The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 5, 2025

Episode Date: September 5, 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.Second Special Session of 2025 Closes as Texas House and Senate Adjourn Sine DieSpecial Session Roundup: Where Abbott’s Agenda Stands With Sine Die in SightTexas Lawmakers Struggle on Hemp-Derived THC Agreement Before Special Session EndsTHC Deal Between Governor, Legislature Falls Through Before Second Special Session EndsTexas House and Senate Again at Loggerheads Over Property Tax ReformU.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Takes Up Kemah, Texas Property Rights 'Takings' CaseGOP Candidates for North Texas Senate District Spar Over DEI, Casino GamblingHere's the Top Bills That Become Texas Law on September 1New Texas Laws from 89th Session Face Legal ChallengesTexas Lottery Transferred to TDLR After Legislative Battle Over Couriers, Alleged 'Criminal Conspiracy'Texas Sues California-Based PowerSchool After ‘Unprecedented’ Personal Data Breach

Good morning, everybody. This is senior reporter Brad Johnson here for this week's Texan Weekly Roundup podcast. And today we have in-person, Cameron, as usual. But we also have Holly Hanson. Holly, welcome. Good morning. And then we've got remote. Mary Lease Cosgray and Kim Roberts.

Welcome, y'all. Hello. Yesterday we saw the second special session conclude. Both chambers adjourned Sine-E-Dye, and as Sine-E-Dye days tend to go, it was pretty chaotic. I got a bit of whiplash back and forth, especially on the THC stuff, as state leaders were trying to figure out a compromise, and, of course, eventually did not come to a compromise. We saw flooding bills pass finally.

Most of the legislation go through. Star Test Elimination. Star test, yeah. Yeah, that was a big floor fight with points of orders being called, people on the back mic arguing against it, so that was

interesting to watch too. You know, it wasn't one of the bigger issues everyone was focusing on, but for individual lawmakers, it was a big issue for this. Yeah, and it was supposed to come up on Tuesday. Yeah. But

it got postponed because the votes weren't there at the time. Yeah. But, and then, one member told me he was up on the dais he said that the speaker told them to go back to his desk because they're not sure if they have the votes on this

and they need all the votes they can get so lots of orchestrating of legislation going on what we'll get into stuff that was happening behind the scenes and generally things were pretty calm I'd say I mean there was some drama especially on THC

but overall other than Vincent Perez and Tony Tenderhold fighting A little hostility, yeah, on the House Rules Resolution at the end. My heart started to beat a little bit after the back and forth ended and Tinderholt stepped out from behind the back mic and started walking towards the dais. I was like, oh, what's happening?

He would go cause a conflict, but he did not. Everyone was very glad to get out of Dodge and hopefully we're out for good until 2027, although there are a couple items that might prevent that from happening, might keep people, or at least bring people back to Austin. Marylees, you're watching from home, but you were up late until the Senate adjourned. What were your thoughts watching? The first one being, this is really late at night. I wish they would wrap things up. But also, it was very interesting, a lot of debate around some of the key issues that we've been covering since the beginning of the regular session.

One issue that was being debated, and this is something that took up a lot of floor time as well during the regular session, and then during the second special session, was the chemical abortion pill bill. There was a lot of conversation around particularly in the Senate when it was being brought up for third reading. There was a lot of debate around the changes that had been made to this bill as compared to the regular session or even as compared to just two weeks ago with this version of a lot of. legislation because it had changed a couple of the aspects of this bill that had caused different groups pro-life groups to feel uncomfortable throwing their support behind it as we talked about last week so there were a couple amendments there that had to be made and then both chambers had to agree upon it but it is now has passed officially the Texas legislature and is en route to Governor

Greg Abbott's desk another one was the bathroom bill as people call it legislation separating publicly funded private spaces by biological sex. And of course, there's a lot of debate around that and whether that was unnecessarily discriminatory towards individuals that have an identity other than their biological sex and would like to use the private spaces that do not match their biological sex. Of course, there's conversation there with the group saying, you know, these are biological men that are invading women's spaces. But that, people call it the bathroom bill, but it's also a more official name is the Texas Woman's Privacy Act. And that was sent to Governor Greg Abbott this morning.

So those are two of the kind of really controversial social issue bills that were debated leading up to Signy Die. But we did finally meet Signy Die of the second special session. I believe it was around 1130 that the House called Signy Dye and then the Senate was closer to 1 a.m. And the Senate was spending a lot of time talking about congratulating State Senator Brandon Creighton and then also recognizing one of the senators Robert Nichols for his time in the Senate because he's retiring soon. an SB2 is something that did not get across the line and from what I understand Patrick was telling senators that this is something that they might get called back for THC is obviously up in the air who knows on that although it did seem like

reading Patrick's message concession tweet basically that there's not a desire to come back and try before 2027 so yeah I don't know on that but they are getting on a dodge and they will try and enjoy an interim until campaigns really start to get revved up, although they're already still going. So,

who knows? Who knows, really? But the big issue that was percolating throughout the day was THC. Cameron, let's talk about that. Let's talk about it. Where'd that start in the day? Where'd it end up?

