Speaker 1: Welcome to the Tribecast.
Speaker 2: I'm Eleanor Klibanoff, women's health reporter here at the Texas Tribune.
I am here with editor in chief and my co host,
Matthew Watkins.
Speaker 3: Hello there, Hey, how are you. I'm doing okay, Yeah, okay,
we'll talk more about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're trying to keep the mood up. But we're
also here with a politics reporter for now, James Varagon,
also known as the Great Betrayer. Hi, Eleanor, Hello, you
know we should say we're taping this on Friday. It
is also James's last day at the Texas Tribune, and
his last day is co host of the tripcast.
Speaker 3: And last day is friend to me and Eleanor.
Speaker 2: True exactly last day a person we look at, talk
to engage with at all. The shunning begins at five pm,
and then your happy hour begins at five thirty.
Speaker 3: Okay, we'll wait.
Speaker 2: It's a brief shutting, yes, but no. For those who
don't know, James is leaving the Tribune to go host
Capital Tonight at Spectrum News. We're very very excited for you.
Glad you're staying in Austin and sad to lose you
at the Tribune.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sad to go before before we get too
far ahead of ourselves, I would like to say happy birthday,
belated birthday. You missed the last trip cast, so happy birthday. Yes,
very sad to be leaving the TEXTA Tribune had a
great opportunity to hop over to Spectrum and be a
host of Capital Tonight, which is a program that we
I think we've all been on. We love and respect
and yeah, excited for new adventures and a new medium.
Speaker 2: I feel like this is largely Matthew's fault because he said, hey,
James eleanor do a podcast.
Speaker 1: It will put on YouTube. James got it. Yeah, they
were like, oh my god. He was like, I gotta
be on TV full time.
Speaker 3: Cut the camera off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was no one else can get the taste
of fame.
Speaker 3: We will miss you, James.
Speaker 5: Then, you've been a lot to the Tribune and you've
done amazing work and we're really proud of you, excited
that we'll still get to see you and watch you.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. I'll miss you, guys, and I
hope to have you guys on the show sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us a little bit. I mean, you've been
Tribune a long time. What is uh was a memory
that stands out to you from your time here?
Speaker 3: Favorite coworker Patrick v Tech.
Speaker 2: To us also to us that you guys can join
your little alumni council.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, I don't know that I have one
favorite memory. The treasure, as we say, is the friends
you make along the way. My co host Eleanor Klibanoff
really has become a great friend of mine. Kate McGee
also a great friend. It's just a great group of
people to work with, a very supportive newsroom. Yeah, like
I said, uh, I've done a lot of great work here,
had a lot of personal growth. And I'll miss you guys,
And I'll miss the readers in the audience because they're
so engaged and so vocal and so supportive. So I
will miss that.
Speaker 3: I think most of our readers know this.
Speaker 5: But if and listeners know this, but if they want
to keep watching you, how will they be able to
do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can watch on Spectrum TV on cable and
the show is on it's called Capital Tonight. If you
don't know it, it's at seven o'clock Monday through Friday.
And I'll be there. I'll be doing a couple of
weeks of training doing just on the job reporting before
taking over the anchor chair in early to mid April.
Speaker 1: Do you how long have you been covering the text legislature?
Speaker 4: Been covering the Texas legislature since twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Okay, eight years and I know you're not leaving the
Texas Legislature, but eight years.
Speaker 1: Four sessions, five sessions, five sessions.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you have any sense of like,
have things changed in that time that you've been covering it?
Speaker 1: Seen any big shifts?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we've had three different speakers, four different
speakers in that time, so that's changed. We've talked a
lot on the show about the right word lurch that
the Texas House has taken. You know, when I first
came in, it was under Joe Strauss, who was a
much more moderate speaker. That was a bad word back then,
but he certainly was a moderate. Stopped a lot of
the kind of legislation that we're seeing now with bathroom bills,
and I think it just speaks to how politics have
moved in the state of Texas, to how the House
is built and what bills are being taken up. But
you know, that's how life is. I mean, things change,
but it's still one of the best state houses to cover,
probably the best state house to cover in the country.
