The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 10, 2021

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses the upcoming third special session, the controversial election reform bill finally signed by the governor, lawsuits taking aim at the Heartbeat Bill, fundraising numbers from Democrats who fled the state to prevent a quorum, an Austin-based company looking to aid those seeking abortions, the details surrounding the arrest of Allen West’s wife, what the latest COVID-19 hospitalization numbers mean for Texas, how the state has fared in terms of tax collections in 2021, record breaking lottery sales, where the state’s takeover of Houston ISD stands, a Samsung plant coming to Central Texas with help from taxpayers, and finally — in another “Today in Texas History” segment — the 1900 hurricane that ravaged Galveston.

Happy Friday, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here on this week's edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. On this episode, our team discusses the upcoming third special session, the controversial election reform bill finally being signed by the governor, lawsuits taking aim at the Texas heartbeat bill, fundraising numbers from Democrats who fled the state, an Austin-based company looking to aid those seeking abortions, the details surrounding the arrest of Allen West's wife, what the latest COVID-19 hospitalization numbers mean for Texas,

how the state has fared in terms of tax collections in 2021, record-breaking lottery sales, where the state's takeover of Houston ISD stands, a Samsung plant coming to Central Texas with help from taxpayers, and finally, in another Today in Texas History segment, the 1900 hurricane that ravaged Galveston. Thanks for following along and have a wonderful weekend. Howdy, folks.

Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson. Hayden and I, as per the usual, both have, we're bundled, as Hayden just said. Our podcast studio is refrigerated i wish we were joking but that is not that's not hyperbole chilly yes hayden has like a wool pea coat i have a blanket on who was which was sent to to our office by one of our readers joe hootman so thank you for that shout out to joe but we are both bundled and the rest of the boys are in here as if it's a balmy in the bahamas or something just short sleeve and i have a proposed nickname for mr hootman yes the notorious joe i'm sure he will okay great what a what a phenomenal addition to this podcast hey i'm way down in the pecking order on this so i gotta get my you know lines in oh front got it

gotta get your screen time in wonderful well on that note let's pivot from brad and go to go to hayden and daniel boys let's talk about uh a third special session announcement that happened this week hayden talk to us about why the governor is calling the third special session in the first place and why weren't you know the regular session and the two other called special sessions that we've already had this summer enough to get the items that he has proposed or legislators you know find important done well maybe the third time will be the charm but i think a lot of people view the legislative process and maybe ask themselves fairly, why is it that in 140 days,

lawmakers were not able to get everything done that they needed to get done? And it's a fair question. But it's important to remember that practically speaking, this third special session is really only the second because it's going to be the second productive special session. The first special session in July. Don't get ahead of yourself. We can see another walkout. That's true. So that is always something that could happen, especially because many of the Democrats who walked out never came back.

They continue to break quorum or try to break quorum throughout the second special session as well. But the first one was essentially a daily prayer meeting for lawmakers because they couldn't do anything. So maybe this one will wrap up everything on the governor's agenda that he wanted to pass, or we could see a fourth special session, who knows. But the second special session began really in August or on August 19th, because that's when enough Democrats came back to restore quorum. And even with that shortened timeframe, they were able to get a lot of bills through the process, but there's still some unfinished business. And Daniel is going to cover that in a second. But the reason why there's unfinished business is because of the delay and because

in the regular session, there were sparse floor meetings because of COVID hospitalizations, and they were still trying to navigate all of that. So not as much got done on the floor early on. And then some of the unfinished items like public school sports requiring student athletes to compete on the basis of their biological sex. That bill, in the current proclamation for the third special session, Governor Abbott stipulated it must be identical to Senate Bill 29, the same bill that was introduced in the regular session, which was lost when, due to a combination of things, actually, the Democrats chubbed, which is delaying floor proceedings up until midnight on the last day that the House had to pass Senate bills.

And the leadership in the House placed it so far down the list of items to get to that day that Democrats were able to kill that by delaying it. As it relates to COVID-19 funds and vaccine mandates, of course, the vaccine mandate story has been a developing story throughout the summer. So that may be one of the reasons why they're only getting to it now. And COVID-19 funding, they didn't want to jump the gun and allocate those funds before they had the full picture in place. And then we had legislative quorum requirements, which were unfinished this session. And it's possible that that's a thorny issue for Speaker Dade Phelan, who part of his support coalition is Democrats. party, Republicans may be hesitant to end the requirement for a two-thirds quorum because this may be a tool that Republicans might want to use in the future in the instance that Democrats

take control of state government. So that may be things that they are considering behind closed doors. So I think Daniel is going to cover some of the other issues in depth. Yeah, well, Daniel, I mean, a lot of this, we knew there would be a fall special session even before all the drama with the election reform bill, right? We knew this was coming, and it was all about a certain item that we've not addressed yet in either of these special sessions, and is really the big ticket item. Talk us through this item. That big item is redistricting. Of course, that is what lawmakers do every 10 years when there's a new census. You have to redraw the political boundaries so that populations are balanced in each district. And that's for state districts and federal congressional districts.

Also, you have the State Board of Education seats that are also districts. And I think you have all that stuff that lawmakers have to do. So since the numbers were only released by the Census Bureau, the redistricting data that's needed for lawmakers, and since the Texas Legislative Council was still preparing the program that lawmakers need to draw the new maps until the beginning of September, and all that stuff got delayed, pushed back, It really wasn't practical, uh, for it to happen any earlier in the year. It just could not happen because they didn't have the data that they needed to do it. Uh, so that's the big subject on the agenda now. Uh, I'm sure that there will be lots of, um, lots of political fights over redistricting that we'll see play out in the next month and probably over the next year or two.

