The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 6, 2024

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Learn more about today's sponsor by visiting: uslege.aiShow 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.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Third Phelan Challenger David Cook Enters Race for Texas House SpeakerAttorney General Paxton Sues Bexar County for Proceeding with Voter Registration Mailings Despite Legal WarningsTexas No Longer Accepting Court Orders to Change Sex on Birth CertificatesTexas, Montana Win Nationwide Stay Against Federal HHS Gender Modification RuleJudge Blocks Part of SCOPE Act Requiring Content 'Monitoring and Filtering' for MinorsTexas’ Water Supply Dilemma Subject of Senate Committee HearingNew Data Indicates 50,000 Public School Students Withdraw to Homeschool Each YearTexas Hurricanes Among the Costliest in Recent U.S. HistoryUnlikely Alliances in Texas Politics: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 7Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

We all went there. I remember going to that thing and thinking, what the heck is this going to be about? And turns out it was about humidifiers. I thought there was going to be some important political announcement. At the time we were thinking, you know, I'd heard rumblings and obviously this didn't come true, but we were thinking like, oh my God, is Perry going to announce a primary against Abbott? Because this was coming, this was during COVID. That was probably far-fetched and that was not going to happen. But that was something people were talking about.

And I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, this is going to be monumental. And it's just an infomercial. Howdy, folks. Welcome back to the Weekly Roundupup we are going to see how this goes we're having technical difficulties right off the bat we are going to persevere do our best try not to talk over each other with this lag that oftentimes is a result of remote podcasting i'm joined by mary elise by brad johnson and by cameron abramams. We have so many just members of our team that are ready to go. So gentlemen, without further ado, and Mary Elise, without further ado, let's jump into the news this week as to not create some editing issues for poor Maslin.

Brad, biggest news of the week comes in the house speakers race in more ways than one. But let's start off with the news that kind of started it all this week. What has changed in terms of the field itself? So State Representative David Cook, Republican from Mansfield, declared his candidacy for House speaker in a letter to colleagues that came out, I believe, was that when Tuesday, Wednesday? I don't know. Days run together run together they always do but it happened this week sooner than we had thought I thought it was gonna happen on Thursday happened earlier than that but he now marks the third entrant into the race the third challenger against I should say against Phelan he said in the letter she's pretty lengthy you can read the whole

thing on our website in the story if that is of interest to you. But he said, rebuilding trust, maintaining integrity, and finding unity within our caucus is vital if we are to effectively govern as the majority party. Change at the top is needed to better align with the priorities of our members and the people of Texas. He went on to say, yet even as the electorate has continued to change, some Democratic members have maintained powerful positions, largely because previous speakers have relied on Democratic support before securing the majority of their own caucus. This approach has raised concerns among grassroots voters and consequently among many of our Republican colleagues. I firmly believe our caucus

process should be prioritized in selecting leadership. And then of course, on one of the biggest topics of this whole fight, Democratic chairs, he said, it's time to ensure that leadership better reflects the will of the majority party. This includes a shift to a Republican committee chair model. Notably, that's softer language on the Democratic chair issue than, say, Tom Olipherson had, I think even than Shelby Slauson had. I mean, it's still clear that he's opposed to that, and I don't see him, if he were to become Speaker, appointing Democratic chairs, at least based on this announcement letter. But he did roll out a slightly less pointed part of messaging on this. But overall,

you know, he sees an opportunity in these speaker fights. You know, you have members that actually want to be speaker, members that want to be speaker if, you know, four things bounce their way and they manage to find themselves in that place. And then you have members who do it as, you know, a bargaining chip later for either an important committee or, you know, dibs at running for a higher office. It's politics. All this stuff is just transactional in large part, or at least there's a lot of transactional aspects to this. And there's really no getting that out of it. Where David Cook fits in this, I'm not sure.

I mean, I think he definitely wants to be speaker at this point, you know, certainly. And the thing is so wide open that, you know, it could happen. But overall, you know, who knows how this is going to shake out. It's we still got a lot a lot of runway to clear on this. Where do you put Cook in terms of the policy positions he's taken kind of slot him in with the other members of the speaker field right now? So Oliverson obviously came out first. And, you know, the first thing that I hear anyone say when they discuss Tom Oliverson, regardless of his policy chops, regardless of his status within the Republican caucus caucus he is the

chairman i always hear it kind of shrugged off as the first person to announce never become speaker and you know maybe there's an example or counter example of that in history but usually that's true then you have oliverson's ties um indirectly to dan patrick you know they were neighbors they share the same consultant that's something else that's been brought up by members um especially the ones who don't like oliverson in this race uh but then even members who are pro reform caucus whatever um you know the tie to dan patrick even ones that that might be sympathetic to the policy points he wants to push or the reforms to the House, that's mentioned. You know, Cook doesn't have that. You know, Cook did vote for impeachment. So that is something to note in this. And, you know,

once he announced this, multiple people in my account random twitter people in my comments would say like you know he voted for to impeach paxton that's a no for me but of course those people have no vote in this they have they have no real legitimate say this is about the membership um you know also compared to oliverson cook did cast a vote um oliverson was absent that day. And so that's kind of a double-edged sword. Some members like that he didn't vote, just simply like that he didn't vote for impeachment itself.

