The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 16, 2022

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review!Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Operation Lone Star arresting over 300,000 illegal immigrants since March 2021Senate Democrats pulling a big tech and journalism bill after an amendment was passedTexas House Republicans’ letter to the Secretary of Education over Title IXAmarillo approving new debt to fund its civic center without voter approvalThe Dallas City Council debating how to staff a new city government officeA frenzied Frisco ISD board meeting over bathroom policy and gun storageDan Patrick’s campaign responding to criticism of the lieutenant governor’s former investmentsGovernor Abbott’s strong words in defense of Texas’ abortion lawMayra Flores’ Democratic opponent claiming she “stole” her special electionA lawsuit against Texas A&M over claims of racial discrimination against white and Asian men

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses Operation Lone Star arresting over 300,000 illegal immigrants since March 2021. Senate Democrats pulling a big tech and journalism bill after an amendment was passed. Texas House Republicans letter to the Secretary of Education over Title IX. Amarillo approving new debt to fund its civic center without voter approval, the Dallas City Council debating how to staff a new city government office, a frenzied Frisco ISD board meeting over bathroom policy and gun storage, Dan Patrick's campaign responding to criticism of the lieutenant governor's former investments,

Governor Abbott's strong words in defense of Texas' abortion law. Myra Flores, Democrat opponent claiming she stole her election. And a lawsuit against Texas A&M over claims of racial discrimination against white and Asian men. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Oh, howdy folks. It's Mackenzie here with Brad, Hayden, and Hudson. We just tried to record. It failed and it was a very anticlimactic moment. We've recovered, I think, which is good. Well, now that you're mentioning it, we haven't.

So you're bringing me up. Brad, why do you do this? I had to get back at you somehow for what for everything okay fair i thought you meant the other day when she jumped out at you in the hallway oh that well yeah it's part of everything should we tweet that out well no because you do something not nice yes i did after you did something not nice i was i i think i said that it was the equivalent of um what did i say it was the dumbest comparison you made one could argue brad's response was proportional but see when hayden goes against me i feel very convicted because hayden isn't always on y'all's team because y'all are always together. And Hayden sometimes comes over to my side.

So if Hayden says, hey, Mac, you might be wrong here. Well, I have been a victim of jump scare related terrorism in this office. So I empathize with Brad's position, except I was holding a cup of hot coffee when it happened. So that caused a disaster. Yeah, that's a great video that was my favorite video that i've ever seen of us in this office um i'm just giving back our time it wasn't that bad yeah i thought it was a pro i was like i wasn't even i could have gone like guttural scream and i didn't

do that i don't remember i had something i wanted to talk to you guys at the front of the podcast now i can't remember what it was. Hayden. Yes. If Hayden were to start a podcast, what would we call it, Brad? We would call it. No, this is rough and I'm workshopping it. But what sparks discussion?

Why would you call it that? Maybe because it's hosted by Hayden Sparks. Yes. Yes. And it was sparked in my mind by our fun topic that Hayden suggested. And that would be a topic for his discussion podcast. I got it. I'm envisioning him just rambling on for two straight hours with no response. Just him. I don't know if I could find two hours worth of things to talk about by myself i would get

bored with listening to my own voice but in that imaginary space i picture him like smoking a pipe with his feet up on an ottoman and the mic and like an easy uh or not next to a fireplace like dennis prager 100 wearing a cardigan wearing a cardigan would y'all believe me if i said that i did wear a cardigan in high school for a brief time? I would actually believe that, yes. I got rid of it after enough people made fun of me. Hudson, it was funny. You're making too much noise.

I'm sorry. Your mic picks up everything. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm having a protein bar there you go okay let's clarify that it was a protein bar you must be loving it because you are in the zone it is like it is like rule number one to not we are we should probably just keep this in at this point at this point it's like rule number one not to eat on the pod but i don't think we ever told you that rule so that's okay i was never told that that's okay we will just going forward

not eat rx bars on the pod once i um what did i eat on the pod that made sarah back in the day really mad at me i can't remember it's really only bad if you have these on because it's like mouth noises like crazy gotcha. Anyways, podcast delightful things. Hudson, welcome to the team. We're sorry we all snapped at you. Like we were rude patrons of the diner. Oh, man. Okay.

Well, in order to get to the fun topic that Hayden has outlined for us so graciously, let's get right into the news. And Hayden, we will start with you. What are the latest statistics for Operation Lone Star provided by the governor's office? It's hard to believe it's been so long since Operation Lone Star was launched, but it was March of last year that Abbott sent down state troopers and National Guardsmen. And then there were other states that chipped in as well. but he's been releasing on a weekly basis some of the updated stats. And we recently crossed a new milestone for arrests of illegal immigrants.

302,600 illegal immigrants have been taken into custody and transferred to federal authorities for processing in the federal immigration system. And there have also been 19,700 arrests of accused criminals and 17,200 felony charges filed against those suspects. And there have been 340.5 million deadly doses of fentanyl confiscated along the southern border since the launch of operation lone star and fentanyl has been a increasingly worsening problem in the state of texas before texas was a pass-through state for this narcotic but beginning a few months after operation lone star began dps and and the the governor began sounding the alarm about this incredibly lethal drug. A deadly dose, I believe, is two milligrams, a very small amount of fentanyl can kill someone easily. And there have been anecdotally just several stories just in recent

memory of high school students here in the Austin area being killed by this very potent drug. So 340.5 million deadly overdoses of fentanyl have been confiscated just by the state of Texas via Operation Lone Star, which is just astonishing. That's the population of the whole country. And illegal immigration is certainly linked to that. So those are some of the updated statistics from Operation Lone Star. Abbott has also announced a $5,000 reward for tips leading to the disruption of stash houses. And that is also being emphasized by the governor. Wow.