I'm sure there will be many lawsuits. Absolutely. Now, how many total items are there on the special session agenda? So there are currently five items on the agenda. Some of these are leftovers from the previous special session that Hayden just talked about. So the appropriations of COVID federal relief funds, that was actually something that Governor Abbott said was going to be tied to the redistricting session. He threw it into the previous special session as well, but they didn't get to it.

But that's on the agenda for this special session as well. So there will be lots of talk about money and spending more money, which the government likes to do. And then the other thing that was also on the previous agenda that's going to be back is the legislation requiring student athletes to participate in teams based on their biological sex, which Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor, actually asked Governor Abbott to put that on the agenda. And so, you know, maybe that was just a nice thing for the governor to do for the lieutenant governor. Or maybe that's what the governor wants to see get passed as well. Then you also have the legislation related to vaccine mandates that's back on the agenda as well.

So that is up to lawmakers, you know, whether they want to find some way to allow government entities, you know, like local county officials or public schools or whatever to require vaccine mandates or to ban, prohibit them outright. It's kind of up to lawmakers discretion under Abbott's agenda item. And then the last thing that is on the agenda is new and was not on the previous special session agendas is legislation related to dog restraints. That was actually passed by the legislature earlier this year, but was vetoed by Governor Abbott. So Abbott has put that back on the agenda. You said dog restraints? Yes, dog restraints. Like puppies.

The notorious DOG, as Bradley might say. Yeah. As I might. There's actually a dog under the desk right now. Yes. That is laying there. The most notorious of them all. You might say when the legislature passed that bill that their bark was worse than their bite. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. We opened the door for that, but you walked through through so it's with such ease hayden but that dog bill will be on there so uh we'll probably hear some more stuff about animal abuse and stuff yeah all that the fun house floor when abbott vetoed that i think he mentioned that he didn't want it to be he thought that was too restrictive on individuals he said to be clear i'm against animal abuse but we can't have a bill that's restrictive on

individual liberty to that extent so it'll be interesting to see how they navigate some of his objections to that bill when we've immediately seen then you know uh criticisms from folks saying okay well abbott ignored you know whatever policy issue they might find important to whoever this person, this Twitter figure might be talking about. But he wants to address dog restraints on the special session agenda. That was important enough for the governor to place on the agenda. So interesting to see that real fast before we pivot. Were there any items previously added to the special session agenda that we are not seeing be addressed this special session? Yeah, I think one of the big things Brad actually covered a bit in the in the regular session and in the last special session, and it got killed on the House floor both times. And that's the kind of having a the state employment regulation that supersedes local regulations.

It would essentially prohibit these localities, mainly large cities, from implementing employment regulations within their own jurisdictions that supersede state law, such as the state minimum wage. A couple of cities implemented their own higher minimum wage. Various other more in-the-weeds employment regulations. So that failed again. And as you mentioned, it will not be on this third special session. Third time will not be the charm.

Unless, and of course, Governor Abbott could come back and add something midway through a special session so you know if he chooses to do that that is one way that it could be back there but it's not really foreseeable this future at this point and there have been so many special sessions at this point i think uh you know the governor lawmakers everyone's kind of ready to get this show on the road well thank you dan oh yeah sorry uh maybe you were about to mention this but i i talked about the legislative quorum requirements those are also not on the special session call i probably should have clarified that earlier those uh now i don't know uh specifically why those might have

been or why those were left off but because of the reasons i talked about they they were the legislative quorum reduction reducing it to a majority quorum rather than a two-thirds majority for a quorum were left off. I would note on that that to reduce it from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority, it requires a constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds majority, which would require some Democrats to do it. I don't think – I'd have to go back and check. I'm pretty sure this didn't even pass the Senate. This was something that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick wanted to see pass. And so it was introduced in the Senate in the last special session. It was put on the agenda by Governor Abbott, but then it wasn't brought back. But I think that still leaves room for the House to do stuff in their rules, which was a big fight in the last special session. So we'll see if something

plays out in the rules, which I don't fight in the last special session. So we'll see if something plays out in the, in the rules, which I don't think is affected by Abbott's agenda. Specifically consequences for those who do break quorum in terms of punishments, in terms of leadership positions being stripped, seats vacated, that kind of, well,

those seats vacated, that may be constitutional, but regardless, those kinds of consequences within the house itself. Right. Well, thank you very much daniel we're going to stick with you here and talk through um the latest bill signing from the

governor again we talked about the big bill that caused a lot of democrats to flee the state and finally this bill is now signed uh walk us through this yes so on tuesday of this week when the podcast is released uh governor abbott traveled to ty, Texas, up in the East Texas area, which is actually the district that is covered by Senator Brian Hughes, who is the author of this bill. You know, he pushed it through the regular session and then all all the special sessions. So it was his big bill and so the governor traveled up to tyler to sign it there uh with a bunch of lawmakers with him so there was senator hughes there and then there was also representative andrew murr who's the carried it in the house and pushed it through there and also lieutenant governor dan patrick was there speaking and then there were a bunch of

house members as well uh representative shaffer who's in the Tyler area, you had Representative James White there, and a bunch of others. Now, real fast, we've talked about this at length, but give us just a quick overview once more about what is in the bill. Yes. You know, I think Andrew Murr, the representative, summed it up very well when he said, I don't want to beat a dead horse when he was giving his brief summary. That's how I feel every time I'm writing a new article on it. I'm like, I've written on this so many times. If you're not familiar with it by now, just go look up some of the past articles.

But some of the specific provisions of this election bill, it does increase protection for poll watchers. That's something that Democrats are especially worried about because they think that it's going to cause an increase in voter intimidation, whereas Republicans see it as an opportunity to have an extra check on the election process and make sure things are running smoothly. So you have protections there for poll watchers. You also have a crackdown on vote harvesting, another controversial item, because again, Republicans see this as a way to basically limit people's ability to go and sway people to vote certain ways, whereas Democrats see that might be as a way that could potentially lead to a reduction in people being able to help others vote.