And then all the things in between, the twists and turn in between. Well, we were talking about over the past week, it seemed like the conversation around what was going to happen with the hemp-derived THC issue had gone quiet. It had really stalled out. There wasn't movement on bills, things. The Senate had passed their bill, and it was sent to a House committee. The House sent their version to the same House committee. But then nothing happened for a while.

And so everyone was like, we're getting to the end here. what's going to happen and so there started to be rumblings about a possible deal wasn't going to be a complete ban maybe some age gating maybe some bans on certain types of products but everyone had different opinions about what was going to happen we wrote a story up on the site that there was some energy behind a bill that brisco cane had filed that it was a monster of a bill it was a 175 pages. He was trying to please everyone in this bill. So that was rumored. There could be some middle ground found. But once we got onto the floor, there again, rumors spreading that there was going to be a formal hearing held where the lawmakers were going to meet. They were going to submit a committee

substitute and there was not no real consensus on what that committee substitute was going to be again like i mentioned there was people saying uh charlie garrens um 21 year old age limit bill was going to be the committee sub there was other people saying oh it's going to be some version of brisco canes bill so no one really knew what was going on and people were coming up to you and me in the back and saying the meeting's on and then the next person comes up and says the meeting's off that happened over and over again so we're waiting for hours to finally hear what was going to happen it got around I don't know what time it was maybe around 9 o'clock when we figured out there wasn't going to be a meeting seemed like THC there was not going to be any movement on the issue and then

finally we got the answer from lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who said there was no resolution to be had despite hours of meetings between the House Speaker and the governor and the lieutenant governor. They couldn't come to a consensus. Dan Patrick said he is all in on a ban. He said the upper chamber and the members are all in on a ban. So there wasn't really any movement that was going to be had there. It was already going to be tough.

Whatever was passed out of the house, even if they did hold a formal meeting, it was going to be tough to get something. through the Senate. Something that's not a ban. Something that's not a ban. Because they've been very clear this entire time. They're for a ban. Yeah. So that's sort of where it leaves us.

Where we started in January at the beginning of the regular session. Yeah. Status quo remains. So are we going to see something happen in the interim? Is this issue going to stay at the forefront for Dan Patrick? Because it didn't seem like it was a huge issue coming into the session. had the interview with Governor Greg Abbott, and I asked them, I said, did you know T.HC was going to be such a big issue coming into the session?

And he said, I had no idea. And so will it remain such a big issue for Dan Patrick? Will it remain a tipping point for him moving forward? Well, and the thing pointing to maybe a special session on this is that nobody likes the status quo. Not even the industry, at least the good actors in the industry, like the status quo. Well, because the big thing is, one of the things there is a consensus on, it seems, is the 21-year-old age gating. And there is no age limit currently in the state. But if you go to, like, the collectives, like lobbyist groups, they say many of the retailers self-imposed the 21-year-old.

They say that. Right. but there's nothing specifically in statute. And another piece of this is the marketing aimed towards children, the packaging with the colors and the cartoons, whatever it may be, or even the types of products that are being sold, whether it be candies or chips or drinks or things like that. So there's a lot of different pieces here that the lawmakers for,

trying to address but it seemed like it was either a ban in the upper chamber or nothing at all and that's where we ended up yeah and you know between one o'clock and nine when we finally got resolution of no resolution yeah things changed about 15 times yeah members were informed that there was going to be a formal meeting then it was canceled and then it was back on so it wasn't I think it was less that nobody just knew what was going on and rumors were happening. It was, the plan was changing constantly minute to minute. Yeah. Because they set a path forward, go on that, and then all of a sudden someone would change their mind,

probably the Senate, and say, hey, we don't have the votes for that. And so they got to adjust. They got to do more negotiating. The big three sat in a meeting for closed door, as I understand it, no staff, for two hours. Tuesday after the property tax bill collapse, which I'll talk about in a minute. And they were trying to hash out THC, but also how to land the plane on this special session. And clearly they couldn't come to an agreement.

Now, I will say it was notable in my mind that Patrick's tweet was not pointed. He thanked the governor and the speaker for trying to figure out a solution to this. and a much different tone that he took with this statement than he did after the veto right right that was a much more aggressive statement after that veto yeah lots of accusations being thrown about during that press conference but it was much much more tame-tempered in this statement so it seems like they are talking about this yeah so it just it leaves us in this unknown space about what's going to happen next yeah Right.

Just way up in the air. Yeah, it's just up in the air. Kim, I want to come to you quickly on the couple of issues that you were following this special session. How did they end up, you know, coming through or falling apart? I was following tidal fraud and deed theft, and it passed last week without seeming any real opposition to it. Yeah. Kind of flew through and went to the governor, so that wasn't one one to be. the more controversial issues why was that vetoed originally it was vetoed because of a different

issue not really it was about recording instruments the portion that the governor vetoed before was was requirements for recording instruments and he felt like it made it too hard on certain people who were recording kind of singled them out as a group and so they changed the recording requirements this time around and made it more streamlined yeah there were a few issues like that that were lower priority you know not as didn't get as much attention but obviously we're part of the very large slate of items that run these two special session calls well it makes you think if the governor would have given a more truncated agenda would they have been able to come to some

sort of consensus on these more contentious issues because they'd have more time They had more time. You know, the strategy, this whole session was get the congressional map done first. Right. Because it's a lift, and obviously that's the thing Democrats broke quorum over. Yeah. Redistricting at any point, especially mid-decade, is just difficult to do. And to make sure you have all your ducks in a row and, you know, try and heat off any, you know, lines of criticism from your opponents on this.

