The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 28, 2022

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

The election is only two weeks away. Subscribers to The Texan will get access to minute-by-minute election results powered by Decision Desk HQ. Subscribe here: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ PLUS��get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe 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: Early voting beginning in the wake of the new ballot fraud lawTexas voter registration and initial early voting turnoutThe top 10 midterm races to watch in Texas, from governor to county judgeGovernor Abbott’s office seeming open to legalizing casinosThe challenges Comptroller Glenn Hegar faces if he wins his third and final termBorder agents encountering 1.5 million illegal aliens in Fiscal Year 2022The Donald Trump rally in Robstown last weekend and allusions to a 2024 run for the White HousePaxton warning that the federal government could overpower Texas if the state declared a border “invasion”A state judge allowing the Ector County water district election to proceedBoard members of the Ector County Utilities District questioning if the board president received a pardon for drug dealingA district judge halting Amarillo’s attempt to take out $260 million in non-voter-approved debtDemocrat Mike Collier’s lawyer demanding stations cancel an ad from Republican Dan PatrickThe three write-in candidates running for a district court seat in Dallas County

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses early voting beginning in the wake of the new ballot fraud law. Texas voter registration and initial early voting turnout. The top 10 midterm races to watch in Texas from governor to county judge. Governor Abbott's office seeming open to legalizing casinos. The challenges comptroller Glenn Hager faces if he wins his third and final term. Border agents encountering 1.5 million illegal aliens in fiscal year 2022. The Donald Trump rally in Robstown last weekend, an allusion to a 2024 run for the White House.

Paxton warning that the federal government could overpower Texas if the state declared a border invasion. A state judge allowing the Ector County Water District election to proceed. Board members of the Ector County Utilities District questioning if the board president received a pardon for drug dealing. A district judge halting Amarillo's attempt to take out $260 million in non-voter approved debt. Democrat Mike Collier's lawyer demanding stations cancel an ad from Republican Dan Patrick. And the three write-in candidates running for a district court seat in Dallas County. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast.

Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, hello everyone. This is Mackenzie here with Brad, Hayden, Rob, and Matthew. We're off to a rough start, but we won't... We are. This has been a bumpy on-ramp into the pod. Brad's already mad at me my favorite thing about the signature brad and mckenzie arguments is they each always make this eye contact with me like i'm the referee and i'm supposed to make a

ruling i just sit here like hey guys we trust you and hayden used to take my side more and now he's he has kind of i don't know found a way to make more parties pleased and that is fair i don't know how i feel about that but it's true but i'm a little sad hayden you are i'm a little lonely over here oh wow i'm sorry this is like a therapy session. Okay. I wasn't aware of this increasing loneliness of yours in the office. Have you noticed that Brad hasn't said a single word? He hasn't. He's stewing a little bit.

I think he actually is stewing. Can we just get on with the podcast? Oh, my gosh. You continuing to browbeat over this makes me more angry i don't know what to do i want everyone to be happy okay speaking of happiness hayden early voting has started in texas folks are excited to cast their ballots what are the dates for early voting and how can people find out where to vote hold on let me get my stopwatch so I don't talk too long. Yes, early voting is underway here in the state of Texas. Lone Star State voters started going to the polls on Monday, and early voting hours can vary by county according to state law. So

make sure you go to VoteTexas.org and check out where you can find out to vote. You can also see different polling locations and you can check to see whether you're registered. The deadline to register to vote was earlier this month. So if you are not registered, unfortunately that particular ship has sailed, but if you are registered, you can go see where you can vote. And if you are able to vote after work, depending on what the early voting hours are for your county. You can also go to thetexan.news for more information about candidates and their fundraising calls. The War Room on the Texan is a great resource. And the Texas Secretary of State's website, sos.state.tx.us, also provides a listing of the candidates.

So if you're wondering who is running in your precinct, your county, or at the statewide level, you can always go to any of those websites, especially the texan.news and find more information about your candidates. Good plug, Hayden. So this is the first general election since that infamous Election Integrity Act of 2021 was passed by the legislature, GOP backed, caused Democrats to flee in hopes they would kill the bill. It passed regardless. What are some of the highlights of that new law? The new law restricts early voting to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., although it did raise the minimum number of hours for early voting. Some counties, particularly Harris County, were using 24-hour voting and other creative uses of state law for more

accommodation of early voting. And this ballot fraud, I almost said ballot frog like the other week, this ballot fraud prevention law creates this window of time for early voting, even though the window of time as far as dates go is the same statewide. Early voting began on Monday, and it ends on Friday, November 4th, with Election Day on November 8th. The early voting hours are restricted from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and there are additional verification requirements for mail ballot applications, such as using a driver license or social security number. Those records must match state records. And there's increased protections for poll watchers. It criminalizes turning away a poll watcher if they are

legitimately at a polling place. And people cannot send unsolicited applications for a ballot by mail. That includes government officials. It is a criminal act to do that as well. The law also included randomized audits by the Texas Secretary of State's office. And that is just a handful of some of the reforms that were implemented in this law. And Mackenzie, as you mentioned, this was the result of several special sessions that were stymied as a result of a Democratic walkout and quorum bust. And a quorum was not restored until mid-August. And Governor Abbott signed this bill into law in September of last year. So this is the first general election where Texas voter registrars, Texas election workers are functioning under this new framework in the Election Integrity