And so there's some controversy there. And then you also have some more controversy over some increased regulations for voting assistance. So if somebody goes to assist someone at the poll to vote, now they have to fill out a new form. And there's some other provisions if you drive a busload of people to the poll who are not your family members, you'll have to sign a new form there as well too just giving some information about who you are and why you're bringing so

many people to the polls so those are some of the the specific provisions in there but there's it's 75 pages big bill got it so this political fight that the democrats you know uh largely waged against the republicans is now over in terms of the legislature. But now, where does this leave the political fight? Is there still a way to get this repealed from the Democrats' perspective and interest? Yeah, so there is going to continue to be a political fight over this, and we'll see that play out in the courts. Several lawsuits have already been filed against the bill. There were some that were filed before Governor Abbott even signed it. I think there were two or three lawsuits that had been filed against the bill. There were some that were filed before Governor Abbott even signed it.

I think there were two or three lawsuits that had been filed at that point, and then there were several more that were filed on the same day that he signed the bill. And so lots of these are filed in federal courts, but at least one has also been filed in a state court. And basically, they're just arguing that the provisions in there violate existing federal laws and protections, voting rights protections for minorities and people with disabilities. So we'll see how that plays out. One of the big things that they're trying to push the courts to do is require Texas to have preclearance from the federal government whenever they try and make another change to election laws in the next decade. So that's one of the things that they're trying to, uh, get the courts to rule. Um, and I, I think there's some push for Congress, uh, to also require that for the state as well. That has been required for redistricting, uh, previously, uh, but not for, um, uh, stuff like this at this point. So, uh, they're trying to get that back in. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen. But Republicans and Governor Abbott have expressed optimism that the bill is going to be upheld

and that they're going to win this fight in the court as well as they've also won it in the legislature. Thank you, Daniel. Now, Isaiah, we're going to come to you. Let's talk about a bill that has taken most of the attention this week in terms of court battles. You know, even before this election bill, this is the heartbeat bill is really what folks are paying attention to and where the battle is. Now, most folks know about the Supreme Court refusing to take up a case between several abortion facilities in the state. But some

opponents of this act are trying a different route. Talk to us about these lawsuits in Texas Right to Life. So, as you mentioned, the big one that reached the Supreme Court, that the Supreme Court denied, was between Whole Woman's Health, Planned Parenthood, and some other abortion providers and counselors against the state court system and some state agencies, and Mark Lee Dixon thrown in there for good measure. That was kind of the big main case because it came the closest to stopping the Heartbeat Act. There are some other cases that

don't really engage with the government at all, like the Heartbeat Act itself, coincidentally. And a couple of them that have gotten a lot of media attention target Texas Right to Life. And Texas Right to Life is a pro-life lobbying group based in Houston. They were influential and very supportive in the involvement of the Heartbeat Act's passage and drafting. And so they've got a pretty close involvement with the act. And after, or really up to its effective date on September 1st, Texas Right to Life was encouraging citizen lawsuits. And so there was a Dallas attorney named Michelle Simpson-Tugel who sued Texas Right to Life

and 10 unnamed John Does meant to represent people that might associate with Texas Right to Life and sue attorneys like her for providing or aiding and abetting an abortion under under the heartbeat act which because aiding and abetting is a violation under the act planned parenthood also sued texas right to life and a hundred unnamed john does representing you know the similar symbol i guess you could say of uh associates that might sue planned parenthood and uh both tougal and planned parenthood won uh temporary restraining orders against the lobbying group and so at the moment texas right to life cannot sue planned parenthood toogle or certain branches of planned parenthood and michelle simpson toogle uh for violating the heartbeat act now texas right to life is at the center of so much of this. Why has it become

such a lightning rod? Well, like I mentioned, they encouraged and publicized that citizen lawsuits would be authorized under the act. That's the primary enforcement measure. They also set up a website called ProLifeWhistleblower.com, where the intent of the website was for people to report violators of the heartbeat act so that they might be targeted for lawsuits and it was scuttled by the website host go daddy pretty recently and texas right to life has stated that they're trying to get it back up and running i don't believe it is yet but it also faced a problem of false claims people trying to gum up the system to stop these lawsuits from happening but um because they were so overt in their activism

against uh potential violators of the heartbeat act that kind of made them a prime target so when these abortion providers saw that the whole women's health attempted class action lawsuit was not going to get taken up by the Supreme Court, then, you know, this is a different approach to where, you know, we're just going to go after the biggest whale in the ocean here, Texas right to life, the most probable plaintiff under the heartbeat act that we would see. And so right now, again, they're currently enjoined from suing several branches of Planned Parenthood and this one Dallas attorney. I don't know how it's going to work out with these John Does. That's, I think, something for courts to probe further.

Well, thank you, Isaiah, for following that. Daniel, we're going to come back to you. Let's continue talking about these quorum-breaking Democrats. New finance report numbers came out. Talk to us about what these told us and how much House Democrats raised. So the new TEC report was required for candidates and officeholders for the first special session, and it covered the period of July 7th through August 6th. So this is required every time that there is a special session. Those people have to file both candidates and officeholders in the legislature as well as statewide officeholders. So gubernatorial candidates, you have like the attorney general

candidates and all those who also had to file for that month as well. And it's just filing for the amount that they raised. So it's not a full on report like you see every semi-annual, twice-a-year report where they have to file their contributions and expenditures. This is just solely their contributions, what they received. So based on those reports, the House Democrats combined, as in all the Democrats in the House total, contributions reported $648,000 during those 30 days that month. Now, talk to us about how this might break down more individually for some members. A quick look at that. Yeah, so just a quick look at the top Democrats who raised the most money in the House. The highest raising one was Representative Trey Martinez Fisher from San Antonio, who raised $63,000.

