The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 24, 2021

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team details the start of the third special session of the 87th legislature, newly proposed redistricting maps, four lawmaker retirements, a familiar name jumping back into contention for a Texas Senate seat, a doctor sued under the newly implemented Heartbeat bill, an update on the border crisis in Del Rio, developments in the Paxton whistleblower lawsuit, the federal government's investigation of mask prohibitions in Texas public schools, and a high profile Democrat preparing for a run for governor.

Happy first week of fall, everybody. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on this week's edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. Our team details the start of the third special session of the 87th legislature, newly proposed redistricting maps, four lawmaker retirements, a familiar name jumping back into contention for a Texas Senate seat, an upcoming special election, a doctor being sued under the newly implemented heartbeat bill, an update on the border crisis in Del Rio, developments in the Paxton whistleblower lawsuit, the federal government investigating Texas over mask prohibitions in public schools, a high-profile Democrat preparing for a run for governor, and a Texas senator showing interest in replacing Mitch McConnell as majority leader in Washington, D.C. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful weekend. Howdy, folks.

Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson. Daniel, what? You know what I forgot? What'd you forget? To sit somewhere else. That's ridiculous. Ridiculous. Well, it's nice because I could do this blind at this point.

You all sit in your regular spots. It makes it easy for me. Also, I'm very glad, it's nice because I could do this blind at this point. You all sit in your regular spots. It makes it easy for me. Also, I'm very glad that it's fall now. It's like 20 degrees cooler than usual today. And I can have my hot coffee that I haven't even in the summer. Is it officially fall yet? Yeah, as of Wednesday. Oh, okay.

So we're officially into fall, which makes my hot coffee drinking life much easier. Although y'all keep it freezing in this office so i can drink it regardless i didn't realize 75 degrees was freezing but whatever no in the office it feels so cold i know it's set at 75 that's that's below freezing according to the metric system i think i don't know hayden can back me up we talk about this far too often on this podcast but and for the record i have never touched the thermostat in this office yeah me either unless I'm told to by our CEO or one of y'all that's I frequently touch the thermostat to turn it up interesting I don't believe that you don't have to believe it it's true well I don't but that's okay but all that to say, happy fall, folks.

We have a lot of news to get into today. It felt like this week we were in a groove and all of a sudden more news was just happening. Lots of things going on, particularly in the legislature. Let's talk about the start of the third special session. Bradley, let's get to that. As it ramps up, give us a reminder of what is on the agenda. So we already had five items they were redistricting that's obviously the biggest one uh disbursement of the 16 billion dollars in federal

coronavirus aid requirements that youth athletes compete within their biological sex curtailment of vaccine mandates by state and local government entities and the establishment of a criminal penalty for the unlawful restraint of a dog. And at this point, we haven't seen any movement on bills through the process. The Senate has moved on some things. The Senate has pushed through some, yeah. But primarily, no bills have passed yet. We're still in the first week. Not much has happened, right?

I mean, how long has the House even spent on the floor this week? It's been, you know, a few minutes here, a few minutes there. Thursday was the first day that they convened since Monday when they opened the special session. Yeah. And we've had some committee hearings. Yeah. And there will be more. Apparently, Speaker Phelan said, as Speaker Phelan said on the floor Thursday, that next week there will be a lot, a lot more committee hearings. And in typical Senate fashion, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor, or rather in typical dan patrick fashion the senate is moving quickly through some of their priority items so yeah we already saw like the um the property tax compression bill get passed yesterday

um and so yesterday being wednesday and so that's already through and on its way to the house and you can bet your bottom dollar that the Senate will do that with multiple other bills. Now, yeah. Now talk to us about the two additional items that were added to the agenda this week. Yeah. So one of those is property tax relief. Now, the way one of the proposals was structured, it could have been taken up under the coronavirus aid line item. But now any property tax bill can be considered by the legislature and the other one

is a bail reform constitutional amendment this bill was passed uh during the second special session but the the paired constitutional amendment did not pass it had to get 100 votes in the house and it did not and so for that to be put up for a vote by uh or for the state voters uh it has to pass the legislature first and so um the governor abbott wants to put this in code and um in uh in the constitution uh just basically just a solidification yeah exactly a solidification of what the legislature's already done those are the only two additions that brings us up to seven rather light docket compared to what we've Those are the only two additions that brings us up to seven. Rather light docket compared to what we've seen in the last two special sessions.

Any surprises or was it pretty much expected? I'd say it's pretty much expected. We talked a little bit about what this means politically and why certain things were placed on there. I'd say the unlawful restraint of a dog is kind of a question mark, although it did pass in the regular session. Governor Abbott vetoed it. He's hoping that it's slightly pared down a little bit. We'll see what form it takes. But that's kind of, to me, the odd man out of this, especially given the primary coming up next year. Certainly.

Well, thank you, Bradley. Let's stay on the special session agenda. Daniel, we're coming to you. Let's talk about redistricting. We specifically have proposed Senate districts that were released this week or over the weekend. Talk to us about the big picture with the proposed Senate map. So I think the big picture with the Senate map is that, at least the proposed map, of course, this is going to go through the whole process. There are bound to be amendments in the Senate.

Usually what happens is when a redistricting bill goes to the Senate, the Senate passes it however they want, and then it just kind of flies through the House. And the House does their thing, and the Senate doesn't really touch that. Now, they could possibly do that, but that's traditionally what's been done. So expect to see some amendments through the Senate process. That being said, just the proposed map that did come out, and it's probably going to be generally what the final map looks like, at least somewhat, really shores up support for most incumbents, especially three Republicans and one or two Democrats. So the Republican who helps the most really is who authored the bill and who proposed this map is Senator Joan Huffman, who had one of the most competitive districts in the state. And so it's definitely going to make her district a lot more Republican. It's also going to show up Republican support for

two other Republicans in the Senate, Angela Paxton and Kelly Hancock in the DFW area. Hancock is in Fort Worth, Tarrant County, and Paxton is up in Collin County. And so those two districts will become more Republican as well as Huffman's over in the Houston area. Then for Democrats, it'll really shore up support for Senator Nathan Johnson in Dallas County, who had flipped one of those purple seats back in 2018. And lastly, to a little bit of a lesser degree, SD19, which is down more of a border district that reaches into San Antonio, is also going to become a little bit more Democratic for Roland Gutierrez. And I will note, it does show up for most incumbents, but there is one exception, and that would be a Democrat-held seat that is probably going to go back to Republican control if this map goes through. Okay, well, talk to us about that district.