So what are some of the objections that have been raised against Operation Lone Star? The critics of Operation Lone Star are a panoply of lawyers and interest groups and really everyday people who view this as more of a publicity stunt and something that Abbott is doing to gain favor with the staunchest Republican voters who he needs to turn out for him in November. And his Democratic opponent, Beto O'Rourke, has certainly made that criticism multiple times. But last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas authored a letter to the civil rights arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, encouraging them to shut this down more or less because in their view, Operation Lone Star is an encroachment on what is a federal responsibility to enforce immigration statutes. And even though there have been 1.8 million plus apprehensions by border guards of accused illegal immigrants. The efforts that the state is taking, the ACLU believes, are not respecting the dignity of these people by putting them in conditions that

are dangerous to their health, that could contribute to heat exhaustion. They cited an example of a group of people waiting outside in the heat for several hours while they were waiting to be transferred from state custody to federal custody. And the ACLU also pointed out that some of the standards of care and some of the standards of professionalism that federal authorities are required to obey may not translate to state authorities obeying them simply because they're participating in federal enforcement. So the ACLU is asking that DHS stop cooperating with Operation Lone Star. That's a flavor of some of the criticisms that have gone forward,

and the operation is also reportedly the subject of a federal investigation as well. Wow. Well, Hayden, thank you for that. Bradley, let's talk. A bill in the U.S. Senate was pulled by Democrats after an amendment was passed that prohibits censorship in media organizations. Give us the details. So Senate Democrats and Republicans had been working on a compromise bill that would allow certain news organizations to effectively collectively bargain with each other over how their content may be distributed and at what price they would be paid with tech companies. It was applied to media organizations of 1,500 employees or fewer. And it doesn't include a place like the new york times or the washington post which basically get whatever they want because they're very large news organizations

the social media and other tech companies like google pay them quite a bit the bill would create a four-year safe harbor window from antitrust laws. And the purpose is to allow these smaller media companies to get paid better for the product they provide. There's a lot of struggling companies out there that's been in the news quite a bit. The New York Times and the Washington Post and those giants have kind of saturated the market with their own product. They have overtaken much of the media

customer base out there. And so this is something that the U.S. Senate is trying to do to allow smaller organizations to try and find a leg up there you go so um so i keep going i was gonna say but after so that's the reasoning after ted cruz's amendment passed in the judiciary committee committee senator amy klobuchar pulled the bill and that amendment was passed because john ossoff had been out with covid and did not designate a proxy that's something a procedure

that congress implemented during covid to allow members who were sick with covid to vote on things so so they could actually pass things and he did not designate a proxy and there were multiple other i watched the video there were multiple other senators that had designated a proxy and he was the one that hadn't and therefore republicans had uh one more vote the democrats and so they passed this amendment onto the bill interesting okay so tell us about the amendment so it's stated that during these negotiations allowed by the bill uh that creates an exemption from antitrust law, the two parties cannot discuss content moderation, only revenue from ads or whatever else. Senator Cruz said of it, the topic of discussion when these two sides get together can't be censorship. It should be ad revenues. During discussion on it, Senator John Kennedy, the main Republican working on the bill with Democrats, said this amendment is making explicit what I thought was implicit. If I'm wrong about that, please let me know. jail free card by presenting an obvious opportunity for gamesmanship in the negotiation

since news outlets depend on the antitrust exemption while the covered platforms do not the platforms could then raise content moderation at the first opportunity in an attempt to avoid the joint negotiations but regardless is an attempt to prevent google twitter facebook from saying during these ad or these revenue negotiations that sure, we'll give you what you want payment wise. But you have to you can't publish anything critical of X person or you can't publish anything about Y issue, things like that. And so that's the attempt. Obviously, Republicans and Democrats are divided on how it would actually play out in that case. That's not going to go away, but the bill now goes back to the drawing board and I'm not really sure how it's

going to end up, but it is something that both Republicans and Democrats want to pass. And Cruz himself was, he had concerns about the bill, but overall he was supportive of the spirit of it. So maybe they'll be able to come up with some sort of compromise. There you go. Well, thank you, Bradley. Hudson, we have a story from you this week. You were able to break it and specifically relating to Texas Republicans criticizing some Title IX developments. Tell us about what they are asking the Biden administration to do. Yeah. So, Representatives Harrison and Swanson sent a letter in response to the proposed change to Title IX that the Department of Education announced this

summer. We are currently in the public comment period. So, Representatives Harrison and Swanson want to voice their opposition prior to the rule taking effect. So, the rule itself is over 700 pages long. Woo! Yeah. And it adds an entirely new interpretation of Title IX, which was originally meant

to prevent sex-based discrimination. And that was presumably based on the basis of biological sex as it was passed in the early 70s. The most notable change comes from the reinterpretation of that word sex. And under this proposed rule, sexual orientation and gender identity will be included in that definition. So why do the representatives take issue with this portion of the rule change? Yeah, they claim that it is a way to backdoor transgender

involvement in women's sports. Talking to Brian Harrison, he told me if a biological man identifying as a woman wanted to play on a women's sports team and were barred from participating, the school could be held accountable for sexual harassment under this rule. He also told me that he believes that this is an effort by the Biden administration to preempt state laws that prevent biological men from participating in women's sports. He spoke specifically of the recent Texas Texas law, House Bill 25, the Save Girls Sports Act, authored by his co-signer on the letter, Representative Valerie Swanson. Is there any way to stop this rule from taking effect? Well, they have limited means available and and from taking from preventing it from going into effect eventually. But because they sent this letter, the administration has to consider the opposition as we are in the public comment period. A group of states have already filed suit against the proposed change. And

Harrison was clear that if the change was finalized, Texas may do the same. He finished our conversation saying this is unconstitutional, illegal, and states like Texas need to fight back. We must defend women and we must defend federalism. So as a side note, like I said, this is a 700 page rule and I haven't even been able to look through all of the proposed changes. And there's so many different things that are that are changing as a result of this new this new amendment. There's different ways there. They're going to be having Title nine hearings and the overall structure of the law. And from the things that I can read, just both from the left and the right, it's going to do a lot to change the way that Title nine works in our school systems. So this will be an interesting topic to look further into in the coming weeks and as it continues to receive opposition and comment.

