put on by the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and the SA report,

the biggest one was school choice. And particularly you have that as a big theme with LaHood because he kind of rode in, at least on the money train, from Governor Abbott who was behind the school choice push. He defeated Steve Allison, who was a Republican who voted to strip ESAs from the education omnibus last year. LaHood won, and thus that is a big issue. Obviously not just the policy implications, but it's central to that race. Then in 118, Lujan was one that voted not to strip ESAs, so he voted with the governor on that, and that's something that Carranza, his opponent, has used quite frequently on

the campaign trail. Both Democrats were vehemently against school choice, ESAs, vouchers, whatever you want to call it. So that's been a theme of their campaign. Then Lujan had an interesting answer about it. He indicated some intention to untie the ESAs from the school funding and teacher pay in whatever final policy proposal comes out next year. I don't think that's going to work. I mean, the only reason that school choice got as far as it did in the House was because it was tied to a school funding increase in teacher pay raise. Now, that also caused those two things to die when the ESA program was stripped. So they had this long negotiated deal. One part of the three-legged

policy proposal was removed and the whole thing came crashing down. So that is a big issue. Schools are struggling with budget problems following that because they weren't given the money allotted by the legislature for funding increases or teacher pay. But then you have the fact that one of the biggest issues in the state is not advanced really at all. So candidates had interesting responses to that. Then we went to abortion.

Just as I talked about with the wedge issue, Democrats are using that as a wedge issue here. And both candidates are running on that, both Democrats. John Lujan ended up saying he was for rape and incest exceptions. He was not here in 21 when the legislature passed its laws. He won a special election later in 2021. So he did not vote on either the Heartbeat Act

or the Human Life Protection Act, the trigger ban. So that was a topic discussed um and then gambling was mentioned especially in the 121 race between lahood and swift lahood said he is not for against it really but um it's a question for the voters and then then Swift said she is for gambling expansion, but also that it's going to need to be voted on by the statewide electorate, which of course it would have to do because it would have to amend the Constitution.

So those were some of the big policy points hits. And the first one, the 1211 that went was a little testy but the next one was very testy and there were some punches thrown yeah walk us through that tell us about the fireworks one of the big ads that has been running in this race between luhan and caranza is a recording of Lujan doing a radio interview. He was asked about abortion, and he presented this hypothetical about, hey, if my daughter had been, if my hypothetical daughter, he doesn't have a daughter, had been raped, what would I do? And he said, kind of clumsily, and he admitted that on stage, that they would choose life, that they would have the baby. Now, Carranza has taken that and twisted it into him saying

he would force his hypothetical daughter to give birth to her rapist's child. And that is, of course, not what he said. He objected and rebutted that on stage, but it's still been used and it's probably been kind of effective, I would imagine. You know, that's stark of a contrast. If a voter just sees that, that is going to have an effect, no doubt. But what Lujan said in rebutting this on stage was that, you know, if I were in that situation, if my daughter was in that situation, I would encourage her to have the baby and choose life. So it was an effective rebuttal. Does it get out to anybody? I don't know. But it seemed to resonate in the in the room at

this debate so those two especially are throwing haymakers Karan's a more than Lujan I would say and especially on that issue and she's running that ad all over the place Democrats are circulating days so did. Did Carranza have to answer the hypothetical? No. You mean if she had a daughter? Yeah. Oh, she would be, no, but she would be okay with aborting the child. particularly increasing to rape and incest exceptions, but also putting more language in law that, I guess, from her perspective,

would ease the concern of doctors trying to make the decision on whether a situation meets life of mother exception. But she's very much pro-choice and on a bashed about that so she didn't have to answer she wouldn't have to go over just to know where she would she would land on yeah I just it's difficult when politicians or our candidates are asked to answer hypotheticals personal hypotheticals the weird thing about it is I don't know if the hypothetical is asked he kind of in this radio spot interview pulled it out of nowhere at answer hypotheticals, personal hypotheticals. Well, the weird thing about it is I don't know if the hypothetical was asked.

He kind of, in this radio interview, pulled it out of nowhere, at least based on the clip I saw. Oh. So, yeah, it was an unforced error. Lujan admitted that on stage. Yeah. But that wasn't what he meant, and he didn't use the word force, and he didn't.

You can look at the recording. I have it linked in, I think, the top races piece. Or my debate piece that should be going out. Yeah, in my debate piece that should be going out soon. So that one especially is heated because it's even. It's a dead even race from a partisan index perspective. And so a lot of money coming in a lot of outside forces that are wanting to move this one way or the other and it's going to have a lot of impact on even something like the speaker's race and they were asked about that too. LaHood said, Democrats said, I want the most bipartisan speaker candidate, basically.

But LaHood said, I'm backing or I'm going to vote for whoever it is in caucus. Lujan then said, didn't really commit. He said, Speaker, your feeling's been good to me. Made me a vice chair as a freshman. But I have a race to win before I can even have that conversation. So, yeah, read that. A lot more in the article should be up. So it was a well-done set of debates.

