The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 15, 2021

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses Governor Abbott’s latest vaccine mandate ban after mounting GOP pressure, the U.S. opening the border with Mexico and Canada for fully vaccinated non-essential travelers, Trump placing pressure on the Texas House speaker to pass an election audit bill, an Abbott primary challenger affecting state agency policy, backlogs at Southwest Airlines, a pilot seeking a vaccine exemption at United Airlines, issues within the Texas foster care system for children without placement, the Texas House approving its redistricting maps, a bill requiring public school athletes to compete according to their biological sex making progress in the legislature, and yet another lawmaker retirement.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here, bringing you this week's Roundup. Today, our team discusses Governor Abbott's latest vaccine mandate ban after mounting GOP pressure, the U.S. opening the border with Mexico and Canada for fully vaccinated non-essential travelers, Trump placing pressure on the Texas House Speaker to pass an election audit bill, an Abbott primary challenger affecting state agency policy, backlogs at Southwest Airlines, a pilot seeking a vaccine exemption at United Airlines, Thanks for listening and enjoy your weekend. Why hello, Mackenzie Taylor here with Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Daniel Friend. How are you, Daniel?

I'm great. I'm playing with a dog. I'm going to play fetch even though you told me not to. I told you not to on the podcast. That's true. There is a seven-month-old puppy running around this room, which is quite fun. Yeah. He's a little incessant, though, about wanting to play fetch, so we'll see how this goes. Wow. You really do just let him run your life.

You know, it's not very often that a dog actually plays fetch. You usually throw a ball, and they look at you like you should go fetch it. I just don't know if you're playing with the right dogs. Seeing that as somebody who is obsessed with Winston, Brad's dog. Yeah, and Winston is one of those dogs who would not play fetch. Yes, but he's just kind of a little slothful guy. Yeah, yeah. Most dogs, I feel like, live for fetch.

Winston has found enlightenment. He's found his zen. Yeah, he has no desire. He has no desire. Only peace. Only peace. Until you get your barbecue out. Oh.

Then he has desire for that. But even then, it's like suppressed desire. He's just kind of chill about it. Like, I would really like you to give it to me. But if you don't, that's okay. He is. I know that's true because I fell for it the first few times and i'd give it to him because he looked so desperate and i would he'd just drop it on the ground and not touch it

i don't know why he are you serious with all the food i've ever given winston he'll drop on the ground and not eat it the most he'll do is sniff it extensively and then take a bite but he'll look at you like he hasn't eaten for days and then you give it to him and he thinks yeah wow yeah that's just weird okay well that makes me question him even more hayden any additional thoughts before we head into the podcast here um my parents dog is obsessed with crushed ice for some reason oh i have no idea what this is about but if you're in the kitchen and you use the ice maker on the fridge she will come running from wherever she happens to be in the house so that she can oh my gosh crushed ice it's unique it is very unique my roommate's dog does that

she just loves ice and it crunches and thus the sound is just quite something yeah yeah quite something well on that note, thanks for joining us again. Daniel, we're going to start with you. We're going to get into our topics for today. Last week, we saw mounting calls on Governor Abbott to take action against vaccine mandates by private employers. Can you give us some background on what prompted these calls? Yes. did these calls yes so if you haven't been paying attention to national news in the past month or so the biden administration has been kind of increasing pressure on companies and

private businesses to have vaccine mandates for their employees um so he's the administration has gone so far as to require for government contractors businesses the contract of the government and they're also pursuing some routes to have large companies require them for employees as well. And so we've seen, you know, several Texas-based businesses, big ones like Southwest and United, which Hayden will talk about a little bit later, requiring these vaccines for their employees and now this all comes as uh habit has taken some or he had taken some effort to ban vaccine passports prohibiting customers uh from having to show proof of their vaccination to receive uh to go into a business yeah receive service um and so he did that but something that was absent from his orders orders was there's no pushback on

employers requiring it for their employees and so that was something that he had taken kind of a hands-off approach and so you know in the light of the biden administration and more and more companies major companies requiring this for their employees there was definitely a lot more pressure from republic Republicans and conservatives on the right who say, you know, this is taking a step too far in limiting our individual freedom to make that choice whether we want the vaccine or not. And so that's kind of what led to this pressure. Yeah. So then some of the, talk to us about some of the people who are, you know, placing this pressure on the governor. Where is this pressure coming from?

Who's making the calls? Yeah. So like I said, it's mostly more conservatives. So last week, the Texas GOP, the State Republican Executive Committee, which is the high up grassroots activists in the party of Texas, signed this or passed a resolution uh basically you know applauding governor abbott for what he has done to to limit the the requirements for the vaccine so far but also kind of pushing him and saying you know we need to do a couple things to um basically stop employers from requiring these for the employees. And the two things that they really called for in this letter,

in this, both a resolution and a letter that they also sent, that was signed by the chairman, Matt Rinaldi, to Governor Abbott, and they asked him to add this special session agenda item, or this agenda item to the special session, which would allow lawmakers to pass legislation prohibiting employers from requiring it for employees. And they also asked him to expand his existing executive orders to cover this as well. And so the Texas GOP did this, and then several state lawmakers, Republican lawmakers, had a press conference also urging the governor to do this that included

people like uh senator bob hall and representative brisca kane a bunch of other members from the texas freedom caucus in the house uh just urging the governor to do this and so they did that last week um i reached out to the governor's office on monday morning uh asking them for a comment uh said ask them to get back to me no later than 5 p.m didn't hear back from them so we sent an article at 5 10 it was outdated at 5 20 yeah literally within 10 minutes um well daniel thanks for following that for us and let's get on to this executive order isaiah how did the governor respond to this request by the gop? Just to end the suspense, he issued an executive order

that says no entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including an employee or a consumer. That's the important part. Who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on religious belief

or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19. So like all of his COVID-19 related executive orders, he's deriving this power from the Texas Disaster Act, and it authorizes fines of up to $1,000 against violators, which we presume would be businesses. Yeah. And as the GOP requested, it also puts this topic on the special session agenda. So how is this different from some of his other executive actions that he's taken?

