The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 29, 2021

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses where the candidates for Texas attorney general stand on vaccine mandates, how the governor’s approach to the COVID-19 vaccine debacle has divided conservatives, how Texas House and Senate districts shifted politically since redistricting, a lawmaker asking public school libraries to report sexually explicit or racially charged books, a Texas city returning federal coronavirus aid, redistricting lawsuits, the remain in Mexico policy in limbo again, arguments about how a police staffing proposition would be funded, developments in a tribal gambling case, and community college enrollment dropping.

Happy Friday and happy Halloween weekend, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here bringing you this week's News Roundup. Today, our team delves into where the candidates for Texas Attorney General stand on vaccine mandates, how the governor's approach to the COVID-19 vaccine debacle has divided conservatives, how Texas House and Senate districts shifted politically since redistricting, a lawmaker asking public school libraries to report sexually explicit or racially charged books, a Texas city returning federal coronavirus aid, redistricting lawsuits, the remain in Mexico policy in limbo once again, arguments about how a police staffing proposition would be funded, developments in a tribal gambling case, and

community college enrollment dropping. Additionally, I want to take a second to say happy birthday to Hayden Sparks and Daniel Friend, two of our incredible reporters who celebrated turning one year older this week. We could not do what we do at the Texan without you boys, and Lord knows we would not have nearly as much fun. That said, thanks for listening, folks, and enjoy your weekend. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson on another edition of our podcast. Welcome, gentlemen. Have any of you carved pumpkins yet? I have. You have? Yes. Was it festive? What did you you carve i carved a small pumpkin kind of like you know afraid inside the mouth of a bigger pumpkin that was

that's did you get another small pumpkin and stick it in the yeah there's two pumpkins that's impressive that's very very was it was it one of those tiny little like cord ones you get at the store it was the pie pumpkin yeah okay oh so it was like a full-on pumpkin as big as a toddler's head got it yes i know exactly what you're talking about i was thinking like the small ones like this big i'm making a small circle she's describing a pumpkin that's this big yeah this big the pumpkin version of the russian doll things they usually seem you know like just kind of happy to be nested and this one was like oh you know i've been eaten by this bigger part that's what i was going there was terror involved yeah yeah did you did you split the smaller one so like its guts were falling out

i've seen that done before that's pretty hard smart i didn't think of that because it's smart well yeah homework project for you. We'll work on it. Anybody else pumpkins? No. Nobody? Daniel? I made some pumpkin bread, if that counts.

That's honestly really domestic and impressive. Pumpkin bread is so delicious. Why is cooking just domestic? We're impressive. By definition, it's domestic. You're in the house. Yeah, you're literally in the house. Unless you've got a hot plate in your car. Unless you're cooking the house yeah you're literally in the house unless you've got like a hot plate in your

car yeah unless you're cooking on the road yeah cooking is a normal thing to do i don't yeah i'm just saying it's by definition it's domestic okay yeah all right that's that's a weird adjective to throw onto it though okay well that's good to know if i was writing an article about this i wouldn't describe baking pumpkin bread as domestic. Okay. Okay. I understand. No, actually, that's not true.

I don't. And I disagree entirely. But, you know, for the sake of time. Wow, that was a flip-flop if I've ever seen one. Well, I was like, do I go along and get along? No, I'm going to stand up for myself here. Okay. I think we have news to get to.

And my adjective choice. Brad, are you rushing me? I am. Or we can make that joke that we used to make all the time and then we got in trouble for making that joke so we stopped making it where there's no news happening so now we're back to making the joke yeah wow that was a that was that was pretty meta right there that's a different way to put it in well um folks we're going to go ahead and get started on the news for this week and daniel we are we're going to go ahead and get started on the news for this week. And Daniel, we're going to start with you.

But private vaccine mandates are all the rage in political debates today. And, you know, GOP gubernatorial candidates have been outspoken on the issue, particularly criticizing the incumbent. But where do Republican Attorney General candidates stand on the issue? So they have not been nearly as outspoken on this issue as a lot of the gubernatorial candidates that we've seen. You know, they send out press releases. They are very spoken about this. The attorney general candidates, specifically the ones in the Republican Party, have not been too vocal about it. So I reached out to them to get their their takes on

this and try and see where they stand on this issue, because it is a big political issue. People do want to know, you know, where does the attorney general stand on this? And, you know, they're going to be the ones, you know, deciding a lot of these, what actions to take in court on behalf of the state of Texas. So I reached out to the four major candidates. You have the current incumbent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, who's running for reelection. And then you have his three Republican challengers, which includes Land Commissioner George P. Bush, former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. And then you have State Representative Matt Krause. So I reached out to all of them. Paxton's team did not give me a response by the time that we published. Still haven't heard back from them. But the other three candidates did give me responses. Now, the just the big picture where they stand on this. Krause and Bush were both said that they support a ban on these private vaccine mandates,

whereas Guzman kind of sort of evaded the question and kind of just passed the buck onto the legislature and said that's an issue that they need to decide and she will support their actions or even the governor's executive order. She would presume the legality of that, but she didn't take a stance saying, you know, this is something that we need. Now, what are the biggest differences between Krause and Bush on the issue? So the big difference that I saw there, um, in terms of the responses that they gave me, I asked them about, uh, what they, if they saw, saw the governor's executive order, uh, banning

these, uh, private vaccine mandates as as legal or if they'd rather have legislation. Bush didn't really have any problems with the executive order. He'd also said that he would support legislation if that would pass. Krauss was a little bit more nuanced, and he didn't say that he would not enforce Abbott's executive order, but he did say that there are some legal questions about whether or not the basis of his executive order in the Texas Disaster Act is actually constitutional. And, you know, that was a debate that we saw a lot earlier this year. There was some legislation that the legislature was considering to kind of add some more checks on the executive branch for the Texas Disaster Act. That's the part of the state code that the governor has been using for all of his COVID orders.

