The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 20, 2023

Episode Date: October 20, 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: Rep. Jim Jordan losing the first vote for U.S. speaker, with three Texas Republicans voting against himThe Texan’s tour of the Colony Ridge development in the Houston areaThousands of “special interest aliens” being apprehended at the southern border between 2021 and 2023The Texas Senate passing a ban on private employers issuing COVID-19 vaccine mandatesGalveston County appealing a district judge’s ruling that its redistricting map violates federal civil rights lawThe fundraising numbers for Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2024 Democratic challengersPro-life groups and San Antonio residents suing to restrict the city’s “Reproductive Justice Fund” from funding out-of-state abortionTexas comptroller purchases $20 million in in Israeli bonds to provide “financial liquidity” during Gaza warAttorney General Ken Paxton issuing guidance on ESG enforcement in TexasForney ISD constructs a new “Keith Bell Opportunity Central” high schoolAnd more.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans' weekly roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses Jim Jordan losing the first vote for U.S. Speaker, with three Texas Republicans voting against him. The Texans' tour of the Colony Ridge development in the Houston area. Thousands of special interest aliens being apprehended at the southern border. The Texas Senate passing a ban on private employers issuing COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Galveston County appealing a district judge's ruling that its redistricting map violates federal civil rights law. The fundraising numbers for Senator Ted Cruz's 2024 Democratic challengers. Pro-life groups and San Antonio residents suing to restrict the city's reproductive justice fund.

The Texas comptroller purchasing $20 million in Israeli bonds to provide financial liquidity during the Israel-Hamas war. Attorney General Ken Paxton issuing guidance on ESG enforcement in Texas. Forney ISD constructing a new Keith Bell Opportunity Central, a poll of Houston voters' top priorities before the city's 2023 mayoral election, and high office vacancy in major Texas cities amid economic growth. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Matt, and we have Holly Hansen and Kim Roberts joining us from their respective parts of the state. Ladies, we are so glad to have from their respective parts of the state. Ladies, we are so glad to have you. Welcome back to the podcast.

Thanks. We're excited to be here. Yay. Glad to be here. Yay. Well, we have a lot of news to jump into since we have so many members of our team joining us today. So we're going to go ahead and start with some federal scuttlebutt, some news here. Matt, as the U.S. House of Representatives attempts to elect a new speaker of the House, three Texas Republicans voted against the GOP nominee, keeping the speaker's office vacant. Talk to us about the details. Well, after Representative Kevin McCarthy was removed as speaker in a historic vote several weeks ago, Republicans have struggled to elect a new presiding officer. Rep. Steve Scalise was briefly made the GOP conference nominee,

but bowed out after he failed to secure a majority of the chamber just doing polling amongst the members privately. Then, Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, was selected by the conference, who then took the Speaker of the 221 members of the Republican caucus, or 17 votes short needed to be the Speaker of the House. Among those not voting for Jordan in that first vote included three Texas Republicans, Representative Jake Elzey, Tony Gonzalez, and Representative Kay Granger. Both Elzey and Granger voted for Representative Steve Scalise to be the Speaker of the House, even though Scalise had voted for Jordan. And Gonzalez voted for California Republican Mike Garcia to be speaker as well. Once again, neither Garcia

or Scalise were placed in the nomination, but regardless of that, members can still vote for whom they please during these votes. So far, not all of the GOP heldouts have elaborated on what their end goal is, other than it's clear that there's enough that do not support Jordan to deny him the speakership. Jordan called one more vote on his nomination, and once again, margins held largely along the same. There was a few changes. One person who voted against Jordan switched in support, etc. The margin grew to 22 against, however, so Jordan was unable to close that gap on the second vote. But you did see the same three Texas Republicans, Elzey, Gonzalez, and Granger, once again again vote against him for the same people.

Now, there has been some information growing from members of that block of opposition regarding what their plan is, and that has been, so far, it appears to be a plan to empower current Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry as the acting Speaker. Now we actually have some breaking news on this front. Just before we started our podcast this morning, Texas Congressman Chip Roy weighed in on this plan, saying the only pathway forward for a McHenry speakership is if those Republicans supporting that plan partner with some Democrats to make it happen. So far we haven't seen any three of the Texas holdouts clarify whether they'd be willing to join with House Democrats to have a coalition speaker. But one other point of news that has also come out is that Jordan won't be holding a third vote today,

so they're going to have to go back to the Republican conference, see where the body stands, and see if any members amongst their ranks can pull the magic 217 number to be speaker. So it's back to the drawing board as this saga now enters probably, what, around its third or fourth week? Yeah. It's been going on for a while, so we'll keep an eye on it and see what direction it goes. Do we know how many rounds it took for McCarthy to secure the speakership last time? 15, but the situation is a little bit different. I believe they actually have a requirement whenever they first come into Congress to immediately start working on

electing a presiding officer, and they have to literally sit there and do it time and time again. So you saw this several-day marathon of just brutal vote after brutal vote, whereas since McCarthy became speaker, he got to name a speaker pro tem who, if there's a motion to vacate the chair and the chair is vacated, becomes the acting presiding officer with limited powers during that time. So, and that's, of course, McHenry, and McHenry has the discretion to work with the GOP conference nominee to schedule votes. You know, when the GOP conference nominee feels like, OK, I want to hold a vote on this, they can do it. So they don't have to just stay on the floor for these, you know, day-long marathons. That's just quite brutal.

