The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 19, 2025

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul to Not Seek Re-election After Two Decades in CongressHarris County Judge Lina Hidalgo Not Seeking Third Term in 2026Texas Universities Roiled by Firings, Expulsions Regarding Celebrations of Kirk AssassinationTEA Commissioner Mike Morath Seeks Certification Suspension for Educators Celebrating Kirk AssassinationState Board of Education Selects New Texas History-Heavy Social Studies StandardsIllegal Alien Suspect Arrested in Dallas Beheading MurderHere's a Look at the State Constitutional Amendments on the November 2025 BallotPaxton's Lawsuit Against Austin ISD Resolved, Upholds Critical Race Theory BanAbbott Names 'Texas DOGE' Office Director After Agency's Creation This Year

Good morning, everybody. This is Brad Johnson Senior Reporter here at the Texan. We've got a full house today on this week's weekly round of podcast. Of course, we have Cameron Abrams and Mary Lee's Cosgray. And then this week we're also joined by Meredith Dyer. Welcome. I guess we'll get right to it then. No funny intro.

No chit-chat? Now, right to the point. All right. When McKenzie comes back, then we can have some... Yeah, like her favorite whale TikTok, she saw. Yeah, yeah, we can divert into the woods. Like Christmas countdown. Oh, gosh.

You should be peppering slack with that now that it hit 100 days left until Christmas. And frankly, I'm not here for the Thanksgiving slander. I'm not here for it. So with that being said, let's get right into it. Mary Lease, among the notable... 2012 2026 announcements made this week was Congressman Michael McCall. Give us the details. Yes, so we've seen all sorts of campaign announcements. They're just being thrown out every day. You never know who it's going to be. Last week, we were just talking about Congressman

Morgan Latrell retiring. But this week, Congressman Michael McCall announced that he'll be retiring after serving in Congress for two decades. So he's currently on his 11th term, representing his district, his Central Texas district, so he will finish up his current term and then bow out from the scene. He released a statement saying what an honor it's been to represent the people of Central Texas, mentioned how he's chaired the prestigious Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committee. That's really been the hallmark of his time in Congress as chairman of those committees. He was first elected as chairman to the House Committee on Homeland Security back in 2013, and then he was elected as a chairman of House Foreign Affairs in

2023, and because of that, he had a very influential role. He had a hand in investigating some of the most high-profile terrorism attacks, including the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013, and also another significant role that he played during his time in Congress, which will now be coming to an end, was his role during the border crisis under President Joe. Biden. He carried in a past legislation that reauthorized the DHS Department of Homeland Security, and he managed the impeachment trial, which feels like forever ago, of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and then he helped to, as well as multiple other Congress members we've mentioned before, secure the border reimbursement provision for Texas for border security incurred costs. He helped

to secure that in what they're calling the one big, beautiful bill. So his current congressional district is 10 a CD 10 it includes college station which is of course the home of the Aggies and then neighboring Brian and then there's other cities such as Brenham and LaGrange and it did his district did shift a bit because of the redistricting map before the map was passed CD 10 was Republican stronghold with our 64% and this is going off of the Texas partisan index and then now it's projected just a little bit lower at R62%. It kind of shifted CD10 westwards a bit, drawing down its Huntsville portion, and then added in a fraction of Austin. And we've got

on this article and map you can kind of look at to help you see the difference between his district there. One of the indicators that he was potentially looking at retirement was in the amount of money he raised during the second quarter of 2025, at least amongst a lot of Politico's people were looking at this and saying that's pretty low because he raised a little over 92,000 during the second quarter. And then that left him with 92,000, a little over 700 cash on hand, which is pretty low for a Congress member. So in his press release, he also mentioned kind of his motivations for getting into Congress in the first place. He said, my father's service in World War II inspired me to pursue this life of public service. He talked about his focus on defending our great nation against global threats and then talked about that he's been proud to carry that mission out in Congress for more than two decades.

And he is currently still on the Homeland Security Committee's task force on securing the homeland amidst special events, which is essentially this preemptive initiative to ensure we have security for certain events that will happen in the future, such as FIFA World Cup and then America's 250th anniversary. So he's still a part of those roles in ensuring security for the nation as he finishes up this term. There were already three Republican candidates when we wrote this piece that had declared their candidacy for his seat. Three individuals, Brennan Hawbaker, Philip Sores, and Matthew Hurt. There was a state senator, Louis Colehurst, who had been rumored to be looking at McCall's seat, potentially thinking about a run, but she confirmed that she won't. be doing that she congratulated him and she said i'm not going to be running for cd 10 she mentioned that washington county which is her home is no longer in cd 10 but it's now after the

maps been passed in a cd 27 so uh this will be mccall's last term in congress here yeah and this had been talked about for a while you know i was hearing rumblings as early as middle of last year um that that mccall would not seek another term after the the 2024 election. Earlier this year, one of the things that really pointed towards this was Congressman Mark Green, who was the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, retired, or resigned, I forget which one.

He left the position. So there was a vacancy, and McCall, who I believe had maxed out his seniority to be chair on that committee, offered to chair it as like a bridge between Green and then whoever was going to get it in the next Congress. That didn't happen. They went with somebody else. And that kind of, from an official standpoint,

seemed to put the nail in the coffin on this and really, you know, lead to his decision not to run again. And, of course, Mary Lease mentioned the fundraising. He himself had raised significantly more than that every quarter. And so that stuck out like a bright neon sign. In addition to all the scuttle bud about him just being done and ready to call it quits. And he's been a long held figure in the foreign policy and Homeland Security space. I would not be surprised if he gets some appointment in some realm.

