Battling the Billionaires

you Welcome to The Texas Take. I'm Jeremy Wallace of the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express News, and we're hitting the road today, y'all. We're going to spend a little time in Corpus Christi. On the Corpus Christi Bay I'd get off and drink till daylight Sleep the morning right away That's Johnny Rodriguez doing a cover of one of my favorite Robert Earl Keene songs, Corpus Christi Bay. And we're going to spend some time in the Rio Grande Valley.

That's George Strait, of course. He's doing his song, Take Me to Texas There. And we're even going to head out west to the little tiny loving county. And the frost on the windshield shines towards the sky. Like a thousand tiny diamonds in the lights of Loving County. And that's the late, great Charlie Robeson doing Loving County, of course. Well, we at the Texas Take World Headquarters love covering our Texas capital. You know that's our bread and butter.

But we can't resist getting out on the open road. From Muleshoe to Port Arthur, Texarkana to Laredo, I am not shy about blowing out a set of tires on my car. But thankfully, this week, I had a lot of help getting around this state. Reporter Megan Kimball will join us shortly to talk about how the eighth largest city in Texas is running out of water fast. And man, it is getting really heated down there. At a city council meeting last month.

Three people were hauled away by the police. Several actually cried at the microphone and tempers were flaring during a nearly 13 hour long meeting. Seriously, a meeting about water. That's how big it's gotten. Meanwhile, investigative reporter Eric Dexheimer is going to be stopping by later to talk about how a band of residents from Indiana are preparing to take over the county government in Loving County. Seriously.

a takeover. They have this whole plan to register voters and elect enough of their people to take over control of the county government out there. It's a very oil rich area. So, you know, they have some money out there. But first, let's start with the Texas governor's race. It's finally starting to heat up. Governor Greg Abbott has already announced he will seek re-election to a record-breaking fourth four-year term as governor.

And he's had no significant primary challenges so far jump into the race to take him on like they did in 2022. Remember when we had Don Huffines and Alan West both jump into the race? No such problem so far for Abbott. We previously told you about Andrew White, the son of the former governor, Mark White, announcing that he's going to run as a Democrat again. You'll remember he ran once again in 2018, didn't make it out of the primary, but thinks this time he can pull it off.

Well, now we have State Representative Gina Hinojosa jumping into the race. Hinojosa has represented a core piece of Austin in the Texas House of Representatives since 2017. Before that, she was a member of the Austin ISD School Board. But hey, here's the thing. She's originally from the Rio Grande Valley. And that is where she officially kicked off her campaign for governor. No te dejes. Fight back.

That's the lesson my grandmother taught me growing up right here in the valley. In my hardest fights, I hear her voice tell me, no te dejes. My name is Gina Hinojosa, and I'm running for governor of Texas. Our fight right now is against the billionaires and the corporations who are driving up prices, closing our neighborhood schools, and cheating Texans out of basic health care. That's who Greg Abbott works for. I'm running for governor to work for you.

I'm so happy to have Gina Hinojosa on the show with me now to tell me why are you running for governor? What made you decide that this is your next big step? Because, Jeremy, I know too much. After... almost a decade in the Texas House, I know what Texans mostly suspect, and that's that we have a bad corruption problem in state government. And what I have seen...

What I have learned in my decade in the House is that corruption is the single biggest driver of major legislation in the Texas legislature. And the only way Texans will have the state that we deserve is if we change leadership at the very top. And that starts with Governor Abbott.

When you're talking about corruption, are you talking about money in the system that pays for contracts? It just feels like there's a lot of money in our state system right now. Big donors get big jobs. Are we talking about that kind of thing? Right. We're talking about all sorts of things, right? I don't know if you remember when Law Larson was in the Texas House, a Republican from the San Antonio area. He hammered on the governor for his...

pay-to-play appointments to various committees and boards. You had to be a major donor of the governor to get an appointment. opened my eyes originally to what was going on, but I will say it was serving on the public education committee where every single piece of major legislation, I'm talking hundreds of millions of dollars. taxpayer dollars that went out the door were going to vendor contracts of well-connected, wealthy, corrupt elites. And it is especially...

when it comes to our public education dollars because we know that our teachers are terribly underpaid. Our teachers in Texas make $10,000 below the national average. We know that schools are shutting down all over. this state, and that our kids need this money for basic education, and they're not getting it because our taxpayer dollars are going to pad the pockets of the billionaire class.

