The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 3, 2025

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Where Congress Stands Just Hours Away from Federal Government ShutdownLawsuit Against Texas' New Congressional Map Kicks Off in El PasoSuspect in Custody After Eagle Pass Casino Shooting Kills Two, Injures SeveralTexas Tech University System Directs Faculty to Recognize Only Male and Female SexesTexas to End Issuance of CDLs to Certain Non-Citizens Following Federal Emergency Rule ChangeTexas Higher Education Coordinating Board Proposes Withholding In-State Tuition from Students Not 'Lawfully Present'FDA Confirms It’ll Review Safety of Mifepristone, Chemical Abortion Pills After Multiple States' RequestBexar County Asks Voters to Approve Venue Tax Toward $311 Million of New Spurs ArenaVistra Announces Permian Basin Power Plant Expansion with New Natural Gas UnitsCurrently Revolting: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 21

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of the weekly roundup podcast with The Texan. Today, it's just three of us. I've got Cameron Abrams and Mary Elise Cosgray. Guys, how's it going? I'm good. It's going well. How are you?

Both of you sound very tepid about that. Well, I was waiting for Mary Elise to go first. I know, and I was waiting for Cameron to go because I didn't want to interject being virtual. This is the problem with you. being in Houston, the production quality just takes a hit and there's nothing we can do about it. Sure does. So this

is all your fault. Yeah, that's what I'm hearing. We'll leave it at that. Guys, it's been fairly slow week. Fairly slow. I mean, it's the news, so there's always news happening. Yeah. You just don't ride on everything, but there's always things happening. Compared to the last

couple weeks, I'd say, this seems to be a lot less of an insane week. yeah well and it's it's it's it's been fun yeah the government shut down yeah the government shut down and it's been kind of needed you know it's been really crazy over the past few weeks even though we've expected things to slow down stuff always happens yes hopefully we can ride out the rest of the week this way but who knows it's only Thursday well i'm with the government shut down, it's always a great reason to reference what's the show with Ron Swanson. Oh, Parks and Rec.

Parks and Rec, the libertarian who worked for the government and the one meme of him holding the flags that said slash it. For the people that love that and feel like that speaks to them, this is their week. Well, this is their week. Well, it sounds like Donald Trump's week as well. He put out a truth social post. As you're talking, I was scrolling X, and this came out earlier today. He says, I have a meeting today with Russ Vote.

He of Project 2025 fame. Wait a second. It's not real. Oh, it's not? No, this is a real tweet, but that's what people say Project 25 wasn't real, but it was very much real. And he says, to determine which of the many Democrat agency most of which are a political scam, he recommends to be cut

and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. He goes on to make some other comments that are pertinent to the lead there. But this is an interesting aspect of the shutdown.

What is going to happen when the Trump administration has the ability to cut some of these agencies possibly? Well, I'm old enough to remember And you don't have to be very old to remember this because it happened last year when Trump tried to disassociate himself at all with Project 2025. And he called it all kinds of nasty things because it was being hung around his neck like a millstone during the election. But now, now it's all, now it's great.

Now Project 2025 is fantastic. Well, Project 2025 is just an idea. It's not real. It's a concept of an idea. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about why we are here in a government shut down. And society is, of course, collapsing under the weight of itself because the government is not open.

Did I get that right, Cameron? I feel the way. Is that accurate? Yeah. Yeah. Mary Lees, give us the details why we're here, what was the lead up, and is there any resolution in sight? Yeah. So at midnight on Tuesday, or you could say 12.01 a.m. on Wednesday, the government officially shut down.

This is something that we had been following a bit in the 40 newsletter. Just want to plug it there real quick. So Congress was struggling to reach an agreement on what items should be included in the funding deal. And, of course, during this whole process, everybody's pointing fingers at each other. And, you know, after the government shutdown happened. Yeah, I know politics, right? But, you know, in different people were saying that the government shutdown was a result of Republicans not agree, not being agreeable or Democratic members not being agreeable.

Ultimately, there was a continuing resolution that Republicans wanted to get across, and the House of Representatives had already passed it earlier on. And so most of the House was actually out of town, MIA. This was all everybody's eyes were on the Senate before the government shut down. They were not able to pass the Republican CR. Democrats also introduced their own form of funding, And, of course, that didn't pass. You know, everybody knew that that didn't have a chance, but they still, there was a vote on that and the Republican bill.

There were a few different aspects about this funding fight that were going on. The Democratic leadership was specifically wanting to pass a funding bill that had protections for the Affordable Care Act subsidies to make sure that they don't expire. So it was a big thing they kept reiterating. they wanted to prevent premiums from rising for Americans and to extend the ACA. And Republican leadership was kind of characterizing this push for coverage as wanting to shut down the government over giving medical services, medical taxpayer-funded services to illegal aliens. And that was really the marketing pitch and continues to be for Republicans. They were saying, look, Democrats are willing to shut down the government over. illegal aliens being able to have these taxpayer-funded services, and Democratic members were

more so marketing this as we're trying to prevent premiums from rising. We want to protect the ACA. So, of course, there's that back and forth. There were a few comical moments during this whole funding fight before and it continues after. President Donald Trump posting videos of Democratic leadership and sombreros and such, and of course, that really angered the Democratic Party, They're saying, you know, we're trying to have good faith negotiations here discussions, and you're kind of making comedy out of it. But there was, I believe there were two meetings with Democratic leadership, at least in the past two days, to discuss what solution can we come to as far as funding goes. Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, met with President Donald Trump. There were some Democrats that were saying that the President Donald Trump would have been able to reach a negotiation with the Democrats of funding deal if it weren't for Republican leadership.