And he hinted at it in his statement. But he's a really good policy mind in that realm. And I think he would jump at the opportunity to serve. in the admin on that topic in some capacity so i i i'm sorry i wasn't listening but maybe did they did you guys mention what committees he sits on homeland security yeah homeland security yeah okay so it could be something foreign policy involved yeah right yeah and from what i understand he has been a pretty big supporter of ukraine over the past few years as well so i don't know if how that fits in with the current administration's agenda would try and

to, you know, come to a resolution on the conflict. But he is a traditional Republican hawk. Yeah, but he has intimate knowledge of the conflict. But he also has been a hawk on China as well. You know, we've written a couple pieces about initiatives and statements he's made regarding China and the U.S.'s posture towards the Chinese Communist Party. So just, you know, there's a lot of institutional knowledge being lost. on that, in that realm from this retirement.

And then it opens the door for yet another open congressional seats, which Mary Leas mentioned Senator Colchhorst not wanting to run for that. I think there's going to be, I haven't heard of any names yet, as of yet, but I'm sure there will be a good number of people find for that, along with multiple other congressional seats. So the last couple cycles, there haven't been a ton of interesting congressional races just because of congressional members staying. That's not the case this time.

There's going to be a lot, a lot of interesting, both primary and general election fights to come in that regard. So thank you, Mayor Elise. We'll move on to one of Holly Hanson's pieces. She wrote on another retirement announcement. This from Harris County Judge Lena Hidalgo. This is something that we've been hearing about for a long time. You know, she's had the conflicts in commissioners' court.

She's had the mental problems having to take leave, I think, early on Thursdays or something like that to go to therapy. She's had the connoisseons on the stage on the dais. Very much publicized. Yes. It's been a frequent theme. And I think this is an example of Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation or result will be the one that comes to a frequent theme. fruition the fact that they're just not running for re-election. So she said in a TV interview this

week, quote, I am still in office until December 2026 and I've got the work cut out for me and that's not even knock on wood counting any emergencies that might arise. After that, I don't know. I don't know what I will do. I know that I'm not running for office this cycle. I can say that with confidence and I know that I will stay in public service. Her name has been bandied about for the 29th congressional district should Sylvia Garcia not run again she Garcia has said she is running again but that could change at any moment right but her name has come up a lot in regards to that congressional seat and obviously it moved during redistricting yeah more to the west side or the east side I keep getting my west and east of Harris County mixed up in these podcasts moved more

to the east side of Houston still heavily Democratic so whoever wins that seat, whether it's Garcia or the next one's going to be a Democrat. Well, Hidalgo does have great name ID. It might not always be positive, but people know who she is. Well, the other thing is, you know, Holly pointed this out to me. I wasn't aware of this, but she still polls really well with Democrats, which I don't think should be very surprising. She has, she's been unapologetically progressive in the policy priorities that she tries

to advance. And sometimes that butts up against other members, including members of her. own party, but they, yeah, she's, she's been, you know, staple of Texas politics for a while. I remember when she was heralded as the next Beto. Oh, really? The next big statewide democratic hope. Yeah. Obviously that has not come to fruition, but she is, you know, very much still a figure in the state's politics and will continue to be if she chooses to be. So a little bit of background, I'll mention that she did come in on the down-ballot beta wave in 2018. You know, Beto nearly lost a cruise, but the success for Democrats there was flipping a bunch of seats down-ballot, including in the state legislature, but also, and particularly in Harris County, where they won the county judge, but also a bunch of actual judge positions, judicial positions, and the ramifications there policy-wise have, have been.

played out a lot. Holly's written a lot about that. Can you just say like briefly the difference between what this county judge position is and just a regular judge? Because it sounds a bit confusing. It is. It is. So the reason it's called the county judge, I forget the Spanish word, but the county government system comes from Spanish juridic law. Whereas we're going, we're going there. Okay. This is a hobby horse of mine. Well, I found it when I first found out about this, I was fascinated. It was really interesting. Meanwhile, like the city council, municipal form of government comes from English common law. And so that's why we have this mishmash of systems that doesn't really make sense in a lot of ways, but it is interesting. Yeah.

And so the county judge is basically the executive for the county. I think they do have some judicial functions, if I remember correctly, but it's not like, it's not the same as they're not, from what I understand, not hearing cases. like a judge would be either criminal or civil. If I'm wrong, I know somebody correct me, but I think I remember hearing that they did have a little bit of judicial responsibility in certain circumstances, like really low-level stuff. But the main thing is they're the executive of the county.

Yeah, and this is in all counties across Texas that has this position. Is it just because of Lena Hidalgo's personality that has rostered in the spotlight or is it Harris County? itself being such a large county with Houston in it because you don't hear a lot about the Travis County judge. At least I don't. Yeah. Well, it's the fourth largest city, county metropolitan area in the country, right? So that, I would say both and. She is a lightning rod of a figure

because of all the conflicts she has had, either that happened upon her or that she caused herself throughout her tenure, but also she flipped. Harris County was red before 2018, or at least lean red, purple, and then it went to pretty blue. And so she was, she wrote in on that wave and maintained it. She narrowly beat Alex Miller, a Republican in 2022 for that judge position. And then right from that very moment, things started heating up and questions were raised about whether she would even seek another term as in the position. And obviously, we have the answer to that now. She is not.

There are a number of candidates in the race, Republican and Democrat. I think Erica Lee Carter, shortly after Holly published a piece, announced that she is not going to run for that position, daughter, of course, daughter of former, the late Sheila Jackson Lee, late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. So that's going to be a free-for-all. I did write a piece. I covered this issue.

Oh, you did? Yeah, I wrote a piece. piece back in June. Okay. That the former Houston mayor and East Parker had announced her run for Harris County Judge. Okay. Yeah, and then there's Eliza Dutt, who's a mayor of a neighboring place. I've heard speculation about some legislators looking at that. Interesting. Now, that's just speculation, so I'm not going to say who it is. But that would be a very interesting candidacy. Yeah.

And we know Greg Abbott is going to pump like $20 million into Harris County. Both for himself and for himself and for down-ballot Republicans to try and flip back the county, both the top spot, any commissioner court seats

they can get back, and then mainly the judicial. And there was a lot of ground made up last year, particularly because of the money and the campaign put in by Texans for lawsuit reform that flipped back a lot of the judicial seats. That was across the state, but Harris County is a big component of that,

and they're going to try and continue to get that across the line next year. And Abbott has $87 million in the bank, and currently no opponent, Democratic opponent, so he's going to spend that money on something. Yeah. Well, and I just think Harris County in Houston is just so important for the state, not only population-wise being the fourth largest metro in the country, but just being an economic engine, you know, it really is the center for oil and gas industry here. Oh, absolutely.

