The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 24, 2025

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Early Voting Kicks Off in Texas With Two Special Elections Among Constitutional AmendmentsAustin’s 'Proposition Q' Property Tax Hike Faces Bipartisan OppositionDallas Mayor, Police Chief, City Council at Odds Over Federal Immigration Law Enforcement AgreementOver 2,700 ‘Potential Noncitizens’ Found on Texas Voter Rolls After Federal Database ReviewAbbott Rallies Voters to Support Texas Constitutional Amendments, Turn Harris County RedTexas Sen. Brian Birdwell Nominated by Trump for Assistant Secretary of DefenseFederal Judge Blocks Enforcement of Texas’ 'READER Act'Student Activists Sue Texas Over New Age Verification App Download LawState Commission Reprimands Harris County Criminal Court Judge in Death Row CaseUT Austin Professor Dismissed by Leadership Over 'Ideological Differences'

Good morning, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, senior reporter here at the Texan, for this week's edition of a weekly round of a podcast. I got it right this time, Cameron. Today I'm joined, of course, by Cameron, as usual, unfortunately. And then today we have Holly Hansen joining us. Wait, where did the unfortunately go? Did it go to Cameron? Or was it a point?

I'm just getting sick of seeing his face every Thursday at this time. And I'm sure he's feeling the same way about me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I'll be getting a break tomorrow when this comes out. I'll be out of the office. There you go. So I get a little reprieve from the Bradness. Yes, the Bradness. Holly, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Glad to be here. It's nice to see you guys in person for a change.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad to have you, and I'm very glad that we don't have to do a Zoom function of this. Mary Lease is at the TFRW convention, along with Rob, who they're manning the table. for us getting subscriptions. So it is left to us to produce the best podcast we can possible. Absolutely. Let's get to it. Holly, and we'll piggyback off each other on this,

but early voting has started for the November constitutional election. There's also some special elections, and we'll get into that for a bit. But first, you know, if you're wanting to vote in this, Mary Elise wrote a piece, She has a link to a website where you can find where to go vote for yourself, has your polling location. Of course, Texas law, you have two weeks of early voting. Unless you are over 65 or disabled, you cannot vote by mail. And then election day is November 4th, I believe. So, Holly, one of the big elections in this is CD-18.

That's the Sylvester Turner seat. That is a mess. There's a ton of people vying for this. And of course, this district itself may not exist next year when we have the primary. That's right. But what's the upshot of this race and where's it at right now? Well, it looks like, obviously, we're going to run to a runoff election. Looking at the polling numbers.

With 15 people. Yeah, right. Yes. It doesn't look like anybody's going to reach that 50% mark that you need to avoid that. So it's looking like, if it might guess today, you know, would be that you have Christian Menifee, who is the Harris County attorney. He is very closely aligned with Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, very popular amongst the Democrats in Harris County in the Houston area. And probably my guess is he'll be in a runoff with Amanda Edwards as a former Houston City Council member. You still have Jolanda Jones in there.

Edwards, of course, ran against Turner, right, for that special election after Sheila Jackson Lee passed away. Exactly, yes. And you called it the Sylvester Turner seat. I think the Houstonians still think of it as the Sheila Jackson Lee seat because she held it for so very long. And Turner only held it for how long was that? Oh, gosh, it was decades. No, Turner. Turner. No, he held it. Yeah, not even a whole year because he won the special election after Sheila Jackson Lee passed away. was sworn into office in January, I believe, because before that, I'm sorry, back up. So it was Sheila Jackson Lee's daughter, Erica Lee, who held it for the end of that term. Then you had Turner sworn in in January last year.

He passes away in March. And, you know, everybody was hoping in Houston to have a very quick special election. But the governor said, no, we're going to hold off until November. That riles. Which is something Democrats are really upset about. Yes, they're very upset about it. They're claiming that they've been disenfranchised, and, of course, that's playing into the election. What's the larger context for that decision to keep that vacant?

Well, the larger, oh, in Congress, yes, because the House is so narrowly divided, right? And so it's helpful to Republicans, obviously, to keep that seat vacant for as long as possible. But it will be filled after this election. But whatever happens, and I think we're going to have a runoff, December. But whoever wins is going to be campaigning again after the first of the year because then there's a primary election to replace Turner permanently in that seat. And if redistricting holds, then you've got a whole new map to contend with. And long-term Congressman Al Green has indicated he's probably going to run. And at that point, you'd have to give him the advantage, a significant

100% not just because he's an incumbent but the new Texas 18 if the map holds is very similar to the old CD9 which is Al Green's district and of course CD9 was moved over to the eastern side of Harris County right it's a Republican seat now it's one of the projected pickups but yeah like whoever wins this seat I would not feel good about no no they don't have a very good chance and you know the scuttlebutt in Houston is that although Christian Menofy is kind of of a protege of Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who's pretty powerful in Harris County and calls a lot of the shots amongst the Democrat candidates in the county, that he's kind of privately told Christian Menifee that if the map holds and Al Green wants to get in there, then his backing

is going to Al Green. Wow. Wow. Yeah. How does this impact the money that comes into this race because in my mind if someone is elected in the special election they're only holding the seat for a few months and then the map is going to completely change someone else is going to jump in the race so is there are you guys seeing like not as much money coming in to support some of these candidates in this race because they're like you know what they might win the special but they're not going to be able to hold this seat once the election comes up with this new map so does that change sort of the campaign strategy that you guys are just seen? You know, this field had largely formed well before redistricting happened. Yes. And certainly

well before we knew what the strategy of Republicans was, what they were going to take in redrawing the map. So I'm sure it has changed things. And Holly alluded to one of just support from Menafee leaving and going to green if he jumps in. But yeah, of course that, I haven't seen any numbers, but of course that will affect fundraising, right? And Democrats already have, it's not like they can't raise money at all, but it's not like what we see in a lot of these Republican primaries. Right. It's just there's not as much money flowing around, right? Especially in this race. I mean, this is a safety seat. There is a Republican running and some people trying to argue that, well, there's, you know, a lot of Hispanics in the district now and perhaps an

opening for Republicans. I just don't see that. Yeah, it's still heavily, heavily Democratic. Very much so. And I can actually check here a second. But the other factor, on this is, you know, in a seat where that is even slightly competitive, you might see national democratic money come in for one candidate, whoever they deem to be the more qualified and capable of winning the general election, kind of like we're seeing with John Cornyn at the Senate level in the Republican primary, right? But that doesn't matter because whoever the Democrat is, a trained, you know, nobody. A baby could win with a D next to his name, right?