Well, it's interesting to me that he also put it on the session agenda. If you think about the beginning of COVID mask mandates and business closures and all that, all of that was during the interim. And a lot of lawmakers from both parties were asking Abbott to convene so that they could craft the state's response from the legislative side. And Abbott did not do that. He preferred to do it from his own executive office. Furthermore, if you think more recently about some of his other orders regarding, you know, mask mandates or vaccine passports or local authority over business operating limits, none of those orders also tasked the legislature with addressing the same topic. And this order not only asked the legislature to pass a ban on vaccine mandates, but it says, you know, once the legislature does,

that the order will be rescinded. Yeah. Now, what are some of the bills that have been filed in response to this? So, there are a couple in the House that I just chose for this article. I'm sure there are more than two at this point. State Rep Candy Noble has filed a bill that I think is the most extensive that I've seen of the ones that I've read. It would make it illegal for employers to fire, punish, or refuse to hire people based on their COVID vaccination status. And the big meaty part of this bill is an amendment to the labor code and it's going to it would it would be placed alongside existing law regarding discrimination based on race or age or national origin so you could think of it as just adding covid vaccination status to that list of topics that employers can't make decisions on yeah you know the sex race things like that uh state rep brian slayton

has filed a similar bill that's a lot shorter, and it would make it illegal for companies or hospitals, he notes explicitly, to require the COVID vaccine as a condition of employment. And that would engage with some important legal disputes going on at this day right now, namely with Houston Methodist Hospital, where a number of workers quit or were laid off over differences with their employers about getting the vaccine. Got it. Well, thank you for following that for us. Let's stick on the topic of vaccinations. Hayden, which countries are affected by the latest policy change regarding who can enter the US? Well, first of all, I just want to point out that

when McKinsey was creating this outline, she wrote open borders for vexed travelers instead of vaxxed, which probably would be just as fitting for this topic. That's fair, yes. Oh my gosh. uh the secretary of homeland security alejandro mayorkas uh announced that land and ferry points of entry uh between the united states and mexico and canada would be open to vaccinated and vexed travelers who show an immunization record um also known as a vaccine passport. And if they present that they will be allowed to enter. So the ports will be open for non-essential or what the government considers non-essential travel. In other words, things like tourism and visiting friends and family between Mexico and Canada. And it should be noted that this is purportedly applies only to legal

immigration. In other words, this is not a policy that is saying it's open to what they would call irregular migration or what most people would call illegal immigration. So those are the two countries affected, Mexico and Canada. And it should be noted that this is, you know, Texas shares more of the land border with Mexico than any other state. And Governor Abbott has had a confrontational relationship with Secretary Mayorkas. In fact, last week when I was in mission, he, at the press conference with many other governors, he called on Secretary Mayorkas to be investigated by Congress, and he also called on him to step down from his position. between the governor of Texas and the DHS secretary in this decision that does impact Texas, because we share a great portion, a majority of the land border with Mexico. Yeah, absolutely. Now, is this in conjunction with any other change?

So when Mayorkas laid out this policy change, he noted that it is in conjunction with the air travel plan that the White House has already announced last month, which is the inbound air travel by foreign nationals will be allowed again in November. to show proof of vaccination and a negative test for COVID-19 because as we know, the vaccines are not 100% effective, effective though they may be. So Mayorkas said that this two pronged plan is in conjunction with the air travel plan. And I call it a two pronged plan. Because there are there was another policy change that will take effect in early January. They didn't give you an exact date, but he did say early January when all foreign nationals traveling to the United States will have to show proof of vaccination,

even if they're traveling for an essential purpose. So these policy changes primarily concern non-essential travel, but at the beginning of next year, even if you are coming here for what the state would consider an essential reason, you'll still have to show proof of vaccination. And the secretary indicated that this would be for the reason why the extended timeline is he's giving people the opportunity to get both doses. But the DHS did not mention whether a negative test would be required in this context for COVID, but they will have to show proof of vaccination beginning early next year. There you go, Hayden. Thank you.

Daniel, let's talk about the president and the Texas Speaker of the house now former president trump waded into state politics a few weeks ago when he urged governor abbott to add an election audit bill to the special session agenda and now he's he's back at it uh give us some background on what's going on yeah so uh what trump is talking to speaker phelan about is the same issue that he called on abbott to do is that's the election audit for 2020 election in Texas. Now, of course, it is a different person that he's calling on. It's not Abbott anymore. It's Speaker Phelan, who he's kind of shifted his sights on.

There was when Governor or when Donald Trump sent the letter to Governor Abbott asking him to add this item to the special session agenda, he never actually added Governor Abbott never actually added this to the special session agenda. He never actually added, Governor Abbott never actually added this to the special session agenda. Now, the Secretary of State's office did release a statement saying that they were auditing for the Texas's largest counties for the 2020 election after President Trump sent this letter. But Governor Abbott himself has not added this item to the special session agenda. Now, the interesting thing here is even though under the Texas Constitution, during a special session that is in the interim between the regular session that happens every other year, the only items that the legislature can pass are topics related to what the governor has placed on the special session agenda.

That being said, it hasn't stopped the Senate from actually acting on what former President Trump requested them to do in this election audit, and they have passed an election audit bill from Senator Paul Bettencourt, SB 47. So the Texas Senate sent this legislation over to the House. They did it through a normal process. They had hearings. They voted on the floor. It went over to the House.