And so they want to make sure. At least the corporate center. The corporate center, right? But, you know, Abbott most definitely wants to continue incentivizing these corporations and businesses to move to Texas and move to these big metros. And if he can get someone in these high-level positions that are aligned with his mission, then that all works out. But, you know, Hidalgo has been a big thorn at his side. I've talked a lot about a lot of the threads or the themes that we're going to see in the next election in the midterm. Harris County is one of them.

Yeah. And it just got substantially more interesting with Lina Hidalgo deciding not to run again. So check out the rest of Holley's piece on the Texan. News for more information about that announcement and the election to come. Cameron, coming over to you, there's been continuing controversy following comments by staff and students at Texas universities after the Kirk assassination. You wrote a piece on this, detailing it all and detailing some interesting theme here. Give us a rundown. Yeah, this is, again, free speech on college campuses has been an ongoing issue.

It was something that was really huge five, ten years ago when university, We're shutting out conservative viewpoints, but now the issue has been reignited after Kirk was assassinated last week at Utah Valley University because we've been seeing a number of videos and posts from students and staff at these Texas universities deriding Kirk's murder. And so there's been reactions across the state. We saw a statement from Baylor University that came after a graduate student had made some inappropriate comments. And that student has been relieved from their position. They were interning at a Texas middle school. We saw a video appear from the University of North Texas that showed students in the classroom mocking Kirk's death.

And the school released a statement just a few hours after. that saying quote students who violate the law of UNT code of student conduct will be held accountable we haven't gotten follow-up on that yet I have seen people urging UNT to follow up and see what sorts of violations are going to be incurred by those students Texas Tech University there was a student that was filmed on campus yelling obscenities using derogatory language while some other students were holding a vigil for Kirk that student actually got arrested on one count of simple assault, no longer enrolled at the university.

And it actually prompted a response from Governor Greg Abbott, who used the F-A-F-O as he's done before. What does that mean, Cameron? That's for the Texan after hours. But he put out a larger comment about that regarding how certain comments that are denigrating victims of violence has no place on our campuses and does not align with our values. That was actually from the university. There was actually Abbott, again, called for the expulsion of another student at Texas State University after a clip appeared online that showed the individual interrupting a campus demonstration. in support of Kirk. This student walked through a campus demonstration

while slapping his neck, essentially mocking Kirk's assassination, jumping up on a statue, and it went pretty viral. And like I said, Abbott called that out, and that student was expelled, again, confirmed, both from the university president there at Texas State and by Abbott.

there was also another incident involving Texas State University from a university professor that made comments prior to the Kirk assassination that was derogatory towards just the United States government and at this time that professor was terminated and he is now filing a lawsuit so lots of lots of issues. going on here we reported last week that there's going to be committee hearings select committees regarding civil discourse and freedom of speech in higher education both chambers of the legislature are going to be taken up this issue but the reason why I wanted to cover this issue is because like I mentioned at the top of this section is the issue of free speech has shifted now from 10 years ago years ago, it was campus speakers that were holding conservative views were being shut out or even students were not giving the full ability to express their viewpoints on campus.

And so there was lots of legislation that was filed. We actually got something across, there was actually something that was pushed across the finish line, SB 18 passed in 2019, which aimed to restrict institutions of higher education from discriminating based on viewpoint but then there was another incident as everyone knows October 7th the attack by Hamas on Israel and there was a wave of anti-semitism that percolated on social media but also on college campuses we reported quite a bit on those protests that were occurring which resulted in Governor Greg Abbott issuing an executive order attempting to hold accountable those anti-Semitic views that were being expressed.

Because I wrote a full piece about this. I wrote multiple newsletters, because there is definitions for anti-Semitism in Texas statute, and many times it's involved in these campus code of conduct as well. So it's an interesting line when there are students and staff expressing viewpoints that on an issue like the Kirk assassination that everyone thinks is important that is awful but is it against the law is it against the student codes of conduct at these universities I think it's a bit of a gray area I think legislators and even Governor Greg Abb is attempting to decipher right now

because when we talk about free speech laws, really, it comes down to, does it incite violence? And we have seen comments that really butt up against that line. But in some of these instances, it really appears to be just not morally upstanding speech, something that you might not want on your campus, or you might not agree. agree with, but where is that line? And I think lawmakers, Abbott, the leaders of these universities are trying to sort through and understand where that line is at and where they can hold students and staff accountable when those views are expressed. Well, and, you know, this is the case in any one of these debates is, you know,

what constitutes anti-Semitism is, it varies based on person and what they view meets that line, right? Right, like, you know, we mentioned the protests at U.T. Austin, a lot of those students would argue we're opposing Israel, not Jews writ large. And obviously, Abbott, and a lot of Republicans came to an entirely different conclusion, and they're going to debate until the cows come home. No one's going to agree on this, but it's Republicans who are in power, right? Yeah. You can say the same thing about this. You know, where's the line between condemning or criticizing. someone who just got assassinated politically, or, you know, celebration.

And some things are going to be starkly in one category or the other, but there's a lot that's going to be in the gray area in between. And how does a government, specifically policymakers, how do they draw a line there to decipher between those two categories? And then there's the question of, is it even something the government should be doing? Now, you know, anytime you add tax documents, dollars, particularly Republicans on the right flank of the party, they start to shift their priorities in what they think is acceptable in terms of the use of government.