Like, that's just how strongly leaning that seat is. Right. And so you don't have that, to your point on the money, you don't have that coming in because it's just, it's a given, whoever takes it. So with all these people jumping in to this race, are they all attempting to just raise their public profile by doing this? because again, I keep coming back to this seat. It's going to, if the map holds up and Al Green jumps in the race,

you know, he's the obvious frontrunner. And so in the special election, is this just an opportunity for all these candidates to sort of build up their public profile in some sort of way? I think probably for some of them, but you do have some strong names in there. I mean, Christian Menafee has been floated as a potential candidate for, you know, some high, office for quite some time. And they've been really raising his profile. Democrats have, you know, featured him quite a bit. For quite a while, I used to laugh because every time you went to the Harris County's county website to look at the commissioner's court meetings or anything like that, they had pinned to the top of the page, a press conference featuring Christian

Meneffi. So I think it's been in the works for a while to try to make sure he moved into a higher office at some point. But also you have State Representative Jolanda Jones in the race, too. Now, she's, you know, not polling as well as Minifie or Amanda Edwards, although, you know, some people are saying, well, maybe these polls aren't so accurate anymore because the nature of polling now and especially on a local level and how do you get the residents and voters in Congressional District 18 to always be answering these online inquiry polls. So, Some of the grassroots are very much in support of Jones. She is, you know, popular in that way.

I still think we're going to end up with Edwards and Meneffi in a runoff, but we could be surprised. Yeah. And then down, further down ballot, you have one of the George Foreman's sons is one of the candidates. And, you know, so I don't know, maybe that is raising the profile. and there is the Republican, oh, goodness, what is her name, Carmen Montiel, who is running as well. And she pulls about just behind Jolanda Jones. So she's kind of in-forth, and maybe she is raising her profile there. To further illustrate just how little chance a Republican has of winning the seats, after redistricting, it went from, the seat went from D-70 to D-79.

Now, of course, the D-70 is the seat that's being run for right now, right? But the new one went nine points further Democratic. Right. There's just no way. And so that is to answer your question why, you know, the money from the national apparatus is not coming in. Yeah, because it's to back Menefi. You know, if they say Meneffi's the better candidate, you know, that's why.

Yeah. So, Texas 18 is one of the special elections in the ballot. The other one is SD9 up in Dallas-Fort Worth. Kim Roberts has been covering this quite a bit. You can look at her pieces on the site on the race, but it pits. John Huffman, former South Lake Mayor against Lee Wamsgons, who has been the head of the Patriot Mobile Action Pack, which has gotten really involved in especially school board races in Tarrant counties.

specifically, but I think they have gone in other counties as well. Wants' Gons is the Patrick Pick. I spelled it out in my newsletter, I think last week where the formula of some of these candidates where you have someone jump in, they immediately get the Patrick endorsement, but when they jump in, they have Alan Blakemore as the consultant, so you know who the blessed candidate is. Blake Moore is also Patrick's consultant. Wong's gone's had that, right? Right.

And so she's got an advantage there. She's got the lieutenant governor behind her. She also has TLR behind her. She also has Texans United for a conservative majority behind her, which is the Dunn, Tim Dunn-funded pack, which makes for an interesting set of bedfellows there, TLR and Tuckham hate each other. But she has a ton of backing there.

The thing that is not backing, her, though, is the casino lobby. The Texas Defense Pack, Las Vegas Sands, Miriam Madelson, that whole apparatus is backing John Huffman. And whether the candidates like it or not, it has become a proxy fight on gambling expansion. So, well, with Republicans, you need to find that, what's that wedge issue? That's going to separate them, right? Weren't there some interesting text messages and altered images of her that were put out this? Yeah, so there was a, it wasn't the Huffman camp that did it, even though Wams Guns is blaming Huffman. I can tell you for a fact, it wasn't them, and they're actually pretty pissed that this happened.

But yeah, there was a, I think it was a text message. It was either that or a mail piece that went out, and it had an image of Wams Gons with a cross necklace on. but it was upside down. And so I don't know why, whoever it was, Photoshop that. I looked into the pack. It was the American jobs and something pack. I don't know. It's one of these random names that mean nothing.

But it's a rental pack, which means like anybody can go say, hey, I want you to do this, just saying, here's some money, right? And it's very difficult to figure out who is behind all of, all of that. One of the funding apparatuses of that was another pack that I saw last year jump into some odd races and send mail pieces in. The ties seem to be Liberty County because they sent mail pieces in to competitive house raises across the state, but then had a bunch of down-ballot actions in lower-level Liberty County races. So I don't know what the most motivation there was. I haven't been to figure it out. But it's weird. It's weird. So anyway,

they jumped in and ran this. I was wondering about that. Yeah, they had this, this website called lyingly and typical shady campaign tactics. No. Right. But, you know, why would Huffman, why would the Huffman, can't be mad about that? Well, because it makes them look bad. Makes them look bad and it gave their opponent ammunition. Even though they didn't have anything to do with that. But anyway, so the money coming in is all about casino gambling, or I should say largely about it, because you have the Tuckham side is against gambling expansion. So that's the reason, a big reason why they're coming in for Lee. So even though these candidates are not really campaigning on this issue, it is the issue that's driving the money in this race,

right? Interesting. And the reason they're not. campaigning on it is, you know, Huffman doesn't want to get crosswise with the people who are against expanded gambling, especially up in DFW, where we've seen a lot of fury over the, against Adelson, who owns the Dallas Mavericks, and a lot of fury because of the Luca Donchage trade. It's amazing that that has caused political ripples, but it has. Really? Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Interesting. Yep. And then on the other side, Wamskons isn't campaigning against gambling expansion, even though she is against it, because if you look at the public polling, Texans are broadly for approving a gambling expansion constitutional amendment. It's just a fact it is. Now, that doesn't mean that you as an official have to do that, right? but so this cuts both ways neither candidate wants to get crosswise with their opposite on this issue because they both want the voters right right so it's a fascinating race and Kim has done a good job covering it I wish I could give some either in the CD-18 race or the SD9 race some early