So much consequential policy passes, and so I'm super excited
to keep covering it and for to keep following your
guys' work because you guys are the best day Well,
thank you.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: No, But turning now to the Texas Legislature, I mean,
this week, I think we're just kind of gonna run
through some of what we've seen happening. We've done a
couple of episodes sort of focusing on specific issues, and
while we've been doing that, a lot has happened at
the Capitol. So you know, things are really starting to
fly now. The Senate is moving through its priorities, sparks
are flying in House committee hearings, and we're going to
really start seeing things move now pretty quickly. Matthew talked
about sort of where we are right now and what
comes next.
Speaker 5: I think as I've talked to people who work in
the capital in recent days, the big thing that people
are talking about is how calm and friendly it's been
so far. I mean, we've had a few little moments
of flair effs, we'll talk to you. But I think
after this just incredibly tense primary season back in March
to the Republican primary, a lot of members ousted, then
a incredibly intense run up to the start of the
session fighting over the House Speaker, we get Dustin Burrows.
He is on the other side of the sort of
you know, insurgent wing of the Republican Party, but he
has taken a lot of effort to reach out to
that wing, but even maybe more so Governor Abbott and
Dan Patrick and try to kind of make peace. He's been,
you know, appearing on stage with Abbott on voucher meetings, rallies.
He's been, you know, working kind of in concert or
at least not an opposition to Dan Patrick in the Senate.
And I think that there's a lot of optimism among
people in the Senate and just around the legislature in general,
at least on the Republican side, that that maybe we
can get through a sort of calm, peaceful legislation session
instead of one that breaks down into fighting.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: The caveat is that it's you know, early March, and
where we will really see that test is later in
the session when things go through. But I mean, you know,
and there's lots of potential areas for it to blow up.
You know, there's still things that need to be ironed
out in the voucher bill. I'm sure we'll talk about that.
There's differing views on property taxes and everything like that.
But so far they seem at least willing to work
with each other, the Big three having their you know,
weekly breakfasts, which wasn't happening last session. And to me,
the big question is well that stick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that it's still early on. I did
have that realization like this week where I was just
talking to somebody at the Capital Cafe shout out Capital Cafe,
and they were like, Wow, things are really getting going now,
Like there's deadlines are coming up. Bill foundin deadlines I
think are next week. So things are getting going. At
the same time, things haven't moved that much. I mean,
we're talking about vouchers, we're talking about the Senate priorities
flying out of the Senate, but that kind of.
Speaker 1: Is always right, almost administrative.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and then like the Senate voucher Bill hasn't
moved in the House. The House is moving its own thing.
The committees are barely starting to meet and have their
organizational meetings, so nobody can really say like, wow, my
bill hasn't moved. Nobody's really has that anger in them yet.
Everybody had nice committee appointments, so everybody's like in this
feel good era. But I think maybe over the next
month or two we're going to start seeing people outside
of representive Brian Harrison and his crew start getting upset.
If things don't start.
Speaker 5: I just want to just remark briefly though, on what
seems to be a talent of Dustin Burrows to make
peace with folks. Right, we all remember, or many of us,
I'm sure remember the scandal that brought down Speaker Bonnin
back in twenty nineteen where he has a secret meeting
with Michael quinn Sullivan, the conservative activist, in which Burrows
comes along with him, presents a sort of secret list
of Republican members of the Republican Party who MQS can target.
Michael quinn Sullivan secretly records this meeting, it goes out,
it creates this big scandal, Burrows has to resign as
Republican Caucus Chair, and Bonnin ends up, you know, losing
his speakership. Over that that I think, you know, you
have to look at as a pretty low point for Burrows.
He found a way to kind of bring himself back
up into leadership, ended up winning the speaker's gavel, which
is a pretty amazing thing just in and of itself.
Then you have in the early session, you know, the
billionaire Alex Fairley talking about how he's gonna essentially, you know,
signaling that he's going to go after people who vote
for the sort of leadership wing of the GOP in
the House speaker's race. And then right before that vote,
he puts out a statement that seems to kind of
back away from that and almost give people permission to
vote for Burrows Fairli's including Fairly's daughter who casts that vote.