Protection Act of 2021. Very good, Hayden. Thank you. Brad, we're going to keep on the subject of early voting. It's gotten off to somewhat of a slow start this year, but the number of registered voters climbed once again. What did you see when looking at the data? So Texas has slightly more than 716,000 registered voters this year compared with the 2020 election. About a 12% increase from the 2018 midterm. In total, there are 17.7 million registered voters in Texas. And as the state's population continues to grow, that number is going to keep going up. Now that's different than the number of people that actually participate in these elections

but the counties with the largest percentage increase in registered voters that i saw was comal kaufman parker rockwall and williamson counties each of those are either really gop heavy or will in williamson's case go counties. Uh, so that is a good trend for Republicans, I guess. Um, but those are also excerpts of metropolitan areas. So, um, that part of why you probably see, uh, more registered voters is, uh, people moving out of the Republicans, moving out of the metropolitan counties and into these excerpts that's happening all across state all across the country what's the difference between an excerpt and a suburb apologies for that stupid question um the way

i've always understood it as an excerpt is a county away a little bit and the suburb is like a neighborhood that's not downtown of a city like it's still in interesting in the let's say uh you know dallas it's still in dallas but dallas county but it's um but then like collin county would be an excerpt interesting yeah until collin county becomes a metropolitan area, which McKinney's growing a lot, so that's possible. But you said keep these pithy, so I'll try not to let you drag me off track again. Oh my gosh. 40% of these new additions since last midterm are located in the state's six largest counties. But despite all that, early voting is off to a sluggish start with a half a million people on the first day probably in part due to

rainstorms on monday turnout started off slower than in 2018 on tuesday it remained behind the pace set four years ago roughly now we have not including wednesday because we don't have those numbers yet we have 1.1 million people so having cast ballots. So you can see some more data in the article that we posted on this. Well, thank you, Bradley. You also previewed the top 10 races to watch this election in a piece published earlier this week. Give us a little rundown. Yeah, so obviously the governor's race is something to watch. That is the top one.

The attorney general's race is really notable. And there's a bunch of others some of which have caught national attention others have not at all caught really any attention if you want to read brief summaries of each of those and why i selected those as the top races to watch obviously there's going to be more to watch but i had to limit it to 10 for this and um really it's 11 but i would uh recommend you go check that out uh it's it highlights some things that not many people are watching certainly definitely worth a read at the texan.news thank you bradley hayden governor abbott recently signaled a change of heart on gambling. What exactly did he have to say?

His press secretary, Renee Ease, gave a statement to the Houston Chronicle that indicated he might be. Let's just say he hasn't opened the door to casino gambling, but his hand is certainly on the doorknob because the statement that his office put out is different than what he has said in the past. They said, quote, we don't want slot machines at every corner store. We don't want Texans to be losing money that they need for everyday expenses. And we don't want any type of crime that could be associated with gaming. But if there is a way to create a very professional entertainment option for Texans, Governor Abbott would take a look at it, end quote. So that's the statement that he made in response to questions about whether he would be open to expanding gambling laws on the next legislative session. How harsh is the political landscape for casino gambling proponents? As I mentioned in the

past, Abbott has not been friendly to this particular project. He has said years ago that he wholeheartedly supported the state's restrictions on gambling. But this election cycle, Dr. Miriam Adelson, a casino gaming mogul who's the widow of Sheldon Adelson, seems to be carrying on her husband's legacy of expanding their casino gaming empire. She cut a check for $1 million to his campaign last month, and that was a personal donation from Adelson to Abbott. And then a PAC funded by Miriam Adelson, Texas Sands, has also contributed $1.5 million to Texas lawmakers and Governor Abbott's re-election bid. So they are seeking to put their ducks in a row for the upcoming legislative session.

If it is to pass, it would require a constitutional amendment. And bear in mind, Las Vegas Sands and other outfits that are supporting this are not seeking a carte blanche legalization of casinos statewide. They're wanting a very tailored version of decriminalizing this and legalizing it so that they can have destination resorts, as they call them, that includes casino gambling. But the bids or in the minimum amount of investment required for these constitutional amendments would be so high, there wouldn't be anything like a mom and pop casino popping up everywhere. So that goal, that legislative outcome seems to be consistent with the statement that Abbott put out.

In other words, this is not going to be an opportunity that just anybody could start a casino, but something that these big guys and these big out-of-state players could come in and possibly fund this. And the only entertainment venues that currently exist that are similar to casinos are operated by federally recognized Native American tribes, and the state of Texas has even fought those. So the political landscape is harsh for these efforts, but it might be a little bit friendlier to Las Vegas Sands that has the money to gamble on this, so to speak. I'm sure the Adelson crew was excited to see those comments from the governor and his team. Thank you, Hayden. week i'm sure the adelson crew was excited to see those comments from the governor and his team thank you hayden brad glenn hager is seeking re-election for what he said will be his final term as texas comptroller give us a preview of his race against democrat janet denning

so he is running for like you said his final term third and final um he said that last month should he win and he's got a pretty big advantage he's got first of all he's been on the ballot multiple times statewide he's also in a republican leaning state and finally he has eight million dollars cash on hand as of the latest report and that's 170 times more than what his opponent had so it's quite a big advantage. It's expected. It would be a total shock if he were to lose. But the comptroller is not really something that's talked about that much.