voting numbers but the Secretary of State's website is not showing any really anything also on the ballot are, I think it's 17 constitutional amendments. Wow. Yes. Ranging from, you know, increasing the homestead exemption to a new water fund to DIPRIT, the Dementia Prevention Research Institute of Texas. There's a whole bunch on there. Mary Lease has also a preview from a few weeks ago on those constitutional amendments you can find on the website. But look that up. When you go to the ballot box if you go to the ballot box next month and make sure you know what what's going on what is on your ballot and then obviously it's even more entertaining if you're in one of these special election districts absolutely for sure share it with your friends too yep gift an article

certainly yes we do have that feature now we do uh holly let's uh let's go over to you on another election issue uh this one in austin you're not your new home so you don't live in austin now But you're now just outside. I can't afford to live in Austin. Yeah. There is a proposition called Prop Q on the ballot. Adam Lowy and I discussed it quite a bit in our smoke-filled room episode that's going out Monday. But give us the rundown of this.

What's the intention? What's the dollar amount associated with this? Yeah. So it was really fun to dig into this and learn more about what's going on here in Austin. But supposedly the city says that they had a $33 million budget shortfall, and there's some questions about whether or not they actually did, because it sounds like the, I guess, the city manager presented a budget that was balanced, but the city council said no, you know, we're going to look at this. It looks like we're $33 million short. So they're asking voters to approve a tax increase. They've already approved doing the 3.5% increase that's allowed without voter approval.

So that will happen no matter what voters do. But they're also asking for voters to approve what it's going to amount to a 20% property tax hike on properties. And this is a Vader, what we call a Vader. This is not a bond. Right. It is a permanent tax increase. It's not a temporary. We're going to buy something, a library or what have you.

So it's a permanent tax increase. And instead of yielding $33 million, it looks like it's going to yield about $110 million more. to the city, and the bulk of that is going to expand the homeless services that the city has been so gung-ho about for the past few years, and they say that that is needed. And, you know, I was just looking at some of the numbers, and it looks like even since they've started their, you know, heavy-handed homeless initiative, you've had homelessness increase in the city of Austin. Yeah, so there's one gauge, I think it was like 36% increase since 2023.

Because they're providing all these services? It could be. And what was interesting to me, having just come over from the Houston area, is that, you know, Houston is a population of, what, 2.3 million people, and they have about the same number of homeless in their account as Austin does with less than a million people. So, you know, there is that argument that what they're doing is not. working, but on the pro-Proposition Q side, they're saying, well, we need to do more to try to address the homeless issues in the city. But it's going to add a significant amount to the city

property tax bills. So the average homeowner with a property value of about $500,000, which it's expensive to live in the city, just Proposition Q is going to add about $300 to their tax bill. in addition to the tax increases that are already coming, I think Travis County approved a tax increase, Austin Community College approved a tax increase, and the hospital district. So now you're talking about a pretty significant jump in the property tax bills. And, you know, when we see these things, we usually see kind of these, you know, fiscally conservative groups jump out there and argue about it. and, you know, everybody says, no, we've got to do it for whatever homelessness or whatever initiative.

But this time, it looks like what we're seeing is some pretty bipartisan opposition. We've seen a former, is a former congressman, Barrientos, or former state senator Barrientos, about he's being very vocal about it, Democrat. You've got a former Travis County judge, Bill Ayleshire, is pretty vocal about it. and you're going to be talking to Adam about his opposition to it. What's the Democratic perspective being in opposition to this? Yeah, so the, well, I mean, you do have the Texas, sorry, the Travis County Democratic Party is urging support for it, but more of the individual Democrats are coming out and saying, wait a minute, you've even had the Austin Chronicle editorial board come out and say, don't vote for this. Which is crazy.

that is. The Austin Chronicle is very far left. Yes. Yes. And for them to take that approach. Is it just because it's too much? It's too much. And they say there hasn't been enough accountability. You know, there's an interesting contrast here again with the city of Houston. And Houston, you had, you know, John Whitmire, former Democratic state senator, come in as mayor. There were a lot of people pressuring him to raise the property taxes in Houston. But he said, no, we're, not going to do that until we complete this efficiency audit, until we, you know, eliminate a lot of these duplicative programs and root out, you know, any kind of waste that the city is, is already engaging in. And their audit found that they, for example, had a number of so-called supervisors

who were paid more highly who were, quote, supervising two people. And so they also found, you know, a lot of duplication in city services and things like that. So they are in the process of cutting spending and trying to get a better grip on what's going on with the city's administration and budgeting. And a lot of people are telling Austin, you should be doing the same thing. I don't believe there are any, you know,

at least acknowledged Republicans on Austin City Council. I think you had one there that was McKinsey Kelly lost. but what's interesting is you do have one city council member who is in opposition to proposition Q. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing his name right, Mark Duchayne, and he's been going on podcasts and making the argument that the city of Austin needs to do what the city of Houston has been doing before they ask for any kind of tax increase. One of the arguments the city seems to be making is that they have to raise taxes because of the homeless situation and this will somehow address the affordability issues. But all the opposition is saying you're making it all that

much more expensive to live in the city of Austin to own property. And the point that a, you know, a number of people miss is that it's likely to impact rents to. Renters typically don't vote as often as actual homeowners, property owners. They don't get as exercised, but they may be surprised if they, you know, end up with a $100 a month increase in their rent. A couple of things about this. So this is a Vader. And the first instance we saw of a Vader being used in this manner that I recall was in Austin with Project Connect. Right. And that was a huge increase. 25%. Yeah. Right. Now, I think it's also important to point out that that's 20% in this case of the city property tax bill, right?