And now you know, again at least it's early. I
will again acknowledge that, and we have to acknowledge that
every time we talk about it. But now he seems,
at least for now to be getting along with Dan Patrick.
And that is an impressive skill by this speaker to
to you know, that I think will help him accomplish
things and just sort of like put the House in
a different position than maybe it has seemed in recent years.
Speaker 2: Do you think that to some extent just comes down
to like personality, like who he is, Like you know,
is he more of a peacemaker maybe than Daid feel
and you know, who was very much at odds Or
is it the political landscape that they're the sam they're in.
Speaker 3: I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on that. Jams.
Speaker 4: My thoughts are that he's not new to this, he's
true to this and so.
Speaker 1: This is how you get a TV contract.
Speaker 4: No, I mean he is a very very savvy political player.
One thing that you did point out, Matthew is that
a couple of the people on his pledge list or
people that he targeted in that twenty nineteen styles So
you look at folks like Drew Darby, you look at
folks like Stan Lambert and say, man, what did this
guy do? How did this guy talk to them? What
has he done in the last couple of years to
get those guys to come over to his side? That
is remarkable for a politician to be able to do
that that turnaround. He's very savvy. He we had a
profile of him talking about how relentless he is. He's
very organized. He doesn't just sit around and wait, and
he also is it's not I wouldn't say he's the
friendliest personality, but he is a very straight shooter, and
when it's a no, he's going to tell you it's
to know. When it's a yeah, he's going to tell
you it's a yeah. But he doesn't stop at no.
He's like, Okay, it's a no, now, but here are five, six, seven, eight,
ten things we can do to get it to a yes.
And that's the kind of person that you need to
be in the capital to get stuff done. And that's
the person that he has shown to be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is the kind of person you need to be,
particularly in the speaker's chair, right, because we always talk
about how the Lieutenant governor is perhaps the most powerful
person in the state, particularly during the legislative session. And
one of the reasons for that is structural, right, because
he's elected by the people, right, he's not elected by
the other members of the Senate, so he can preside
over it without worrying about angering enough lawmakers that they'll
end up voting him out. And that's a much more
comfortable and just ap perch with more leverage than the
House speaker, who has to you know, I mean, we've
seen this repeatedly over recent years. Has to keep those
members happy in order to keep them going, and he
just seems to be pretty good at that.
Speaker 4: You've got to serve two masters, and serving the people
who elect you to your House seat, but then also
the other one hundred and forty nine members who are
going to elect you as House Speaker. And he again,
he has this political talent for turning nose into yeses.
And that's kind of what you need when you have
that dynamic between the House and the Senate, which is
often at odds, especially with the Lieutenant governor like Dan Patrick,
who is just we've talked about this, we've used this
phrase before. He rules with an iron fist. But you know,
Dennis Bondon was also really good at this. He was wiley,
he was very smart. And it's because they had been
chairman of big committees and had led had authored big bills,
had known where the levers were to pull to make
things go. And I think this is the dynamic that
there is. And importantly, Lieutenant Governor Patrick respects that he
knows that he's a player. He knows that he can't
just go above his head or bully him on Twitter.
We haven't seen those kinds of messages, and so that
is a dynamic that is playing out now. Of course,
again the caveat what is going to be a relationship,
Like in June, you can play this back.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, right, roll this right back. Yeah, yeah, no, certainly.
I mean I think we're seeing at least like friendlier. Also,
there is a lot that they are in agreement on, right, Like,
it's easier to be friendly when you are all you're
at least in you know, the Big three are all
saying we all want vouchers, we all want property text cuts.
We're going to have some conflict over how we do that,
but like we're all kind of on the.
Speaker 4: Same People sleep on this. But Dustin Burrows is a
very strong conservative. I mean people will try to in
certain interests, will try to convince you that he is not.
But I mean I get emails from people in his
district saying like this guy is a dyed in the
wool like red as blood conservative, And that's why they
get along. That's why they are in such agreement on
these issues. Whereas, again going back to our earlier comment
about when I started covering it was Joe Strauss. He
was not as conservative. He was a more traditional like
Reagan Republican, George Bush Republican. Uh, these are much more
socially conservative lawmakers. And that's why they're don't want right.
