The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 7, 2022

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ Or get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review!Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: The one and only governor’s race debate between Greg Abbott and Beto O’RourkeA federal judge allowing Texas’ lawsuit to exempt Texas-made suppressors from federal regulation to continueAn appeals court ruling the Texas secretary of state can withhold an 11,000-name long list of potential noncitizensThe Texas Lottery breaking its all-time sales record for the 12th year in a rowAustin’s Director of the Office of Police Oversight leaving after nine months of maternity leaveA national guardsman committing suicide in Eagle PassAbbott filling a new school safety office created after the Uvalde shootingA lawsuit over potential fraud in an election over water fluoridation in FredericksburgAn independent report showing the Bexar County jail meets its regulatory requirementsThe trial beginning in a suit over Amarillo approving over a quarter billion in debt without voter approvalA state judge halting a utility board election after claims the wrong members were put on the ballotTwo Guatemalan men pleading guilty to deadly human smuggling charges

Happy, happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses the one and only governor's race debate between Greg Abbott and Beto O'Rourke, a federal judge allowing Texas's lawsuit to exempt Texas-made suppressors from federal regulation to continue. An appeals court ruling the Texas Secretary of State can withhold an 11,000--long list of potential non-citizens. The Texas lottery breaking its all-time sales record for the 12th year in a row. Austin's director of the Office of Police Oversight leaving after nine months of maternity leave. A National Guardsman committing suicide in Eagle Pass. Abbott filling a new school safety office created after the Uvalde shooting.

A lawsuit over potential fraud in an election over water fluoridation in Fredericksburg. An independent report showing the Bexar County Jail meets its regulatory requirements. The trial beginning in a suit over Amarillo approving over a quarter billion dollars in debt without voter approval. A state judge halting a utility board election after claims the wrong members were put on the ballot. And two Guatemalan men pleading guilty to deadly human smuggling charges. Plus, meet our newest full-time reporter. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy, folks. It's Mackenzie here with Hayden and Brad in office and Matthew and Hudson,

remote gentlemen. Thank you all for joining us. Right off the top, I do want to say Matt Stringer officially joined our team this week as the fourth full-time reporter here at The Texan. We're so excited that he's no longer just serving our readers in a part-time capacity so matthew welcome back to the podcast and welcome to the full-time team i'm happy to be here um i also mckenzie yes bradley i would love to answer a question. What is the name of a baby platypus? I was informed today by some random dude that they're called puggles. That is indeed correct. They're also pretty cute.

And Brad, do you know what a group of puggles is called? What was the word I just said? I forget. Paddle? A paddle? A paddle, yes. Which makes sense. They have little paddle tails, don't they? don't platypuses have little paddle tails tails

look like little yes they do you are correct paddles so a paddle of puggles oh that's really fun i love hearing it together that's exactly right did you know that did you also know that platypuses are venomous what are they really i kid you not i actually think i've heard that uh i think it's only the i think it's the male platypus has a venomous spike on their back foot oh wow you might have heard that platypus are venomous but did you know that their venom could also help treat diabetes male platypus have half inch spurs on each of their hind legs each spur is connected to a cure all great gland or modified sweat gland which creates a powerful venom so they use it in hunting? They must like kick their fish or something and say, hey, you're poisoned now?

Honestly, I cannot imagine a platypus hunting. It's not very aerodynamic. I have a question on platypuses. Are there any platypuses in Texas? No, I think they're just... There's beavers in Big Bend National Park and the Rio Grande. There's been beavers there forever and ever but i'm just wondering are there is there a paddle of puggles in texas aren't platypus just in

australia i don't know but they're weird looking creatures and i hope i never encounter one do you not like them i just don't like the way they look they look strange hayden unlike pandas platypi will procreate and we don't have to spend millions and millions of dollars every year to keep their species alive because they do it on their own so there's your your uh daily message of let the pandas go extinct i hate it only males produce this venom since production rises during the breeding season it is theorized that the venom is used as an offensive weapon to assert dominance and to control territory during this period because they eat like insects and shrimp so they don't really have big prey that they're going after or anything they're not like

i don't know so it's just defensive and i'm gonna answer one more question where our platypus found and then we will we will actually talk about news folks i promise australia australia i should have done that matthew there are no platypi in texas that'd be fun though good for hayden hayden's glad they're i am glad he's all about that. Well, folks, now that we've answered some questions about just a random animal, we're actually going to get into the news, what you sign up for each week. Brad, we're going to start with you. Last Friday, you traveled to Edinburgh for the one and only debate between Governor Abbott and Beto O'Rourke.

What did you think of it? What was it like? Give us a rundown. Yeah, as much as these two candidates probably would have liked to have those poisonous spikes on their hind legs that they could hit the other with uh they did not have that instead they just had words um so at this debate uh which was uh of closed door, they had three moderators. It was streamed throughout the state of Texas in every county. And there was no audience. So there were no outside factors, just the moderators and the candidates. But they argued about everything under the sun basically with a focus on border the border uh responses to the uvalde shooting the power grid education reform energy and abortion

uh you could throw in public safety in there i'll talk about that in a minute but just basically any issue that you can try and uh shove into an hour debate yeah uh with commercials i think they had i think they did um they they did and so that yielded not a lot of time to go into specifics on a lot of things um that's kind of how debates work now and that means they're kind of useless yeah unless you can really get one over on your opponent. But ultimately, at least my impression was, neither candidate really stood out much over the other, which I would say itself is a win for Abbott. He has the most to lose going into a debate with O'Rourke. And O'Rourke came out firing at him, but Abbott did too.

Abbott fired right back. Actually, Abbott was the first one to attack, uh, one of the candidates, the other candidate, and he obviously attacked O'Rourke. Uh, but he came out swinging too.