Right. Which is not, which is one component and a smaller component, but still a significant component of tax bills. The biggest one is your ISD. School district. Right. Yeah. So it is 20%'s a lot. It's also not a 20% increase in your overall tax bill if it passes. Right. It is in your city tax bill. right spell correct but this is we're we're seeing this a lot more these vaders and it's one reason

why one of the property tax reforms that failed in the special was to drop the um the vader line from three and a half percent for cities and counties to two and a half percent in line with ISDs now that wouldn't impact their ability or this being on the ballot at all but it would make it so that even a 3.5% increase in the tax collections they want to do, that has to be voter approved. That didn't pass. And that wouldn't be probably not be in-state for this anyway, had it passed during the special. But still, in every session, the legislature is trying to do something on property taxes. And some of those are on the constitutional amendment ballot. But Austin is often the whipping boy for the Republican State Legislature in reforms.

And I would not be surprised if there's something aimed at this in 27 when the legislature comes back. Absolutely. Well, and this week, too, we saw Governor Abbott come out and announce that they're doing more to clean up some of the homeless encampments in Austin again. Supposedly, you know. Well, it just makes me wonder, like, if the state had the, to do that, if the governor, why haven't they been doing... Their timing issue. Yeah.

Well, they have done it before. They have. Yes. Yeah. It just has been a bit, right? Yeah. And let's not forget the political implications here. It sounds pretty bad for a city to be going and asking for more money.

Yeah. When at the same time, the state is having to, you know, as Republicans would put it, quote, do their job and clean up these homeless encampments. Yeah. Right. So I don't think it's all political this decision to do this move, but it's hard to divorce it entirely from that. It is. Well, I mean, but there are a lot of public safety concerns with these homeless encampments, right?

And Houston's grappling with some of that too, where you have the certain contingent within the city that says, you know, we have to take care of our homeless and it's not fair to enforce, you know, the loitering or camping bans because, It's unkind to these people, but when you have, for example, residents trying to get to the public library with their kids in tow, and there's, you know, people passed out right in front of the library and needles lying on the sidewalk and that kind of thing, that's a threat. Or worse things happen. Yes, worse things. We don't need to go into the details, but worse things do happen when you're talking about these camps. Adam and I talked quite a bit about the homelessness issue. in Austin it has been the one thing where we see some bipartisan crossover appeal against the progressive city council right and it's back in 2020 when was the

year is that 20 2019 whenever that happened the reinstatement of the camping ban right after city council rescinded it that was 6040 issue and you can't win in Austin without having Democrats. And so there were a substantial a number of Democrats who voted for that. And there are already some Democrats voting against this. Yes. So we might see a similar coalition involved here as we did then. I think so. Yeah, it just seems like homelessness, though, in the city is just a perpetual problem. And it's a disagreement about what is the supposed solution here. Do you continue going down the path to Austin has been going down? continue funding these certain initiatives it seems like it's just increased the homeless population in some

sense i i'm just not sure what is there been propositions for a different solution to the homelessness problem something the the money can go to that's different than what it's already going to well you i'm sorry you are seeing some changes in other parts of the country um what was the supreme court decision last year that said you can enforce, you know, some of these encampment bans and so forth. And I believe even Governor Newsom in California said, you know, we can't just let the homeless, you know, just run rampant over city rules and city laws and is supporting some more enforcement mechanisms. And I think the argument... When also has something to do with him wanting to run for one? Well, there's that.

Well, does the enforcement come in the form of, you know, a fine? Or does it come in the form of, you know, arrest or are they placed under conservatorship and placed in a treatment facility under state enforcement well and the police argue that they need the tool to be able to remove some of these people from the streets and get them into either you know drug rehabilitation facility or mental health facility and it's difficult to do that unless there's some sort of penalty for the behavior so that's that's the argument there and you know we seem to see of Austin try and purchase motels previously to then use for housing for homeless individuals

and that did not work very well and they've kind of given up on that so they've gone through a few different iterations of this and we'll see how it turns out with the ballot box next that's right thank you holly Cameron let's go to you there's a local disagreement in Dallas about a federal immigration program what's the story well I came across this after I saw a story that Dallas-Marek Johnson was urging members of the city council to joining a federal immigration agreement. And this was after the police chief, Daniel Camus, hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly. It has the E-A-U-X at the end, had, had come-mo, had declined a $25 million offer to be a part of the 287G program. And the 287,000.

program has to do with federal immigration law and local law enforcement for them to work in cooperation to enforce immigration law. And so I went back, watched the tape, and during a community police oversight board meeting on October 14th, the department was talking about this 287G program and this offer of $25 million dollars and the police chief said they said absolutely no to joining and he went on to justify to say there's nothing happening in Dallas because at the time there was some online videos circulating that ICE and Dallas police were cooperating to enforce immigration law in the city and he went on to say every time we do something like this we're bringing more attention to

Dallas we don't need that attention we don't want to deal with that smoke and so he also added there's very little interaction with ICE on anything well after the rejection of the $25 million that offer Johnson set out a memo to two chairs that oversee public safety and then the government efficiency chair of the Dallas City Council really urging them to join this 287G program but what's interesting as well is so we have the comments from the police chief we have the letter from Eric Johnson, but there was also a joint statement put out by other city council members saying they, quote, remain concerned about ICE agent deployments in the city and that they were worried

about the interactions between federal agents in Dallas police. And so it was, they were essentially voicing their opposition to joining this 287G program. And so it's an interesting dynamic. here that's why I sort of ordered the the piece in that way where there are odds over this because we have the mayor wants the 287g program to work in cooperation with local law enforcement but the city council and the police chief don't seem to want to join but what's important here as well is president Donald Trump he has issued an executive order to help federal law enforcement through this 287g program. So there's the president issuing the executive order, but then also