It is a very obscure position. Especially in the name. But really it's the CFO of the state. And so he has a lot of responsibilities. The chief ones are budget forecasting and collecting and remitting sales tax payments. And so a large part of his job is to monitor the fiscal economic health of the state. And that itself, Texas economy, along with the national economy, is kind of at the whims of the global economy. And so it's an interesting parallel for the thing that he watches most closely in his

day job, the dynamic being left to the whims of something that is out of his control. His reelection is also kind of out of his control largely, unless he has some massive scandal, which there's no sign of that anywhere. And so really it's the top of the ticket that drives votes in down-ballot races, and that goes for everyone. So Governor Abbott and Beto O'Rourke are setting the tone for this race as well as all the others, along with what's happening at the national level with the inflation that we see, the Biden administration's posture, especially regarding the oil and gas industry, which Hager has gotten an increased role in once one subsection of that with the SB13 list, the boycott removing pension funds from

these banks that have been determined to be boycotting the oil and gas industry. So it's an interesting race even though it's not all that notable. You can read more about that in the article there. You can read some of Janet

Dudding's priorities as far as where she resides on the political spectrum. She's pretty liberal. She has a lot of different opinions than Hager on how she would run things. But there's some other things in there that I think you might find interesting. So check it out. Certainly. Hayden, fiscal year 2022 was a record year for illegal immigration. Give us an outline of some of the statistics that stood out in the last operational update. There were in fiscal year 2022, 2.38 million encounters along the southern border with illegal immigrants. And 2.2 million of those were arrests by border agents between ports of entry. 1.5 million of those encounters occurred in Texas sectors, including 1.4 million

arrests by border guards. Just to place that number in perspective, the population of Dallas is less than the number of people who were arrested for crossing into Texas sectors illegally. And the population of Houston is less than the number that were arrested overall in the entire southern border. And these are people who might have crossed the border illegally before in the previous 12 months and have another encounter with border agents. For September of this year, the last month in the fiscal year, there was a 16% increase in border arrests in Texas sectors from August to September. In September of 2021, there were just under 128,000 border arrests. And in September of this year, there were just over 136,000. So not only was there an increase from August to September, it's also an increase from September of last year as well.

And the CBP is indicating that still about a third of the encounters along the southern border in September ended with an expulsion under Title 42, which is really becoming a legal remnant of the COVID-19 pandemic. And 11% of the family units encountered were expelled under 42. And 42% of the single adults were expelled pursuant to the order. So it is still very much a policy that affects single adults more than it affects family units and unaccompanied minors are not affected by the policy. What have Democrats and the Biden administration had to say lately about illegal immigration? Commissioner Magnus continues to emphasize that he believes Title 42 is the reason that there are so many repeat encounters and the number of unique individuals who are crossing the border illegally is much lower than the number of encounters is Title 42 allows

the government to rapidly expel people without using some of the processes that are under the regular immigration laws. So Commissioner Magnus continues to emphasize that. Secretary Mayorkas recently said that Republicans are the ones who are fueling the idea that the border is open with political rhetoric and criticizing Democrats for quote, open border policies. And he also emphasized a new policy that is supposed to crack down on Venezuelan illegal immigration, which is contributing to the current surge. He said that that is going to help, but he referenced a period of time that is outside of fiscal year 2022, which was the focus of the most recent operational update. And just, I forgot to mention this, there were reportedly 599,000 known gotaways during the last fiscal

year, but that doesn't include people who evaded both arrest and detection. So Democrats are still pointing at Republicans saying that it's the open border rhetoric and that they're seeking to create a more humane immigration system and still trying to tear down some of those Trump policies that have outlasted his administration due to federal court rulings. There you go. Hayden, thank you so much for covering that for us. And gosh, it would not be the Texans podcast without a couple of border stories. So thank you so much.

Rob, we're going to come to you. This week, you had the pleasure, the experience, whatever you might qualify it as, of attending a campaign rally that former President Donald Trump held in Conroe, his second rally in Texas this year. What did the speakers talk about? So I'll just make a quick correction there. It was in Robstown in South Texas. Conroe was his first one in January. Oh, excuse me. I'm so sorry. It is perfectly fine. So yeah, so it was an interesting experience. I had never been to a Trump rally before, but working here gave me the opportunity to do that.

And even Robstown, Rob and Robstown, which is perfect. That's why y'all sent me there. Yeah, that's why y'all sent me there. So Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Council, was speaking with Right Side News on they had a big stage set up where people were filing into the actual event proper. He was talking about how you know, Democrats are promoting illegal immigration, doing it on purpose, possibly to change national demographics in order to get more Democrats elected. Congressman Pat Fallon said that we are going to make Grover Cleveland, a.k.a. Donald Trump, president of the United States again. Grover Cleveland is the only president until now to have served two non-consecutive terms in the late 19th century.

