The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 13, 2023

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

COME AND TAKE IT — buy a Gonzales Flag t-shirt here: https://store.thetexan.news/products/gonzales-flag-come-and-take-it-t-shirtShow off your Lone Star spirit with a free Gonzales Flag t-shirt with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review!  Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.  This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: The Legislature’s third special sessionHouse Speaker Dade Phelan saying school choice must come with raises for teachersThe special session’s expected focus on border security, including a proposed state Border Protection UnitSen. Brandon Creighton’s education savings accounts school choice plan passing the Senate education committeeSen. Mayes Middleton’s ban on private COVID-19 vaccine mandates advancing through committeeThe meeting between a conservative political organization and an antisemitic commentator that sparked a fight on Texas’ rightThe U.S. Supreme Court preparing to hear a Texas farmer’s Fifth Amendments rights caseSen. Ted Cruz raising over $5 million in the third fundraising quarter this yearA poll showing strong support in Republican districts for school choiceAttorney General Ken Paxton endorsing four Collin County Republicans challenging House incumbents

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses the legislature's third special session call to address school choice, border security, and private COVID-19 vaccine mandates. House Speaker Dade Phelan saying school choice must come with raises for teachers. The special session's expected focus on border security, including a proposed state border protection unit. Senator Brandon Creighton's education savings accounts school choice plan passing the Senate Education Committee. Senator Maize Middleton's ban on private COVID-19 vaccine mandates advancing through committee. The meeting between a conservative political organization and an anti-Semitic commentator that sparked a fight among Texas Republicans. The U.S. Supreme Court preparing to hear a Texas farmer's Fifth Amendment rights case. Senator Ted Cruz raising over five million dollars in the third fundraising quarter this year.

A poll showing strong support in Republican districts for school choice. Attorney General Ken Paxton endorsing four Collin County Republicans challenging House incumbents. Attorney General Ken Paxton announcing a criminal complaint against the House Board of Managers for publishing his address. An El Paso woman sentenced to prison after imitating a federal immigration agent to swindle illegal aliens, and Texas officials reacting to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Matt, Rob, Cameron, Hayden, and Daniel, who also is here. I'm homesick, recording, and Daniel is at the office making sure everything goes smoothly. So who knows if he'll jump in and say hi, but we have quite a full crew here today. So gentlemen, welcome back to the podcast.

We've had multiple interviews come out in the last couple of days from legislators as the special session has started. So definitely make sure to go and check those out. A Democrat or Republican, we've got it all. So go and check out the podcast released earlier this week. Gentlemen, are you ready for today? Are you ready to get into the news? Let's jump into it. I'm ready. We hope you feel better soon. I'm feeling great. Thank you. I'm ready. We hope you feel better soon. I'm feeling great. Thank you. I'm ready too. Yay, Matt. Okay. Well, Rob, you are covering for Brad today, who is just negligent as per usual.

So we're going to have you cover his stories for us. No, Brad is off covering a story in Houston, so he's out of the office. But the Texas legislature is meeting for its third special session of the year. Governor Gray Abbott announced the priorities for this session last Thursday. What are those priorities? or ESAs, to create a criminal offense for illegal foreign entry into the state, to raise penalties for human smuggling and appropriate additional funding for border barriers, to address the Colony Ridge development in the Houston area that's accused of soliciting illegal immigrants to live there, and to ban private businesses from mandating COVID-19 vaccines. Texas has already banned government vaccine mandates, but it has become a conservative Republican priority to prohibit mandates from businesses and employers as well.

Absolutely. So big picture, we've got COVID vaccine mandates, a variety of different border bills and school choice on the agenda for legislators. Let's start with those border security measures. Have any other related bills been filed so far? Representative Matt Schaefer has refiled his House Bill 20 from the regular session that would create a state border protection unit. While the original bill invoked the invasion clauses in the U.S. and Texas constitutions to legally justify Texas defending itself on the border. The new bill does not include that language. And what do lawmakers think about this ESA education savings accounts program that's been touted so much by Abbott in the last year?

Does it have a good chance of passing this special session? Well, that remains to be seen. There's a divide in the Texas House right now between those who support universal school choice on one hand and the other hand, often more rural Republicans who are afraid that school choice will reduce funding for their local public school districts. And that's just within the Republicans. The House Democratic Caucus is almost entirely opposed to the idea. The Senate stands more firmly behind universal school choice, but we'll have to wait and see if the two chambers can compromise given the frayed relationship that exists now between House Speaker Dade Phelan and the leader of the Senate, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. The House has also said they want a teacher pay raise and increase to the school district basic allotment to go alongside school choice. And this is Cameron here. I'll mention for our listeners, we got a chance to interview Senator Brandon Creighton, who authored Senate Bill 1, which is this ESA plan. So if anyone listening is interested, we go into all that, the disputes between the House and the Senate, details within the bill, some things that came up during the committee hearing. So if listeners are interested, we did an interview with him.