But I spoke to some Republican members, and they waved that off. They said that they're unified. And the issue here was that Democratic members were not jumping on board with the funding that they wanted to get across. And to be clear, this continuing resolution that the Republicans had introduced that ultimately failed, would have extended funding to November 21st. We still would have been in a pickle when that date rolled around, but it would have pushed it off until then at least. So there's a number of government employees that are being impacted by this now. Now the government is officially shut down. There was the last time that there was a shutdown, an official government shutdown was in

2018. And something that happened then, and we'll see if maybe this will also occur, depending on how long a shutdown goes on for. But there were a couple, there was a large amount of employees that were considered key personnel, so still expected to show up at their jobs. They fell to appear during what ended up being a 35 day long shutdown. So hopefully this doesn't drag on that long, but we'll see. I mean, we might be setting a new record. But so far, we're on day two of the government shutdown.

Well, and, you know, as I understand it, Mary-A-Lise, the, Most of the employees that are suspended, do they get back pay? Yes. Or that, okay. Yeah, for a little employees, they'll be paid retroactively because of a bill that was passed actually in 2019 right after that shut down. So this thing stretches on for more than a pay period. They will miss a paycheck, but they will be given that paycheck eventually. Yeah, retroactively, yeah.

Okay. Cameron, you want to add something? Yeah, I was just going to add the big sticking point for Republicans, the talking point being the funding of health care for illegal immigrants. And there was recently comments by a California Congressman Rokana. He appeared on a podcast this week and was asked directly about this question. And I'll just read his comments here because there seems to be some discrepancy on the truthfulness. of all of this. And when he was asked about this, he mentioned the emergency Medicaid program.

And he said, quote, and I guess if you mean that when you fund Medicaid, when you fund the Affordable Care Act, that you're saying you're funding some of it for undocumented people who are showing up in emergency situations, then yeah, you're funding that. So it's a bit of a nuanced conversation when you get into it. But in some respects, Republicans are correct in the fact that it would be funding these emergency Medicaid services for illegal immigrants. Well, you know, my inbox has been bombarded with, you know, Republicans and Democrats to invoke Rahmmanuel in his never let a crisis go to waste comment. But the twist is never let a government shutdown go to waste. The fundraising emails I'm getting from both sides, the attack

messaging that I'm getting from both sides, it's government shut down, you know, nothing really happens with the government shutting down, not nothing, but like it's a lot less significant than what it sounds like, right? Yeah. But all hell is breaking loose on this issue as a political issue because both sides can beat each other over the head with this as a political cudgel. Well, and I don't know how truthful the statements from Donald Trump were on truth social about coordinating with Russ Vode, about possibly cutting some of these federal agencies. Who knows? I don't know the nuances to the procedures, how that could actually happen. But, you know, as you mentioned, most of these government shutdowns don't amount to much. It's more of a negotiating tool,

if anything. But if Donald Trump is being serious in this instance, then possibly will transition from nothing ever happens to something happens. We'll see. Yeah. Who knows how long this lasts and there is obviously a stalemate. But I don't see this going on, 35 days. No.

I have no clue, really. I'll just be more seeing if the Trump administration tries to take advantage of this at all, if they can do something through the Office of Budgeting here with Russ Vote. I think that's an interesting sort of twist to things here. Well, it just seems like it's less of a, oh, my God, the sky is falling issue right now than it did in 2018 when that happened. Maybe that's recency bias. It could well be. but I'm just it just doesn't seem like it's as contentious of an issue for all right now.

But yeah, could be wrong about that. Mary Lisa, anything else you want to add on this? Well, we did talk a little bit more about the dynamics between Republican leadership and Democratic members in the 40 this week. So I would definitely recommend checking out the newsletter just because it takes a little bit of a different dive than this piece that is more of a background. Yeah, and if you are interested at all in the happenings of congressional members and what's going on in D.C., make sure you subscribe to the 40 and get Mary Alisa's dispatch every Thursday morning. So check that out. Thank you, Maryleese.

We'll move on. So the big legal issue this week is the redistricting lawsuit has begun in El Paso on Texas's new congressional map. I've talked a lot about the makeup of the map. It's supposedly five new seats, but that's indexed on Trump 2024 performance. Each of those seats are Trump plus 10, but it gets murkier the more you look at it. One seat in particular, Texas 28 is still a Democratic lean. Then you have a couple pretty competitive ones that will be fascinating to see how they shake out.

We've had a bunch of campaign announcements in a lot of these seats the last few days, and that all is happening in context of, well, will this map? be preserved by the court you know that's a big question this yes absolutely it's passed the legislature it is technically in place as for the moment for next year's election but that could get thrown off you know six ways Sunday on this like they could either totally place an injunction on the map this thing could drag out long enough where they have to push the primary back whether it's the whole or just the congressional primary, we saw in 2012 the whole primary was pushed back because

of redistricting and a lawsuit thereon. This of course is at least right now just on this congressional map, although it's happening in the context of a lawsuit against the current maps. And so you have a situation in El Paso where Democrats and their aligned groups are suing to stop the implementation of this map that they argue is. is illegal in various ways, and I'll talk a bit about that, about their arguments there. But they're trying to suspend the implementation of this map and preserve the use of the current map, which they're also suing as illegal and unconstitutional in certain areas.

So a weird wrinkle there. but generally speaking this so the the hearing kicked off on Wednesday first on a preliminary injunction motion but there's also an injunction motion overall and so they're going to have a trial like I think it's nine days long where they have testimony there's legislators being called as witnesses two were there yesterday Carol Alvarado and Joe Moody testified we'll have Republican witnesses will have some Republican figures there. Sean Trend is a demographer and statistician with Real Clear Politics, who talks about redistricting a lot. Also, Adam Kincaid is set to be, not to pose, but it's going to question.

