Weekly Roundup - March 27, 2026

0:00I found that it's McKenzie here with Kim at Meredith and Mary Elise on another edition of the weekly roundup. We're so glad I'd be back with y'all. I think we're all in different parts. We're doing parts of the world here, but Kim, I do really quickly. I want to plug the Lubanipleton because in it you always give us an update on your State Park adventures and where you are in your effort to visit all how many State Park so far in Texas? There are 88. There are 88. And you are at what number in terms of your visits? 56. 56 State Park so far, isn't it? Do you have a favorite? Oh gosh. I like different ones for different reasons, but my top three would probably be Paladero, Garner. And I really, really like Palmetto. It's very unique. It almost feels like a Jurassic Park experience. I would highly recommend people go there.

1:01Kind of like otherworldly, is it? How are you? Yeah, very very ferny. Yeah, it's very other worldly. In the middle of central Texas, not where you would expect it. Interesting. You're making me really want to go and visit them, but in Lubanipleton, which is a subscriber-exclusive newsletter that Kim publishes for us at the Texan. Once a month, it definitely is worth subscribing just for the Lubanipleton, but it is so fun because oftentimes she'll give us an update on where she is in the State Park journey. She puts that in a little bit before we started recording. And so I thought we would just let listeners know where we're at in the State Park, Robert, Stanley. I really want, I have a list on my phone of the National Parks I've visited, and Greg, I'm sure Meredith feels the same way. Greg, in the Pacific Northwest, you just kind of like visit a lot of National Parks because there's a high concentration of them up there. But in Texas, I have not upped my game and visited that many State Parks, so I kind of want to

2:01make that activity. We have two National Parks in Texas. I've been to both, but we have 88 State Parks, so highly recommend. Very diverse. It's Big Bend, and what's the other one in the National Park? Quattal of Big Mountain. Oh, yes, of course. Okay. Yeah, and I just visited that one recently. It's on the border with New Mexico out kind of north of Midland, and very beautiful, but very hard to get to, not on anyone's route to anywhere, really. Right, and Big Bend is not like it's that close to, yeah, Big Bend in and of itself is a huge ordeal to visit, so regardless, welcome. Thanks for maybe we'll just make like a section of our website, Kim's State Park visits, because I think folks would be interested. Well, let's jump into the news here. Meredith, let's start with you. This is fascinating to watch this all kind of unravel, but there is an issue between the Attorney General, 10 Paxton, and Acting Controller, Kelly Hancock, that exploded on social media. Walk us through what happened in what we're at now.

3:05Yeah, I definitely picked it. I was looking at Twitter when I got home from something Tuesday night, and you just see this really aggressive text, and it's almost like a needle scratch. Like, okay, how did we get here? What happened leading up to this? So just a little bit of background before I kind of jump into what happened on Tuesday is that there's been an ongoing issue related to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts, or our ESA program, and Muslim school inclusion. So there are a couple of lawsuits, there's been allegations of exclusion, and then on the day of the student application deadline on March 17th, they, a federal judge ordered an extension until March 31st, because he said he found it troubling, was the word he used, that there were no Muslim schools on the list. And so we did clarify there's some coverage of that. I know Hannah did a piece, I did some pieces, and that you can get caught up on that. And some of the background for Hancock and Paxton, and their interactions related to this issue, or it starts back in November, where Greg Abbott, Governor Greg Abbott, designates care in the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist

4:10organizations. Then we fast forward to December, where Kelly Hancock asks requests from Ken Paxton, a legal opinion, if he can use, like if schools with ties to those can be excluded from the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, or TFA. And so he requests that, and January Paxton returns that legal opinion, says yes, use, you know, go for it, like if you have that, we want to make sure you had some pretty like agreeable language, we want to protect schools from these things, and so, okay, it seems like everyone's on the same page. Well, March 24th, Hancock sends a letter to Paxton, which he talks about, he addresses the judges restraining order and the Muslim school issue, and he points out there were four schools that were, what he said, I believe he said they were temporarily like given access, that's the piece that Hannah wrote, and he had concerns about one of them, the Houston Quran Academy. So he points to this school that was temporary allowed to

5:15participate, and he claims that he used the word scant evidence that had been presented to the court, that they had not been aware that they were documented ties with that school to the Muslim Brotherhood. So the contacts and allegations for this are that Hancock cites the 1991 memorandum that's describing the Muslim Brotherhood's goals, and so there were things like a quote from there, is Islam as a civilization alternative and support the global Islamic state wherever it is, that's one of their goals, and they would be, it would be accomplished through what they called a civilization jihadist process. And so some of the other language describing it, saying that they wanted to be eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands, and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated, and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. They really focused on the idea of an Islamic political party, banks, military organization, and schools, and they listed, they said one individual from this council they have, they identified as a brother among us that would help the process

6:20of settlement to be completed was brother, Hamid al-Ghazali. And so Hancock writes that Mr. Ghazali is the director and principal of the Houston chronic academy, the school that is one of the four schools that's been accepted, and that they are now required to register for participation for that. So he points to Paxton's legal opinion and said, you know, in the past you had boasted, he was the words of, you know, to confirm the exclusive authority of the comptroller's office, like go for it, and he goes on to urge three different things that he wants to happen. He urges Paxton to present more information to the court and to highlight the full details of the terror ties with Houston chronic academy and anything similar to any of the other plaintiffs that are on these, on the lawsuits. And he said, this is where it gets the spicy parts as he adds in as he makes these requests, how he feels Paxton has handled them. He said to our knowledge in defending the comptroller's office, efforts to implement the school choice program