And so, um, because it was kind of a draw, it's really kind of a win for Abbott because, um, incumbency, incumbency. And he's already got the

polling average lead before the debate it was 8% roughly we'll see if there are any polls that are released either this week or next week with post-debate impressions from voters but in all I don't think

much if any ground was gained by O'Rourke during this debate. And it's the only opportunity he's going to have to go after the incumbent directly in person, face to face. What were you kind of talked through what they talked about, but give us prevalent themes in the debate. Valdi earlier that day, uh, 35 families of, um, children and the two teachers that, uh, were killed in the massacre. Um, they endorsed him. Um, and so he talked about that quite a bit and he, um, also talked about abortion quite a bit. He touched on that issue specifically saying that he is for restoring the Roe v. Wade doctrine as the prevailing legal policy, which notably allows abortion up until birth. Polling has shown this kind of odd discrepancy on this issue.

A majority of people oppose Roe being overturned, but then very, very few actually support abortion up until birth. And so you can't really have it both ways if you're strictly talking about policy and uh it's just a very odd breakdown of this this one issue that it's obviously very um very heated although road didn't allow no restrictions on abortions correct it did allow some restrictions because states were able to enact frameworks for restrictions on abortion they were just there were just certain tests in place. Am I incorrect? I thought it eliminated any state restriction on abortion. Now, states tested that,

and that's what led to the legal challenge that overturned it, and there were multiple of those over decades. But my impression, my understanding is that it made abortion a constitutional right and therefore um negated any state law restricting it whether it was you know like a california law that allowed it really really late or a texas law that restricted it entirely you know okay so um if i'm wrong someone can correct correct me, but that was my impression. And then for his part, Abbott linked O'Rourke to the president and the current state of the economy hampered by inflation.

He also pointed to public safety themes that are especially prevalent in Harris County, those being lax bail policies and police funding reductions. And so my takeaway were those were the biggest, the most overarching themes of this. They discussed a lot more than that, but those were the top things. For sure. Real fast before we jump into the rest of the news, we have a lot to get to today, but I wanted you to talk a little bit about the behind the scenes of what it was like there at the debate and what kind of access reporters had. There was no crowd, including media. They were not allowed in the actual debate hall. So media was kind of siphoned off in a side room. And we were watching it on screen like everybody else was. And we were just one room away, not in a different county or all the way across the state and it was cool i'd never been to enberg and it was interesting to just go see a new place first of all um the uh

next star was was um overseeing operations of this and they had you know the news nation there um providing a tv broadcast and interviews and things like that which you were on i was on yes that was an interesting experience never done that before um and then they had a spin room only o'rourke showed up to the spin room now each candidate had like surrogates show up to it um but Abbott as soon as the debate ended he went to uh his party his party had a um a YR young Republicans event that was watching him and one really odd thing that I noticed was during the debate you know I'm in a room with 80 reporters um all from tons of different news outlets and there were twice i can't remember exactly what was said

but two times um the reporters laughed slash some kind of clapped at something o'rourke said wow and it was just i was just sitting there like, I can't believe this. No wonder Abbott didn't want the reporters in the room, you know, like it was, it only happened twice, but still that shouldn't happen at all. Yeah.

And I'm not sure why I didn't see who it was. It was, there were multiple people. It wasn't just one person, but I was in the kind of front row. So I didn't see, I didn't have the pan view of everybody, but, um, yeah, that was, that was definitely surprising. Um, but yeah, overall really cool experience. Nice to get out of the office, go travel.

Uh, just glad to be able to do it. Absolutely. Well, Bradley, thank you, Matthew. We're going to come, um, to do it. Absolutely. Well, Bradley, thank you. Matthew, we're going to come to you next. You wrote a piece this week about Texas-made suppressors and kind of where this lawsuit and this federal

regulation is at at this point. Give us a little bit of an update on what is happening in that case. Well, sure, Mackenzie. This past week, a lawsuit headed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had a little bit of a procedural victory. The background on what's going on is this past legislative session, State Representative Tom Oliverson filed, passed a bill into law that was the Texas Suppressor Freedom legislation. And basically what it says is any Texas citizen can make a Texas-made lawsuit on your behalf to get a court order from a federal court preventing the federal government from enforcing federal firearms regulations against you.

If you win the injunction, you can then go and make a Texas-made suppressor. So under that law, Attorney General Ken Paxton and several other attorneys representing some plaintiffs that want to make Texas-made suppressors filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. And it went into federal court before Judge Mark Pittman. And the ATF basically argued that firearm suppressors were a firearms accessory and not protected by the Second Amendment and made a whole host of other objections to the lawsuit seeking to have it dismissed. And what happened this past week was Judge Pittman ruled that the federal government didn't have a good argument in their

motion to dismiss, and he allowed the suit to proceed. Tony McDonald, who's an attorney based out of Austin, Texas, is one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in this case. And he posted on social media that it was a strong sign that Judge Pittman did not agree with the federal government's various different arguments that they threw up, and that the case had some interesting looking merit going forward. Absolutely. Well, Matthew, thank you for picking up that beat for us. You'll be reporting on Second Amendment issues going forward. We appreciate your coverage. Hudson, let's talk about some more judicial action going on here. A federal judge ruled in favor of Texas. Talk to us about the

case and the controversy behind it. Yeah. So last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court decision that ordered Texas to release a list that they compiled of registered voters that the Texas Secretary of State deemed to be probable non-citizens. So this list was a part of an audit of the 2020 election to root out any election fraud that may have occurred in Texas. This was phase one of the audit and was conducted over Tarrant, Dallas, Collin, and Harris counties. And they ultimately found that there were 11,000 potential non-citizen registered voters. So the plaintiffs in the case, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund,

and the Campaign Legal Center and others claimed that this list was bound to be inaccurate based upon the manner in which they compiled it. And they sued to gain public access to the list to check the citizenship status of all of those accused of voter fraud. So the Fifth Circuit claimed that the plaintiffs do not have standing to sue for the list as they suffer no consequences for not seeing it. They did not sue on behalf of someone accused of voter fraud and have no connection to the Texas voting process. Got it. How did the Secretary of State compile the list?