So former ICE director Tom Homan said Trump should return to fix this. Congressional candidate Wesley Hunt said Trump was the 45th president and has the opportunity to be the 47th president. There's sort of a pattern emerging here, which is a lot of congressional people, people in the federal government are really encouraging Trump to get out and run again in 2024. Congressman Ronnie Jackson was also talked about the border. The border was a big issue. You know, Robstown right next to Corpus. It's in South Texas. It's very close to the border. The border was a big issue, you know, Robstown, right next to Corpus. It's in South Texas. It's very close to the border. The border was a huge issue that people were talking about. Congressman Ronnie Jackson also agreed that Trump should return in 2024. And Congressman Michael Cloud and Attorney General Ken Paxton both suggested that the current President Joe Biden

is either aiding or abetting cartels or is even partnering with them in order to somehow promote illegal immigration. Another big issue that we talked about that they talked about with respect to the border was fentanyl, with claims being thrown around that fentanyl was the explosion of fentanyl trafficking in the United States was due to illegal immigration, and that cartels are sending people to the border in order to overwhelm border security so that they can sneak more cartel through the southern border. When Trump took the stage, what did he talk about? So he talked about a lot of different things. You know, when Trump gets on that, he'll sort

of go on to a lot of different topics. So he also, you know, blamed Biden for the border situation. You know, he said that it was much better under himself, which I think is a very Trumpian thing to say, you know, he was it was much better under him and it's much worse under Biden. He claimed that illegal immigrants from I think it was over 160 countries are storming the u.s border um he talked about also with respect to fentanyl he praised china's uh quick trials and death sentences for drug dealers he said he had a conversation with uh xi jinping and xi jinping told him that that's how they take care of things and trump was like oh well there you go um he also said to the, uh, Dobbs draft majority opinion leak in May, um, which I remember we were reporting on about the time that I joined the Texan in

May, which was very interesting. Um, he was saying that the federal government should find those who have the Politico, which is the place where the, it was first leaked and get those people and say, Hey, you have to tell us as national security issue, who this leaker was, or else we'll threaten you with prison time, which made the rounds on Twitter. It was a bit of a controversial statement. Trump was also really trying to energize Republicans in South Texas. A lot of Republicans are hoping to flip South Texas seats this midterm cycle. And in order to retake the Congress, he praised Myra Flores, who is the current Congresswoman and congressional candidates, Cassie Garcia and Monica de la Cruz. He also

promoted Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Attorney General Paxton over Beto O'Rourke, Mike Collier and Rochelle Garza. As for other things that he talked about, he invited Brandon Judd and Tom Homan back up to the stage during his speeches. Judd said to Trump that he praised him for, quote, what he did and said that he, quote, hoped he would do it again. And when Homan said, if Trump comes back, I come back. Trump responded, that's a good deal. Very Trumpian thing to say. So Trump said also in his possibly his most direct statement on the issue, Trump said, you know, he said he did a good job as president and he will probably have to do it again. So we don't have a direct, you know, statement that he is running again.

But if you ask me if i had to put money down you know i would say that he's probably going to run again so that'll be that'll be interesting to see hayden and brad would you put money down on trump rain again hey now no gambling y'all it's still illegal in texas not till we get the new trump casinos in texas trump casinos oh my gosh can you imagine yeah i'm i'm kind of 50 50 on it i'm that is the strongest i think he has said or the closest he's gotten to making an announcement that he's running and i wonder if the people there were sort of like riling him up like i wonder if people if if the the congressmen who were there which are trying to get him to admit it or something or if they know something we don't or if they're just really hoping he runs again i mean the the obvious

indicator is that he's having rallies and so i and then he says he's probably going to run but he's still just kind of screwing with everybody at this point it seems like he's not announcing yet but he's saying all of these things that point to him running and it's probably giving desantis well i mean logically it's smart to get past the midterm elections and not steal the show there yeah i think matt is right here is that i think that um as soon as the midterms are over if the republicans have retaken the congress if they don't i think he might delay it but if they do i think that you know maybe november 9th maybe that week we'll we'll have uh possibly our earliest presidential announcement run ever i don't know who knows and i will say trump is 76 years old sometimes i forget how old he is which is also something that i think is certainly worth

considering um i believe president biden is 79 if i'm not mistaken so interesting stuff um well rob thanks for covering that for us and um certainly worth checking out his piece at the texan.news to read all about the day and get the full rundown hayden we are coming back to you more border news shocker shocker some have called for texas to declare an invasion along the southern border. We had individual counties in Texas doing that often. What did Ken Paxton, the attorney general, have to say about this? No one has been more confrontational with Biden over border security and illegal immigration than Ken Paxton. As Texas attorney general, he has sued Biden about nine times. There are a couple other suits that involve border security and illegal immigration. So a total of 11 times, Paxton's office has initiated litigation against the Biden administration over this issue. to accept the idea that Texas could declare an invasion and start deporting illegal immigrants itself because that falls under the purview of federal law and federal jurisdiction,

according to every court case on the issue. He stated, quote, the idea is we would send the National Guard down. The problem is the National Guard could easily be taken over by Biden, who'd say, no, I'm in charge now. So then what do you do? Send state police down to the border and tell them to stop border patrol from taking people in? Are we supposed to start shooting the border patrol? Unquote. Paxton is, of course, saying that this could result in a confrontation between the state and the federal government that the feds would inevitably win. Is Ken Paxton in danger of losing to his Democratic rival? I thought it was a little bizarre that Paxton would weigh in on something like this when he's ahead, because Paxton in a recent poll of likely voters received the support of 51 percent of respondents, while his opponent, Democrat Rochelle Garza, came in with 37 percent.