7:20against legal challenges, your office has not explained Mr. Ghazali's role. And he says the court can't protect against threats that it doesn't know. So then he also asks him to take immediate steps to strip the corporate charter for Houston chronic academy and any other schools that are documented to terrorism. He urges him to use the tools of the attorney general's office, which is something that Abbott had also directed him to do when it came to nonprofits and care. So he kind of like references back to Abbott. And he says, you know, as far as I'm aware, you have not taken such steps against care and any other brotherhood affiliates. I'm writing to urge you to use these tools. It's time to prevent abuse of the Texas school choice program. And then the third thing is he brings in SB 17, which talks about people buying land that have these some of these connections. And so he also brings that in and wants him to take action to prevent brotherhood-affiliated entities from what he says taking like root in Texas. And he said that he doesn't think there was a single fifth circuit court recently concluded in

8:26Hong Kong said that there was not a single step taken by the AG to enforce that law. And so he warns, you know, Texas cannot be asleep at the wheel as radical Islam spreads and please use this to like hold extremist groups. So some critiques that are very pointed at Paxton in his handling of the situation. He also copies multiple high-level White House, you know, he has the FBI. He has Abbott on there. He has multiple like all these high-level people. And so this is his first action. And then pretty quickly after, I want to say like less than an hour, minutes, it was like 840 at night. I remember that one, Paxton. So he, it's after off his hours, which cracks me up. So Paxton quickly responds and has a really aggressive, I think is the appropriate word, response. And he calls him and Hancock an incompetent loser who is an embarrassment to the position of chief clerk that he holds. He calls for him to be fired. And he officially calls that he wants Governor Abbott to immediately replace Hancock

9:28with the person he said Texans actually voted for to be control or don't have fines. So in the primary, have fines did defeat Hancock getting 57 point, almost 87.4% of the vote. Hancock only received less than 25% of vote around 24%. And so he, you know, says Hancock was rejected by Texans because he failed to do his job. So that was a, that's a spicy tweet kind of late at night that you get. And he also adds that Hancock, he said, this is a quote, failed to take me down during the impeachment and his career is over. So this is referencing that Hancock was one of two Republican senators who voted in the Paxton impeachment to convict supporting 13 of the 16 articles against him. So just a little note though, under Article 15 of the Texas Constitution, a statewide official like the comptroller would need to be removed through impeachment, which charges brought by the House and tried by the Senate. So yeah, just a fun little Twitter, Twitter, you called it a spat,

10:30I liked that, but it's, but there's some serious like legal and like implications here that they're going to have to deal with. Absolutely. And even if it's not about the actual removal of an elected official, not an elected official, excuse me, that somebody who's acting in an official capacity on the state level, even if that does not come to pass the, all the back and forth, and the, you know, the role of the office of the attorney general, how to, you know, deal with these specifically issues relating to Muslim schools, of course, so it's all ties into the education freedom accounts that you've covered extensively, Meredith, but there's so much here pertaining to this issue and it doesn't just deal, you know, it's not just a spat between elected officials like you're saying, it's a lot of other things as well. So we'll definitely keep an eye on this, it's spicy nonetheless. And I think we were all surprised when we saw Huffines come out victorious and pretty crowded field for comptroller without heading to runoff, right? And doing so pretty decisively. But keep an eye, it'll be interesting. In the election, of course, I think it was obvious

11:32that there was a lot of, you know, friendliness between the governor and Hancock and there were, you know, the tours that were happening around the state related to the education freedom accounts, it would, you know, you kind of have a watch and obviously the governor did endorse Hancock, but the, you know, the friendliness between those camps was obvious. And so now watching this impacts and being the center of it, it's just more fault lines among state leaders. So thanks for covering that for us and keeping an eye on all of it. Kim, let's come to you. This is going to be a Kim heavy podcast. And so Kim's fans buckle up. This is going to be a good one for you. Tell us about this dust up between a newly elected senator and the listener governor speaking of spats, specifically in relation to interim committee assignments. Right. So a little background for our listeners who may not know, you know, legislature meets every other year for 140 days and then any specialty called sessions. But during the interim, there are often committee hearings held about issues that the legislature may want to study and possibly address during

12:36the next legislative session. And Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick recently released his list, which I think Hannah wrote about, of newly of interim committees, interim committee assignments. But one newly elected senator was not on it. And that is Senator Taylor Remitt, who won a special election on January 31st to flip a seat from Republican to Democrat. That was vacated for Senate District 9, State Senate District 9 in North Texas, vacated by the aforementioned Kelly Hancock, who became the acting controller of public accounts. Now, Remitt complained about the lack of assignments and the lack of representation for SD9 on the committees. He said that quote, after months of Senate District 9 having no voice in the Texas Senate, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has chosen to silence our district even further by refusing to assign me to any committee. This decision

13:37reflects the kind of petty partisan politics that too often stands in the way of delivering results for working families. He wrote that in a press release. So the Lieutenant Governor did not stay silent about the issue he chose to respond to Remitt, saying Senator Remitt was well aware, he wouldn't be appointed to interim committees pointing out that Remitt was filling an unexpired term that will be up for election again in November. So Patrick added if Remitt wins in November, he would then be assigned committees like anyone else at the beginning of the next legislative session in January 2027. Patrick said that he explained this issue to Remitt and that Remitt said he understood. However, that didn't stop the two from going back and forth. Patrick also pointed out that this is the precedent that when other senators have won special elections in the past, they did not get assigned committees in the interim that they had to wait until the session started