And once that happened, then the rush was on to get everything else done, including THC, and there just wasn't enough time to figure out a solution on that. And everyone, by when, we still have, what, a week and a half, two weeks left of this special? Members are so tired. Staff is so tired. Everyone's sick of this. They all want to get out of town. And so it was less a hard deadline that they were running up against,

and more just the fatigue. The will. Yeah, the willpower. You've got to get stuff done before everyone is just done with this entirely. And that is one of the things working in favor of not having another special is that after three really tough regular sessions, the last three cycles, nine specials, two quorum breaks, everyone's exhaust. Yeah. And you're going to eventually reach the law of diminishing returns. And I was hearing if there's a third special, especially because immediate, members might riot.

But that was the mood inside, inside the Capitol. One issue that blew up that I don't think anyone expected to was property tax. And that was SB 10. relatively minor reform because it would have just dropped the voter approval tax rate for cities and counties above 75,000 from 3.5% to 2.5%.

That's a standing reform from the 2019 session that place these voter approval caps on tax rates. And so everyone kind of thought this would just go through. It's not significant but it's a step in the right direction but that did not happen it blew up on the floor

on the house floor yeah members at first tacked on amendments trying to remove that 75k line reduce the the photo approval threshold to 1% but exempting public safety uh public safety expenses that was one talking point during this was if you lower that then these localities are going to have to cut that mm-hmm I'm sure that's true for some I think it's also a good foil for others mm-hmm and so the the solution that is Jared Patterson's amendment to try and get that was lower it down to one but you police and fire and whatnot are exempted from from that the Senate stripped it and then came back and Morgan

Meyer tried to concur with the Senate amendments and And that got rejected. And so that sparked a whole frenzy on Tuesday. That was, I'm sure, a discussion point between the big three. No solution. Betancourt put out a very pointed response to the House members who, especially the Republicans who did that. Tony Tinderhol responded to that with a very pointed statement on Twitter.

it was a it really blew up and you saw it was a good example of horseshoe theory where you had Democrats on one side voting against this for their reasons which was it's kind of tying the hands of local government more and then the right flank of the Republican Party on the other because they said it didn't go far enough and didn't provide much relief at all which you know the calculation that I was hearing was it would save the average taxpayer like 12 bucks on their property tax bill. So that was the squabble there was was not something I think House leadership saw coming and maybe that's an issue that is put on a third special session call or the constant is every regular session we're going to be

talking about property tax reform. It's it seems that way because what I really am waiting for someone to come out with a real solution to the property tax issue, it seems, right? Because if you eliminate property taxes, where are they going to make up the gap in how to fund the state government? Is it just going to, are they going to hike the sales tax? Or are they, is someone going to say, all right, we're going to begin having a constitutional amendment for a state income tax? And people are not going to want that. And so where are they going to make up the gap? I don't know.

Well, you know, the one argument is cut spending. And if you were to eliminate property taxes, that would have to be a part of it. You would have to. Which is, doesn't really happen. Which doesn't really happen. Which doesn't create a whole other fight. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. It is just, Dan Patrick in 23 called the idea a fantasy. And he's not wrong. It is, it would be very difficult. Now, you know, I think TBPF had a plan of doing it in 10 years, phasing it

out using 90 cents of every surplus dollar. But that's the math. I know that's the math. And to tell a lawmaker, you're going to try and argue for something that is going to take effect 10 years down the line. Right. So you have to continue winning your elections to continue up this policy. That's a consideration of the mathematics side of this. But it's not a consideration of the political side, which is what you're getting at.

And, you know, I'm old enough to remember, which you don't have to be very very good. very old at all to remember this. In 2019, they attempted a tax swap to increase the sales tax by, I think, a half percent and lower commensurately local property taxes. That went down in a blaze of glory because it showed polling of it, and of course, everyone hated it. So it is far more difficult and complicated than just saying, pounding the table, eliminate property tax. It's, would be very difficult to do because the system is so entrenched and so weedy and it would require as any fiscal reform would you have to make difficult decisions and you have to be willing to take the political flack that you're going to get

from it whether it's from localities whether it's from voters it's just hard and that's why it hasn't gone anywhere and that's why the members are left to tinker at the margins yeah and you know that said this sp10 was a minor reform the bigger stuff came in the regular session where they increased the homestay exemption by a lot yeah and they added more money in compression there's all kinds of internal fighting over strategies on this stuff but lawmakers did do something notable on that yeah and it wasn't as much as what they did in uh you know 2023 but also it had, they had a smaller surplus. And this is all competing interests.