You should go check it out. There you go. Well, gentlemen, thank you both so much for your coverage. And yes, definitely go and check out Senator Brandon Creighton on the Texans podcast interviewed by the one and only Cameron Abrams. And Cameron, we're coming to you now. So that's such a great transition. As tensions between the chambers seem to be hitting a fever pitch, we talked about this ad nauseum on the podcast. The House Speaker, Dave Phelan, has made some very interesting comments about school choice legislation and its chances in the House.

Tell us the details. Yeah, that's right. We keep talking about the House versus the Senate, Patrick versus Phelan. We've talked about it ad nauseum, like you said. But Dave Phelan has made more comments about how school choice could potentially pass in the House. And he said all this, there is this mad press scrum after they gaveled out. People should check out the videos on Twitter. We have one of our reporters lurking in the background of some of those videos. But he talked about how the House can only control what happens in his chamber and that they are meeting twice a day on school choice and attempting to find a way to get comfortable with the different options. Because as he mentioned as well, rural Republicans and Democrats alike are not fully behind school choice yet.

Because there's also been mentioned that if school choice is to pass in the Texas House, it needs to come with public education funding and teacher pay raises. And as we have seen, you know, I went to a press conference earlier this week with the Texas House Democrats, and they called school choice a voucher scam. Those were their words. And they said they were united behind this opposition. And instead, their focus was on public school funding and more money for teachers. And we can get more into what school choice and teacher funding could look like with some of the bills that have been filed in the Senate later in the podcast. Absolutely. And to plug our other interview this week, Representative Trey Martinez Fisher, Democrat from San Antonio who chairs the Texas House Democratic Caucus, sat down with Brad this week to talk through their hopes for this special session and how they're addressing some of these

key issues that Abbott has placed before the legislature. Cameron, thank you so much. Hayden, let's talk border. What is in the cards for border security legislation during this special session? Border security has become the bread and butter of Texas politics. Naturally, it is on the special session call. For this month, Governor Abbott included several items of business related to illegal immigration and border security. There are four legislation to address illegal immigration by criminalizing illegal entry at the state level and, quote, authorizing all licensed peace officers to remove illegal immigrants from Texas, end quote. There is another item of business related to increasing the penalties for human smuggling, and then an item related to building border barrier infrastructure and appropriating funds to do so. Then there is the Colony Ridge item that Governor Abbott promised in an interview a couple weeks ago. The special session call authorizes the legislature to pass bills, quote, concerning

public safety, security, environmental quality, and property ownership in areas like the Colony Ridge development in Liberty County, Texas. This is the housing development that Brad is currently working on covering at the moment, and it is said to be a haven for illegal immigrants, a place where there is a large congregation of people that do not have the requisite documents to be in the country. It's unclear at this point what the legislature is going to be doing to address that, but that is what Governor Abbott has authorized in terms of border security for this session. As Rob mentioned earlier, Representative Schaefer has filed a bill similar to the one

that was lost on a point of order earlier this year to create the Texas Border Force and to criminalize illegal immigrants if they are told to leave by a peace officer and fail to do so. different in that it does not invoke the invasion clauses as the earlier version did, but he did file a concurrent resolution to invoke the invasion clauses of the U.S. Constitution and demand that the federal government designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And then there have been other bills filed as well, such as Senator Creighton filing a bill to expand eminent domain powers for the Border Barrier Project, and Charlie Guerin filing a bill to criminalize illegal entry at the state level. The human smuggling legislation was filed by Representatives Briscoe Cain, J.M. Lozano, and Senator Pete Flores. And I did misspeak a second ago, it wasn't Schaefer who filed the bill to criminalize disobeying an order to leave the country, that was Representative Tom Olerbusson. He filed a separate bill to make it a third- degree felony to ignore a peace officer's demand to go

back to a point of entry and leave the country. Terry Leo Wilson, Briscoe Cain, and Charlie Guerin also filed their own versions of the Texas border force. And Senator Brian Birdwell filed a bill to criminalize illegal immigration as well. So we have lots of border security policies on deck for this session. Absolutely. So let's talk about movement of these bills. Obviously, the session started Monday. We've had very little time to work our way, for these bills to work their way through the process. But what movement, if any, has there been on these bills? The House has, the House is in its early stages of considering this legislation. However, the Senate Border Security Committee

did meet the other day and they heard testimony from law enforcement and others on the legislation to expand the penalties for human trafficking or human smuggling, rather, excuse me. And they heard from law enforcement and others who were interested in this. They did pass that bill, reported it as favorably, reported it favorably as introduced in the committee. And they did pass a committee substitute. So they have sent that over to the full Senate for consideration. And they also heard legislation that would create that

criminal statute for improper entry into the country. And they reported that one favorably without amendment back to the Senate. But over in the House, that border security legislation is still in its preliminary stages. And just to note, the human smuggling bill was a committee substitute. I think I initially said it was reported without amendment, but the human smuggling bill did have a committee substitute attached. There you go. Hayden, thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, we are coming back to you. School choice is the school choice bill. It will allot $8,000 per student out of a $500 million fund that is separate from the foundation school program dollars. The $500 million will be out of the general revenue. SB2 is the teacher pay raise,