14:41to get assigned to committees. So I would recommend our readers go look at the article. It has a few more details that it didn't include here, but it was a little back and forth and we'll see how the election turns out. Obviously, the Lieutenant Governor is supporting Remitt's opponent in the November general election, and so that's another little detail that shouldn't go unnoticed. Absolutely, not just in the November general election, but the Lieutenant Governor's been very supportive of Lee Wom's guns for many months now, even in the initial election, an initial special election, or you know, it was to your hub against in a Democrat fine for that spot. So all eyes will be on Senate District 9 come November. As course, there is a huge encouragement for Democrats both in Texas and at the national level when Remitt did win that special election. So we'll keep an eye on what that looks like. Was it a fluke? Was it a special election in which turnout was increased or is this indicative of trends for November? We'll see. It's going to be interesting. Kim, thanks for your coverage and Kim covered that election all the way up to the

15:43get go. So definitely go watch all of that. Mary Elise, let's talk about Texas, let's go federal here. Texas lawmakers wrote to Congress about a bill related to child safety online. Tell us why. Yeah, this was kind of an interesting intersection of the or Texas lawmakers contacting Congress about legislation that they're looking at. So Texas lawmakers giving their opinion on a congressional bill. So this is kind of displaying the struggle between federal versus state government control over all of this advancing technology, whether it's AI or just the internet in general advancing, and then legislation that's being crafted in response. And so that's kind of the fight that's bringing here around this specific bill. So this was a bipartisan equally bipartisan coalition of Texas state senators that wrote to US senators Ted Cruz and John Kornin. And so they asked them to reject the current form of this legislation, which is called Kids Online

16:48Safety Act, known as COSA. And the goal of this legislation is just the baseline goal is to protect children online. So to implement some guardrails to make sure that children are more protected online in that platforms are doing what is necessary to protect minors, taking those necessary steps. But specifically, there are issues with this piece of legislation, the version that was just marked up by the House specifically. The issue with it was that they said it would have a negative impact on states legislative autonomy. And then they also had some other issues with some of the provisions saying it removed certain protections for minors. That was in the Senate bill. But the big thing here was that it was going to affect state legislative autonomy. So this letter was kind of led by state Senator Angela Paxton. And so they wrote to, like I said, to Kornin and Cruz and talked about specifically the US House's markup of this bill, the COSA bill.

17:49So yeah, so they're arguing that it's going to kind of handicap states and being able to make their own laws related to child safety online. And so they say it's kind of that kind of tarnishes the bill's positive direction, even though everyone's kind of united around this general idea of we want to protect children online. Of course, there's a lot of different ideas about how we should go about that and which government should be giving, be given more control. So the original provisions in this bill, there's a couple of them among the most notable are one that creates a requirement for companies to default to their strongest privacy settings when they're dealing with a minor user. So if they've got a minor user on a platform automatically default to strongest privacy settings, it also establishes a duty for platforms to minimize a promotion of harmful activity. And it lists several different things that could be considered harmful activities,

18:49such as eating disorders or self-harm, etc. And then requiring that these platforms have a dedicated route for parents to file complaints or report bad actors in the platforms or report different content that's promoting these things that could be considered harmful for minors to consume. It also specifically addresses social media companies usage of the algorithms for suggesting content, which if you're a social media user, you're very familiar with algorithm, whether it be X, Instagram, Facebook, you see how it's specifically crafted for the user that's on the platform. And so they kind of acknowledge this and talked about how the companies have a certain amount of control over what they're showing a certain age user. So the letter that was sent on Fridays arguing that the house version of Kosa is, quote, considerably weaker than the Senate version. They say that the latest version doesn't really meet the bar and the child's safety front. They say it, quote, removes the duty of care to prevent

19:51online harm to children. And then they said, noted that it replaces it with this broad preemption language that they said would prevent states from enforcing any laws that conflict with federal provisions. And so this, of course, is a topic that's just going to keep blowing up. But this came just a couple days within a major development within kind of the same policy fight. We saw the White House introduced its National Policy Framework for AI, which essentially called on Congress to establish a blanket federal approach to AI regulation, awarding allowing states of freedom to kind of design their own laws on the matter. So this was specifically AI, but it's all kind of under the same umbrella here. The issue was kind of highlighted by Paxton in an expo she talked about. The upper chamber's version of Kosa, she described it as being a bill that balances federal standards with state rights to enact stronger protections as technology evolved. So some positive words

20:55from Paxton there, the general idea of Kosa, she said this language is crucial. The online landscape evolves rapidly and states must retain the flexibility to respond. So like I said, the signings of the letter included, this is the chamber 31 members, a bipartisan group, equal person breakdown of 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans signed on to this. So along kind of the same lines of this letter, Senator Paxton has sent letters such as this addressing this issue of state control when it comes to regulating the online world. She specifically sent some letters related AI to cruise and cornon, such as one that was in November 2025. And she was requesting that they reject what was going to be a federal moratorium on state's regulation of AI for certain many years. She was arguing that it would strip the state's protective measures. She also sent a similar letter a couple of months earlier

21:57in 2025 when she, it was also having to do with the moratorium on state AI regulations, but that was having to specifically pertain to the one big beautiful bill act back when that was being discussed. And she was urging the two that you need to pull as provision from the bill, although it ended up not being successful in the end. So of course, as we see AI developing so much on just the online world, just racing forward, the clash between state and federal control is just going to be ramping up. It's going to become more spicy. Because of course, we see kind of a clear messaging from the White House on how they like to see this issue handle, at least with their AI framework that they just put out a set of pretty clear message about wanting a blanket federal approach to this and kind of limiting state control. But then we've also got lawmakers, such as the ones that are signed onto this letter who are saying, look, we need to leave kind of the reins in the state's hands on this to allow them don't