And then if you'll remember, like, don't even just take my word for it. Did you see the report by independent watchdog public citizen about three weeks ago now that showed the governor? is giving no-bid contracts, almost a billion dollars in no-bid contracts to his donors, right? There it is documented. And this is mostly under these emergency executive orders that he signs every month and that he's been signing every month since 2020. This is a level of corruption.

that I don't know we've ever seen in Texas before. Certainly, I've never seen this level of corruption documented. It is out of control. It is the driving force in our state government. It needs to end. We will never have the Texas we deserve so long as our governor can be bought.

Well, it raises that one question, particularly on education. We know Jeff Yass, the billionaire out of Pennsylvania, gave the Governor Abbott $6 million, essentially, to be able to push the school voucher. initiative. Now we have contracts being awarded to companies that the YAS Foundation

Certainly is in support of. So the people who are going to be running the voucher program have at least some at least support from Jeffrey Yass. So it's like it seems like it's all connected. And of course, Jeffrey Yass was at the signing at the governor's mansion. for the actual voucher legislation, which leads to this bigger question on education. With all due respect to the previous Democrats who have run for governor, they haven't pushed an education-focused initiative.

in a governor's race in the past. It sounds like you have the potential tools to really make yourself the candidate to really change the way Texas is approaching education, right? Well, absolutely, but it is a change that the vast majority of parents and teachers in this state want. There is a reason why my message during the last

two legislative sessions on the Public Education Committee resonated with Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike. There's a reason why my ride or die on this voucher fight often were MAGA moms. right? Because they see the corruption. They know our kids aren't getting what they need in our neighborhood public schools. You mentioned the Odyssey contract. That is a great example because let's take a look at that for a minute.

That is a $50 million contract to an out-of-state vendor that never needed to be awarded. The bill, as it is written, allows for the comptroller to administer this program. They did not have to outsource. So now we have not just the outsourcing of public education to a private school, we have The job of the outsourcing is done by a private entity, right? It's ridiculous. It is just a big grift. It's an opportunity for people to make money. That's $50 million out the door, $50 million.

of taxpayer money out the door before any student sits there behind in a desk in a classroom. And that's what this whole voucher scam is about. It's about opportunities for people to make money off our public school dollars.

Now, obviously, Governor Abbott is going to have maybe all the money in the world seemingly to run for reelection. His campaign account is overflowing with a lot of the money from the billionaires that we've talked about before. So he has a ton of money going into this. How does Gina Hinojosa overcome that to become the next governor? It's like your eyes are wide open on this, right?

Well, right. He can have the money and I'll have the people. How about that? We'll make that deal. But let me say, you don't get that kind of money as governor of a state if you're doing the work of the people. That campaign... coffer is a direct result of his corruption. That is what we are running on. That is the problem.

in this state. That is why our schools aren't getting their funding. That's why schools are closing. That's why we worry about the electric grid. That's why our utility prices have gone way up. That's why... Healthcare is unaffordable. This list goes on and on. This is Greg Abbott's record. He has been governor for...

almost 12 years. He wants an unprecedented fourth term. This man has been in state elected office for over a quarter of a century, and Texans are struggling more, not less. Their lives are no better. In fact, They are in many ways harder under Governor Greg Abbott, and it's time for change. And that is the sentiment that I am hearing all across this state.

I can imagine that it won't be too hard for them to say, look, Gina Hinojosa is just another liberal from Austin who's trying to take over the government. But you have roots way beyond Austin. Tell us a little bit about where you're from. and how you got to this point. Right. So while I am proud of my service in the Texas house for Austin, I'm actually not from Austin. I am from the real Grand Valley, born, raised, baptized, and married.