and it gives a one-time teacher retention payment while also involving an acceleration of teacher incentive allotment. So a one-time payment and a long-term teacher allotment increase. What has happened so far with SB1 is it went through the Senate Committee on Education this week. And what was interesting is there was a very heated moment, in particular, Senator Royce West called, he said, vouchers. He said vouchers are racist and would actually resegregate schools. And as the time of recording, this argument is being brought up again on the Senate floor. And Senator Creighton has addressed this actually in our podcast as well. And he said he was actually disappointed that this was part of the rhetoric being used to describe giving parents choice over education for their child. And it was a heated argument in the committee. It was brought up in our podcast with Senator Creighton. It's being brought up on the floor now. So it seems as though

those who are opposed to the school choice proposition by Creighton are using this as their argument against it. The bill obviously passed out of committee by a vote of 10 to 3, like I mentioned. It's being currently debated on the Senate floor, and we will provide updates once we have some more information about what happens. Absolutely. We will certainly keep an eye on this. And as usual, the Senate is a little bit more primed to pass a more sweeping school choice proposal. And the House's political dynamics are, let's just say, not quite as friendly to some sort of universal school choice plan making its way through.

So, Cameron, thank you so much for keeping an eye on all things school choice for us. We appreciate it. Matt, we are coming to you. Governor Greg Abbott has instructed the legislature to revisit vaccine mandates during the special session by placing a ban on private employers requiring the shots. Legislation is already advancing on the issue in one legislative chamber. Give us those details. That's right, Mackenzie. Senator Mays Middleton, a Republican from Galveston, filed Senate Bill 7 in response to Abbott's agenda item banning private vaccine mandates. That is, non-governmental mandates requiring others to take the COVID-19 vaccine against their will. The legislation accomplishes this by

prohibiting private employers from requiring the COVID vaccine as a condition of employment. In addition to taking adverse actions, in addition, I should say, the employers are prohibited from taking any adverse actions against an employee short of terminating them who refused to take the vaccine. Now, after a hearing was held on the legislation this past Tuesday, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 6-3 to send the bill to the full chamber for a vote. Now, the full Senate chamber is coming back either today or tomorrow after sitting in recess for a couple of days. I have not seen it pop back up on the intent calendar, but we're going to be keeping an eye out for when it does hit the floor for a full vote. This bill comes

after the legislature took the most sweeping action against COVID-19 era-related policies since the pandemic. Multiple regular and special sessions have now passed where similar laws were proposed but failed to become law. During the regular session this past spring, however, legislation by Senator Brian Birdwell did pass prohibiting local governments from imposing a variety of mandates relating to COVID-19, such as prohibition on masks, etc., including locally imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Now, other legislation, such as one by lawmakers like Brian Harrison, that were more comprehensive and included the private ban, failed to pass. However, Harrison has kept up a steady stream of pressure, along with other lawmakers and activists over the summer, calling on Abbott to add this agenda back to the special session. And apparently they managed to get his attention with it being one of the items included on the agenda.

And just for a note for our listeners, lawmakers may only consider items that Abbott sets on the agenda call. It's not like during the regular session where lawmakers may file whatever they please or they may file it, but it's not going to be heard or it's not going to become law without the governor giving it the okay on the official call. So as we're getting towards the end of the first week of this special session, things are just now getting underway. The House is just now getting on the move. We're going to be keeping an eye on this bill and some other similar legislation to it to see what happens with it. So, we'll be to come to you with a story Brad wrote this week. It was an incredibly spicy and viral story that's been making its way all throughout Texas politics, but also on social media. A conservative political action committee was accused of meeting with a very provocative and controversial anti-Semitic right-wing commentator over the weekend. Give us the details about the meeting. Yeah. So according to the Texas Tribune, the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which is run by former state representative Jonathan Stickland,

hosted online personality Nick Fuentes over the weekend at the offices of Pale Horse Strategies in, I believe, Fort Worth. Nick Fuentes is an anti-Semitic right-wing commentator. Pale Horse is the consulting firm that undergirds Defend Texas Liberty. Defend Texas Liberty has made donations to several prominent Republican figures in Texas, and that sparked conflict between some of those figures and the Texas House Speaker when the news of them meeting with this anti-Semitic online personality came out. Yes, absolutely. So what did Speaker Phelan have to say about this meeting with Nick Fuentes and Defend Texas Liberty? So Phelan issued a statement criticizing

Pale Horse for meeting with Fuentes due to his rhetoric and also because it was on the same weekend that Hamas launched its attack on the state of Israel that left hundreds of people dead in the first few days. Phelan called on everyone who has taken money from Defend Texas Liberty to return it. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has received $3 million from Defend Texas Liberty and the Republican Party of Texas has received $132,000. Patrick also chastised Phelan for, in his words, using the war in Israel for his own political purposes. Patrick did criticize Fuentes for his rhetoric, but he also called the speaker beyond contempt and said he should resign before the House gaveled in on Monday morning. And this is not the first time in recent weeks that Patrick has called on Phelan to resign.