23:00tie their hands behind their backs when it comes to this issue. So we'll see, we'll cover where this legislation goes. But this is just an interesting development because it's not all the time you see Texas lawmakers kind of weighing in on something going on at the congressional level, especially a very specific piece of legislation, and specifically talking about a chamber's markup of this piece of legislation. So that speaks volumes, I think, about how important this policy fight is. Absolutely. Maryly thinks for covering that for us. And, you know, I'm just going to plug newsletters all day long in this podcast, apparently, because if you're also interested in the federal side of what's going on in DC, Maryly says, if phenomenal news that are called the 40, specifically detailing all the actions of the 38 Congress members and the two senators from Texas, the 40, and what they've got going on. So go subscribe to the text and get that in your inbox every Thursday morning. Maryly, thank you. And let's go back to some local news here. It's

24:05a municipal election in bond season, spicy. If you don't mind me saying, it's a spicy time. And Fort Worth has several items on the ballot for its residents and give us those details. Well, the quote, tip O'Neill, all politics are local. If anyone on the podcast, listening to podcast knows who tip O'Neill is. But anyway, I'm showing my age, bringing it close to my home for Fort Worth. And there will be many bond packages on book ballots around the state this spring. But residents of Fort Worth specifically will be asked to approve an $845 million bond package and nine charter amendments, including a pay increase for the mayor and city council. And that election will be held on May 2nd. So there are six bond propositions. And the largest of those covers more than half of the total package, 511 million dedicated to streets and other transportation infrastructure projects, kind of the meat and potatoes of city government,

25:08making sure people have streets to drive on. The second largest of those bond propositions for 185 million is for parks, recreation, and open space. Then there's, I know there's one for public libraries. There's one for homeless solutions. So take a look at that. There's six different bond propositions listed in our article. And the city will be holding meetings throughout the next few weeks to allow residents to learn more about those bond propositions and what they'll be used for. Now there are nine city charters. The city charter is like the constitution for the city. It's governing document for the city. And they are proposing nine different amendments. And the one that's most likely to garner the most attention is proposition G. And that would more than double the mayor salary. Mayor Maddie Parker is the current mayor of Fort Worth. And she currently gets a salary of $29,000 annually. And that would be increased to

26:09$60,000. And then the council members salaries would increase from $25,000 to $50,000. Now just a little background for our readers. There was a proposal to raise its salaries by a larger amount. I think they were going to raise the mayor's salary to about $90,000 in 2022 and that measure failed. So they are trying again with a little more modest increase for the mayor's salary. And we'll see how the residents of Fort Worth react to that. But we just encourage our readers to keep an eye on coverage at the Texan. We'll be covering a lot of these municipal elections and bonds. They're very important. They affect people's tax rates at property tax rates. And they are, they're very important to keep an eye on and learn about so that they can vote in an informed way in the May elections. Absolutely. And came here at the forefront at all. Thank you so much. Meredith will come to you. Last plug. I promise Meredith has a phenomenal newsletter called report card and it details an education issue from that week. And it's fascinating

27:13and deep dive on any given thing that's either in the news or top of mind for Meredith who covers education so beautifully here at the Texan. So definitely go check that out as well and subscribe to get that in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Let's talk about the Texas Education Agency. It named a new superintendent and appointed a board of managers for Fort Worth ISD. Bring us up to speed on that situation. Yeah. So Fort Worth ISD has been under state intervention or a state takeover since October. And they announced that they would be doing this. So they went through the process and recently just told us who is going to be taking over. So the new superintendent is named Dr. Peter B. Lakata and he recently was serving in Florida with the six largest school district and Broward County Public Schools and they in the press release they mentioned that he led them to an A rating for the first time in over 14 years. And he has over 30 years of experience and it sounds like he's kind of done it all. So teaching and coaching

28:15and ending with being like the superintendent and also university professor. So he kind of has run the gamut of educational rules. And so he starting this week he's taking over. He is now the superintendent taking over for Dr. Karen Molinar. So there was I think some hope amongst people the current council, the elected council and Mayor Maddie Parker were very supportive of Dr. Karen Molinar. She was invited by the TEA to be a part of the process and then we reported, I think a week or two ago they said that she would not be moving forward. So we knew we would be getting a new superintendent. You can go check out just a little bio about all of the different, the nine member board. The one that stands out is Bobby Adia who is the Dean of the Texas A&M University School of Law. So he kind of has brings the biggest name recognition there. And he does a lot in that role. They mention that he oversees graduate students in healthcare energy finance as the chief operating officer at Texas A&M for worth specifically. And so

29:21yeah, there was a few legal, there's about three or four people that had legal backgrounds, there was a few with business and finance and then a couple that were more of the community nonprofit type. So they kind of let you know where they went to school, what their background is, there was I think at least two parents that are current parents at Fort Worth ISD that are on the board. There's over 300 people that applied. And so yeah, we're in the middle of like a rash of takeovers in the last six months there were four and then used in a couple of years ago as well for specifically academic purposes. And there's a couple on the horizon that we're all keeping an eye on to see what will happen next. So this is something that seems to be just picking up speed and we'll see if this is like a normal part of educational processes in the future. Hopefully, yeah, yeah, we'll just see like which who else will be in line for this type of intervention. Yeah, I remember it's the Houston story being so, I mean, it still is such a big deal,

30:24but then watching more school districts face the same fate is so interesting. Now it's just like, okay, another takeover, it's a little bit less of a headline and it still is, but it's become more commonplace, so it's interesting to watch. And they take over districts for other reasons. There's been some that they make headlines, but it's more like under not understandable, but it's like if there's financial mismanagement, if there's some kind of something that's illegal or there's been yeah, there's been some financial reasons they do that or yeah, some scandals or things like that. But in general, the ones where it's like the kids are not performing the academics are not there. That definitely gets the most backlash from the parents and the boards and the local like the local elected officials because it doesn't seem quite as cut and dry, right? Because it's like a big disc, a lot going on and you're in there just going to come in and so those are the two sides there that some people see it as a good thing. And then some people

31:25obviously see it with the local control issue as a horrible thing. Totally and it's a great distinction Meredith. There are many reasons for a takeover and it's not always the same, but like each take over so individual and it's not always the same as you know the big one the Houston IST situation. They're all for all sorts of different reasons and have different receptions as well. So thanks for keeping an eye on that for us. Kim, let's talk about our show in the FW here. Let's move to the other side. Let's talk about streets and Dallas and why they made news this week. Yes, Mackenzie. It's a topic that has happened around the state and now it's Dallas's turn. Last fall, the Texas Department of Transportation otherwise known as text.issue to state directive about removing decorative pavement markings that didn't comply with state standards. Just a few days prior to that, Governor Abbott had issued a directive to text.to make sure that markings that were associated with political ideologies were removed from streets.