So that district is Senate District 10, which is represented by Senator Beverly Powell in Tarrant County. This district has been the center of controversy for the past decade. Back in 2011, that was currently held by a Democrat then, Wendy Davis, and the Republicans in the Senate then tried turning that into more of a Republican seat. And that was met with objections in the court because it was turning a district that had become a minority-majority district into a district where Anglos would be in the majority. And so that was actually blocked in the courts, and it was kept intact more what it had been. I imagine that there are going to be similar challenges brought to the court in case that this map passes. But Republicans have been trying to be a little bit more careful in how they change the demographics

there. So if you look at the demographics in the proposed district, there are, it goes from being a very strongly minority-majority district to just a slightly minority-majority district. So Anglos are still in the minority with about 49% instead of, I think it was 40% before. So still keeping minorities population wise in the majority now the small little catch there which is probably going to be coming up in in the courts is that the the voter age voting age population is where anglos are now going to be in the majority uh so there's a little bit difference there between just the the population straight up and the voting age population.

Those who are actually casting ballots. So that'll be interesting to see how that plays out, but something to keep an eye on. Okay. Talk to us about other 30,000-foot view takeaways from these maps. Yeah, so there's lots of different changes that have happened. Lots of different geographical shifts. One of the big ones has been the expanding geography of rural districts because rural population is kind of not declining or it's not increasing the pace as the rest of the state for certain. And in many parts, it's still declining. So districts like SD 31, which is up in the panhandle, now reaches from the panhandle down to Hill Country. So huge, huge district becoming bigger. Another interesting thing is that there wasn't really any big attempt to shift the border districts toward the favor of Republicans,

especially in light of the trend that we've seen along the border in the past few elections, where Republicans have really been gaining control or gaining support among Hispanics down in that area, especially in the rural areas of the border. And so I think the Senate could have possibly flipped a seat there even, but there hasn't really been any touching, messing with that. It's really just kept it for the incumbents, the Democrats in those more urban areas down along the border. And so that was something that was interesting, notable takeaway. And then the other last big thing, which we'll talk about a little bit later in this podcast,

is that there was a shift in Senate District 14, which doesn't actually help, Senate District 24, sorry, doesn't actually help the incumbent because she's actually leaving the senate to run for a different position but it does help a another former state senator and so we'll talk about that a little bit later i like it well let's stay on how redistricting is affecting lawmakers and talk about retirements brad and hayden we have some we have four retirements this week so far of lawmakers saying, particularly state House members saying, OK, I'm opting out. I'm not running for re-election.

Brad, let's start with Scott Sanford. Yeah, so the McKinney Republican announced this week that he would forego re-election in 22. By the end of this term, he will have been in the House for a decade. So his reasoning was that he's now has a second grandchild on the way and he wants to spend more time with his family. He said in the midst of changing life seasons and a personal evaluation of priorities, I've made the prayerful decision not to file for reelection. A couple of things to note. His district is solidly read according to our Texas Partisan Index rankings or ratings done by daniel it's an r66 district

he was rated the 26th most conservative member during this most recent session in 21 and you know another side note of it was we don't know how much this played into it but he was facing a primary challenge uh by jim herblin and um you know generally to his right i think um we don't know how much backing herblin would have gotten whenever we would have gotten to the the primaries but um you know that's something that probably played at least a little bit of uh factor into this um but you know mainly just this the whole redistricting is uh throwing things for a loop and uh that's why one big massive reason why we're seeing so many retirements and to be fair and winning incumbent and we've talked about this previously ops to retire it provides more flexibility for those drawing the maps because

they don't have to protect that sitting incumbent or work with them on their district, right? They don't have somebody who's already in office. They can draw a district and say, okay, whoever wants to run for it, run for it. It's a little bit different. So it provides flexibility. Yeah, but we're going to really see that come into play with Chris Patty, who Hayden's going to talk about in a minute. Yeah.

Because East Texas is slated to lose one state house seat. So talk to us about an Austin area state rep opting also not to run. Celia Israel, representative from Austin, she has decided not to run for a different reason than most of these other people that we're talking about today. She is considering a run, mulling a run for Austin mayor, which current mayor Steve Adler is term limited in 22. And so there's going to be a vacancy there. And I can imagine that some pretty high profile candidates jumping into the race here, considering it is Austin. It's the state capital, one of the biggest cities in Texas and certainly one of the most influential.

So she said the heartbeat of a city is people from all walks of life working together and learning from each other. That's why I'm proud that the founding core of my exploratory committee is diverse with a broad array of lived experiences. Um, she's very, very progressive member. Um, you know, you have to be to win in Austin and, uh, she hasn't jumped into the mayor's race yet she's launching an exploratory committee but um you know it's pretty it's pretty safe bet that she's going to jump in the race at some point and yeah and um like i said it's solid blue district and she could be joining uh candidates like uh kirk watson former state senator that's another big name that's been

floating around as well as multiple people that are currently on city council. Yeah, could be a crowded field. We'll see how that turns out. Hayden, let's talk about Chris Paddy's retirement out in East Texas. Well, Chris Paddy is the chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, and I hesitate to call this a catch-all committee because it's not a junk drawer. It handles some pretty serious issues. I know border security was one of the things that state affairs handled and considered,

but Patty has been in the statehouse since 2013. And what makes this announcement particularly interesting is it is a reversal. He announced in late August that the 87th legislature's regular session was the most conservative ever. It was a banner year for conservatives was how he put it, and that he intended to run for his seat again in 2022. But as Brad alluded to moments ago, because of the redistricting process, he said out loud that he did not want to force his colleagues to make some of the difficult decisions that go along with redistricting. And if East Texas is losing a seat, then that means that someone would have to go. And it might have become,

it's awkward, I would imagine, for people in the legislature to look at one another and try to make those tough decisions. But Patty is stepping aside for that reason, in part, but also since he announced his reelection, the Harrison County Republican Party's executive committee made the decision to censure him. It was almost a unanimous decision, nine to one, and they listed off 18 different grievances, ranging from his opposition to a bill that would have prohibited taxpayer-funded lobbying, as well as his opposition to a requirement that committee chairs in the Texas House be Republicans, which was a hotly contested issue during the rules debate in January. So, with those circumstances in mind and with the stated reason of redistricting, he will be leaving his