So they used data from the Department of Public Safety appointments. Essentially, they looked at the last time an individual went to the DPS to renew a license, and if they indicated there that they were a non-citizen, the Secretary of State would look at the time in which that individual registered to vote. If the individual in question had registered to vote up to 30 days prior to the last DPS visit, they were included on the list of probable non-citizen voters. Has Texas conducted a similar study of probable non-citizen voters before? Yes. As recently as 2019, the then Secretary of State David Whitley compiled a similar list of possible non-citizen voters and found around 100,000. However, his process was flawed and he used the same DPS data, but instead seeing if that individual had registered to vote after the time of the visit. Because licenses do not need to be renewed for around eight years, many of the people on his list were listed in error and others were naturalized citizens. He caught a ton of heat from

this and it led to a settlement with LULAC and his resignation. So the new process seemingly fixes the issues with Whitley's and should lead to less errors. What do election officials do with these lists and were there any errors on the iteration? So election officials who receive the list will reach out to the people accused of non-citizenship and will ask them to confirm their citizenship. If they cannot or do not respond within a certain time frame, they will be purged from the rolls. And there actually have been some errors on this list. The district court judge says in the pre-appeal opinion that in Tarrant County,

at least 119 of the 675 suspected non-citizen voters provided documentation confirming their citizenship. Likewise, 93 of the 385 in Travis County provided proof, and 88 of the 302 in Collin County provided proof of citizenship. There you go. Well, Hudson, thank you for your coverage of that issue. We'll keep an eye on it. Hayden, we're coming to you. What were the highlights of the Texas Lottery Commission's revenue report for fiscal year 2022? Every year, the Texas Lottery publishes a report that includes the sales from draw games and scratch ticket games. It also includes the amount that the Lottery contributed to the foundation school fund and veterans causes most of the prizes most of the sales that are gathered by the texas lottery commission are paid out in prizes to players of the games but the the $8.3 billion sales figure for fiscal year 2022 was the highest sales

figure in the lottery's history, and the lottery began in 1991 when then-Governor Ann Richards purchased the first lottery ticket. Last year, in fiscal year 2021, the total sales figure was $8.1 billion, which is about a 2.3% increase. And this is the 12th year in a row that the Texas Lottery Commission has exceeded its prior year's sales record. $1.97 billion of the sales translated into revenue for the Foundation School Fund, and another $26 million went to veterans' causes. And the lottery always touts its contributions to these two philanthropic purposes. There are contributions to the public school system in Texas, and then the relatively smaller amount that the TLC contributes to veterans' causes. Why has the lottery been so successful? Well, Gary Grief, the executive director of the lottery, emphasized that a $100 scratch

ticket game was unveiled in May, and he indicated that this is the first of its kind in the U.S. lottery industry. There was also a historic jackpot in July that included a $1.33 billion prize for the Mega Millions game, which most states participate in. And that week, there was a record-setting $264 million in sales for the Texas lottery. And that was the most in sales that the lottery had ever reported in a single week. That pushed the lottery over the edge this year for a $8.3 billion sales figure. And of course, nearly 21,000 retailers offer the lottery's games. And Mr. Grief emphasized that they are continuing to see success even after many entertainment options reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic.

And during the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the locations that offered the lottery's games were considered essential businesses. So one of the reasons for the 12th year streak in sales figures for the lottery is they did not necessarily suffer a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. So those are just some of the factors that have contributed to the lottery's success. And it's notable because Texas lawmakers in 2013 briefly decided that they were going to abolish the lottery. And later that day, they changed their minds. So after the lottery almost got the chopping block, they're still reporting high sales figures. And the legislature may consider expanding gambling laws next session,

although Speaker Phelan recently indicated that it is unlikely. Well, thank you, Hayden. Speaking of jackpots, if you enjoy our podcast each week, subscribe to The Texan. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep churning out news. When you subscribe to The Texan, you'll get access to stories like all the ones we've been discussing on this podcast as soon as they're published, so that you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90,

which comes out to just $7.50 per month. And we just brought back a fan favorite merch item. New subscribers will now get a free fake news stops here mug. By far our most popular merch item of all time. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Now let's jump back to chatting about the stories from this week. Bradley,'s jump back to chatting about the stories from this week. Bradley, there was a notable development in Austin this week with its Office of Police Oversight Director. What happened? Farrah Muscadine, the OPO director since 2017,

resigned her post this week after a tumultuous couple of years. That in itself is notable, especially after a third-party arbitrator ruled at the end of 21 that Sheener office had exceeded its authority laid out in the city's police labor contract by aiding or conducting investigations into alleged officer misconduct that were not allowed under what the city negotiated with its police union. Those responsibilities are for internal affairs in the police department. But what makes this even more eye-catching is that she has been on maternity leave for the last nine months, and her resignation became effective one business day before she was set to return from that leave. Muscadine has been an instrumental player in the reimagined policing efforts in Austin. For a broad overview of her,

I published a feature piece on her and things that have happened under her tenure from earlier this year. I asked the city what she was, um, making as OPO director and she was making $157,000 salary. They did not tell me immediately what, um, maternity leave benefits she was getting. Uh, they made me file an open records request. And so they're going to drag their feet on that for as long as they can, I'm sure. And I will probably hear sometime next month yeah um we'll let you know then yes yes so um that is the end of of her tenure as opio director and actually i saw on linkedin she changed her

place of residence to washington dc and so she's already wow um yeah that's that what's next uh not much other than the city manager spencer cronk said that a nationwide search will be conducted to find a replacement they the um office will continue under the person who has been acting director or interim director while Muscadine was on leave. But this department itself is pivotal to the reimagined policing crowd's views on how they can change public safety in Austin. There's actually a, um, a ballot initiative on the May,

2023 ballot next year to increase the power and authority of the OPO. So, um, we'll see how that goes. But, um, next up is finding replacement. There you go,