Thank you. I don't know why that was escaping. Adam Kincaid is the guy behind the nationwide Republican redistricting. effort. He's kind of the funnel that all of this information goes through, and then he passes that off to the political actors on the state level. He's like the coordinator. Okay.

And he was definitely behind this new map in some form or fashion. So he's going to be questioned. There's been some filings already, some arguments, right? Did you just top lines what each side is sort of saying? Because in your piece, you kind of broke that down a little bit. Yeah, so the plaintiffs, which are a mix of individuals, progressive line groups, the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus is one of the plaintiffs as well. Yeah. And they're arguing essentially that the map, there's various ways the map is illegitimate and illegal.

One of them is they allege that it violates the one-person, one-vote principle because, it was done mid-decade now the court tossed that the night before the hearing started and they they said that it doesn't pass muster the allegation there but just because they're doing this in the middle of decade between censuses that it violates that principle they also argue that it's you know essentially racist map because It is, as they say, it was taking away seats from minority representation. You have CD-9, which is a, I think that's a coalition district and being turned into a majority Hispanic district, but a red district. Yeah. Something similar up in Dallas.

And it's, overall, they're just throwing everything in the kitchen sink at this thing to make it. untenable legally. Yeah. Well, and how is the state handling their arguments in regards to the transition from initiating the redistricting with the DOJ letter and then moving away from the DOJ letter to doing it based on partisan voting habits? How does that work into the arguments? So previous podcast, we've talked about this.

The Rucho decision is the one. the mainly important one here, I'd say, that said the court decided, you know, political gerrymandering is not justiciable. It's not something the court has purview over, which is why we're seeing the plaintiffs argue this is not just political redistricting. This is racial demographic redistricting. And in order to prove their case, they have to prove that because of the Rucho precedent. So, but the Republicans are sticking to that.

We saw it in the hearings. We saw it in the filings from the Office of the Attorney General. It gets more complicated, though, when you get to the Pettaway case, which is the ruling last year in Galveston County that said majority minority coalition districts, so districts where you have Hispanics and blacks making up together a majority of the district, those no longer have to be maintained in. order to satisfy section two with the Voting Rights Act. So you have these two, this two-legged stool, which doesn't really work usually, but it is a two-legged stool here of section two, where you have these majority minority districts. One is a coalition district. The other is a straight-up single-majority minority district. And so Petoway kind of knocked the one leg out from under that stool, and we have this one remaining, and that might get knocked out by a court

case at the Supreme Court later this year involving Louisiana. Right. So TBD on that, but that could open up a whole other round of redistricting for all the maps in 27. Yeah. In Texas, it's certainly possible. And it is being talked about. For sure.

So anyway, back to Petoway. That ruling came out last year. That's what kind of spurned some discussion about, uh, redrawing the maps. Um, but what really ultimately caused the redraw was Donald Trump. pushing Republicans to do it, and ultimately they did. And, you know, I've talked about the timeline. This DOJ letter seems to be kind of an own goal for Republicans, particularly the administration, because, and the OAG specifically says this in their hearing. So you have... Well, that's what I wanted you to mention. Yes. Okay. So you have this DOJ letter on July 7th issued

sent to Governor Abbott and Attorney Jackson, arguing that these five, like I think five seats are racially gerrymandered. Now, that sounds it's more complicated than that because what they're saying is that these districts are coalition districts that are no longer necessary to keep and therefore it's illegally racially gerrymandered. Governor Abbott cites that letter in the proclamation setting the special session item.

And so, but the thing is, they don't need that justification to do this they could do it whenever so they've they've kind of boxed themselves in in a way legally on this to the justification for this mid-decade redistricting being a letter that specifically calls the maps racially gerrymandered right now it is more nuanced than that in the way i just described but it's they've boxed themselves in in a way and so now you have the governor who is defending the invocation of this DOJ letter in court and in the public square because he cited it as a justification for doing this. Right.

In many TV hits, and if you look at a lot of the plaintiffs briefs, they cite his quotes in these interviews. Right. So, but then you have the Office of Attorney General trying to distance themselves from the DOJ letter. That's the interesting thing. Yes. And so you have Governor Abbott, who is the primary defendant in this lawsuit, and the Office of Attorney General, who is representing him in this lawsuit, kind of budding heads over the direction of this legal strategy. Right. And I put a quote in there from the governor's office, and you can read the piece, read the whole

the full quote, but it's basically saying we don't agree with the way the Office of Attorney General has characterized the DOJ letter in the state's filings. Yeah. They're not on the same page. Well, and we all knew that this map was going to come down to a decision in the courts. Yes. And so with the governor and the Attorney General not being on the same page on the direction of the legal strategy in defending this map, what does that mean?

for the future of this map. Do you think they're going to have to reconcile the direction of their legal strategy? Do you think they can continue moving forward with these two different arguments? I think they are on pretty sound footing invoking Rucho as it pertains to the legislative process of this map. Right. However, and those involved in this case will acknowledge that the DOJ letter and Abbott's invocation of it has caused problems for them, and they're worried that that could tank this, this map. I think, I still think, if they're able to prove entirely that, you know, persuade the judges

that race was not a part of their consideration, that it was purely political, then I think it will survive scrutiny and it will be implemented for next year. But this, in the Office of the Attorney General, described it as basically an erroneous implementation of political cover that was this letter. That causes problems, and they will acknowledge that behind the scenes if they're honest. Well, I'm wondering, I don't know if you know this. This is being taken up in an El Paso district court, right? Yes. It's a three-judge panel.

Oh, that's what I was going to ask. this three judge panel. Yep. And I'm not, again, I'm not sure this, this three judge panel are these elected judges or are these appointed judges? They're federal judges, so they're, I believe, appointed. Appointed. Do we know the breakdown of who appointed these judges?