Texas House District in January of 2023. Very, very good. And there's certainly been controversy in his home area about, you know, some of the things that he's done in the legislature. So interesting to see that. Just a little bit of addition to this. Patty carried the House's electricity reforms. He was the chief author and spokesman for those negotiator in those hearings. And so, you know, he is one of the most powerful members in the state house, especially with his committee chairmanship and played a big role in this legislative session. And it'll be interesting, too, to see who succeeds him as chair of state affairs. I think that'll probably be one of the more, that will probably be a more high profile

discussion as the 88th legislature draws closer absolutely brian let's talk about another high profile texas gop house member who opted to retire yeah uh state representative jim murphy um he is in harris county in houston he uh serves as the texas gop caucus chair house caucus chair he was elected it's like a majority leader is basically what that's like he's elected in december before the legislative session began um he again he also has decided to forego re-election um he said uh i'm not going away anytime soon just looking forward to life's next great opportunity. So he's going to remain attentive to his duties as chair of the caucus and on the higher education committee, which he also chairs in the House.

And so, you know, this is one of the biggest movers and shakers in the House. He drives a lot of the policy discussions, especially within the GOP caucus. And so this was somewhat of a shock i would say um but he announced that on thursday morning after the house convened in a meeting with the gop caucus and then work got out and then he put out his announcement so there you go definitely some big shake-ups in the texas house thank you boys daniel let's talk about the senate district that you already alluded to um talk to us about then he put out his announcement. So there you go. Definitely some big shakeups in the Texas house. Thank you, boys. Daniel, let's talk about the Senate district that you already alluded to. Talk to us about Senate district 24 and who's jumped in the race.

So Senate district 24 kind of central Texas hill country area previously, or currently it is held by Senator Don Buckingham in Travis County. Now, the interesting thing with the proposed Senate map is that it actually cuts out Travis County, and in its place, a little bit more population is added from Williamson County, which was not in it previously. But it also dips down south of San Antonio to a small county where actually former State Senator Pete Flores, who was previously in Senate District 19, lives. Now, when these redistricting proposals came out, Pete Flores said that he would actually jump into this race and campaign for the Senate seat, which is open because Buckingham is running for land commissioner. Now, Flores has been endorsed already by some pretty high-profile

folks in politics. Talk to us about those endorsements. Yes. So one of the notable ones that came out right away was Senator Don Buckingham, the incumbent for the seat. So she gives her support to Flores and wants to see him come back to the Senate. You also have Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who, of course, would have worked with Pete Flores back in the previous session in 2018 or 2019, whatever year that was. And so you've got those two endorsements. And then you also have an endorsement from Senator John Cornyn. So those are some of the big ones that he's already received and is touting. Now, is Flores the only Republican in this race? Well, we'll actually have to see how the maps end up to see who actually stays in the race.

But right now there is actually still another person campaigning for that. And that would be former Austin City Council member Ellen Troxclare, who launched this campaign for the seat earlier this year. You know, when the district was still presumably possibly going to be in Travis County where Don Buckingham lives, as well as Ellen Troxclare. And so now that Travis County has been cut out of the district and is actually going to another Cinder's district, we don't know if Troxclare is still going to be living in the district by the time the map is actually official and the filing window opens for candidates to actually officially file for the ballot. But that being said said she's still campaigning for the seat and even released an endorsement earlier this week after flores announced his campaign touting endorsement from u.s representative roger

williams very good stuff well thank you daniel for covering that for us and we'll definitely be interested to see how the maps actually finalize and where they end up. Isaiah, let's talk about a special election in San Antonio. Who is running and for what seat? I don't think so. So there are five candidates fine to replace state rep Leo Pacheco in the Texas House. Pacheco, a Democrat, is retiring to return to academia and teach at san antonio college one of the candidates is this is just the way they're ordered on the texas state secretary website yeah uh katie ferris a democrat currently she um is a south side independent school district board member

uh john luhan a republican who lost the seat that he formerly held there to thomas uresti democrat in 2016 and who also ran against Pacheco in 2018. And he's been endorsed by Governor Abbott, correct? Yes. Yeah, just recently. Yeah. Desi Martinez, a Democrat and a San Antonio trial lawyer. Frank Ramirez, whom Pacheco has endorsed. Oh, that was a close one. And he's also been endorsed by Jalen McKeer Rodriguez and Adriana Rocha Garcia.

Those are two members of the San Antonio City Council. And he's worked with them before on zoning and planning. And another Republican named Adam Sawyer, who unsuccessfully ran for the seat as the GOP nominee in 2020. Now, when is the election? September 28th. There we go. I like it.

Well, thank you, Zay,ay for that we're going to stick with you talk some more about your beats but the heartbeat act has been a big portion of what you've been reporting on it was built to use lawsuits instead of government punishment for enforcement and we're seeing the first lawsuits being waged here in texas talk to us about where they came from and why there was a san an San Antonio abortion physician named Alan Braid. He's still around, actually. But recently he published an opinion article in The Washington Post publicly defying or admitting that he defied the Texas Heartbeat Act just days after it took effect. response, there were two lawyers, one from Illinois, one from Arkansas, who filed, I think, I'm very sure the first enforcement suits attempted against a violator of the heartbeat act.