Speaker 2: I mean, the gap between Joe Strauss and Dustin Burroughs
versus Dustin Burroughs and say David Cook is you know,
Strauss and Burrows much wider.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking about vouchers, you know, we're not going to.
Speaker 4: Get into the whole segue.
Speaker 1: That's what we call a segue.
Speaker 2: And in the biz, uh, you know, we've got all
the big three, we're all agreeing on vouchers.
Speaker 1: Everybody's all so happy.
Speaker 2: James, where does that stand right now? In this pre
uh you know, the warm up period.
Speaker 4: I think it's uh, you know, when you're making pasta
and like you got to let the water boil a
little bit. That's where we're at right now, because everybody
is like, Okay, this thing is moving.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: The Senate bill has passed the Senate. Now we've got
the House bill. Weirdly, like, tell me what your thoughts
are on this, man, but like the education advocates are
sort of kind of quiet. Yeah, and Jayden had a
really great story about the the Democrats, like top leaders
on voucher stuff, sort of saying like, you guys are
being too nice, like if you need money, you come
out swinging right. And it's it's sort of a Dayton
or a little bit of an under the radar kind
of battle that they're fighting because they don't want to
tick off the state officials who basically control their purse
strings because they really desperately need the money. But also
it's like vouchers could really hurt their public schools, and
this is what they say, maybe not publicly, but they
certainly say it privately to us, right, And so I
think it's it's that part. But then there's and I
think Republicans are pretty confident that it's going to pass.
But then you're also seeing folks like Cody Harris and
Brad Buckley getting booed on stage, getting shouted down at
their own town halls. I saw Carl Tepper isn't even
doing a town hall. He's doing kind of a moderated
radio appearance. Because there is starting to be some pressure,
and you know, things are starting to the rubber is
hitting the road, and so we're really getting to see
like what the actual proposals look like, what impacts it's
going to have, and I think the fight is just beginning.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think going back to the comment about the
schools maybe not being you know, fighting as much, I
think that's an interesting observation and it kind of goes
back to something I've talked about on the podcast before,
which is, you know, they successfully quote unquote successfully blocked
vouchers last session, and what it got them was, you know,
losing access to billions of dollars in additional state funding,
about a dozen of their strongest school's strongest supporters in
the Republican Party losing their primary seats, and you know,
vouchers likely getting passed two years later. Anyways, Right, And
so I wonder I haven't talked to anyone about this,
but I wonder whether there's a sort of like, Okay,
this is probably going to happen. Let's stop this fight
and let's focus on getting what we can get, which
is basically that since twenty nineteen, when the state passed
you know, a major campaign or sorry, school finance overhaul
and really significantly boosted up school funding, that funding has
not kept up with inflation since then and if you
watch from twenty twenty where it kind of hit a
high water mark until now, if you're talking in real dollars,
and you know, twenty twenty five dollars accounting for inflation,
the school funding has dropped about ten billion dollars from
the state during that time, and so these schools, and
it's important to note that that happened during really, really
financially healthy times for the state, where there were unprecedented
levels of school of state surpluses and funds. Right, and
so if I'm a school official, I'm thinking, you know,
we're not in great shape during really strong, you know,
economic times for this state. We're not always going to
be in strong economic times. We need to be getting
as much money as possible right now, and we probably
need to do it by not antagonizing the people who
actually control the purse strings. And you know, there is
a good amount of money on the table for these
schools this year, and maybe the equation here is let's
focus on that and not the one billion dollars on vouchers.
Speaker 4: Of course, the other side of it is, well, do
we take the money in the short term and then,
according to them, allow vouchers to pass, which will in
the long term hurt our schools in our school districts.
And that seems to be the decision that they've made,
like we need this money so desperately right now that
we are willing to sort of just be quiet, take
the money, and we'll deal with the voucher stuff later.
And I think they're also hoping that other people will
fight that fight for them. I think even within the
Democratic Caucus there's that feeling of like, well, it's going
to pass anyway, so let's, you know, get the victories
that we can. And then there's like the three you
know public education people, Taller Rico, you know, Hosa and
John Bryant just going to the mats. But even they
were frustrated in that here and they're like, if you
guys need the money, then you guys might like, we're
not just gonna be out here for well at least
you know, you know, hosts said that we're not just
gonna be out here fighting if you guys aren't going
to fight. So it's a very interesting dynamic.