It's still a lengthy process, though, and I'm sure it's still not fun for those involved. There you go. Matt, thank you so much for your coverage. Brad, let's come back to Texas here. Colony Ridge continues to be in the news and obviously legislators are addressing it as part of the special session call. You did a ride along in Colony Ridge, the development outside of Houston last week. Tell us about what you saw. I rode with a Texas DPS, which has been surging the area for months, trying to assist the Liberty County Sheriff's Office with policing. During my ride along,

there were so many Dps officers in the area that every time i turned my head to look in a different direction i saw another marked vehicle it was pretty astounding how much manpower they had out there mainly they were conducting traffic stops checking for warrants and mostly giving warnings for things like not wearing a seat belt one guy had window tint that was too dark, things like that. At the same time, they were also conducting some warrant searches, and not separate from this, from the traffic enforcement. That led to a couple arrests I heard later. DPS Lieutenant Craig Cummings told me the whole purpose of this surge is to let the community and the criminal element know we're here and ready to assist the Liberty County Sheriff in whatever way we can. Liberty County Sheriff Bobby Rader told me, I don't think DPS realizes how much they've helped out with the partnership we have with them. The Texas legislature is trying to figure out what to do to address Colony Ridge and it's overwhelming of the local law enforcement. Currently, as we sit

here, the House State Affairs Committee is hearing testimony on Colony Ridge. So we'll see what conclusions they draw from that. But the ball is starting to get rolling on that issue. So then what did the sheriff, Sheriff Rader, have to say about the crime issue? He said the crime there is certainly a problem. You have 50,000 at least people in this corner of Liberty County, which is a rural ex-urban county. And so they have – he has 10 deputies assigned to Colony Ridge, the Colony Ridge zone. Now, because of shifts, they only have at most three officers on duty at all times.

So that has stretched them thin. And as I alluded to in the last segment, they really appreciate the DPS presence because it helps fill the gaps where they can't be. However, when talking to him, he disputed two claims made by national conservative media in recent weeks. The first is that there is no, quote, no-go zone in Colony Ridge. He just doesn't have deputies to cover the whole thing. The second is that it's kind of a haven for cartel activity he said that there is cartel activity there he mentioned specifically the bandito motorcycle gang along with uh the aryan brotherhood and aryan circle um individuals associated with them living

in colony ridge uh but he said that it's not an inordinate amount of activity. What his deputy said was basically that it's not any more of a problem than it is in like Harris County or really anywhere else it exists, but it's not this massive, massive problem. The bigger issue is just the crime, just rank and file crime that you have when a lot of people live in close proximity to one another. He also said that problems occur with the federal government refusing to deport anyone that lives there who is illegal and the stretched thin resources that has caused. The Liberty County Jail is full and raiders has 60 inmates housed across the border in louisiana in a facility that can handle the extra headcount really it comes down to that this uh massive population that it doubled the population of liberty county is

understandably causing a lot of problems a lot of issues with coping with that um not only on the crime side but on the crime side but on the infrastructure side as well that's something holly has talked about quite a bit with flooding um but who knows what the legislature is going to do they said they're going to do something but we'll see yeah walk us through your first you know your eyewitness account here a lot of folks hear about this colony ridge development almost daily in news stories or from the governor, the legislators, wherever you might be hearing, it's all over. And I think a lot of folks are curious. Okay, yes, we've seen pictures.

We've seen some stories. We've seen some of what it actually looks like to be in Colony Ridge. What did you see and what did the community look like while you were there? Well, first, when we started the ride along, I didn't know we had even turned into its boundaries. It's so large and nondescript. There's no sign like you see at a neighborhood that you normally think of that says, you know, Deer Landing. I don't know, some weird neighborhood name. Deer Landing. There's no sign. And so you just turn in and it's this 60-acre development

that really the only boundary is the highway on, I think, the east side of it. So first, that was my first impression. Second, there's a surprising amount of mixed housing. Frequently I saw lots of lots with you know crummy trailers next to lots with nice homes which was very strange homes that are so nice you'd expect to see them in like an upscale upper middle class neighborhood um that was very weird to see clearly there's no zoning going on and so if you buy a plot of land you can do what you want with it um also there were stray or roaming dogs everywhere dogs just laying in

the streets sunbathing it was pretty funny um and then there was a lot of construction on medians drainage ditches and lots everywhere um it's clearly a under significant development the the developers trying to provide for a need people to to live somewhere um and you know he's got 50 000 people living there clearly he's filling a need now the question is what to do with the consequences of that um you know texas is faced with a rapidly rising population we had over 300 000 people every year and that causes a lot of issues for infrastructure um for law enforcement it's it's something that the state is dealing with across the entire state um not just in colony ridge even though this is what happens to be in headlines right now absolutely brad thanks

for your firsthand account cameron we're coming to you according to data leaked to fox news u.s border patrol agents have apprehended thousands of special interest aliens attempting to illegally cross into the United States across the southern border in the past couple of years. Hayden is out this week taking some much needed rest. So you're picking up this beat for us a little bit here. Give us the details of some of these numbers. Yeah, I think it will be useful to give a definition of what a special interest alien is. So a special interest alien is defined as, quote, a non-U.S. person who, quote, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests. And additionally, the Department of Homeland Security states that not all special

interest aliens are, quote, terrorists, but that their travel patterns and behaviors indicate a possible nexus to nefarious activity. This is including terrorism and at a minimum provide indicators that necessitate heightened screening and further investigation. So with that definition in mind, this is some of the numbers that Fox News was able to confirm with multiple customs and Border Patrol agents. They had sources that they confirmed with saying they had encountered over 6,000 Afghanistan nationals, over 3,000 Egyptians, 659 Iranians, 538 Syrians, and additionally, border agents encountered over 12,000 individuals from Uzbekistan, over 30,000 from Turkey, over 1,000 from Pakistan, 164 from Lebanon, 185 from Jordan, 123 from Iraq, and over 50, almost 16,000 from Mauritania. So these are individuals coming from all over the world, coming to our southern border. So it was