What's interesting is that both of these attorneys are disbarred. And both of them have said one of them in the court document itself that they're filing these suits and an attempt to get the heartbeat act overturned. Very interesting. Now, how could this change the landscape of pro-life versus pro-choice battles over this law in court? So everyone's aware that by now, that the reason why the law is structured this way is because typically in Texas and in other states, in Texas, they have a way of making themselves to the Supreme Court. When we pass, when the state passes laws to restrict abortion, big abortion providers will sue on behalf of women seeking abortions under third party standing. And then they'll get an injunction to the law, be overturned or what have you.

Braid actually participated in one of these attempted suits against Texas's ban on dismemberment abortions that just got ruled constitutional at the Fifth Circuit. So he's got kind of history with this kind of thing. But because of the way the Harvey Act is structured, that tactic hasn't been working. So it's kind of bucking the typical procedure because an injunction against the government, when these providers sue the government, will not have any effect on the private lawsuits that the law authorizes. That was the Supreme Court's reasoning for not taking up the case, was that, you know, halting this law would not resolve even temporarily a controversy between these providers and the state. So having somebody actually sued under the act that

suffers monetary damages could confer standing to challenge its constitutionality and that's something that the state has actually maintained in some court documents that that is ample avenue enough to challenge the law's constitutionality if you're sued under it so that's what they've argued in suits against for example the whole women's health suit that made to the almost made it to the Supreme Court. That's been the state's argument is that if, you know, there's totally an avenue to challenge the constitutionality of the law if you're sued under it. And now we're seeing this for the first time with that exact purpose in mind from the two attorneys who sued. Yeah. And it's a very interesting angle. And we've talked at length about the unique framing of this law particularly so it's interesting to see that be brought forward and actually utilized even if it is uh you know in objection to the law itself

so thank you for that hayden let's talk about the border and there has been a lot of hubbub surrounding the del rio area and just what's been going on down there we've talked it you know at length about this you've reported at length about it but but talk to us about what the Del Rio area has been facing in the last few weeks. Well, hubbub is probably a gentle word to describe what has been going on in Del Rio. In recent days, particularly last Friday and Saturday, the Del Rio community was inundated with thousands of individuals, most of whom are from Haiti and have reportedly been in Central American countries like Chile and Brazil. And a lot of information has been spread by word of mouth, particularly among Haitian individuals, that the Biden administration had chosen to extend temporary protected status to anyone who was in the country before, I believe, a date in late July.

And in addition to that, the Biden administration chose to stop deporting individuals, I believe, on September 8th, due to an earthquake that hit Haiti recently. And of course, that country has been rocked by other turmoil, such as the assassination of their president, which I think is still being investigated. But based on that information, I've seen varying figures, but as many as 16,000 Haitians went to Del Rio, crossed the Del Rio international or the international border there and camped out near and around and under the Del Rio international bridge. And it became popular for people to say people were camping under the bridge, but there were people all over the place around this bridge. There's drone footage,

there are pictures. Of course, there's plenty of media now of what's taking place. At first, it was a little bit restricted, I'm sure, because federal authorities are trying to gauge the situation themselves. But they're just absolutely overwhelmed. Congressman Gonzalez, who represents the largest portion of the southern border than any other congressman posted pictures of empty grocery stores shelves in Del Rio. The mayor of Del Rio, Bruno Lozano, was waving his arms all but yelling at the Biden administration to get their attention that and and he has been since February that the situation is untenable. And this is just the latest episode in what has been going on this year. Of course, in August and July, there were more than 200,000 enforcement encounters with illegal aliens.

So many of these individuals, Haitian individuals, have been taken into custody. They have, some of them, been deported to Haiti. Deportation flights, repatriation flights have resumed, and many individuals have gone back. Of course, many of them have not been in Haiti in many years, and this is part of the Fed's effort to get this under control. And as a result of that, once again, word of mouth, people began to get the message that deportation flights had resumed. And so, then there were reports of people going back over the river at the Rio Grande. And that is what spurred some of the optics that people have been preoccupied with, many of the optics of this issue.

So, the border crossings resulted in a shortage of resources in that area and what could be lost in what has happened in Del Rio. And what I was told by a former Border Patrol chief earlier this week is that if these deportations are only applied to Haitians, it won't necessarily deter other groups from coming across the border um and so this is part of the broader border crisis and the texas department of public safety and the texas national guard have had to step up uh due to the lack of personnel uh on the border and they've of course been distracted by humanitarian issues because they're taking care of women who are giving birth children who have health care needs men and women who have health care needs and they're taking care of women who are giving birth, children who have health care needs, men and women who have health care needs, and they're unable to attend their border patrolling duties. And the Texas Department of Public Safety has supplemented that by sending a surge of officers to the border. Some would say that not enough National Guard troops are being sent there, but they've even gone as far as creating a barrier with their DPS vehicles. And so, those are some of the things that the

state-level authorities have done to try to get the situation under control. Very good. Well, thank you for covering that for us. Let's stay on that general story. Talk to us about an altercation that happened down there during all of this, again, hubba being a very generous word, this conflict. But was anybody hurt in an incident that took place in South Texas on Monday? And talk to us about what exactly happened. Well, as I said, because of the deportations that the feds have commenced, they were transferring individuals in a bus. I believe there were two buses involved in the incident. And I was told by the chief deputy in nearby Cleberg County, Jamie Garza, that there was a convoy of two buses, and on one of these buses, the border

guards transporting these Haitian illegal aliens were attacked, and this bus was essentially overrun. And the way Garza put it is when an officer could be at risk, it's like awakening a sleeping giant. So there was a great law enforcement presence there on US Highway 77. As this bus was being transported, or transporting these individuals from Del Rio to Brownsville. And some of them were able to escape, but they were ultimately captured and placed on a more secure bus and taken to their final destination of Brownsville. And he emphasized that there were

no injuries in this incident. And this foreshadowed, I won't say it foreshadowed, but it was similar to another incident that took place once the planes landed in Haiti, there were some pilots that were assaulted by individuals who are being deported to Haiti. So, it's a very chaotic situation as some of these individuals are deported, and some of them are being given, released into the country and being given notices to appear rather than facing repatriation, being sent back to their home country. So a very chaotic situation on the southern border. But the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, promised at a congressional hearing on Tuesday that we should expect the encampment to dissipate and for the situation to improve rapidly