And after it did that, that's when President Trump sent this open letter to the Speaker Phelan saying that he needs to act on this legislation. Yeah. So now what specifically did he say? What kind of pressure did he place on the speaker so uh the statement from former president trump was very critical of uh phelan especially from a conservative perspective now he might take this as a compliment but president trump said that uh this texas speaker of the house dade phelan is another mitch mcconnell um so that you know fight words yeah yeah a lot of republicans are very unhappy with mitch mcconnell so this

kind of critical of him it's very similar to what uh trump said a few weeks ago when he endorsed kel seliger's appointment opponent and calling seliger the mitt romney of texas i think he likes comparing texas politicians to national politicians. In a way, that's also kind of effective politically because people, even at the local level, tend to pay more attention to national politics. Certainly. Or at least know those names. They may not know they're Cal Seliger or they're Dade Phelan. But they'll have an opinion about Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney.

Don't we all uh so that was that was one like right off the bat what trump was was calling phelan um and then he he also went to to a little bit further and said texans are tired of phelan's weak rhino leadership in the state house texas is a very red state even more than people know if this doesn't pass soon referring to the election audit bill we look forward to seeing him in the texas primary it will get done one way or the other so essentially a threat there to the speaker that you're going to see a primary opponent backed by president trump if he doesn't uh you know push for this election audit bill um now that's that's kind of the pressure that he was putting on phelan now has that resulted in any movement on the bill has phelan done anything yet

so i went to uh the bills page on texas legislature online and it turns out that it is still sitting in the house i don't think it's even been referred to a committee yet. Since the special session actually is set to end on Tuesday, it can only be 30 days, maximum 30 days. So that only gives lawmakers a few days if they were to act on it. Really not practically enough time. If they really jump to it today as we're recording this podcast on Thursday, then perhaps they could get it done, but it seems pretty unlikely at this point. Yeah, certainly. And it is notable in that if the bill even did make its way through the House,

being that it's not on the special session agenda, that would be subject to a point of order, right? There are mechanisms by which that bill could be killed down the line. Well, Daniel, thank you for that. Isaiah, let's chat with you. A while ago, we briefly mentioned in a separate article how the texas department of family and productive services took down a web page of resources for gay and transgender youth from its website what new details have

emerged on that story yeah so the houston chronicle got their hands on some public records some emails among dvps staff showing that Don Huffines, one of Abbott's primary election challenges, Republican, directly influenced the choice to take down this webpage. The news is a bit unsurprising since they changed the website actually minutes, really minutes after Huffines drew attention to it in a press release. Yeah, it was almost immediate. Now, what was Huffine's qualms with the webpage? Huffine has long used the transgender topic as a wedge between him and Abbott. And so, his whole beef with this website, well, he called it damaging his words ideology among kids,

calling it indoctrination and grooming. And it linked to a video distinguishing gender identity from sexual orientation uh it had a number of hotlines uh for suicide and other things coming out and um anyway but yeah that was his problem um it's all part of his overall effort for perspective to distinguish himself from abbott as uh being more conservative on transgender topics. Social issues. Right. And social issues in general. Yeah.

So, yeah. There you go. Definitely interesting to see that happen. Well, thank you for covering that for us, Hayden. Let's talk about one of the big stories from this week. Southwest Airlines was trending on Twitter, national news, state-level news. Everybody was talking about it talk to us about the backdrop of the problems at southwest over the weekend as we have discussed before

president biden issued an executive order on september 9 requiring all federal employees and federal contractors to implement vaccine mandates. And Southwest Airlines as a federal contractor decided last week, well, I'm not sure if they didn't decide last week, they announced last week that their employees would have to be vaccinated by December 8, or face loss of employment. And they said that they were not necessarily enthusiastic about this vaccine mandate, but their CEO, Gary Kelly, has told the media that because they are a federal contractor, the financial loss that they would sustain if they did not abide by this executive order is not something they could tolerate. So they decided to proceed with a vaccine mandate that is, of course, being protested by the Pilots Union, the Southwest Airlines Pilot Association. They've vocally opposed this vaccination mandate,

and they have filed for a temporary restraining order against its enforcement and against the termination of employees who choose not to get a vaccination. So Southwest Airlines, having announced this vaccine last week, went into the weekend with substantial controversy and logistical problems. Yeah, so talk to us about the response and what pilot unions had to say about the issue well there were um thousands of flight cancellations and delays over the weekend one report from bloomberg said that there were 30 percent of flights were canceled on sunday and the food 32 percent were delayed and of course those are approximations because it was a changing rapidly changing situation by monday things were still had a difficult time they were still having a hard time catching up but the situation had

improved considerably by monday morning and the statements that the airline put out they blamed poor weather conditions particularly in florida and air traffic control issues almost comically air traffic control then put out a statement saying that they had uh cleared up their problems by friday afternoon um slash saturday morning and that the airline's logistical issues uh should be not blamed but they made clear that they were not the primary cause yeah absolutely well we see you know fingers being pointed in different directions and yes those uh those different entities that are facing blame coming out and saying hey we figured out we figured out our stuff you know and here's the timeline for that yeah we've got ourselves together i don't know about those

you know silly people over there yeah and the pilots union interestingly enough agrees with the airline that they were pressured into implementing this vaccine mandate this is not something that southwest decided independently well they did make an independent decision for them but they didn't create the concept of an airline mandating vaccines other airlines had already announced, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways. And the pilots union was clear, despite there was a lot on social media about pilots, you know, walking out or objecting. And it's possible that some may have made independent decisions to take vacation or to, you know, take their vacation time while they could or possibly being absent from the job but the pilots union was clear that they the pilot that southwest pilots were focused on serving their customers and that this event was not a staffing shortage brought about by

any kind of official airline official or unofficial job action is the way they put it. They attributed the problems to the airlines poor planning amid the vaccine mandate and Southwest, though it is not the only airline that has had problems, their problems have lasted longer than the other airlines and they've had to cancel considerably more flights and delay more flights than the other airlines. And so there's not exactly widespread agreement over what caused these problems over the weekend. But it's probably fair to say that it was a variety of issues that and there wasn't one orchestrated reason why this occurred. Wow. Now let's talk about United Airlines. Now let's stay on the topic of airlines and vaccine mandates. Kim Roberts wrote a piece for us this week about the issue.