Bradley. Thank you, Hayden. We're coming back to you on a more somber note. What do we know about the recent death of a Texas National Guardsman? Well, this week, Governor Abbott's office confirmed that a Texas National Guardsman died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Eagle Pass. It was reported that this individual was deployed on Operation Lone Star, which of course is the state's border security effort. Fox News reported that the individual was on an orchard farm, and when he passed away, the owner of the property found him

on the property, and that was when there was a large law enforcement presence. And Fox then reported that there had been a law enforcement presence there, and then they confirmed that he had passed away by suicide. There were statements by the governor's office and his Democratic opponent, Beto O'Rourke. Abbott said in his statement, Celia and I are deeply saddened to hear of the tragic loss of a soldier with the Texas National Guard. Our hearts go out to the family and loved ones of the soldier. And Beto O'Rourke commented, I'm so sorry to hear that a 10th Texas National Guard member has lost their life while deployed under Operation Lone Star. My thoughts are with his family, community, and the members of the

Guard who served all of us alongside him. They should never be used as political pawns." This is in the context of Beto himself running for governor and commenting on the merit of Operation Lone Star. He has criticized Abbott and accused him of making this a politicized mission, and the media certainly was eager to weave a narrative after the death of this guardsman, but the governor's office pointed out that there are resources for those who are suffering from mental health issues, and those are available on the Texas Military Department's website, as well as the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. That is all for this report, but there were also other suicide deaths from earlier this year that were reported prior to the Republican primary, And there were criticisms of Operation Lone Star not adequately

addressing those concerns. And it seems that the governor is seeking to get those resources out there for people to access. Well, Hayden, thank you for your coverage. Hudson, we're coming to you. Governor Abbott announced the pick for a new Texas Education Agency position. What is the new position and who was chosen? So after the Uvalde shooting, Governor Abbott directed the TEA to create a new position called the Chief of School Safety and Security. The goal of the position was to increase communication between government agencies like the TEA, the governor's office, and local school districts, and to ensure that all school safety programs are being followed to the

across the state. The pick for the position is John P. Scott, a former Secret Service agent under the George Bush and Barack Obama administrations. After his time serving directly with U.S. presidents, he moved to Dallas to help run the Secret Service field office there. So both Abbott and TEA Commissioner Mike Marath are confident that he will do well within the position. What other school safety initiative has Texas pursued since Uvalde? So following the announcement of the newly created position in June, the Texas legislature approved $100 million in funding to go towards a number of school safety programs. Included in this funding is $50 million for bullet-resistant shields, $15 million for various mental health programs, $10 million for local law enforcement training, and $10 million for local law enforcement training and $7 million for the Texas School Safety Center, which is a research area in Texas state that helps find ways to keep Texas schools safer.

So interestingly, they also allocated $17 million for silent panic alert systems for Texas schools. They gave this funding to the TEA to divvy up between Texas school districts. So in June, around June 30th, the TEA released a memo regarding this funding with the statement, additional funds have just been approved by Governor Abbott and legislative leadership for silent panic alert systems for schools. We are currently working on the details of this grant and will provide more information as soon as it is available. Have the panic alert systems been implemented in Texas schools? So there may well be panic alert systems already in place at some schools with extra funding to pay for them, but no new guidance has been issued from the TEA on when funding will be given to the

school districts. The only memo with the tag school safety since the June memo have been related to checking safety procedures and ensuring that emergency plans are in place. There is no more publicly available guidance that shows what are the next steps are to to get that funding to put those panic systems in place. So it's interesting to see that. Thank you, Hudson, for your coverage. Bradley, a trial begins next week for an alleged election fraud case in fredericksburg interesting local story give us the details uh in 2019 a ballot proposition to prohibit fluoridation of fredericksburg municipal water supply failed um it was very small turnouts it was like just over a thousand people that voted in it. Wow.

I believe maybe 1500, regardless, very small. A case that alleges fraud or errors that throw that result into question is coming to court next, next week. So right off the bat, you know, this isn't just, you know, uh, a challenge to an election for a candidate. This is an issue and an issue that is very obscure, fluoridation in water systems. It would have prohibited that in Fredericksburg. So petitioners point to various discrepancies,

such as a group of unsigned ballots, another group of missing ballots during the recount, and asserts that poll watchers were obstructed during the recount this dispute kind of snowballed with other things over the past two three years and created a situation where all three elections administrators or the employees at the elections admin resigned at once earlier this year. Left them scrambling to kind of fill in the gaps. But I think first and foremost, this is notable because a court is actually agreeing to take it up.

You don't normally, a lot of these kinds of lawsuits are just dismissed out of hand. One that comes to mind was Jennifer Flex in Austin alleging that there were discrepancies in her 2020 primary election runoff election against Justin Berry. For Texas House. For Texas House. And that was not taken up by a court. It was thrown out almost immediately. But this is not. This is actually going to trial. So you combine

that with the just really odd, weird surrounding context of what this issue was about, what this proposition was. And it's I find it really interesting. So it'll be something to watch next week. Yeah. Something notable out in Fredericksburg. Love a good trial.

Yep. Have any of y'all seen the Parks and Rec episode where they're trying to make fluoride and water more like appealing to voters have any of y'all seen that episode i'm sure i have but i can't remember you i don't know why i think you would really like it but i really think you would parks and rec has been recommended to me plenty of times you haven't watched parks and rec watched little clips but i haven't watched the show considering your interest oh same for you matt yeah i i watched clips and stuff and um i can tell i would like the ron swanson character a lot uh but yes little sebastian little sebastian yes hudson oh my gosh don't get me i'll start singing a song we all know um but okay then

hudson do you remember that episode where they were trying to get fluoride in water? No, I don't, but I do like Parks and Rec. Okay. But I don't think it's funnier than The Office, though. That's, yeah, I'm opposite. The Office, I have to be in the mood to watch, but I am rewatching it right now, and it's delightful. I love The Office, too. But Parks and Rec is my jam.