And that is why it was important for me to launch my campaign in the Valley. But let's speak about these partisan and political labels. I really don't even think that the label conservative and liberal. apply to politics today. We've heard a lot about the top and the bottom, right? I think that we are in a place in politics back to kind of democratic populist roots, right? Back to LBJ's was his grandfather and the farmers alliance. It's this populism that comes from...

Texas, when the people felt that they were being taken advantage of by big business, big industry, and they organized and they fought back. That's where we are in Texas in 2025. I think there is a real alignment. It's why the same people who voted for Bernie, some of them, are the same people who voted for Trump, some of them, right? It is a desire to shake up.

the system because the system has not been working for too many people, for most people. And in fact, the system in Texas is terribly corrupt.

Coming out of the legislative session combined with President Trump's first, you know, now nine months in office, there's a lot of disheartened Democrats out there. Are they past the point of being able to, you know, get excited? again about politics? What do you see out there and what do you tell those Democrats out there who have just seen

pretty much their world turned upside down, right? They see this world where Trump is in the White House and Greg Abbott has done what he's done in these last six to eight months. What do you tell these people to keep them fired up and getting ready for this cycle where you're going to need their support? Two things. One is the cynicism is what they want from us. They want us to think that this fight is already over. They want us to think that their power is inevitable.

But what I am hearing out all across this state is that people want change. And the polling that we've seen lately indicates the same. The other thing that people need to look at is recent history. This is the midterm after Trump. What happened in the last midterm after Trump? The Texas House picked up 12 seat Democratic seats in the House. That was really just with shoe leather.

No real investment in these races. I think had we been prepared, had we invested the way you need to invest in a battleground state, we would have flipped the Texas house. We were caught flat-footed in 2018. We cannot allow ourselves to miss this opportunity in 2026. Recent history and polling tell us this is our election. Now, of course, there are no guarantees. Of course, this is a hard fight. And in many ways, we are the underdog. But I will say that standing where we are.

in October of 2025, I like what I am seeing. And there is every reason to believe that this should be our election if we do what we have to do, if we do the work and if we play our cards right. Well, and the last thought I have on this is, look, it's been a long time since we've seen a Democrat in the governor's mansion. We have to go back to Ann Richards, the last time any of us have seen that. That's a long time ago. So what's the secret here?

people like why is this a real legitimate shot at not just you know another sacrificial lamb to you know a republican state that just has not allowed a democrat to break through in a long time I just think we're at a different place in our history in politics. Politics, as usual, just is not going to cut it anymore.

You see this both on the Republican and Democratic side. People want something different. People want change. Greg Abbott is status quo. He is more of the same. Again, if recent history... is any indication this is our election. We also have a Senate seat that is attracting a lot of national attention that could determine potentially who controls the U.S. Senate. We have several congressional seats.

in Texas that could determine who controls the U.S. House. And national players are very interested in Texas right now for another reason, because we know that the end of this decade... Texas stands to gain another five members of Congress. This midterm is going to be our best chance to flip seats in time for redistricting.

because this is the midterm after Trump. If we do not flip Texas, by the time that redistricting happens at the end of this decade, there will not be Democratic control of the U.S. Congress. Democrats can't win the White House because the numbers, the math will not work. Texas will be taking seats and electoral votes from blue states.

And you need Texas to get there. So for all these reasons, Texas is battleground. And finally, I am hearing from national Democrats, including... our chair of the DNC, that Texas is a priority, this election cycle, and I'm going to make sure we do everything. We can everything in our power to take advantage of what I see as a perfect storm of opportunities. Certainly feels like 2026 is.

building up to be something really big in the state. We've talked about it on the show. We already have 225 candidates who have filed to run for Congress around the state of Texas. We only have 38 seats. You can tell there's an energy brewing for 2020. And obviously a Senate race that's drawn seems like a cast of millions into that contest, both on the Republican side and the Democratic side. So there's a lot of energy and excitement, like I think going into the cycle, how it all plays out.

anybody's guess, but I can't thank you enough for taking the time out to be on The Texas Take and joining the long list of people. We've had Governor Abbott on here. We've had Ted Cruz. We've now had Gina Hinojosa and Colin Allred and James Tallarico. So we're getting all... the big names on here. Thank you so much for joining the show and good luck on the camping trail. You know, I'll see you out there somewhere. We'll see you. Thank you.