Speaker 5: James, do you what do you think about these town halls,
like is that do you think lawmakers are worried about them?
And do you think they should be they.
Speaker 4: Should be worried about them. I mean, I was very
interested to see Cody Harris's town hall. I mean I
saw some videos of that one, and yeah, I mean,
I mean, these are rural districts, and and you know,
the messaging from the governor's team and from Republican leaders
is like the polling works. The polling people in rural
areas support that. The town halls showed that perhaps not
everybody supports them, that there's a very vocal group of
people who don't support it. So I think that does
sort of worry legislators. I mean, do I think they're
going to change their mind? I don't think so, but
it is starting to show some of those cracks. And
I think we've talked about this before, but some of
these new freshmen who are newly elected and say yes
school choice, school choice. Well it's easy to say yes
school choice when you don't have specifics. But then when
you have a school superintendent or a school principal saying
I got to close three schools in the district and
you're only going to have one school district or a
school in the district left like, it gets a lot
tougher when you get the specifics.
Speaker 2: Right, I think you can get kind of that like
dome blindness, like you're under you know, you're like, oh,
the only thing that matters is like what's happening here
and like trading votes and all that, and then you
go back to your district and you're getting yelled out
the town town at all, Like.
Speaker 4: The person who like, you know, does your laundry is like.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean in a area like the superintendent you know,
could be like a very powerful person and.
Speaker 4: Your or your friends and neighbors are mattitude. It does,
you know, it does make you think.
Speaker 1: So there's a little more like logistics, you know.
Speaker 4: But the other thing too is that like some of
these lawmakers could also add tweaks and amendments to the
legislation that could and I think they're probably looking to
do that that could assuage some of those concerns. So
there's probably that, But it's awful to take the heat obviously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely feels like there's a little bit of
like critically you know, from some Democrats, also from some
of the education activists, like just sort of a sense
of like this is going to happen like, let's just
like find ways we can tweak.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think also there's just a lot of
we're what these town halls are reflective of is the
energy starting to re emerge in the democratic or more
moderate area of Texas politics, right.
Speaker 4: And those are rural Republican areas.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and I mean exactly. You know, you know
when Trump was first elected in twenty sixteen, you saw
that kind of you know, the Women's March all this,
like people literally out in the streets, and we did
not immediately see that this time, but we're starting to
see that in the And you know, if I'm a Republican,
I might worry a little bit about that, right because
twenty eighteen was not a great election year for them,
and you know, maybe they're some energy popping up. Maybe
I want to get some bills out there that I
can point to and say, yeah, you maybe not might
not like school vouchers, but look at this, you know,
five thousand dollars rais we did for teachers. Look at this,
these billions of dollars we put into public schools.
Speaker 4: Anyways, Yeah, and the other thing that I don't want
to like let pass before commenting is as the details
come out, like what you're talking about, the detail about
the prioritization that there is in the House versus the Senate,
where there isn't a real prioritization. But a person who
or a family that makes one hundred and fifty six
thousand dollars can still qualify for these school vouchers and
they're calling that a low income family. I think that's
going to rile a lot of people up and people say,
like one hundred and fifty six thousand dollars is low income,
Like it really kind of speaks to sort of the.
Speaker 5: Design of the bill, right, and that does seem to
be where the tension is right, Like the thing they
need to figure out the most in order to get
this across the finish line is that.
Speaker 4: The send it seems to think like it's fine, we
want to offer it to everybody like that. This is
this is in fairness, it's universal, it's universal for everybody.
And the House is being a little bit more like
maybe more careful about those optics because they're getting lit
up by their districts.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 2: I asked for a brief update on vouchers, but that's okay.
I just want the listeners to know I am fighting
for them.
Speaker 1: I do want to jump.