You're covering it for us on this podcast. But talk to us about the story and this pilot's objection to the vaccine mandate? Well, a United Airlines captain, David Sombrano, who lives in North Texas, has sued on a class action basis, United Airlines. He's been a pilot for United for three decades plus. And he is suing on the basis that the airline's vaccine mandate is a violation of an individual's right to object based on religious or medical grounds. And the lawsuit details the fact that there are no other options given such as negative tests or recovery from COVID-19 natural immunity in terms of being acceptable from a COVID-19 safety standpoint and that the airline is discriminating against people

for instance who might object to the fact that the vaccine was developed using research that involved um aborted unborn children and of course there's been a lot of discussion about you know the extent to which that's the case um and i know that there have been denominations religious denominations christian denominations who have come out and and said that they are in favor of vaccination and that those those are not not their beliefs necessarily something that someone can get vaccinated and still be objected object to abortion that is it is 100 possible but there are those who um who object entirely to the use of vaccines for that reason. So, it is part of that basis is why some are objecting on religious grounds to the vaccine, and this lawsuit includes an accusation that United's mandate does not accommodate for that. And then, of course,

there are medical reasons, you know, rare medical issues that arise with the use of a vaccine. Um, and rare though they may be, they do exist. And, uh, those are risks that, um, some people don't want to take with their own health. Um, and, and so that is another allegation that has been made in this lawsuit. Now, has the judge tipped his hand at all at how he might rule or in what happens in the meantime? Well, the plaintiffs in this case requested a temporary restraining order, which was granted on Tuesday. Judge Mark Pittman and the Northern District of Texas. Mark Pittman really is in the news lately. He's a part of all these big cases. Yeah, I feel the same way about Judge Andrew Hannonannon he's issued a lot of border related uh orders he ruled that the there will be a temporary

restraining order in place until october 26 to determine whether a preliminary injunction is necessary and proper and he said that without that order, there would be hundreds of individuals who would be required to take the vaccine or be placed on leave without pay. So that temporary restraining order is in place, a temporary victory for the plaintiffs in this case. And in the intervening time, there will be a hearing on October 13. And that is for the purpose of determining whether there will be a preliminary injunction for this complaint, which was filed on September 21. And of course, the airline had earlier mandated that the first dose be given by September 27. So this lawsuit is

really to prevent the firing of up to 600 employees who would possibly be fired or face unpaid leave for not getting a vaccination. And one of the biggest things about these lawsuits is it's all about timing. And it's all about when the decision is made. And when the deadlines are, you know, five years from now, someone, the Supreme Court might decide vaccine mandates are illegal, but by then, if people have already been fired and or gotten the vaccine or what have you, then that is in itself a victory, even if ultimately they lose the legal issue. So from a practical standpoint, the longer these things drag out in the courts, the less and less these court rulings will matter because people are going to eventually have to make determinations for their families and themselves as for whether they're going to get the vaccine or face the consequences in the meantime of the religious and medical exemptions not being respected.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that for, or on behalf of Kim. Isaiah, let's talk about the Texas foster care system, a story you've been working on. Who are children without placement? And what's the problem building around this issue right now? The term children without placement, or CWOP or QWOP,

is given to youth in the foster care system that are between homes, between placements. So that means they could have just been removed from their families or just released from a psychiatric hospital or whatnot. Texas caseworkers then have to find their next home, but that's been getting difficult over the past year, meaning that a lot more of these kids are spending a lot more time in caseworkers' offices, which is never meant to happen because they're not trained for that. Oftentimes, the caseworkers, you watch them overnight, have no more training than a video or something.

And they have to abandon their regular workload, which consists of duties that they have to other children in the system, to watch these kids all night before returning to their regular jobs in the morning. Yeah. So, there was a committee hearing in the Texas House on Wednesday night on this topic where lawmakers heard from two different state agencies that are particularly in charge of the foster care system, as well as some other foster care providers. What factors did they guess are contributing to this rise in children without placement?

Yeah. So those two agencies are one, the DFPS, Family Protective Services. That's where CPS, Child Protective Services, is. Those are the caseworkers that are watching these kids and really work in the foster care system. The other agency is Health and Human Services Commission, HHSC. They license and regulate the providers, the foster facilities and care centers and things like that. So the elephant in this room with regards to why are there so many more children without placement than there were last year, you know, because there's been such a precipitous rise. The elephant in the room is that there's this lawsuit against the state foster care system that's been going on for 10 years now, alleging in so many words and for constitutional reasons that it's dangerous for kids in the system. The judge in that case, Janice Jack, ordered the DFPS last year to put in a new system of heightened monitoring at centers that have shown higher rates of abuse and neglect.

This new scrutiny made a lot of providers jump ship, taking 1,300 beds out of the system and shrinking the capacity of the system overall, leaving these kids with fewer places to go. On top of that, lawmakers and these two agencies argued about how big a role COVID played in this drama. Both of the agencies cited the pandemic as a reason for why it's getting harder to place these kids. James Frank, who was heading the committee, a Republican, strongly implied that these agencies were using COVID as a scapegoat because he was he was pointing really towards more towards the lawsuit as like this heightened monitoring has squeezed the system and made a lot of providers jump ship and james frank has been at the forefront of this issue for many many years he's been on the forefront of the foster care system cps what have you even in i believe it was 2017

when there was a big cps overhaul passed by the legislature he was the one at the forefront of all that discussion so this is an issue he's very familiar with and he's kind of you know the guy in the legislature who deals with these issues typically yeah yeah it was evident that the rest of the committee had to get caught up to speed on this particular issue yeah um but on the other hand hsc said that providers were having a hard time getting people to come to work, which shrink the workforce. And COVID just threw a lot of weird monkey wrenches into it in a lot of ways. I read one report that the DFPS published that said there was one foster child that had to be taken from her foster family last year because COVID closed the schools down.