And then there's also a libertarian on the ballot. But Garza has been primarily running on abortion, which is a better issue for Democrats than border security. But voters, according to the recent polling, seem to be focused more on border security and illegal immigration. There was a poll by the University of Texas at Austin, I believe. I'm sorry, it may have been another firm that did this poll, but voters prioritized illegal immigration and border security out of a list of 11. And they seem to be more focused on that. Paxton has the advantage, obviously, on that issue, because he is known more as the pro-border security, strict enforcement candidate. So I thought it was interesting that he would come out and temper his stance on this a little bit by saying,

hold your horses, we can't exactly declare an invasion. Although several, about 33 counties have reportedly passed resolutions or documents declaring an invasion of illegal immigration on the southern border. And Abbott invoked portions of the Constitution that are to that effect, but obviously stopped short of ordering state authorities to enforce federal law. So Ken Paxton is ahead in the race, but he's still weighing in on this and reining in a little bit his staunch support for aggressive border enforcement. Wonderful, Hayden. Well, thank you for your coverage on those issues. Matthew, we're finally coming to you. Does it feel, being number 10 on the podcast docket,

number 10 of the stories that we're telling today, does it feel like you're low on the totem pole? Well, not really. I know it's taken a while to get here, but it's because we have so many interesting stories that we're covering at the Texans. So I've enjoyed listening to everybody's explain their recent coverage going on around the state. Well, that's very gentlemanly of you. And this is still very interesting stuff. Speaking of these interesting stories, a lot is going on with the Ector County Utility District with your reporting on a lawsuit by two board members who say that the district called an election at the wrong time for the wrong seats. Very spicy. A district judge initially blocked the election, but in our latest report, allowed the November election and the lawsuit to proceed. Give us the details about

this newest scandal that has surfaced. It has been quite a saga, Mackenzie. Mackenzie, so we've originally been reporting on this lawsuit where two directors on the Ector County Utility District, Troy Walker and Will Kapoff filed a lawsuit saying that state law requires municipal utility districts like ECUD to hold their elections in May as opposed to November. And in addition to that, they've got to looking at the order of elections and who should be up now versus who is in the middle of their four-year terms. And they figured out not only are we not supposed to be on the November ballots, but other board members are supposed to be up and should have been up back in May

when the election should have been held. So they filed a lawsuit in state district court in Ector County and the district judge, John Schroed, originally issued a temporary restraining order halting the election. Now, we were reported on that, and they held an injunction hearing for a permanent injunction, and it was at that point that Judge Schroed denied the injunction and allowed the election continue, saying that it wasn't based on the grounds or the merits of the plaintiff's argument, but it was because they failed to demonstrate that injunctive relief, that their needs met the threshold, the dire nature threshold required for a preliminary injunction. And he reminded everybody multiple times that his denial of the injunction had no bearing or statement about the merits of the case.

So the trial is proceeding and could ultimately cause the election results to be canceled or voided after the election is held. But at the same time, he is allowing the election to proceed. Now, during the course of all this, Kapoff and Walker have been looking at all sorts of different aspects of the districts. And one of the things that came up was the fact that board president Tommy Irvin, who is kind of at the center of all of these issues surrounding the district, it turns out he has four felony convictions from the late 1970s for dealing cocaine and methamphetamine. And since a board of director positions on a municipal utility district or publicly elected offices, convicted felons are prohibited under state law from holding public offices.

Now, Irvin says he has a pardon from a prior Texas governor for those felony convictions, but after board members Kapoff and Walker have demanded evidence of that pardon he's failed to deliver. Now, we did some investigating at the Texan and reached out to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, and they issued a letter telling us they have no record of Mr. Irvin receiving executive clemency, but reminded us that the ultimate record holder for executive clemency documents is the Texas Secretary of State. So we reached out to them as well, and we're waiting for a pardon cannot be found, they are exploring a potential suit to remove Irvin from office that would be separate from this currently suit that is ongoing. So altogether, so many different interesting aspects coming about on this race. There's also another little side scandal that started breaking out yesterday that we haven't reported on yet. But apparently, in addition to the two board of directors on the

ballot, there is a measure on the ballot to annex some properties into the municipal water district's jurisdiction and that the voters in this proposed annex area are not being allowed to vote on their annexation. Now, this is all stuff that's just kind of come about, but it's one of the many different scandals in this saga that are all unique but related in some fashion. Wow. Well, Matt, thank you for digging into all of that and continuing to watch. It's an unfolding story that you've been updating our readers on since the start. So we appreciate your coverage of it. And we'll keep an eye on what exactly is going on over there in Hector County. We love some West Texas coverage at the Texan.