Notably, about half of that came from Texas, whereas half of it came from outside of the state. With the other members, you saw a greater percentage, like 80%, 90%, come from within the state, but his was notable in that a lot came from outside. Following him, you also had Representative Julie Johnson, who raised $38,000. And then you had Representatives Ron Reynolds and Ann Johnson, who both raised $27,000. And in total, you had 25 Democrats who raised $10,000 or more. So I think that's probably about a little under half the caucus raised a significant amount of money, over $10,000 just in that month. Now, notably, many of the members who were kind of at the bottom of that list were actually the first ones to return for the quorum.

There were only two representatives who raised more than that $10,000 and came back for the original, the quorum, in August. And that was Representative James Talarico and Representative Terry Canales, who raised above that threshold. So just some interesting statistics there. Now, how did Republican fundraising compare? So a handful of representatives raised significantly more than most of the Democrats. So among those, you'd have Representative Mace Middleton,

who technically reported raising $450,000. Now that was all a self-contribution. So significant money that he's giving his own campaign there. But if you take that out, and then there's a lot less money that Republicans raised. The highest raising Republican in the House besides Middleton was representative Tan Parker, who of course is running for a Senate seat up in Denton County. And he raised a little over $120,000. And then you had the House Speaker Dave Phelan raised about $95,000 in that period as well. And everyone else raised about $50,000 or less. I think Gary Gates from Fort Bend County raised $50,000 again because of a big self-contribution. But then other candidates or other office holders raised

significantly lower. So compared to Democrats, I think there were only like 11 or so Republicans who raised more than $10,000, so significantly less. But you also had some Republicans who raised a significant amount of money. Well, Daniel, thank you for following that for us. Isaiah, we're going to come back to you and talk more about the heartbeat bill. There's going to be a theme on this podcast. But an Austin-based company, Bumble, recently made an announcement regarding the Heartbeat Act. What did they have to say? So Bumble said that, in their words, starting today, Bumble has created a relief fund supporting the reproductive rights of women and people across the gender spectrum who seek abortions in Texas.

For those of y'all who don't know, Bumble, their flagship product is a dating app of the same name, Bumble. And evidently, you can also use it for other kind of networking and and they are based in austin i think they're founded in 2014 and they released this statement on september 1st the day that the heartbeat act took effect a lot of other companies have made similar promises lyft comes to mind um so it's it's kind of a trend yeah absolutely now is this legal under the act? That's questionable.

Wendy Davis, I don't know what title to give her because she's run for a lot of things, but has argued, I think, probably reliably, that the act permits donating legal funds to people that are sued as defendants for violating, you know, for performing or aiding post-harpied abortions. But it prohibits aiding post-harpied abortions, including paying for them. And paying for abortion, that's explicitly in the law. You can't pay for it. That counts as a violation. So Bumble's statement that they're creating a relief fund supporting the reproductive

rights of women and people across the gender spectrum who seek abortions in Texas. If that's strictly for legal aid, that's probably legal, I would assume. But I don't know. It could be argued when one of these cases gets brought that that also counts for aiding a post-heartbeat abortion. So it's questionable. I don't know. One of these lawsuits under the heartbeat act hasn't happened yet. So when that does, we'll see a lot of this get fleshed out.

Absolutely. Well, thank you for following that. Hayden, we're going to come to you and talk through a story that you've been following for quite some time now. And we finally have some more details about what exactly happened. But talk to us about Friday, August 20. And what caused back and forth between gubernatorial candidate and former Texas GOP Chairman Alan West and the Dallas police chief over the arrest of his wife. Well, before we even talk about this subject, I want to be clear that Angela West, who is at the center of this incident, has been cleared of all wrongdoing. She took blood tests and toxicology reports came back showing that she was 100% sober

on the night of the incident. And the district attorney of Dallas County, John Curzo, has declined to pursue any charges against her in light of that report. So just to be clear on that front right out of the gate. But the controversy began on Friday, August 20, when Angela West, who is, as you noted, the wife of Alan West, who's running for governor, was traveling on Northwest West Highway in Dallas, when she was stopped by Officer Lydia Harris, for what the police chief would later call driving erratically. And Harris administered a field sobriety test to Dr. West, who did not perform on the test in a satisfactory fashion, evidently, because she was placed under arrest and taken to

Lusteret Jail on suspicion of driving while intoxicated with a child passenger because her grandson, Jackson, Jackson, pardon me, was in the car with her. And had she faced charges, it would have been a very serious charge because in the state of Texas, driving while intoxicated with somebody under 15 is a state jail felony. So a very serious case if it had ultimately charged out. But she was taken to Dallas County Jail. And Alan West has said that this was a traumatizing experience for her. She also indicated in media interviews shortly after the incident took place, that she has never even gotten a traffic ticket and that she did not know what

to do when she was being pulled over. So this incident took place, of course, as I mentioned, while she was completely sober. And this predicated the dust up between Allen West and local officials in Dallas. Now, was she driving erratically, like, you know, the chief said when she was arrested well chief garcia released dash cam footage and body cam footage from the incident so we have that the public has that available to review and i include links to that in my article so anyone who wishes to view that evidence for themselves is welcome to do that but as gar Garcia summarized, she had gone onto the shoulder on Northwest Highway, and he indicated that she did not make an action to correct that. So oftentimes, if you go out of your lane, sometimes you immediately swerve the steering wheel or cut the steering wheel so that

you can get back in your lane. Apparently, that is not what happened. And on the video, it does show that she is going onto to the shoulder and when officer lydia harris initiated the traffic stop she stopped in this in the middle of the road on northwest highway in the center lane and then she moved into a different lane and she had to be asked again to go to a safer location and garcia's defense of Officer Harris included the statement that due to the totality of the circumstances, that is what justified the arrest from his perspective, because of all the factors, the way the traffic stop was initiated, and the breathalyzer test, he said was inconclusive because it wasn't done properly were the words he used. Now, he