32:29And so Dallas has about 30 rainbow crosswalks in the city and the rainbow crosswalks were painted in around 2020 and they were meant to honor sort of the LGBT communities in and around Dallas. And so they sought an exemption to not have to remove these rainbow crosswalks, but text.did not grant that exemption. So the city of Dallas had to develop a plan for the removal of about 30 crosswalks. They issued a memorandum on March 20th. So last week explaining their plan and that started on this past Monday. And they'll be working on that through about the end of April. They're going to do some of it to coincide with other streetwork that they already had planned, especially in the oak lawn area of Dallas. And other cities like I mentioned have already done this work. City of Houston and the city of San Antonio had to remove theirs as well. They've already completed that work. Austin appears just to be seeking exemptions for some of theirs.

33:35And so those are still pending. So we'll see how that turns out. But this is kind of the anti-DII anti-political ideology movement that was in reaction to a lot that grew up in the 2020 time frame. And so this is this is one of the things that's a result of that. Absolutely. Kim, thanks for your coverage. Barely is coming to you to county GOPs announce a change in the way they'll be conducting the primary runoff election. This follows some big news after the March elections. Walk us through it. Yeah, we're kind of staying in the Dallas area. But so two county GOPs announce that they're going to be changing the way that they conduct the primary runoff election because of a whole lot of confusion that happened on election day. So this is Dallas County in Williamson County GOPs. And so they're working to return to countywide voting for the May primary runoff. After their new system, which required voters

34:40to vote in their signed precinct versus just anywhere in the county, caused a lot of confusion for voters on election day. They said Williamson County and Republican Party said on Facebook posts on Saturday they said we listened to your feedback, your frustrations and your anger. We heard you loud and clear and we made the necessary adjustments to our primary runoff contract to reflect your needs as Republican voters. So something that we've covered was how the Democratic primary US Senate kind of was hanging in the balance pretty late in the night after a lot of races had been called. I remember that night we ended up writing a piece just explaining this voter confusion and why this race had not been called yet. It's probably around 1 a.m. or something. So it wasn't determined yet because reports have been circulating that large numbers of voters in Williamson and Dallas counties were showing up to the wrong voting locations due to confusion over those new requirements. Like I said that it required local residents to cast their votes in their precincts versus just anywhere in the county

35:44which most Texas voters are probably used to doing that you can just go anywhere in your county and you'll be able to vote there. There were around 13,000 Dallas residents that were recorded as having shown up to the wrong polling place on election day. So 13,000. In response, a Dallas County judge this was on election night. A Dallas County judge extended the voting hours until 9 p.m. and this was actually fulfilling the request of both Democratic primary contenders, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and then state representative James Tolerico who were running against each other that night for Democratic nomination for US Senate. And of course polls everywhere else closed as 7 p.m. is they usually do. Then Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stepped in as his own results in the primary for US Senate as we know he yes, Kim. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Mary Elise. Part of the confusion I think was that county wide voting was was happening during early voting is that right? And then it switched to precinct

36:46level voting on voting day? I believe that's correct. Yeah. And so that creates a lot more confusion because a lot of folks were used to one thing when they were voting just not that much earlier or when their neighbors were voting and then it kind of switched and so that's pretty. That can be confusing especially when you're just trying to fit in time to vote before after work. I think one of the concerns was of course that people make one shot at showing up to a voting location after work or something wait in line. But if you show up to the wrong location, odds are that a lot of people are just going to leave and not try and go find the right one, not bother with that. But so Ken Paxton did end up kind of stepping into this dust up. He filed a motion with the Supreme Court of Texas that night to try and halt voting and the require that any of the votes that were cast after the originally scheduled end time of 7 p.m. be separated and that was granted to him. Ultimately, which would cover the race was called for James Hillary go before

37:51the situation was resolved. But that was because I believe about 90% of the votes were accounted for when it was called and he had collected 53% of the vote against crockets. That's why a lot of platforms came out and just called the race for him. The Dallas County Democratic Party shared just about a week or two ago they said they would no longer be pursuing the case in the Supreme Court of Texas, related to the provisional ballots. They cited quote partisan hostility of court. So they said it's just not worth it financially. They said they don't think it's going to go anywhere significant. They said the chair, Carl Coleman, said furthermore continuing to pursue this case in a hostile forum would incur massive legal cost resources that are better spent on the ground protecting our voters. So they essentially pivoted their determined that their resources weren't best spent on this case with the Texas Supreme Court. The Dallas County GOP was the first one to come out and announce, okay, we're going to return to countywide voting for the runoff election.