Governor Greg Abbott issued his own directive regarding 287G after the Trump order directing state agencies to assist federal actors working under the direction of the Trump administration with carrying out functions under federal immigration laws. So both the president and the governor are encouraging cooperation with 287G. There is also legislation. I was just going to have. that was passed during the last legislative session through Senate Bill 8, which was going to provide a tiered funding program so that if these localities were going to be joining 287G,

they would have the funds to do that in order to train these officers and federal immigration law and enforcement. And there's some different models as well. There's like a market program there's a jail program so there's different ways these localities can enforce 287 the 287 program so does the SB 8 does it mandate participation in 287 G for some counties yeah so it has to do based on population okay so

it's based upon over under 100,000 residents and the mandating portion of that I'm not exactly sure if it mandates them that's the thing yeah I have to go back through my notes here but there is there is something about the population in these cities about being a part of the program or not and for at least enforcing the jail component of that. I know Harris County was a participant in 287G until the current sheriff was elected in 2016. So when Sheriff Ed Gonzalez took office, he ended Harris County Jail's participation into

87G. Now, they've indicated that they're not hindering ICE in any way, but there are some questions about that. There were some reporting last week from another outlet suggesting that perhaps the officers running the jail or whoever's running the jail is not necessarily checking on citizenship status reportedly about 16% of the inmates in the Harris County Jail, which is huge. You can have about 10,000 people at a time in that jail system. But about 16% the status is left blank. So we don't know if they're a citizen or non-citizen

or what's going on there. So I think there's going to be questions about what Harris County is doing, especially Harris County. You know, you can't be a sanctuary county or sanctuary city in Texas theoretically, but Harris County does have an immigrant defense fund. They use taxpayer dollars to provide legal defense.

to immigrants who are facing deportation. Yeah, I mentioned in the piece that Harris County had opted out of that federal program. And, yeah, it's interesting. I haven't indicated that they are going to enter into any new agreement. So that's something I'll have to keep my eye on too. Cool. Thank you, Cameron. I'm going to cover one of Mary Lisa's piece that was put out this week,

I guess another one. So the first one was hers as well. The headline is over 2,700 potential non-citizens found on Texas voter rolls after federal database review. So the state has been working with the federal government to basically cross-reference its voter rolls and make sure there is anyone who's eligible to vote or is registered to vote in another state isn't registered here. And so potential non-citizens is a broader term. It's not, I think it's not necessarily illegal immigrants, but it's possible, right? Right.

We don't know the breakdown, but it could be a sizable chunk of that. However, you know, it's important to note 2,700 out of a state of 30 million people. the voter registration rate here. It's like over half. I think the number would put out for this election was 18.4 million. So it's a very small number of people. But taking in isolation, it's, you know, if all those people were in one district,

you could swing a district, an election, right? Right. But they're not all in one district. So there's some nuance here with this. But still, as Mary Lease wrote, this came after the Secretary of State gained access to federal citizenship database, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, systematic alien verification for entitlements. That's a lot. It's shortened its save database. So they cross-reference the voter rolls with that, found these people, took them off the voter rolls.

and moving forward with things without them eligible to vote. Of course, this comes in the context of, what was it, Eric? Did the state leave Eric? Oh, right, right. There was that database. Was that in 23 or was that this year? Oh, goodness. I think it was 23.

Yeah, it was 23. Yeah, which was one of those state databases were cross-reference, right? There was objection to it. Yes, yes. And so the state has, from my understanding, has worked with other states, certain other states, not all of them, to create their own database that now they're using in tandem with this. I don't know if it's up and running yet, but I know that has been talked about and at least

been in the works. So check out the rest of Mary Lease's piece on those. You can see the quote from Jane Nelson, Secretary of State, but yeah. Can I issue a correction to my last section? Because you're asking about the requirement aspect. And so I had to double check my notes. The reason I didn't say yes or no is because we were talking about the police department. What SB 8 is a requirement for sheriffs.

For sheriffs. Not the police chiefs. So the county side of things. That's correct. That's my correction. Okay. Well, with that, we'll move on. Holly, coming back to you.

The governor is outstumping for the constitutional amendments. One of them is bail reform, the one that did pass. ass, which is pretty big. And we've seen some interesting fighting on Twitter about this, right? But you were there when you saw his stop in Houston. Give us the illustrate that for us. Okay. Well, I mean, he stopped not in Houston, up in Cyprus in the northwestern portion of Harris County, which tends to be a little more Republican, a little more conservative up in that area. But he had a number of victims' families there. They were all holding signs. pictures of their loved ones who had been slain in Harris County allegedly by suspects who were

out on bond. And we've seen that kind of a consistent theme in Harris County where you've had these judges release these suspects on bond. We had individuals who had been arrested 67 times and are out on a PR bond. So it's been quite a hot topic there. But he was stumping, especially in support of Proposition 3, which I think there's been a lot of misunderstanding about what Proposition 3 does. And we've seen some interesting comments from the folks that would be surprising

a little more on the right side of the aisle saying, you know, we're in opposition to it. So what it does is it allows a judge to deny bail to defendants who are charged with first-degree felony offenses, continuous trafficking of persons or a certain set of violent offenses, but only if the district attorney's office can present a case that includes clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is either unlikely to return

for a court hearing or poses a threat to the community or law enforcement or victims. So it's been interpreted as, oh, the judge has to deny bail in these cases. that's not true. You have to have a DA who's willing to bring that forward. You have to be able to persuade the judge. And then if the judge is going to deny bail, then the judge would have to provide a written sort of a counting of the facts and why they determine this. So you had Greg Abbott urging everyone to support this. He said this is one of the constitutional amendments that he called a matter of life and death. And although it doesn't for the judges to deny bail to certain defendants. It takes away the excuse as part of what the

argument is. Interestingly enough, at this rally with pretty much mostly Republican officials and candidates, he also had former Harris County District Attorney Kim Og there, standing alongside the governor and urging people to support Proposition 3 and support this amendment to the Constitution. Kim, of course, as a Democrat, was defeated in the primary in 2024 and replaced there, but she's been out pretty vocally stumping for these things and endorsed Ted Cruz for the election last year. So she's rattled some people's nerves a little bit. But that wasn't all Abbott had to say, though, at this event. He started, just launched right out of the gates and said he had $90 million in his war chest and he plans to spend most of it