And so Krause said that rather than having just that executive order, he would like to see legislation passed on this matter, specifically citing some that he co-authored with Representative Brian Harrison, and also said that he supports a fourth special session to address the issue. Got it. Now tell us a little bit more about the details of what Guzman had to say. So some of the points that she touched on, she did say that Abbott's executive order is not enforced by the Office of the Attorney General, but to these local prosecutors. But she did say that she would defend the legality of that in court and just presume that it is legal, that he does have the authority to do that. She also said that she would challenge the mandates that the Biden administration is trying to push, as Krause and Bush also said that they did.

And Paxton has indicated that he'll do the same. And then she also said that she does support the vaccine and believes that it is something that should be used to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. But she also said that she believes it's a personal choice. So she didn't take as hard of stances on there, but that's generally what she said. Now, talk to us about what Paxton has actually doneances on there, but that's generally what she said. Now talk to us about what Paxton has actually done on the issue being that he is the incumbent and has the power to do so. So I tried, uh, you know, with the other candidates, you know, I asked them their position on this

and then how they see themselves different from Paxton. I didn't ask Paxton how he saw himself different from Paxton because that would be a little bit redundant. Um, but, uh, I did look into, uh, some other things that he has done. He did sign a coalition letter with several other attorneys general, uh, to the Biden administration, basically threatening them with a lawsuit. Uh, if the administration moves forward with his plan to issue more regulations on private businesses, requiring them to mandate the vaccine. Um, he hasn't taken any legal action that I'm aware of outside of that letter. His reasoning for that and defense for that is basically the ink needs to dry on these

measures the administration is enacting because there is like a rule regulation process where different branches of the executive executive branch different branches of the executive branch different departments under the executive branch need to finalize these rules and regulations and said that when that happens texas will be leading on the issue. Now, he has taken action on some of the government vaccine mandates in Texas, such as some local school boards and whatnot. But beyond that, it's not really clear if he's taken action to enforce Governor Abbott's executive order or really do anything else on this issue. Well, Daniel, thank you for following that for us and asking these card questions. Brad, we're going to talk to you about the governor's race now. We already alluded to this earlier,

but the governor's about face on private vaccine mandates has stirred quite a debate among conservatives. Talk to us about a little bit more of what this debate entails and what the governor has said and done. Yeah. So it all started with, as Daniel talked about, the governor's prohibition on vaccine mandates by private businesses. Now, that was a change from about a month earlier when one of his spokesmen said private businesses don't need government running their business. This was after he issued the prohibition on government entities issuing these vaccine mandates, but he had not gone so far as to prohibit it for private entities like Ron DeSantis did in Florida. So when he did that, when he changed position and issued this prohibition, he also put it on the call for the special session, but it did not, it was a late edition and it did not make it across the finish line before the session expired.

Actually barely made any progress at all, if any. I don't, yeah, I don't think it made any progress. But that is kind of the backdrop of this. And it, you know, the order itself, as you said, caused a stir among conservatives. It divided them. It really exposed a fault line. Didn't really create a new one, but exposed one already existing within conservative circles on the proper role of government, how much it should intercede in people's lives, in the affairs of private businesses and, you know, under what pretenses is acceptable for the government to do so. So we saw these two factions split and a lot of really big names in Texas waited on it. And I thought it was a very interesting debate. Yeah. Let's start with those opposed. What did they say?

So the first one that I saw really take this and run with it was Dallas radio host Mark Davis and his position. He went on Chris Cuomo after a day or two of voicing his opposition to Abbott's order. He said, Abbott's order calls to mind a certain consistency in the conservative mindset of what government's role should be in business decision-making. And to my mind, that role is as little as possible. Joe Biden is wrong to tell companies that you must have a vaccine mandate and governors Abbott to DeSantis are wrong to tell companies they cannot. So Davis's opinion is probably, I would say, the mainstream opinion from a decade ago within the conservative movement that government should put out of private businesses decisions, basically whatever they are. Chad Hastie, a radio host out in Lubbock, he also weighed in siding with Davis. He echoed some of the similar sentiments of Davis, but he added another thing that I thought was interesting when he spoke to me. Ruling via executive order, if we weren't for it when the governor shut down businesses last year, why are we for it now? I look at the future and think what happens if you

do have a governor, Beto O'Rourke, and we set the precedent that governing by executive order is okay, then the Democrats are going to say that climate change or gun violence is worse than COVID. So, obviously his opinion is that ruling by executive order rather than legislative law is improper and it does not align with the conservative mindset on governance. So got it. Now, what about those who are supportive? The one I spoke to, there were multiple, but the one that I got on record for the piece was RPT chair Matt Rinaldi, former state house member. His opinion is that vaccine mandates are unjust. They're bad for society and they should be banned.

Individuals are more important to me than large corporations. Addressing Davis's position, he said, Mark is assuming that you have a fully competitive market here where the ease of entry and exit in a functioning competitive market for labor. Essentially, that means that the first issue here is an improper use of government power by the federal government issuing these vaccine mandates that is then causing these companies to issue their own vaccine policies. And so because of the first sin, it is okay for the state government to intercede on behalf of individuals with their own authority. And so, you know, it's kind of a chicken or the egg dilemma here, you know, which comes first in terms of which takes priority in terms of the federal government's order um or the right of a business to dictate it its own private affairs so um that's the the overall debate here and one more point uh that ronaldi said about o'rourke addressing

chad hasty's contention he said that we had that fight last year uh about ruling the executive order when texas was being shut down and the people who oppose governing by executive order lost so yes now that we are doing things this way i absolutely favor doing good things by executive order so got it well thank you for that what does it in the larger picture this i mean this is kind of an odd um division among conservatives because it kind of, you know, pits those who have been kind of pro-business in one way or another. And that label is largely, you know,'s be consistent in what we require of businesses. You know, government should stop for both the individual and the corporation or the business. And then others saying, well, hey, there's, you know, in anienable right here that is being infringed upon by a private entity.