very eye-opening seeing these numbers. Yeah, it was interesting. Absolutely. So what's the significance of these numbers in the broader picture of what is happening at the border? Yeah, so like you mentioned at the top, this is Hayden's beat. And so he has been covering this. And for someone like myself who doesn't dig into a lot of these numbers a lot of the time, you really just don't know the sheer scale of what's happening at the southern border. So I thought for our listeners, it'd be good to present to them that over the past year, there's been over 2 million encounters. And just in the month of August, Border Patrol agents saw a 27% increase in the

number of encounters at the border. So large number of people and it's increasing. So again, for someone like myself that doesn't pay attention to this stuff on a day-to-day basis, it was eye-opening. And like Brad was talking about, there's the Colony Ridge aspect to this once they cross over the border. The Texas legislature is addressing that during the special session. They've also been addressing increasing penalties for human trafficking. And, you know, Governor Greg Abbott has been successful in some aspects with the Operation Lone Star and with the busing program that he's instituted. It seems though that's been a success because it's really brought the issue into the national conversation.

We've seen states like New York and cities like Chicago who have received these buses of migrants, and they're now dealing with those problems in terms of housing and local crime or just the economic impacts locally because of the busing of these migrants to these cities. So it's been interesting, you know, digging into this issue. Absolutely. Cameron, thank you so much for your coverage. Matt, we're coming to you after legislation passed during the regular session to ban vaccine mandates by local governments. A steady stream of pressure to ban vaccine mandates by private employers has persisted all summer and was added to the special session call. What's the latest on this legislation? Well, kind of an interesting fact, just as we were sitting here recording this morning, I just got word that the State House Affairs Committee has voted the legislation out and is now heading to the House Calendars Committee.

A little bit of background, back on COVID-era mandates, such as vaccine mandates by local governments, by any other entity. The main one that passed was the ban by local governments. But there's been a steady stream, as you mentioned, all summer long from lawmakers like Representative Brian Harrison calling for more comprehensive prohibition on vaccine mandates. And Governor Greg Abbott responded to that by adding specifically the ban by private employers. Now, how this legislation works is instead of creating like a civil cause of action, et cetera, It allows an employee to file a complaint with the Texas Workforce Commission if they find that an employer has imposed a COVID-19 vaccine requirement on an employee. They could subject that employer to fines,

or even if they have taken out an act of retribution, so to speak, on an employee who refused to get a vaccine, they could be subject to fines. After that, if they continue to do it, they can ask the Texas Attorney General's Office to file legal action and seek, you know, court order prohibiting them from taking this action against an employee. So Mays Middleton, a Republican from Galveston, filed Senate Bill 7 for the special session accomplishing this. It quickly passed the Texas Senate, headed over to the Texas House where it's being sponsored by Representative Jeff Leach, who's from Plano, Plano Republican. And Leach had expressed an interest in wanting to expand the scope of the call to expand it to where government employers would also be prohibited from doing this, so like a

state agency, etc. But because the nature of Abbott's call is limited specifically to private employers, the only thing that would be germane is the bill as it exists so given that leach is moving forward presenting the bill as is i don't believe there's very much any kind of substantial changes in the house version it was just voted out of the state affairs committee heading to calendars that's the committee that assigns votes to be or assigns bills to be considered by the full House floor. And so it's looking like sometime next week, whenever the House comes back, they'll be taking up the bill for full consideration. So it's very much quickly making its way through the legislature and very much something that's anticipated to pass. Yeah. Rare to see the House and the Senate in lockstep,

at least a little bit, in a special session. This seems to be bringing them together a little bit. That's a fact. Yeah, there you go, Matt. Thank you. Holly, we are coming to you next. There is a federal redistricting lawsuit pending against Galveston County that has the potential to reach the Supreme Court. Tell us what led up to the lawsuit.

Sure. So in contrast with Harris County, Galveston County has shifted from being a primarily Democrat county to a primarily Republican county. So whereas I guess it was a little over 10 years ago, you had mostly Democrats on the commissioner's court. Now it is four to one Republicans dominating. The Republican controlled court redrew the commissioner's precinct maps in 2021. Those are those single member districts. And instead of leaving a minority coalition in precinct three, which kind of ran down the middle of Galveston County, and it was represented by the only Democrat commissioner, what they did is they redistributed the minority populations amongst the four precincts. Consequently, three groups filed a lawsuit, including the U.S. Department

of Justice on behalf of the United States, and those were consolidated. And in August, the case went to trial before a Trump appointed judge, Judge Jeffrey Brown, down there in the U.S. Southern District. The plaintiffs are alleging that there's violations of the Voting Rights Act. What were the legal arguments from each side during the trial? So again, the plaintiffs say there are clear violations of the Voting Rights Act that protects the voting power of minority voters. Interestingly enough, there's not, you know, a large group of either Black or Latino voters in Galveston County. So they vote for the most part as a coalition. The plaintiffs referred to a precedent known as Thornberry versus Jingles. And in that precedent, there's three principles under which they can challenge a map like this. They have to argue that the minority groups are politically cohesive,

that they're large and compact enough to constitute a majority in a single member district. And they have to be able to show that the majority group votes as a cohesive group, too, to defeat that minority coalition's preferred candidate. So the plaintiffs went back through a lot of history of Galveston County and elections to demonstrate those principles. The defendants on the other side argue that the maps are not partisan, they're racial. I'm sorry, that are partisan and not racial. And they followed the law on equal distribution of the population. They kept commissioners in their home districts so that no one was zoned out of their district. And they created a coastal district that would be represented by one commissioner. And they also talked a little bit about income, or excuse me, intent versus outcome,