Speaker 2: Ahead a little bit and talk about another big story
from this week. We saw State Representative Brian Harrison. There
was this committee meeting where things got pretty tense. He
was sort of repeatedly pressing the Texas Water Development Board
chair Loreal Stepney about the role of race in state
hiring practices, and this really sort of blew up. I mean, Stepanie,
who is black, was visibly distraught, very upset, wiping tears
from her eyes while Harrison sort of continued to push
on this issue. We saw a big outpouring of support
for you know, the board chair Stephanie, from Governor Abbot,
Lieutenant Governor Patrick, Speaker Burroughs. Harrison did not back down,
you know, claim said his he felt like his questions
were perfect.
Speaker 3: That's a familiar word to describe things like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, right.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of another politician, James.
Speaker 2: What did you make of I mean, this seems like
an outlier in terms of the kind of clash we
tooplacy between an agency head and lawmaker.
Speaker 4: Yes, and I think there was calls from leaders.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: Speaker Burroughs kind of called it out, uh in terms
of like being on a committee and the kind of
decorum and respect that is expected. But I thought it
was noteworthy that both Patrick and Abbot, who are no
snowflakes on de I. There's certainly no supporters of de I.
Speaker 1: There i Abbot's executive order, that we're talking.
Speaker 4: With their opponents of DEI. But they were saying that this,
I mean they didn't. For example, Abbat didn't say like
this went overboard, but he did express sort of support
for Stepney, and I think you have to read him
between the lines.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: The other thing for listeners is like Representative Harrison is
one of like the most conservative social warrior that there is,
and this is his his I don't know, pep issue, Pep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like a bomb thrower kind of and he's.
Speaker 4: He's like, I'm going to be the DEI guy. I'm
going to track the police every at every stage. And
the questioning was I sort of see where he's getting
what he's getting at saying like I didn't say anything
specifically about her or that she was a.
Speaker 1: D He was like threading this very fine needle, right.
Speaker 4: But the the takeaway from it was very much sort
of like are you a de I hire are you
supporting DEI hires? Is DEI a part of your system?
And I think because she's a person of color also,
it sort of was putting her on the spot, maybe unfairly,
and people on the committee called it out. I mean
Representative Harrison obviously said he felt like the questioning was perfect,
but seeing so many other lawmakers say, hey, this went
too far, I think you've got to pause and think
about that. And making an agency head cry who's served
for thirty years and this has not happened to her,
I think you've got to pause and think about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Harrison is a really interesting example of would you
agree with me that it's fair to say that he's
a bit of a backbencher in the House in terms
of influence. Yes, he has still managed to with this
DEI push that he's doing anti d I de I
push that he's doing, have a lot of influence on
state government. I mean, he's really up in some university
leaders heads.
Speaker 4: Texas A and M.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, his alma mater.
Speaker 5: He you know, as you know, finds these emails or
individual program starts tweeting about them, and it draws a response.
It draws a response from the port of Regents at times,
the governor and everything like that. He's it's a sort
of like modern something you see in DC frankly a
lot someone who's maybe not necessarily like getting a lot
of legislation through, but getting a ton of attention and
actually being able to create some movement on things just
by sort of activating a certain wing of the party
on the internet by pointing to these things.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's done this with like very specific both
subtly dying.
Speaker 2: He's done this I think on like really like before
the session, you know, in the interim, like on very
specific things. I like, you know where he's like posting
on Twitter about you know, this is on you know,
a policy on some agency's website, and then he's calling
out the governor, telling his.
Speaker 1: Supporters to call out the governor.
Speaker 2: He's like calling and then the governor will sweep in
and change things right.
Speaker 5: One thing that was different this time is that it
wasn't on Twitter. It was face to face with a
black woman in a position of power, and you kind
of got to see how she was reacting to that
and how it felt to her to be kind of
receiving that line of attacking.
Speaker 4: Twitter is in real life, as we say, and like Twitter,
Like I mean, this agency head is clearly very busy
giving the state like water. She's probably not on Twitter
all the time listening to these things. But then you
got to see exactly what you're saying, like the reaction
when people say these things to you and to your face,
and it's it's hurtful stuff. I think I want to
shout out a Jundra Martinez, our colleague, who I think
did a really really great job of saying, this is
sort of a build out of the atmosphere that we're
in with diversity, equity and inclusion, where politicians are targeting it,
folks like Representative Harrison screamed from the rooftops, and then
are higher officials then react and do something, and so
there it becomes a cycle, right, it becomes a cycle.