Others take issue with the fact that he didn't cast a vote one way or the other whereas everyone else had to fall on their sword one way or the other. So as I said, it's way too early to tell. You know, Phelan is still probably the front runner right now, but just because he has incumbency and that status quo carries a lot of gravitational weight. But it's certainly possible that he's blocked from the speakership especially given right now

half the caucus the republican caucus is basically committed against the the democratic chair issue which phelan is not backed off from so overall we still have a lot to play here but um it's interesting nonetheless and it's something we've heard about quite a bit you know there's another name floating around that whether they come out or not i'm not sure but um cook in the and this other person were the two i've been hearing for a few months now getting close to jumping in and they hadn't yet now Cook has so Brad talk to us about what you're hearing right now the speaker's race is like you said so wide open in so many ways and it's hard to get a handle on

what's going on the number that ultimately matters here is 76 and the Republican caucus is obviously divided on this. That could change, but probably will not. There will be divisions. And then, so that's the ultimate number that matters. But then the second number that matters is, I think, at the lowest 52 in caucus as things stand right now to get the speaker endorsement in caucus. One thing to watch is our members committed to the caucus bylaws of going to the floor and voting for the caucus endorsed candidate, whoever that is. Last two times that's ended up being feeling. We saw members break that rule last session at the beginning, three of them.

And at the beginning, three of them. And we're seeing the caucus rules broken a lot more. Question is, do members put any stock in this anymore? Some have said, absolutely. This is a commitment we've made. Others have said, no way. It doesn't matter. It's out the window. Ultimately, I don't know how it's going to play out.

And especially in caucus where it's a secret ballot. It's hard to know who voted for whom unless they come out publicly and say that. That's how the process is. But then ultimately, once we get to the floor, this thing will be decided one way or the other. We'll know how it's going to play out, I think. And if it doesn't, that will be the most unique speaker fight we've ever seen. Because I can't think of one that we reached the floor and didn't know how it was going to play out. So overall, you know, the sense I'm getting from members, it's still feelings to lose. But there is a sizable chance that the coalition against him can block him from especially that caucus

endorsement. And that could change the game a lot. check out the Beltway Briefing. I'm Howard Schweitzer, CEO of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies. Every week on the Beltway Briefing, our team of former Republican and Democratic presidential appointees, Capitol Hill veterans, and political advocates shares behind-the-scenes perspective that cuts through the noise. If you want the inside scoop, subscribe now to the Beltway Briefing here or wherever you get your podcasts. I think it's all about organization at this point, Brad. Thanks for your coverage and folks, go check it out at thetexan.news. Mary Elise, we're going to come to you here. Bexar County decided to proceed with their voter registration measure despite the Attorney General Ken Paxton's warnings.

Explain this whole situation. Okay, so both Bexar and Harris County proposed a measure. And what it would do is they would pay a third party company, Civic Government Solutions, and that company would print and distribute supposedly thousands of voter registration forms. And it would send it to unregistered voters and locations based on targeting agreed to by the county. And so the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued public letters to both of the counties, Harris and Bexar County, and he threatened to pursue legal action if they didn't abandon the measure, if they proceeded with what he described as unlawful and reckless actions. The Bexar County Court had a commission, they had a meeting the

following day that he had issued these public letters, and they approved the voter registration measure in a three-to-one vote. They approved the printing services item of the amount $392,000, although originally it had been allotted as $591,000 for this specific measure. So Ken Paxton filed to sue Bexar County the following day. He saw in his lawsuit emergency injunctive relief, and he alleged that the county's actions with this voting registration measure will, quote, create confusion, facilitate fraud, and undermine confidence in elections. So this is going to be an interesting case to follow for sure. Absolutely, Mary Elise. It's definitely top of mind for a lot of folks in Bexar County. I also want to spotlight really fast an event that you were able to attend this week.

Walk us through this campaign stop from Senator Caruso and what it was like to attend. Yeah, for sure. It was super cool. I got to go attend his, it was a press conference, and he spoke with members of the United States Chamber of Commerce. They offered their endorsement for him, which is significant because the last two cycles of Colin Allred's congressional runs, they endorsed him. So this was obviously significant. And I got to ask, I was about to say Ken Paxton, I got to ask Ted Cruz about some questions about IVF. And it was just really interesting. They had quite the cool backdrop. They had these huge, huge machinery behind him. Big, I think they were John Deere, John Deere machinery. So that was really, it was a really interesting event to attend. We definitely appreciate you going on behalf

of the Texan, Mary Elise. Well done. Thanks for, I'd certainly encourage folks to go check out your Twitter and follow all the, all the different events you're going to for us. We appreciate it. Cameron, we're coming to you. A state agency has made a very interesting policy change that made some headlines this week. Tell us about it. Yeah, that's right. The Texas Department of State Health Services has changed its birth certificate sex change policy, making court order documents no longer an acceptable form of documentation when individuals are seeking to change the sex marker on a birth certificate. The DSHS website has actually removed certified court orders as an acceptable

document for Texans seeking to change the sex marker on the birth certificates. They actually released a statement to KUT where they said, quote, recent public reports have highlighted concerns about the validity of court orders purporting to amend sex for purposes of state-issued documents. DSHS is seeking assistance from the Office of Attorney General to determine the applicability of these concerns to amendments to vital records. And this is a very interesting development because it comes on the heels of another State Department that made a similar statement. A couple weeks ago it was reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety will not allow, quote, transgender Texans to change their sex on driver's licenses and state