because of the measures that they put in place. So we'll have to see how that plays out in the coming days. Well, and thanks for straightening out all those facts for us so we can have a better understanding of what exactly is going on down there. Certainly something we'll keep an eye on and thank you for your reporting on that. Daniel, there was a new hearing in the Ken Paxton whistleblower lawsuit earlier this week. Give us some quick background on that case. So if you don't remember, a year ago, there were former aides who raised some allegations against Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Office of the Attorney General. You know,

these were top attorneys working pretty much directly under Paxton himself, raising some pretty serious allegations of abuse of office and bribery. And shortly thereafter, after they raised those allegations, they were fired or let go from the office or some of them resigned. And ultimately, four of them filed a lawsuit under the Texas Whistleblower Act against the Office of the Attorney General, alleging that they faced retaliation for their raising their allegations. Now, the OAG has attempted to have this lawsuit rejected by the court on the grounds that the plaintiffs don't have standing, but the district court that this lawsuit was brought

into actually rejected those arguments, and then the OAG appealed this to the Third Court of Appeals in Travis County, and that's where that is right now. Now, what did the court hearing focus on? So the hearing this week, really, the judges honed in on a single argument that was being made by the Solicitor General who is arguing on behalf of the OAG. And that argument is that Paxton is essentially protected from the Whistleblower Act because he's an elected official. Now, the Whistleblower Act in Texas applies to employees, governmental entities, and appointed officials, but doesn't actually specify an elected official. Now, one of the things that the plaintiffs, the whistleblowers, argue kind of against this is that even though there's no elected officials specified in the

Whistleblower Act, they're not specifically exempted from it either in code. Now, even though the lawsuit itself is actually against the Office of the Attorney General and not Paxton, so Paxton is not named as the defendant in the suit. The OAG says that the opponent's arguments all hinge on the actions of Paxton. Now, meanwhile, the plaintiffs contend that this kind of defense that Paxton is exempt because he's an elected official is really a dangerous argument and could set a bad precedent because Paxton, in his capacity, was essentially acting as the governmental entity in this case. That's their argument. Now, I think it was interesting, the judge's grilling of the Solicitor General after he started presenting his arguments. He has 20 minutes to argue, and a minute in, they start asking him questions about this. And so they're kind of grilling him on this. It seems to suggest that they don't really buy that argument.

But we'll see what they ultimately decide. Now, how long could this case foreseeably go on for? This has been, I mean, an issue for a long time here, and it's not like the Attorney General is, you know, new to this kind of conflict in terms of the legal battles going on in the state. But foreseeably, how long could this specific case go on for? So cases like this, like you pointed out, here's another case that's been going on for years and years.

This case was filed back in November. And so it's still not gotten to the point where they're really arguing about the whistleblower lawsuit itself. They're still arguing about whether or not it has standing. And this is an appellate court. So this will likely continue to go on for a long time. We don't know when the appellate court is going to issue an order. But when they do, I really imagine that, you know, whatever way they rule on it, this is going to go up to the Supreme Court of Texas. This is kind of an issue that they're going to push hard. Both sides

are going to push hard on this. And so then it's going to be pending before the Supreme Court, and it'll wait there. And then it might go back down to the district court, depending on how the Supreme Court rules. And so it could go on for quite some time. And this would go on and continue throughout the whole midterm election cycle next year. So we'll definitely hear more about this case going on. Another thing that isn't going to help it be expedited any faster is the big backlog of cases. This was actually the first in-person hearing that the Third Court of Appeals had since the pandemic began. So there's a huge backlog of cases because of that. So it's just going to take a while. Yeah. And we even heard from, you know, different

folks in the broader political spectrum that, okay, well, this is certainly an issue that, one, will be a huge talking point of the attorney general primary race, wherein the attorney general is facing three, you know, pretty prominent opponents um you know on the republican side specifically citing these allegations as the reason for their jumping in the race um or the or the uh just problem in general with the attorney general's tenure um but also during the the general election even last cycle before all of this broke there there are other allegations that, you know, his opponent then used in every campaign messaging. So politically, where do you see this going? Politically, it's going to be definitely a,

maybe this is too strong of a term, a bloodbath. I don't think there's going to be any actual blood spread over this, but let's hope not. It is going to be definitely one of the huge controversial items. This week we actually saw a few interviews come out with each of the Republican candidates in this race who are challenging Paxton. And they're all really touching on this. George P. Bush in particular has gone full steam ahead in pushing this against Paxton and the allegations against him. You have also, I believe, former Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, which will be interesting to see if it does go up to the Supreme Court, what the Supreme Court will do with one of their former colleagues in the race against him.

But she even said this week, I believe, that he should resign. And you also have State Representative Matt Krause, who just joined the race pretty recently. And I don't think that he's going quite as far as the other two candidates. But he is saying, you know, this is going to be a problem with him getting elected. And so it's definitely a controversial item. It is going to be a problem with him getting elected and so um it's definitely a controversial item it's going to be continued throughout the next year we'll hear a lot about it and we've yeah exactly and these candidates aren't necessarily citing political differences with the attorney general so much as they are citing you know these allegations and administrative problems within the office those kinds of things so we'll continue to hear this for sure but thank you for covering that for us isaiah let's's go to you. Pretty interesting here. We've talked a lot about state

and local conflicts in terms of mask mandates for localities. And now the federal government has gotten involved with the state and opened up an investigation into the Texas Education Agency over the state's prohibition on mask mandates. Talk to us about it. And why is this happening? Yes. So the Office of Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Education has been opening investigations into states around the country that to some degree or another have not allowed schools or school districts to implement mask mandates. And Texas is the latest. The argument for Texas, I mean, I haven't looked at other states, I presume it's similar, is that the department suspects that a prohibition on mask mandates might legally count as discrimination against disabled students, specifically students with disabilities that put them at a heightened risk for severe illness from COVID

and that would be prevented from safely returning to in-person education if nobody's wearing a mask. That's the general argument. And there's been, it mirrors the claims of a similar lawsuit. This is an investigation, but it reminds me of a lawsuit that is still ongoing. There is a disability advocacy group that sued the state on behalf of a number of disabled children because of Abbott's prohibition on mask mandates. Because if you'll remember, the prohibition comes from an executive order. It wasn't a law that the legislature passed.