Were these Trump appointees or Biden appointees or Obama appointees? I don't know the main judge and the other one, there's three. One of them I do know, I'm pretty sure, is a Republican appointed judge. Okay. Yeah. Because I don't know if that would factor into how they're reading these different arguments based upon, you know, you're supposed to, as a judge, not let politics leak into your decisions, but we know how this all works. They all have a philosophy, right? And that does break down, broadly speaking, along partisan lines.

You know, the Republicans have made, have argued this entire time. You know, nobody draws, particularly now, nobody draws districts with race specifically in mind. They draw it to yield a better partisan result for them, for their side. Now, with how racial minorities have voted historically, that has yielded a pretty bright partisan divide. You know, black still vote overwhelmingly democratic. Hispanics, it's a lot more complicated, particularly in the last few years, because there has been a shift to the GOP. But that's also been kind of top-heavy, where down-ballot, they still vote Democratic, right? So where do you classify those people?

Don't know. But it is absolutely true that Republicans have made a lot of gains among Hispanics across the entire country, and especially in Texas. So it's the situation where both sides have points to make and things they can point to, to prove their argument, but overall, it's pretty clear that Republicans drew these maps because they felt like it gave them a better chance at winning more seats. Now, the plaintiffs are arguing that that's unfair too, and that's, that shouldn't be permitted by the courts and they'll have to prove their case. But I don't know where this is going, and if they do take a while, we could see ramifications

next year. I was on a radio spot yesterday, and they were asking me about this, what the effect of a delayed primary would have on the election, and it totally changes the electorate. So let's say for the sake of argument that the entire primary happens, except for the congressional seats, and that gets pushed back to April or May. Well, that is like a mini runoff in terms of an electorate where you have a smaller amount of people going out to vote because it's not the main election. It's only for one thing. And so that changes how these campaigns run.

That changes the people they're targeting. That changes how they orient themselves politically. And so if it's not tied to the main primary election, that's going to change the game quite a bit. And then you could, like, if that happens, you could have a situation where you have the March 4th primary without the congressional. congressional map. Then you have the congressional map, the congressional primary. Then you have the runoff for the March 4th primary. Then you have the runoff for the congressional races. You have four primary elections. Now, who knows if that's what happens? I think that's probably an extreme situation that we won't see. I think my gut says this map probably is upheld, but there's no guarantee. But imagine that. the voter fatigue that you get with four primary elections, two primaries and two runoffs, people are going to be sick of it. Yeah.

And that's just one party. Yeah. You know, chiefly, the Republicans have, I mean, there's a very fascinating primary on the Democratic side at the top of the ticket, too. The one most people have their eyes on is the Republican. And that's going to drive out a lot of interest and vote in the race. well, if all these congressional candidates don't have that top of the ticket driver down the ballot, you can see very few people voting in that election. Yeah.

Lots of interesting dynamics here. Yeah, yeah. I recommend checking out the piece. It's long, but I go into detail about all the arguments made and the precedent that is a big part of this. and then the DOJ letter, Brouhaha. So that was a long segment, but it's important because it's a fascinating issue. And it's going to determine a lot politically for the state going forward. So we'll move on now.

Mary Elise, there was a shooting in Eagle Pass over the weekend involving a casino. A tragic situation. There were two individuals killed and about five injured. That's what the latest reports are saying, and that was on Saturday night. One of the individuals that was killed was a retired United States Customs and Border Protection Agent, and Eagle Pass Mayor Aaron Valdez highlighted that. He wrote a pretty heartfelt post in response to his name was Mark Antley's passing during this shooting. He said, you know, I join our community and mourning the tragic loss of Marcus Antley, a beloved community member and retired USCBP agent who is

among the victims killed in the horrific shooting at the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino. The other fatality was a resident from Dimmett County, and that was confirmed by Dimmett County Judge Martha Alicia Gomez-Ponche, and she made a post on Facebook saying, you know, our community will also grieve the loss of this individual. Right now, there is not a motive that's been, or any leads about a motive that's been applied to this situation that has. happened on Saturday night. I've seen different theories floating around, of course, after any situation like this, that happens, especially since one of the individuals was a retired agent. Some people were saying, oh, maybe this is a targeted attack, but other folks are pointing

out the other individual had no government affiliation. And it was worth noting that night at the casino, there was a big raffle going on. It was an extremely crowded night. So that's something to note when kind of trying to look into what the motive was, but the Kekapu Tradition Tribe of Texas Police Department is in the process, they said, of arranging for an individual who's a suspect, who is in custody, for his extradition backed Eagle Pass after they successfully pursued him and vehicles, and they use licensed recognition technology to track him down and said that he was captured with the use of a taser. He was armed.

So this individual was identified as 34-year-old Carion Jones from San Antonio. Of course, it's just a suspect right now, but this was confirmed during a press conference with the Maverick County Sheriff on Sunday. So, of course, it's still a developing story, sad situation. That's all the details, pretty much. And they have no idea what the motive was for this. But, of course, everybody online has an idea of what the motive was. So we'll see what the police department comes out with. Yeah, thank you, Mary Elise.

Cameron, the Texas Tech University System has issued a memo related to the teaching of biological sex and topics related to that. Give us the details. Yeah, just like you mentioned, Texas Tech University System issued a memorandum directing at schools within the university system to be in compliance with state and federal law regarding the recognition of only two human sexes. male and female. And in the letter, it makes three direct references, one being to House Bill 229, which was passed during the 89th session, makes mention of a letter from Governor Greg Abbott and then also President Donald Trump's executive order. Each of those three items making clear that universities should, and state agencies should only recognize male and female as distinguishable biological sexes.