Now, let's bust on down I-37 to Corpus, y'all. You'll hear a lot of places dealing with water issues, right? Droughts and water restrictions. But Corpus is facing something entirely more frightening. The city of nearly 400,000 is... running out of water and struggling to figure out how to deal with the crisis.

On the official city website, they have actually created a countdown clock that's going to line up with when they're going to have to put in even more serious water restrictions as reservoirs start running dry. It could shut off water for thousands of homes and businesses. It's why the community years ago initially started trying to build a desalinization plant. That's one of those plants that takes seawater and tries to get the salt out of there so it can be usable in the city.

But what started off as a $220 million project has ballooned over the years. It's now estimated to be $1.2 billion and potentially even more. And that's going to all be on the taxpayers. They're talking about much higher water rates in order to pay for it. The problem? The water needs are mostly designed to help the region's petrochemical industry.

which are mostly outside the city limits, but they're the biggest employers in the region. Let's just say residents are fuming that they're being asked to pick up the tab for the project that could get even more expensive, like I mentioned.

But they're afraid they're going to get the tab for this thing, but it's really only helping these big businesses. Meanwhile, the city's struggling to build sidewalks, can't keep libraries open, and is not even doing a very good job with animal control if you listen to some of the residents down there.

Here's Tristan Cloutis during the meeting. This plant is risky, it is costly, and the people who greatly outnumber the corporate representatives here have made it clear that we do not want desalination. Not now, not ever. But others are worried about what's going to happen if they don't do something. Here's one business owner, Paul Johnson, at that same meeting. And I can't open my doors without water.

I can't do anything without water. Finally, here's Amanda Breland questioning who is the real beneficiary of the project in the end. I do this because I'm so sick of this area being sacrificed to the highest bidder. I may not have the numbers or the science as others do, but I do have enough of a conscience and deep love for my community, its people, and the environment to know that allowing this desalination plant to be built would have a devastating effect.

As confirmed in previous city council meetings, we are not going to run out of water. So what is the goddamn point of this whole thing anyway? But that apparently crossed the line with the city council. When she said the word goddamn. all heck broke out. Listen to this. I'm sorry. There's no profanity. So your time ends, ma'am. I'm sorry. Rebecca, can we... Yeah, she's right. No, your profanity. Thank you. That was Breland being pulled out of the meeting by police.

One of three people who ended up being hauled out during that marathon session. It really got rough, y'all. I've never seen so much emotion over an issue about a water plant. I've covered governments and local governments for... going on 30 years here, and I haven't seen quite anything like this. The city council downed the project in the end. It was in the wee hours of the morning the next day, but they finally did it. Here's city councilman Gil Hernandez explaining.

Why? So that's where we are. This is the biggest issue we have with this project. It costs too much. Well, thankfully, I have Megan Kimball with me to help break all this down. Megan, tell us what happened with that vote and where do things stand right now in Corpus Christi? So City Council voted to stop work on this project. They essentially canceled.

a contract. They would have had to pay $50 million to their contractor to continue work on the project. They said, no, we're not going to pay that. So the project is in limbo. They have until the end of October to officially cancel the contract. As of about a week ago, they were talking about Other options, going to another bidder, starting the process overall together.

I think, though, the political momentum behind pursuing this project has really sputtered. And a lot of the people I spoke with said, yeah, this is effectively dead. But it's not officially dead yet. Well, and this is a big deal. Like I mentioned, this is 400,000 people. This isn't.

a small community here in a huge petrochemical industry that relies on the water, you know, in that area. It's like, but it seems to be a political. dynamic here where like these projects are so expensive that cities are like you know you've heard the struggle you know where people are fighting and like so much emotion you know like there's almost no political will to take on a project like this unless the state

going to help more. So where are we with the state? Does the state help these communities at all to do these desalinization plants or any other water restriction prevention? techniques, I guess. Yeah. So the state helps. The state had committed almost 700 million or excuse me, more than 700 million in low interest financing through a revolving fund called SWIFT. Corpus Christi had already taken out basically more than $200 million of that debt.