Well, thank you, Hudson, for covering that for us. Bradley, we're coming back to you. A financing mover used by the city of Amarillo became the subject of a very fiery House committee hearing last week. Talk to us about the backstory. So in 2020, Amarillo voters rejected by a wide margin a $275 million bond proposal to renovate the city's civic center and relocate city hall on that ground that city hall is currently, uh, they would have some of the expansion of the civic center. And so it was kind of a two move, uh, maneuver there, but rather than wait or scrap the project after the proposal was rejected this year, city approved a 260 million dollar tax anticipation

note a mechanism of debt issuance that does not have to be approved by voters tans are meant to be like a bridge loan an injection of funding to bridge the gap between times of incoming revenue. Usually they are paid off two, three, four months at a time rather than spread out over 30 years like other mechanisms of debt we see. The city's intention was to issue the TAN, then refinance the debt with a long-term refunding bond or a certificate of obligation, which can be used as a refunding bond. But neither of those require voter approval. So this is an entire end around what the voters decided to do in 2020. And the city is moving ahead with this project or trying to um apparently when they went to the the bank that decided that agreed to loan them the money for this tan they had they were asking for upwards of 500 million dollars

and that is uh more than well more than double what uh the original bond proposal was in 2020. And so that's the backstory of this situation. Still without voter approval. Still without voter approval. Yeah. So it was not received very well in the House committee hearing when they were told. And it's become pretty controversial up in the panhandle too, and there even resulted in a lawsuit, correct?

Yep. So Amarillo businessman Alex Fairley, who testified before the House controversial up in the panhandle too and there even resulted in a lawsuit correct yep so amarillo businessman alex fairly who testified before the house telling them of this situation uh he has poured nearly half a million dollars of his own money into a legal fight with the city over it he alleges that the city neither provided sufficient public notice of the bond nor adhered to the spirit of the tan law um in in the article i cite what uh what the law says in there that this can be used for uh there's a trial early next month on this case uh i hope to be there that would be uh very interesting to follow. But during the proceedings, the city tried to, of the legal proceedings,

the city tried to force Fairley to pay a $6 million surety bond, which is basically, he would have to fork over the $6 million and I guess as like collateral for if his legal challenge fails. And the reason that the city tried to make him pay that was their justification was that of the increased costs that they have incurred on the

project while this lawsuit has put a hold on it. And the judge swiftly swatted that attempt away from the city but this is uh i think probably going on month two two or three of this legal fight um it's out in amarillo it's at a district court there um but yeah in early october the two sides will make their cases to the bench so talk to us you talked briefly about it speak to us about it again what did the legislators say about fairly's testimony put simply they were outraged uh state rep jim murphy of houston said i recall hearing this story last may from one of my colleagues and i sort of thought no that's preposterous i'm sure that's not what occurred and he said but it's that and more

um state rep hugh shine said to me there's all kinds of red flags that go up on this deal and my message to any municipality out there that's thinking of pulling the stunt i think they better be on guard because that's something the attorney general's office would be on top of pretty quick i would think absolutely then uh state or a chair morgan meyer said amarillo officials tried to exploit a loophole and tried to go around a law that was passed and signed by the governor to explicitly make sure the voters had a say and that cannot stand he also added that the legislature would close the loophole next session when they reconvene in January. We saw non-voter approved debt be kind of revamped or the law that allows it revamped last year during the legislative session. But, you know, when you think you fixed one thing, another one pops up always and so this is if meyer has his way and he is a fairly powerful member of the legislature this will be brought up and some sort of reform to it will

likely be passed uh fairly also testified this week in front of the senate a senate committee hearing with senator paul bettencourt so it's both chambers that are outraged about this and this is going to continue to be something they discuss and deliberate on. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, let's talk about Dan Patrick. Let's move over to the Senate here. What were some of the claims of the Texas Monthly piece that drew the Dan Patrick campaign's ire? Texas Monthly put out a, well, Texas Monthly has a unique style. Anyone who's read a Texas Monthly piece knows that it's not necessarily straight-laced, straightforward. They add a little bit of personality to it. And so this piece definitely came off as a criticism

of Dan Patrick, but it was going over the fact that he had investments in BlackRock, which is really, I think, the largest investment firm in the world. And it had run afoul of SB13, a new state law that seeks to more or less keep the state from shooting itself in the foot by putting its pension dollars and investments that target the texas oil and gas industry and i'll invite brad to chime in if my interpretation of this is correct but the state under this new law is not supposed to invest in companies that boycott energy companies and adopt an investment philosophy that only invests in things like renewables instead of oil and gas. And this bill received bipartisan support because that's a major part of the state's economy. And it would be suicidal from an

economic perspective for the state to adopt that philosophy from an investment perspective. So it is. Sorry, go ahead. It's a broad response to the ESG movement that we've discussed quite a bit, which is broadly trying to funnel capital from in the energy industry from from like fossil fuels more traditional uses or companies to renewables um and that has kind of spun off into social issues as well but this response by the state to try and use it's the market power that it does have with its own pensions which are pretty large to reverse course on that and this doesn't it's not uh it doesn't keep private individuals or even elected officials from having personal investments

so texas monthly wasn't accusing patrick of breaking the law but he they were accusing him of hypocrisy hypocrisy yeah because in january he asked the comptroller public accounts glenn hagar to put blackrock on the the banned list of of investment firms at the top of the list right at the top of the list because they i think he said it was the biggest offender or something to that poster child for this whole thing yeah yeah so he um really was was knocking blackrock and um right around this time is when well i'll get to that in a second but uh that's the bones of this Texas Monthly piece. They accused him or pointed out that he owned shares in this company after SB 13 was passed and up until he asked Glenn Hager to put them at the top of the list.