The people whose only interest is lowering property taxes, of course they're going to want every cent of that surplus to go towards that. But there's other considerations the state has to make. Infrastructure. That's a big one. Now, there are other things that they've been spending money on, like the Hollywood Fund. So, I mean, every way you,

you look, each side has a point to make. Yeah, of course. Right. Which is why nothing ever happened. Well, a little bit happens. A little bit happens. As you said, incremental changes. So, I don't foresee

this really coming back in a third special if it happens and the governor might throw it on there, but the thing the governor wanted more than anything else was the two-thirds line to raise any property taxes at the local level. Two-thirds vote by the populace, that didn't go anywhere. Instead, we got this. Right? So I don't see that

really coming up again until Abbott, if he does this, goes on another school choice like crusade for property tax reform. Right. Which could happen, and he has the money for it. Yeah. But overall, I think it's, if we come back, it's SB2. the last flooding bill and maybe THC. Yeah, the only reason I bring, I, I mentioned what I did is because it's, it's interesting to see a lot of the commentary on the property tax issue where it's an all or nothing sort of position people take in. I think what you just explained is really important to take into context is there's lots

of competing interests and so with those competing interests, lawmakers are attempting to make those changes on the margins where they feel like it's possible. But to individuals who are just monitoring the situation on Twitter, it doesn't ever seem like enough sometimes. But this is the down and dirty business of politics and policy here, is trying to find resolutions on the margins when the big ask with eliminating property taxes is not feasible. so yeah that's fair certainly not politically feasible right now even if it might be financially feasible in some world so uh i think we hit the nail on the head on that holly you had an interesting story this week and you actually went to nola beginning of the week for a court case that you've been following for years yeah tell us about it yeah so yeah i went to new orleans for a hearing

before the u.s. fifth circuit court of appeals it was actually a So it wasn't the whole en banc court, but super interesting, beautiful city, beautiful, beautiful courthouse. Unfortunately, you cannot take pictures inside, but it was a very interesting case. And this case comes out of Kima, Texas. It's a property rights dispute. And what we're talking about are is takings or the takings clause under the U.S. Fifth Amendment, where the Fifth Amendment says that private property may not be taken for public use

without just compensation. A lot of people think of takings as when the government comes and takes your land for a bridge or a road or something. But there's another kind of taking. It's a regulatory taking, as we refer to it in the legal system, where the government has maybe done something

that damages the value of your property. It's rendered it unusable for whatever reason. It could be an action or a regulation or an ordinance. And in this case, four years ago, you had a Kima building official who came into this business and closed down a four-story building. It was housing a bar and restaurant on the first and second floor, and then there were residential units on the third and fourth floor. This building official ordered it closed. He referred to some non-specified life safety issues, but didn't really provide a lot of details.

And the problem is he did not give the owner a proper notice beforehand, or an opportunity to be heard in a reasonable hearing after the fact. And the courts have said, you cannot do that. You have to, this is a precedent that comes out of that Fifth Circuit. You have to give those owners that notice, and you have to give them a chance to address it. So, you know, the federal district court judge dismissed the lawsuit that the owner brought in the district court,

because he said it wasn't ripe for trial. He said the owner hadn't taken enough steps to try to get the permits back to get this building opened, and the plaintiffs appealed. And what they're pointing to are court rulings about how far property owner has to go to ripen the case. And part of their argument is that cities like Kima put owners on what they call it administrative merry-go-round. So they, yeah, sometimes they...

That's a legal term? Well, it's not a per se legal term, right? But it's something that's used by some of the legal scholars. But it's very illustrative, right? So it's saying the city in some of these cases will say, oh, you have to keep applying for a permit with these new criteria or scale it down. And we've seen this, you know, across the country. But then they always reject, right?

Or what they do is they never actually make what they call a final decision. So what was before the court the other day is whether or not you had, final decision, ripeness for the case to go to trial. And the owner has evidence that the city council considered his appeal in an executive session behind closed doors, but when they came out of that executive session, they weren't specific about what they discussed, and they, a quote, took no action. So they're saying they never considered it and there's no final decision. But what the plaintiffs are saying is, at the moment you shut that building down with

without that proper notice and without that opportunity to be heard, you've engaged in a regulatory taking in this property, and this owner hasn't been able to use this property for four years. This isn't the only case like this in the state of Texas. There are actually cases all over the state that are similar to this in some respect, where you have property owners or trying to get redress for the court system, and they're budding their heads against this wall of final, decision ripeness, or they have an entity that claims that they're immune to lawsuits.

They say, oh, we did whatever we did under our police powers or, you know, our regulatory power. But you're starting to see courts take more of an interest in these cases. We, you know, we saw a recent one just a few months back out of the Texas Supreme Court saying to the city of Houston, well, no, you can't justify, you can't not be sued for this regulatory taking because you were using police powers. You still deprive this person in the use of their land, and so there may be compensation here. Now, that owner hasn't won yet. They still have to go to court,

but the Supreme Court of Texas said, yes, you can go forward and actually sue them. You know, Texas has a reputation for being very strong on property rights, but as I'm looking around the state and following some of these cases, I think there's some some concern about whether or not property owners, Texas residents, can actually defend their property in court when it's being encroached on by a local government. Why did this case get so much attention?