didn't say specifically whether that was entirely Dr. West's fault that she didn't perform the test correctly or if it had anything to do with the administration of the test. But in sum, because of everything that took place, the officer made a decision that she needed to be taken into custody and Garcia stood behind that decision. And he said from the start that no matter what the toxicology report said, he would still stand by her actions because that's why they took the toxicology report was because it was suspected driving while intoxicated. Now talk to us about Alan West's reaction to all of this. It's important to

remember that this is in the middle of a heated Republican primary for governor. And we're still months out from that primary. But we have four Republicans vying for the governor's mansion, three challenging the incumbent governor Greg Abbottott and this in essence was an opportunity a very personal opportunity for alan west to show that he can go to battle with big city elected officials and while it's awkward for a gop candidate to find himself going to battle against a police department he made it more about the leadership in Dallas. He requested, well, demanded an apology from the mayor of Dallas and the district attorney of Dallas. And he called for Officer Harris to be fired almost immediately after what happened.

So he has not only gone to battle against the police department, but with the leadership in Dallas. And Alan West has made clear from the beginning that this is not a tirade against the police. He said that he is standing up for his wife and he's standing up for the honor of his family. And he believes that Officer Harris made a bad call. And he believes that Garcia should fire her for that, what he calls a bad call. And he said that Garcia should fire her for that what he calls a bad call and he said that if those three individuals did not offer him an apology the three individuals being the DA the police chief and the mayor that he would become and these were his words their worst nightmare if he did not if they did not offer those apologies so this has been a very heated

controversy and after these toxicology reports, he doubled down on his demand for an apology. Absolutely. Well, Hayden, thank you for distilling all of that into, you know, details that we were able to understand better. Daniel, we're going to come to you and talk about a third wave of COVID-19 cases. As this wave has spread across the state throughout this past month or so, where are we at with hospitalizations and case numbers? So right now it looks like Texas as a whole, like the statewide numbers, are starting to turn the corners, especially in terms of hospitalizations. We reached a peak of just shy of 14,000 hospitalizations,

and now that number is beginning to decline. And that's, again, a statewide number. The positivity rate has also continued to decline for a while, and the number of daily new confirmed cases has stopped rising quite at the rate that it had last month. But it is still fluctuating some and hasn't declined quite like the hospitalization numbers have. Now, is this the same for all areas of the state? Not quite. So the hospital regions covering Houston and South Texas, which definitely account for a large portion of those hospitalizations, appear to have turned the corner and they're starting to decline. But the hospitalization numbers in the DFW area has not seen quite a steady of a decline yet. It does look, again,

kind of like the number of new confirmed cases. It's kind of fluctuating. It does look again, kind of like the, the daily number of new confirmed cases. It's kind of fluctuating. It's kind of at that point right now where it looks like it's slowing down, but it hasn't quite turned the corner like Houston and South Texas have. Now, this is just another wave in a series of other waves. How does this compare to previous waves? So we peaked, like I said, around 14,000 hospitalizations this time, which is about the same as it was in the winter wave, but it's still been higher than last summer when we saw the surge in June, July of 2020. What year was that? 2020? Yeah, 2020. That great year. Hey, a lot of folks want to forget that year and it seems like you're doing the work for them. Yeah, I guess so.

Doing the Lord's work daniel um now there are two notable things that are different compared to uh the situation of this wave and where we were in the previous two waves um that are big changes uh but also appear to not have changed the numbers that much in terms of what the wave looks like and so so those two things, of course, we have the vaccine now distributed and basically available to anyone over 12 who wants it. And so about 70% of all adults in Texas over 12 have received at least one dose of the vaccination. And for individuals 65 and older, that percentage is actually up to like 85%.

So lots of people have the vaccine now, but the virus is still spreading at about the same rate as it had before. And we also compared to the last two waves, we don't actually have the statewide restrictions in place that we did previously. So Governor Abbott's mask mandate, he ended that in March and hasn't put that back in. And there's also been none of the statewide restrictions on business occupancy. So a little bit different in the statewide policy. But again, we've still seen about the same number of hospitalizations. So whether that's helped or not, other people can parse that out.

But that's where we're at good stuff well thank you brad we're going to come to you and talk about um 2021 fiscal year's uh tax collection numbers now kind of relating back to covid and how 2020 looked how does 2021 look um and what are the what numbers that the comptroller release so we put out a a report detailing the, well, a lot, but mainly the change from fiscal year 2020, which goes from September 2019 through August 2020. And fiscal year 2021, which runs through September 2020 through August 2021. So that's the baseline there. But it's comparing the two, how things fared. The reason this is important is it's one of multiple gauges for how the economy is going. Obviously, if the state taxes commerce, what they bring in from those taxes will show you

how commerce has been. And we saw things really drop off, especially in March, April, May, and June of last year because of the coronavirus naturally causing people to stay inside and not go places, not spend money in ways that they typically would, and then exacerbated by the government mandated shutdowns that we saw. And so another metric you could look at is unemployment rate. But with this, the top-line numbers showed a 7.1% increase in all tax collections from the previous fiscal year to this one. It also showed a 5.6% increase in sales tax collections, which make up over half of the overall tax collections.