And in the letter, it goes on to state that while recognizing the First Amendment rights of employees in their personal capacity, faculty must comply with these laws in the instruction of students within the course and scope of their employment. And so this memo comes after Angelo State University, which is one of the schools in the Texas Tech University system, issued rule changes to faculty and staff. on September 19th, that made similar directives regarding biological sex, some of those being prohibiting preferred pronouns and removing, quote, safe space designations. So this is just sort of indicative of the shift that's occurring in the ideological governance

of Texas higher education. We saw some reactions from Texas A&M University after LGBT, were being taught in a children's literature course and that professor was fired the dean and department head being removed from their respective positions Texas State University a professor was terminated for comments he made during a online socialist conference I'll mention there with that instance that the professor has since sued and has been reinstated but will not be teaching classes and that's just some examples that are actually happening on the ground, on the campuses. This larger shift happening within the

governance structures, Texas A&M, seeing their now former President Mark Welsh resigning. We've seen Brandon Creighton officially sworn in as the president or president or chancellor of the chancellor of the system, Texas Tech University system, Glenn Hagar at Texas A&M. So a bit of a red shift here with many of the leaders of these, not just the universities themselves, but the Board of Regents and Systems managers of these universities. So just something to keep an eye on if they're, because with these Republican leaders stepping into leadership positions at the universities, we'll probably see continuing movement to the right on some of these policies.

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the reason they were picked is how involved they are and how the context they have involved in the appropriations process. There's also that side of it, too, is this what's going on on college campuses has been a big talking point in issue for a while. And now you have people that are, at least job-wise, previously pretty oriented towards addressing that kind of stuff. Yeah, well, like you mentioned, on the appropriation side, there was warnings, warning signals sent to these universities during the legislative session that they were not going to be in compliance with some of the previously passed legislation withholding appropriations could be an option by the legislature moving forward. I will say we hear that a lot on things, and I don't know if it's ever happened that I've seen, but yes. It is a threat that's made. Maybe this is just the first instance we're kind of seeing a reaction to that. Maybe they're trying to get on the front foot of that by appointing or electing these former Republican lawmakers into these leadership positions. So they can be the ones that take the arrows on implementing these. legislative actions that might not be popular with faculty or staff, but it's in alignment with how

the president of this university system or the president of the university themselves wants the university to go. So they're willing to do that because it's an alignment with who's at the very top. And so, yeah, just that's what we're at. Thank you, Cameron. Mary Lease, Texas has made some significant changes in its protocols regarding commercial driver's licenses that has become a pretty hot topic, federally, statewide. Give us the details of this change in policy. Yeah, a big development in this whole conversation surrounding commercial driver's licenses, which has been, like you said, a hot topic recently.

So CDL's commercial driver's licenses are required for operating vehicles that have a gross vehicle weight rating of over 26,000 pounds or designated to carry 16 passengers or more. Just to preface this by that. So any vehicles such as semi-trucks, 18-wheeler, buses, dump trucks. So there was an emergency rule change that was issued last Friday by the United States Department of Transportation. The secretary is Sean Duffy. He was appointed by Trump, and he cited this. He issued this rule change, and he said that they found a troubling series of fatal crashes caused by non-domiciled CDL holders. And to clarify, non-domiciled means drivers who live in a state or country with different drivers licensed standards in the state in which they are licensed. And so this was essentially a call to reform. the nation's processes for issuing such licenses to non-citizens. So first, leading up to this, there was a federal audit nationwide review conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration,

and they took a look at various states in the way that they issued these CDLs, as well as commercial learners permits, CLPs, to the non-domicile drivers. And as a result of this audit, they found that there were six states, in particular, they said, are in systematic noncompliance with just the standard state process for issuing these licenses, and that included Texas, as well as California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Washington. And Duffy said he had pretty strong words for this. He said, what our team has discovered should disturb and anger every Americans. Licenses to operate a massive 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers, oftentimes illegally. He said it's

a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won't stand for it. So then in response to this emergency rule change, the Texas Department of Public Safety came out on Monday and said that they will be ending the issuance of CDLs, certain CDLs given out, and an observance of this rule change that was issued on Friday. And so this means that no CDLs can be issued to non-citizens who are refugees, asylees, or deferred action for childhood arrivals, DACA recipients. And this also applies to the commercial license permit, the CLP. So that's both CDL and CLP. And then the DPS did clarify within its announcement that they've never issued any type of license to asylum seekers who haven't been

approved for lawful presence. So that's a note there. So there were a couple different, there were seven different specifically rules that were issued by Duffy and this emergency rule change. And one of them was the requirement that non-citizens, in order to meet a much stricter set of rules for getting this non-domiciled CDL, they have to undergo a federal immigration status checked through the, through Save, the systematic alien verification for entitlements, which we've mentioned before on this podcast. So a citizenship database that's operated by some of our federal immigration agencies, such as the Department for Homeland Security. And so just about three weeks before this emergency rule change, which I believe we covered on the podcast,

Governor Greg Abbott had issued a new directive to the DPS, requiring that CDL drivers in Texas must both read and speak English proficiently in order to be able to keep, to obtain, maintain their licenses, their CDLs. And this was after President Donald Trump had issued an executive order on this issue, directing Duffy to reverse what he called previous presidential administration's guidance that watered down the law requiring English proficiency for commercial drivers. So Abbott's move was followed this executive order. And then also worth noting Trump designated English as the official language of the United States on March 1st. So we will, you know, see where this goes. but this is, well, I'd like to mention also there was a crash that happened in Austin, and recently the individual was charged with 22 different counts,

and that was one of the crashes that I believe sparked this being a priority for the administration, and then kind of the ripple effect into Texas. Yeah, and we saw that crash also play into the tort reform fight as a big component of that. political brawl we're seeing we saw during the recession with the proposed trucking bill adjustment that was that was in the legislature and didn't pass and it'll play a big role next year in a lot of these races and that was a flashpoint that really caused that to become something more than just an insider fight and so well i think issues like this are interesting because of the prior actions that have led to something like this?