Bradley, one lawsuit you've been following a lot concerns the city of Amarillo. This week there was a big update. What happened? So four months after the city approved an unconventional debt maneuver using tax anticipation notes amounting to $260 million, which was issued two years after voters rejected their $275 million bond in 2020 um four years after that or four months after that a judge has struck this down and halted the uh the issuance of the debt so the maneuver they were going to do is issue these tans which are essentially like a bridge loan to get you from point a to point b between revenues coming in they were then going to refinance that debt with certificates of obligation a mechanism they couldn't use for this project right now because it is within the three-year moratorium um after a bond fails at the ballot box so they

couldn't just issue ceos for $275 million, but because they managed to find this bridge loan, essentially, for the project, they would then be able to refinance the debt as a certificate of obligation, which also doesn't need voter approval. So businessman Alex Fairley sued, alleging the maneuver was improper and that it violated numerous public notice requirements. This week, the judge ruled in his favor on virtually everything. Judge Bill Sauter ordered the suspension of the debt issuance and ordered the city to pay Fairley for much of the half a million dollars he spent in legal fees. So what's next on this? Eyes on this move to the legislature uh so the city may decide to appeal unsure of what they're going to do uh when i asked them for comment they

said they're considering it but they haven't made a decision the main fight will be in the state capital to close this loophole when we first first started talking about this, there was, it was after a hearing, a house, um, committee hearing where they were fairly testified in a lot of legislators, multiple legislators kind of railed against what happened out in Amarillo on this. And so there's going to be a lot of push in the legislature to,

um, to close this loophole. And it is a loophole that that exists if the city had crossed its t's and dotted its i's it would have been fine to get push this through because it is available to them fairly acknowledges that acknowledged it in his in his filing um but he told me what's next is seeing if the legislature can block this opening if we don't get that even with this win that i wouldn't feel like we've succeeded the last couple of sessions we've seen a lot of reform on local government debt issuance and their ability to do that there's going to be more because of this and any other loopholes they

manage to to find that these local governments managed to find and try and take action on there you go well bradley thank you for your coverage another spicy local story i love those are probably my favorite that we publish at the texan hayden um this is also really spicy i think i just like most of the things we publish y'all are just very good at your jobs and i'm a fan um an attorney for mike collier sent a cease and desist letter to Texas broadcasters asking them to take down a Dan Patrick ad. What were the contents of that controversial ad? Well, I would love to talk about this, but I can't because I got a cease and desist letter from Collier telling me not to talk about it. I'm kidding. The ad in question was a controversial, according to Collier,

advertisement saying that Collier, who is the Democratic contender to replace Lieutenant Governor Patrick, supports open borders and banning new charter schools and supports the progressive Green New Deal, etc., etc. Of course, political advertising often has hyperbole and exaggerations, which is entirely legal. They are allowed to appeal to fear. They are allowed to appeal to theatrics and dramatic things. And both political parties, people of all political stripes, do that.

However, the attorney for Collier claims that this ad, because it contains no citations, and according to Collier's team, contains things that are verifiably false, that it violates the standards that are set forth in the Federal Communications Commission's guidelines for political advertising or advertising in general. And broadcasters, according to the FCC, have a responsibility to police that type of thing. So his attorneys sent a letter to broadcasters across the state of Texas requesting slash demanding that they take down this advertisement or in a roundabout way, censor it so that it no longer plays on the air prior to the election. There you go. Does Collier truly have a legal case to take down the ad?

What I noticed about this letter, and it sounded pretty interesting, was how courtly it was. And it was almost overly polite for a cease and desist letter. There was no, we'll see you in court, or this is an egregious violation. The attorney seems to be delicately asking these broadcasters to take down this ad. I think it would likely be a stretch. WFAA and their reporting said that they got an ad, excuse me, they were one of the recipients of the cease and desist letter. But because the ad in question has Patrick's face on it, it has a picture of him at the end of the ad and has that little disclaimer that says, this political ad was paid for by friends of Dan Patrick. That

because it was sponsored by him and because it contains his face, that it is legitimate and they wouldn't have any standing to censor it. Again, it doesn't have the footnotes or the citations that a lot of ads do, but it would probably be a long shot for broadcasters to suddenly start taking down an ad because of one letter that they got from an attorney who doesn't seem like he has a lot of legal backing for this request. There you go. Well, spicy regardless. Hayden, thank you so much for covering that for us. Matthew, we are coming back to you. Matt, are you there? No, he's also gone. I don't see him. And he's off. I think he just I think his internet just went down. Should we make

this a segment on the podcast? Folks, we have lost Matt Stringer. I'm calling him to see if I can find him. Hello? Matt, we lost you. Where did you go? Well, it was so weird. I was literally like nothing on my end indicated that I wasn't there and live. And y'all were like, where'd he go? And I'm like, I'm right here. And y'all were like, he disappeared. And I'm like, I see myself and I can hear myself. I can't see you or hear you. And it says that you're offline. I can't see you or hear you. And it says that you're offline.

Folks, we're going to troubleshoot this and we will be right back. What was that about a herd of turkeys? I was late to joining because a herd of turkeys was crossing the road. And it was a whole bunch of them. And they just kept this continuous stream of turkeys. So I just had to sit there until they were like, and they weren't letting me through. So I just like the phrase, a continuous stream of turkeys. It's a true story.

Oh, brother. Well, hey, listeners, if you enjoy our podcast each week, subscribe to The Texan. New subscribers will now get a free fake news stops here mug. By far our most popular merch item of all time. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Well,

folks, we have made it back after some major technical detail wow i can't even say technical difficulties that's how difficult these technical difficulties were but matt you're back with us thank you for bearing with us um this won't mean anything to our listeners but it does to us so we're so glad you were able to join our podcast once again let's finish with the last story of the pod three write--in candidates are the only candidates running for a Dallas County-based state district court seat. Tell us about this very unusual race and some of the interesting details surrounding how this came to be. That's right, Mackenzie.