We were talking about this in the office. It reminds me of the taxpayer fund lobbying debate because, yes, everyone has the right to petition their government in the First Amendment. But where does that line stop in terms of stop or be able to be limited when you get public dollars involved? would say it doesn't at all others would say it does and it's just you know this constant debate we have yeah well thinking about this as you were just talking I think there could be a roundabout way for lawmakers to hold these students or

staff making these comments accountable because of the funding that you just mentioned if lawmakers are saying okay we're going to decide during the next legislative session we're going to start rolling back some of that funding and And maybe there's conversations had with these university presidents or these Board of Regents encouraging them to institute new codes of conduct or adding statutes to their code of conduct to try and quell some of this speech. That way, the legislators themselves aren't writing things that could put them in hot water regarding restricting freedom of speech. they're putting the onus on the universities themselves. I think that might be an interesting dynamic. If I'm remembering correctly,

there was a letter that was published by Creighton and Benton Court, I believe, at the end of the session, just this last session, that kind of said something similar to what I'm trying to articulate here. So that could be one way the legislators go here. But, you know, it's a difficult issue because, like you mentioned, these universities and the state, when money's involved, it creates incredible complexity when trying to, in just the Constitution itself and how it protects free speech, it creates incredible complexity when it comes to certain speech like this when it's in this gray area of, is it inciting violence? violence, which is not protected under the First Amendment, or is it just speech you disagree with, you know, whether it be derogatory comments or celebrating the assassination? So I'm sure we're going to see lots of movement policy-wise with the select committee and during the next

session. And this has caused, what has caused this, I think it's fair to say, at least somewhat about face on this issue from Republicans. the sheer shock and awe of what happened, right? This was not just somebody being shut out of a campus trying to give their conservative point of view. This was an actual assassination. And so that has caused a reaction that is unlike anything we've seen before. And, you know, Republicans are making the argument that it's well warranted.

And obviously those who disagree with them are saying, this is hypocrisy. it's not going to be the last time we talk about this. Yeah, speech is such a difficult thing to parse through, especially the ambiguity inherent in what is and is not protected under the First Amendment. That's why we constantly see lawsuits about it. And there's constantly new judicial precedent. There's already so much precedent said, but there's always new lawsuits being filed where they always cite the First Amendment.

So we're going to see some movement here, I'm sure. Yep, and there was one lawsuit filed by a professor who was fired, and I'm sure that'll make its way swiftly through the courts, and we'll find out which way they rule. Thank you, Cameron. Moving on to a piece that Cameron and Meredith wrote, Meredith, I'm going to come to you first on this. The TEA has provided some updates on their current investigations regarding public school staff comments on Kirk's assassination. can you give us just a broad scope view of the update they provided okay so um as of september 17th there are 281 complaints and no sanctions are applied so far so there's a lot of discussion online about where this is going to go um when we had published we there were

180 so it's been a big uptick in the ones that are being reported and investigated Um, what's on the line is that their certifications could be suspended. They could be rendered and eligible to teach. Um, and so it goes along with what you guys were talking about with the universities, the idea of how do you pick apart these statements and decide which ones are going to qualify for more serious discipline or which ones we're going to fall under like a free speech or something like that. So.

Yeah. Yeah, and this is along the same lines of what we just talked about, only that was higher ed. This is public school. Cameron, anything to add on this? Yeah, so the TEA hasn't released any of the specific words or phrases or language. This investigative team is going to be looking at. And I think what's interesting as well is they're not just looking at posts that were put up by the professor, or not professors, the teachers, or whatever staff at these schools, but also shared posts,

which I think brings in an extra little bit of complexity there. Because if someone could argue, you know, someone sharing a post doesn't mean an endorsement of the post either. And I think that is going to create some difficulties with this investigative team to try and parse that out. Does that mean we're going to, it's going to be a long, time here. We're going to have to wait a while before we get some results. Or are they going to be moving quickly? It seems like the last we heard from the TEA that these investigations are ongoing. They're doing the reviews. But we'll probably get some updates on the more egregious cases sooner than maybe some of these more ambiguous cases or the shared posts where there's

going to have to be some back and forward possibly with these teachers or whatever. But this is another, you know, a big issue is what is protected under this First Amendment when it comes to these teachers? Because again, when parents are asking themselves, what is the type of teacher I want my student to be instructed by and if they know their teacher has been sharing or posting these types of comments about someone who is assassinated you know what's it's interesting now what that school choice is going to be implemented this could cause a wave of parents to say you know what if you're going to allow this teacher to be here I'm going to you know take the school choice option and send my kids somewhere else or just take their kid to

another public school. So there's going to be that fallout on the parent's side. There's going to be fallout from just the public more generally based upon people just knowing if a teacher was fired or kept around based upon certain posts. So this is to add, oh, sorry. No, go ahead. I was just going to add something to what you were saying about the posting and the sharing. So I, as a former teacher, I've sat through some social media trainings in both public and private. education. So I was trying to remember what I went and through and looked at some of these handbooks that they have, like the employee handbooks for teachers, specifically for a couple of the districts that we covered in the article. And so the wording is pretty broad that does, if you sign these

handbooks and the codes of conduct as a teacher, they include things like, and I pulled up a couple of them. If personal social media, if you're using it, employees are responsible for the content on their page, including what friends are a public user's post, links, etc. You're, like, responsible for your appropriate privacy settings. They kind of, like, put a big net there. And they use words like, you're saying, like, you're a role model to the district students. You're responsible for your public contact, conduct, even when you're not acting as a district employee. And then Pasadena made a statement that was interesting.

They're like, you're always a school employee, and the lines between public and private, personal and professional are sometimes blurred in the digital world, which is what we're seeing here. But they lay it out, they like preface this with teachers a lot. So it's something that is discussed in schools. And this is a, this is not a new displeasure with things teachers are saying is not, in the classroom is not new. We've seen this really rev up over the last handful of years, particularly with COVID and the way things went down in that fashion. But that, that controversy was more about content that was being presented.

to the students here. This, similar to that, though, is this has to do with the personality of the teacher. And so how much governing authority does the TEA have in saying the personality that is being expressed publicly by this teacher? Do we agree with it or not agree with it? If we disagree with it, and it violates our code of ethics, can we relieve that teacher of their duties? And that's based upon, again, what we're saying is private speech done publicly on social media, right?