in Harris County next year. Most of it? That's what he said. Wow. Yes. I was the number I've been hearing was 20 million. Well, he said those were his words. Wow. Yeah. So what that means, we don't know yet. Did you tweet that? I did. I did. I did. I'm going to go find that right. You should follow me on Twitter or X. We're supposed to call it X now. Right. Yeah. Well, and also on the bail thing. Notable that this has been something the governor and Republicans have been trying to get for years, but they could never get over the constitutional amendment line in the House with its hundred, right? Right. It passed the Senate, I think, the last three sessions, but would die in the House because you have to have that two-thirds majority support. And we were in the

house the day and watching the negotiations go back and forth, where there's huddles on the side with Democratic representatives like Ann Johnson, talking to representatives like Mitch Little, trying to negotiate this compromise. You saw the governor's people there and the speakers, people there, and all working on trying to get this to pass. And they did finally get it through. A couple of other stronger would-be amendments were ones that would-deny bail to certain offenders under certain circumstances. But this one, it's a little looser. And the idea is to try to balance

that tension between the public safety and the rights of the accused. So, but what we're talking about here are, you know, particularly violent offenders who have been in and out of the criminal justice system. And I think that's what people, especially in Houston and Harris County, are very upset about. And I think it's also a bit of a problem here in Austin and Travis County, too, where you have these repeat offenders and they, you know, are given bonds for these violent offenses or their charges are dropped or lessened. So they're brought in for a felony and they get it, you know, down to a misdemeanor. Then you can, yeah, yeah, give them bonds. So quite a fight a fight. There's a lot more to come on that.

And I'm sure next session we'll see another crack from Republicans at getting that higher level, higher standard of law. I believe so. I believe so. I will add, it was interesting to listen to the discussion, not just from the governor, but the Harris County Republican Party chair. They're talking about trying to turn Harris County red. And I believe the governor said dark red. Good luck with that. Right.

Well, I mean, there is an argument to be made that it's a purplish county. Sure. You know, we did see Republicans win. But you can't go from purple to dark red in one cycle. I don't see dark red next year. No. Republicans could win some seats they haven't in a few cycles. Right.

They won a couple of judicial races. Well, that's sort of my, I'm sorry, if I take us to off track with this, but it's sort of interesting to think, isn't the bail bond this issue that they're having here, downstream of the judges and DAs, like with issues. issuing of the bonds or undercharging people or people getting out of their sentencing earlier and then going out and repeat offending. So is there something, I'm just trying to think in my mind, is there something upstream they could do to like, is it voting in new judges, different judges or a different DA? Because it seems like there's so much focus on the bail and the bonds issue.

Yeah, I would have to agree with that. And I think that's why last year you did see Republicans win those judicial races in Harris County. Interestingly enough, although the focus, the problem is with the criminal court judges, some of those wins were civil court judges. Because when people go to the polls, they don't know the difference. It's going to be, you know, district court 180 or 180th district court. And people don't really discern whether or not that is civil. or criminal, but yeah, and Republicans did come pretty close to winning the DA's race and the county attorney's race. They were within, I think, a percentage point on both of those races. So I think Republicans do see an opportunity there as long as they are talking about these ongoing issues, and we're going to talk about another story in a minute, but it is an ongoing issue, even though there have been some state attempts to curtail that kind of bail policy. All right, thank Holly. I'll just plug one quick one piece I wrote this week on State Senator Brian Birdwell

getting an appointment to the Defense Department. He was nominated by the Trump administration to be an assistant secretary of defense. And feeling an opening there, Birdwell, of course, had announced he wasn't going to run for re-election already. This kind of speeds things up, so now maybe we get another special election next year. We already have one in Houston, SD4, to fill Brandon Creighton's seat. So now that there might be another one. But really, he's a remarkable man, and he was in the Pentagon on 9-11.

He got not directly hit by the plane, thank God, because he's still alive, but he was. He got knocked aside and set a fire in the blaze. Just a remarkable story. An incredible story. Yeah. And then he served 15 years in the Senate, and now he's going to serve his country more. So check that out. There's a lot of outpouring of support for retiring Senator Brian Birdwell there.

Next, we'll move on to Cameron. There was another legal development. Another. The Reader Act from 2023. Yeah. And it's another for Republicans not good ruling. Give me the details. Yeah, the Reader Act has been subject to quite a bit of legal challenges

since its passage back in 2023. And it was signed into law. And this is the bill about sexually explicit materials in schools. Yeah, and there's some different aspects to it, but the large focus of the legal challenges has been on the contextual analysis that is required by the vendors of these books that sell them to the schools and how do they determine the sexually explicit nature of these books to place a rating on the books? So it's a First Amendment sort of case here, sort of compelling the vendors to impart some sort of reading

into these books so there was a lawsuit filed in 2023 sought to block its implementation there was an oral injunction in August that temporarily blocked it from going to an effect then again in January 2024 the Fifth Circuit sided with the bookstores and publishers who filed the lawsuit while allowing a portion of the library collection standards because like I said there's multiple portions of this bill allowing part of it to go into effect there was also a denial by the Fifth Circuit to rehear after it was again challenged and appealed this most recent decision conceded quote Texas has a strong interest in regulating what children can access in schools and preventing

inappropriate content from schools but readers methods are not the way to further that interest the order goes in and explains a 16-step process that would have been required for how vendors conduct the the ratings for these and the order from this judge said the guidelines are unclear and was voided for vagueness in combination with its application and so like I mentioned really came down a lot to the challenges based upon the contextual analysis that was going to be required and in the order the judge wrote the state directly not by compelling third parties to perform it or by risking losing any

opportunity to engage in commerce with schools with school So the compelling of a third party to do this contextual analysis, not the state itself. So there was a response from Representative Jared Patterson, who is the author of HV-900, and he said, though I appreciate Judge Albright's statement that Texas has an interest in safeguarding children from sexually explicit material, I am deeply disappointed by his decision in the state of Texas cannot require a vendor to ensure their products are safe for a child's consumption in the loan circumstance of selling their products to Texas public schools. So, again, this was a large focus of our coverage, a lot of focus placed on this bill by the lawmakers themselves back in 2023. There's been continual actions in the most recent legislative session to further. cement the ability for not just the schools themselves but parents to be involved in the types

of materials that are being allowed in these public schools so I'm sure we're going to see more legislation come up in the 90th session and what level of court was this this was a federal district court okay so we'll see it appealed I'm sure yeah and this will not be the last week here of the redirect in court I'm sure so thank you Cameron I'll plug One more of Mary Lisa's pieces, title is student activist Sue Texas over New Age Verification App Download Law. That was a bill that passed both from Senator Angela Paxton and Representative Caroline Fairley this session.