And so this this is the natural build out of that.
And perhaps it's a moment not just to say that
moment was bad, but also to think about the broader
issue here.
Speaker 2: But you know, I mean this whole you know, yes,
this is representive Brian Harrison sort of, this is his
m O kind of, but it was he was citing
and building on the momentum around Governor Abbot's executive order
removing DEI from state agencies, and you know, yes, like
Governor Abbott stepped into the you know, board chair Stepanese
defense basically saying like she's the best expert we have
on water on this hugely important issue.
Speaker 4: But it is like that meme. It's like who would
do this right, right, right right?
Speaker 2: The underlying thing is that, you know, I think Governor
Abbot has certainly empowered this crusade of Brian Harrison's through
this executive order, and you know, I think we're probably
just going to see more clashes like this. I think,
you know, my sense, at least on Twitter. Again, Twitter
is not real life, but Governor Abbott has been much
more assertive and vocal on Twitter on like a range
of issues, and you know, I think that comes from
the very very top right we're seeing, you know, President
Trump is sort of engendering a lot of that rhetoric,
and so I think Governor Abbitt stepping in to say,
like in this case, that was maybe too far, even
if you wouldn't use those words, is something.
Speaker 1: But you know, the underlying.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think we're gonna anticipate Brian Harrison
being sort of chagrined by that. Yeah, yeah, Matthew, what
the hell is happening at the lottery?
Speaker 3: That is an excellent question.
Speaker 5: So the this this is like, this feels like just
like a fun old school It really does.
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is like a joy.
Speaker 2: It really is like one of those things that you're like,
it feels like a heist movie that now the Texas
Legislature has to get involved in. And I think we
one every session, get one little treat story like this.
Speaker 5: So the background here is that we have this concept
of lottery couriers, which is basically a you can go
on to an app you can be anywhere, I guess
anywhere in the world, not just in the US, and
buy a lottery ticket and someone will will go buy
the ticket for you and take a picture of it
for you, and then you know, I guess if it wins,
they will either go collect the money for you and
send it to you or mail the ticket to you
wherever you are.
Speaker 2: And so this is one of those things that until
we find out about what happens next, do you think.
Speaker 1: Like, who is that Who's that desperate to play the lottery?
Speaker 2: That they're like, I need someone to do this third
hand for me, but you're kind of like it seems inoffensive, especially.
Speaker 4: Because they don't even let it paid for my tickets
with a credit card, like I have to pay them
with cash. Then I hear about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you a lottery player, James?
Speaker 4: Not anymore?
Speaker 1: Okay when it gets big? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: I buy lottery tickets and put them in my children
and wife's stalking every Christmas. So I'm once a year.
Speaker 2: And that's Christmas in the Watkins house and make your
own luck, keep them right.
Speaker 5: So anyways, lottery couriers. So what has happened though, is
that there was this particular situation. The Houston Chronicle wrote
a great story about this where essentially some folks essentially
found that they could game the system. And there are
times where you can essentially buy a massive volume of
tickets in order to essentially like work the odds and
you know, I think, like practically like sort of guarantee
that you're going to win something. One of them.
Speaker 2: They bought every single number, yeah, exactly everything, combination numbers,
and so this.
Speaker 5: Has now raised concern. There's this one place, a store
called Winner's corner in Austin that in twenty twenty two
sold eighty nine million dollars worth of lottery tickets, which
is about eighty three million dollars in lottery tickets than
the second highestwhere else. And so Dan Patrick, you know,
this has come up a little bit. The Chronicle has
done some good reporting on this. The Sunset Commission wrote
a report on this in the in the state, leading
Dan Patrick to show up to the Winner's Corner again
on Twitter with making a video kind of talking to
the folks seeing what he described as sort of a
massive number of these lottery lotto machines, which I can
tell as a tell you from a Christmas buyer, are
not very reliable and sometimes only come halfway torn up
so you.
Speaker 3: Can't even read the numbers.