I would say, I will quickly summarize this whole point. They're trying to get fluoride in water leslie nope's trying to get fluoride in water but voters are concerned and it's conspiracy they think they're gonna you know put well something in the water where that they that they can't trust right it's like oh gosh what are you putting you almost quoted alex jones there seriously that's like that's like what they're kind of probably parody i'm sure um and so the parks department starts putting together like new marketing campaigns florida they get like dancers and shiny costumes up front and so they call it tea dazzle and like what anyway it was very funny now the people that wanted this proposition they had like actual reasons for why they didn't why they felt this was a health risk um it wasn't a parks and rec no it was not a parody

um i don't know the science behind it like i don't know if how valid fluoride uh how valid health concerns are with fluoride in water but um i looked at the the websites and they um they had actual reasons so um this case will not be litigating that they will be litigating the election stuff okay well i just wanted to talk about parks and rec when an opportunity arose and i took it because it's a great show and all of you you've seen it i said i have yeah but you don't remember this episode i don't remember this episode that's fine there are many episodes there are a lot of episodes. Okay, back to news. Broadly, thank you for that.

And Hudson, we're going to go to you next. Bexar County Jail has been in the news this week. Tell us about it. So the Bexar County Jail has come under a lot of criticism recently because of people accusing it of poor infrastructure conditions and a serious lack of staffing. Over the past year, the Deputy Sheriff's Association of Bexar County, which is the local sheriff's union, has highlighted issues with the jail, and they have been posting videos of ceiling leaks and sewage erupting from shower drains, which is pretty alarming. And overall, the videos kind of show dilapidated infrastructure that's kind of nasty.

But they have pushed the sheriff's, they've also pushed the sheriff's office to increase pay for correction officers and claim that they are underpaid in comparison to other Texas counties. So following these criticisms, the commissioner's court and the sheriff's office pursued independent audits of the facility to determine what issues need to be addressed. So they each did their own audit. So the results of the sheriff's audit were posted last week and showcased some interesting findings. When were the results expected? And tell us about those findings. So the results were expected months ago. And that's another thing that the union has talked about. And they said that the county commissioner's court

has had these results apparently for a month. They've been drafted, but they have not been public until this week. So they find in the report, actually, that despite serious understaffing by around 300 officers, this jail still meets all statutory and regulatory requirements. So this is a sharp difference from the DSABC's take that the jail is in deplorable condition, as they wrote in a press release with some of these videos. So the consultant's biggest recommendation was a serious pay increase for all officers in the jail. Then they confirmed that Bexar County has some of the lowest paid correctional officers in all metropolitan areas in the state. And they asked that, or they recommended that they increase pay across the board by around 20 percent for all staff.

Another interesting aspect of this issue is that the Texas Commission on Jail Standards is also confirmed earlier this year that the Bexar County Jail meets all necessary standards. So this issue will be interesting to follow and will be a key topic of discussion in the race for county judge. As longtime county judge Nelson wolf is retiring this year former county commissioner trish debary a republican has made this a serious part of her campaign and um she's facing off against former district court judge peter sakai a democrat and and they'll be facing off for the election this year hud Hudson thanks for that coverage fascinating to watch these local issues come to the forefront of you know county-wide races so fun thank you so much for that coverage Matthew we're coming back to you here a local water district near Odessa is seeing quite the legal saga with two elected board members suing the district

saying they were put up for re-election this november problem is they say the wrong offices at the wrong time were on the ballot what is the latest development on this case well thanks mckenzie yeah this is a this is a really interesting case developing out of vector county uh near odessa uh so it issue there is a uh water, which is a local governmental entity or a municipal utility district, they call those MUDs, that services drinking water to some 30,000 or 40,000 people in this large unincorporated area west of Odessa, appropriately called West Odessa. And the district is governed by a five-member elected board of directors. And under the rules, three are supposed to come up for election one year and then two on the next election. And state law apparently requires the elections to be held in May. The problem is the board called an election for this November for two board members, Troy Walker and Will Kapoff. And after pointing out multiple objections to the rest of the board and the board not listening to it, they filed suit against the district saying you have put us up on the wrong ballot and we're not the ones that are supposed to be up.

That actually there was supposed to be an election back in May of this year with the other three board members. And so they filed that in state district court late last month, and just this past week, a state district judge sided with the plaintiffs, issuing a temporary restraining order against the district, blocking the district from moving forward with the November election. The temporary straining order has some pretty strong language in it from the judge. He wrote that they called the election in violation of statute, and he scheduled a hearing for a preliminary injunction to be held on October 13th, where they will discuss a full court order that either permanently blocks the election and sets the district back on track, or perhaps goes the other way and it could still allow the election to move forward.

Interestingly enough, this is going to happen right on the heels of early voting. And so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out after the hearing for the preliminary injunction on the 13th. Absolutely. Well, thank you for that, Matthew. Speaking of local coverage, Brad, we're going to continue with some of this here. You spent the last couple of days watching a trial out in Amarillo on a tax or debt issue here. Give us an overview. So this pertains to the Civic Center issue we discussed on a podcast a few weeks back. After having a $275 million bond to move City Hall and expand its Civic Center rejected by voters in 2020, city officials went on a two-year journey to find a way around the defeat and complete the

project anyway part of that included issuing a 260 million dollar 260 million dollars in tax anticipation notes uh basically bridge loans um way money loans to get you from point a to point b until revenues start coming in um Those do not require voter approval. They have since been sued by businessman Alex Fairley over the maneuver, which alleges the city broke open meetings laws when they approved this and abridged the spirit of TANs to pass it. TANs must be repaid in seven years. The city then planned, the next part of their scheme here was to

refinance the debt with certificates of obligation, which also do not require voter approval and can be paid off over decades. There's a three-year, now the reason they couldn't just issue a CO immediately is because there's a three-year moratorium on issuing COs after a bond defeat at the ballot box. But the city didn't want to wait that long. So at the conclusion of this two-day trial, Judge Bill Souder, he heard testimony from witnesses and oral arguments from counsel on the case. And at his conclusion, he said a judgment should be issued within 10 days, if not sooner.

Is there anything you found particularly interesting. While watching. Well I found much of it interesting. But that's because I find this stuff interesting. You're a nerd. But once this decision comes out. I'll have a more detailed piece. On the claims and findings.