But it's still state policy and the TEA has decided that in the most recent guidance that they're going to treat it as enforceable. So there's this lawsuit going on as well under essentially the same claim. And the most recent major event, major order, was that the judge denied the group's petition for a temporary restraining order to stop the mask part of GA-38. So that's a bit of a loss for them. But who knows how this new intervention by the feds will change that suit and how it'll end up. Yeah. And that executive order really has been what all these lawsuits or movements by localities has stemmed from. Right.

So it'll be interesting to see how now the federal government's involvement changes that or, you know, basically it's just conflict and one entity going after another. So thank you for covering that for us,iel let's talk about more proposed maps um this time with the proposed map of the state board of education districts how will that affect the partisan leaning of the board if these districts if these maps are the ones that are accepted at the end of the day yes so you know like the senate map this is going to have to go through the whole legislative process. There's bound to be amendments on this legislation as they kind of fine-tune where these districts are. But the proposal that was put forth also by Senator Joan Huffman in the Senate, if this went through, it wouldn't likely change anything quite as drastically as the Senate map. But it does do the similar thing in shoring up

support for incumbents. Now, it wouldn't flip any seats from Republican to Democrats based on the voting patterns, but it would shore up support for a couple of those close races and lean them towards the incumbents thing. So that really does help Republicans, where I think there's three Republicans in kind of more purple districts that shore up a lot more support. And then there's also one Democrat that is going to become more Democratic. And then there's also one seat that's down in South Texas, kind of the Rio Grande Valley, and then it curves up along the coast. And that'll end up being, if this map goes through, probably the most competitive seat, close to kind of a 50-50 split.

But it does become a little bit more democratic. The incumbent is a Democrat. So we'll see, you know, that there might be more political fights there. But that's kind of how the map would shape up. And there are 15 State Board of Education members, right? Okay. So then 15 districts. Talk to us about, there was some controversy

over the pairing of one set of members. So these members got districted into the same district, both incumbents. Why was that? Why did that happen? Tell us about the controversy. So this is something that does happen frequently. And when the house maps do come out,

this will be something that we'll definitely want to, everybody who's nerding out about this will pay attention to because the pairing is really in Texas law. You have to live in the district that you're running in unless it's a congressional seat, which is a federal. But for the state, you have to be in the district. And so if you get paired with another member, well, your choices are either you can't run again. I mean, or you run against the incumbent, you can't run for your old seat, or you move back to a different seat. So in this case, there were only two members in the State Board of Education who were paired, and that would be Matt Robinson in Friendswood, which is just south of Houston, he was actually retiring,

a Republican, was paired into a Houston Democrat's district, Lawrence Allen. Now, even though he's retiring, Robinson claims that the drawing him into the district, into a Democrat district, was retaliation for his votes against charter schools, and that'll end up disenfranchising the mostly Republican voters in Friendswood. Now, apart from that, Robinson was supportive of the map and said that he did like seeing more support shored up for his Republican colleagues in the SBOE. Yeah, and Robinson certainly has been the center of a lot of this conversation about Republicans in charter schools, and I think it was a surprise to some to see his stances more recently. So thank you for that. We appreciate your coverage

and we will continue to watch all of that. But Bradley, we're going to come back to you. It sounds like a very high profile Democrat is nearing a run for governor. We've heard these rumors before. Unsurprisingly, it's Beto. Talk to us about the news on this front. Shocking, right? Yeah, it was basically an open secret at this point that he was at least mulling the run. I mean, he's increased his public exposure a lot recently, especially during all of the election bill fight and the quorum break and all that stuff. So he actually has not confirmed anything yet, but Axios broke a story over the weekend and said that a few political consultants

had told them that he is close to announcing he will do so later this year. When that is, no idea. But that is likely to come, and I think it would be a massive shock if it ends up not happening. Democrats currently don't have any high-profile candidates in the race, and there's really been no talk of any other candidates for the Democrats explicitly jumping in. Now there has been talk about Matthew McConaughey. Would he run as a Democrat? Would he run as independent?

No idea. He hasn't even, he's just kind of cold speculation on it too. And he hasn't come out and said one way or the other either. But it's interesting. We saw some polling come out recently in a hypothetical matchup between abbott and beto abbott was up 42 to 37 now obviously you know that's a five-point lead for abbott and uh but that had the margin had shrunk a significant amount since the last iteration of the poll but another odd twist was showed that um i don't remember the exact percentages but

matthew mcconaughey was up on abbott in that hypothetical 44 35 44 35 like substantial margin um and so who knows what's going to happen um other than you know i think beta is going to jump in the race and uh most people know that and um but as far as mcconaughey jumping in how does that affect this race we don't know and also you know abbott has to get through his primary and so um if beta were to jump in and should the primary opponents for abbott make things interesting um abbott's you know 55 million dollar war chest that is a great advantage to him right now is going to take a hit and he'll have to use it he'll dip into it quite a bit um beta would pose a far bigger far more substantial opposition than uh lupe valdez did

in 2018 against abbott so um we'll see fundraising Name ID, fundraising, all that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, just a higher profile figure in total. Yeah. And to be fair, Beto running in the presidential in 2020 will affect his ability to run in Texas. Right. So the hell yes, I'll take your AR-15s.

That's not going to fare well in a lot of the more moderate Democrat districts, the border area. That won't fare as well as it is not the same that ran against ted cruz yes that's for sure uh but i think it's fair to point out that beto still ran pretty progressively in 2018 uh now he didn't go as far as to endorse gun confiscation which he did during the presidential yeah but you can bet that abbott's going to use that on every mail piece. Oh yeah. Hell yeah. We'll take your AR-15s and your AK-47s.