IDs. The policy will not allow for a gender change on an ID or driver's license in the case clerical error. So and the DPS also mentioned the conversations and the attempts to reach out to the Office of Attorney General to determine what is going to be a policy moving forward. So in both the cases of DPS and the Department of State Health Services. I'm sure there will be an opinion or a statement from the Office of the Attorney General because there seems to be a lot of change happening with individuals attempting to change their sex on official documents. So this is a developing story and something I will be giving updates on as more information comes to light. Killing it with the coverage, Cameron, as per the usual. Thank you for that.

And folks, go read the story at the Texan.news. You'll definitely be keeping an eye on that one. Mary Elise, another Attorney General Ken Paxton story here. He was granted a nationwide stay against the Biden administration, against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services health programs and activities to the same non-determination standards as recipients of federal financial assistance. Then in June, Texas and Montana decided to file to sue the Department of Health and Human Services for allegedly requiring, and I quote, healthcare providers and states to perform and pay for so-called gender transition procedures or else lose federal funding. And following that

their filing, they were granted a statewide stay, meaning that the rule was banned from patient in Texas and Montana. Texas and Montana then moved to file for a nationwide stay, seeking relief from the new Biden administration rule for the entire country. On August 30th, the district judge, Jeremy Kernodle, granted them the nationwide stay, banning the rule from application anywhere in the United States. The judge wrote in his opinion that nothing in these statutes authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services or any federal official to require healthcare providers to perform novel gender transition

procedures or force states to subsidize them. So that was the judge's formal opinion that he released. And if the Biden administration chooses to appeal this ruling, chooses to appeal this nationwide stay, it'll go to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal. So I'll be keeping an eye on this. More developments sure to come down the pipeline. Mary Elise, thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, a portion of the SCOPE Act will be blocked from enforcement. Lots of legal maneuvers this week after a Texas judge ruled against its monitoring and filtering requirements. Tell us about it. Yeah, very interesting development here. For those who are not familiar with what the SCOPE Act is, it's actually an acronym for the securing children online through parental empowerment act

and it was going into effect as of september 1st and what the law aims to do is prevent digital service providers or dsps from entering into agreements with minors without parental or guardian consent it also mandates that d DSPs include options in these agreements for parents or guardians to permanently enable specific settings. So attempting to hand over some more control over social media and internet to the parents in regards to their children. And what we saw is some legal challenges to this enactment of the Scope Act. And Judge Robert Pittman for the Western District Court of Texas in Austin determined that the, quote, monitoring and filter requirements of the Scope Act posed a threat to, quote, content-based online speech. And so what is a bit interesting about this is when Pittman was putting together his order and what he published about it, he determined that those monitoring

filtering requirements, quote, fail strict scrutiny and are unconstitutionally vague and actually mentions that they are preempted by Section 230. So we've seen quite a bit of actions on behalf of the Texas legislature to enact certain social media oversights, whether it be in regards to content that is appearing online that has different political views or sexually explicit content. And this is just another development in those sorts of actions. And the tech industry groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association filed the initial lawsuit where they contended that the Scope Act imposed unconstitutional restrictions on freedom of expression. We actually also saw the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, FIRE, they are a free speech organization.

They also sued Ken Paxton in an effort to prevent the Scope Act from going into effect. An important caveat is all other aspects that I mentioned will go into effect. It's just the monitoring and filter requirements. So a portion of the Scope Act will go into effect. Just this one aspect is barred from being implemented. An important distinction and certainly something we'll keep an eye on again. Cameron, thank you so much. Now we're going to take a break to hear a message from usledge.ai. Are you tired of missing critical updates in legislative hearings? Frustrated by the overwhelming flood of new bills and the challenge of staying informed as they change?

Introducing USLedge, the revolutionary software solution designed to transform how you track and analyze government meetings and legislation. With USLedge, you can search, pause, rewind, and review transcripts of public meetings live. That's right, live, anytime, anywhere. No more endless scrolling through dense legislative documents. With USLedge, you can pinpoint exactly what you need, when you need it, with a simple intuitive search of our AI transcription. USLedge learns you or your clients' needs, then leverages cutting-edge AI to monitor and analyze thousands of bills in real time, providing you with personalized summaries and instant notifications based on your unique needs. Come check us out at usledge.ai. That's U-S-L-E-G-E dot A-I. Now back to the weekly roundup.