And under this family's orders, the child couldn't be left home alone. But they didn't expect that. And so this child was doing school virtually, and there were times where both parents had to be gone. And so then she was taken away from that family, and then she went going then she went to co-op see what anyway foster care providers told the panel that the new scrutiny order by the court was not always reasonable so they appointed less to covet and more towards heightened monitoring

kind of like james frank theorized yeah one provider said that he'd gotten citations for not having a rubber mattress for this one teenager who a rubber mattress yes they're meant you know for like kids that wet the bed but it's a teenager got it so the teenager didn't want the mattress got like threw it away replaced with another one and um they got a citation for that for not having rubber mattress for this teen that didn't want it wow um he also got a citation for having a fire extinguisher that was two weeks expired things like that and they add up so Frank characterized it as one person raising a child with six people with clipboards standing around him.

But again, as always, on the other hand, you have to wonder about what went on at some of these places that decided to just drop out of the system rather than subject themselves to heightened monitoring. Yeah, into the process. Well, that's so hard about the entire foster care system and CPS period is at what point do the rights of the child stop and the, you know, rights of those watching them begin.

And what, what point does the state step in and make that determination about things that may be actually really big deals and worth taking a child away from placement or aren't at all. Right. And that determination can be so difficult um and monitor i mean all this red tape becomes very very difficult and it's in place for a reason we're dealing with real people's lives here but it's it just because it's so complicated like it's it's so

hard to even have a conversation about it because it's it's unbelievably complicated and it affects real people's lives every single day in the state of Texas. Not just real people, children in the state of Texas. And the way Frank summed it up, again, with regards to the rise of children in co-op or CWOP, is some of it's legislators and regulation. Some of it is the lawsuit and the common law regulations come from that. Some of it is the two agencies, DFPS and HHSC, not talking to each other. Yeah. And sometimes it is a bad provider. You know, like you can read these reports. I've linked them in our last article on there about, you know, abuse that went on at foster care centers.

So, but those factors are all seemingly competing. Yeah. Right. And it seems like one would eliminate another. Yeah. Well, Isaiahaiah thank you for trying to dilute that down to make it you know accessible to all of us and to readers it's an incredibly complicated topic and one definitely worth following so thank you daniel let's talk about redistricting we'd be remiss if we did not talk about redistricting at least once on this podcast while this special session is going on so let's it's a fun topic it it is nerdy maybe we should make that our fun topic because isaiah loves so much

when we have fun topics that are related to the legislature he loves it more than anything i don't think he hears me right now isaiah did you hear that i'm just going away oh my gosh um in a room full of nerds he might be the least nerdy of us on this i'd never in my life thought i would ever hear that in any setting oh my gosh well it might be your your special day okay redistricting let's talk about it daniel so the uh texas house finally went through the process and approved their maps on Wednesday morning. And in the big picture, talk to us about where this map will end up and where this leaves the state in terms of redistricting. Yeah, so they spent a lot of time on Tuesday and going into Wednesday morning. I think they wrapped up around 345 in the morning, which, you know, that was a fun night. A lot of it, a lot of it was, um, you know, they, they weren't actually, uh, on the floor

debating it. A lot of this time they spent, uh, behind the scenes, uh, I'm sure members of the different major delegations like Harris County and Bexar County, uh, you know, we're debating, uh, where the lines should be. Someone asked me, you know, did they get out a whiteboard and on the floor and drop uh where the line should be someone asked me you know did they get out a whiteboard and on the floor and drop like where the line should be i'm like that's probably what they were doing behind the scenes yeah for sure um now big picture wise uh especially looking at the partisan makeup because that's really going to be how it's going to affect the

state as a whole um it does shore up a lot of the competitive seats so the you know all those purple seats for the most part that we saw you know really competitive suburban counties that have these districts that are you know kind of toss up and you know in 2018 a lot of democrats came in and took a whole host of them and those were kind of the battlegrounds uh in following year as well. The 12 House seats, yeah. You know, a lot of those are not going to be so much battlegrounds anymore. Where it does leave Texas is there's going to be 84 right-leaning seats, by my analysis, and there's going to be 64 Democrat-leaning seats, and then there's going to be a couple, there's still going to be two toss-ups uh that they um kind of drew there's

going to be one up in collin county uh which is going to be uh i think it's going to be new they redrew the line so they're all new yeah um but there's one in collin county that's going to be really competitive and then the other one did sanford's uh departure particularly uh give room for that yes yeah i think it did um and now Sanford isn't actually in the competitive one anymore, but it is his number that's the competitive one. And then the other one is the San Antonio, the vacant seat right now that previously belonged to Leo Pacheco, who resigned, and now there's a special election for that.

So those are the two toss-ups. Real quick, how did they lean before your analysis? So the Collin County one was more Republican. The one in San Antonio was more Democratic. It was probably, in the first proposal of the map that they had, it was going to be, I believe, a D54 leaning seat. So about 54% of the Democrats would get it on the statewide ticket. But under the new map, now it's about even 50-50 in both of those. Okay, so talk to us about some of the big changes that happened on Tuesday night.

Yeah, so I think the big change that we really, you know, when you're thinking about fights on the floor that could happen, the biggest notable change was definitely in the Rio Grande Valley. This was an amendment from Representative Jay M. Lozano. He actually came in in 2010 as a Democrat. The next session that he came back, he was a Republican. And so, you know, he shifted his partisan, his actual party affiliation, just as many of the people down in South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley and along the border have also shifted rightward. Now, Lozano is not actually a member of the Rio Grande Valley delegation, which, you know, typically is the Hidalgo County and Cameron County down in Brownsville-McAllen, those regions. So he's not a member of that delegation, but he had an amendment that really affects Cameron County and the one north of that, Willis-Hill County. And so previously there had been two districts, 37 and 38, which were kind of splitting up Brownsville.