It had an interesting lobby fight at the last minute where we saw some of these app makers lobby against this bill. And of course, it required the uh these uh app download apps is it the apps or the app store the app store okay yes so like the apple app store or the google place so in order to download a certain app you have to verify that you're 18 yeah right and that was the that was the proposal the law and this was filed this um lawsuit was filed by some group called students engaged in advancing texas the A quote from it...

Very organic. Yeah. Right. Quote from it says it reads, Texas has passed a law presumptively banning teenagers and restricting everyone else from accessing vast online libraries full of protected speech.

The Act violates the First Amendment on its face. So it's clearly the case they're making. I think that, legally speaking, that case has had success in court on other things. Because there's been challenges to things like the scope, Yeah, right, here in Texas.

What was the Scope Act? You're asking a lot. But it's how to do with age verification on social media? Yes. In viewpoint discrimination. Yes. So, we'll see where it goes, obviously, but they, they merely wrote in this quote, they differentiated their case from the ruling in free speech coalition versus Paxton,

which was taken up by SCOTUS in regards to Texas law requiring websites that intentionally publish sexual material harmful to minors read porn to verify user's age. So they're trying to, I mentioned the case law that goes that is favorable to them on the First Amendment. This is one that isn't. So they're trying to differentiate their case that way in order to improve its ability in court to win, right? And so Maryleys has reactions in the piece from Representative Fairley and Senator Paxton as well. So check out, check that out. But that is a case to watch on this bill.

And, you know, the state has looked more and more at age verification type restrictions for children on various things. And this is another one. The lobby fight that happened during session couldn't kill it. it lasted and now they're trying court so we'll see if they're successful yeah i think the the overlap between the first amendment and technology it's incredibly interesting because we're really stretching to the extent to where where the first amendment reaches especially when it comes to minors and type of content they can access online you know i think judges are finding themselves attempting to answer questions they never thought they were going to have to answer

before so yeah there's something to watch definitely all right last one we'll be able to hit holly you referenced this earlier it's a piece about a judge cornelio in harris county it's a long-running thing you've covered what's the latest so judge cornelio just a little backstory here so last year, Judge Cornelio issued a bench warrant for a death row inmate that's very familiar to people in Southeast Texas. Ronald Lee Haskell was convicted in 2019 of killing six people. It was a family, killed two adults and four children, and there was a fifth child who survived by pretending to be dead. So she was the only survivor there, even though she was shot in the head. So not at Cornelio, out this bench warrant to bring Haskell from the high security facility where he's being kept

while his case is under appeal and hasn't brought back to Harris County for a court setting that was at midnight on July 22nd of 2024. Well, that court setting never happened. And so she kept him in the Harris County jail for a couple of weeks and then sent him to a private medical facility for an MRI, and just keep in mind, you know, he's a death row inmate, sent him to this private medical facility, and there are actually photographs of him in the waiting room with members of the general public who are completely unaware that they're sitting next to a convicted murderer. So last year, the previous district attorney's office moved to recuser from the case, and

someone also filed a complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. She was eventually removed from the case, and then this week, the state commission issued a public reprimand of her, according to the document. She did not deny the allegations that she did all this? That she did this. Now, she didn't, did she give a reason why she did it? Well, she said she used a form, a standard form, and didn't really pay attention to the details of what's on the form. But why? Why would they need to transfer to the jail to the private medical? That's the question. So what does happen sometimes when you have a death row inmate,

you will have defense trying to, you know, they did try to plead insanity in his case, and that was not successful in the lower court. So now it's under appeal. And sometimes you will have a defense attorney try to seek additional medical examinations and things like that. but typically what happens is usually not at midnight no right and usually what happens is they they get an order from the appeals court that would go to tdcj who would then transport that inmate to a special medical facility in galveston that is specifically designed for for inmates who are you know probably not a good idea to have out in with the general public not sit next to your grandma Cameron And so they would run those tests perhaps, you know. But this, the other aspect to this, and it's in my original reporting on the case, is it was not disclosed to the district attorney or the prosecutors or anyone that this was happening. The only reason the district attorney's office found out about it is that Texas has something called Vine.

It's a victim, I can't remember what that stands for, it's a victim's notification system. It's automatic. So when something happens with, you know, Ronald Lee Haskell, the surviving victim, the girl who pretended to be dead while her family was murdered there, got a notification that he was being brought back to Harris County. And, you know, she immediately called the district attorney's office and said, you know, what is going on? And that's how they found out.

So then when the district attorney's office tried to get information about what was happening, tried to subpoena some of the communications between the defense attorney and the judge's office. The judge agreed to quash the subpoena and would not let them have that information. What the DA's office was able to do is get phone records from Ronald Lee Haskell's stay in the Harris County Jail during this time period, and he is calling his mother and telling his mother the whole thing is very cloak and dagger. and I'm quoting directly. He called it a cloak and dagger thing, very secretive, that his attorney didn't want anyone to know about what was happening and so forth.

So they were able to use that to show why Cornelio should be removed from the case and then present that information to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Now, with that public reprimand, that's it. There's not a fine. There's not another penalty at the same. moment. It's just a public, yes, public discipline. And

there are quite a lot of people who are very upset about that. They feel like this judge should probably be removed from the bench. She has been in the news for other things. In 2023, she authorized the release of a convicted murderer by the name of James

Ray Lane so that he could go get a haircut before his sentencing hearing. There's There's some folks in Harris County are not very happy with Judge Cornelio. Yet another example of Harris County constantly finding the news. They're going to be back in session. They're going to be the poster child again, I think.