Bradley, the Texas Senate is having some interim hearings this week. Of course, while session is not happening in Austin, both chambers of the legislature say, hey, we're still going to hold hearings on policy issues, especially heading into a session to ensure we feel well-researched and up to speed on issues that we may be covering and legislating on come January. And this particular hearing was on the state's water supply situation, a very hot topic. How'd that play out? So the Texas Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs probed this issue on Tuesday in a hearing on the assigned interim charge from Lieutenant Governor

Dan Patrick. The committee chair, Senator Charles Perry, Republican out of Lubbock, told the committee in his opening remarks, the 8 and 9 session has the opportunity to do something we haven't done in terms of water supply development. Based on my analysis of our existing water plan, the state of Texas is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 11 million acres short of our goals. A fair assessment of that plan would say that we're at least 10, if not 20 years behind in meeting those goals. We cannot conserve an 11 million acre feet shortfall. The way water is measured in terms of supply is acre feet per year of water. You know, obviously there are many different ways the state supplies water. Reservoirs are a big one.

You know, the man-made lakes. I don't know if Lake Travis actually counts as a reservoir specifically. Maybe it does. I don't know. But water is used from that in addition to recreation. The state is trying to develop desalination plants that turn se the state's water plan maps out projections of demand and supply. By 2070, the state's population is expected to reach 51 million, adding a new Corpus Christi every year. It's roughly 300,000 people, which is the frequently cited measure. Projected water demand in the state's water plan will reach 19.2 million acre feet per year by that decade. And accounting for attrition, existing supplies will be 13.8 million acre feet. That's an estimated 6.8 million acre feet deficit

for the state to make up in five decades. Water takes forever to develop. It's a massive utility, requires lots of land, negotiating water rights. It's just an incredibly complicated process. And it's going to, it just always has taken a long time, but especially now, I mean, it's this faction of factor of competing rights, you know, the right to have basic necessity, water for a growing population versus property rights. You know, the example I constantly use in this is the Marvin Nichols Reservoir, because it's such a great encapsulation of this fight. You have people out in Northeast Texas whose land is going to be taken away at some point through eminent domain to create a reservoir that will then supply most of that water to Dallas and Fort Worth, because that's where the population's growing that needs this.

So it's a difficult issue to parse through, and it's very contentious, but this is something the state has to do. And Charles Perry is the guy pushing this the most. State needs to get its act together and figure this out. Cameron, do you have something to say? Yeah, I was just going to commend you for tackling this water issue topic because it is so incredibly complex. And I'll mention, you know, like many young people, you go through your libertarian phase. And what broke me out of that phase was trying to understand water rights. Yeah. Because it's so complicated.

And it's not just between localities. It's between states. It's between nations. And the negotiations that have to occur, just it's between nations. Yeah. And the negotiations that have to occur just it's incredibly complicated. And some of the stuff you mentioned, like it's never going to be settled. Right. Just because there's so many competing factors. Well, you mentioned this isn't just an interstate issue.

You know, the Supreme Court of Texas just ruled on a settlement between Texas and New Mexico on a decades-old issue of New Mexico siphoning off too much water. The same fight is happening down in the Rio Grande between Texas and Mexico. And Terry Canales, our state rep down there, and a few other border reps have asked the federal government to step in on this. I mean, this is just a –, and a few other border reps have asked the federal government to step in on this. I mean, this is just a, it's a constantly protracted fight. And it's never going to go away. But, you know, at some point the rubber's going to meet the road on this. Kind of like power grid stuff.

The demand is coming. People are moving to Texas. And that really shows no sign of letting up. Not just people, but also businesses. You know, they use water, too, and they have to negotiate, figure out if moving to a certain place will give them enough water supply to make it worth it. Or will this cost them more money in the long run? You know that they have to make those calculations. But this is just the whole American West. And yes, forgive me,

I'm lumping Texas in the American West for this point only. But the water supply problem is massive. And, you know, there are other states that are worse off right now than Texas, like Nevada. That's a huge problem. I think Colorado, one of the columns I read a couple of years ago on this that affected me the most was seeing that they mentioned that, you know, the officers were finding dead bodies from like 30 year old cold cases. Wow. Because the water had water line had receded so much that now the bodies were on dry land. Wow. And that's how much this is happening, how much is being affected. So then you just add the fact that everyone,

whenever they flip on their water spigot, they want it to come out. Right. Just like every time you flip a switch, you want your power to come on. This is just a basic utility that the state needs to figure out how to fix this. And I don't know how they're going to do it. Brad, what was Senator Perry's takeaway from this hearing? So he said that, quote, he told me in an interview after, I hate that we're behind behind but the good news is we've got the supply to develop meaning we've got the land and the necessary particularly rivers that we can turn into reservoirs to provide a large amount of supply and the ability to pay for it right now you know the

state's coming off a massive budget surplus and we'll have not quite as massive one next session, but a big one. Senator Perry said he's hoping to allot $5 billion for this, for building out this infrastructure. And who knows where that will come out, but that's what his hope is. He said we have to get the ball rolling on it because if we just keep fixing the here and now, which in the context of what we were talking about was leaky pipes, which costs the state a lot of money every year, we'll never get onto the supply problem. So the big elephant in the room is the supply. There's kind of a distraction, though it's not nothing, is the leaky pipes throughout the state. And, you know, it's a money problem