And so this the two groups here are very interesting to see, you know, who's kind of going to bat for the other. And it groups people who may not usually agree on other issues in the same camp. What does it mean for conservatism in Texas abroad? Like, what does this mean going forward well we're seeing a real this is one aspect of a larger debate of the future of conservatism and the ideals it holds dear um the direction of not just conservatism but the party it mainly um uh operates the the republican party which way do they go here are they going um are they going to embrace you know the ideals of 10-15 years ago conservatism or at least the ideals that took uh center stage in that or are they going to go a new route um

more this you know populist type of of sentiment um focusing on focusing more on like blue collar type of workers this it transcends this vax issue it goes into economic policy it goes into um do we focus on you know social issues over other things um It really, it's emblematic of a larger debate that is occurring both within Texas and nationally. And so I don't know where it's going to go. We'll see how things develop. I mean, I think we saw a big change occur when Donald Trump became the face of the party

and we saw a noticeable change in a lot of policy discussions and that has not changed back. And, um, you know, I don't think it will, uh, at least not fully to where it was. So, um, there's like a, when it all costs mindsets, minds that the both parties have, and I think it's become more rampant on the right than it used to more recently um you know they there was a a sect of the party that would say hey no we can't do a b or c because it's not what we believe in terms of what the government should do um and then those who are saying well you know the left has very different ideas of the role of government and so we should yeah and this is

more existential than strict news but um we see a lot of a lot of this comes down to the breaking up of the fusionist um alliance where you had different people with different priorities all uniting within the republican party or conservatism to beat you know communism um we're seeing that fracture and it's going in different directions. You see different legs of the same stool moving away from each other. And who knows where that's going to end up? Does it move the center of gravity of conservatism or the Republican Party to a different part of the issue sphere? Or does it just break up entirely? And those are kind of the two options we see ahead.

Well, good stuff. Thank you, Bradley. Daniel, you know, those are kind of the two options we see ahead. Well, good stuff. Thank you, Bradley. Daniel, let's talk about redistricting and the political makeup of both the House and the Senate. You've been covering this issue. And, you know, during the last election cycle, put together a really handy metric, the Texas partisan indexed to rate the partisan leanings of legislative districts. Now you've updated it

for the new maps that where you have now the legislature is done finally with their special session for redistricting walk us through what this number entails so this is really similar to the cook partisan index a lot of political nerds will know about basically what they do is rank all the congressional districts on their partisan landings based on the presidential elections. So comparing the presidential election results in each congressional district across the country. So I'm doing essentially the same thing in Texas. It's a little bit more detailed, though, because unlike across the country, you do have a lot more uniform elections across the state because there's a lot more statewide offices that are on the ballot for people to vote in. So the way that this analysis works is it

basically compares the Republican and Democratic votes in the past two election cycles. So in this case, it would be 2018 and 2020. It calculates the median Republican vote versus Democrat vote in those elections and then averages them out to get the calculation. It calculates the median Republican vote versus Democrat vote in those elections and then averages them out to get the calculation. It does exclude the number or the percentage from third party candidates. So if there's a narrow race, you know, potentially a third party candidate like a libertarian or maybe even a green party less likely could change the results of those election in tight races. But that's essentially how those numbers are calculated. Got it. Now talk to us about some of the results in terms of the Senate maps. After all,

this was all these numbers were crunched. So this is something that I've been saying over and over again throughout redistricting, as I've looked at the maps, and it continues to be true, there is a lot less purple than there was in the previous election. In the Senate maps, there are no seats that are, you know, below or between an R-55 district and a D-55 district. So it's a very, it leans heavily towards Republicans or towards Democrats. The most competitive races or districts are those belonging to Cinder's Roland Gutierrez. That's the big SD-19 district, which is in San Antonio, and then it stretches across a lot of border counties. And then you also have Cinder Eddie Lucio's district, which goes down to Brownsville and a little bit more of South Texas.

And those two seats are the most competitive, but it's still a D, 58% district. So Democrats in the past two general elections on average got about 58% of the vote against Republicans. For Republicans, the most competitive two seats are both in Tarrant County, uh, and those would be belonging to, uh, Senator Kelly Hancock and, uh, currently Senator Beverly Powell. And I believe those are both are 59%, uh, which are, you know, that's still, uh, leaning heavily towards Republicans. Uh, it could change though in the next decade, um, as you know, population changes grow and different political things happen. But that is, in general, the Senate map. If you want to look at more details, you can, of course, go to our website and see where all the districts lie. Yeah, absolutely. Now talk to us about the House. So again, very similar to the Senate map, a lot fewer purple districts. It is a little bit more

interesting, though, because there are more competitive seats than there are in the Senate. I think there's about eight competitive districts in the Senate. The two most competitive ones are actually House District 70, the new one, which is in Collin County still. It did previously belong to Representative Scott Sanford. He's retiring and now he's not even in that district. This is a basically split-even 50-50. It has trended toward Democrats in the past two elections. So it's pretty probable that it will continue to trend toward Democrats. But it's also possible that if a Republican with a good name ID and campaign, depending on how that goes, could win that seat

in the next election cycle. And then the other one that's about 50-50 was pulled more toward Republicans. And I'd have to go back and look at the data, but I think it also has kind of trended toward Republicans in the past few election cycles. And that's House District 118 in San Antonio that is currently vacant. There is a Republican and Democrat currently in a runoff. So we'll see who wins that seat. And then, of course, it's going to be a competitive election again in a year. So even with the ongoing special election right now, that'll be an interesting one to watch. And then there's a few more border districts that are kind of competitive, as well as some more suburban districts that are also competitive. It's still 55% with Representative Brad Buckley's district and now Representative James Tallarico's district in Williamson County.