Well, this case, I think a couple of things happen. First of all, you have a small town where, how can I say this gracefully, you know, a large city like Houston is going to be a little more sophisticated. I would argue that in this small town, there may be a little bit of sloppiness and how they proceeded through those. So there's a lot of evidence that's come out over the past few years. I've been covering the case since 2022 when it was filed. And it has a drug on, like many of these other cases. So I think in this case, too, you had a landowner who actually has the resources to fight the municipality, to fight the city in court.

lot of property owners can't afford it. And there's another case that you and I have both written about Brad that stems out a city of Pasadena where you've got this, you know, guy who owns this just mechanic shop. And he can't actually afford to fight the city, but he's got a pro bono legal group that's helping him try to get his property rights secured here. So it's very costly. And a lot of times if the city loses in the local district court, they just file an appeal. halts the case and then it's tied up an appeals court for years and years. You get an appeals court

panel, here's the case, and they may decide one way or the other, and then you get an appeal for an en banc hearing, and eventually it ends up, you know, being appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. So a lot of these cases drag on for years and years. There's a professor out of the University of Houston and I talked to some time about these things, and he's telling me, you know, these cases take 10 to 15 years to resolve. A lot of people just don't have the money or the resources to do that, especially if their business is involved, right? Because they're not obviously earning anything in their business

if it's being hampered by whatever their local government is doing. Well, that one in Pasadena, Pasadena is a mechanic, and the reason he can't open his shop is because the city's making him create parking spots that he's not going to use. Right. Exactly. It was some insane. I don't remember off the top of my head, but it's a small mechanic shop that I think he could have like maybe four cars there or something at the same time. But they wanted him to have something like 28 parking spots. But the interesting thing in that case is it did go through the court system to an extent. They come to a settlement agreement. He goes back, redraws up his plan, submits them to the city, and they reject him again. So now they're back in court claiming that the city, has not complied with their side of the settlement agreement. And you even had a local Harris County court judge say to the city's attorney,

this is just bad public policy. And so that's because the city of Kema, they passed a local ordinance that required certain businesses to have a certain number of parking spots. That's Pasadena. Yes, yes. Now, Kema's a little bit different. They did pass an ordinance.

There's another piece to this case where there was a food truck on the property. The owner had a variance to have the food truck there. They was brought in, I think, in the midst of the COVID pandemic when you couldn't serve food inside and you had to come up with all these creative things to do. So the city passed some ordinances that limited, I don't know, the distance that you could have a food truck next to a building or a residence or something like that.

And in the same way, they shut down this food truck and told this owner he couldn't have the food truck there. when the business right behind him has a food truck sitting in their parking lot. So there's a lot going on here in Kima. And it's certainly caught the attention of the locals. And there's this kind of popular tiki bar at the center of this property. So you get all the locals there enjoying their evening out, but they're not very happy with the city officials. Whenever I hear cases like this, I always think what can be done to kind of resolve it at the local level?

like within these localities could they have created like a special exemption waiver that is like if anyone is violating a local ordinance they fill out this waiver if the city council approves it they can continue operating in the way that they are but then that would invite a lot of well you can't apply for a variance right so this owner had a variance for this food truck but they effectively revoked it later but you know what's interesting when this owner met with one of the city council members who is now the mayor of the city and he told her he said you're not leaving me with any choice except for to sue you and she said well according to him she said well that's your prerogative most people can't afford it wow so that's you know pretty shocking

statement but that that is kind of the reality of it most people can't afford to fight for their property rights in court yeah and we see that kim's covered the texas central stuff a lot and that's its own bearer of an issue eminent domain wise but i'm glad you got to go experience that in court go to the fifth circuit you fans rolled a bit for the i did yeah uh former texas supreme court justice don willet was on the panel and so you know it was representing texas he was so cute he's keeping up the brand great jurist kim uh let's go to you you went to a very interesting, I think a little feisty, SD-9 debate last week. Give us the rundown of that. Yeah, so there is a special election up here in North Texas. A lot of people are just going to vote on

Vaders and constitutional amendments in November, but here there's a special election for Senate District 9 to fill the seat vacated by Kelly Hancock. And I went to a candidate forum featuring the two Republican candidates. There will not be a primary for this special election, so there are two Republicans and one Democrat in the field. It's been held by a Republican for over 30 years, and the Democrat is, so the two Republicans are Lee Wamskons, and John Huffman, and the Democrat is Taylor Remitt.

And there have actually been two candidates who said they were going to run for this office and then almost immediately dropped out Nate Schatz line when Dan Patrick endorsed Lee Wombs-Gonz and Armin Mizani moved his candidacy over to House District 98. At the forum, I would describe Lee Wams-Gonz as kind of taking the conservative activist lane. She lauded her credentials as having been involved. in the Republican Party at the grassroots level for over 30 years. She worked on the staff on the hill. She's been involved in campaign.