So that's what Texas Monthly pointed out. And that's what provoked a response. So talk to us about the responses of Patrick's team. Well, there were a few factual things that they claimed were off in Texas Monthly's coverage. But Alan Blakemore, Patrick's chief strategist, commented, quote, Lieutenant Governor Patrick did not make a decision to buy BlackRock. He depends on his investment advisors who made the BlackRock investments before SB13 was passed, end quote. So he's seeking to add some distance between Patrick and this decision. In other words, he's trying to say Patrick didn't personally handpick these investments while he was considering

SB13, but this is something his team did on his behalf. So not exactly denying that he did it. And there are a lot of people in the world that have money tied up in BlackRock because it's the largest portfolio manager in the world. Yeah. And like literally tens of trillions of dollars they manage. So, um,

you know, it's a popular thing to put money in for these portfolio managers because they see a return on investment. And there are probably other lawmakers that have money i'm sure they're whether they know it or not right yeah because i mean and that's a fair point that he's he's saying that these are decisions that are made for him but he also seemed to resist the characterization that patrick is being hypocritical blake moore asserted that he didn't keep the shares, as Texas Monthly said, but he also said that they were sold in late January

and SB13 was signed into law in June. But January is when Patrick began calling for BlackRock to be placed on the top of the list of banned investment firms. And so Blake Moore said, said quote when you set out to write a hit piece journalistic standards be damned a freshman journalism student would expect to get an f on the assignment end quote and then there was some quibbling about the value of the shares he said he the texas monthly inflated the value of them i don't know a whole lot about a whole lot about investing but i imagine that's not something you can necessarily pin down exactly how much a share is worth until it's sold.

It's fluctuating, right? It's always changing. You can't say, you lied about how much my house was worth unless it was grossly inflated, which is what Blake Moore was saying that Texas Monthly did. So I suppose that would be up to a specialist in the market to be able to decide that. But Texas Monthly did update its piece with an editor's note, and part of that stated, quote, We have updated the story to reflect new information, including details about some of Patrick's holdings in BlackRock shares and mutual funds and when he sold them. There were no factual errors in the original story that required correction." A couple months out from a general

election, this piece probably made the Patrick team a little bit flustered, pointing out something that is an uncomfortable fact for Patrick given how much he's argued against BlackRock and these investments that could hurt the Texas oil and gas industry. But he's facing Mike Collier in the general election, and that's still a couple months away. Well, thank you, Hayden, for that coverage. Hey, listeners, if you enjoy listening to Texas news without the spin on our podcast each week, consider subscribing to the Texan. We're not funded by big donors or corporate interests. 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 chatting about, 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 right now we're running a promotion. New subscribers will get a free long sleeve t-shirt with this snazzy John Steinbeck quote. Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. For more details, visit thetexan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Now back to more stories from this week. Brad, you watched a heated school board meeting up in Frisco ISD this week. What happened? So it was the first or I think it was the first or it was one of the first board meetings with new members stephanie elad and

marvin lowe they are two conservatives who unseated incumbents by campaigning against critical race theory school masks slash closers and gender slash sexual curriculum and materials we saw a huge trend in texas with that And so these were two of those candidates that managed to do It was just overall kind of an interruption of the status quo, I'm sure. There were also a lot of people there because of various items that were on this agenda. So the three big topics were the school's gender bathroom policy, a review of the sexually explicit books found in libraries and the policy of analyzing those and maybe removing them and a proposed gun storage notice one of those is not really like the others but those were those were the things that kind of brought out quite a bit of controversy and is a reason why the audience was so packed and when listening to it you could hear applause and jeers

constantly on this stuff um it was definitely uh an interesting event to at least witness from afar since i just watched it on on video instead of being there but But there's a lot of conflict. Yeah, absolutely. Talk to us specifically about the bathroom policy. Yeah. So I go into all this stuff and there were a few more that I talk about in the piece. So if you want to hear a full rundown, go read that. But on this thing specifically, this probably took up the most airtime, I would say. They said, the school board said that the district's current policy is that students use bathrooms according to their biological sex. And if a case arises of a student feeling uncomfortable with that, the school will work with the parents to find a solution, which they said repeatedly was usually they use the nurse's bathroom, which is a single entry bathroom the item was brought up because the bite administration is currently considering a version back to the obama era department of education policy that schools must allow students to use whichever gendered bathroom they prefer

and actually they're threatening school lunch aid if they do of for the schools if they do not abide by that policy. That is currently tied up in the courts. But this was just a discussion. The board heard from their legal counsel about what the law actually states and what kind of policy they can approve under federal law. No decision was made, but there was a lot of testimony about it on this issue. Talk to us about the gun storage notice. So this was controversial right off the bat with when it was discovered in the agenda, with some seeing it as an attempt by the school to compile an informal gun registry.

The board's drafted resolution read, the Frisco ISD board further directs the superintendent to develop a form or modify an existing form for the purpose of soliciting acknowledgement of state law and the availability of resources regarding safe gun storage practices from parents in Frisco ISD. This was a response to what happened in Uvalde, and it caught a lot of fire, a lot of flack on social media. I asked board president Renee Archambault about this on Monday afternoon. She told me that they were not trying to create a gun registry and said that the form would be modeled after one that Houston ISD uses. I have that in the article. You can see what it looks like. It has a place for a parent's parent signature but it doesn't say anywhere uh tell us if you have guns now the account argument would be just doing this

um would create in kind of a an informal acknowledgement uh by by people that rejected this form that they had guns um ultimately the resolution was passed with an amendment that added the language after what I just read that says, the form shall clearly state that Frisco ISD is not requesting any information from any parents, including whether any parent owns a firearm or how many firearms are stored and that a parent's acknowledgement of the statute and availability of resources shall not be construed to mean that the parent owns a firearm both elad and low voted against the resolution despite the amendment it passed though four to two um that was a consistent theme in the in the meeting well