and referred to a precedent that's referred to as Arlington. And it says that just because you end up with a kind of a racially dispersed outcome. If the intent isn't there, then the map is okay. There's a somewhat similar case pending before the Supreme Court right now regarding South Carolina's redistricting map. But we'll see what happens with that. How did Judge Brown decide this case? Well, Judge Brown came down very firmly on the side of plaintiffs. He wrote a very thorough 157-page ruling, and that is not including exhibits. That's a very thorough accounting of the law, very thorough accounting of the history of Galveston

and the way these groups vote. He also ordered the county to submit new maps or adopt one of those from the plaintiffs. What happens next? Well, the defendants, the county, they appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and they had a very short timeline, just 10 days to create a new map, but they asked for an administrative stay, which was granted last night. And the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has expedited the case to their oral arguments calendar. So it looks like they're interested in taking this up very quickly and deciding what happens. There is a time problem because we are entering into primary filing season that starts in December. And so they need to get this resolved very quickly before elections next year.

Absolutely. Holly, thank you, as always, so much for your coverage. Brad, we're coming to you. Candidates for U.S. Senate reported their most recent Q3 fundraising hauls this week. What did it show? So it showed in order. Senator Cruz raised $5.45 million and has $6.7 million cash on hand. Congressman Colin Allred raised $4.67 million and has $7.9 million left cash on hand. State Senator Roland Gutierrez raised $632,000 and has $379,000 left cash on hand. State Rep. Carl Sherman, who's the latest entry into the race, raised $82,000 and has $70,000 cash on hand. And then former Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalezalez he did not report uh the fundraising numbers at least when i saw when i looked at it last so i'm not sure why that is but it could either be that he didn't raise anything so nothing to file or he was late which very well could be the case too so

after these filings were put out all rid has said said a lot that he out-raised Cruz. That's not accurate. It's only accurate if you look at the main committee for Ted Cruz, in which he raised like three some million. But he's got four committees overall, whereas Allred only has one. So across those four committees, Cruz raised the $ the 5.45 million that is also more than he raised in the last quarter and All Reds is less than he raised in the last quarter All Reds pulled in I think it was somewhere in the six millions during his first quarter in the race which was a lot of money but you know he's last time in 2018 when Ted Cruz ran, there was a lot of money put in.

Beto O'Rourke raised a lot. So did Cruz. These two are maybe not quite to that pace yet, but it's raising a significant amount. Absolutely. Brad, thank you. Kim, we are coming to you. Last month, San Antonio created a reproductive justice fund in its city budget, and now some pro-life groups are suing the city.

What are they seeking in the lawsuit? Well, Mackenzie, Texas Right to Life and the San Antonio Family Association, along with other pro-life groups and several San Antonio residents, have sued the city of San Antonio to prevent it from funding groups like the Lilith Fund that help women travel out of state to get an abortion. When the measure was proposed, the Lilith Fund and other similar groups supported the measure strongly, and it seems apparent, even though the particular parameters of the fund haven't yet been set, that its purpose will be to help women obtain abortions, perhaps out of state, or even what are referred to as self-managed abortions. San Antonio City

Council member Terry Castillo argued at the time of passage that the fund was crucial to support the residents' rights to make reproductive health care decisions, including abortion. So on September 14th, the city of San Antonio City Council voted to include a $500,000 reproductive justice fund in the city budget. But these groups and residents are trying to prevent the money from going to assist abortion, which is currently illegal in the state of Texas. They have sought not only an injunction to prevent the funding of these groups, but also a declaratory judgment saying that the lawsuit violates several laws, including the Texas Penal Code, which makes it a felony to aid and abet the procurement of an abortion. And they are also arguing that payments

to such groups would violate the Texas Constitution's gift clause because the payment would not provide any clear benefit, which is the standard under that clause. The city hasn't yet answered the lawsuit, and it's been filed in a district court in Bexar County. Kim, thank you, as always, for your coverage of that issue. We'll certainly keep an eye on it. Cameron, coming to you, amid the turmoil of the Israel-Hamas war, the state of Texas has made a purchase of bonds from Israel to provide them with cash assets. Give us some insight into what this means. Yeah, so I'll give some quick background on what these bond purchases actually are.

So government bonds are issued by governments to raise money to finance projects or day-to-day operations. They're issued by national governments and are often considered low-risk investments since the issuing governments back them. And government bonds assist in funding deficits in federal budgets and are used to raise capital for various projects such as infrastructure or spending. And so in this case, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hager, he purchased $20 million in Israeli bonds that he said will provide liquidity for them to fund and pay for this war against Hamas. And this isn't anything new for Texas to do. They have invested annually in Israeli bonds since 1994. And since Hager took office in 2015, he has purchased over, or he has purchased140 million in Israeli bonds. Also, in 2017, this was mentioned in a separate announcement from the comptroller's office.