38:53That was on March 17th and that was just a couple days before Williamson County GOP similarly announced, okay, we'll be doing this too. They said all the GOP remains committed to ensuring voter integrity. And this is Williamson County. Our first and most important duty is to ensure victory at the ballot box. They said one vote lost is too many and in a crucial midterm election year, Republicans must be united behind the goal to win. The Texas Democratic party responded to this kind of pivoting and course said after confusion, the long lines and march caused by their Republican party, this reversal shows what we said all along, making voter making excuse me voting harder only hurts Texans. So Williamson County election administrator needs to sign the amended election contract. I spoke to when this piece went out with Williamson County GOP chair Michelle Evans. She confirmed that this is only for the primary runoff, so to not be confused with that

39:53this is definitely going to be the way it is moving forward. This is specifically going to be the case for primary runoff. And as she also said, she expects that that this contract will definitely be signed by the Williamson County election administrator. And so this is necessary for the election a contract to be approved to be able to switch from this assigned precinct method versus the countywide casting of ballots. The another all out in another statement that Williamson County GOP said Republicans cannot afford to conduct precinct level voting unless and until we are absolutely confident that everyone who is eligible to vote has the opportunity to do so. So I think both Democrats or Republicans could get behind that that one vote lost is too many but we'll see how this pans out on primary runoff day, which is May 26 if I'm not incorrect. And so we'll see if that if kind of the confusion is resolved there. I am curious to see if there will maybe be a little bit

40:55of confusion just because of the way things wound out to be on election night. And now this switch but definitely folks are more used to voting countywide. So we'll see how this pans out. Absolutely Marylies. Thank you. Kim, let's come back to you some more local news that has a statewide, you know, some statewide implications. Corpus Christi has been in the news now for water issues for a while. And this week they voted something else that kind of developed the story is very newsworthy. Walk us through the details. Yes, Mackenzie. So it has been in the news for water issues about a desalination plant. But this week, the main issue in the Corpus Christi City Council was a petition to remove Mayor Paulette Guajardo. So on Tuesday, March 24, the city council voted five to three to move forward with the hearing. They didn't move forward to remove her. They're moving forward to have a hearing about whether or not to remove her. Now the removal hearing is based on a citizen petition. And according to this Corpus Christi

42:00City charter, a citizen position signed by at least five registered voters can ask for and must be granted. It says shall be granted alleging that the petition alleged that the Mayor knew about either forging, forging or altering federal documents involved in a tax incentive case granted by the Corpus Christi City Council. So let me explain a little bit about the petition. It was filed by a resident named Rachel Caballero and it claims that the allegations arose during a civil lawsuit. So it gets a little confusing. There's a civil lawsuit by a hotelier who was trying to get a hotel development named Ajit David that he filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Corpus Christi. And during those proceedings, certain information came out during depositions that led to this citizen petition for removal of the Mayor. The petition alleges that the Mayor violated the law

43:02by knowingly accepting tampered federal documents but also violated the code of ethics required of her as an elected official. The documents, the main one was a FEMA map, a federal emergency management agency map, that appeared differently on the FEMA website than it appeared on a PowerPoint presentation made to the city council and they voted based on the altered what they called the unquote altered map. And the citizens believe that the Mayor she voted in favor of the tax incentive that was granted to a different hotel developer named Philip Ramirez and he is allegedly a campaign donor of the mayor. So there's this whole interaction between a campaign donor and these allegedly altered federal documents and her voting for this tax incentive for this hotel that was being promoted by her campaign donor. Now the Corpus Christi police did look into this matter. They didn't bring any charges. They said nothing rose to the level

44:07of criminal activity. However, the city's threshold is much lower than a criminal case would be and so the city council did vote to move forward at least with the hearing. And so they'll be voting on April 14th to set some of those parameters for that hearing procedures that'll be followed. The mayor is entitled to certain due process protections just like you would be in any court case things like knowing what the written charges against her will be. They may or may not differ from those in the citizen petition. She has a right to a defense. She has a right to call witnesses in her favor. She has a right to notice of the time and place of the hearings, all those kinds of things. And the burden of proof will be on those who brought the petition for her removal. So just very similar to a court case, the city council will act as the trial's effect. They'll be the judge and jury in the in the matter and it'll she can only be removed by a majority vote. And she also may not be removed. They can take different actions. Removal is only one of

45:09the actions they could take. They could vote not to remove her. They could vote to censure her. They could vote to suspend her for a while. So there are different remedies available if they do decide that something needs to be done. Meanwhile, one council member Mark Scott said he voted against moving forward. He said that he feels like citizens are looking at them and they're fiddling while Rome burns to quote him because these water shortage issues are such a big deal. And meanwhile, they're voting about the mayor. So one of one of the issues is that state has given the city of corpus from the water development fund over $500 million in grants. And they voted not to proceed with the desalination plan. We have a lot of coverage at the Texan about these corpus Christi issues. This is just the latest, but this city is kind of in a little bit of a turmoil right now. And I think I read that that the Democrats are going to meet there for their convention, right? So use up some water. That'll be interesting. I will be interesting. Can things

46:10like cover on that for us. Meredith, let's come to you here. East Texas will soon be home to a $16 billion gas fired power facility as part of a larger US and Japan investment agreement. Walk us through the details here and what this means for the state. So Anderson County is getting this significant facility. And it's part of this US and Japan agreement that includes a, it came from a meeting between the Japanese Prime Minister and President Donald Trump in October. And the deal includes things like a 15% tax on Japanese imports and $550 billion Japanese investment fund into the US. And so this is one of the projects that they've tapped. And so we'll be going into the, into Anderson County, it's going to be built and operated by next era energy resources. And it has the capacity to generate up to 5.2 gigawatts of energy and serve large scale energy, the large scale energy demand that Texas is having. So the natural