Now, you look at a lot more of these numbers than I do, than our listeners do. Is that a big jump? It's significant, I would say. say, you'd probably see something in the lower 2%, 3% range along with inflation, more in line with inflation, I'd say, in normal years. But also, you have to understand that in the first half of fiscal year 2020, before the pandemic hit, the economy was booming and so that coupled with the severe downturn in the next multiple or next six or so months uh four or five months um it's kind of it's hard to gauge um i i would say it's hard it'd'd be really difficult to, I'm not sure what would be yielded

if we got to that point. If it was a full fiscal year of downturn, but that's not what it shows. Also something to keep in mind, total net revenue in the state was up 20%. Now that is largely because of the sheer amount of federal COVID dollars that are coming to the state

from various different aid packages. So overall, we've seen pretty good recovery. I think that is a takeaway we can absolutely have from that. It's something the comptroller discusses, especially compared with the initial brunt of the pandemic. What were the areas of greatest recovery? I'd say first and foremost, restaurants and bars, overall sales taxes. Like I said, 5.6% increase. A large portion of that would be restaurants and bars, just because food amounts for a

large portion of how much we spend. And then food and drinks, obviously. You could also say the same thing about just general retail. So all of that combined, that was a big improvement. Natural gas and oil severance taxes were a massive recovery, showed a massive recovery, which obviously is very important for Texas, being the oil and gas magnate that it is. Additionally, something that shows more travel as people start to get back on the road, back in the air, traveling more. Motor vehicle sales and rental taxes and hotel occupancy taxes were both showed stark improvement.

Well, thank you, Bradley, for that. Hayden, we're going to keep talking about the wrap up of this fiscal year and talk about lottery sales. How successful was the lottery this past fiscal year and what contributed to that success? Well, it was a gangbuster year for the Texas lottery. It was 8.1 billion in sales for this past fiscal year, 2021. Compare that to $6.7 billion in the year before that, which would include the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The bulk of the lottery sales can be attributed to scratch tickets. That's $6.617 billion billion and then the other portion was draw game sales which was 1.49 billion this is a record-setting number but it's also the 11th year in a row that the lottery has beat its sales figures from the previous years which executive director gary grief of the lottery

has told us that that can be attributed in part to the fact that many of the lottery's retail locations are sold, are places that are considered essential under coronavirus restrictions. Talk to us about, you know, these lottery, where these lottery sales are spent and how much of it goes to administrative costs? Well, I think anyone who's been in a gas station recently could attest to the fact that on the lottery's ads, it always says supporting Texas education and veterans, which is true, but it's not a situation where half goes to veterans and half goes to education. It's two-thirds of the lottery sales according to the audited 2020 figures uh goes to pay winners um and then uh just under a quarter of their revenue in 2020 and i say revenue i was corrected the other day revenue in this context means the money they pay to education and and veterans and sales refers to their income uh so two thirds of their sales go to pay winners. Just under a quarter goes to the foundation school fund,

i.e. Texas education. And, but under 1% went to veterans causes. 5% goes to administrative costs and 3% on paying their retailers. So since 97, they've given 27.5 billion to the foundation school Fund and $164 million to Veterans Causes since 2009. So that's the breakdown of where the lottery's cash goes to. Oh, man, that's a lot of cash. Well, thank you, Hayden, for that.

We appreciate you covering it for us and for our readers. Isaiah, we're going to come back and chat with you about a story that both you and Holly Hanson down in Houston have followed for quite some time now, but the state has been pursuing a takeover of Houston ISD for a while. Why is that? Well, half of the problem is ethics violations, Open Meetings Act violations among the school board and things like that. And probably the more attention-grabbing half is below-average student achievement at the district, especially at Wheatley High School, which has had an F performance rating for several years now. And there are a number of other schools in the district that have wobbled, as the common term, at a D rating, but not got an F. And that kind of contributes to this problem. So there was a court ruling after the state initially pursued a takeover

of the entire school board that said, it issued an injunction mandating that the state-appointed conservator sent to take over operation at Wheatley could only control Wheatley and only oversee Wheatley High School and not the district entirely. And then this is at the third court of appeals, state court, and the Texas Supreme Court later upheld this injunction. So that is what inspired this bill and others like it. Senate Bill 1365. It was bipartisan but controversial, like a lot of education-related bills. Yeah.

Just because they cut across party lines. And it was carried in the house that's primary sponsor was representative dan huberty and um but i remember harold dutton uh houston democrat because he filed a very similar bill with the same intent which is to allow a state takeover of the entire district to make some other tweaks to performance rating accountability as well targeted at houston isd and wheatley high school and that was the bill duns bill that died and prompted him to as a consequence as he put it yeah revive the transgender sports related bill so it was politically complicated and it was at the center of quite a bit of controversy controversy at the capitol so um anyway now that they've passed this bill uh what it intends to do is allow among other things

a state takeover of the entire district and the district school board instead of just wheatley high school and straighten out as dutton put it the third court of appeals ruling and um there are some other important changes to education code that it makes as well, namely to deal with the wobble zone, as it's called. A school that earns a D for the past three years on the performance rating is subject to state intervention, just like right now, or I should say before the bill took effect. Getting an F on the rating for one year can leave a school open to authorize state intervention. So in other words, getting a D for three years is kind of the same as getting an F under this new bill. So how has this bill been interacting with the court case? So like I mentioned earlier, it's been at the Texas Supreme Court,

and the TEA and the state wrote a letter to the court. And I'll just read that to you here. Whatever the proper interpretation of the old law, the commissioner has the statutory authority to appoint a board of managers under the new law. Because HISD has had a conservator assigned for at least two consecutive school years, the Texas Education Code authorizes the commissioner to appoint a board of managers to exercise the powers and duties of HISD's Board of Trustees. So basically, the whole legal foundation on which this case was built and acting has now shifted. And the TA is arguing basically that regardless of what the old law authorized, which was

where the controversy was, the new law, as SB 1365 clarifies very explicitly allows the state and the TA commissioner to appoint a district-wide appointees for monitoring and you know district-wide conservators and board of managers instead of just for one school so the results are not clear yet because cases move slowly but the whole point of the bill is to end this case. Awesome. Isaiah, thank you for that. We'll continue to follow. Bradley, let's talk about Williamson County in the city of Taylor. They began the approval process for a massive business investment in their community. Tell us about that. So Samsung, the tech giant, is mulling a new $17 billion facility that sounds pretty likely to land in Taylor. Apparently, the final decision has not been made yet, although one South Korean