The Texas legislature had passed a bill that prohibits the state from contracting with and investing in companies that refuse to do business in Israel or Israeli-controlled territory. And I mentioned this in the piece that I saw an interesting name of a company on that list, and it was Ben and Jerry's, the ice cream company. They are a very self-described progressive company, and they had pulled selling of their ice cream in what they called Israeli controlled territory. So just thought that was interesting. Thought I'd mention it, but that's what it is. There you go, Cameron. Thank you so much. Brad, coming to you, the office of the attorney general

issued a new guidance on the enforcement of the state's various ESG-related prohibitions. What did it say? Texas has three related prohibitions on the books on those deemed to be boycotters or discriminators against one, Israel, two, gun manufacturers or sellers, and three, fossil fuel companies. State entities are prohibited from doing business with those corporations, and state pension dollars are banned from being invested into or through them as well. The Texas Comptroller is tasked with creating and maintaining lists of companies that are deemed to have run afoul of these laws, specifically on the Israel and the fossil fuels issue. In a public letter this week, Attorney General Ken Paxton discussed enforcement of those laws and said, These lists should be a starting point not the end all in a

texas governmental entity's determination of whether a company is a boycotter or a discriminator under state law he added although the law does not impose on governmental entities a duty to conduct a full due diligence review of a company's written verifications governmental entities may not blindly rely on written verifications when evidence is readily and publicly available that accompanies a boycotter or discriminator essentially this is placing more onus on the agencies and the pension funds to police their own houses rather than just rely on what the comptroller determines in his list. Specifically, Paxton noted commitment, like net zero commitments, whether or not that plays into the comptroller's determination. But if there's a company that before the list is updated joins a net zero commitment

he is saying that if there are pension dollars invested in that they should be pulled out and reinvested elsewhere if a an agent state agency does business with them then that should be ceased until that net zero agreement is left so essentially it's just putting the ball more in these governmental entities courts rather than just uh relying on the list that the comptroller puts out so we'll see how that's what it results in in terms of how these things are policed but i'm sure the comptroller is is glad that he's not the only one banging the drum on this anymore now they turn generalist there you go bradley thank Kim, coming to you with education at the forefront of much discussion currently. Tell us about an innovative new high school that you wrote

about this week. Mackenzie, none of my stories were about Tarrant County this week. I was outside my comfort zone, but I enjoyed learning. I enjoyed learning about this. So career readiness of high school students is often an area that people across the aisle tend to agree is an important goal to achieve. And the Keith Bell, named for the state rep, Keith Bell Opportunity Central High School in Forney, which is a small city east of Dallas, opened to students this fall. It houses a career and college readiness program, but it's unique. It's a 350,000 square foot building, and the entire first floor is dedicated to various businesses where up to the 2,000 students who can be in the school can work and gain valuable experience to prepare them to enter their workforce. One noteworthy fact about the high

school is that apparently it cost a hundred million dollars less than a traditional high school. A spokesperson for the school district told me that it was because the district centralized the programs all into one place and then they transport students from the other two high schools there rather than building a version of the program at each of the separate high schools. Two businesses have opened at the high school so far, a florist and a home decor store, but several more are on deck to open up before the expected grand opening celebration on February 2nd, 2024, which will feature the Emerald City Band. And the school also hopes to welcome the public to shop at the businesses and to use the meeting facilities,

which are not quite finished yet, that will be located there. Such an interesting story. I'd encourage listeners to go check out that story from Kim at thetexan.news. Holly, coming to you, the University of Houston has been releasing polling results for the past two weeks as the city prepares for elections next month. What are the results of the latest poll? Yes, so the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs does these polls. They're pretty well done. They're done in conjunction with Professor Mark Jones, who's also at Rice University, a great political analyst. But what they did is they surveyed 800 likely voters. And they found in the first report,

they said, you know, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, longtime congresswoman and state senator John Whitmire are still basically in a statistical dead heat in the first round of voting. But of course, with 17 candidates, that means there will likely be a runoff election in that in the polling results, Sheila Jackson Lee has some very high negative numbers. 51% of those polled had a negative view of the congresswoman and 43 percent said they would never vote for her. So when we look at the runoff scenario between those top two candidates, Whitmire suddenly gains a 14 point advantage in that runoff. So that was the first report. A second report came out this week with focus on issues facing the city. And the top three issues facing the city were,

or 74% of respondents said that crime was a top issue. 47% said roads and streets in bad condition were a top issue. And Houston's roads are pretty notorious for being in poor condition. The city has created a pothole tracker for people to report potholes and to track progress, but it's just an ongoing problem. Interestingly enough, the next highest ranking issue was rising property taxes. So I thought that was interesting. And then flooding has always been a concern, but that came in at 30 percent amongst those polls as a top concern for the city. Another interesting aspect of the poll were the partisan splits there, although about half of those polls said the city was headed in the right direction and about half said the wrong direction. When you break it down amongst party and demographics, most Republicans and independents and also whites and Latinos said the city is heading in the wrong direction. But Democrats say the city is heading in the right direction and especially among black Democrats. This is all probably going to play into this election season. In addition to the mayor's race, of course, there are 16 city council

seats that will be on the ballot. Most of those have contenders. Houston does have term limits, so some of them are not able to run again. One election there that's drawing a lot of attention is that for District G, which is a more, you might call it a more Republican-leaning part of the city, and Mary Ann Huffman is the Republican incumbent, but she is being challenged by Tony Busby, the attorney who has recently been very much in the news for defending Ken Paxton and the impeachment trial. There you go. Holly, thank you so much for your coverage of Houston. We're excited to see the results of everything that happens in the next couple of weeks.