They always are. Always. They're in Austin. Thank you, Holly. Let's move on to tweeterie. Ladies first, Holly, what you got? Well, I have to clarify, I saw this tweet, and it made me laugh. It did turn out to be fake, and I'm so disappointed.

But, you know, we've all been hearing in the news about the theft at the Louvre this week of all the crown jewels and things from the Napoleonic era and a lot of questions about how they were able to do this, the world's most famous museum. But someone snapped this picture and they said, oh, it's by the, it's the detective in the case, you know, and it's this, I don't know, quintessential Frenchmen dressed in a very dapper, you know. know, kind of, I don't know, a dandy sort of outfit with a fedora and everything. He's, you know, very handsome. But the comment that cracked me up was this Melissa Chin tweeted this, and she said that's an actual shot. And she said, somehow he's looking like he's smoking without a cigarette and, you know, he was talking about this is so French. But then she says, to solve it, what we really need is an unshaven, overweight, washed-out detective who's in the middle of a divorce.

worse, a functioning alcoholic who the rest of it, the department hates. That's the kind of person who can solve the crime. So it's like, oh, that's a great throwback to the, you know, Dashil Hammett crime novels and movies, right? Disfunctional detective. That's what we want. That's funny. Cameron, what did you get?

I have an update on the State Fair of Texas. Oh. And the attendance has been down. oh no this past year it was down what they say 16%

from the year previous and there's been lots of buzz about the cost of fair food lots of discussion about fair food

and they include in this piece from the Austin American statesman a clip from someone saying the fair wanted

this is a person who was selling fair food uh there he said the fair wanted five thousand dollars up front and 50% of everything that you make those vendors they only make like 12% where are you going to get your 12% so because i know there's been issues with like why is a corn dog $25 you know it's the tariffs there's the tariff on the corn dog um but it it's a complex issue, of course, right? You know, it's getting the materials, getting the food itself, but then also the vendor costs, and then the stall,

and then how much are you going to price the stuff you're selling? So I just thought it was interesting, kind of crossover a lot of different issues at the state fair. Well, yeah, Tallarigo tried to blame it on tariffs. Yeah. Like, no. Anytime you have a captive audience at an event like that, Take any football game, the food is going to cost more.

Now, I'm not saying the tariffs don't have any trickle in effect on that, right? Things generally cost more. But let's not pretend like the fair has been inexpensive previously, right? Those places always are. You're going to pay ridiculous amounts of money for whatever you. She's like, when you go to the movie theater. Right, right. How much is the funnel cake?

I used to work at a movie theater. Oh. And they actually make no money on tickets. Right. Because the cost of the movies is so crucial. They make all their margin on concessions, which is why concessions are so expensive. So that's the economic facts of the movie theater business

and why you pay $10 for a freaking popcorn. Yeah. Your favorite movie snack? Milk duds. Milk duds, Holly? Probably buttered popcorn. Oh, gosh, she took mine. That's what I was going to say.

I just like the giant bucket and then I eat it all during the previews. Oh, yeah. And I want lots of butter. None of that boring stuff, plain stuff. Thank you, Cameron. I'll close this out with mine. So I had the displeasure of seeing a very strange photo of myself doctored up with a beard today on Twitter. Oh.

Wait, I got to see this. I'll show it to you right now. It's because three several days, our loyal listener and avid follower, as he likes to say my follower well no three several days is my follower in this case he tweeted out that he's doing he needs it's a he well I just assume oh I don't know oh I thought you I thought you were outing you know as I said before

with the English language when you don't know the gender of someone you use the masculine yeah so I know right that's what my Spanish teach. My Spanish teacher in high school, the way he introduced the Spanish language to us was, now this is a male chauvinous pig language. He stressed that over and over and over. Oh, my God. Okay. I get the picture, buddy. But anyway, so he, three several days, tweeted out. He's taking submissions for top beards in TechSledge. Some of those that are obvious examples are speaker, Dustin Burroughs, has a great beard. Ramon Romero, does too. Ben Bumgarner has the biggest one.

Does that count as the best? I don't know. But somebody, one of the anonymous Twitter accounts, said that me, myself, being a House District 151 representative, needed to show proof of beard growing. No. Oh, no.

If I could grow a beard, I would have grown a beard. I would have one right now, but I cannot. and it would look horrible. I've tried before, and it looks awful. So I am clean-shaven every day because I possess no capacity. You know, what I've lost on top of my head has not followed up in my facial hair.

It just doesn't have a habit. Well, I can't grow a beard either, so. Well, that would be a big problem if I did. That would be. What about a mustache? Can you get a mustache? No. I'd have one of those, too, but no. But anyway, here's the photo of me,

that someone did. Oh, that is great. It just looks like Ben Bunkartner. It does. Is that even you? They need to take the glasses off. No, that was back when I originally started, it's Texan. Oh, okay.

It was my first photo, which, of course, is the one that always pops up instead of my more recent photo. But anyway, sorry to disappoints, the peanut gallery. There will be no beard watch for myself in this. I don't know how you're going to win. primary without a beard. You know, it is coming back in style, you know, for a long time. No president had, well, we still had a president when we have now a vice president with beer.

Yeah. Right. Maybe a next president. But, you know, beards were the thing. Way back in the olden days. 19th century. Yeah. And then they went out of style and nobody did.

Yeah. But now we're slowly bringing the beard back. We've got the speaker of the house with a beard. Yeah. Well, and there's been a revolution in technology in terms of, terms of hair transplants. And people are traveling overseas to get these treatments done. Well, we need.

Famous people. Well, they need to start transferring that technology down to the face. To the face. You know, so you can get a full beard. And so hopefully, Brad, there you go. That treatment will be available soon. Well, I did go to Turkey for vacation last year. And if I didn't get it done then on the top of my head, I'd get it done for beard.

What does that cost? I don't know. I didn't even look into it because that's ridiculous. Just go balls. Right. Just go balls. Agreed. Agreed.

I support your decision. Thank you, Holly. I appreciate that. You bet. That's your right. Yeah. And with that, Tom Fulery, we are going to conclude this week's episode. And we'll catch you all next week. Bye.

Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, Subscribe to the Texan at the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to Editor at the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

God bless you and God bless Texas.