But something that really stuck out to me. Was how forcefully the office of the attorney general. Was during this. Before the hearings began. the OEG filed a pretrial brief that broke with its previous relative neutrality in a previous filing and really put the screws on the city. And then during the trial, the attorney general's representative that was in the courtroom the whole time was even more forceful in condemning what the city did i'm not sure um how having such a heavy hitter involved in this obscure case will will play out but you'd think it has to count for something at least um especially if the alternative is the

attorney general not being involved so um that to me was probably the most notable thing right off the bat yeah absolutely so why is this important so in the tax and government code there are so many loopholes that locale localities may take advantage of um once the legislature closes or partially closes one another's found um i had never even heard of tans before this and emma emma rillo used them to issue $260 million of debt soon after voters levied their opinion, which was to reject it. By the way,

that's the largest use of TNs in Texas history by a mile. The second closest was by San Antonio, a city many times larger than Amarillo and the total fiscal note was $60 million. That is a massive difference.

This is going to be a big theme in the legislative session next year. I would expect, I wrote a piece about how legislators said in a hearing that they're going to address this, but I would wager that they're going to address more than just TAMs. Yeah.

This is a continuing theme. We saw it happen with the emergency declaration loophole in 2020 when after the pandemic, counties and cities got around the new SB2 limits of three and a half percent increase uh caps and then could then increase property taxes even more um we saw it we've seen it with certificates of obligation and the legislature tried to curtail those somewhat last year although the final bill was a lot different than the initial bill which would have kind of really prohibited the use of of ceos on anything except like refinancing debt or emergency emergency needs such as like a fire truck but it got watered down by the end and so there's a lot of room on this stuff and i think based on what i watched in the hearings in both chambers legislators are

pissed and um these they're pissed at these cities and counties that keep finding ways around the intent of these tax, these debt issuance allowances and most notably is these TANs which are not at all supposed to be used to build a $260 million civic center. And weren't really on people's radars either as something to address.

Yep, absolutely. So fascinating watching this particularly in that we're a few months away from the legislative session thank you bradley hayden last story before we jump into other segments um what were the charges uh that two guatemalan nationals faced in texas well two men one 22 years old and another 26 years old. Both were found guilty. They pleaded guilty last week on charges of conspiracy to transport and harbor aliens for financial gain and resulting in death. It is connected to a case in August of last year in which what the DOJ described as a young indigenous Guatemalan woman was found dead at a trailer near Odessa, where there were other illegal immigrants found. They had not died, but they were found having been smuggled into Texas.

And they found other evidence of a human smuggling operation, including ledgers and about 100 cell phones. Prosecutors indicated that the men who they were working with have been arrested in Guatemala and are currently awaiting extradition to the United States. to what the DOJ described as a prolific alien smuggling organization that charges individuals between $10,000 and $12,000 to be smuggled from Guatemala to the United States via Mexico. The Homeland Security Investigations branch of DHS led the investigation, and the acting executive associate director commented, he said, quote, human smugglers who conspire to undermine federal laws for profit have no regard for human life and combating this horrific crime of exploitation is one of our agency's top priorities. Rest assured, HSI special agents will continue to utilize their broad range of authority and international footprint to identify, investigate, and disrupt domestic and transnational criminal organizations engaged in human smuggling operations around the world end quote wow well thank you for that cover

trade and wouldn't be um our podcast without ending on a border story that seems to be a trend let's move on to the tweetery section of the podcast brad what did you see on twitter this week uh it is border related but it's election related as well so i saw a cook political report which puts out these ratings for congressional districts they changed to uh south texas districts in the direction of republicans uh texas 15 which is um i believe that's that's um uh monica de la cruz is running in that one against michelle vallejo i believe yeah i think she's a lower profile democrat yes yes um that moved from lean republican to likely republican um and then we saw tex Texas 34 which is probably the the biggest of the the clashes between incumbent Myra Flores and incumbent Vicente Gonzalez yeah this is the the district that Gonzalez he's currently the uh representative for Texas 15 but after redistricting he is moving to run in texas 34 and then flores won the um the

special election in when was that like earlier this summer right or uh she won the special election yeah june to um to complete the term and uh so she is also an incumbent uh that moved though from lean dem to to a toss-up and so two very notable ratings changes there both in south texas republicans are pouring in resources um that's going to continue we'll see if democrats can try and match it there you go thank you brad hayden what'd you see i saw an interesting poll from WFAA. They are also the ones who participated in the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation poll. They produced more poll results of Hispanic Texans, and this one indicated that 48% of Hispanic Texans support the border wall and 45% oppose. The margin of error for the poll was 4.5%,

so it is possible that there was enough error that it was more or less a toss-up in the poll, whether Hispanic Texans who are likely to vote, these are Hispanic likely voters in Texas, support the Texas border wall project, not the federal border wall project, but the state of Texas building the border wall. And this was also part of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation poll. And I thought that was an interesting data point, especially given that these poll results were placed in the context of Hispanic individuals are now a majority in the

state of Texas and white individuals are not. So it is the subject of fascination by political observers. Absolutely. Very good. Hudson, what did you see this week? I saw some stuff about essentially the tweet that I, that I saw was a bridge that had been built in Florida that connects, I guess, a, a hurricane ravaged Island back to the mainland. And apparently it was, it was created and constructed in three days. And it looks like a pretty, pretty like substantially sized bridge. And so I think it's indicative of DeSantis performing pretty well post Ian. Um, you know, I, I, I think that a lot of Floridians are, are pretty happy with the

way that he's handled the situation, given how destructive and terrible that hurricane was. Um, and another thing that I've seen is that it is fat bear week in Katmai national park in Alaska. And essentially they find the, the largest bear, um, in this national park on in coastal Alaska that has the most amount of grizzly bears in the entire world, like per geographic area. And, you know, these guys, these guys are huge. So I encourage everyone listening to look up Fat Bear Week and see who the top contenders are. I got to interrupt.

How do you figure out which one is the fattest bear or the biggest bear? I mean, are they putting these bears on scale? I don't think so. I think it's more just visual. I think you can see these guys look pretty big. I could literally go vote. I could literally go vote. Oh.