So those are some seats to watch. Got it. Well, Daniel, thank you for covering that for us and crunching those numbers. So we don't have to. Isaiah, let's talk to you about a very interesting story about a Texas lawmaker has launched an investigation into the book collections of Texas public school libraries. Tell us some more about this. Yeah, so acting as head of the Texas House General Investigating Committee, State Rep. Matt Krause, who represents a slice of the Fort Worth area, asked for an accounting of certain books that include sexually explicit or racially charged content. So specifically, he sent a letter to the Texas Education Agency with a description of

certain topics, and it came with a 16-page list of books that include authors like Margaret Atwood, Ibram X. Kendi, and Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame. I hadn't read the book that he wrote that was on there. I don't know. Anyway, the letter asked the TEA to get information from schools about how many copies of these books they have and how much they spent to get them. Got it. Now, was this personal or official action that Krause took? It's on general investigating committee letterhead sent from him. But his vice chair, Democrat Victoria Niave, whose name is on the top right of the letter, said she didn't know about the letter until the school official told her about it. Some context that might illuminate this action is that Krause is challenging Ken Paxton in the

Republican primary for attorney general. Got it. Well, obviously, this all reminds us of the law that the legislature passed earlier this year in an attempt to stop the indoctrination of critical race theory in the classroom, as many on the Republican side called it. Is this an investigation? Is this investigation part of enforcing this law? Actually, no, the law does not touch libraries at all. If you remember, there's been I've seen some confusion lately. There's some articles that kind of forgivably, you know, mess this up a little bit. They passed House Bill 3979 first, and then replaced it with the mostly identical bill that mainly just revised it senate bill three so that's the one that's current even though it won't take effect until

december anyway so kraus took language for his letter from the first version house bill 3979 mainly lined about um he says he's looking for material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex. And so that is straight out of House Bill 3979, which will be replaced with Senate Bill 3 this December, which does not include that line. Just a little bit of statutory correction there. But again, yeah, this is not part of that law. The law does not regulate public school libraries at all. And its enforcement mechanisms don't follow these lines. You know, this is just an investigation that happens to, I suppose, dovetail with it. Got it. Well, Isaiah, thank you for covering that for us. We'll definitely keep an eye on it.

Brad, an interesting story from this week that got a lot of attention our readers seem to care very deeply about a small city in the heart of texas literally the heart of texas made a very startling move by sending back its federal coronavirus uh dollars its funding tell us the details yeah so that about sums it up oh come on no uh so the city of brady had a 1.3 million dollar allotment for american rescue plan act funding this is the funding billions of it has been divvied up across uh across the 50 states to its localities there have been state uh money go that goes to directly two states um we saw the texas approved 16 billion fund roughly funding for themselves um some went to schools some went to localities so this is part of the locality pot and city of brady had already received about

657 000 half of its 1.3 million dollarotment. It had just been sitting in escrow for months until the council decided what to do with it. To take the money, and this goes for states, this goes for localities, this goes for the school districts, you have to sign a contract with the U.S. Treasury. And I linked to the contract in the article if you want to read it. It's a lot of legal mumbo jumbo. But there's one particular provision that caused the city of Brady to vote unanimously to send back the money and decline the second tranche that was supposed to come next year. Yeah, so tell us why the council made this decision so the section that i referred to in the contract that caused a lot of um uproar was it said recipient also agrees to comply with all other applicable federal statutes regulations and executive orders um and goes on a little bit more with some other technical stuff but um then the main focus of the opposition was the executive orders, meaning that if the city takes this funding, their employees are now considered federal contractors.

And then executive orders governing the employment policies for federal contractors would apply to them. One of the things that was concerned, that concerned those opposed would be like a vaccine mandate for all federal contractors and whether that should apply to the city of Brady's employees. But, you know, that could extend to any executive order. And so that was the big one.

Jane Huffman, a councilwoman who led opposition to taking taking the money said in the meaning we live here in brady because we want to be left alone we want to control what happens in our community and they viewed this um this pot of money and the stipulations that accompany it as a bridge too far what does this mean beyond the city of Brady? Well, as I mentioned, any entity that takes this money has to sign such a contract and the state of Texas did so. And so, technically, this applies. Now, who knows if this actually comes into play on anything, but it is very much a factor at the state level, as well as for any other state that took the money, any school.

So, you know, I think that's where this comes into play most. It's something to keep an eye on. Awesome. Well, thank you, Brad. Daniel, we're coming back to you. Throughout redistricting, everyone was operating under the assumption that there would be lawsuits over the final maps that were passed. Surprise, surprise. We have seen that to be the case talk to us about which ones have been uh you know filed so far yes there have been

several or a few rather um actually not as many as i kind of expected um well i'm sure this is only the start too yes this is the start it'll be interesting how things play out i'll leave it at that because i really don't know how it will turn out. There was one that was filed before redistricting even began, and that one was basically two Democratic state senators saying that the state legislature doesn't actually have the authority under the state constitution to redistrict until the next regular session just based on the text of the constitution we've covered that in the past didn't go into a lot of detail in that in this article but you can read more about what they argued in another article that i linked to in that in the piece we just published now the other two have been filed uh since redistricting and And those ones basically are kind of broad 30,000 foot view arguments that essentially that they're saying the maps dilute the voting strength of minorities in