broad thanks for covering something that's not usually your beat but you just it was off the uh beaten path as it were i swear hayden let's talk about dallas what are some of the elements of the city's budget proposal the contrasting facial expressions from mac and brad are just amusing to watch oh my gosh um i'm sorry mac what was your question again uh i'm just asking what hayden are some of the elements of the dallas budget proposal just randomly came to mind it just came to mind let's talk about dallas budget okay great um every year uh the city manager uh submits a draft to the city council it's um the comprehensive dallas budget proposal for them to consider uh this 1.45 billion dollar document um includes um additional funding for the police department which had been cut by a little bit after the 2020

riots and protests in downtown. They cut the police overtime budget, if you'll recall, but now the proposed budget has approximately $45 million an increase in the police budget from last year and it's increased by nearly 100 million from 2020 so we've well surpassed in dallas the police budget when there were talks of cutting or defunding the dallas police department so that has that as an issue has been eclipsed, numerically speaking. But the budget also includes a slight decrease in the property tax rate of $2.75, but there will still be an increase in the amount of property tax collected by about $132 million due to increased evaluations. So the property tax rate is decreasing, but not the amount that they are collecting. And the police force is receiving plenty of more funding. But they also debated a newer office at City Hall that has been formed just this year. Awesome.

So what were City Council members' thoughts on the new Inspector General's office? Earlier this year, the City of Dallas unveiled its Inspector General's office after it was created last December by the City Council. And Bart Bevers, an attorney, became the first individual to lead that office. He is now requesting an additional six staff members. He claims that he's been overwhelmed with reports and requests to investigate accused misconduct by city employees, things like sexual harassment, things like embezzlement of funds, the full range of misconduct that could be reported. And previously, this was handled directly by the city attorney, and it was creating problems because there was really no mechanism for this specific issue to be handled. And now that there

is an inspector general's office that has a budget of $ 1.7 million dollars and the city council was debating whether that should whether his staff should be increased and whether the office is growing too quickly some of the in recent memory some of the cases that sparked the need for this i can't believe i just said that sparked the need some of the events that spurred i can't believe it's taken you this long to start using your name as a pun hayden how long have you been here like two and a half two and a half years almost i don't think that joke really has made its way into these halls until this week yeah somebody proposed it in a headline and it just came to mind yeah so uh but former councilman duane carraway just got out of prison earlier this year

after the feds cut his prison sentence for corruption short and that is still fresh in the minds of dallas leaders there have also been other corruption cases in the city of dallas that have spurred the need for deeper investigation into complaints of corruption. The city council is set to vote on its budget on Wednesday, September 21st, although they did take a straw poll and vote in favor of their budget. They shuffled some money around, but they didn't defund the inspector general's office, although the mayor wasn't necessarily, reportedly he wasn't necessarily pleased that they were tinkering with this office's budget anyway. They withdrew some funds and then took some money from the pension fund and put it back into the inspector general's office.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it was weird. They had something like a few hundred thousand dollars that they wanted to remove from that office uh but then they they replaced it so that it was i believe it was a wash in the end okay yeah there's a pension funds are used quite a bit as like slush funds it's especially with these governmental entities now if it got all back replaced then that's one thing but it's just very odd how they're kind of used as like credit cards yeah and it sounds like that's what they did because they wanted to fund more local community prosecutions of code violations and that type of

thing so they wanted to that's what they were wanting the inspector general funds for and so they just did a merry-go-round with the money, um, and which is, which is strange to me. I don't understand how all that works and why they're able to do that and why they didn't just increase or decrease it. I,

I am still a little bit green with understanding all the city financing stuff and how they, how they balance their budgets and how that's even legal for them to take money out of a pension fund to use it for something different. But the question will be if the city council gives a final stamp of approval, and it's not a given. After the fight over police funding, there were several council members that were still upset with the budget even as they took the final vote. So that's a question that will be resolved on the 21st there you go hayden thank you so much for that coverage bradley we are just

peeing back peeing back and forth between brad and hayden today because hudson has been working on one story in particular this week that took a lot of time so he has not published as much as usual but folks keep an eye out we have a really great story come from hudson about a migrant center in san antonio i'm just plugging it now ahead of time. We'll see what it actually publishes, but it's a great story. Should be a good one. I'm excited about it. Anyway, let's go back to Brad here.

Governor Abbott issued one of his most straightforward and firm defenses of Texas's abortion law this week. What did he say? When asked by a reporter about the various laws, there's three separate segments of them on the books. Abbott said in abortion is the taking is taking the life of a baby. And our goal in passing the laws that were passed is to protect the lives of those babies. This is notable because while Abbott has,

he certainly defended the laws before but um he hasn't been so firm in defense when pressed before by a reporter um so if like it was taking an extra step he would he wouldn't be this yeah i mean he would like um uh he would talk about like technicalities of law like is oh, um, you know, is it six weeks? Is it whatever? Yeah. Um, but this was like, uh, hand or fist slamming the table,

uh, prepared response. Ready to go. Yes. And that's why it, uh, it was so notable and, and,

uh, took a lot of people. Um, I wouldn't say shockingly, but, uh, they were surprised that it was not something that uh that was expected um but when this video made the rounds that uh got a lot of attention yeah

absolutely so talk to us about an example um of when abbott has you know defended the laws before but maybe not been this adamant yeah so asked recently about exceptions for rape and incest. Abbott said those victims can access health care immediately, and by accessing that health care immediately, they can get the Plan B pill that can prevent a pregnancy from occurring in the first place. that women who are raped are told to pursue you get medical help immediately um for injuries let alone uh if they're uh unfortunately impregnated during that um but the plan b pill is not an abortion it prevents um the inception from happening as far as I understand as best I understand it but that is that is not like an absurd response it just when they're talking about the laws themselves

it is easy to pull out and make kind of lampoon it which is what happened by the media and Abbott's critics about the laws not having exceptions for rape and incest. The other instance occurred last September with the same premise on rape and incest exceptions. Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out, arresting, prosecuting them, and getting them off the streets. Goal number one is to eliminate rape so that no woman, no person will be a victim of rape.