And I thought the moderator for the second one did a very good job, reported with Essay Report. So that was a testy clash to have to navigate, and I thought she did a good job. Well, and there's another big debate coming up too. There is. Right? Between Cruz and Allred. Yeah.

So I'm sure fireworks are going to fly at that one too that will be fun that would will be fun we've been looking forward to that at the moment since the moment it was announced and i do want to circle back brad to the point you made about these candidates you know like luhan having this moment in the debate to clear up something that he was being faced with day to day and radio ads, TV ads, you know, YouTube pre-roll, whatever it may be. But like you said, a lot of these instances, those ads have already one, done the damage and two, in a debate, although it may be a good opportunity for you to clarify what you meant or clarify comments you made in front of an audience of very highly engaged voters,

it's not a very big audience of highly engaged voters. And how far is that reach, right? So you have lots of money being poured into the district. You have a lot of these ads already out there. This is how campaigning works. And unfortunately, unless they're able to clip that response from LuHan and somehow respond accordingly in an effective manner, like you said, a lot of the damage has already been done. So what will that mean on election day? Who knows? Was it great that there was an opportunity for some clarification there? Absolutely. Is the policy difference still there? Absolutely. Right. But I think it's an interesting, it's an interesting moment, certainly one in a campaign as a candidate you look forward to being able to clarify something

or address an issue that you're being attacked on but how much good does it do in terms of votes counted on election day tbd very interesting stuff okay well folks let's move on to the twittery section here let's stick with the election ads brad what you got so um hd 34 that is um i think oh that's corpus christi area yeah that's getting pretty heated as well mary elise wrote a piece on that i think last week so check that out for a rundown of of the contest but i got sent two ads from one from each side, this week, and man, they are punchy. The Solomon Ortiz Jr., the Democrat, ran an ad about Denise Villareal, the Republican. Oh, Duff on Human. Oops. about her hiring a gang member,

someone who had been charged in a felony prostitution case. That's running up on the air. I don't know the details of it, but that's a 30-second spot that's currently being run. Then the more interesting one was from the other side, Villarreal running this ad against Ortiz, and it's a video of this comedy show, and the guy's doing crowd work, the comedian.

And he starts talking to this guy who happens to be Ortiz, and he's like, hey, what do you do? He goes, I'm in politics. He said, oh, what specifically? I'm a lobbyist. And he goes, what do you do? He goes, I'm in politics. He said, oh, what specifically? I'm a lobbyist. And he goes, who do you work for? And he goes, whoever pays me the most. And then the comedian goes, he's, of course, joking around.

He's like, oh, so this guy's a scumbag. Well, this is like a TikTok video or something. And it's running on a t as a tv spot and i heard that this was a it was a very weird way to find this video because you wouldn't think you how would you find this yeah just out in all the videos that are out there well apparently somebody dropped off the url written on a piece of paper on a piece of to the the campaign headquarters wow and turns out it was this what so they ran it as a spot wow but just wait weird circumstances very can you um but hey maybe it works maybe it works i don't know was the piece of paper dropped off, like, stuck in a mailbox?

I muted myself. Or did they meet? Sorry, continue. Wow. I was definitely not muted, for the record. It's the one time I didn't accidentally mute myself. But did this person show up, or did they leave it there so nobody knows who left it? Is that the whole thing, that nobody knows who left it? Or was it, like, somebody walked there, there dropped it off and handed it to a campaign yeah that that and i don't think from what i understand person just handed it and walked away so there was no exchange

of pleasantries yeah wow i guess you don't want your phone very exchanged with someone if that's how you choose to interact with the campaign, right? So from that perspective, it makes sense, but that's interesting. Yeah, I was hoping it was more like a Zodiac situation where a letter that had a code, you added the cipher, leads you to this URL. Someone clip that and get it out of context that's a that's a bad quote for cameron's next campaign um cameron speaking of which what do you got um so i try and stay abreast to all the different podcast appearances by the presidential candidates. And this week, Donald Trump appeared on another podcast, this one being Andrew Schultz, the comedian, his podcast.

And I will say this was the most hilarious interview I've seen of Trump in recent months. It's probably since this was like 2015, 2016 era hilarity that was ensuing. Trump went into extreme detail explaining his weave technique he employs during his rallies. And he explained how he comes up with different nicknames for his opponents that was very funny there was um a story he told about don jr inviting people to trump tower when he was younger and um yeah it was just very very funny uh. And so, you know, it seems like Trump has really taken advantage of these podcast appearances. And Kamala Harris has tried over the past week, like we mentioned at the very top of the pod.