at the end of the day. Money and planning problem, I should say. But, you know, it's something the state needs to figure out. I think the moment I'll get into and be interested in water policy will be at this nexus of true crime and water policy. So that, Brad, piqued my interest. Thanks for getting me a little bit more excited about some of these hearings that we're subject to listening to. And certainly not the last time we'll talk about a Perry on this podcast. So stay tuned for in a couple of stories, it's a different Perry and quite a story to talk about. Indeed. Thank you, Bradley. Mary Elise, recent data suggests that 50,000 public school students withdrew to homeschool. Definitely an issue near and dear to your actually was at a public school and I started homeschooling. So this is just really interesting data to me. So recently released data from the Texas Homeschool Coalition indicates that nearly 50,000 Texas public school students withdraw to homeschool every year. The Texas Homeschool Coalition created this really interesting interactive map website, which shows the number of public school students who have left to homeschool

within a certain school year. And they have it separated by county. So you can just click each county. You can see the numbers. So for some helpful perspective, the TEA reported that Texas had over 5.5 million students in public schools in the 2022-2023 school year. Understandably, Harris County on the interactive map, since they're the largest county in the state, they rank number one with the highest number of withdrawals from public school to homeschooling. It saw 4,750 students leave their public schools to homeschool, and this was in the 2022-2023 school year. And also, speaking of Bexar County, they came in second place with the highest amount of public school students who left to homeschool, they had a total of 3,118 students leave in the 2022-23 school year. The Texas Homeschool Coalition also found in their recently released data that between the years of 1997 and 2023, Texas public schools have seen nearly 800,000 students leave their public schools to homeschool. There's a lot of data in this piece.

I would definitely recommend you go read it for yourself. There's a lot of numbers, and it's some really interesting results. And fun to parse through. Great analysis all around Mary Elise, and certainly a story we pay attention to whenever this data does come forward because it's interesting. And I think a lot of different factors can come into play. I mean, during COVID, this was a whole different calculation. And now it's really interesting to kind of see these trends continue. So thanks for breaking that down for us, for our listeners, for our readers.

We appreciate it. Okay, Brad, spoiler alert here. Let's talk about the second Perry here. The Speaker of the House, Dade Phelan, certainly facing a myriad of challengers, made a big announcement this morning, Thursday morning, right before we podcasted. And we had to make sure to get a story out before we even pressed the record button here. So give us the details on this announcement. So Speaker Dade Phelan made an announcement on Thursday that he had added former Governor Rick Perry to his team as a senior advisor on a voluntary basis through the end of the interim. It said specifically that it will stop at the beginning of before the next session starts. He said, Phelan said in a release, Governor Perry's legacy of service to

Texas is unparalleled and I'm honored to have him join our team as we prepare for the upcoming legislative session. From his time as governor, lieutenant governor, ag commissioner, and state rep, he understands every facet of the legislative process and that will be a tremendous asset as we work to strengthen our state's economy, improve education, and ensure every member's voice is heard in the Texas House this session. You know, it's notable specifically because Perry is the, was the top surrogate for Phelan during this primary and runoff that he survived, beat David Covey in the runoff by 366 votes. Perry was stumping for him constantly. It's also notable that this is another big gun that the Speaker is bringing in to help him keep and retain the gavel.

Brought Mike Toomey, one of the top lobbyists in the state, in as chief of staff. And now he's bringing in Perry. I mean, it's clear this is bringing in the big guns to try and keep the speakership. That's not to say that that's the only thing Perry is going to be working on. I'm sure he'll discuss policy and kind of game plan that. You know, specifically Perry is pro-legalizing sports betting. And that's something that not even didn't pass the Senate. It didn't even get there.

If I recall, there was probably a bill passed there, but I don't think it went anywhere. The Senate is just against legalizing gambling, particularly Dan Patrick. But Perry is working actively or at least was until this role. Maybe that stops for the time being. But working on legalizing sports betting. And that also failed on the Texas House last session. You mentioned that Perry was stumping for Phelan during the primary election. Was there a well-known relationship between the two before

that? Because it seems like they were really close during the runoff. They're really close now that he's going to be doing this for Phelan. Yeah. Was their relationship well-known before all this? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think generally they're seen as from the same faction of the party. You know, they're not this, at least anymore. You know, Perry was a Tea Party guy way back when, or at least, you know, he became one when the Tea Party actually happened. That was what, like, after Obama was elected in 08, that's when it really started to grow and took off in 2010. You know, Perry was a darling of the Tea Party,

speaking at their events then. He's also a former Democrat. He was probably, he's probably the most notable party flip in Texas politics in 1989. He served as lieutenant governor. He served as agriculture commissioner in the Texas House. So he's been around a long time. And I have no doubt that he and Phelan know each other pretty well. Clearly, they were on the same team in this race. Clearly, they found themselves to be in the same faction of the party, trying to stave off this, you know, insurgent

wing, right wing of the party as far as, you know, Texas House seats go. But I was just sort of asking, like, the public, going public with the relationship, right? You know, because a lot of lawmakers, they have relationships in the House and the Senate, and a lot of it is done behind the scenes like they're friendly with each other they communicate but just being outwardly public about working together on certain things i'm just sort of wondering was this known that to the public that phelan and perry were so? Like, had they done events, like, years ago together? I don't know the answer to that.