That also was a very standard law and order type of response about a crime um but that was uh taken and run with by his critics and the media saying that that's the only thing that's abbott's response to women who get raped or uh or some other crime and so that was he said that after he mentioned that they were talking about the harvey bill which uh prohibits an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected which is roughly six weeks but it can vary so he was saying that it didn't make abortion illegal entirely it's up to fetal heartbeat detection they can get an abortion so that is just a much different um kind of statement or response than Abbott delivered this week. And it was a lot less firm in the principle of why he believes what he believes, why Republicans

passed the laws they did. But after getting lampooned in the media and really hit hard on this issue since Roe v. Wade was overturned. We're now seeing the governor formulate and solidify his messaging on this issue, which really has risen to the top. It may not be the tip-top issue, but it's definitely top three, or even with a couple others like the border or the economy. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brad, thanks for following that for us. Hayden, let's chat with you. A Democratic congressman made an interesting

claim at a campaign event in Brownsville. What were Vincente Gonzalez's comments about his Republican opponent? Congressman Gonzalez was with another congressman from California, Adam Schiff, who is incidentally the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. And Fox News reported that Gonzalez made an interesting remark that sounded a little bit familiar, but not from a Democrat. He accused Mayra Flores, who recently won a special election in the 34th congressional district that she stole her election with her financial support. That was the nature of the criticism. He didn't accuse her of ballot fraud, but he did accuse her and her supporters of stealing the election because they were outraised and outfunded. According to Fox News, this was Gonzalez's comment,

they stole the last election. They spent three million to our two hundred fifty thousand. They campaigned for two years and they still only won by less than one percent. So the way to turn this around is getting out and vote, end quote. Flores responded to this on Twitter as well. She said, quote, the far left is getting pretty desperate when Adam Schiff is coming down to Texas to save Vicente Gonzalez. The swamp is protecting one of its own, end quote. So an interesting remark by a Democrat. President Trump obviously has been beating the drum of his election being stolen since 2020. His campaign wasn't able to prove that in court, clearly, but he's been roundly criticized and Republicans have been criticized for making claims of election stealing. So it's interesting to hear that from a Democrat. Certainly, at least in recent memory. Why are two incumbent members of Congress running against each other? Well, the Texas legislature redrew the 34th congressional district to include Gonzalez and Flores. Flores became upset that her Democratic opponents in the special election after she ran to replace Congressman Philmon Vela, who resigned suddenly in March to go work for a law firm. And the district is redrawn so that it is

more favorable to the Democratic Party. So Flores is facing an uphill battle in her election against Gonzalez. But if the Democrat had won, this would be a competition between two Democrats. I don't think the legislature expected necessarily for this to end up being a face-off between a Republican and a Democrat because it seems the way it was drawn was to put two Democrats against each other because the 34th district has historically been a Democratic district. But now you have a special election that put a Republican in the seat and South Texas is trending red. So it is possible that she could win, but it's definitely Gonzalez's race to lose. Certainly. I would say. Thank you so much, Hayden Hudson. Last but certainly not least, we got a spicy higher ed story here.

Who is suing Texas A&M and what are they alleging? Dr. Richard Lowry, a finance professor at the University of Texas, is suing the Texas A&M Board of Reg and Scholarship Fellowship Program violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So this aspect of the law prohibits racial discrimination in any program that receives federal funding. The fellowship program seeks to hire professors from these underrepresented groups and gives them salary matches up to $100,000. And Lowry is being represented by a group called America First Legal, which is led by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller. Who does A&M consider to be underrepresented minority groups? And why did the university pursue this program? So in the letter, the staff announcing the fellowship program this summer,

the VP is right. Texas A&M defines URMs as African-Americans, Hispanic, Latino-Americans, Native Americans, Alaskan natives, and Native Hawaiians. Asian Americans are included or excluded from this list. Sorry. They claim that they pursued this policy because they want to increase the presence of faculty of color and that doing so would increase the quality of education for all students. Additionally, they claim because the university was recognized as a Hispanic serving institution, they are charged with increasing opportunities for Hispanic students to interact and engage with faculty who share their ethnic and cultural background, as they say it in the letter. It is very interesting to note that Texas A&M faculty is 54% white and only 7% Hispanic and 4% black. However, people of Asian descent are not included on this list of underrepresented minority groups, but only make up 8.4% of the faculty population. So this program represents ultimately another challenge to affirmative action, which has been an incredibly controversial topic since its inception.

In the press release on the lawsuit, AFL President Stephen Miller said, Texas A&M is hiring and excluding professors solely due to the physical appearance of their skin or ancestry of their family tree. This is vile and outrageous. Our lawsuit will send tremors through the corrupt institutions of higher learning, making clear that racial discrimination will be met with the righteous legal action in our courts of law. Ooh, spicy language there. And worth noting that Richard Lowery was at the helm of the Liberty Institute project at UT. There's another great story on our website about that. Make sure to go to the texan.news and read it and read this story as well. Hudson, thank you. And I'm glad you were able to kind of, you know, bring us to an end there.