And again, it brings in a whole other discussion about social media and how separate your digital life is from your actual private life. I think one of the big takeaways is to paraphrase the Toddfather, this is a First Amendment lawyer protection racket given how much work these attorneys are going to get in litigating all these questions. And every time we see a new conflict, there will likely be a new lawsuit, right? Meredith, you added in this piece some of the reaction from the political left, particularly the teachers' union. Can you run through what their argument was on this situation? Yeah, so they had a swift press release on that. The AFT has a Texas chapter that represents 66,000 teachers,

and they called it a political witch hunt and a purge of civil servants. focusing on the freedom that teachers should have to voice their opinions. They called out Briscoe Cain and Hillary Hickland, who are state reps, for using social media to what they said, target Texas public school teachers who voice their opinions because they were posting screenshots of specific teachers from different districts and calling them out. They also referenced something that we had done some reporting on last week

about the A&M issue with the professor that had been fired. over what they said was I'm trying to just merely acknowledging LGBTQ plus people and her lesson plan was their reasoning for her firing but we have an article on that there's a little bit more to the story than that so they're just clumping a lot of things in there of this idea of needing of like focusing on the freedom that they believe professors or teachers should have to voice and say whatever they would want so Yeah, and, you know, Hickland and Kane aren't the only ones that have posted things, but here's a sample of what Hillary Hickland did post. She's tweeted it. You can find the person's name. I'm not going to say the person's name who said this, but this is a teacher in one of her local school districts.

I do not condone the use of violence. However, I refuse to feel bad about the death of a Nazi, whose rhetoric was firmly centered in dishonesty for the sake of cruelty. He wasn't a result of extremism. He was a major catalyst for it, and the country was a much worse place because he was given a platform. He was racist, sexist, called him an a-hole, a good bunch of stuff. And so, you know, that raises the question of she's clearly disparaging Kirk.

She would argue rightfully so. Others, like Gingle would say, this is a character assassination, basically. But she doesn't, she says in there, I don't condone the death. So, I mean, that's a good example of where's the line on this? right um you know obviously uh republicans and state leadership are uh seeing this is something that's unacceptable to have in classrooms um or at least in the person running a classroom whether they're stating it or not in classrooms well and i think what meredith mentioned about how in the many of these handbooks that teachers are asked to sign or the tea has sort of broad language

when it comes to moral standing or moral character. In some sense, it gives the ability for greater expression of speech to be available to these teachers. But it also gives a broader ability for the TEA to say, your speech doesn't fall under what this means based upon how they interpret it, the TEA. So we could see those two things. coming into conflict here. Certainly. Thank you both. Meredith, I'm going to stick with you on this. You wrote a piece about the new social studies curriculum. Back in my day, we called it history. The new social studies curriculum that the SBOE adopted. Can you run through that for us?

Yeah, so this is an issue that had come up a few years ago back in 2022 and ended up being delayed for three years until 2025. At the time, they dealt with some CRT issues that were being addressed in the curriculum, but they didn't fully, like, overhaul or choose or select new standards. So they ended up voting 8 to 7 in favor of this layered chronological option. And if you see the picture of it, it's over 3rd to 8th grade, and they basically include world, U.S., and Texas history every year at different percentages and amounts. culminating in an eighth grade of Texas history. So it's very heavy Texas history focused,

listening to a lot of, which there was a long, one of their meetings had a really long public comment section, people for against these two different options. What's interesting is a couple of days before they had had a preliminary vote that favored what we, at least for me and most of us, probably have considered a more traditional compartmentalized of you get two years of Texas, U.S. and World every other year, every couple of years, like on a rotation where you focus on one of the subjects the entire year.

That was the option that they initially picked. And then a couple of days later, there were a couple of the Republican board members that ended up switching over and joining to choose what the new standards are. This is done because there's just a really, like the TEA reports, that there's a very low proficiency in social studies among eighth graders, only 30% of them meet what the standards currently are, and only 15% of them meet in U.S. history, which is low. So the critics of this are saying that it's a little bit too complicated, especially in the earlier grades, and that there isn't enough U.S. history, like the ratios of Texas to U.S.

are almost double, I believe. And so one of them, one of the board members was pointing that out, like, Texas is important, but I think that the U.S., I don't know if it's doubly as important as the U.S. history, so. I think that was Will Hickman, wasn't it, I said that? Yeah. That's interesting because he's being targeted in a primary. As Conroe ISD member declared against him, I believe, last week. I've got it, there's a tab on my running spreadsheet of the races that has SBOE, and it's, of course, lower profile than the federal races or the state ledge stuff. But it's still very important.

And if you look closely, you can find some very interesting themes and threads on those. For example, Ben Bumgarner's wife, Mindy is running for a seat. There's various contentious races that are probably going to play out, some in the primary, some in the general. But the SPOE does, they're not a nothing organization. They do have a lot of power and authority. in the states and they dictate to a large degree what is taught in schools. Oh, yeah.

All right, thank you, Meredith. Let's move on to the next one. Cameron. Oh man, this is, this was shocking to see there was a gruesome murder in Dallas. Was it last week, I think, involving beheading. Can you tell us what happened? Yeah, I didn't watch the video. But as it's been relayed to me, it is absolutely gruesome.

This criminal... Can confirm. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, a criminal illegal alien beheaded a Dallas motel manager last week. This criminal illegal alien, Yardana's Kobos Martinez, according to the Department of Homeland Security, beheaded Chandar Nagmala, with a macheteer following. an argument that occurred in the presence of the hotel manager's wife and child. So just

absolutely brutal. But what makes this case really interesting is this illegal alien has had multiple previous arrests and has committed crimes in other states, Florida, California, now here in Texas. So it's just a cycle of violence with this individual. You know, it even prompted the India consulate in Houston to express their condolences for this hotel manager. And so President Donald Trump put out a statement. I'll just read verbatim from it here. This individual was previously arrested for terrible crimes, including child sex abuse, grand theft, auto, and false imprisonment. But that was released back into our homeland under incompetent Joe Biden because Cuba

did not want such an evil person in their country. Rest assured the time for being solved on these illegal immigrant criminals is over under my watch. He also added that the individual will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. So I'm sure there'll be an update once the filing charges are in and there's a conviction here. But just an example of what the administration, the Trump administration, has been saying about the waves of immigration, illegal immigration into the country and with these instances of criminals coming across the border illegally and then committing crimes in the homeland here, just one of the more gruesome examples.