It's going to be wild. Cameron, coming to you, the Texas building and business boom has been touted as a huge success for the state in the past year, but some new numbers have come out about the downstream impacts. Tell us what you found. Yeah, that's right. I was looking this week and found this story in the Wall Street Journal that major Texas metropolitan areas like Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston have some of the highest office vacancy rates. Thought this was very interesting. Of those three cities, they had about 25% of their office spaces go unleased in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2023, which was more than double the vacancy rates of other major American cities like New York and San Francisco. And so despite new business and the population growth and tax

breaks in the state of Texas, vacancies are being attributed to, some are saying, overdevelopment. And so still some in a separate article from Bloomberg are saying there's further to fall. They found a majority in a survey said that commercial real estate won't hit bottom until 2024 or later. So there's still a way to go. Are there any other markets that are being impacted? The housing market is also facing changing trends with mortgage rates over 7%, elevated home prices. Many individuals are opting for renting over home buying, especially in Texas cities. And this comes alongside recent statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, stating that 27.5% of all private sector employees have employees, quote, teleworking some or all the time. And Austin has been a hotbed for many

tech companies, which has brought this influx of young high earners into the state. And in a separate article, I came across Yahoo Finance. They say this has resulted in, quote, aggressive housing price increases and has caused a bubble that is not deflating. So, sorry, we're ending this on some bad news for business owners or potential home buyers in Texas. But, you know, more information is always better information. And the changes in the market, we'll see if things change once Fed rates are capped. There you go. Absolutely. Okay, folks, I almost said gentlemen, but I have two ladies with me on this week. So I'm not as outnumbered as I usually am. Folks, let's move on to our tweeter-y section. I kind of want Brad to start.

I can do that. It's a classic. Give me a second to navigate back to the tweet. Yeah. Are you multitasking, Bradley? I'm there. I am. Yeah. Well done.

So Cameron actually saw it first, if I recall correctly. So I'll give him credit. But I tweeted out. He online he is chronically online chronically online screenshot of Dan Cogdell one of the Paxton defense attorneys who unprompted tweeted

something just absolutely hilarious and it was in response to two of his I guess now former colleagues who were on the paxton defense team tony busby who is running for houston city council and mitch little who appears to be running for texas house dan cogdell tweeted let me be clear while mitch little runs for the texas house and tony busby runs for hou city council. The only thing I'm running for is the toilet at 3am. Just another Dan Cogdell ism.

Yeah. Did we have come to know and love since, uh, since the trial. Hey, another Dan Cogdell TMI. The man is hilarious. He really is.

And it's, it's hilarious whenever he does it because it's just so so dry but it's the delivery there was priceless there was a previous one after the trial ended that was in reference to a texas tribune panel that had the prosecution attorneys on it and cogdell said where was my invite Just kidding. Tony Busby would have taken all my time anyway. Oh my gosh. Because in the closing arguments, Busby went, what was it for?

55 minutes. 55 minutes and left Cogdill five. Yes. So the man is funny. Cogdill's like, he comes across as that uncle you see at Thanksgiving that you're just on pins and needles about, oh gosh, what's he going to say now?

And it's also very entertaining. You've never seen him without a beer in his hand sometimes that very embarrassing thing you know it's just iconic it's so funny yeah very entertaining to see that on twitter well brad thank you for that i'm glad somebody talked about it happy to partake in the toilet humor. Cameron, we're coming to you. What do you have this week? So I keep bringing up these driverless cars, and they're all over Austin, all over Houston. I've talked about traffic jams and accidents and all sorts of stuff. Well, I came across a story that I think a lot of people are fed up with these cars because there's going to be a federal investigation into the company Cruise that facilitates a lot of these driverless cars.

Because apparently they have found safety defects in about 600 of these driverless cars operated here in Texas. And according to the Wall Street Journal, it's because they were not paying attention to crosswalks and roadways frequently with pedestrians in the way. So I do think driverless cars are the future of travel. You know, I'm an optimist in that way. But because I do want to, if I can find this here, if I have a moment. Yes, because the top causes for car accidents, okay, distracted driving, speeding, drunk driving,

you can eliminate those with driverless cars right we're just we just don't have the technology there yet but we're getting there we're getting there you know hopefully you know elon can solve this problem for us help us elon all i know is whenever i'm walking around aust Austin in the evening and they start like deploying a whole bunch of those driverless cars, it reminds me of the dialects in Doctor Who. Exterminate. I never watched Doctor Who. I never dipped my toe into that, which is sacrilegious as a homeschooler. It's very creepy, like, whenever they deploy all the cars, and there's, like, a line of them, and, like, they're all confusing each other, and they don't know where to go. And you'll see it cause, like, a traffic jam and all that sort of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Take knowledge. Well, Cameron, thank you. Yep. Holly, I want to know what you found on Twitter this week that caught your attention. Well, I'm torn because there's a new tweet from Bluebell Ice Cream and one of their Christmas flavors is coming back to the store. So that would be my lighthearted tweet.

Okay, you should definitely share that still. Yes, they have new Christmas cookies flavors coming back in. And, you know, I haven't gotten permission yet to, you know, expense ice cream tastings or run a story on that. But maybe I can guys, I'll keep working on this one honestly doesn't have enough chocolate in it for my taste. I like a lot of chocolates, a little a little light on that. But on a more serious note, we talked about Tony Busby earlier in the podcast. And I don't know if this is on Twitter so much, but Tony Busby said the other day that he would be filing a challenge to the but it's a consent decree that's governed Harris County's misdemeanor bail bond practices since 2019. And it's very expensive and it basically prevents you from holding or detaining certain criminal suspects. And it's kind of a problem here as we talk about crime and what's the best way to handle some of these suspects. So that O'Donnell case got overturned earlier this year, but the consent decree is still in place.

And it really does take someone filing a legal challenge to it. So Busby may have earned a lot of new devotees by promising to do that. We'll find out if it's a campaign promise or if it's something he'll come through with. Yeah, that's big news for down there in Harris County. Huge, huge. Well, I do want to go back to the Blue Bell situation, Holly. I hope you don't mind. Oh, yes.