Last year was Otis. Also, you can watch a live stream of the bears at I i think it's called brooks falls in catmine national park and they have like a live stream that's going that you can see the bears like catching fish it's pretty cool that's so fun well i'm gonna vote on on the fattest bear after this this is definitely something i am doing have you guys heard of um um admiralty island i think it's admiralty island in alaska no i've not okay yeah you haven't it sounds fun

it's it does it does although if you go you might get eaten by a bear oh because there are more bears than humans on this so they're not going to put you on the chamber of commerce for this for this site no well they might because i think it's the coolest island what was it called i think it's admiralty island and i'm looking it up here to admiralty island where you might get eaten by a bear but it's a great time yeah well like people have gotten eaten there 100 but there are also people who go and like push the envelope of like photography you know like they kind of like there are people who fall into the grand canyon because they don't follow the rules right you gotta kind of you gotta kind of realize they're grizzly bears

like they're big old kodiak brown bears um but it's very worth looking up and i forget the stats but it's like two bears for every square mile i believe on the island bears it's a ton of bears so many bears and brown bears are so rare and think about it you can just go to this island and you're like guaranteed to see one how big is this island um great question um i don't have the square mileage off the top of my head but i can it is 145 kilometers long and 56 kilometers wide okay i have absolutely no idea i don't either. Just don't have a picnic basket with you if you go visit. It is 1,493 square miles

according to Google. Okay. I was on a whale watching I don't know why I'm I was on a whale watching trip and we drove a boat by it and they pointed it out and gave us some facts about it and then just moved on as if it was like a

normal thing and i was like this is insane this is crazy and i want to go there and also i don't so that's roughly 3 000 bears right yes grizzly bear island admiralty island is known as the most bear infested island on earth because it has the highest density of brown bears globally. Yeah, seeing them on Admiralty Island is the most clear. And if you said two per square mile, right? Is that the number? 3,500 Kodiak bears. 30.

What? What do they eat? Like fish? Like a salmon run or something? Fish? Sushi. Yeah, I bet it's a lot of fish picnic baskets an occasional tourist you know did he say picnic i was gonna make that joke

oh well done um anyway hudson thanks for bringing up bears so i could talk about that island because it's one of my favorite facts we've got we have a lot of like fun um biology facts today we talked about bears and puggles platypuses puggle puggles puggles yeah it sounds like a harry potter animal it sounds like a fictional creature yes it 100 does um okay matt i've not forgotten about you. I just got distracted by bears. What did you see on Twitter this week? But it's looking like he is actually going to go through with the massive acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, I think is what the report was. How long have we been talking about this? It's been going on forever. It seems. Like since maybe end of May, early June, I think.

Yeah, it's been going on for a while. But like at first he was gonna buy it and then they were like oh no you're not and he's like oh okay well you've got a bunch of fake accounts and they're like oh uh well we're gonna make this point we're gonna we're gonna make you buy us and he's like you're not gonna make me buy you and now he's like okay i'm gonna buy you so that's what happened at this point i'll believe it when the SEC says it is done. Yeah, 100%. And his name is on the paperwork. 100%.

But what got this all to my attention, because this is all just kind of glazed over and I don't really pay attention to the whole thing, is there's this hilarious video going around on Twitter. And it's a scene from some TV series, but it basically starts off with the elevators at Twitter open up and Elon Musk has this paintball gun and he steps out and every employee that's fired, he starts shooting them with yellow paintballs. And it was just like, if only that was real. But then he kind of got to talking on Twitter that, well, this is going to be a great thing for this new app that he kind of has a vision for. It's called X app or something like that. Anyway, he's just he said that in China, they have this everything app that you buy stuff with and do social media and communicate and all this sort of stuff.

And so he kind of had a vision for launching something like that in the united states that you can just oh that makes me feel better one-stop shop do it all with one app get rid of all the other apps on your phone just get elon musk's x app and call it good interesting i think i think a lot of more independent or conservative kind of folks would be like, yeah. And then they'd realize quickly, like, wait, this is kind of what is happening with everything else, too. Like, that feels different. It's probably like the same thing that happens anytime a new fancy technology happens. You know, the tinfoil hats will be like like you're taking over the world with this app and

then in a few years they're going to be like the best at using it and then we all have iphones and then we all have iphones yeah and all of our data is shared all the time one step closer to having a microchip planted in our brains sounds like you're you would be one of those in parks and work against putting fluoride yes as far as luddite ism goes this is where my luddite ism would kick in kick in lord i mean i have friends who are against alexa like having alexa in your house because she's always listening i i that creeps me out too yeah yeah i understand it i totally understand it i don't have something particularly on twitter this week but i'm going to tease a future tweet. Next week, we will be releasing a podcast that Hayden, our very own Hayden Sparks, conducted with Congressman Michael Cloud from the Victoria-Corpus Christi area.

It's a great interview. They talk through all sorts of different topics. The border, what Congress is looking like, elections this year in South Texas. Definitely worth a listen. We're going to tease it. It'll come out next week. Make sure to go and listen. And Hayden did a great job. So fun to watch him do his thing. So Hayden, well done. Okay, real fast, fun topic before we all let our listeners get back to their lives and basically don't have to listen to us blabber anymore, which I'm sure

would be a big relief. Halloween decorations. What are the opinions of the folks in this room and on this podcast about Halloween decorations? They are not my favorite. I think they make people's lawns look gross. You're just driving by, and suddenly you see a zombie or a skeleton, and it's just nasty. I could not agree more.