I'm sure they have. I'm sure Perry has held a fundraiser for Phelan. I'm sure that's happened. But in terms of campaign stumping, first of all, Perry hasn't really needed to do that for Phelan because Phelan hasn't had a primary before this but over I mean they absolutely have had a somewhat close relationship certainly though when it started in the primary and there were a lot of people who don't pay attention to

Texas politics as closely as you and I do who are I'm sure I've seen them on Twitter in my mentions mainly on you, on, you know, the right side of the, of the Republican party, uh, directionally the right side, um, who were, who have now like, you know, called Perry a turncoat on this stuff. Um, you know, call him a rhino, you know, he and Phelan are now the top two rhinos in the state. Well, according to these. I have another question. Okay, go for it. Is there been situations in the past where we see like a former governor come and work for a state house rep or a state senator?

Have we seen this happen before? I don't think so. I't seen perry doing this something like this before now but you know um phelan brought in mike toomey who was a former state rep now he's been a lobbyist for a long long time and he's certainly a big gun in that respect. But he was also a member. So, you know, I probably liken it to that. I'm not sure beyond that, you know, my immediate knowledge only goes for Texas politics goes back, my firsthand knowledge goes back five years, right? But yeah, that would be interesting to find out. Somebody knows the answer to that. Let us know because I'm very curious.

Yeah, because it just seems interesting that someone who held the highest office in a state is going to come work or at least volunteer their services for a house rep. I mean, he's not just a house rep, though. He's the speaker of the house i know i if you remove the dade phelan aspect i like even if it happened in another state like oh the former governor of arizona is now working as an advisor to a house rep in arizona it's just an interesting dynamic that That wouldn't happen. Perry is not coming to work for Phelan, the House rep for HD21. He's coming to work for the Speaker of the House.

any governor would not make themselves a glorified advisor for just a random member of the House. They might help him out. They might try and coach him. And Perry, they might help them out. They might, you know, try and coach them. And Perry has done that for certain members. But no, something this big would not happen for a position of relative insignificance compared to the speakership.

This is a speakership move and um you know it's it shows me that feeling is bringing out every available trick play to try and keep the um keep the gavel that's a football analogy that's not not saying he's being tricky uh because clearly he's doing it out in the open this is clear what's happening yeah but um yeah i mean it's it was shocking to see. I did not expect it, even though Perry has had an odd couple of years since leaving the Department of Energy. You know, we saw him harking these humidifiers basically during COVID in the Speaker of the House's press room. So I guess there's a tie there. Feel and let him use that for that weird infomercial, basically. We all went there. I remember going to that thing

and thinking, what the heck is this going to be about? And turns out it was about humidifiers. I thought there was going to be some important political announcement. At the time, we were thinking, you know, I'd heard rumblings, and obviously this didn't come true. But we were thinking like, oh, my God, is Perry going to announce a primary against Abbott? Because this was during COVID, and a lot of the right was unhappy or unhappy with with Abbott you know that was probably far-fetched and that was not going to happen but that was something people were talking about and I remember thinking oh my gosh this is gonna be so big you're gonna be monumental and it's just an infomercial and these were

I have no idea this is the first time I'm hearing this these weren't like medical humidifiers like for a hospital like well it was for schools it was the idea was it's gonna help stop spread but you can just buy them off the shelf sort of thing i guess yeah yeah but it was kind of a pitch to the state to take these and put them in school districts in schools, probably hospitals too, but mainly schools. And I don't know if it worked. I don't know. That's hilarious. But to Cameron's point, I will say that Rick Perry has charted a little bit of a different path than most other former governors, former lieutenant governors, former attorney general,

former speaker of the house, where he is involved in state politics in this way. He's very willing to endorse in primaries. He's very willing to engage in these kinds of things, write op-eds in support of an embattled speaker at a primary. So yes, he is going to bat for the speaker of the House, but he's also an elected official who previously held the highest office in the state and was part of a presidential administration who is very willing to re-engage with state politics when typically that's when retirement happens and you don't hear from folks who've held these offices before. So he is an anomaly in that sense. Brad, I want to just quickly let you add anything else you want to about what this means for uh you know feeling

speakership at this point you kind of already delved into it but if you have anything else to add please do yeah i think the only thing i'd love to say is i'm very curious to see if this works both that and the to me hire you know like we i talked about the speakership math up above with with the cook announcement but um you know it, it's clear Phelan means business with these. Doesn't mean it's going to work for him. But it might. It very well might. We've seen this work in sports teams.

You know, the NBA for a long time, teams were putting together a big three. Right now, Phelan has his big two. He needs one more. Who's the third? Who's the third to come onto his team? Oh, man. If anybody has ideas, send us one. Maybe it's Ted Nugent.