Their relationship, as I believe we mentioned earlier, has been very frayed after the failed impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Has Defend Texas Liberty or Pale Horse made any statements on the matter? Defend Texas Liberty issued a statement saying, we reject Speaker Phelan's effort to combine Defend Texas Liberty PAC with Nick Fuentes, we oppose Mr. Fuentes' incendiary views. There you go. We've seen, I believe, at least one lawmaker, Jared Patterson, come forward and return a donation, I believe, from as far back as 2018 that Defend Texas Liberty had gifted him in his run and calls from the Texas GOP caucus in the House for the Republican Party to sever their ties with Defendant of Liberty. There's been all sorts of calls from Republican lawmakers for different

actions be taken to sever these ties. So we'll certainly keep an eye and make sure we're updated on all of the details there. Rob, thank you so much. Folks, I want to remind you if you go and subscribe at the texan.news right now, we have a new merch item that comes free. When you do subscribe a Battle of Gonzales shirt, come and take it the cannon that is so iconic. Make sure to go to the texan.news. I believe we have five colors, six colors somewhere in there of different options for you. If you go and subscribe at the Texan.news right now. Matt, a Texas farmer is wanting to sue the state of Texas for damages after a highway project he says caused his farm to flood.

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear his case and give us the rundown. Richie DeVilliers' ranch or farm has been in his family for multiple generations. They raise cattle and various different types of produce on their farm and have seen multiple generations of the family grow up there. He says the natural grade of the land, which is located near Winnie, Texas, has always allowed water to run off the edge of the property and into the Gulf of Mexico, and has noted that his predecessors selected it in part for that reason, citing the high ground and nature of the grade. That is until a project by the Texas Department of Transportation on Interstate 10 changed everything. According to the De Villiers,

the I-10 project raised the grade of the road and built a concrete dam, blocking the usual flow of water. Now, when a heavy rain comes, his farm floods and turns into a lake. The first time it happened, it was devastating to them and their neighbors. He believes the state should be responsible for the road design that blocks the water and destroys his private property. He also believes that the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, specifically the Takings Clause, allows him that right. Represented by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, a lawsuit was filed on the DeVilliers behalf, along with their neighbors who also experienced damaged property. But the plaintiffs are up against the Texas Attorney General's office, who says the Fifth Amendment doesn't give them the right to sue without an express statute enacted by Congress that would give them the ability to do so.

Now, the United States Supreme Court will decide whether the Fifth Amendment allows such lawsuits to be brought against the government. The case went to the high court after both state and federal courts issued conflicting rulings over the years, disagreeing on whether the Fifth Amendment is self-operating or whether a statute is needed that enables a private person to sue the government to seek compensation for when their private property is damaged or taken by government action. The case is posed to set landmark constitutional law when it is finally settled by the court. And even if the de Villiers prevail, they must go back to the trial process and start the legal process all over once the Supreme Court allows and if they decide to allow the de Villiers to sue the government. According to some of the notes on the case, this stage of the lawsuit has already been years in the making.

And as many are familiar, lawsuits typically take a while. So it's an interesting perspective on what it sometimes gets to litigate one of these issues from beginning to end. We'll keep an eye on it as this case makes its way through the court and whenever the justices hear the case this fall. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Matthew. Rob, coming to you, Senator Ted Cruz is facing multiple Democratic challengers for his Senate seat next year, including from a congressman and two state lawmakers. How is Cruz doing on his fundraising this year? So Cruz will report $5.4 million for the third fundraising quarter after having raised $3.4 million in the second quarter. I believe he has $6.7 million in cash on hand at this point in time.

During his last race, Cruz raised $45 million in 2018 against Democrat Beto O'Rourke, who actually outraised Cruz by about 34 million and lost by 2.6 points. O'Rourke received a lot of attention and funding from national Democrats in an effort to unseat Cruz. So let's talk about Cruz's opponents this time. Who is he running against and how are their fundraising efforts going? So his biggest opponents right now are congressman colin allred texas senators roland gutierrez and carl sherman and former nueces county district attorney mark gonzalez allred transferred 2.5 million dollars from his u.s house campaign account to the senate race account and pulled in 6.2 million million in donations in the second quarter of 2023. However, Politico has reported that Senate Democrats are probably going to focus in 2024

on keeping blue seats in the upper chamber rather than flipping red ones. The Democrats have a slim two-seat majority in the Senate, and of the 33 seats up for re-election in 2024, 10 are Republican, 20 are Democratic, and three are Independents who caucus with the Democrats. So while they like to see if they can unseat Cruz whenever he's up for re-election, we'll have to see if the Democrats will instead focus on keeping the seats that they have, given that they seem to be the ones in the more vulnerable position this time around. There you go. I actually want to make a really quick correction on my part that Carl Sherman is not a state senator. He is a state representative. There you go. Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Rob, for covering that for Brad

in his absence. We appreciate it. Cameron, we are coming to you. A new poll commissioned by Governor Greg Abbott in the lead up to the special session shows strong support for school choice. Another indicator the governor is still very gung-ho about this issue. Can you provide some details about the numbers in the poll? Yeah, that's right. So this poll was commissioned in 21 Republican-held Texas House districts in order to understand likely general election voters' views towards school choice. And in these 21 districts, 58% of overall voters supported school choice, including 69% of Republicans, and just 27% of overall voters opposed the school choice proposal, while 17% of Republicans were opposed. And according to the poll, messaging like freedom from indoctrination was a, quote, much more likely effective reason for supporting school choice among Republicans with almost 60% agreeing.