Speaker 5: Then your your daughter is really upset on Christmas because
she doesn't know whether she's gonna win the lottery or not.
Speaker 1: Santa's complaints are reaching new levels.
Speaker 5: But ultimately this has led to the resignation resignation of
one of the lottery commissioners. There is a lot of
talk about possibly banning these couriers, other kinds of legislation investigation.
There's a Texas Rangers investigation. Yes, so just a lot
of concern about the Lottery Commission here, and you know,
whether it should even continue to exist. There are some
all makers who would like to get rid of an.
Speaker 4: Entirely now a priority item for the Lieutenant Governor. And
I think it's going to get heard in Former Speaker Feelings.
A similar issue is going to get heard on speak
Former Speaker Feelings Committee. So it's moving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely moving.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: We should say Eric Dexheimer and the Houston Chronicle did
a lot of this reporting initially, and you know, we
owe him our thanks because we love a little heist story.
Speaker 5: And if there are any agents out there, Eleanor is
looking to sell a screenplay.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I've got the wheels already turning, and I
feel like Eric should get first bite at that, you know.
But yeah, it's a crazy story that is moving pretty
quickly through the legislature.
Speaker 1: There's been this, you know.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing of the Lottery Commission for a long
time has said that they cannot regulate these couriers. Now
there we can regulate these careers. It's been a little yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is interesting that it's coming along in a
time where there's also a big push to expand gambling
the state. I think this probably doesn't do great for
that cause.
Speaker 4: One thing that it will point out is that the
Sunset Commission had pointed out all these issues with the
Lottery Commission, like their their last report I think last
year was like this is this is not going right. So,
you know, I think lawmakers can sort of be upset
and yelling and doing some investigative reporting on it, but
these problems existed and they existed under their watch.
Speaker 2: Feels like a strong endorsement for you know, things are
only a problem once the media gets involved. You know,
we create problems, No, but I do think you know,
they shine a light on it, and it's one of
those things that is like pretty shocking when you get
into the details involved, like Malta and some Brits and people. Yeah,
and the screenplay rights itself is all I'm saying, you know,
one last thing to sort of throw up, just to
discuss before we you know, wrap this up. A lot
is happening on the federal level that is trickling down
into Texas as all we saw. Vice President Vance was
here this week at the border along with Governor Abbott
and Attorney General Paxton. You know, we obviously saw the
speech from President Trump in which immigration was front and center.
Anything standing out to you on that that we feel
like is gonna you know, we've got a Doge committee now.
Definitely feels like Texas is following in some federal footsteps
on on that. I mean, even the DEI executive order.
Speaker 1: You know what's next in the Texas Trump love affair.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, encounters that the border are way down, right.
I think there's maybe a little bit more concerned about
tariffs as we continue to go on the tariff coaster
up and down. I actually think though, it feels like
maybe as the temperature has turned up in d C,
the temperature in Austin has kind of gone down a
little bit. Maybe there's like a feeling of a less
need to be like you need to be the tip
of this spear now and now that we have Donald
Trump in the President's office.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's still a long session to go, and
there's going to be a lot of social issues that
come up in between now. But so far, I mean,
it's like we're talking about school finance, We're talking about
the lottery commission. We're talking about water and all those
types of things that it seems like the craziness, the
high temperature type stuff right now is.
Speaker 3: Happening elsewhere that.
Speaker 2: A simmer a little bit here in Texas. Yeah, which,
you know, we would take a boring session. I think
I think all of us would be, at least Matthew
and I would you know for.
Speaker 3: TV you need the it bleeds it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, but no, it's definitely hopefully a little
bit more of a.
Speaker 1: Low key session.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of our episode.
Speaker 2: James, we want to thank you so much for your
time at the Helm of the Texas Trip guest.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I'll miss you, guys, We'll miss you James.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You can find all of the episodes of the Tribcast
on YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. Even though
James is leaving, we are continuing on, so do not
you know, don't look away from YouTube or wherever you
subscribe to podcasts like subscribe Share. If you'd like to
get in touch with us, you can reach us at
Tribcast at Texastribune dot org. Our producers are Robavila and
Chris Phobada. Our theme music is composed by Rob and
two of us. We'll see you next week.