I don't know. This is just, we are in an odd political two years, and it just keeps getting weirder. Yeah. But I see the logic in the, in the fire. I certainly do. It'll be interesting to watch.

See if there's a third folks, send us your predictions of who that might be. If there is in fact a third, but these kinds of things tend to happen in threes. Who knows? Bradley. Thank you, Cameron,

Texas hurricanes. You wrote a piece this week on the costliest hurricanes in Texas history. And also I'll say, folks, we had a lot of really great content that came out over Labor Day. I'd encourage everyone to go and read them. We have Texas history pieces. We have dove season opening pieces. We have all sorts of really great content at the Texan, so make sure to go check those out. It's certainly worth just going and reading that content. Even on a holiday weekend, we had some really great stuff. So thanks to our team for ensuring that that was the case. But Cameron, on that note, tell us about this costliest hurricane story that you wrote for our readers. Yeah, so I came across this really interesting article that was put out by the Texas Comptroller's Office, where it highlighted a lot of different insights about the broader effects of hurricanes in Texas over the past couple decades. And there

was this interesting chart that showed Hurricane Harvey, which struck Texas in 2017. It's actually the most financially devastating hurricane with a consumer price index adjusted estimate cost of $158.8 billion. And this was actually despite not having the highest death toll. Hurricane Rita in 2005 had the highest number of deaths at 119 among the listed hurricanes in this article, yet its financial impact was actually significantly lower than that of Harvey and Ike. Hurricanes Allen and Alicia occurring in the early 1980s had relatively lower costs compared to hurricanes Hannah and Nicholas. Hannah and Nicholas, which occurred in 2020 and 2021, had the lowest financial impact and resulted in no deaths. And there was some additional information added to this article that highlighted the National

Centers for Environmental Information the United States has so far in 2024 experienced 19 confirmed weather and climate disaster events, each causing losses exceeding $1 billion. So just very interesting, this sort of breakdown of how hurricanes have not only impacts to loss of life, but also a large amount of a financial impact. And one last note that I will make here is, though we did quite a bit of reporting on Hurricane Beryl, where our reporters here at the Texan, they covered everything from rising crime, financial impact, energy issues. So I highlight all those aspects in the article. If people are interested, they can check it out. Maybe they should. Actually, on that note, I'm going to save what I was about to say for my

tweetery, for the tweetery section of the pod and cameron you are responsible for making me aware of this story so i'm sure you know or you can put the pieces together of what it might be but cameron thank you for your coverage go read it folks go read it at the texan brad i want you to spearhead a shameless plug of our smoke filledFilled Room podcast episode that dropped on Monday. What can folks expect if they tune in, and why should they tune in to us blathering if they're already listening to us on a Friday? That's right, Mackenzie. So I like this episode of SFR, Smoke-Filled Room podcast. I got some good reviews on it from people.

I think we got a shout-out on Twitter from three several days, so shout-out three. Sevs? Three. I don't know what I'm saying. Shout-out Sevs. And it was a fascinating discussion of changing alliances. It's basically my newsletter from a couple weeks ago.

You know, you got Sider versus ken paxton you've got which is wild to say in this current political environment uh don huffines versus ken paxton and angela packs the huffines versus the paxons then you've got um the grassroots against dan patrick and all republicans in the legislature and state government basically in 2019 Then you've got the grassroots against Dan Patrick. And all Republicans in the legislature and state government, basically, in 2019. Those are a few we touch on. But yeah, I recommend it. It was a good episode and always fun to talk more in depth on Texas politics like that.

Absolutely worth a listen. We had fun. And for the record, it was definitely my idea and not brad's and we argue about that on the podcast episode so make your own uh decision on who you believe but uh it's you should believe me okay let's go into the tweetery section of the pod cameron why don't you start us off so if we're moving on to tweeter there was a interesting development in the ongoing saga which is the taylor swift travis kelsey relationship as everyone who listens to the weekly roundup regularly we actually talked about the news of the relationship months ago when it first became public. And there was lots of speculation about, is this real?

Is this just a PR stunt? It didn't really seem to make sense at the time. Well, there was apparently leaked documents online about a PR contract if these two were to break up. So obviously, me being incredibly attuned to the Swift. Swiftiness. The Swift swiftiness the world of this came across my timeline and it was blowing up but we have a new development the documents are entirely false and fabricated which came out in a recent statement from the Kelsey camp. So for all the Swifties and Kelsey heads, I don't know what the nickname for Travis Kelsey fans are. Apparently it was all fake and the relationship is as strong as ever. And I just want our listeners to know that.