47:15gas is going to be supplied by a group called Comstack and the facility eventually can potentially consume nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2031. So it is a, it's a big one. The White House said that this facility is going to be able to provide dispatchable powers to poor economic growth and supply chains and even strengthen national security. This is coming as this huge like data center boom here in Texas. A lot of, there's just been a lot of increase in demand for power and for, and I was at this event called Forward Forward where Governor Greg Abbott spoke about all of these types of related issues. And he was just emphasizing Texas's energy capacity said that Texas has more electrical power generation than any other state by far even more than the second and third combined. And he's just like we're going to continue to add more gigabytes every single year. So that, you know, forward, that's the title of the meeting forward,

48:19going forward in that way. But there are growing concerns about some of the resources available, like obviously we were just talking about Corpus Christi and their water situation which does relate, like touches up to some of these issues. But we highlighted a couple in the article. One was represented as state rep Helen Kerwin who wrote a letter to the governor asking knowing that Texas does need to be competitive and she said in the global race for advanced technology but asking for a pause. She said, you know, we're just beginning to see large scale data center development rapidly targeting nearby areas of her district. They're looking for dependable power and water access and that there's certain projects that are attempting she said to move forward quietly before the communities have the opportunity to fully understand the potential impacts. And so she's just asking, could there be an immediate pause on the advancement of these large scale data center developments until the rural communities can really see like the impact that it's going to happen.

49:19There's a popular story that I saw online about someone being offered 26 million dollars for farmland for a data center and she had turned it down and so that was getting people like, yes, we don't want everything to be taken over by data center. So there's like definitely the rural but yet the forward motion of technology tension that exists there. Also, representative Erin Zweiner from Drift the Drift Ward area. She announced that she's going to be having this working group in Hays County focusing on data center impacts and she just, you know, said our region's been experiencing a drought for years. Waterways like Onion Creek and the Blanco River have run dry and so, you know, people are cutting back on water use just to see, she said to see rates, she's talking about rate skyrocketing energy rates for people and so she is also highlighting this issue that will be something that I'm in the coming. In the coming legislative session is going to be obviously a big deal and so as they're attracting all these big global investors, there's this huge demand and so, you know, there seems to be somewhat of

50:24like a growing bipartisan support for some kind of pause or even just fully like investigating and looking into all of this to understand what's happening before it just takes off. Absolutely and growing pains all around for a state that's always ranked in the top for growth in the nation and some of these counties that we're talking about are ranked in the top 10. So, Mayor, to thank you so much for your coverage there. Kim, let's talk about text scams. The last story before you get our Tweeterie, walk us through the warning that the Dallas police issued regarding the text scam locally. Well, McKenzie, this was kind of personal to me because I got one of these texts. The Dallas police department issued a warning to local residents and not just in Dallas, but in the area about a text scam that is being sent. It's got a picture of what a report to be a citation seeking payment for either a traffic or toll violation. It has a fake

51:26judge's name on it. It has a case number, but most importantly, it has a QR code at the bottom that it asks people to scan and send money to. And the Dallas police informed people that the Dallas Municipal Court does not send out these kinds of texts that this is fake and that they should not send any money to it. This is not new. Last fall, there was a similar text scam issue that arose in Harris County. The Harris County District Clerk's office had appeared to be from them, but obviously it was a fake asking again for payment. And then last July, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles put out a warning about fake text messages for unpaid traffic tickets. And they threaten people that they're going to have their license suspended if they don't pay it and stuff, so they really try to make people afraid to not pay these so-called violations. The Dallas police gave the advice to never respond to them, to never send money to them,

52:27to delete the message right away. If they did fall for it and sent money to contact the police and also to contact their bank or their credit card that they used to make the fraudulent payment to try to get it stopped. So they are investigating. It's hard to track these scammers down. They aren't necessarily found all the time. But anyway, local residents should watch off. They get a picture of a so-called traffic violation from the Dallas Municipal Court or any other local court they should not pay it. That is not how they'll be contacted if they have a traffic violation. So just a public service announcement. Public service announcement can thank you. Let's move on to our tweeterie for this week. Mary, at least I want to start with you because this is what I was going to pick. So I'm a little, I'm a little salty about it, but let's chat about I can't wait to talk about it. Yeah, it was too good not to include a tweeter. I'm sorry, though, that I boldest your idea, but at least somebody's talking about it. How dare you?

53:30So there are reports out that there are cocaine-fueled sharks that are on the prowl in the Caribbean and scientists are blaming and partying tourists. I can just see a movie writing itself here. This would be very interesting, but you know, I also want to say something funny about how, you know, this is why I don't swim in the ocean and as someone who's a little bit scared of going too deep in the ocean because of sharks, this just adds fuel to the fire. I mean, like imagine a cocaine fueled shark, like not just a shark, but one that's on cocaine. That just, yeah, that sounds like something of a nightmare, but I'm very interesting news. It is. I think it also says a lot about maybe these resort areas. Yeah. That's crazy. Meredith, what do you have? Though speaking of movies, there is a movie called Cocaine Bear, where a bear in the woods. That's right. Yeah, I didn't watch it. I do not. Not my vibe, but I'm just interested.

54:33So it has written itself. Not the first time something like this has happened. The sequel. I forgot about that. Cocaine Bear, like I remember that trailer dropped. I think I received it via text like four times. People were, I don't know, what it was about that movie that made people just like that trailer just erupt and want to talk about it, but it was all over the place when it came out. And I definitely did not see it either. I didn't really care to see a cocaine bear on my screen, but I know I'm in, I know there are plenty of people who did. Meredith, what do you have for us? Well, mine was yesterday at Melania Trump hosted different. I think they were, I know that one was like the wife of the president of France, and I think they were all women. And it was about, she really made this emphasis. She came walked out with a robot and then sat down and proceeded to, and I had to go look at the