They also have grants that they can give to cities like Corpus Christi. In 2023, voters approved a new water supply fund that has some money, about $200 million in it, that's available for grants. And in November, voters will go back and consider allocating even more. money for a new water supply.

about a billion dollars a year that will be split evenly between aging infrastructure and new supply. So there is state money coming online to fund these projects. The problem is, as you said, desalination is so extraordinarily expensive. it's almost too expensive for a city on its own to take on. You know, and that was really the thing that doomed this project is the cost.

Yeah, it seems like each time they had a delay in the project, you know, they said that, you know, initially they came back with a $50 million just plan. And then, you know, they went for more bids.

ballooned to 90 million almost overnight when they did that. And some of that is because the scope of the project expanded. They went from 10 million gallons a day to 20 to 30 million gallons a day. So it's just became a bigger plant to process more water. And you know, since 2019, everyone listening to this podcast knows inflation

went crazy. So the cost of construction went up. And, you know, those are legitimate reasons for that price to go up. But I think city leaders really balked at the amount of debt they would have to take on. And while I'm certainly concerned about our friends in Corpus Christi running out of water, this is... important well beyond Corpus Christi, as far as I can tell, right? What does this mean for the rest of the state? And what does this portend for us with our water supply everywhere?

Texas's growth really hinges on access to water. The state cannot continue to grow as it has grown for businesses and population unless it secures new water sources. And a lot of water experts will say, you know, it's not that we've run out of water. of cheap water. The surface water, the groundwater, that is basically depleted or allocated. And so what we have now is we have to go find expensive water. And desalination is incredibly expensive water.

There are other proposals. You can desalinate brackish groundwater. You can treat water that comes out of oil fields. All of that is phenomenally expensive. So who's going to pay for that is the big existential question facing Texas. And at what cost are we willing?

to accommodate all of this growth. That also, you know, desalination has enormous environmental costs. And so a lot of the local opposition in Corpus Christi is going to be true statewide that like to get access to this water, there's a huge environmental cost to that as well.

Well, there's a huge industry component to this, not just, as we mentioned, Corpus Christi has this petrochemical industry that needs the water. They're putting the strain on the water system there. That's why a lot of the residents were like, wait a minute, they're putting the strain out. Why aren't they paying for it? we getting massively higher utility bills.

off of them and i think about other places in the state as we do these crypto mining projects as we do all these other you know big businesses growing up around abilene like they're sucking so much water in electricity is like at what point is there conversation, will businesses ultimately have to pay more to get water or is this still going to be mostly trying to stick it to the government?

I mean, Texas, you know, Texas leaders, their party line is like growth at all costs. We want businesses to come here. We want people to move here. We want to provide jobs to these people. And so we're willing to pay whatever it takes to get the water.

to support those businesses coming here. But I think the question of are those businesses going to pay for that water is the, that's the big question right now is who pays for it? Is it ratepayers, you know, ordinary people who just want their faucets to work? Or is it these, you know, these billion-dollar industries that don't actually employ that many people at the end of the day, that is an open question.

Well, your story on what's happening in Corpus Christi is really important, the desalination. But you've been covering water issues in the Texas legislature all this last session. This has been a continuous debate. about what do we do next? What is the difficulties that you're hearing with the legislature, what they can and can't do? Like, bring us up to speed with where the legislature has left our water shortage right now.

I mean, in this session in 2025, the regular session, the legislature really prioritized water. So, you know, a lot of people said it's a water session. They passed these bills that will allocate $20 billion over the next 20 years to water infrastructure and water support. The problem is that's really like a, you know, a drop in the bucket of what's needed. Texas 2036, which is a nonpartisan think tank, has estimated the needed about $150 billion. So that $20 billion.

is a fraction of what we need. Part of the problem is not just that we need new supply, it's that our infrastructure is aging. So we lose a ton of water to waste as pipes leak. wastewater treatment plants are, you know, decades old and need to be replaced. So there's a huge need for just basic kind of boring water infrastructure. in addition to these very costly kind of much more bright and shiny new water supply projects. And there's just not really enough money currently allocated to...

support those projects. I mean, that $20 billion was heralded as a huge investment. I will note in that same budget, state leaders have put $50 billion to property tax relief. So we are not prioritizing water infrastructure in the same way that we are other kinds of relief and funding.