The new map actually takes one of them out of Brownsville, 37, which is where Representative Alex Dominguez lives. And it kind of anchors that district more in the more right-leaning city of, forgot the name of the city, Harlingen. There you go. That is it. It's hard to remember. Yeah. Keeping track of, you know, there's 254 counties. Yeah.

How do you expect me to keep track of the cities? 254, man. It's been a while since I heard that thrown around. Anyway. Hey, we might hear it again. That's true. Very soon. So it anchors that district more in the right-leaning

harlingen city and then also goes up into willis county so that actually makes that district a lot more competitive that could potentially be you know one of the the districts that are targeted by republicans in the upcoming cycle it still leans toward democrats with a 2018-2020 leaning of 53% toward Democrats. But it's still trending. It's within the – especially at the local level, if a candidate gets out there and does well, then that's definitely a district that we could see flip to Republicans. But it's going to be competitive. So that was the big change, obviously opposed by Democrats and all the members of the RGV delegation, just because of the partisan shift, mainly. And then the other thing that I mentioned, of course, the San Antonio

district did change. This is not something that I actually noticed during the night because I don't know San Antonio politics too well, so I don't know where the Republican votes are. But the shift there definitely changed 118 to make that more competitive. If you've been following Isaiah's reporting, there is an ongoing election. There's a runoff between a republican and democrat the republican in the race was actually a state representative for a period of time when there was no special no session but you know he does have some name id so um even if he doesn't win this runoff election uh being on the ballot and if he runs again uh in 2022 whatever the next election is then uh you know that could definitely uh turn towards republicans uh it's it's an interesting district where um under the lines that have now been passed by the house it's a district that both uh

greg abbott carried and beta rourke carried both biden carried and john corning carried so it's an interesting district yeah for sure and then the last small little change uh representative erin zwiener um who's in hayes county in driftwood she had been drawn out of her district 45 and put into district 73 which would have been a lot more Republican leaning, probably impossible for her to win reelection there. And she, I saw her going around on the floor earlier in the day, and I'm guessing she was talking to people to get her to support her amendment, uh, to put her back in HD 45. And that did pass. Now, what were the most controversial parts? So there were two big parts that I saw. Now, of course, Democrats broadly oppose the bill for different reasons, especially related to the 55, represented by Brad Buckley and Hugh Schein.

And so they call this the donut district because there is, I think it's 55 is actually in Killeen and Temple, and then 54 completely surrounds it like the shape of a donut. That's crazy. So that is one that I'm sure we will not hear the end of. I'm sure that will come up in litigation. They say that this is unlawful because it splits a black community there in Killeen. So we'll see what comes of that, But that's how it's split right now. Got it.

And the other controversial part, more from the Republican side, is you had Representative Jeff Kasin up in Tarrant County in Bedford, which is actually the same town that former Representative Jonathan Stickland lived. And of course, he was not well-liked by among his colleagues, many of his colleagues in the House. And so the delegation there in Tarrant County actually drew Jeff Kasin's district into a heavily-leaning Democrat district. Or not heavily-leaning, but it's like a D60%. So pretty unlikely that Representative Kasen could win election in that. So he actually offered an amendment that would draw him into a more Republican-leaning district and put Representative Matt Krause's district as the one that would turn toward Democrats. Now, a lot of Representative Krause's district under Kaysen's proposal would end up in his district and other Republican areas. But the number would be more Democrat leaning and Kaysen would, of course, be a lot safer for reelection. Right.

But this was actually opposed broadly by Republicans and Democrats. There were only 17 members who voted in favor of it. There were a couple of Democrats, like representative jasmine crockett who who defended case and and i think they're desk mates i think that's kind of inside baseball but i think they sit at the same desk uh crockett and case if i'm not mistaken i don't think that they do oh okay maybe not i could be wrong i thought they do too yeah i think we'll have to go back and check because i'll have to check we'll we'll fact check that and tell you at the end of the podcast. Yeah.

So you had her actually defending Kaysen and pointing out kind of this, some hypocrisy on the part of Republicans. Representative Giovanni Capriglione, who lives in Tarrant County, kind of the northern, north. I always get east and west confused for some reason does that happen to anybody else they're very similar i know right you go west long enough you're going east yeah right anyways northeastern part of tarrant county is where he's from a republican in this delegation came up here and criticized uh casen's amendment there was some pretty hot debate uh on the floor between those two members. And Capriglione's major complaint was that Representative Kaysen's amendment would have split up some communities of interest, like some different school boards and school districts and other cities and whatnot. And so he was critical of it from that perspective. But representative Crockett, a Democrat,

very left-leaning Democrat comes up and says, isn't it kind of ironic that he's saying that this is going to split a community of interest, but they can go and vote for the vote against the, the clean amendment that would keep that community of interest together. So there was, you know, some support from both the right and the left. But, you know, this is one of those, I think, I've only heard you, Isaiah, pointed this way, where there's like the horseshoe of politics where the right and the left, the far right and left can kind of come together. Oh, the horseshoe. That's a great way to put it.

I didn't come up with it. Oh. You have, we saw that on the floor. You had a lot of these Freedom Caucus members, like Representative maize middleton uh support casen's amendment and you also had some people like representative michelle beckley and uh representative jasmine crockett who are very upset with the map uh and uh you know they also supported casen's amendment against the kind of the the higher-ups in the in the house leadership so those are the controversial parts kind of fun to watch also kind of tiring at three in the morning certainly well thank you for staying

up late so you know the rest of us didn't have to and i will correct myself uh representative case and shares a desk with representative lacy hall and not representative crockett they're on the same side of the house so so. There you go. Yeah, exactly. The general same side of the House. But I think they've had moments on the House floor together where they've commended each other, which made me, for some reason, Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Yeah, there's some sort of camaraderie between them.