Because you think, why does there need to be a test to make sure a commercial truck driver is proficient in English, able to speak or read it? Well, we saw this giant spike in illegal immigration during the Biden administration. And so when there's this large number of illegal immigrants in the country, They need to find ways to get jobs, and maybe some states were allowing illegal immigrants to get certain jobs. And so while there are people within the domestic United States who aren't speaking or reading English proficiently but are working jobs, well, all of our signage is in English, everything they operates in English. So there has to be certain safeguards then put in place to make sure they're able to operate in these jobs proficiently. But we're seeing now a reaction to that, not just with the testing, but making sure that state agencies themselves are not employing illegal immigrants. So it's sort of a two-prong attack here.

Okay. Good point, Cameron. I just think it's interesting. No, it is. And Mary Lisa, just to clarify one more thing, you said that DPS said they haven't given out any CDLs to people who aren't lawfully here. Yeah, to individuals that aren't lawfully present. Okay. And, of course, this is more than just an issue about people who aren't here lawfully, right?

Yeah. But that does play a role in this. So thank you, Maryleese. Cameron, let's go over to you. Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board proposed some rule changes this week in regard to in-state tuition. What happened there? Well, this was a reaction again to something that happened where the U.S. Department of Justice followed a legal complaint against Texas back in June, arguing that provisions of the Texas Education Code allowed illegal aliens to qualify for in-state

tuition. The DOJ complaint was joined by Attorney General Kim Paxton, and the judge ruled in favor of the DOJ there. That's because the Texas Dream Act, which was passed in 2001, extended qualifications for in-state tuition to certain non-citizen residents. So now, Texas Higher Education Board has proposed new rules to remedy the Texas Education Code based upon this ruling by the judge that overturned the Texas Dream Act. So in the rule, the proposed rule, it would require a student to be lawfully put. present in the United States to be eligible for in-state tuition. And the Texas Higher Education Board has already issued a letter to university presidents asking them to document essentially and come up with, or I just have it here in front of me, with a directive that each institution must assess the population of students who have established eligibility for Texas resident

tuition, making sure that they are lawfully present. So they're doing that identification, and then we'll see if I'm sure this proposed rule will be adopted, but just a reaction to things that have happened prior. If people are interested, we have all that reporting on the Texan. That news. Thank you, Cameron. Miralee, the FDA just issued a letter to Texas related to chemical abortion pills and obviously Texas just passed a law regarding that.

How do these two issues weave into each other? Yeah, so just a little bit of background on this, there was a letter sent over the summer from 22 different states' attorneys general, and it was addressed to HHS Secretary of K Jr., and then also FDA commissioner appointed by Trump, Martin Macri, and asked them to confirm that they're going to be revokely,

reviewing the chemical abortion pill safety for women, specifically, specifically one of the two drugs. That's a part of the two drug regimen, typically for chemical abortion pills, medical abortions. So this letter was sent and asked them to review it to potentially reinstate some safety protocol that was in place as recently as 2011. But then in the letter, they were saying that Democratic presidential administrations had kind of kicked those to the curb. And they were asking that those protocols could be reinstated by the FDA. And if not, that the product could be just removed off in the market until this review is conducted. Because they were writing in their letter that they believed that they're dangerous enough for women,

the women who are taking these pills, that this is a product that could potentially be pulled off in the market until we're certain that it's safe enough to be consumed. So this was a letter in response to that one that was sent over the summer from Commissioner Macri. and it was addressed to our Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as well as 21 other attorneys general. And he did confirm. The main thing that he confirmed was that they will be reviewing doing a top-to-bottom review of the products used for chemical abortions. And he did say, you know, I can't comment too in depth on this

because this is involved in ongoing litigation. There's been Supreme Court cases, other cases that have been involved. related to the chemical abortion pills, which Cameron covered extensively in 2023, I believe. Yes, some of your older coverage, I believe it was 23. But anyways, you can go back and read about that. But we've got the letter included in this piece, just explaining, you know, we have the FDA will review products, we will work with our team, and that the biggest takeaway

here is that there will be a review conducted top to bottom of these people. pills, which, of course, is significant for Texas because we, this is chemical abortion pills have been a huge conversation recently with passing the bill that cracked down on the distributors, those who were distributing the pills into Texas. Now there's civil liability for them, against them. So we'll see what this review produces and it has any impact on Texas individually. Thank you, Mary Elise. Cameron, there is a knock-down, drag-out stadium fight happening in San Antonio, Bear County.

You wrote a piece this week on it? Really good? Give us the skinny on it. Yeah, this was a fun thing to dig into because San Antonio, they launched this huge project. They're calling it Project Marvel. Lots of other projects, infrastructure developments, but the big thing being a new Spurs arena. They want to move the Frostbank Center where it is about 10 minutes. It's outside of downtown right into the heart of the city.

And so they have earmarked $1.3 billion is what they're expecting it's going to cost here. It's going to be split in three different ways. The Spurs Ownership Group, Bear County voters are going to need to approve a new venue tax, and the city of San Antonio is going to be creating tax zones for raising funds. There's lots of nuance and detail to that. People can go check out the piece if they're interested. I'll just give some top line numbers here. Bear County is going to pitch in $311 million or around 25% of that total by asking voters to approve an increase in a venue tax.