The purpose to, quote, empower parents also showed considerable favorability at just over 56% of Republicans polled. So these numbers are showing that messaging is important for moving people to a school choice, adopting a pro-school choice position. What was also interesting is the poll asked about Abbott endorsements and how that might affect their support for candidates. Reading from the poll here, if Abbott endorses another candidate against the state representative in a Republican primary because he or she wouldn't vote to provide school choice, the Abbott endorsed candidate gets 57% while the state representative drops all the way to 19% in the primary. on how they will vote and what is going to impact that vote. Because as we can see with this new poll, people in these Republican held Texas House districts do support school choice and they are more likely to vote for a candidate that supports school choice. So this will be interesting to

follow as we continue to talk about school choice priority legislation currently on the Senate floor. We're waiting to see what the House will propose, but this gives some insight into how voters feel. For sure. And again, showing that the governor, when he has placed so much political capital on the line in order for school choice to pass and to try and get it the best chance as possible to make it through the legislature is not pulling any punches by releasing this and asking those very pointed and specific questions about the electoral chances for folks who potentially vote against school choice. So Cameron, thank you so much. Rob, we are coming to you. Attorney General Ken Paxton is determined to oppose Texas House members who voted to impeach him in May. Two issues we're looking

forward to seeing how they shape up in their Republican primary school choice and impeachment. But what has the Attorney General done recently towards that end? So Paxton has decided to endorse four primary challengers who are running against four sitting House Republicans in Paxton's home of Collin County. At a meeting of the Collin County Republican Party earlier this week, four Mice against Rep. Jeff Leach, and Abraham George against Rep. Candy Noble. Paxton has accused these incumbents of voting against their constituents' interests as well as participating in, quote, petty political corruption as well as a witch hunt against him with the impeachment proceedings. The fifth member of the Collin County GOP delegation to the Texas House, Rep. Justin Holland, said on social media that not a single challenger to any of the

Collin delegation will be successful. So we'll have to wait and see how that turns out. Absolutely. Has Paxton endorsed any other candidates? chair committees in the Texas House. Those committee chairs have the power to decide how bills move forward, giving them control over the movement of legislation in the lower chamber. And this is something that many in the state Republican Party blame Phelan for, for when conservative priorities don't get passed. One explanation for this, however, which is something that Brad's written about, is that one explanation for Phelan appointing these Democratic chairs is that over a decade ago, a dozen Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus to elect the moderate Republican Joe Strauss as Speaker of the House.

And the claim here is that Phelan keeps enough Democrats on his side that they can avoid a situation where the entirety of the House Democrats are able to get a more favored moderate Republican speaker with the help of a few moderate Republican members. There's a lot of complex politicking that goes into it all. Absolutely, especially in the House where you have 150 members. It can get very chaotic and politically fascinating. I think that Brad describes it as herding cats. He does indeed. But Rob, thank you for your coverage. Matt, coming to you, a post-impeachment trial document dump by the House impeachment leaders released confidential information that Paxton claims violated state law. Give us a rundown. Weeks after Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted of 16 impeachment charges

and four others dismissed, the fallout from the saga continues to boil over, including some of the endorsements and primary elements that we just heard about from Rob. Most recently, the House impeachment managers decided to post more documents that they had obtained during the investigation phase of the impeachment process that were not produced for various reasons during the trial. And some of those documents were not redacted. Most importantly, documents that contained Paxton's personal information, such as his home address. Now, some house managers, such as Representative Jeff Sleach, were quick to react,

saying he had no idea about the documents release and condemned the unredacted release of personal information, saying he was frustrated to learn about it. Paxton responded to the news announcing that he and his family had come under threats of violence and that he believed the release was done with the intent to do him harm, pointing to a recently enacted state law that prohibits what some call doxing, that is the intentional release of personal information to cause someone harm, specifically their home address, phone numbers, etc. Paxton added that he was filing criminal charges under this new law with the local prosecutors in each of the house managers home districts requesting that they investigate the nature of the release and whether those lawmakers broke the law. There you go, Matt. Thank you so much. Hayden, we're coming to you on one of my favorite beats that you cover fraud, all sorts of fun things.