Yeah, and I think it probably didn't get as much airtime as it probably would have because of the Kirk assassination, and that just swallowed up the entire. Same thing with the, well, never mind, I won't mention it. Okay. I have no idea what you were talking about. So we'll move on. Mary Elise, you're at a piece on all the 17 constitutional amendments that are on the ballot this November.

Can you run through them for us? Yeah, so we did a bit of a roundup of the different statewide constitutional amendments that Texas voters will see on their ballot in November. There are, yeah, as I said, 17, but there's a couple that kind of stand out that have drawn a little bit more attention. Some in particular, one is, was a priority.

of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's. It establishes the dementia prevention and research institute. So hoping to draw researchers and to build up Texas is kind of the central location to be researching dementia. There's also a couple other diseases that fall under the umbrella, such as Parkinson's. So that's one proposition. We've got Proposition 15, which is called the Parental Bill of Rights. Bill of Rights. This amendment relates to Senate Bill 12 by State Senator Brandon Creighton. This is something I think Cameron has covered previously, and it recently had started

up concerns about, I think it was Cameron and Meredith. So it, but recently it started up concerns about its implementation in schools and impact on students. And so the TA actually came out and released an updated guideline about how public schools could enforce this bill. what school nurses have the ability to do without parental permission because there were some reports the school nurse is not giving basic first aid due to not having explicit parental permission there's one proposition 16 and this affects kind of more so on the election side of things says that in order to vote in the state you have to be a US citizen and of course this comes in the wake of all sorts of

news surrounding Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton going back and forth with Secretary of State talking about making sure that our voter rules do not have any non-citizens on them and clarifying what does our state law really say about non-citizens voting in our elections there was a couple months ago Secretary of State Jane Nelson was working with this federal agency under the Trump administration over the summer to refer 33 alleged non-citizen voters that she found on the Texas voter rule and she reported them to Ken Paxton so that he could investigate and potentially prosecute.

So, yeah, there's 17 propositions. There are multiple ones related to tax exemptions or tax prohibitions. There's homestead exemptions. There's a tax exemption for counties that are paying for border infrastructure that are along the U.S.-Mexico border. There's a tax exemption there, business tax, death tax prohibition, there's one related to veteran spouse homestead tax exemption, and then one having to do with the elderly and disabled homestead exemption. Another very, very high profile one that Holly Hansen has covered very closely is bail reform, and this is Senate Joint Resolution 5, and so it's authored by State Senator Joan Huffman, And this has been a years-long attempt to pass bail reform in response to cases where you have these, like we were just talking about repeat offenders who commit additional violent crimes after they're out on bail in the states.

And particularly one area that was a focus of this conversation was Harris County. So on the ballot, Proposition 3 will read verbatim. The constitutional amendment requiring the denial of bail under certain circumstances to person. accused of certain offenses punishable as a felony. So again, there's 17 amendments. I recommend Texas voters go check out this piece. Just have a better idea of what you'll be looking at at the ballot come November. Yeah, and on a couple things. On the bail reform, there were three or four, I think, constitutional amendment items that Republicans tried to pass. And I think this may have been the only one that did. There was this, as far as I

understand it and this Holly told me this yesterday the one that's on the ballot this time is more of discreet leaving discretion up to the judges on whether to deny bail basically given them the option to deny bail instead of being mandated by law to to provide it and that the stricter one that was attempted failed multiple times this year and so we did not come back during the special to try and address that it was clear the votes weren't there they got some democrats but not enough to get to a hundred in the house so there's there's that and then the property tax stuff this is a continuation of not the fight because the fight's over with generally and there was a bit of a fight this special

session on property taxes but they're continuing the strategy of homestead exemption increases and increased compression rather than going off and trying to adjust directly appraisals And so they, this constitutional amendment, this is the foremost reform on property taxes this year. There was a lot of, there was a huge fight over lowering the caps during the special session, and that ultimately fell apart. But even if that had passed, this is going to be far more impactful for the next biennium on property taxes. And so voters, I assume those are going to pass, you know, wildly, 90%, maybe. I think Senator Benton Court told me he thinks they might get 90%, which I don't know if that's happened before, but if something's going to get it, it's probably going to be that.

So, all right. Thank you, Mary Lise. Meredith, back to you. You wrote a piece on an agreed-to-order between the Office of Attorney General and Austin ISD involving the state's law that it passed. a few years ago, prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory in classrooms. Give us the details on this. So earlier this week, they came to this agreed order that will suspend the teaching of

critical race theory. The law that you're talking about cites a few different things that were being violated. So a couple of the things that cites are like one race or sex is not taught to be inherently superior to another. lessons were talking about inherent racism or sexism, things like that, the idea of feeling guilt or discriminated against because of responsibilities by others from the past, and then teaching slavery or racism is anything other than a deviation or like a betrayal of the founding principles that we have of liberty and freedom. So Austin ISD does not admit to any wrongdoing, but they

agree to the order and so moving forward they um matias sigra the superintendent will have to um like communicate the law to his staff all of the principals all of the employees he will also have a couple two weeks to release um like a district-wide communication reiterating all of the things that are included in this order um things like the district's compliance um and then the prohibition of instructing parents or students on how to circumvent this statute or how to to get around it. And some of these, there were quotes in some of the press releases that came from previous hidden camera footage that when the Attorney General deposed them in May, it was because they were using curriculum and materials from the 1619 project, which the state law

explicitly does actually focus on that and ban that. But employees were saying things like how to get around this ban. They were talking about, in the hidden camera footage, they talk about this is what progressive teachers are doing when they're working with kids as young as kindergarten to third grade with some of these issues and like telling them how to stay out of trouble with the legislature. And so Paxton was very clear in his wording. He said it's outrageous that Austin ISD officials think that they can ignore the state law to put woke indoctrination in Texas schools classrooms. That's what he had said at the time. And then recently just doubled down on that like while this order is important to step forward, I want to make

clear to any school district considering any breach of this law we will be watching which is kind of it's very ominous um and then he said my office stands ready to defend texas law and the rights of parents against this unlawful implementation of crt yeah the uh the state of texas versus austin isd one of the longest running conflicts that is probably never ending thank you meredith mary leased This last one, Abbott selected a director for Texas Doge, their office, mimicking the federal government's version of that. Tell us about the new appointee and the establishment of this new body. Yeah, so this is a new office.