And so that's just essentially taxes that they'll pay for, you know, hotels or car rentals and things. City of San Antonio, they're going to chip in 489 months. million which is this is where things get really complicated they're doing this different four different track systems which includes a project finance zone and a tax increment reinvestment zone at turns and a couple of different things as well but again i break it down in the piece if you're interested and then the spurs ownership group they're going to contribute 500 million towards the 1.3 billion and they also said they're going to invest some large tranches of privately invested capital in the surrounding development area which

will play into the ters in raising property values that includes 1.4 billion over the next 12 years so this is going to be prop B for Bear County voters if they set the details which will keep the spurs in town for another 30 years the voters don't give the thumbs up then the term sheet is void the team in the city will have to go back to the drawing board on a new arena while the spurs continue to play in the frostbank center until their leases up in 2032 and prop b would increase the county's hotel occupancy venue tax from 1.75 to 2% and extend the existing 5% car rental tax with both revenue sources going towards funding the new arena but

it's it's an end-up piece i can't get into it all right now but uh encourage people to check it out there's i do make a david robinson reference uh the admiral so uh yeah i get into it here it was a fun thing to research yeah good piece and uh stadium fights are always contentious yeah like every city i've lived in which is three they've had uh there's been some stadium fight in or around there for as long as I can remember and it's always you know you're sticking county taxpayers with at least a chunk of a massive expenditure for decades right well they're trying to do this in a roundabout way where residents aren't where they stick it on the the tourists where the tourists are going to be paying because the tourists are the ones doing the car rentals

the tourists are the ones staying at the hotel same thing with these uh economic zones. It's the taxes on the hotels and the surrounding areas there where tourists are going and things and rising property values and placing an tax on that. And so they're trying to do this in such a way where they can say residents are not paying for the new stadium. Is it going to work out? It'll be interesting to see. I'm not sure. Yeah. Thank you, Cameron. That's on the ballot in November, right? Yep. All right. Well, we'll see how that shakes out in about a month. Yeah.

Almost exactly. Oh my gosh. A month out from the November election. Cool. Thank you, Cameron. Before we hit Tweeterie, I'm just going to plug our Smokefield Room podcast that went up on Monday. We had Tony Ortiz of Current Revolt with us, and I thought it was a fun conversation. It was great.

We've gotten a lot of good reviews. Tony is, understandably, a divisive figure. given the fact that he calls himself the TMZ of Texas. So naturally he publishes a lot of inflammatory stuff. He leans into it and he's very transparent about his views and what he wants a current revolt to be in the state. And you ask some really interesting questions about how he got into the business and like how he does the job, you know. His most controversial stories and stuff. So it was fun.

So check it out on the tech. Jackson. News or anywhere you can find our podcast. Since if you're listening to this, I assume that you have a podcast app. Yeah. Of some stuff. Yeah, check that out. It was good. And hopefully we, Mac should be back

for the next one, but given the last two that I've had three, including the one with you, we might just leave her on the bench. I'm not sure that she can, you know, be up to snuff after being out of commission for three months. Yeah, maybe the first guest, when Mac

comes back will be the baby he's just even the baby talking Texas politics that would be a sight to behold okay now we're going on to tweeterie let's start with Mary Lease since Cameron's and mine

are kind of related oh okay well it has been extremely entertaining to see the posting that is going on on specifically on the X app with President Trump

starting off with putting Democratic leadership in sombreros and then now Governor Gavin Newsom is kind of responding to that by creating his own AI videos. He did one of J.D. Vance that has millions of views. Although I will say

I don't think that it seems though with the Democrats responding in this way, it doesn't seem to cause any negative results for Republicans. They seem to just kind of eat it up and think it's funny and yeah so it's an interesting dynamic in politics where they're just posting these bizarre videos making fun of each other it's definitely changed

so much the whole world um political interactions so yeah well i think people like the comedy they like the strip down nature that our politicians are showing now, where they're able to make jokes and make fun of themselves, especially Republicans have kind of, you know, taken on that role under the Trump administration, in the Trump era, let's say. And, you know, we've been used to the stuff suit, where they act like a politician on screen and they say the right things, but that's all disappeared now. Yeah.

I don't say it's all disappeared, but it's certainly out of It's out of fashion, right? And so I think Democrats are sort of trying to grapple with that at this point. And, you know, I saw a tweet as we were sitting here, Anna Paulina Luna, a congresswoman from Florida. She posted an AI picture of J.D. Vance with the mustache and sombrero. And she said something like people will call it AI generated. And then J.D. Vance quote tweets it and says, oh, no, it's real. You know, and also. So sort of leaning into the joke in things, and I think people in our social media age, especially people who are really involved in politics get a lot of their news from X, and they follow the commentators online and listen to the podcasts. And, you know, that's just sort of where the energy is right now. How Democrats are reacting is saying, oh, this is AI generated. You shouldn't be doing this.

This is bad, blah, blah, blah. And it's just sort of repelling to people at this point. in our current stage of online politics. So I don't know if there... Then you see Gavin Newsom deliberately adopting the... Yeah, he's trying. Yeah. And his office is doing the all-caps tweets.

Yeah. It's like Trump does and on the truths and I guess fighting fire with fire. I guess. Politically. Yeah. Very low-stakes game of tit-for-tat on social media. Last time we saw that with two elected officials was the property tax fight of 23, where there were photoshopped images of California Day.

California Dade and Dan Patrick riding a surfboard. Wild times, wild times. It was Dan Patrick doing the interview with the money in his hands. You remember that too? Well, that was real. Yeah, no, that was real. But it's just showing how crazy things went from beams to reality real quick. Right.

Well, speaking of Tony Ortiz, he turned that into. a shirt. Yeah, you can buy the shirt with the meme. And I think it has Dan Patrick with a grill. And then he's got the money. There's dollar signs everywhere. It's pretty funny. Cameron, what do you go? The NFL announced that Bad Bunny will be headlining. Who the heck is that? I was going to ask you. I think I speak for everyone listening to this podcast. Y'all don't know who Bad Bunny is? I've heard the... Okay, explain to me, at least.