Texas. And that's basically the summary of those two. Yeah. So let's go into a little bit more detail about those latter two lawsuits. Yeah. And the thing of it is, there's not a lot more detail to go into. The arguments are very broad. You know, they do have, you know, these 30 page lawsuits, even though, you know, the 30 pages, they don't go into too many more detail, other than saying that the state should have just drawn more minority districts to be proportional to the large number of minorities in the state, especially in light of minorities driving the quote 95% of population growth. That's a common refrain that we're hearing from the people who are complaining about these maps and arguing against them. That's the bulk of the lawsuits. When you go into a little bit more detail, the two lawsuits, the one focuses exclusively on the congressional districts. That one's from the Voto Latino. And then you have the

other lawsuit that focuses on all the maps. And that one's a little bit even more broad. And that one was from a different organization similar to them. But when they do get into some specific examples, essentially it comes down to cracking and packing of minority votes. So saying that, you know, they overpopulate Latinos in one district or underpopulate them in another. It just, you know, based on the district, they argue one thing or another. One of the examples that they have that actually appears in both cases is the congressional district 15 down in South Texas and the neighboring district of Texas 34. Texas 15, if you remember the 2020 election, that was actually a really close race between the Republican and the Democrat incumbent. And after redistricting, they were trying, Republicans in the legislature are trying to pull that district

a little bit more towards the Republican side to favor a Republican candidate and potentially win that district. And so the plaintiffs in these two cases are arguing that they're diluting the voter strength of Latinos in Texas 15 and packing them into Texas 34. Now, keep in mind, both of these districts are still extremely Latino. You know, over 70 percent of the people who live in this district are still Latino. So that's like one of the examples that they give. And then they go into a few other things as well that are similar to that. Now, how are the circumstances of the litigation different this year from previous years?

So there's two big differences that I see. I'm sure that, you know, you talk to someone who's studied this a little bit more in depth, they might see some more differences. The first one, of course, is that there's no federal preclearance required. Previously, in past decades, Texas has had to get the maps pre-approved by the federal government in order for them to go into effect. Decades, as redistricting happens every 10 years. Yes. Now, the Supreme Court changed that since the last redistricting cycle, and so Texas no longer has to go through that judicial preclearance process. So, they just go straight into law,

don't have to worry about the federal government. Now, this doesn't necessarily change the outcome of what happened because even in previous years, it's been lawsuits outside of the redistricting or outside of the preclearance process that actually led to the changes in the map. It wasn't really in 2010, 2011, that cycle, it wasn't the pre-clearance lawsuit that changed what the maps look like. It was the other lawsuits. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is that because of the delays with the census this year and the late passage of the redistricting plan, there's a lot shorter time between now and the filing period, which actually begins in just a couple of weeks, November 13th through December 13th. So we're really like at the edge of when

judges can really do take some action that will affect the next election. So we'll see in the next few weeks if they do anything that could potentially change when the elections are and what the maps look like. Well, thank you, Daniel. Hayden, Remain in Mexico policy. We've only talked about this like once on the podcast before, right? I think we've covered it a few times. Yeah. Am I miscounting here? Am I not knowing how many times? I think you might be underestimating it just a tad. Oh my gosh. Well, tell us about the latest in all of this and the backdrop of the controversy over the Remain in Mexico policy. Well, I think one of the reasons the Remain in Mexico policy is such a hot button policy is because of what it is widely known for.

And that is requiring people to stay in Mexico while they're awaiting admission into the United States instead of having them come here and wait out their cases here in the homeland. But reportedly about 70,000 people have been affected by this program. And I always like to go back to the original definition of the program because, you know, it's like a game of telephone often where you have these programs that have been in place for years. But when it was instituted, it was formally called the migrant protection protocols. And it is quote a US government action whereby certain foreign individuals entering or seeking admission to the US from Mexico, illegally or without proper documentation, may be returned to Mexico and wait outside of the US for the duration of their immigration proceedings, where Mexico will provide them with all appropriate humanitarian protections for the duration of their stay. That was the MPP or the Remain in Mexico

policy as it was originally instituted. And this year, this past fiscal year, Customs and Border Protection reported record setting levels of illegal immigration, depending on how you tally it. I believe that some have reported it's the highest amount ever. Others have said it makes the top three. It really depends on which number you use. But there were 1.7, almost 1.7 million Southwest land border encounters in fiscal year 2021, which covers October through September of this year. And when the MPP was instituted in fiscal year 2019, there were reported 859,501 border patrol encounters. Last fiscal year, there were 405,036. Of course, the coronavirus pandemic plays into that. This year, there were 1.67 million. And this is as the Biden administration is actively fighting this policy. And there have

been court rulings on this as well. Yeah, absolutely. Now, the question here is, hasn't this already been decided, settled? What is the status of the policy now? Well, our Attorney General here in the state of Texas, Ken Paxton, joined forces with the Missouri Attorney General, Eric Schmidt, and sued the Biden administration to force them to reinstate this policy. And part of their argument was the way the policy was rescinded violated the Administrative Procedures Act. And because this policy is effective, they really didn't have a reason to rescind it. And Judge Matthew Kazmarek and Amarillo agreed with the state of Texas and

the state of Missouri and ordered the Biden administration to reinstate it. In August, the Supreme Court of the United States decided not to take an appeal from Judge Kaczmarek's decision, effectively ordering Biden to reinstate it. And in the past, usually when the Supreme Court rules on something, that's that. Years ago, we had the Roe v. Wade decision, and that decision is rarely discussed in vague terms. A lot of the time people say, you know, it's settled law. When gay marriage was legalized nationwide in 2015, that debate pretty much ended in 2015. You don't hear a lot of people debating that anymore. But this time, the federal government has said, no, that Supreme Court decision, we're going to make another bite at the apple. We're going to take another bite at the

apple. And they're preparing a new memo, trying to get that policy torn back down. They're hoping that the new memo satisfies the concerns that were originally raised in Judge Kesmerick's original ruling. So the Supreme Court does have the last word, but the Biden administration, though it claims it is in good faith trying to restore this policy at the very same time, it is also trying to eliminate it by drafting new documents that they hope will conform to Judge Kesemarek's ruling. Well, Hayden, thank you for that. We'll continue to keep an eye on all this. Isaiah, we're going to come back to you here. The federal government recently announced that it would use law enforcement to address what

it called a growing danger of criminal threats against school boards. What led up to this and how does Texas fit in? A lot of y'all might have already heard about this announcement from the federal government. It's itself, it's kind of old news, but the Texas Association of School Boards or TASB has distanced itself from the original request that led up to it, which is interesting given the content. The way it began was the National School Boards Association, which is a union of school board trustees, sent a letter to the Biden administration about a month ago linking together some stories of loud or chaotic board meetings around the country and likening these angry parents to a mounting threat of what they call domestic terrorism. These instances, the group said, are being caused by parents upset at mask mandates and suspicious of critical race theory and pedagogy.