It's called the Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office, T-R-E-O, and it is kind of mirroed off of the Federal Department of Government Efficiency Doge, which is – which is – got a whole lot of attention from the chronically online. So it went into effect at the beginning of this month on September 1st alongside a lot of other legislation. I think Cameron covered. It was about 800 bills. So the director that was selected to man this office, the TREO, is Jerome Greener, and he is the executive vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation influential program, a foundation in on. Austin and Texas. So he will be the director of T.R.E.O. After it essentially went into effect on September 1st. And so this was established through the passage of Senate Bill 14. And that was authored by state Senator Phil King. And then it was sponsored by State Representative Giovanni Capriculum. And that was during our regular session. So 89th regular session. And it's described by Governor Abbott's office in this press release when he's announcing the director. And

speaking on this office and what he hopes it will do for the state. He said it's in order to find and eliminate unnecessary regulations in state agencies and create best practices for state agencies to reduce regulatory strains on Texans. He said Texans deserve a government that protects individual liberty and fosters economic opportunity. So it's also known as the Senate Bill 14 is also known as the Regulatory Reform and Efficiency Act, And it was heard in the Texas House delivery on government efficiency committee, which was also referenced as Doge as well amongst folks. And that was heard in the Senate Economic Development Committee.

And then it passed in early April, signed into law by Abbott, late April, and then, like I said, went into effect on September 1st. One aspect of this law that's interesting is it mandates the establishment of this user-friendly website, which will be run by the Department of Information Resources in collaboration with this new office, the TREO plus Texas Secretary of State. And it has to be a location where Texans can easily access information about the state's laws and its agencies, and then those agencies corresponding jurisdictions. So classification there is that it must be user-friendly website.

This bill also, as it establishes the office within the bill, it also directs it to identify and expand opportunities for implementing efficiencies and various aspects of the way that our state's agencies are run, our view processes, adopting new rules and regulations, how contested cases are taken up, conducted, and then working with a partner, this office is intended to work as a partner with Texas's agencies. then in their effort to weed out in efficiency or waste. There's also a directive, excuse me, for an advisory panel, a TREO advisory panel, and that's going to be administratively attached to the governor's office, and it will consist of seven members, and we lay that out in the piece because there's different roles of who gets appointed by the governor. He does have ultimate say of all the appointees, but then the speaker of the house. and Lieutenant Governor also have some special roles in electing these members of the panel.

But as of now, we do have a director for this office, Jerome Greener. Yeah, congrats to Jerome. It's going to be quite a lift, getting that up and off the ground floor. And hopefully for his sake, he doesn't have any internal conflict like Elon Musk and Vivek did. Given the fact that he's the head, we'll see who he's. hires if there's a young tech entrepreneur that he brings online on with him he might be setting the precedent yeah great place to find him here in austin too yeah and doge was popular with people not chronically online as well yeah you you wounded cameron when you said that well i mean

i'm i'm also online i wasn't necessarily but it's true it did get attention with some of the normies out there but the most part it got the most attention with the people that were mostly online okay thank you Mary Elise we'll go on a tweeterie now Cameron let's go over to you Jimmy Kimmel has been fired actually or is this like a slow walk he'll return at some other time from my understanding he's gone for good and this is again after Stephen Colbert you know his ten years ending we're seeing these late-night talk show hosts dropping like flies here. And there was some interesting back and forth that was going on about this issue on X.

I actually came across a good piece in the free press that was saying that they concluded this piece by saying, Carr should know better, Brandon Carr being the FCC chair. In November, he posted on X, we must dismantle the censorship cartel, and they're talking about how the quelling of certain speech by the FCC could be used against Republicans in the next Democratic administration. So it's kind of, you know, the little both sides thing here, but it seems as though because there was some comments that came to light from Carr, because for the whole thing, you know, From what I understand, FCC has to approve certain mergers between companies and things,

these media companies. Maybe there was some pressure put on some of these companies attempting to merge together. Carr is saying, you know, some of the content we don't like that you have, so maybe get rid of them, who knows. But I just think it's interesting because late night, television has moved away from the funny, it seems, and's gone overtly political in many cases here. Because one of the most popular late-night shows is gut-filled, you know, outpacing these, you know, the ABC, NBC's CBS late-night shows. People are like, you know, I just want to go

listen to people make fun of the news, not give me their political position on the news. So are we going to see a big C changing late night television? I don't know, with Kimmel and Colbert going away. But it seems as though some of these companies are like, you know what, we're putting down the politics and bringing back the funny, hopefully. I don't know who watches late night television. It seems like a bit of a dying medium. Didn't Colbert's like he lost it because of his like low record rating?

Like he wasn't getting a lot of views. Yeah, well, a lot of these. late night shows have just a viewership that's in the toilet. Like, they've lost millions of their viewers because people are going to streaming. They're going to social media for their entertainment. And then also the thing with the Colbert is he was getting paid a huge sum of money for his salary. And it just, you know, the money wasn't there to keep it going. I can't remember the last.

time I actually watched a late-night show. I'm an early-to-bed, early-to-rise guy. Yeah. So I do not stay up until the wee hours of the night, especially for that. But I have been seeing on Facebook Reels, which I know I'm behind the times, but I refuse to download TikTok. I'm not doing it. Andrew Ferguson.