I love it. Thanks. Okay, let's talk about some Twittery this week because I really do want to get to the fun topic. So I'm not going to rush us because we actually have plenty of time. But I really do want to get to the fun topic. Hayden, we're going to start with you. What did you find on Twitter this week? I noticed on Twitter. I didn't dig this up but i noticed it i don't know why i felt the need to clarify that

but um ali bradley uh tweeted a letter from the arizona sheriff's association condemning customs and border protection Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus for his handling of illegal immigration. Quote, just in Arizona, sheriffs issue a vote of no confidence in CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus, saying he's not fit to lead U.S. Customs and border protection due to the increase in illegal immigration and illicit drugs coming across the border, end quote. And then some pretty strong language in this letter, which she attached, and it includes mention of fentanyl, calling out the deaths of countless individuals and destroying families at a rapid pace, end quote. And it says, since Commissioner Magnus was appointed nearly nine months ago, we have continued to see an influx of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs across

our southern border. What we have not seen is an increased partnership from the federal government, including CBP, to assist local law enforcement in preventing this activity, end quote. So some pretty strong language by another major border state. Texas is not the only one that is struggling with the feds to get illegal immigration under control. And of course, Arizona and Texas share more of a border with Mexico than the Democratic-controlled states of Californiaifornia and new mexico yeah certainly hayden thank you for that hudson what did you see so uh i'm coming back to the border and i saw a tweet um today and it was it was essentially just a a trash heap on

at a private ranch in eagle pass where where it's essentially a popular place to cross illegally for migrants. And it's it's just a crazy sight to see that it's just like it's like a dump. It's just like all kinds of trash just being left there. And thankfully, some nonprofit came out there and cleaned it all up. But I mean, it's just indicative of kind of the just the amount of people, the amount of traffic that we're seeing at the southern border and how it continues to come. And at that same place, those people found a deceased migrant next to this near this pile of trash. And it's just very sad to see that there's a serious humanitarian crisis occurring right now. And like we were talking about, I'm going to have a piece coming out soon about a migrant center in San Antonio. And it's these people are coming directly from the border to large cities like San Antonio. And they're still having these humanitarian issues where they're not able to find places to stay. There's nowhere for them to live there's they're hot and sweltering

on the the city streets of town because there's nowhere for them to go and and there's and it's in and and we have um our federal lawmakers like kamala harris saying that the border is secure when in reality it's you see things like this and it's totally the opposite. Yeah. Well, and there's always unintended consequences of those kinds of decisions that are made, right? And your piece, which I keep hinting at it, we keep hinting at it, but I am excited for folks to get to read it. There's so much out there that is even said by authorities that you have to question and fact check and make sure that it's actually the case about the status of these people coming across the border um and business owners are the ones being you know so directly affected in this that you talk to several business owners i know even your family has kind of seen the repercussions of a lot of this down in san antonio yeah um you know

folks living in the area um it's just very, important to report on these issues and know exactly what's going on. So we're excited for that to come out. Um, Bradley, this is a big, this is a big pivot. That's why I put you at the end of this section, but what's,

what did you see? I saw a video of this, um, this dad laying on the ground next to a golf ball in his backyard and according to his wife who is filming it he likes to go in the backyard whenever they live right next to a country club and whenever a ball is hit in their yard he goes out and lays by it to act like I've seen this video before I have too it's great but the video shows this golfer coming up to

the yard and seeing the guy laying next to his ball and he thinks that he hit the guy and he's like not sure what to do it's so mean but yes it's totally

unrelated to anything Hayden or Hudson said, but that made me laugh this week. My favorite fun topic, no, excuse me, tweet that you ever talked about on the podcast was this video that was something you could not describe in words. Like it was a piece of furniture that folded into other kinds of furniture and you attempted to describe it on the podcast

when really it was just a video on Twitter that you were trying to describe. I don't think it really did anything anything for anybody well you know what i have no response okay great just wanted to make sure that we bring up your failures every once in a while i was about to say i just think it's amazing that you were somehow able to morph that into a criticism of brad i have a friend of mine this week this is a little bit off a friend of mine this week said um or sent me a text where she was like do you remember because she listened to our podcast every week and i had no idea and this is like so funny but she was like uh do you remember when brad uh or when you really criticized brad and then his grandma got mad at you for criticizing her grandson and i was like oh my gosh yes i do

and then i realized in in response to that at first i was like man i really should like tone it down i really need to be nicer to brad on the pod that lasted like one podcast yeah i think i still have been mean to you this whole time does grandma still listen oh yeah i'm sure wait what does she what does she think about our uh banter specifically it's just am i still being too mean i haven't heard about it recently okay okay okay i calmed her down i said it's okay okay it's all in good fun most of the time most of the time if there was a podcast where you weren't mean to brad i certainly don't remember it yeah so i must not have been here that day i think after after the Hamilton incident, I specifically was like, I have to be more careful.

I think that was really it. It was just a very gross miscommunication and a very sad time. And we were genuinely mad at each other after, which, you know, Hayden, it was like, which was one of the dumbest things ever. It was so stupid. And I'm very sorry about it, Brad. I'm still kind of tiffed about it. Really? No.

Okay. Well, let's move on to the fun topic. Hayden. Why me? Because you wrote it. Okay. You sparked the idea. Also, Hudson, I hope we were not too mean to you at the beginning of the podcast and ganged up on you about that.

I don't care. We were teasing you. Yeah. I understand. Okay. Are we going to keep them here? My grandma's not going to come calling. Okay.

You never know. I don't even think she knows what a podcast is. Okay. Cause we did, we went hard on you. So I'm just making sure that, you know, this hazing of the new guy is not too much.

It's all right. I'm going to thundercloud subs after this, so I'll be getting my fear. Drowning in sorrows. Eat your feelings. That's perfect. Okay, Hayden, your fun topic, shopping for clothes, fun or a chore? What is your perspective? It really depends.

I think it can be fun, but as long as what you're looking for, they have your size and it fits right. I think it can be fun, but I was looking at my closet recently and I thought, you know what? I really could use a few new outfits because I haven't gone clothes shopping in a while. So this has been on my mind, but it can be frustrating because you might find something you like. Like I was shopping at Target a few months ago and I found a really cool denim jacket that I wanted and they didn't have my size. And I don't want to order it online. You're trying to bring denim back.