publication reported earlier this week that Samsung had made the final decision on Taylor. But if that's the case, the company is remaining mum on that question. But the city of Taylor and Williamson County local governments convened a joint meeting this week, and they basically set the initial approval for the new plant if it were to come, set the baseline for what kind of incentives they would offer, and other metrics that they are requiring the company to meet. Those include a 90% remittance of property taxes during the first decade, followed by an 85% remittance during the second decade. It's a technical way of saying that the amount of money that the company

would pay in property taxes over the first decade, 90% of that would either be given back on the back end or withheld in the first place. So what those, when I do these kinds of articles, I like to provide actual dollar figures, but those are not available right now. Neither the city nor the county had anything on specific dollar amounts. But they approved it, I think it was wednesday night and if samsung chooses taylor then the the site will be planned to be operational by 2024 but it must be in order to get these incentives it must be done operational by 26 now the school district has began the process of a chapter 313 abatement approval process for this project yeah um what are the details of a chapter 313 abatement approval process for this project.

What are the details of that? Yeah, so they were the first ones to, as you said, begin the process on this. Chapter 313 is something, obviously, that we've covered quite a bit. It was not renewed during the recent regular session, but it is still in existence until the end of 22 so this would if it gets approved would be grandfathered in and they're already they've already submitted their application to the comptroller it's already the paperwork's being done so that would entail 670 million dollar reduction in the taxable property value what that means in

um in the property taxes paid kind of depends on the rate. We'll see the rate in those subsequent years. But estimates say that the ISD would bring in $275 million more in property taxes if this plant were to go in. As far as what was in that application, the company promises to create between 1,600 and 1,800 jobs. As I said, it would be operational by 24. And it's like, at least at the moment, a 6 million square foot facility with actually potential to be a lot bigger than that. So still, a lot of the details are up in the air we don't know um a lot yet and the final word final say so from samsung has not come down that they were choosing choosing tyler but a couple other places they're considering or taylor we're talking about

taylor here yes um a couple other places they're considering are austin, they already have, Samsung already has a microchip factory there. Also Phoenix, New York State. Actually, those are it. So we'll see. Well, thank you. We're going to stick with you, Bradley. We had another installment of our Today in Texas History series on our site this week. And you wrote a piece on the 1900 Galveston hurricane.

Talk to us a little bit about, about the history and background of that event. Yeah. So, um, you know, a bit of an anecdote, I obviously knew of the Galveston hurricane, but one of the reasons that I like doing these Texas history pieces is because it allows me to learn about things that I didn't in grade school. I didn't go through the Texas history curriculum that, you know, actual residents of Texas do when they're growing up. So this was fun, despite it being such a calamitous event. You know, it was especially striking to read a letter, an anonymous letter that was recorded from 1900. And obviously a little bit back background on the issue uh hurricane struck galveston in 1900 right after the turn of the century it killed between 6 000 and 8 000 people

estimated create estimated to create 30 million dollars in damages that's roughly 970 million dollars 75 million dollars in today's dollars uh it's just a really sad story at the time gallaston was the fourth largest city in texas and since then it has only gained like 12 000 roughly residents so uh compare that to houston which completely took off it was already higher in population than gallaston at the time but now it has millions of people living it. And Galveston has roughly 50,000, I think if I remember the number correctly. But I recommend you go look at the piece.

One line from the letter that I, that I mentioned the person said, as they were watching the tides rise, the winds blow, knock buildings over the scenes about here are distressing everything washed away it's all grand fine sight our beautiful bay a raging torrent so um you know there's another story about a hundred people 10 nuns 90 children in an orphanage that all died when their dormitories collapsed and they drowned. And it's very sad. But I think the piece itself was a good reflection on what happened.

And it's important for everyone to remember that. Well, thank you for covering that for us. Definitely go check out the Texas History tab at the top of our website and check it out well gentlemen uh we have had as usual a lot of discussion about what our fun topic for today should be and i believe uh we're going to talk about what y'all would do if you won the lottery um a little bit topical as hayden's wrote a piece on that this week brad always and for insight, you know, Brad, and so I can rag on Brad a little bit. We haven't done this in a while.

But Brad always chooses topics for the fun topic that are so random and a little bit self-reflective too in ways that are uncomfortable sometimes. And so this feels more... I don't understand that, but okay. I'm going to go on a quest with Brad's fun topic.

That's what it feels like. Yeah. yeah that wasn't me take this personality test okay that's true but um that's very true but his are like what as a child uh did you enjoy doing favorite toy as a child that was one i would have said hot wheels but you know that's not allowed i feel like they're more self-reflective, but that's okay. Regardless, if you won the lottery, folks, what would you spend your money on? I think I would buy a parking garage. Oh, my gosh. That is a great investment.

Great investment. Welcome to my cult. Wow. Thank you. It's great being here. If Brad was wearing his glasses right now, I would, you know, push them up for him, up up the bridge of his nose as he was very nerdy in saying that. What else? Is that really what you would spend your money on?

A parking garage? Either that or a house in Galveston. A house in Galveston. Man, Daniel, you're really hitting the buttons today. Yeah, trying to. Yeah, that's good. Or invest it in the stock market. Yeah.

Roth IRA, max it out every year for infinity. Yeah. I would probably make a nature preserve. I would just buy as much land as I could and just do nothing with it. Wow. For like for your personal use of just being able to be out in. Yeah. In nature.