Oh. His snippets have been popping up, and he's quite funny. Yeah, but I don't think he has a late-night show. Oh, not anymore? Well, and it looks like a late-night show, the way it's set up. I don't know. I've never heard of the guy until these Facebook reals. Craig Ferguson?

Craig Ferguson, sorry, Craig Ferguson. Craig Ferguson. It's been a long time. It was a while ago. Yeah, he is funny, though. It's long, yeah. So he doesn't have a show anymore? No.

Oh, well, that's unfortunate. Yeah. Bring Craig Ferguson back. Then I might stay up and watch, but probably not. Yeah. All right, thank you, Cameron. Meredith, let's go to you. Mine is from Instagram, because I also,

I only use Twitter for work, and I don't have TikTok. But there was an influencer that raised about $800,000 for this homeless family. And sometimes you see that stuff, and it seems disingenuous or awkward. But it was really beautiful, and he, like, it was a single mom with her two kids that were five and seven that were very sweet and, like, spoke to him. And it was just a really, it just seems like such an unfortunate situation. And he got, he bought them a house. and he hooked them up with a financial advisor, which I thought was kind of unique

and a good way to help somebody. So I was one of those things. Someone was on the phone, and then I hung up and watched this, and someone called me back, and I was crying. I'm like, I'm sorry. It doesn't take a lot,

but it was really beautiful. And just in a week where everything's kind of sucked, it was like nice to see something wholesome and encouraging. A nice change of pace, absolutely. Thank you, Meredith. Mary Elise, over to you. Well, yesterday I watched a little bit, bit. Yesterday evening, President Donald Trump and his wife were in the UK for their state

visit. They had a very fancy dinner with the royal family. And it was just hilarious to watch. So there were speeches given. President Donald Trump gave a speech, and I believe his name is Prince Charles. He also gave a speech, but he gave his first. That would be the monarch of the United Kingdom, yes. I think he's king now. Yeah. King. Yeah, he used to be prince, but now he's king. Okay. Wait, no, is he? I don't know.

The queen died. His majesty. His majesty. Sorry, he's the king now. Well, the king gave a speech, and it was extremely beautiful and eloquent, and, you know, he's saying all of these beautiful flowery things and looking at Trump and looking at Melania and his different cabinet that's sitting there. It was really just lovely and flowery. And then Trump gave his speech. I just loved it because it was so American and it was also just hilarious to see it in contrast with the King's speech because he definitely had a script and he stayed to it a little bit, but he also went off script and he was just talking about looking at people who's like, oh, you're so beautiful, wow, you just look so healthy.

And then at one point, he was really driving home the idea that America is the hottest country and that was something he kind of kept repeating. And it was really funny to see the different reactions from the royal family as he's describing that America is the hottest country. So he's just, he's an interesting character to see. That's the thing. I don't know what he was talking about. I think he meant, you know, the up-and-coming super successful country that is America. Wait. I'm really super certain what he means by that.

Did America falter as the top world power? He's making America great again. Yeah, that's his whole stick. Even at our worst in the last 50 years, I can't remember. It's time that we were not the main world power. Yeah.

So I guess we just went to the audience. The UK knows that. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. It was just, it was so funny because they're so different in contrast with each other. I'm sorry.

It's interesting Trump's over there right now because he was having a press conference this morning, with Keir Starrman, the PM of the UK. And as everyone, I think that, you know, is online at all and is paying attention to international relations and foreign policy and things, there's still a lot of conflicts going on. There's the Ukraine-Russia conflict that we mentioned.

There's the Israel-Gaza conflict that's going on. And the United States is intimately involved with both of those conflicts. And the United States attempting to negotiate with the Ukraine, Russia, with Israel, with the hostages being held in Gaza, getting them released, but those European nations are right there as well. And President Trump has been trying to get these European leaders more involved rather than the United States being the main person driving all. No, of course, United States is the one sending people to negotiate. But having these European nations, you know, build up their own militaries or attempting to get all these

fellow NATO countries in alignment on what they want to happen to come to a resolution with these conflicts. So I think him just being over there with his whole cabinet, you know, possibly see some movement in terms of some negotiations, maybe some possible language coming out about how they're negotiating with all these different conflicts going on. interesting I think it is you continue following it for us Cameron thank you Mary Elise I'm going to end this on golf of course this is a request from the man or woman the myth the legend three several days whoa the PGA tour is expected to return to the Austin market with an event in its 2026 FedEx fall stretch according

source for sources familiar with the plan the people said the event would be played at the omnibarton creek resort in spa which has four golf courses it is an amazing set of courses you played there i have played there a couple times thanks to a couple friends who have uh memberships because god knows i don't have one but it was a very good very well-kept course very challenging, so it'll be fun to see these guys try their hand at that. Have you spectated at a golf event before? Actually, I've not. No.

No. No, we were, you know, my dad and I would watch golf on TV, but we were more in-person, baseball, football, basketball people, but I would like to go. And if this does happen, then I would hope that... Would you be someone that just sits on a specific hole, or would you follow a certain golfer? I think for my first one, I'd probably follow a golfer, and it might be, probably would be Scotty Schaeffler.

Yeah. Cue of the Scotty Schaeffler montage. But, no, I haven't done it before. I almost went up to the Byron Nelson, but then the school choice bill signing happened that same day, which was rough in different ways. Got to make choices. I got sunburn on the top of my head. I could have been at 100.

A PGA tour event instead. Yeah, that happened. But, yeah, this looks fun. And as far as I'm aware, Austin has not had a PGA tour event since Delmatch play at the Austin Country Club stopped in 2023. So, yeah, looking forward to that. And thanks, Seves, for the suggestion.

I hope he or she makes it their incognito, being their real persona, as opposed to the online famous, persona. So with that, we are going to conclude this week's episode of the weekly round of podcast. Thanks y'all for joining, and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to the Texan at the texan.com. 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 us an email to Editor at the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.