So the group asked the FBI, Secret Service, and Homeland Security Department to intervene and monitor school board activity for these threats. In response, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed federal law enforcement to partner with state and locals to monitor threats against school board members, adopting the same language of a growing danger, but avoiding the term domestic terrorism. TASB, an affiliate of the national group, distanced itself from this request and said they weren't consulted. They said, It's natural that community members across the state as large and diverse as Texas are going to have different opinions on important K-12 issues.

We think this diversity of opinion and the ability to express it openly makes us strong. One reason this is interesting is that TASB publicly supports authority for local boards to issue mask mandates and has called Abbott's prohibition on mask mandates an improper use of his authority. They also put out a statement a while back distinguishing critical race theory from diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Who leads the National School Board Association? The NSBA is actually led by a Texan, coincidentally, Viola Garcia. Garcia used to be president of TASB and has been a school board member at Aldine ISD in Houston for quite some time. She wrote the original letter to the Biden administration and was chosen to serve on a federal board overseeing the Dacian support card, the NAEP test.

If you'll have heard of that shortly afterward. Very interesting. And I didn't, you know, we have seen on, you know, different social media platforms, different conservatives in the state calling for TASB to disassociate itself from the national organization. So we'll see what happens there. But Isaiah, thank you for covering that for us brad um let's talk about the city of austin prop a again once again one of these topics that we have covered that you've covered extensively but the city has a very big election coming up next week focused on police and public safety that's kind of the hot button

issue as it seems to be uh usually usually around or at least as of lately. Can you recap what this proposition entails? Yeah, so do a handful of things. The big one is it would mandate a minimum staffing level of two officers per 1,000 residents. Austin is currently last number I saw like 1.5. So that's a pretty big jump they'll have to do in terms of hiring if this passes. Then it would establish a minimum 35% community response time standard. That is time officers spend in the community interacting with people rather than just responding to 911 calls. It would require 40 additional hours of training. It would require the mayor, the city council and city staff to

enroll in the citizens police academy, which is something as far as I'm aware, only one person has done that so far that's on that body. And that's Mackenzie Kelly. And the last one is it would facilitate minority officer hiring through foreign language proficiency metrics rather than quotas in terms of hiring a certain number of black officers or Hispanic officers and whatnot. It would incentivize that. So those are the five things that it would do if passed next week. Got it. Now, a focal point of this political fight has been the cost for the city should this be implemented, specifically on the hiring mandate. What are the arguments about that?

So those opposed, such as Mayor Steve Adler, Councilman Greg Kassar, various interest groups like the one I wrote about and we talked about last week. They all say it's too costly and it will cause cuts to departments like parks and libraries. We kind of went into that last week when you asked me about it. The city's cost estimate for this hiring mandate would be between $271 million and about $600 million over five years broken down annually. That's $54 million and $120 million respectively. And so based on the city's estimate per officer that they use with this model, per officer hired, it would amount to $172,000 or between $172,000 and $264,000.

So those supportive of Prop A, they dispute this. They say that the correct model is more about 100 000 per officer hired and there they project that you would be between 300 and 350 officers that need to be hired to comply with this minimum standard um so that would come out to about 30 to 35 million dollars So there's, you know, it is not a small expenditure, but the city of Austin spends a lot of money. They punch above their weight in terms of how much money they spend for their population size. And so there's a lot to go, there's a lot to move in the budget. You know, if, as I said last week if they if this passes and there are cuts to

libraries and parks it would be the city council making that decision uh there's plenty of room to budge on this on this budget and so the one especially going forward you know when for the budgets they haven't decided on yet the current one um they would you know they already have allocated their money and they would have to shift stuff around, but there's plenty of funding to go around on things. Well, and as you said previously, that's the argument being thrown out there by those who oppose the proposition. And if you drive around Austin, the yard signs opposed to Prop A all say, vote against Prop A, keep parks and libraries fully

funded in austin um and so that is that's what a lot of folks think this is about and you know one thing i will add um then i think those opposed make a good argument on is that just because you mandate a certain number of staff doesn't mean that you can fill those spots right see you know we talked about this last week as well the staffing problem the attrition that doesn't mean that you can fill those spots. We talked about this last week as well, the staffing problem, the attrition, that doesn't go away overnight just because this gets passed. Absolutely. And so, whatever happens, it would only be one step from where we are now. And so, there's a lot more, bigger hill to climb down the road, regardless whether this passes or not. But those supportive of it say it kind of provides a safety net for against council policies in terms of what they

do with the police department and where they allocate resources. Any final observations ahead of election day? Yeah, it's interesting. The one thing I've been watching is early voting. And oddly, I'm not sure what to make of it, but it is a weird observation. Early votes turn out right now through, I think it's 10 days, which is one day longer than the entire period in May. Currently, early vote right now total is 35% lower than that of May. And so you still have two days of early voting today thursday friday um this week and so we'll see how much how closer they get but that's about 40 000 votes that they're short of right now so um it's weird sizable for this kind of election um you know i saw a tweet just a couple minutes

ago um k view put out a title or an article that's had the title turnout is double what it was at this point in 2019 well it's still only six percent so it's a very very low turnout um you know so that 40 000 more voter margin is going to come into play one way or the other i mean it's going to have a big effect so um i don't know how that's going to turn out um pun intended oh my gosh um but you know it's it's an interesting dynamic especially because it seems like people are more excited to come out to vote for the homeless camping reinstatement than they are this at least so far. We'll see what the numbers on Election Day are. Well, thank you, Bradley, for that. We will be anxiously awaiting the results.