He is... Because you're so... You know, he's a recent star in the pop industry. Do you all actually not know who he is? I've heard the name, but I can't tell you anything about him. He's pretty darn popular. I couldn't name one song. Well, kind of the...

Do you listen to him? Not personally, but kind of the irony of it, though, is that he's doing this tour around the world, and he decided that he wasn't going to stop the United States to protest ice. like the Immigration's Enforcement, but now he's doing the Super Bowl. So I don't know what changed there, but interesting. Yeah, I just thought this was an odd pick for the NFL. I guess he's a huge artist, you know, internationally known. Mr. Worldwide.

Hit Bull would be a bad option, too. but I don't know he's popular probably amongst a certain demographic of people not either of us apparently well because we're going to sit there and watch the football game regardless yeah and they're trying to guess they're trying to get people who aren't going to watch the football game to watch right or I've heard rumors that there's going to be a counter halftime show someone's going to try and book creed

hell yeah oh my god I don't know how that's going to work because people don't like to chase their channel you know well creed is of course famous for having the greatest halftime show ever oh absolutely the cowboys at cowboy stadium um when what year was that 04 i don't know what but the lead singer wearing a cowboy's jersey and yeah uh repelling down from yeah that's amazing they need to just redo that yeah that or the actual sponge bob halftime show do you remember that at all i don't there was a they did a wasn't super Bowl, but I forget the name of it. But there was an episode where they do a halftime show, and it was, it's huge.

It was awesome. But a couple of years ago, they hinted that they were going to do that in the actual Super Bowl. And they, like, teased it. And it had, like, the tiny intro, and then that was it. And so everyone was mad about that. Just like they're going to be mad about Bad Bunny. Yeah. But what are you going to do?

Yeah. I'll be not watching the halftime show. We'll be up in stretching or doing something else. Yeah. In between me. Grabbing some food from the kitchen or something. Yeah, sitting in the same spot on the couch for this whole game. So hopefully the lines are in it.

We'll see. So mine this week is on Shadur Sanders, who is a quarterback with the Cleveland Browns. He's the son of Dionne Sanders. Primetime. Prime time. He's not been very primetime so far in the NFL. He is third string quarterback, or at least was. Now he might be second string, I don't know.

But he plays for the Browns. He was a big theme during the draft where he was supposed to go really high and dropped a lot, fell far down the board. And the question was coming in, is he going to be given a chance to start at all? He was pretty good in college, although Dylan Gabriel, who is until this point the second string QB for the Browns, he was pretty good in college, quite good. So they had these three quarterbacks. Browns decided after a few games to bench. Joe Flacco, who was, he's been in the league for a long time, and they decided to name Dylan Gabriel, the starter.

Well, that's a lead-up to this moment where Shudor Sanders was asked about this in the locker room, and he just pantomimed the entire interview. He was asked questions about, you know, what do you think about getting passed over for this starting chance? And he just was like, it was silence, but he was mouthing stuff. It was so weird Because I don't normally watch sports stuff on my X timeline But it kept getting spammed in my town mind So I was like, all right, I'll click on what this is

And I thought something was wrong with my phone Because he looked like he was talking But no words were coming out of his mouth And it was just a weird look as well Because he had these really tight braids But part of his hair was like uncut it was it was strange yeah it was strange all around yeah you know that one of the reasons there's a lot of reporting and speculation that one of the reasons he fell was because he

interviewed very poorly and like his like an attitude issue yeah attitude problem well this kind of backs that up and he can't just say go up there and you know obviously say the the canned responses of, you know, I'll be there when my chance comes and I'll be prepared and I'm cheering Dylan Gabriel on or a team. No, he's doing this and making a... Making it about himself. Making a scene. Yeah. Even though he didn't say anything, he was making a scene. It was just really weird and I don't think that's going to help his chances of becoming a start in the NFL. No, and it doesn't help with all the rumors that were going on like you mentioned. for the reasons why he fell in the draft either.

And, you know, it's just odd because you think a son of an NFL superstar would know how to act in draft room interviews or locker room interviews. Like, he's probably, he's growing up around the game. And being in these locker rooms, you kind of know what to say, what not to say. But to see something like this, it was just strange. Like I said, I watched the video and I thought my phone was broken. Okay, because he's, like, miming the words of not saying it was just, I'd never seen anything like it.

Well, and he was a good quarterback at Colorado. He was quite good. But there were a lot of obvious character issues there. You know, not horribly so, but, like, he put his Instagram handle on his, on the back of his jersey rather than his last name. That's just odd. It tells you his priorities, right? Yeah.

And he would get in arguments and trash talk with, you know, opposing quarterbacks. And, of course, that happens in football. But it was like really juvenile stuff. It wasn't just, hey, we're going to beat you. You know, what you suck. It was more like weird stuff. And this just continues to add data points in the fact that this kid is, he has got some problems he needs to work on. And here's the thing.

Everyone forgets all of this ever happened if he gets named the starter in a couple weeks and he is just throwing touchdowns running them in or whatever. And he's just an actual superstar. People are like, okay, we can forgive him on some of this stuff as long as he's performing on the field. But we just haven't seen that. Yeah. So maybe he grows up and changes and becomes a superstar and a full quarterback. We shall see.

we don't do predictions on this show except when we do yeah that was just so weird that was at a party last night and that was all anyone was talking about but yeah just like your Twitter feeds being spanned

so is the local watering hole with the stuff so very strange but that'll do it for this week's weekly roundup podcast. Cameron, Mary Lees, thanks for joining. Thanks for having me, Brad. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. You're untrachially obligated, and we will see you next week. Great.

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 stories, subscribe to the Texan at the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us Twitter or shooting us an email to Editor at the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.