They're on the committee together or something. Yeah, I can't remember. Regardless, thank you, Daniel. Isaiah, let's talk about another hot topic in the House right now, a bill being considered and has been considered for multiple months now in texas that would require public school athletes to compete according to their biological sex they're still talking about it now literally as we record but tell us about what the

bill would do and where it is in the process yes like you mentioned there is a little bit of suspense because the house is talking about it right now. The House author, Representative Valerie Swanson, has said that she has majority support, 76 co-authors. So in the third now, and it's passed the Senate every time. So it's a good bet that it'll pass the Senate too if it passes the House. But who knows what will happen in the House? Point of order or something? Anyway, so as I talk about that now, yeah, we can describe it. It is, for the most part, a solidification of UIL rules. And for those of y'all who didn't go to high school in Texas,

the UIL is just public school sports in Texas, more or less. I don't know if there's any public school sports that take place outside the UIL. I think it's pretty universal. But yeah, think of that as the Texas Public School Sports League. And their rules are determined by superintendents. Superintendents very overwhelmingly approved the current rule, which says that students are organized according to the sex and their birth certificates. The big difference, oh, and HB 25 would codify that, but the big departure and the big difference between HB 25 and the current rules are that the UIL will take an altered birth certificate. So in Texas, as in many other states,

the state will let you change the gender on your birth certificate, and UIL will just accept the altered document. HB 25 would not. It says that you would have to use your original accurate birth certificate, and it has exceptions only for if there was a mistake that made the original birth certificate inaccurate. And if it was changed to rectify that error, but not if you're changed it from a gender transition. So that's other than that, it's just passing UIL rules into law at the state level.

There you go. Well, Isaiah, thank you for that. Daniel, let's talk about a retirement that happened this week for another house member. Now he's been at the center. We've talked about Kel Seliger before in his district. I think a lot of folks compare Lyle Larson to Kel Seliger in some ways, but not 12 hours after the House passed a new map, he announces retirement. Talk us through that and what he cited his reasons for. Yes, so it was interesting. I think there were only two Republicans who voted against the redistricting plan. Representative Kaysen was one for the reasons we talked about earlier. And then the other one was Representative Lyle Larson, who has also been at odds with his party quite a bit, a bit of an antagonist, very critical of some of the things that Republicans do. Now, he said in his announcement, quote, many of you know that we are firm believers in the concept of term limits.

This belief is reflected in our years-long effort to enact term limits in the state government. As a strong proponent of term limits, we will follow the term limits we previously proposed in this legislation. So, he is stepping from the legislature, and that leaves his seat open. So there will be probably a competitive primary there in the GOP. It does lean Republican. I can actually pull up how far it leans if I can find it. So District 122 in San Antonioio under the new house map becomes a little bit more republican at uh our 60 leaning got it and we've already seen a few candidates jump in the race

and we'll see how this ends up um but it was a self-imposed term limit situation as what was cited so we'll see what you know who ends up taking the seat and certainly somebody who had uh cited support for a texas independent party previously very interesting politically to watch him manage the house and its politics so we'll see what happens there daniel thank you for that okay gentlemen let's move on to our fun topic now we saw that southwest airlines i'm surprising you guys with this one you don't know what's coming so we have no idea what the fun topic that's exactly right um so here's what we're going to do um we know that uh throughout this last week we've seen a lot of travel issues

what's the worst travel story you have or travel issue that you have encountered either at an airport on a road trip the worst delay tell me your horror stories i do not like flying something will go wrong always always wow for me in my experience especially there are some airlines that I think things just seem to go wrong, worse. Do you want to name drop them here? American Airlines. Agreed. Actually, I was flying home from college to my family in Oklahoma and I was on a Southwest flight,

which got delayed pushback, which, okay, not a big deal, right? Like there might be another flight later in the day or something like that. But no, the only other flight was at another airport, like 50 minutes away, driving. I couldn't make it for that.

And so I called my parents. I'm like, what do you, I can just wait another day, go back to my apartment at the campus and just stay there and come home the next day on another flight. I'm like, no, no, no. Like you should change your flight. There's another American Airlines flight leaving this afternoon that you can make. I'm like, look, I mean, we have to spend the extra money to get a ticket for that airline.

And I'm just, this is just a mess. I was like, let me just do that. I'm like, no, no, no. get on, get on this American airlines flight. And I say, okay, fine. I'll get on the American airlines flight and get the ticket, get in line. I don't remember anything, you know, crazy happening. And as I'm waiting, it's just another flight, get on and get boarded in your seat. Also, I prefer Southwest just because the seating,

there's not the assigned seats, which is kind of nice. Not the case with American Airlines. That's beside the point. Then we're flying over Phoenix, and someone has some kind of a, I don't know if they had a stroke or a heart attack.

Someone has a problem on the plane. We have to make an emergency landing in Phoenix. So we touch down in Phoenix. Then we're sitting there for probably an hour as they're dealing with this situation. And then by the time we finally make the connecting flight in Dallas, guess what? I'm late for my flight. Oh, Lord. So they're like, well, we can put you up in a hotel

i stayed with my uncle which was good because i hadn't seen him for a while but also just a mess and then it took longer to get home than if i just waited another day were they really dramatic about the emergency landing because i was on a plane once from and and here's the the crazy thing is i have been on a good number of flights, not a ton, but I was on a flight from nowhere other than Tyler to Dallas. This is the shortest of short flights. And they said that there was going to have to be an emergency landing. And I was a senior in high school.