Tell us about the El Paso defendant who went to prison for impersonation and fraud. An El Paso woman was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after she pleaded guilty on fraud charges for impersonating immigration agents to swindle money from illegal immigrants. She told these victims that she could help them change their immigration status. She even provided them documents to maintain this ruse that she would help them become citizens. She collected thousands of dollars in fees, and one of the points of evidence against her was the unexplained income that she derived from this artifice that she formed to swindle money from these people. She was

sentenced to 87 months in federal prison. The judge also ordered her to pay $123,000 in restitution, and he assessed a money judgment of nearly $20,000. United States Attorney Jamie Esparza commented on her conviction. He said, This defendant misled vulnerable migrants for financial gain by convincing them that she was a federal employee who could assist them on their path to U.S. citizenship. My office will prosecute anyone who fraudulently takes advantage of our federal agencies and their beneficiaries, and we will ensure their victims are afforded proper reparations." Another federal agent even called her and others like her a piranha and said that they would be aggressively pursued. This 53-year-old defendant is on her way to prison

for really pretending to be an immigration officer with citizenship and immigration services. Probably one of the more bizarre cases that I have seen published by the DOJ. It looks like she was able to carry on this fraud for a while. It's amazing though that people like this think that they're going to get away with it because it looks like she was pretty set in her ways and collecting money on this, but she was caught and is now going to be in prison for a very, very long time. Absolutely, Hayden. Thank you for your coverage. Tamron, we are coming to you. Our last story before we head over to the Twittery section. The world has been shaken by the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and many Texas lawmakers have

been vocal about their support for Israel in the days following. Can you tell us about some of these reactions? Yeah, of course. This is a story that is gripping the entire world, like you out, vowing and pledging support for Israel. Senator Ted Cruz said in a statement that the United States must ensure that Israel has all the weapons and all the time that it needs to utterly eradicate Hamas. And we must be unambiguous about that commitment. And we put together a piece with all these reactions. Many of them were very long and very in-depth, telling personal stories as well. Greg Abbott, he actually visited with a Jewish community here in Texas, and he has vowed his unwavering support and has pledged $4 million of funding to provide additional and enhanced security for Texas Jewish communities,

organizations, synagogues, schools. We've also seen state representatives in the House and the Senate. We saw both the House and the Senate pass resolutions condemning the terror insurgency and recognizing Israel has a right to defend its citizens. We heard Craig Goldman, a representative out of Fort Worth, he spoke in front of the House chamber stating that the attacks on Israel could have happened here as well. And we heard in the Senate, Senator Juan Hinojosa out of McAllen, he spoke to the Senate calling this another example that we as a nation must be ready to defend our democracy and our families and our community. And we saw Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, he posted his support for Israel on social media, and he actually had visited there. And

in a picture he posted online, he mentioned he observed that playgrounds in Israel have bomb shelters due to the threat of attack. And House Speaker Dade Phelan, he also posted about this online and issued a statement calling it a heinous attack and an egregious assault on Jewish lives. And so we have seen both at the federal level, the state level, vowing support for Israelis as they are attempting to defend themselves against this attack. And it's something that is continuing to develop. And it's been a topic of conversation in our office, and I'm sure it will continue to be in the coming weeks and months. Absolutely, Cameron. Thank you so much for your attention to that issue. Gentlemen, we are going to move on to the tweeter-y section of our podcast. Matt,

I want to talk with you about the eclipse. Give us a little bit of insight into the eclipse, what's going on. This is huge um event that has also gripped the whole country but also just a lot of the nation yeah so we reported on this so a few weeks ago uh i've been meaning to do a bit of an update uh if i can get a chance but it's it's it's a once in a lifetime event that's going to happen twice within the next so many months of each other, so to speak. It's rare to have two solar eclipses, two different types, where you have the Saturday, an annular eclipse that a lot of people know is the ring of fire. And that's when the moon doesn't completely block

out the sun, leaving what appears to be a ring of fire around it. And the shadow from this eclipse is going to run, if you can kind of envision Albuquerque being on one end, New Mexico, Kerrville, Texas being at the other end, kind of in the center of the shadow path and running down to Corpus Christi. So that gives you kind of the trajectory. And then next year in April, we're going to have a total eclipse where the moon completely blocks out the sun. And the trajectory is going to be running the opposite direction. But once again, kind of centered around Kerrville and San Antonio, Texas, Texas is going to have both shadows of totality, I believe is what they call it, where we get to experience it twice. And it's rare to have two so close to each other. And once more, it's going to be something like 20 or 30 years,

I believe 2044, if I'm not mistaken, before we have another solar eclipse. So the preparation for this, what this means for local communities that are within the band of totality, such as Kerrville, has seen local officials doing months of preparation for this weekend. They have been talking to the grocery stores, the hotels, the restaurants, the chambers of commerce, the emergency management team, et cetera, et cetera, expecting a significant increase in broad daylight and suddenly a shadow comes rushing at you at 1,500 miles an hour. Suddenly, you can see the stars. It falls to nighttime. He said that this is just an extraordinary moment to experience. The interesting one with this one this Saturday is that with the official

prescribed viewing glasses, you'll be able to see that ring of fire of the sun around the moon. And that reminds me that I should point out that officials recommend you use officially recommended viewing glasses. Don't use your sunglasses. Don't use your welding hood. Don't look at it through a beer bottle. Use regular recommended viewing glasses that can be obtained from local merchants. Reach out to your local optometrist, et cetera, et cetera. And once again, enjoy the moment. It'll be this Saturday. Go on NASA.