That's what I do. Yeah. I love that. Would you stock it with any types of wildlife? Would you have a pond or a tank? I don't think I do. Yeah. get money or get land on on the shore um i might i don't know do whatever you have to do to ensure that those sea turtles don't get eaten yeah because they got terrible parents and stuff like that but other than that no i wouldn't just like decide to put a zebra in my backyard or anything right you're not in a king's ranch situation yeah got it bradley well you'd start your parking garage business for those who don't know at one point that's my retirement yeah we started a i forget what the topic was it was basically

what business would you start if you could start a business and brad's a parking garage and i really went at him for choosing such a boring business idea and then quickly came to realize the um popular opinion tides were very much against me and everyone thought it was a great idea yeah it's a great idea but i would probably buy a baseball team wow yeah but you can see that one coming yeah that makes total sense well it depends on how much money i make from this lottery okay i can't i would never never buy the New York Yankees because they're the freaking worst. But I couldn't buy the New York Yankees with just a $275 million pot. Right.

So it depends. Okay, if money was no object. Money was no object. Say the lottery was infinite. Well, of course I would buy the Tigers. Got it. There you go. No duh.

Yeah. money was not say the lottery well of course i would buy the tigers got it there you go no duh yeah but uh it would also be fun to own a minor league baseball team there's a there's one i don't know where it is some random state but they have totally changed the rules of baseball they walk up to the plate while wearing stilts and it's very strange, but it looks like a good time. Wow. Well, I think that just based on that alone, it's worth buying the stilts alone. The stilts alone.

Yeah. Um, well, Hayden, what about you? What would you, what would you buy or spend your money on or invest in with, you know,

a lottery winning bucket? Well, I would probably, again, depending on how much money it was, if it was like a hundred million dollar lottery or a $1 million, I don't know, but I would go a hundred million.

Okay. Let's pretend it's a hundred million. I probably buy a mansion on Lake Travis and then maybe another one on white rock Lake and Dallas. Oh wow. So two lake houses, two lake houses one on white rock lake and dallas oh wow so two lake houses two lake houses except white rock lake is within view good luck paying the property taxes on those no kidding he'll be fine there's 100 million dollars we'll take care of that for quite a while and i probably buy i don't know different cars i'm not really a car person

but i probably you buy a minivan really tricked out i'm not really a car person, but I probably... You'd buy a minivan? A really tricked out minivan? I would not buy a minivan. I would not. If anything, I'd buy a Suburban. Oh, that's fun. Like a blacked out Suburban so people could think you were driving Greg Abbott around or something?

I could pretend that or I could just, I don't know, pretend like I was a movie star or something. That's cool. But movie stars don't drive their own car. What movie star do we think hayden looks like it's russell russell crow that's right russell crow i could pretend to be russell crow there you go i like that i would probably buy a mountain house uh surprise surprise in either washington or colorado and i would i would actually yeah i'd buy a lot of property along a river and just go sit by the river a lot in the mountains that sounds very peaceful i think that's what i would do you get cold just sitting in this podcast imagine how cold you would be but i grew up near there and i don't like that's normal i i enjoy having to bundle up that's fun for me to be in some place where bundling is

required it just feels cozy you're having fun right now well i mean i'd prefer not to be in austin texas in a podcast studio but uh yes i do i am having fun in this delightfully gifted blanket i just want to know how we're going to organize the logistics of doing the podcast every week when we're all in our various lake houses and mountain houses. Hey, you know we've done remote podcasts. All across the Fruited Plain. Before and recently, but that's true. So does this mean we're all going in on a joint lottery ticket?

Yes. It's a lottery pool. Hayden, what's the pot up to right now for Mega Millions? Do you know? I can't say off the top of my head. Yeah, well, Google it for us. Google it for us and then we'll spend the money. The Mega Millions? Yeah. At least two the mega millions yeah at least two mega man how much is a mega million is it more than a billion i don't think so because by definition it's in the millions right what i'm just trying to figure

out how much a mega thousands jackpot yeah and it's not the mega billions jackpot it has gotten up to a billion or more before the jackpot is at 368 million 368 million you could buy a lot of a lot of baseball teams for that and not as many as you'd think well no i mean you could buy a lot of baseball teams would be within your budget is what i'm saying you cannot buy multiple by the whole major league that's not in your budget i'll kick uh rob manfred to the curb because he's just terrible. And I would end blackouts. Who is that? He's the MLB commissioner.

Okay. I would end blackouts if I were MLB commissioner. That would be the first order of business. Okay. Let me just state that right there. There's probably like five of our listeners that would actually either understand that or care about that. But it's worth it for them. Okay.

There you go. Any additional last minute purchases knowing that that is the amount of money you'd be taking home hayden looks into the sky throw some into bitcoin too that makes sense just for the heck of it could you buy one bitcoin oh yeah you could buy like two at least how much is it by the way the obvious answer is i think you know not to be you don't want to be that white kid in class it's like if you had a hundred dollars well i'd give it away yes i'm sure everyone around this table would give a substantial portion and also invest it yeah in the stock market but those are

the fun things that we would purchase no 100 and i i think too i mean a lake or river property in the mountains is like minutiae compared to that sum. So I'm trying to think of something else. I would buy a National Martin, too. Really? Yeah. The Bond situation? Is that the vibe you're going for?

Yeah. Is the Bond? Okay. Okay. I could take that. I'd buy a pickup truck because it's so not something that I think I would be expected to drive. A very jerked out pickup truck?

No, just a pickup truck. You can get a crappy pickup truck for like a thousand bucks. It would be a nice one, but I wouldn't put like the giant rims and make it look all blingy, but I would buy a nice one for sure. Okay. Any last minute thoughts, gentlemen, before we kick ourselves off and give our listeners back their day? I would buy winston

a really big box of treats that's really nice brad and then try and make him open it himself wow that went downhill so quickly well folks thank you for listening tweet at us and let us know what you would spend your mega millions on have a wonderful day and we'll talk to you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at the Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us.

God bless you, and God bless Texas. Thank you.