I thought emergency landing meant that you had to land on the freeway. That's what I thought emergency landing meant that you had to land on the freeway that's what i thought emergency so i was like freaking out because i had no idea what that meant i thought we were gonna have to land in a field or something that's what i thought that meant um i probably just goes to show i didn't you know i didn't know a lot but um i they announced the because at first they announced like some turbulence and then um it was quiet for a long time and the flight attendant was finally like we're gonna have to make an emergency landing and um poor senior in high school hayden was like oh my gosh i'm gonna die well i you know i didn't panic but it was kind of scary and so um basically nothing happened we landed at the airport and a fire truck met us on the on the uh runway but that was pretty much it nothing

nothing happened they didn't even explain what went on and some other people were kind of freaked out too because they didn't give any details um and so that's just one of many um of my abundant number of transportation mishaps um probably most recently would be when my engine died on 35 oh man and it literally just stopped working i was on my way here in fact and um so i kind of drifted over into it was a two-lane exit thankfully and i was blocking one of the exit lanes and just like watching all these vehicles behind me barreling toward my car hoping they saw my hazard lights in time um so that's my dramatic uh story story or dramatic telling of a story that's probably not that dramatic that's like a 15 minute flight i mean not really but basically and it should not have been that dramatic isaiah do

you have any stories man i wish i had some as as grandiose as these i don't have a ton of flying experience or even that it's like a car ride or road trip or anything um Um, yes. So I remember one time, um, this is, well, it would have been recent. So I was coming from Austin where I live now and I was driving to San Antonio to see some friends from college there. And I'm really not a night person. I like to sleep at normal times, you know, classic, like 10 to six, that's's that's a good interval and I'm just really not the type to like stay up late but I just lost a good time long story short I was driving back home man I was I was on 281 and it was like 2 in the morning that's thought man this is not a good time to be awake and so I thought you know what I'm gonna do I'm just gonna like I'm just gonna sleep in my car so I just pulled over and uh blissfully slept there until I was awoken by a light over my eyelids

and I was like what's going on and then my car alarm went off I was like oh what's happening so I wake up and there are these cops that woke me up and so I'm scrambling like where did I put my key I'm just in the back seat. I put it on the ground somewhere. It's all dark. And so I find it, turn the car, you know, get the alarm off. And then I just roll down the window. And by this point, I'm leaning in the front seat

because I had turned the car off. And so I'm just, like, stretched diagonally over the breadth of my car, blearily talking to this cop. And he was, like, he was very nice about it you know but i thought i'm i thought like i've seen psycho if i act suspicious he's gonna follow me all the way to the bates motel oh my gosh so i'm just telling him like yeah you know he's like are you sure it's safe to be here i said yes you know i figure like people pull over all the time because they run out of gas i have to change a tire why not why can't i just be one of those cars just pulled over what's

the big deal you were sleeping yeah and so anyway but i wasn't breaking a law or anything he just wanted to tell me to be safe i guess and so no i did that in college once i i went to sleep and i it was in a 1994 ford ranger pickup so it's an old vehicle but i don't know why that matters to, um, matters at all. But yeah, the same thing happened to me. I went to sleep in the truck and I was awakened by a cop who was like, said, have you been drinking? And we're like, no, I was just tired. And okay. You know, if I had been drinking,

would you prefer that I'd be driving? You know, if I've been drinking, why not just, I'm not talking about my situation. I'm talking about your, I wasn't drinking and driving, but you know, let's say like, you've got some dude who's drinking and driving. He sleeps. Well, I guess like, I want you to get back on the road right now.

I guess the logic would be if you, you know, if you had been drinking and driving, they would need to check that out because, you know, that that's what I, I mean, if I were a police officer,

I'd probably, probably ask too. But you know, it is, that is weird to, you know, be asleep and then wake up with somebody who's like trying to ask you questions and you're like, I don't know yet. My brain isn't awake. Oh my goodness. Isaiah, that's a very Isaiah story. I, um, aside from just like regular delay, I mean, the worst delay I probably ever experienced was flying home from

seeing my family in Phoenix and all these Phoenix related adjacent stories. But, um, my parents were like, oh my gosh, your flight got delayed. And I was like, yeah, but it's been like getting delayed and then moving back to its regular time all day. I think I'll be just fine. And, uh, they're like, okay, okay. Are you sure you don't want us to pick you up? And you can just like, you know, hang out until we can go to dinner or something until your flight is, uh, is back on. And yeah i know it's okay you're just leaving at the airport i ended instead of going to dinner with my parents and enjoying time with my family i was at the airport for like six hours until i don't even remember it was like 2 a.m that's so waiting

for my flight and then of course by the time i fly in texas it's like 6 a.m so literally it wasn't like an all night ordeal which was just crazy and then once i was in i was in france the one time i went to france and uh there was like a bomb threat right as we were at the at the charles de gaulle airport right as we were about to fly back so security was so intense and i remember my sister she was like 16 at the time and uh they were very particular about her bag and i was like this small little you know high school girl is not it's not the source of your problems but they were she looked suspicious to them and so they were they were really making sure she didn't she didn't have anything to do with the nonsense

but it's always so frustrating though when your travel plans get derailed when you yeah when you're at the mercy of these right you know and you have no control whatsoever over what's going on you know same thing goes with accidents on the freeway or road closures that you didn't anticipate anything it's frustrating when you're headed to a destination you have a plan and then you know the flight gets canceled or sure you, it takes 10 hours to go 100 miles because, you know, there's a wreck or a closure or something that's going on. But yeah, that's totally true. I feel like generally you have a little bit more control over driving. A little bit, yeah. Which is why I prefer, like, if there's going to be a delay, it's my fault.

Right, yeah. Usually. Unless you're on 35 and there's construction. Yeah, or driving through waco exactly like i was driving from here to tyler um last week and i got to athens and i don't know what had happened in the loop in athens but they had closed down the entire um the entire the side of the loop that i was on and everyone had to turn around and go back the other direction.

I ended up having to take the business route through Athens and it didn't add maybe 20 minutes. It was only about 20 minutes. It could have been a lot worse, but I was just curious what had happened. You know, we looked on the news later and we could, didn't see anything.

So it must've been serious if they had to totally shut down the freeway and everyone turned back around. Well, gentlemen, thank you for all your reporting and for obliging on this one topic. Folks, thanks for listening and we will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation.

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