So, and the other thing since then, I've also noticed, um, I believe it was representative August Pfluger out in West Texas actually sent out an email, a fundraising email or campaign kind of email saying, you know, Beto's going to rake in a lot of money. Uh, help me donate to me, of course. But I think that is a good point that even if with beta running even if he's running as really progressive candidate that won't fare well with moderates in texas uh he still has the potential to rake in a lot of money for democrats in texas and just have take the money out of it just have draw more democrats to the polls

to drive up the returns for lower ballot Democrats, which we saw happen in 2018. Obviously, he also had $80 million to work with. So will he have that kind of effect again? I think he'll definitely help Democrats more than he hurts them, but we don't know if it'll be enough. But at the same time, in 2018, folks, you know, Republican primary voters, Republican general election voters were very concerned with Beto, but they weren't. I don't think they're as motivated as they are, as they will be now. Right. You say Beto, and that is the word that strikes fear among Republican voters in Texas.

Right. 2018 was a stark reminder that there are a lot of Democrats who will come out and vote. There are independents and they can be swayed to vote for a candidate that has messaging they agree with regardless of what the policies may be i don't know who will be more motivated democrats to come out and vote for beto or republicans to try and ensure he does not win so and of course the other factor to consider is who's in the white house uh we have a democrat now instead of republican right when beta ran yeah and he's coming at this from a second very high profile loss it's a different it's entirely different so who knows what this actually will mean um but the polling is very interesting the 42 37 spread very interesting we'll see what happens mcconaughey i think you know in our in our expert political opinions i

would say running as an independent would be where his bread and butter is where he can actually get some of that fields that you know play the ross perot yeah an avid v beta matchup it'd be interesting who knows well bradley thank you for that i'll continue to watch and it's it's just fun to talk about these kind of matchups it's like uh you know big boxing rounds or something um daniel let's talk about john cornyn speaking of uh senate races uh he was just re-elected to the text or to the u.s senate um and this week made some comments about a potential rise to prominence in the uh you know the federal government talked to us about his comments at a festival here in texas yeah so during a virtual festival uh Senator Cornyn responded to some reporters' questions who asked him

in this interview, will Texas get another majority leader, minority leader in the U.S. Senate? And Cornyn said that if the opportunity arises, he'd like to do that. Now, there is one huge caveat, and that is that he does support the current Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and McConnell has given no indication that he's support uh the current republican leader mitch mcconnell and mcconnell has given no indication that he's going to leave that role anytime soon uh and you know cornyn is one of his lieutenants he's up there in leadership so very loyal to him you're not going to see some kind of rebellion i don't expect to see that. Then again, you know, 2020 was breaking all expectations.

So curveball could happen. But, you know, this is only if McConnell decides that he doesn't want to be the leader for some reason. We could see Cornyn try to go for that position. Now, how old are these two? I thought that was interesting you noted this in your article. Yeah. So I didn't include this fun factoid in the article. Maybe I should have.

You probably would have cut it. That's correct. But you can say on the pod. That's correct. Well, Senator John Cornyn is 69 years old, and he is about 314 million seconds younger than Mitch McConnell. Wow. Which is about 10 years, exactly.

Got it. They're both born in February. So McConnell is 79. Now, even in the Senate, that's not too old. I mean, we look at that number and we're like, I hear many people complain, you know, senators shouldn't be that old. They should retire and let somebody new go in. But even at 79 years old, that's not terrible. That is on the older end of the Senate.

But there are senators who are 88 years old, Chuck Grassley. So, you know, they could be in there for another 10, 20 years down the road if they continue to be reelected like they have been. So it's definitely possible that Cornyn could be a future leader. Maybe not soon, but after his nextlection if he if he chooses to do that now has the great state of texas previously had a senate majority leader uh yes it has uh and also he happened to be a former uh president from texas as well uh linden george washington johnson george washington no i well maybe like maybe he was born in texas and the history books have it wrong wow conspiracies yeah wow well daniel thank you for that gentlemen as y'all know or as brad did not

know the rest of y'all i should assume were fully aware fall started this week let's talk about the best parts of fall let's have this be our fun topic i am as a white girl as it gets i'm ready to you know devour all things pumpkin so i'm really excited because we could have discussed our favorite meats which we still can do um the boys uh propose different fun topics for me in our in our document here and it's always interesting to see what is put down but fall fall. Best parts about fall. Daniel, start us off. So I went to a donut shop. I won't name which one. Yesterday morning I was going to pick up some fall. Is this a negative review?

Is that why you won't mention it? I plead the fifth. I was going to pick up some fall donuts. I thought they had some kind of a pumpkin flavored one. They didn't have it. I was in a bit of a rush too. So I ended up backing out of the driveway. But I do like the fall flavored food.

You know, having some apple cider, having some pumpkin bread like you so generously stopped. So that's why I asked you to stop at Starbucks yesterday and get some pumpkin bread. Because I didn't have the pumpkin flavored donut. That you so desired. The bread was fantastic. It's always the worst when you have an expectation for food and you go to get it and then you are unable to retrieve it. It's just a big disappointment. It was a disappointment, but I was also like, I don't need the sugar, so it's probably better.

But then you ended up getting pumpkin bread, so. Yeah. It's a little less sugar, probably. Probably a little bit. Probably a little bit. Isaiah? Fall. pumpkin bread so yeah it's a little less sugar probably probably a little bit probably a little bit isaiah fall um it's a good thing i'm going before brad because my answer is thanksgiving i know that's brad's favorite holiday i think and um yeah i've got to say thanksgiving i'm big fan of the food i really like the way my family does thanksgiving um there's always we have turkeys

every year um my dad would make one my My Uncle Brad's going to bring one. But there's also always these other meats that they'll bring too, like ribs is one year or something like that. And we have a football game. My Aunt Misty will plead with me to not injure any more of her children. And somebody will get injured. It's just fun. So we have a football game. We eat a lot of food.

Uncle Brad falls asleep at the Cowboys game. I don't know. It's just Thanksgiving. Uncle Brad have a football game, we eat a lot of food and Uncle Brad falls asleep at the Cowboys game. I don't know, it's just Thanksgiving. Uncle Brad, you gotta stop falling asleep. Yeah. Yeah, seriously.