Let's talk about that. What flavor did you say it was? It's Christmas cookies, ice cream. And let's see, it's the description says it's got chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodle and sugar cookies in a tasty sugar cookie ice cream with red sprinkles and a green icing swirl. Wow. Unfortunately, for some of us, it is available in the half gallon size, which is something I do not need in my kitchen. Holly, did you see Connie's tweet about you're covering the ice cream beet? Yes. Yes. Why does Holly Hansen get all the best beets? And Holly, enough with all the gallons of Bluebell on your adventure ports

already and i responded and said you know the uh facility is not that far from me i toured it once some years ago with my kids but um i should i should make a trip over there and i need i need one of you guys to come and meet me there with the cameras and stuff and we can do a whole you know that would be awesome i responded to connie and said if holly gets to cover the ice cream beat can i cover the coffee beat and connie just replied fine but i'm watching your expense report it has to be texas based it has to be exactly texas based we could do a joint story where we combine the ice cream and the coffee and make like a coffee milkshake or something excellent i love it i love it well i'm getting hungry it is 68 67 days until christmas excuse me um it'll be 66 by the time this podcast comes out so folks make sure you're ready get some bluebell christmas

cookie bluebell all about it also that flavor does just sound like it is just going to be so absurdly sweet. Like it might need sprinkles and frosting and I'm like, okay, this is a lot. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Kim, we're coming to you. You are notoriously not on Twitter, but you still have something to share with us today. That is true on both counts. But before, have you started Christmas shopping? Because you just reminded me 66 days. Yikes. I know. I know. My family's drawing names this Sunday, so I'll be able to go off to the races

after that. Okay. All right. Very good. Very good. Well, what I saw that I found interesting was people who, when their alarm goes off and they like to hit the snooze button, a new study from the Journal of Sleep Research says that's perfectly fine. That it doesn't negatively impact your sleep and that it might even have benefits. apparently it can there's like when you wake up and you might feel a little disoriented or something it can help with that and also might help with your cognitive function so go ahead and hit the snooze button they just say you know for up to around 30 minutes apparently on average people hit the snooze button for 22 minutes. They snooze 22 minutes longer than their original alarm went off. So anyway, I thought that was a fun little. Cameron is thumbs downing this this tweeter. Are you?

You're probably like your alarm. Your alarm rings and you get out of bed immediately kind of guy, aren't you? I leap out of bed. Yeah, I leap out. Well, you are not human yeah kieran is not now cameron you are different because most snoozers are younger than older people are not oh okay so we're putting an eight yes younger people they do need more sleep than adults so i i agree with that but if you're in a if you're an adult you should be setting up the

night before so you have a good morning putting away the electronics turning the lights off what time do you go to bed every night cameron around 9 30 yeah yeah that's amazing you know do some reading before bed stop drinking water so i don't have to get up and use the restroom or anything you know i don't want yeah you won't be good yeah you won't be getting any cocktail tweets from me i'm sleeping through the night cameron sets himself up for success well kim thank you for that i'm encouraged unlike cameron by your tweet uh or your twitter matthew not twitter not twitter oh uh well i just wanted to uh ask if anybody uh enjoyed seeing the

ring of fire eclipse this past week for those who cannot see cam. He is raising his hand. I have Cameron. I got a great show. I was in Kerrville right in the middle of the main path of it. So it was pretty cool. Everything got, the outside got like this strange, filtery, dark, shady look. It was so strange. And if you looked at the shadows cast by trees, they cast little pinhole shadows

that were like half-circle moons of the sun and everything just became very dispersed looking. When did it happen? It happened around noon, right? Yeah, it started about 11. Okay. All told, it was about 45 minutes for it to cross it. Yeah.

And you know, where the moon was at the very middle of the sun and you have the ring effect, that was about five, six minutes long, something like that. But it was just so crazy seeing that ring of fire. Yeah. Daniel has some really good photos. Go look at Daniel Friend's Twitter feed. He's got an incredible photo of the eclipse happening

right over top of the Capitol Dome. It's awesome. But I've been seeing all kinds of interesting photos on Twitter, so that was my tweeter. It was just some of the different photosome. It's awesome. But I've been seeing all kinds of interesting photos on Twitter. So that was my Twitter. It was just some of the different photos that I've seen post up. But yeah, and it's the, quick recap, it's the first of two eclipses that we're going to have. The next one's in April of next year.

And it's the total eclipse. So that one's going to be, I think, even more cool because everything goes to night whenever the shadow crosses because it's the moon is i guess closer to the earth yeah totally blocking out the sun so and we get another one in april right we get a whole another that's the one i was just talking about yeah which is that's yeah it's in april we have the ring of fire and then we have the uh total eclipse in april and then after that it'll be 20 years before we get another one wow that's wild i just didn't realize until you brought it to my attention about

with your reporting how much of a draw this is for folks to be in line with the like see it and be in line with the eclipse and yeah there were a lot of communities we reported on all the communities kind of that fall within the the shadow you know yeah we've talked about it a lot festivals and things like that they were pretty busy in curverville I don't think they were as busy as they anticipated and maybe it's going to be busier for the total eclipse yeah um you know and I think also you know since there was so much worry about how many people were coming in for it everybody just kind of stayed home and watched it from from there rather than getting out and about yeah there's a lot of Texans that can just watch it from their house okay well i'm going to real quick talk about

something that cameron also brought to my attention cameron is just our um tweetery dealer he he yeah he deals out the the tweetery mr internet yeah chronically online the most disciplined person in this office and also online all the time, are the most aware of how much is what's going on online. So this is from my San Antonio, black bears are on the rise in the Texas Hill country. It's no secret that black bears are found in Texas, mainly in West Texas, Matt, your homeland, roaming the mountains. However, seeing the big animals outside of that area is rare and it's becoming more common in the texas hill country basically an associate professor at a&m um told the this local newspaper that black bears um aren't being hunted anymore which is causing them to dip back into areas where they once roamed free that we

haven't seen them in a long time wow i know um in 2022 tex Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed 154 black bear sightings in Texas. And in the previous year, there were 80. And the year prior to that was 25. So this is a pretty steep increase of black bear sightings. And it's in areas where they've not been seen in a very long time. And you're not supposed to go pet them, right? Yeah. They're not been seen in a very long time. And you're not supposed to go pet them, right? Yeah. Yeah.