Hayden, let's let's pivot to a very interesting piece you wrote this week about a tribal gambling case. Give us a little bit of a rundown of what exactly your piece was about. There are three federally recognized Native American tribes in the state of Texas. And this is the tribe in the El Paso area. It's called the Pueblo for short. The Tigua Indians, I believe is how you pronounce it. They are battling the state of Texas for the right to regulate their own electronic bingo at their entertainment center called the Speaking Rock Entertainment Center. And this is one of those cases where the two sides have difficulty agreeing what they're even arguing about, which is always interesting in lawsuits. The Supreme Court has granted what is called a writ of certiorari in this case

from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a decades-old controversy. The Fifth Circuit ruled in 1994 that the state of Texas has regulatory jurisdiction over the tribe's gambling activities. And they have challenged that for years. And now it will go all the way to the Supreme Court. The state of Texas believes that the tribe, the way they have framed the question in their opposition brief is that they are more or less trying to, in a sneaky way, open up a casino in El Paso or continue to operate as a casino and have full-blown traditional slot machines and Las Vegas-style gambling, which of course is illegal in the state of Texas. Casinos are banned and high-stakes bingo that has no regulations on it is also, I believe, would not be consistent with state law.

However, due to another law called the IGRA, Indian tribes have the right to regulate their own gambling activities as long as those activities are not otherwise illegal in the state where the tribe happens to be located. So there is legislation pending that would clarify this dispute, but because that legislation has not passed, it is still being litigated in the courts. The tribe is seeking the right to regulate its own gambling activities, and the state of Texas is seeking to maintain and retain its ability to regulate gambling in the state of Texas. And while Texas has licensed more than 1300 organizations to conduct charitable bingo, it's still not a free for all. Just anyone can open up a bingo operation. I don't know if that would be the right word to... Yeah. So we can't have the Texan bingo night or casino night um but uh

this this native american tribe in the el paso area believes that they have the right under their 1987 restoration act to do this as well as the the indian um regular the indian regulatory gaming act uh which is a federal piece of legislation. So we'll have to see what the Supreme Court's ultimate decision is. Awesome. Well, Hayden, thank you. Isaiah, let's talk to you about some community college data, the state release and moon data about Texans' interest in going to college. What does it show? Interest seems to be waning overall, but it may be among particular demographics or slices of the data. For the first time in at least 20 years, enrollment at four-year institutions has outpaced enrollment at two-year institutions,

which is interesting. Since 2019, which is when the pandemic began, though I don't want to fall into the correlation causation trap, enrollment at four-year universities increased by a modest 1.7%, while public two-year college enrollment decreased by 11.6%. So in other words, enrollment in college is down overall, but that's mostly driven by a significant dip in community college enrollment. As an interesting side note, because it's not a major portion of the data, Texas State Technical College's estate trade school network has actually really boomed since 2019 with a 20% increase in enrollment. But that, again, is just a minor part of the greater trend, which is downward. Absolutely. Now, do we know where in the state interest in college is dropping

specifically? In every region of the state, community college enrollment is down. So that's down everywhere. But there are three regions of the state that have more students going to college overall in defiance of the statewide trend. And that would be West Texas, the Gulf Coast, and the Upper East regions. Some other interesting data regarding subjects that are involved in this trend. Since 2019, the only health-related schools to see a drop in enrollment in Texas have been pharmacy schools and Baylor Medical, which is the state's only private general medical school. So in other words, since the pandemic began, trends are still steady arising in interest for people that want to be dentists, scholars, or physical therapists in the health field. But interest in working in pharmacy has declined a bit. And again, the sole private medical school, general medical school in the state has also seen

a decline since the pandemic began well very interesting stuff thank you isaiah gentlemen let's talk more about halloween this weekend and just fall in general what were what what did y'all dress up as for halloween as kids what were some of your your costumes the hall of fame would you know mind you um my siblings and i went i think for two years straight as power rangers i was the blue one um yeah i think that's probably i don't understand the difference between the power rangers like the colors do they have different powers or something blue is the best flavor flavor yeah no it's just different colors okay well they have different they have different like megazord is that oh my god i never watched the thing i'm trying to flash back to my childhood they would all like combine in this robot thing they each had a different arm of it and yeah

so that was really helpful they were both the same and different at the same time thank you for that yeah yeah appreciate it isaiah did you have any fun costumes uh if there was any doubt about my family's religion my brother elijah and i dressed up as bob and larry oh my god i was born of veggie tails yeah and this is so long ago i don't even remember it i I only know this from pictures. Um, cause this, this again was well before Zachariah was born. Um, when I do remember was Darth Vader. That was one year. My mom was an art teacher for a long time. And so she's always been very creative and, um, making costumes has always mostly been the norm when I

was a kid. And, uh uh but one year actually we actually bought a darth vader costume i was like oh this is awesome i had the helmet and the noise thing so you can press little buttons on the chest panel and it would make darth vader noises that was that was probably the highlight of my life as it should be yeah as it should be daniel i didn't really dress up as much growing up i think the one costume that i do remember wearing was like a little firefighter costume okay that's awesome that was that was the one picture that i remember seeing um we really didn't we weren't big on dressing up for Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Well, good stuff. Hayden, did you have anything that you dressed up as that you particularly loved? Or even just as notable? I remember one year I think I tried to dress up as a CSI agent. I was like seven or eight years old. Wow. I don't know what inspired that. did you also dress up as a lawyer one year too i'm sure i did someone suggested that i should um maybe this is a probably a daniel joke but someone suggested that i should just wear a suit and staple a bunch of