She's helped fight local issues. Both candidates, notably, are both from the city of South Lake. So they have been involved in some similar activities. John Huffman has served on the city council and as mayor of Southlake. So he sort of was more touting his leadership credentials, his office holding credentials, that he's led in certain arenas. But one issue that has come up in the campaign a couple of times and has been pushed by various groups supporting one candidate over another

is that the Carol ISD had some DEI CRT issues back in 2020. Then there was a big BLM protest in Town Square and Wams-Gonz and those who support her have attacked Huffman for being weak on DEI saying he went to that protest in 2020, he voted for the mayor's Alliance for Unity and Culture to exist. And he fired back that, yeah, he went to the protest, but he was supporting the mayor whose speech was antagonistic to Black Lives Matter and all of their beliefs. And that when he became mayor, he disbanded the Mayor's Alliance for Unity and Culture. So they went back and forth about that. Another issue is gambling.

Huffman has taken the position that he will allow voters to decide whether they want casino gambling in Texas. He's also received support from the Texas Defense Pack, which is heavily funded by Miriam Adelson of the Sands Corporation. It's basically the Las Vegas Sands Independent Expenditure Pack because there's also Las Vegas Sands Pack, and that's the one that works. with candidates more closely Texas Defense Pack is the one that's just running ads on behalf of candidates in races and they have spent a small fortune and I don't think they're going to stop

no so so on that he's on that side like receiving their money and saying that he's willing to let Texans decide saying we already have gambling we have the lottery we have other things and then Lee Wams gone is saying she a poses gambling. She's endorsed by Dan Patrick who says no casino gambling. She uses the same consultant as he does, Blakemore. And so, you know, gambling is likely to be a big issue. There are some other issues that arose at the forum. And we also did an article where

we asked them particular questions and they answered in their own words about different issues. So I would recommend that our readers go to both of those articles to learn more about the candidates in SD9. It'll be interesting to see if the Republicans split the vote and the Democrats make an inroad. We'll see. Yeah, there's a there's a couple very interesting themes there. The first is that it's a special, right? And the polling I saw early on before, I think it was before Hoffman got in. It actually showed Taylor Remitt, the Democrat, with, I think, the highest percent of support. Now, that was maxing out the Democratic support in the district but in a in a primary that would put him into a runoff and so these two candidates

are either trying to win it outright as being in a republican district or both of them make the runoff and keep the democrat from uh from making it or they might want the democrat to get in there against them because then it's a pretty easy shot to win in a head-to-head in that republican of a district against the democrat uh democratic candidate The other one is that to me, Ken, we've talked about this, I see this as a proxy fight for casino gambling expansion more than any other race. The first reason is that Hancock was seen by the gambling lobby as kind of a soft supporter. He's not out there talking about it, but if the dam ever broke and Patrick leaves office

and you have a lieutenant governor who is supportive of gambling expansion, Hancock would then vote for it. And also the other fact is that this has become a fight between Las Vegas sands itself and their entities, and then on this other side you've got the Tim Dunn-funded, Texans United for a conservative majority, who is very much against this gambling expansion. And whereas last time around, they focused heavily. on anti-house leadership races, specifically trying to take out Dade Phelan and his lieutenants, now they have, that's not going to be an issue this time, I don't think. They're not going to go after Burroughs as a majority like they did, and now they're going

to spend their time trying to keep the gambling lobby from gaining any ground, and then they'll also probably spend a lot of money against TLR candidates on the tort. reform issue so because we've gotten out away from the A school choice is no longer an issue campaign issue and B the house reforming the house movement is not really going to be a thing it seems like that frees up time energy and money to go after these two things and that's going to be two crosswinds that I see in a lot of these races and it's going to feature in this especially so thank you Kim

Cameron, since we talked about gambling, let's skip a couple spots and go to your piece on the Texas Lottery. And now it is officially under TDLR after the reforms made during the regular session. Give us a rundown of that. Well, this was another big fight that wasn't anticipated ahead of the session. It really came to the forefront during a Sunset Advisory Committee where there was lots of accusations made about some of the recent big lottery winners and the use of courier services to purchase these tickets, which really just set the match for this whole big blow-up. And what resulted is we got Dan Patrick doing on the ground investigations going.

Marvin Zinler type reporting. Yeah, he was, you know, he's in these retailers interviewing the people behind the counter, like, can I see the machines, you know? Give me on the phone with your attorney. It was a big deal. And it was incredibly effective messaging, I'd say. It really was because one of the things that we saw in those videos was a, it seemed like there was a front to the store and there was a back to the store. In the front, they would sell things like board games.

But it would be very sparse the amount of board games they would have because their main driver for their business was printing lottery tickets and they would have terminals behind the walls in the back rooms just printing thousands of these tickets but it's not sketchy it's not sketchy no no it's totally above board so um yeah there was all these big winners you know hundreds of millions of dollars with this texas lottery you know the type but the texas lottery does provide some funding to the veterans commission to the foundational school fund so that's how the they sort of justified their existence, is they're providing money to these programs. But Senator Bob Hall, he was very adamant about abolishing the Texas lottery.