Very interesting race. State district courts are, of course, the highest trial court in our state judicial system. And in Dallas, the 301st state district court has countywide jurisdiction and is generally known as a family court. Now, an interesting thing, incumbent judge Mary Brown, back in January of this year, was disqualified from the ballot running running for re-election in the Democratic primary. Brown characterized her disqualification on her campaign Facebook page as having an insufficient number or inadequate signatures necessary for her to file, and the subsequent disqualification ended up causing her to go to an alternative way to run, and that was file as a write-in candidate. Now, after she filed as a write-in candidate,

two more write-in candidates filed, one being Mr. Earl Jackson, who carries the full support of the Dallas County Republican Party and is regarded as the only candidate who identifies as a Republican on this write-in race, and another candidate, Michelle McKinney, who is a Dallas County area family law attorney. Now, an interesting point on this race, and one of the reasons it's really received a lot of media attention, is the incumbent judge, Mary Brown, presided over the highly publicized custody battle in the Jeff Younger custody case where Father Jeff Younger contended that his son was a boy named James and that the mother contended he was a daughter named Luna. And what made this case so controversial was that the judge, Mary Brown, ended up awarding full custody to the mother in this instance. According to the Dallas County Republican Party, that custody issue has really brought a significant highlight to this race. And they told me in an interview that their candidate, Earl Jackson, was receiving a lot more attention in this race due to that issue than what other judicial races

typically see. There you go. Well, very interesting and folks certainly worth going and reading the full story at the texan.news. Matthew, thank you so much for your great coverage this week. Let's move on to our tweetery section. Brad, why don't we start with you? What did you see on Twitter? I found absolutely nothing this week, and so I'm going with something totally different. The sports equinox, which is the day of the year that the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL are all in action, usually only happens once, maybe twice. That occurred October 20thth a week ago today so wait yes i think so adding up the numbers correctly yes um and so uh seven days ago that occurred and it's uh i don't know i've always found it interesting to turn on tv and there's

every single sport even though i don't watch it all. But yeah. So my lack of anything of note in particular led to that. Well, it's kind of like the Olympics in a way. You can turn on the TV and take your pick what you want to watch. That is true. Okay. There you go. Hayden, what did you see this week? I saw a tweet from Bloomberg that included a piece that they published discussing that Iowa is possibly going from a swing state to a Republican state.

And it discussed how the races, the congressional races in Iowa are either tilting toward Republicans or trending that way. And if Iowa goes for Trump in 2024, or DeSantis, excuse me, then it would possibly be, I shouldn't presume the nominees, but those are the two names floating around right now, so I'll use those as examples. If Iowa's electoral votes go to the Republican in 2024, then it would possibly solidify its being in Republicans' column, because it went for Trump in 16 and 20, it went for Obama in 08 and 12, but it is increasingly becoming more Republican was the general idea of this Bloomberg piece, which is interesting politically because Iowa has traditionally been the first battleground for presidential candidates and New Hampshire after that. But it could be that New Hampshire takes its seat as the first political battleground if Iowa becomes less relevant in that regard. Interesting. Very interesting. Rob, what about you? So the San Antonio Express News published an article about the Uvalde families and Texas DPS director Steve McGraw. dps director steve mcgraw so mcgraw had previously claimed that um if he believed that dps was culpable for the uvalde shooting that occurred in may then he would resign and he's now said that he does not believe that was uh dps technically was culpable i believe he said that he thought

dps did uh seemingly what they could but um the investigation, if I recall correctly, is still ongoing. But as all this came out, U.S. House candidate Tony Gonzalez for District 23 came out and said DPS Director McGraw should resign immediately. So it's a bit of an interesting thing here, seeing this kind of questions about this as we're still coming to as the investigation still ongoing and people are still looking for responsibility for the where that shooting lies. Well, there you go. My tweet this week is I think it was quite funny. And I think multiple people from our company retweeted it, which is pretty great. And I know exactly why Daniel Friend retweeted it, because this is the most punny thing I've ever seen on Twitter. It was so cringy.

But Elon Musk entered the Twitter headquarters. I'm also very confused about how he is now the head of Twitter, like owns Twitter, and how that whole thing happened from start to finish. It's very confusing to me, but regardless, he went into Twitter's headquarters and this is his tweet entering Twitter HQ. Let that sink in. And the video shows him walking into the headquarters, holding a sink, like just carrying around a sink.

And it is so cringy. I saw that. I did not understand the why or where the sink came from. I looked for backstory on it too. Imagine being the lackey that had to go pick up a sink. For Elon. Yeah. To carry in.