I'm sure they're waiting with bated breath. Do not fall for everything online, because I definitely did when these documents came out. Kbron, did you actually believe the documents when you saw them? I'll just say that, you know, I've had suspicions in the past about the legitimacy of this coupling So if you were previously

Suspicious is sort of re-enforce those notions But I am also incredibly skeptical of information I come across online So I double triple quadruple check everything information I come across online. So I double, triple, quadruple check everything that I come across. So I didn't completely fall for it. But now that we have this new information that the documents were fake, now there's been lots of fake documents floating around over the past few years. This is just a new iteration of that you're exactly right well i think you all know my sentiments on this uh i knew they were fake the moment they came out obviously i'm a kelsey swift believer um mary elise what do you have for tweeterie this week

okay well i have to say this isn't quite as interesting as um Taylor Swift's relationship but I saw that apparently Texas the so the Paralympics are going on right now and apparently Texas has the third most athletes there which is pretty interesting because we did so well at the other Olympics so yep we are represented at the Paralympic Games. I saw a video of someone. I don't know what country she's from, but she is an archer and she had no arms and she hit a bullseye. It was amazing. Yeah, there's been lots of interesting clips coming out like i saw like it's just there was a swimmer without arms and he has to hit

the back of the pool with his head i was like oh my gosh give yourself a concussion but um yeah it's i've seen videos of the ping pong you know people having to play in wheelchairs. Just very interesting that people, despite having incredible physical ailments like this, are still able to compete at an incredibly high level like this. You know, it's really impressive. Yeah. Brad, up to you next. What's your tweeter-y? So my tweeter-y will pertain to one of my favorite issues that just drives me nuts. Property taxes. Oh.

Cameron. Yes. If I were to tell you that we are again relitigating the property tax issue after passing the monumental universe topping property tax cut from last session, would you believe me? I don't know. I'm a trusting guy, so I'd have to say yes, but it's unbelievable. Really? Yeah. Well, guess what? What? We're talking about it again. No! I mean, this is just because, I mean, it's reality. This issue is never going away.

And, you know, there's a lot of talk about, a lot of pushes for trying to eliminate property taxes. There's the one, the TPPF plan to try and eliminate school district M&O, which is the largest portion of property taxes, of property tax bills. Then there's the push to eliminate it all. You know, one of the biggest opponents of that is Lieutenant Governor Patrick himself. And, you know, this, it's not something you would automatically guess if you were new to Texas politics. But it is it is an interesting clash between him and, you know, especially more of the grassroots part of the party, grassroots conservative side that wants to eliminate this. And he has remained opposed to it. You know, he called it a fancy last session during the whole property tax fight with the House. And the Senate Finance Committee held

hearing evaluating that prospect this week. And they basically put some numbers on what it would cost to eliminate property taxes just in one year. And the number the LBB put out to eliminate all property taxes. And now keep in mind, part of that is the number is largely coming from taking, eliminating the property tax generally and having to backfill from other places, assuming that you can find other places to pull that money from to maintain current funding levels for schools and local governments, things like that. The state has already banned an income tax

in the state's constitution so that was never happening being instated before and it certainly is never going to be instated now but um that leaves you know consumption taxes and patrick's point in all this is eliminating property taxes would require the state to come up with so much money that it's just economically not feasible. And, you know, there are arguments about that from places like TDPF and other organizations that are for this, but Patrick and the Senate are very much not. And they lined out what it would cost. So $81.5 billion total to eliminate all property taxes.

And then on the school district side, to eliminate the M&O, it would cost roughly $28 billion, around $28, $29 billion, just shy of $30. And so that's a lot of money. The state's entire surplus last session that they didn't spend all of it, I think was like 32, 33 billion. So that's like the whole thing. Now there were those that said, absolutely put that entire surplus towards buying down property tax rates. But if you were to eliminate all property taxes, that surplus, which was a record surplus would not come close to paying for it. And that's buying down property tax rates. But if you were to eliminate all property taxes, that surplus, which was a record surplus, would not come close to paying for it. And that's the case the Senate's making here. You know, there are arguments on the other side about getting clever with things.

And, you know, first of all, cutting spending. That's a big thing on the local level, but the state can't control that directly. It can. You you know maybe they could pass a law that says you're not allowed to you have to every political subdivision has to cut their budget by five ten percent that's not gonna pass no way um but yeah it's this is a song that never ends. It goes on and on again. And we're going to be right back where we were this coming session talking about some level of property tax buy down. It probably won't be as high level or as much as the last one we had. But, you know, this is sure to just become an issue again it hasn't stopped

being an issue you know we were here in 2019 Mackenzie and I talked on on SFR about how the two main topics in that session were school finance and property taxes they're intertwined and here we are again you know that was the Super Bowl session if that was the Super Bowl session. If that was the Super Bowl session, where have we gone since? Well, we've had to pass an even bigger property tax package. Side question. Yeah.

Why was it called the Super Bowl session? You'll have to listen to Smoke-Filled Room Podcast to get that answer. I'm not going to go into it here. Good plug. Yeah. But I think I'll close this out now because it doesn't look like Mac has any tweeter-y that I see listed on the docket. So either she doesn't have one or she is failing her responsibilities. But I think I'll close this out because we're having a lot of Wi- problems. I can't hear anything she is saying. I can only hear it every third word.

And thanks to Maslin's skill in editing this, you probably will not have realized that by now, but yeah, we'll see how it ends up on the back end. So with that, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week. Also go blue. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of

our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the texan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.