Check out the time. It should be around 11 o'clock noon, something like that, that this is going to occur. And just, yeah, get ready. It's going to be amazing. Absolutely. I have family coming into town during the April eclipse, and they're going to RV it out here with a bunch of extended family. It's quite the ordeal.

Matt, thanks for following that. Rob, I want to go to you. I have no interest at all in your Twittery. Yeah. I bet you have no interest at all in learning that a couple in Colorado claimed to have taken a video of Bigfoot. The Sasquatch. Yeah, indeed. There's a video that is making the rounds on Twitter of people on a train in southwestado recording what looks to be the legendary ape man of of american folklore just walking around you know we have no idea technically i

mean what it is like every good bigfoot video uh it's so far away and low res enough that you almost can't tell what you're looking at to begin with. But there's all sorts of possibilities. Maybe it was just a particularly hairy person walking around, or maybe it's, I don't know, it could be like an orangutan or something that just learned how to walk. I don't know. I don't know. But it's certainly suspicious and Mac has absolutely no interest in it whatsoever. No, and I would be, but I would also be lying if I said that I had not received that video in text from six different people in the last 24 hours. It seems that they wanted to make sure that I saw it, but pretty fascinating stuff.

Mac, what would you do if it turned out to be real? What would you do if this video, what would you do if they found proof of a bipedal ape man? What would you do? The proof that Bigfoot is real, Sasquatch is real. I would call up all the doubters that have tried to dissuade me, and I would make them eat their words. That's what I would do. Very funny. You know, the other possibility that I've seen some people talk about is that a lot of these big feet sightings could actually be like balding bears because bears can walk around on their hind legs and if enough hair

falls off you just call it big feet like you pluralize the foot part i'm sorry should i have called it by the more by the better sounding big foots would that have big foots have been better yeah i'm not gonna call it that um yeah but you know it's that's that's one possibility i've seen is that they're uh they're bears that have lost hair somehow, like they're balding and therefore it makes them look more human-like from afar. Because again, there has never been a video close up of any of these big feet. They've always been just far away. It's sort of like how, you know, when every time there's a UFO, um, sighting, it's always taken with like low-res worst camera possible available at the time. So we'll just have to wait and see. Yeah, I don't disagree with you there.

Well, Rob, thank you for carrying the banner for me this pod. I appreciate it. My gosh, we have so much to talk about. Hayden, let's go to you. Let's talk about some tech sledge scuttlebutt that happened actually today. Well, it's not scuttlebutt that happened actually today. Well, it's not scuttlebutt. It happened in front of everybody. On the House floor, Speaker Phelan prohibited Representative Tony Tenderholt from making any further parliamentary inquiries for the duration of this special session. Representative Tenderholt had approached the back microphone and requested to make a parliamentary inquiry, which is usually a question about procedure,

but is often used by members to make some kind of point or get a soundbite or a clip in there, and Thielen today was over it. He said that he was going to read something from congressional precedent, and he did, before he recognized Representative Tenderholt. And as soon as Tenderholt pushed back on what Phelan had said from the dais, Phelan instructed him that he was not to approach the back mic for a parliamentary inquiry unless he had been approved by the parliamentarian or he had discussed it with the parliamentarian. I've never seen Phelan issue that kind of sanction on a member from the dais, but it seems that Phelan is trying to crack down on Tenderholt going to the back mic.

A couple of important notes of context. Tenderholt did challenge Phelan for speaker at the beginning of this session and obviously lost. The two also do not have a great working relationship. Tenderholt has challenged Phelan on many issues. The Paxton impeachment just being the most recent one or one of the most recent ones that Tenderholt has challenged Phelan on. So the two are certainly not friends. And Phelan today, I wouldn't say he escalated the feud between the two, but he certainly reacted more strongly than he has in the past with Tenderholt with making these parliamentary inquiries. Usually Phelan will just shut it down, but this time he has shut it down for good. So Tenderholt will not be allowed to approach the back mic for that purpose, and it appears the

rules empower Phelan to do that. And you're right, Hayden. It's certainly not scuttlebutts. I got my definition incorrect there. But this is also in light of speculation, rumors, and even public statements of certain members of the House, a small contingency of conservative lawmakers showing some willingness to make a motion to vacate the chair or remove Phelan from his position. So certainly lots of context here as that happened on the House floor on Thursday, earlier today. Hayden, thanks for that. Let's move on to Cameron. What you got for for us i think you have two things for us today yeah what do you want to hear about first that we got uh holly on twitter was putting out a tweet thread um the michael berry show about uh colony ridge and then i also have i'll use the word

scuttlebutt about the house speaker Speaker, Jim Jordan and Scalise and people not knowing now who's going to be the next Republican House Speaker. So what do you want to hear first? In D.C. In D.C. Yes. Let's start with D.C. and come back home to Holly. Yeah. So Kevin McCarthy, he was ousted. We know that. And there was talk there was going to be backdoor conversations, a closed-door meeting with a vote. It was either going to be Scalise or it was going to be Jordan. It seemed as though Scalise was going to be the next speaker. But I guess today people are talking about on Twitter all different rumors that Scalise doesn't have the votes now.