And this tweet got one million likes. One million. By the way. Imagine you're having that conversation at like the Home Depot or the Lowe's. You're like, I just need a sink. They're like, what for? Like, what kind of bathroom? you're like i just need a sink they're like what for like what kind of bathroom you're like no just i don't just yeah just give me a sink the cheapest one you have oh man and honestly matt it was the same for me i read it like three or four times and could not understand it for a while and then i saw daniel

retweet it and i thought oh my gosh it must be a pun that is honestly what i thought daniel's in this room looking at me like i'm crazy, but that was interesting. He should have got like a toilet and come willing in on a dolly to send a message to the Twitter employees. I'm telling you, they're already at war. But there were also tweets that came out of like Elon at the coffee bar at the Twitter headquarters, just hanging around talking with employees. It was quite a crowd, of course, because it's Elon Musk. I will say this though he put out that statement about you know there's a lot of information floating around about why he

got twitter or bought twitter and you know it was this very um very i think profound statement you know speaking about you know the necessity for a digital town square and preserving free speech. And it was very heartfelt message and, you know, something that was, I enjoyed reading it. I encourage anybody listening to go check it out. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, folks, fun topic this week, which was chosen by our very own Brad Johnson. Best way to carve a pumpkin. Do you guys carve pumpkins in this office?

Do you guys carve pumpkins? Is that something you do every year? It's not something I do every year, but I was over at a couple people's house a few weeks ago where we did carve pumpkins. So that was the first pumpkin I'd carved in like years. Okay, that's fun. Oh, Matt is holding up a tiny little pumpkin that you get at the store that matt that is that is an adorable

pumpkin you are muted for the record so we cannot hear you now this is a this is the entirety of my holiday decorations i'm i'm a i'm a minimalist you're a minimalist well minimalism is very in right now matthew hey what about you i do not carve pumpkins but i saw one that was truly terrifying it was a pumpkin with a check engine light carved into it oh it's very frightening it's very triggering it is yeah that's a pretty good trouble. I hate car trouble. It's such a pain. Ugh. Yeah. I'm with you. It's not terrifying though.

I was just being dramatic. It's, it might be terrifying for some people, including myself. Um, I have like a low pressure sign on my car right now and I'm like, like low tire pressure. I had that and I had to get my tire replaced because they said they couldn't fix it. I just replaced all my tires. Like I did, I did exactly what I needed to do do replaced all my tires and now i already have that light on you know i had an incredible story actually about car trouble from just yesterday i've had this

rattling noise in my car that happens every time i accelerate the car and yesterday i was like you know what i'm just gonna pop the trunk and see what it is and i i just got this car recently and like the support rod which supposed to keep the hood up when you're working on the hood had been attached to the hood when somebody slammed it shut meaning that the support rod was like at this weird awful bent angle and just sitting there attached to the hood when it should not have been so there's like this loose piece of metal just ringing around in my car as i'm driving it and that's that's where the noise was coming from well it makes sense makes sense brad yeah this weekend i'm replacing the ball joints on my truck and putting a new serpentine

belt on it that sounds like a foreign language to me great for you matthew i'm really proud of you. Bradley, what about you? Car trouble, pumpkins, either or. Anything. Car trouble, I just ignored a check engine light and it's gone away. No, I'm going to take it to the shop at some point. I've been saying that for a couple weeks. But pumpkins, the reason this popped in my head is my roommates and i are carving pumpkins tonight uh for the to decorate the house that a grand total of four trick-or-treaters will show up to and steal all my candy yes i'm still better about that and half of them were just teenagers wearing gym shorts. It drives me crazy.

Anyway, so I saw this video on Twitter. Maybe this should have been my Twitter section. It showed better ways to carve pumpkins. And one of them was you cut it from the bottom, not the top. And then you take like an egg beater and you use that to loosen up all of the crap inside the pumpkin and make it easier to scoop out rather than digging at it. Like a caveman with a rusty spoon.

They found in the caveman wouldn't have a rusty spoon, but you get my point. It's a pain in the butt to clear all that garbage out of the pumpkin. And this apparently makes it easier. There you go. Delightful stuff. Well, that sounds like something I may have to try. I don't carve pumpkins that often, but when I do, I love it.

I love the smell. I love getting up in there with my hands dirty. I always make pumpkin seeds. I was about to say, do you like pumpkin seeds? Well, I don't even like them that much. It's just the novelty of it. I think they're okay, and I will certainly have some. you like pumpkin seeds well i don't even like them that much it's just the novelty of it i think they're okay and i will certainly have some i like pumpkin seeds without that shell but when you just take them out of the pumpkin they have that shell it

does kind of get in your teeth it's a little annoying i can't stop eating them they're good yeah you put some good seasoning on it yeah that's all you need um daniel you're you've not been on the podcast in a long time really really fast. Say hi to listeners and tell us if you have any pumpkin, uh, Intel to share with us. You know, I really don't have a lot of pumpkin Intel. I, the most I do with pumpkins is I go to the store and I get the pumpkins that are already processed and put into a can that I can then make pumpkin bread out of. That's totally worthwhile. So pumpkin bread all the way.

Put some chocolate chips in there and then make the bread and then put some more chocolate chips in there. It's great. Very industrious of you. Yeah. How excited are you to edit this podcast? It'll be a blast. We give you a lot to work with this time.

So have fun. Oh, brother. Okay. Well, brother. Okay. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today and dealing with the technical difficulties. You all are troopers. And Matthew, thank you particularly for jumping back on. Folks, thank you for 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, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at thetexan.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. Now that's right, Mackenzie. For a state district. Can you hear me? Hello? Am I not there? Can you you hear me? Hello? Am I not there? Can you not hear me?

Hello? Marco Polo.