Especially people who take it too far, and they just put these gross decorations ghoulish death obsessed decorations all over the place yeah halloween has just never been my favorite i'm with you i get excited i like october if i can avoid the halloween part of it like i love the fall but halloween grosses me out there's a bakery right by my house why do we have to kick off the holidays with this nasty i know i don't get that why can't i just be like little cute kids dressed as cowboys and stuff and that's fine that's totally fine but all of this other stuff is just gross i agree so this isn't so much about decoration but it is a great opportunity to talk to y'all about the great pumpkin and how halloween night he's gonna raise from the pumpkin patch yeah it's a thing is this story time with matt is that what this is

the story time with matt i couldn't resist i like it i will be watching uh and just just just a fun fact about me uh halloween i will watch the great pumpkin and uh and christmas i i will be watching charlie brown as well that is i think those are great traditions and those are very worthwhile things to watch bradley what do you look like you're about to say words i do have something to say um i was walking winston the other night and just in my neighborhood winston is his brother yeah i had him on a leash yep no okay no my dog and we're walking down the street and we get past a car and all of a sudden there is a waist high Chucky. Light up inflatable Chucky. The murderous doll from the movies. And it scares the hell

out of him. Of Winston? He never barks and he started barking. Oh my gosh. And when I say he never barks he almost never barks. It's very surprising when he does. And so this scared the crap out of him. And honestly it kind of scared the crap out of me too. Chucky is the creepiest of all the halloween type movies i think um but there's

another someone else in my neighborhood somehow suspended this witch in the air that also is inflatable and lights up and then cackles at you when you walk by. Oh, man. I hate that. Yeah. I don't have an aversion to it as much as you guys. It just takes a lot of work. You have to store them. But do you like the really ghoulish zombie gross? Oh, no.

Okay, yeah. No. But I don't have a problem with putting a fake tombstone in your yard or anything like that. I wouldn't do it myself because it's too much work and you have to store them. What are you observing? What purpose does it serve to make your yard look like a cemetery? Yeah. I don't know.

Last year. Plant a garden. Garden haters. If you want to do something with your yard, plant a garden or go get some lawn furniture or some yard art. If you really want to decorate your yard, maybe think twice about the cemetery option. The thing that disappointed me most about Halloween was last year. I was all excited. I'd been living in an apartment for like six years straight.

Finally was at a house again. I was excited to actually have trick-or-treaters and I went and bought candy. You texted me about this. And like two groups of trick-or-treaters came to my house and that was it. And one of the groups was a bunch of teenagers wearing short gym shorts and t-shirts with pillowcases. And at that point I was so just angry because I had a bunch of candy that I didn't want to eat myself. I did want to eat it, but I didn't want to eat it. Right right um then i just wanted to give away so i just threw it all in their bag but uh yeah one group of trick-or-treaters i'm enjoying how you're telling the story a bunch of

teenagers i know pillowcases came to my front door they can't even bother to put on a freaking costume oh my gosh but putting a tombstone in your yard is too much work. Yeah, but see, I would be the one putting the tombstone in the yard. They're the one that has put the freaking, if they want my candy, they can put a costume on. Got it. That makes sense. I'm tracking. I would not put it past you, Brad, to put pocket constitutions in their bags with candy taped to it. That seems like something you might do.

That is a great idea. I can hide them in the the caramels yeah like watch out kids there's pocket constitutions in your in your halloween candy that reminds me that tweet where it said really be careful with your kids i just found a magnum or a glock in my in my kids kit kat bar and it was a picture of this kit kat bar on top of a handgun it was funny i i did have one of those uh practically adult uh teenagers come uh to trick-or-treat visit at our at our house one year and you know uh what i did was i went back to the pantry i said wait on wait wait just a second so i went back to the pantry and got a can of cream corn and gave that to me. Cream corn. Hudson, what do you think about all of this?

You know, I'm a Halloween fan, honestly. I'll have to disagree with pretty much everyone on this issue. I think it's a big part of the fall atmosphere. And, you know, you have's you, you have your Halloween, you have your scary decorations yet. You have the scary vibes all the way. I'm an overall fan. Um, I, I, I like to watch scary movies during this time. I've, I've gone through a couple recently, um, in the last couple of days watched, um, hereditary last night. Incredibly scary. Probably the most scary movie I've ever seen in my whole life.

Um, but, um, I think that pumpkin patch vibes are immaculate, um, and Halloween in general. You two are a believer in the great pump. Absolutely.

I'm all about pumpkin patch. All about it. All the white girl fall stuff. Sign me up for it on repeat. It's scary, guys. It's scary. Scary decorations. I just get well, I was a squeamish.

I get grossed out super easy. But I'm glad you feel that way. So that, you know, folks who probably don't agree with the rest of us here have representation on this podcast. We do like to be balanced. We do like to be balanced here at the Texan. So I'm very glad you hold that opinion. I will say there's a bakery by my house that every October puts out like they decorate a cake where it's like fingers and eyeballs and like bloody.

It's very disgusting. That's what I'm talking about. And I love this little bakery. It's like this quaint, cute little bakery right by my house. And I love to go and get a little snack, a little coffee. And anytime during October, I just I I can't, I can't look at the cake. It's just sits on the counter by the register. You can't avoid it. And so I just try to avoid it with my eyes as best I can. And it is honestly disgusting. It is so gross.

I don't know how that's fun for people. I look forward to it being done because of that stupid cake. One of the greatest parts of October Halloween is the little Pillsbury cookies that have like pumpkins on them. Those are amazing. Like the little sugar cookies. Or dank as the kids say. You can't be like these teenagers and then say dank. That doesn't work. It's just not quite.

I think those track pretty well together. Okay, great. Glad to hear it. I know you're talking about the sugar cookies. If you cut them in half, they have the picture of the pumpkin on them. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Those are, oh my gosh, those are so good.

My tummy just rumbled thinking about them. I eat so many of those. Okay. Well, this was a far more engaging topic than I thought it would be. Hayden, was this you putting this on this? It was, yes. I thought it was. This was a very good, fun topic.

Specifically so I could rant and rail against Halloween because it's coming up. And much like you dreading the cake, I dread Halloween. I get excited for November 1st knowing that it's like Thanksgiving and fall. I think October is a great month for weather. November can be a little dreary, but October, the Halloween thing is no way. I'm just looking forward to hunting season. That's all that's on my mind. What is on your mind? Hunting season. Hunting season. That makes sense. 100%. Man, now I'm thinking about bacon wrap dove and I'm getting hungry. Okay. Well, folks, we so appreciate you listening to us each and every week, and we will catch

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God bless you and God bless Texas.