55:35actual video to make sure it wasn't clipped weird or something like I wasn't understanding it. But she proceeded to suggest that humanoid teachers would be good for children to help them be a more well-rounded and like balanced human being and that robots teaching our children is like some kind of future of education. And so the education Twitter world erupted because, and people were like, I saw people saying, I was even hesitant to post this. It's so ridiculous. And I don't, you know, we don't make a lot of statements at the text, but I thought it was a bipartisan cube robot should not be teaching our children. I didn't know about that one. But she was so serious in talking about learning classical education from a robot. It felt truly like a scene from the Hunger Games meets SNL. I just didn't know. It was so odd. And then the robot introduced itself and greeted people in all these different languages. I think we're represented at the table. And had what

56:36people describe as this valley girl accent. I mean, beyond the new. I mean, she, I'm not a friend to accent. It's not amazing. But I just was like trying to listen. There was some kind of, I think, probably Russian or Islamic language that it was just so butchered all of them. And I just thought it just felt so real. And also, it's just such a bad idea. I just cannot move it coming from the way out. That's just, yeah, that was a weird, weird thing to watch. So I saw her accent cracked me up after the robot. When she introduced herself, it was just, it was hilarious because it sounded like maybe someone in high school that was like, hey, my name is, you know, whatever. And she's trying to tell me that kids will learn better from this robot about the Odyssey or whatever she's talking about to classical. So they could go play sports and have more time. And I was just like, I'm not. Classically educated, my children homeschooled them. And I guess I should have had a humanoid robot doing it instead. Yeah.

57:38I'm sure I've done a much better job than the, my children might think so. Then their mother who knows her children. Wild. All I can think is Charlotte Mason is rolling over in her grave. I think, I think that there could be some truly like both sides of the aisle of education agreeing on this. This was, I saw, forget, I mean Charlotte Mason, of course, she's rolled over on a grave about a lot of things because she's a very specific style. But I think even public, you know, public school teachers, people that are for AI and different things. This is, I think this takes it to the next level that is just okay. Anyway, I'm done. That's my, that was hard for me. Oh, that one's a tough one. Absolutely. I do think that there are more and more things that have, like these dystopian movies or novels that have come out and like you think about the Hunger Games. And I mean, that's a very broadly accepted one, but I'm not talking about all sorts, you know, dating back for far longer. And some of these trends in AI or humanoid teachers

58:41just kind of hit a little too close to home. It's a wild, wild time. Him, what do you have for us? I think this is appropriate considering how we opened up the pot. Yeah, I was thinking we could say we're circling back to the beginning of the podcast. But in my love of state parks, I saw this announcement that Caprock canyons up near the panhandle will be growing that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced that it had acquired more land to add to Caprock canyons. I've been to Caprock canyons. It's beautiful. There's actually a series of parks that the park ranger told you should visit. And they're all part of the same geological formations. You should start at copper breaks and then it go to Caprock and then go to Paladero and you'll see the geological formation grow. So just in case anyone's wondering the order they should visit those in, we did it backwards. But it's still beautiful. The Texas buffalo herd, sorry, bison. Texas bison herd is there and it's they're just wandering around among people and you can

59:45take pictures really close up of them. And it's a very beautiful park and it's going to grow to over 17,500 acres. So I encourage people. I was excited to see that. It's part of the continued acquisition of land that Texas Parks and Wildlife is doing. And they'll be growing Caprock canyons. So go take a peek. But not in the summer. Too hot. And don't take a peek too close to the bison. Because we've all seen those headlines. Be smart. Don't be one of those people that's like taking selfies. Keep your distance. That's right. And if you don't listen to my bison, it's just a recipe for disaster. I quickly want to hit interim charges. House interim charges came out while we're recording here. So Mary Lee's has been diving into those even as we speak. But I don't have a tentative. I haven't been able to parse through all of them. But keep an eye out. We'll definitely have that up at the Texan by the time this podcast is out. So keep an eye on that. But interim charges are essentially what the legislature is tasked with investigating or researching,

1:00:46having hearings on ahead of the legislative session. So it's a lot of groundwork that's being laid ahead of the session. So the lawmakers can talk to stakeholders, talk to activists, citizens to ensure that they're hitting the issues that are top of mind or even approaching as potential issues for the state. So I mean, this could be anything from water to social issues. I mean, this is everything. So the sentence already released there is the houses has theirs out now. And it would be an option to compare and kind of see what each chamber is prioritizing. But Mary, is there any top of line takeaways that you have as you've skimmed? Well, the speaker did. This is probably one of the more notable things. Speaker Dustin Brose did create three new select committees. So it's governmental oversight, health care, affordability, and then general aviation. So those are three new ones that it'll be interesting to I haven't dove into what exactly this committee's will be responsible for and what he's listed under there. But we'll have that in the piece of sure. Yeah, absolutely. Meredith, what you got?

1:01:50I was just peeking at the education ones and eliminating educator misconduct was on that one, which has been hot topic we've talked a lot about. And I just posted that we've been following the saline ISD and recently they just took away and put the father and son both on the do not hire registry, which we interviewed the new we interview the new inspector general of educator misconduct. And that is on the texan. And so it's great to see that as a line of something that they're going to be continue to look and do. Number of absolutely timely as always. And I think either whether it be student or educator misconduct or behavioral issues or top of mind for a legislature last session and now this session. So I'll be interested to see what the approaches and the angle for the legislation. I think it's kind of starting to take shape already, but it will be these interviews provide a lot of clarity on what work people are thinking what people are thinking. And as hearings happen, we'll kill for those as well. Well, ladies, thank you so much for joining

1:02:50another episode. We appreciate it. I'm loving this all ladies thing we've got going on in a Rob September for me last week as I was sick. So Rob, thank you for doing that. He's a rock star. But regardless, great to be on another edition of the weekly round up with you ladies. Folks, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to the texan at the texan.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 thetexan.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 round up. God bless you and God bless Texas.