Kamala has gone on this media blitz. She went on Stephen Colbert. She went on Call Her Daddy. She went on Howard Stern. I couldn't believe she went on that.bert. She went on Call Her Daddy. She went on Howard Stern. I couldn't believe she went on that. Yeah. That is. If you want to pop in to send me some stuff and give us your take on it,

we'll let you come back. Okay. You guys are going to talk about this? We're going to talk about that. But, yeah. It's just interesting seeing the contrast in personalities between Harris and Trump in these long-form interviews. If people want to hear my breakdown or Rob's breakdown, our assistant editor, he's going to join me on, send me some stuff. interesting about the two different demographics that Trump and Kamala are trying to wrangle in with these podcast appearances. So if people are listening to the Weekly Roundup, want a

deeper analysis of that, go check out Send Me Some Stuff. That'll be out on Monday. It's going to be a fun episode. One of the things I'm most excited about for coming back, that's not true. I'm so excited for so many things to come back and see y'all. episode one of the things i'm most excited about for coming back that's not true i'm so excited for so many things to come back and see y'all but one of the things i'm most excited is to bombard y'all on an episode and just come join the party because send me some stuff as a fun podcast and i want to join so um and this week's gonna be fun also i liked how brad couldn't even say the name of the podcast he couldn't even get himself to say the name. Oh, Call Her Daddy. We were talking about that, so I don't think I had to. Oh, maybe I misread that moment.

Maybe I totally misread it, but I thought it was funny. Maybe I should just cut that one out. I was stopping myself from describing the podcast. That's what I was doing. That's a good idea. Yeah, absolutely. Mary Elise, my dear, what do you have for us yes so this is interesting there's this i think it appears that he's homeless well

i think he lives in his boat typically but there's this individual lieutenant dan yeah lieutenant dan and he has gotten a lot of attention because he just told everybody i'm staying in my boat for this Hurricane Milton and I'm just I'm a native Floridian I can write this out literally um but this morning I saw a picture that he did survive the storm in his boat so he's alive thank goodness yeah oh I know so many people were so so hoping for his safety and praying for his safety because he was a viral sensation. I'd seen so many videos with millions of views. And he has one leg. video in particular that i saw where uh some cameraman is calling into i don't know if it's a cameraman or some guy just on the iphone camera but he was calling into uh lieutenant daniel in

the in the boat he's like hey hey lieutenant lieutenant trying to get his attention and lieutenant dan peeks his head out but he look he looks the opposite way where the person is and pivots his head around really fast. And it's the person just zoomed in on his head when he flipped around. It is so funny. And it just makes you that much more endeared to him too. Cause he's looking in the exact opposite direction of ratio. It's just, it's,

it's sweet, but, um, but look, you gotta, you gotta understand the logic he's working on here. You know, it floods,

the water's gonna rise the boat will just float on top he's gonna be fine that's that's that's some logic and that brings me to my tweeter which is essentially just a a myriad of different uh tweets about the hurricane we are praying for our floridian friends my goodness but i think um I think Connie shared this earlier today where one of the tornadoes in West Palm Beach was just ripping through a neighborhood and this gentleman or this person decided to take a video and you can quite literally see like the sky become dark palm trees snap in half and debris hit what I believe to be hurricane grade windows. Because instead of absolutely shattering the moment rocks, trees, branches hit the windows,

it just, it cracks and stays in place. It's unreal watching it happen. And it is like full force of a tornado. Unreal. I've also seen, which I think this says a lot about my social media algorithms, a myriad of different videos where homeowners are, you know, getting ready to batten down the hatches and are driving through a road in their neighborhood or on the way to the grocery store or something and they see abandoned dogs. And there's so many different videos of folks taking in dogs. And one guy found five puppies on the side of the road and took all of them in. They're literally the most adorable creatures you've ever seen. They're some sort of like probably cattle dog mix. Five little puppies

who just immediately, all five climbed into his lap were terrified like you and you can tell what a dog is terrified it's it's so sad but i think they all have homes now i've been following the saga there was another video where another lady found a dog who very clearly had been abandoned by her family before the hurricane and her she'd gotten caught on a fence and had this big old gash on her one of her legs and um that family just straight up adopted the dog but that's that's what my feed is showing which is a combination of very heartbreaking like the the knowledge and the reality that a lot of people just abandon their animals when a storm like this comes full force and really heartwarming stories where people do incredibly good deeds and

take in these pups because they need a home and they should not be left out there when tornadoes and hurricanes category five hurricanes are just whizzing around like crazy but it's wild i'll send you guys some of them because they're pretty great um okay also i will say of the office dogs trout would be the one most likely to survive the hurricane is he also like losing a dan, is missing a leg, you know? So he's in solidarity there. He's probably tougher than the rest of the pups. Well, and his name's Trout. He has to know how to swim.

Hey, solid point. Solid arguments all around. Brad, how would Winston fare? He'd do okay? No. No, he would not. Can Winston swim well? does he like water he will he will not get in but if you throw him in half the time he will then like he can start swimming he can't swim he's not very

good oh really okay yeah i think most dogs can can swim just because it's in their nature but that's interesting our dogs hate the water and they're both Aussie and poodle mixes, which both should like water. So they're little prima donnas in that way. Anyways, well, folks, thank you again for listening to us blather on the Weekly Roundup Podcast. We appreciate it, and we will catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting 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.