A little bit. Denim has never not been back. I want to see your denim jacket. I wanted to. I wanted to buy it. I was about to, but I couldn't find my size and I'm leery about buying it online. Well, Target's website also as a side note is awful. Yeah. So. Not that I've ever tried to buy things i was about you but i couldn't find my size and i'm leery about buying it online well target's website also as a side note is awful yeah so not that i've ever tried to buy things from there i have and i'm annoyed by it it's not good it's a horrible website it can be fun like

i went clothes shopping um i think right before we went to the gop convention in houston and i got this shirt and i really like it. It fits really well. Yeah. Also, it was, I bought that at Target. Nice. So if you can find it, if you can find something you like in the right size, it can be fun. And you can keep it for a long time and it's almost like insurance of not having to go shopping later. Right. You have to shop to not shop. And if it doesn't, if it doesn't, the washing, it doesn't ruin it either because some yeah some clothes that you buy they're just terrible once they're washed and dried so yeah you have to bear that in mind as well that's very true that's very true hudson what do you think um you know for me you know i'm a 33 waist and a 31 leg so it's like very difficult for me to find clothes that exactly fit.

In case anybody can find some pants this weekend, just, you know, mail them to the Texan. Let me know where you found them. Joe Hootman might hook you up. Yeah. Joe Hootman is the best. He sends us so many wonderful gifts to the office. Winston was chewing that dragon last night and I thought, that's from Joe. That's from Joe.

I use that blanket every single day that he, I commandered it immediately anyways i'm sorry yeah so uh it's kind of difficult for me but i also don't do much shopping i've most of the clothes that i have are from a long time ago how long ago hudson i have clothes from eighth grade and And for reference, I just graduated from college this year. Yeah. And if I do go shopping, it's at REI and Academy. Nice. And that's about it. Those are classic guy places.

You know, my style hasn't really changed since then. So it's other than the sizing thing, it's not too bad. How would you describe your style? I want to make each of you answer frat guy outdoor frat guy i feel like that works yeah i feel like that hayden does not want me to ask about his personal style he gave me a look like oh boy don't make me answer that question um brad what about you i have no idea so why don't you just know about shopping is it sure or not oh um see i got mad at brad within two seconds i'm gonna throw the same question at me as you did hayden yeah i know i i let you guys off the hook poor hudson had to answer well yes it was a pain

in the butt okay unless you are the standard body size and length it is a difficult thing to find sounds like they're not very inclusive yeah yeah we need some more representation yeah in the fashion industry yeah no um yeah it's difficult simply cannot i don't buy clothes often because. And if you do, you buy it from 1776.com. It's not true. What's the website? We went to that website one day. We did. Because you were talking it up.

Yeah. They have good stuff. I don't know why you're giving me crap for this. I'm not. I'm letting our listeners know. Oh, you're not doing it all now. Yeah, I know. I actually think a lot of our listeners would love that website.

So I think you should tell them what it is. They probably have 1776united.com, I think. 1776united.com. Pulling it up right now. Yeah, it's good. That's not the only place I shop. Yeah, but a lot of your t-shirts are from there, I'd say. I have three.

Yeah, there you go. That's a lot. Okay. A lot out of my 15 t-shirts that I have. I don't know what the ratio or the pie chart of that would be in terms of your total inventory of shirts. But regardless, three shirts from one place. Good stuff. I hate shopping.

I could not hate it more. If I can avoid them all at all costs, I will do so. I really don't understand why people enjoy walking around and just looking exhausting yes it's so exhausting and i get so fed up and part of it i think is like residual uh frustration from being like a lanky i'm 5 11 and three quarters i'm very tall i have super long limbs and i it's like as a teenager it was so hard to find any clothes that fit and so that was a very difficult thing like i i just hated shopping because i couldn't find anything that fit yeah and still like i only have one place i can buy jeans really yeah gap and they

like they have tall and they have long and i have to get the long one which is like four inches additional at the bottom wow anyway. Anyway, it's a, it's a struggle. I would rather run three miles than go shopping. I would be less exhausted after that than shopping. Yeah. Yeah. The whole process isn't fun at all.

If you can, if, like I said, if you find something that you like, it's fun to get new clothes, but shopping itself is such a chore. The greatest, the greatest bud light ad ever focused on shopping and there's this guy and he's at a store with his wife and then all

of a sudden like something hits him and he walks over to this clothes rack like a circular one he opens it up and there's a bunch of guys in there watching football and they have of course um but that if only that were real life bud light you need to really step up your game because that would be amazing that would make shopping actually fun a little bit yeah and i mean shopping in air quotes because yeah so i will send that i will tweet that video out tomorrow because it is the greatest because you enjoy the greatest ad in history okay i mean that's totally fair um yeah i just really don't like it i think it's annoying i think everybody i think everyone can say this like not really they're only like the most people

are not average height, weight, anything. So shopping for most people, I feel like it's probably very annoying. Okay, this is my final story. Once I went into a store and I really liked their jeans. This was like two months ago. And I went into the store and I really wanted to buy their jeans. And I tried them on. And I knew that they did not have

long lengths in store but they did have long lengths so I figured I would just get them sized so I knew what size to order and I could just order the long online I went in I tried them on y'all I'm not kidding you the jeans were like supposed to be full length they went mid-calf like mid-calf to the point where i was like okay well maybe the long will be like long enough still like maybe it's a very long long i step out and the sales associate girl who's supposed to be like the most like trying to make you buy jeans i step out and she just went oh girl i'm sorry That's all she said. It's like, oh, girl, I am sorry.

And I was like. There is nothing more frustrating than putting on a pair of jeans that you think is going to fit. Yeah. And then it doesn't or it's too tight. Or that you have high hopes for. Right. And it looks really good. And you're like, oh, I hope that fits. And then it doesn't.

And then you just rip it off and just throw it on the ground in the fitting room. And you're like. And leave it up. Son i'm done i'm going home oh anyways and i asked well will the long wheel like i can order a long online like these fit otherwise and she goes oh girl it's only two inches longer she was like that ain't gonna fix fix anything. Anyways, I could have bought Capri's that day, but I did not. Okay, that's my final story. Thank you. Well, folks, thank you for listening. Thank you for just sticking around for our banter.

We made it this long. We appreciate it. We will catch you next week, and thank you for listening. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded

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