They're not friendly? I hear that they look nice, but they're a little angry. Right. Yeah. Or they can be angry. Kim, do you have anything to add to this conversation? This makes me nervous because I live next to Bear Creek. It was named for bears.

Oh. Have you ever seen a bear? I'm afraid. On Bear Creek. It was named for bears. Oh! Have you ever seen a bear on Bear Creek? Not so far, but now that you've told me they're increasing in population. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Also, a lot

of folks don't realize, but black bears can be brown. So sometimes I think it's a grizzly and it's not. It's just a little black bear. Yeah. They're more like pests. They get into your garbage. You know? Just be careful and make sure your dog's not out a little black bear yeah they enter they're more like they're more like pests they get into your garbage you know just be careful make sure your dogs aren't out there your children aren't out there don't go up and pet them as tempting as it is cameron maybe or maybe kim will see one at bear creek don't strap a saddle on it and try to ride it

i i'd advise against it okay yeah well if it's a petdington bear. Oh. I'd have a nice cup of tea. Well, that's fine. Oh my gosh. We haven't talked about the emotional support alligator. Have you guys seen this online? This conversation is drifting. Okay. It's been viral this last week.

This man has an emotional support alligator. He's probably in his 60s or 70s. And when I say emotional support alligator, he calls it that himself. He's had this alligator for years. It's probably in his 60s or 70s. And when I say emotional support alligator, he calls it that himself. He's had this alligator for years. It's in his house. So we're in a little leash and a little harness. It sleeps in bed with him. It's never bitten a human. He brings it to the local community center. And it's like a dog. People are just petting this alligator. There's no muzzle on this alligator at all.'s it's like a six foot long gator it's not just a small little baby gator it's a real gator and he just says that it was like a a dog trapped in an alligator's body it's wild what the heck does he what's the name of this

gator does he name it yes i'd love to know the name yes i will look it up holly you were raising your hand and i ignored you because i was ranting about my... Well, during the discussion on bears, you know, everybody's talking about being worried about bears. And I hate alligators. And then you brought up the support alligator, which is the most bizarre story. I think the guy tried to bring it on a flight or something, right? And that's what got attention on it. Oh, it may have been. Growing up in Florida, I just detest alligators they're crazy yeah they make nice curses

look at this picture of him holding this gator hugging him like this is the emotional support alligator what's his name wally br, we just said so. I am listening to something else. Brad's just tuned out of the podcast entirely. Yeah, Holly, I get it. I'm fascinated by alligators. I love them. I just think about them all the time. I was walking around Lady Bird Lake in Austin yesterday where there are no alligators, and I just kept thinking this would be a good habitat for a gator.

I just kept thinking about them. I'm just over here trying to refrain from quoting the water boy again yeah you're doing you're doing a really good job so your obsession has changed from orcas to alligators oh no i like i have a list of animals i find particularly amusing or interesting orcas are at the top orcas are at the top we really need to get brad in on this conversation because he always has a lot of things to say about the animal world that is all I know is never smile at a crocodile I would

like our listeners to know that Brad this is the headphones and listening to the community hearing he heard all I say that he took them out said that line smiled like you would at a crocodile or you shouldn't at a crocodile and then turned back to his computer he's trying not to smile now my Atlanta and it's so strange because he just won't shut up in the office

about alligators and then once he gets on the podcast tight lip oh brother have you had the koala talk yet that's yes the koala talk oh gosh we're gonna we're not gonna go into koalas yeah it's too much also because i thought we were gonna run out of time here i had not run out of topics i was gonna have us choose our texas-based food beats if we were to open up like a part of our site that covered food mexican food what kim mexican food I got it. No one else. Kim has Mexican food. Matt has coffee. Coffee and barbecue. No, you pick one.

You pick one. Oh, okay. Coffee. Coffee. Brad? What? Cameron? Food beats?

Food beats? Like if we were... My goodness, Brad. The purple thing beats? Oh, I'm sorry for doing my job. This is also your job. Yeah, talk about food. If you were to pick a beat of food,

if you were a food reporter for the Texan, if we opened up another portion of our site, what would you want to cover? Pie. Pie. Great. Thank you. Please email my editors and insist we do this.

Cameron. I will go with Matt to all the coffee shops. He'll taste the coffee. I'll taste the breakfast pastries. Oh. We'll be able to cover it all. Holly? One expense report that way.

Obviously, I like ice cream, but I like chocolate better. I'm also in the process of going to every restaurant in Houston that serves foie gras and tasting it oh my gosh foie gras isn't that is one of my favorite things on the planet you could be our gourmet reporter it wasn't there like some french king who said i can't even pronounce it foie gras i don't know california's Said that it was the food of kings or something. We're missing out on some big beats. Like kolaches. That's a huge deal.

Barbecue. We're missing out on wine. That's a huge Texas thing. It's become huge. Actually, all of our beats are desserts, by the way. Yeah. Like, we've got to have some ribeyes. Kim had Mexican food. Oh, that's right. Okay. Well, that's a good start.

I won't bore our listeners any more of us talking about food, but we can continue this conversation offline. I'm hungry. Okay. Well, ladies, thank you for joining us and making me feel far less outnumbered than I usually do. Gentlemen, thanks for being here. As you are contractually obligated to do so, as Brad would say. Okay, great. Folks, we so appreciate you listening and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Folks, we so appreciate you listening and we will catch you next week. for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the texan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.