I'm looking over at our Brad pretending that he is the one at fault here. That sounds like an all-American. I wish I was taking a nap right now. Excuse our podcast. We'll say it sounds like an all-American Thanksgiving.

That's amazing. Brad, favorite part about the fall? I will obviously second isaiah's love for thanksgiving uh college football is a big one although it's been a constant disappointment the last 21 years of my life so we'll see if that continues the drama wait why only 21 years um because michigan has beaten ohio state before then oh got it okay we've done it twice in 20 years um let's see i love hating pumpkin in all of its variations. That is one of my passions. We should get some more pumpkin bread. Maybe I'll bake some.

Hey, that's a great idea. I'll make some muffins. You make some bread. We'll bring it in. We'll put it directly in front of Brad. Great. Cool. Good plan, team.

I will also be decorating my desk with all things pumpkin, and it should be noted that my desk is the one right next to Brad's. Delightful. Just making that announcement now. Good. Cool. Well, also, as a dang northerner, I enjoy the cooler weather. The umpteenth day of 100-degree weather is not something i very much enjoy here in texas um it's one of the few things i don't enjoy in texas and so i welcome any break in in the heat that we get and which we

had the other day it was beautiful at 75 degrees yeah and today too on thursday what woke up on thursday and it's 55 degrees outside okay okay but i think my favorite part of fall would have to be uh the october classic uh the mlb playoffs even though my team will not be in it and uh well it hasn't been in it for a while but uh that's always fun and so i'll probably stick with that i like it hayden well i guess thanksgiving's already taken and pumpkins are already taken y'all are taking up all the good ideas you can just tell us your favorites um there's room for more people i like the fall because i like new year's and fall is like the Friday of the year. Interesting.

I love the perplexed look that Mackenzie just gave me. Well, I loved it and I was processing it. I look over and Isaiah is just really cracking up at that. Okay. Well, that is my official statement. It's like the Christmas Eve of the year. No, that wasn't quite where i was going with that but he said friday it's it's like the friday of the year like november like you're just

kind of you know and then the last two weeks you're just kind of mentally you know ready to start a new year so i feel like no one's quite tracking with what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, I like it. It does feel like, I don't know, going into the holidays, there's a lot to be excited about. So it kind of feels like there's anticipation associated with it. I understand. I just love fall period. everything about it again as a northerner uh former northerner the cool weather is fantastic it's 85 degrees today and

we're all saying man it feels so good again i mentioned the cool weather earlier but it feels like i'm justified in drinking my hot coffees um i just love the holidays i love christmas and so this really does feel like the christmas eve of the holidays i've never heard this before oh my gosh how many days i'm being facetious actually i don't know how many days wow she doesn't know we're less than 100 and she doesn't know how many days until christmas she is probably oh 93 there you go i was gonna guess 92 so i was one off i'm pretty sure i I'm pretty sure on December 26th last year you posted 364 days till Christmas. I think you're right. I'm pretty sure she had it on her whiteboard at that time.

Yes. And just like this counter that she would do every day. Yeah. I haven't had it this year for most of the year. For some of it I did. Yeah, which is really shocking. Yeah. I've been concerned about you.

Thank you. Yeah. I used to use my whiteboard to track all my tasks, and now I use my planner, so then it just feels like I forget to change it. And that was discouraging to me. It was discouraging that I was not changing. Hayden is laughing really under his breath. But no, I love fall. My dad sent me a picture the other day of these four white girls sitting on the stoop of a house, sitting by pumpkins.

And he says, since when has McKenzie part of stock photos uh that you can purchase online and i thought that was very funny you're calling yourself basic yes i am i don't think i'm that basic but other people seem to so i'll i'll concede but there was one that actually did look a lot like me so there's only so much you can only so much uh resistance you can have to that kind of argument. Anyway, I'm excited. Pumpkin everything. Congratulations. I want to bake.

I want to bake so bad. Congratulations on the fall. Thank you. I'm really excited. Veterans Day is also in November, and I love patriotic holidays. I'm all about that. Do we have, okay, so let's talk about this real fast. Halloween versus Thanksgiving. We're going to have you guys raise your hands.

I know our podcast is such an oil to see. I i will report if you prefer halloween to thanksgiving raise your hand nobody raise their hands that is a very good answer halloween is kind of gross you can continue to let work at the texan yes people put gross stuff in their in their yard and yeah all kinds of nastiness on halloween like it'd be fun if kids just dressed up as characters or something, but... Little Batman. People make it gross. Yeah. I definitely prefer Thanksgiving, obviously.

But I will say, I just moved into a house, and I am very excited to hand out candy. Oh, that's so fun. Halloween. I love handing out candy. Especially because it's in a neighborhood, and there will actually be kids. Yeah, 100%. I lived in a small town, and even in that small town, we would have 800 kids come for Halloween. Oh, my word. 800?

Yes. 800, 900. Oh, my gosh. It was a lot. I feel like 100 is a lot. 900, 800 is insane. Yep. Holy cow. Last year I bought a huge box of Milky Way bars, like actual size bars, to hand out for any kids that came to my apartment door.

Yeah. And that way I would be the cool house that gives out actual candy bars instead of these tiny little pieces of crap. And nobody came. So I ate them all myself. I'm sure that you were so mad about it. A little bit, yeah. Oh. Well, I mean sure that you were so mad about it. A little bit. Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, you got to eat some delightful things.

That's true. Yeah. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. I hate it on the gross stuff. There's a bakery right by my house that every year at Halloween decorates. And it's, it's amazing skill. These bakers and cake decorators have, they make a really with like bloody fingers and

eyeballs and they have it displayed right up front and it's a cake with all of this gross gross yeah it's just gross so i when i go in i just try not to look at it it grosses me out so much so i get very excited when october's over for that reason anyway well gentlemen thank you for obliging. You are all superb. It is our job to show up here. I literally was waiting for Brad to make some snarky comment about obligatory workplace involvement. You forget that Brad hates compliments. Yeah. And I love to give them.

So it's a really great workplace relationship we have. Well, folks, on that front, thank you for listening and we will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at the Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you, and God bless Texas. Thank you.