He, on multiple occasions, called it a criminal organization, that it was a money laundering organization, lots of accusations. Investigations launched from in the Senate, from the attorney, general from the governor's office all trying to figure out what the heck is going on with the texas lottery uh we got all the way to the end of the session we got a floor substitute that actually moved the sunset period to 2029 but moved over the operations of the texas lottery under t dLR and so there's going to be greater oversight on how the texas lottery is operating eliminating the courier.

I don't know about greater, but different. Different. Because the argument was that the lottery commission was... They were cycling through a lot of executives and commissioners. So there wasn't a lot of stability there. And so placing it under an existing established agency, providing a more solid foundation for oversight, that was an argument of course eliminating the internet sales of tickets

and things. So this is a dormant issue for now. It's going to come back up because it was not sunset. It was not fully abolished. It was like a two-year trial run, right? Yeah, they're giving it a bit of a trial run here under this new agency. So we're going to see it come back up again in the 90th session, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah.

And maybe the members on the conservative right will be able to finally stick the final nail in the coffin of the Texas lottery. Because that is a extended goal. Yeah. Well, we heard a lot of that during the floor debate in the House is a number of different Republicans took to the back mic and erred their grievances about how the Texas lottery operates, taking advantage of the most vulnerable, the lower income residents of Texas. because that's really the population that is playing the lottery and it's putting them in a disadvantage where they're already in a low-income state and they are paying money trying to hit it big in the lottery. And so they were essentially saying the lottery is predatory and it was being taken advantage of by big money groups essentially gaming the lottery system by purchasing millions of worth of tickets so they could, you know, they spend $10 million on tickets or, you know,

I'm just making that number up, but they could win $90 million. Yeah. Right. So there's that trade off there, which again, for the lower income residents, they can only afford $10 maybe or $5 worth of tickets. So really the odds are against them. Right. If these big money groups are existing, purchasing these tickets on the internet through

these courier services. There's a lot of overlaying issues here, overlapping issues. Yeah. We'll see where it goes in two years. We'll see where it goes. Thank you, Cameron. Maryle's last piece we're going to touch on. Texas is suing a tech company over data breaches involving students and teachers.

What's the story? This week against a California-based tech company, which is called Power School. And they're suing them after this. They called Texas Attorney General Ken Faxon called it a cat. catastrophic breach and exposed sensitive data of over 880,000 teachers and students. So this was a suit filed by Paxton on Wednesday. And he's alleging that power school failed to implement the most basic security features. He's saying they didn't do enough as far as taking precautions to avoid data breach such as this.

So it's this platform for various school districts across the country. They use it to manage various aspects of both their employees and their students' information, whether it's for enrollment purposes or just this general school database. And Paxton was pointing out that it markets its software services is meeting the highest security standards and that it offers state-of-the-art protections for student and employee data because, of course, it's got access to a lot of sensitive data regarding children and teachers. and Paxton is alleging specifically in this lawsuit that it's violated to Texas laws, Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act,

and then also the Identity, Thief, Enforcement, and Protection Act. So he talked about within the lawsuit that in December 2024, a hacker obtained access to power schools data, and then data was used, transferred to a foreign, server, he alleged, within the suit. And he was saying that, you know, data such as names, addresses, social security numbers, disability records, and then bus stops were leaked. And he said to a foreign server, and this is really sensitive data. So, of course, concerning here, it was filed in the, in a Collin County District Court. So we'll see where this goes. We did get a statement

from Power School. They said, you know, with respect to this lawsuit being filed, Power School intends to vigorously defend itself and then continue to prioritize its customers, communities, and individuals. So we'll see where this lawsuit heads next, but that's the basics. Okay. Thank you, Mary-A-Lise. Let's go on to Tweeterie, as Winston is disrupting the podcast. Kim, let's start with yours. Well, technically mine's not tweeterie, but I have a keen interest in the state parks because my husband and I have made a goal of visiting all 88. But the state keeps buying more land and adding new ones.

So the most recent one to be announced is Bear Creek State Park. And I am working on a story about that that I'll plug. Suggest people read it. Hopefully it'll be out either later today or tomorrow. Okay. Thank you, Kim. Let's see. Let's go with Bluebell, Cameron.

This isn't another catastrophe for Bluebell, is it? it's not a catastrophe. It's actually quite the opposite because they had me intrigued. They put out a tweet yesterday, September 3rd. We're recording this September 4th. And the picture they put on X was a bluebell ice cream, half gallon, but with someone in an apron with oven mitts around. I was like, oh, this is intriguing. What could this be? And then they announced today. They say, straight out the oven. A whole new classic. Our classic pecan pie ice cream arrives in stores beginning today.

You know, I'm a bit of a health nut. I'm also a bit of a nut nut, but I might have to go out and try this pecan pie. I was going to say, when's the last time you had ice cream? Oh, my gosh. Wait, I say pecan. It's pecan. It's pecan. Look, I'm a California, and I do things a little different.

I know. We're going to have to straighten you around. You do them the wrong way, yes. Yes, it's okay. I know I'm surrounded here. I'm not going to win, so I'll concede that point. Hey, one thing you do know is it's pop, not soda. Oh, no.