And people, there's people rolling their eyes in the podcast room. So it looks like it could be Jim Jordan. But who knows? It seems like Republicans, there was a plan. Then there wasn't a plan. Then there was a vote. Now there is – it's all up in the air. I really don't know what's going to happen now.

But it makes for good content. It makes for good things for people to talk about on Twitter. That's always fun. Absolutely. And speaking of people talking about things on Twitter, Holly had some pretty good stuff she was putting out earlier today. And that's right. Because Holly was tweeting a thread about the Colony Ridge developer appearing on Michael Berry's show. And I don't have a ton of knowledge on this, so I've been relying on Holly and everyone's reporting on this because it's been very interesting coming into this without a whole lot of knowledge. So apparently the developer is saying on here that he doesn't, he had donated to Abbott's campaign and says he was shocked that Abbott spoke publicly about Colony Ridge and says he doesn't know of big developers who do not donate to politicians. Harris has donated to other

politicians in Congress, the state legislature, et cetera. I'm reading from Holly's thread here. Harris says, this is the developer, says he sells pre-developed property suggests that immigrants who've just come across the border are looking for a, quote, roof over their head, not undeveloped property. Harris, the, quote, the majority of our customers have valid U.S. identification. So that's interesting. Harris says he's not sure what percentage of customers get financing through his company. They go into some numbers here about foreclosures. I didn't know that was a big deal. Yeah, so if our listeners are interested, they should check out Holly's Twitter feed, at Holly S. Hansen. And she ends this thread by saying that Harris, the colony-rich developer

here, says the problem with the city of Plum Grove is based on racism, does not mention the city's lawsuit over breach of contract. I don't know what that's in reference to. Just thought it was interesting. So I don't know. Does anyone else here want to add some context for the colony Ridge story? Other than what I just said, I'm not super familiar with the whole, it's not an issue I've been following.

I think Brad will have more info for us once he gets back. Ooh. Yeah. He should be there right now to ruin it. the development uses to basically just confirm the identities of and the nationalities and the immigration status of those who are living in the development. So well, and part of it, if I may, part of it is the legislature doesn't know because Abbott only two or three weeks ago was saying we don't have the baseline information, baseline information we need to make legislative changes on this because they need more info on what is really happening. So the state of Texas doesn't

even know exactly what's going on yet. And that's part of the investigations that they're conducting. And that's why Brad's out there and why the ledge has more work to do on this because they have this general item on the agenda for addressing this issue but without the fact pattern to base changes on which to base those changes they're they're stumbling around in the dark so they're everyone is still gathering the basic fact pattern of what is happening at this housing development at this time. Absolutely. And that is also something we've heard a lot about in news recently. Holly and Brad wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago detailing the history of Colony Ridge, previous criticisms of the development has come under. So certainly

worth going and checking that out as well to give kind of a more full picture than just what we're hearing in the news right now. Thank you, Hayden. And thank you, Cameron. Okay, I have a tweeter that I am unbelievably excited to talk about. Last year, I think I every week provided some sort of update in the tweetery section talking about Caitlin Armstrong, who's been accused of murdering a cyclist here in Austin, kind of a love triangle type story. Armstrong accused murdering Wilson was then found and arrested in Costa Rica, a wild, wild story where she escaped the country, supposedly had some sort of plastic surgery to disguise her appearance, and then was found and apprehended by authorities overseas. And she's been awaiting

her trial. Her trial is October 30. And this week, we had another headline video appears to show murder suspect Caitlin Armstrong running from corrections officers. And if you go to KXAN, they have the video where you can see an officer chasing the suspect. It's really just a wild video to watch. You have an officer tripping several times. You have Armstrong attempting to climb over a fence in her prison garb, her striped black and white prison garb. She's handcuffed. She's trying to kind of throw herself over a fence in her prison garb, her striped black and white prison garb. She's handcuffed. She's trying to kind of throw herself over a fence. And apparently she escaped from corrections officers when they had taken her to a South Austin doctor's appointment. That's where she was able to break

for it. It looks like a homemade YouTube video when you look at it it looks like somebody made a skit about somebody running from the cops and literally put it on youtube it is the it is so comical to watch it's and even like it's a little bit distance it's kind of hard to see they'll zoom in on it and it's almost like that Bigfoot video Rob was talking about earlier, where you just see this person running through the brush. It's wild. Highly recommend. Go watch it.

It's unbelievable. And look into the Caitlin Armstrong saga. It is tragic, unbelievable, twists and turns. It's pretty crazy. So I'm happy just to be able to get to talk about it again on the pod. Well, gentlemen, thank you for bearing with me today. I so appreciate all of y'all and the reporting you do and your stories that we're able to talk about each week. Folks, thank you so much for joining us and we will catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening.

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