laws to the suit and then i would be a lawsuit that's a great those are my favorite kind of costumes where it's like a word that has two meanings yeah i love it that's amazing what about you i well one year i i mean i had this flapper girl dress that i would wear every year like i just did i just recycled it and i was like it's history it's the tomorrow in 20s don't you know who was president that like i was such a nerd about it um and then i kind of got tired of it and i just wanted to be ridiculous i'm shocked yeah i know and i just wanted to be ridiculous so i went to target and i had this like it was a christmas thing that i got and it was a red sock monkey onesie like like footie pajamas and so on halloween i would just wear that around so let me get this right you dressed up for christmas for halloween correct kind of yeah

but i had like sock monkey feet where i had little sock monkeys on your feet obviously and i loved it and i went because chipotle chipotle if you dressed up you could go to chipotle and get a free meal or a free burrito every year i dress up in my sock monkey onesie just to get the free burrito do they still do that i don't know we'd have to look it up so there are sock monkeys on your feet? Yes. Were they wearing their own sock muncie? Oh, wow.

That's interesting. Were they also dressed up as sock muncie? You're doing great. Thank you. Yep. They were not. They were just like the faces of the sock monkeys. Oh, okay.

On your feet with their little ears that would flop when you'd walk. I still own it. That sounds very annoying. I still have it. That sounds very, I still have it. Yeah. It's, I think it's my parents' house in Arizona, but, um,

I don't think I have it in my direct possession, but it does exist still and it will forever exist. I remember one time, um, I think I was like maybe 12 years old. We got some temporary green hair dye and I dyed my hair green and just put a bunch of plastic bugs in there oh wow and i was grass oh i love that so much that's probably the best costume i've heard of in a long time you put some bugs in it wow that's really how do you get the bugs to stay

in your hair my hair is just pretty thick and you can stick things in there and then they'll stay in there it'll just stay like if i grow it out long enough you can keep pencils in there and stuff like that you're speaking from experience yeah yeah totally um well that's great i really i enjoy that i have a really great halloween costume idea and i want to tell you guys i've never done it and you can't use it okay okay okay do you honestly think I would use it no I don't um although it's very simple so maybe you would if you had to go to a Halloween party but I um I'm not a very creative person and this is like my one creative thing I've thought of in my life like the one original idea I've had okay and my

family every year talks just to bother me. We'll say, oh my gosh, I had this great idea. Remember that was my idea. And I'm like, no, no, it wasn't. My mom will hear this and know exactly what I'm talking about. But my family is made up of five people. And so what I wanted to do was dress all five of us up in all, like go to, you know, some consignment shop or thrift store and get maroon clothes from like head to toe right just like a maroon sweater maroon pants i know where this is going and then we'd number ourselves one through five and we'd be maroon five wow i'm sorry to tell you this but in high school for senior dress up day a group of it wasn't my good friends but it was like an adjacent friend group they did that

so are you serious i'm serious yeah wait i'm not kidding oh my god sorry to burst your bubble but brad you don't know the damage you just did you don't know the damage you just did to my psyche it was still original to you so yeah well here's the thing and i might just do it and either i get five of my friends to do it or you know we have five people around this table yeah i had to really count there and i require it of the office but or i can just go and put a five on my self do you think of this because you're wearing maroon right now no i didn't even know oh my gosh i'm ready oh my gosh i'm ready for this i'm really excited okay pumpkins do you guys ever carve any really good pumpkins i'll go because obviously i'm thinking of this because i have an answer to it

i uh my last name is taylor and i would i one year i carved i wore converse exclusively and so one year i carved a converse shoe on a pumpkin it was actually pretty impressive like had the laces and everything. And then I put the logo in the corner and I just wrote Taylor. It's Chuck Taylor, right? That was pretty. I talk about that all the time too. I'm a two trick pony.

I talk about the things I like all the time. When you finish carving pumpkins, do you bake the seeds? Yes. And eat them as a snack? Yeah. I love them. They're delicious. They're very good. Well, and I only, like I seeds yes eat them as a snack yeah i love them they're delicious they're very good well and i only like i would not eat them i would not eat them more i would not eat them more than once a year but that one time a year is great yeah they're a great snack a lot better

than sunflower seeds in my opinion i don't know enough daniel any pumpkin carving victories or once i did bigfoot too i just did a foot no just like the creature oh okay yeah which is definitely not real uh-huh sure um again i i can't think of any i know that we did do some carving pumpkins but i don't remember any creative things that we did okay i was not that creative back then i'm still not that creative oh i don't know the last time i took a nap to a pumpkin you i know you wrote a novel yeah but that's a lot different than carving a pumpkin it takes a little more effort it's way harder yeah it's totally totally more difficult brad uh i don't i know we used to carve pop and copy carve pumpkins every year i don't really remember anything beyond.

I just did a lot of sports things like block M for Michigan or a baseball. You have not changed? No, no, I haven't. That's probably what I'd do if I had a pumpkin this year. Isaiah? Were we recording when I told you about the two pumpkins? Yes, we were. That's true.

You already did. But that's what inspired this question now was the earlier conversation. Okay. And your contribution. I zoned out. Were we recording or was that just a conversation? Yeah. Yeah, we were recording.

It's a great idea. I haven't had another one. Okay. That's awesome. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for your contributions to that conversation i feel like i know all of you so much better that's not yeah that's not really true it just feels like confirmations of all y'all's personalities have been confirmed or that's redundant you know what i mean confirmations have been confirmed okay well

that said i just moved into a house this year I'm very excited to hand out candy to kids. So that's going to be fun. That will be. Are you sure you're not going to get a box of Milky Ways and then just keep them all to yourself? No one shows up and I eat them all by myself.

Yeah. It's not happening this year. So I'm not buying a box of Milky Ways. Not that this has happened before. No. Not that this has happened before. Yeah. Sad Brad.

Okay, folks. Thanks for listening and we will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening and we will catch you next week. provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you, and God bless Texas.