Everything is Coke. Mary Elise, you've got more Jeffrey Epstein stuff. I'm amazing that you keep finding this. And you're so interested in it. Yeah, I'm going from ice cream to Jeffrey Epstein. Go forward, Mary Lee. So I wanted to use this opportunity to plug the 40 real quick, but there have been some more developments in the whole Epstein Files case.

There were two different discharge petitions filed to try to get the Epstein files released. And there were also some interviews with Maxwell by the FBI that were released by the House Oversight Committee. So I'm kind of making my way through some of those videos. those conversations, very interesting, but the Congress just came back from its recess, so now the Epstein conversation is back on the forefront, at least for national news. So that's my tweetery. Holly, I don't think I've hit you at. No.

So let's go to you on this. I can't decide because first I had one that caught my attention. It's the Institute of Justice. They put out this statement, and it's on Twitter, and also we got it as an email. But really interesting, there's this case where this Houston woman was getting off a cruise ship on Christmas Eve, 2022, and was arrested because police mistook her for someone else of the same name. But as she said, she was 20, the suspect they were looking for was 23 years younger, five years shorter, a different hair color, eye color, skin tone, social security number, and home address. But they arrested this woman and kept her for three days. in jail.

So apparently she sued Institute of Justice as representing her, and the Sheriff's Department of Broward County, Florida, claimed qualified immunity, but the court's not hearing that. And so they've ordered it to go to trial, so that was interesting. Sounds like a feature Netflix show. It does. It's kind of crazy, right? Arrested in Florida, cruise ship arrest or something.

But the other thing I saw that made me laugh while we, we were recording is the University of Austin here in the city. They apparently confiscated all the freshman phones during their orientation week, and they just tweeted out a picture of the drawer full of all their phones, and it says the faint buzz of texts and notifications drifts from the locked drawer of confiscated freshman phones. So fun. It's very poetic. I love it.

I love it. Well, they kind of implemented something similar in Texas schools this year. I think it's a good deal. I've heard from a couple people who are teachers, and they love it. Oh, yeah. They love it. Yeah. And actually, apparently, some of the kids like it, too.

Right. It's such a distraction. Yes. I actually spoke to a group. I won't name them that it was younger people, and it was very, very disconcerting to look up at the audience and see that probably two-thirds of them are looking at their phones. And you're not sure if they're listening, you know, it's hard to engage.

You know, back in my day. Back in your day, because you're so old. Yeah, the e-olden days. It was, I was, I think I hit high school about the same time that iPhones started to become a really prevalent thing. So before it was obviously blackberries, razors, whatnot. So you had, I mean, there were still phones in schools and classrooms. But once the iPhone hit and everyone had one, whoof, that was changed things.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. None of us are immune to the distraction of the iPhone. At least of all, any of us in this job. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah. Great time waster. It seems like a very good reform, and hopefully it stays for a while and more stays permanently, you know.

So thank you, Holly. I'm going to give the people what they want. apparently it was a big hit last week when I talked about HD 151 specifically it was about the governor shouting it out in the press conference that you and I were at Cameron we have an update and it I woke up on Saturday morning just rearing for some college football it was a holiday you know I was excited going to my buddy's place we were going to have brunch and watch the Longhorn Ohio Steak game. Brunch with the boys.

Brunch with the boys. Go ahead. Proceed. Proceed. I'm girly, but whatever. Or six. But I wake up. I have alert on my phone.

And it's from Dave Carney, Abbott's campaign advisor. And he has made a fundraising link for Brad Johnson. for House District 151, and if you donate $10, they will give you a campaign sticker for my non-existent campaign. Really? I didn't know that.

Do you get a cut? No. That would probably be very illegal, first of all. And so I looked at it. I'm like, what the heck, Dave? You're fundraising off of me? Come on now. Yeah.

But I have since had a handful of friends tell me they have bought the bumper, the campaign sticker. Wow. So it worked. I'm sure a bunch of people on Twitter got it too. So I will not be getting one. I am very clear. I did nothing to do with this. I do not want any legal problems.

No. I didn't ask for this. This was a runaway joke on Twitter. Is it District 151 or 152 or is it both? people have settled on 151. I don't know how boring. It was back and forth between those two. Got it.

And, yeah, so we'll see which new twist this takes next. But I did not foresee that. Yeah, I was very surprised to see that. It's a little sketchy. Yeah, a little bit. I bet. Yeah, but you got the Abbott endorsement, so. Hey, he said at the press conference that they were not going to leave town until they drew me a district.

Well, guess what? There you go. They're leaving town. There's no district drawn for me. Oh, he broke his campaign promise. Yep. In the span of a week. I know.

Amazing. Amazing. Tis-tisk. You can have to find District 151 on a map first. Yeah. Hey, as long as it includes chili parlor. That's what I was. And the Lions Municipal Golf Course, according to Seves.

So there we go. People got the suite. sweet, 151 goodness. And with that, we are going to adjourn. Signy die on this week's weekly roundup podcast. Thanks, everybody to talk to 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. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics. And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting 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.