Yeah. So there's still it's still Texas. Right. You know, we still want these businesses coming here and we'll sort out the water situation later. Right. But we see the conflict that's been creating. You know, in South Texas, we've seen the sugar industry is gone. was left there, they're gone because they don't have enough water to be able to...

Continual operating mills. There was a mill that had been there for 100 years. They finally just packed up and shut the thing down. It's agriculture. It's the crypto. It's the Starlink projects that are going on out in Abilene, out by El Paso. All taking on more water and electricity. And the question is, like, when will the legislature have all hands on deck? You know, again, I always see Charles Perry, the senator from Lubbock, dealing with this issue. But I don't get the sense that the.

entire Senate is quite rowing on this thing, feeling the pain of this thing. Are there other communities that are going to start running out of water here, like in the way Corpus Christi is?

I mean, what is so interesting to me about Corpus Christi, to your first point, is like this is the first time where we've really seen a very massive influential industry threatened by water scarcity. I mean, agriculture is a huge economy in the state, but it doesn't have quite the same sway in the capital and with leaders as the petrochemical industry does.

which is why you saw Abbott write and talk to city council leaders down in Corbis saying, hey, we need to get this project back on track, that there's a real financial stake with these petrochemical businesses. But yeah, there are other...

communities across the state that are going to face these very existential problems around water. I mean, Texas's urban areas are running out of water. Dallas-Fort Worth is running out of water. Austin is running out of water. San Antonio, you know, population growth continues as it has.

These places are really going to be threatened. And what you see, I reported earlier this summer about a battle happening in East Texas where, you know, all that growth has happened on the I-35 corridor and, you know, city leaders and businesses there are looking east to rural East Texas. to take their groundwater. And East Texans don't like that and they're fighting back. And so now you're seeing...

regions of the state that have historically not been a part of the quote-unquote water wars. You know, East Texas we all think of as a very water-rich place. They feel threatened by the growth in areas like Austin and Dallas that their water is going to get taken.

Yeah, I think it's important, like, a lot of that stress in Corpus Christi, if they do run out of water, that's going to affect well beyond that, right? We're talking about, you know, go out to Odessa and Midland. You know, a lot of the water needs that they're, you know, dealing with in Corpus Christi is related to fracking.

You know, fracking, that fracking industry, guess where they're sending their product? They're sending it to Corpus Christi to be refined, get through those refineries before it gets shipped out. What happens in Corpus Christi is going to have a big effect on what's happening out in the economies of Midland, Odessa, and the entire Permian Basin. Any place that they're doing fracking and sending that material back to Corpus Christi, they're all going to be impacted.

So while we can see this as the tension and the anger and the frustration you heard in that Corpus Christi fight, this is so much bigger than Corpus Christi. corporate christianity y'all it's like this is a big problem for the entire state and now we're like you mentioned we're now starting to feel it in places that we didn't expect to feel it you expect lubbock to run out of water right it's a dry arid area and whatever industry they do have you know

depletes it pretty quickly. And the farming industry obviously will tell you trying to find water is hard, but now we're just feeling it everywhere. Like you mentioned that East Texas part where East Texas is worried about their water. You're like, oh my gosh, it rains all the time, right? How can they be worried?

about water, but these additional industries are coming. Growth is great, but how do you pay for that growth? And when people say that, it also means how do you pay for the infrastructure? And this, I think, is a classic case on this whole issue.

Yeah, and it's worth remembering that one of the reasons that Corpus Christi is in such a dire situation is that it is in, you know, year seven of a very severe drought. And that is not going to stop that. It's going to affect every place in Texas. This is a drought-prone state. And as the climate changes, those are only... going to get more intense, more severe. And so places that we didn't think of as being water scarce are suddenly going to be scrambling for this resource.

Definitely y'all want to check out Megan Kimball's story on the desalinization plant down in Corpus Christi and all her water coverage. You can find it at the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express News, the Austin American Statesman. You know, she's been on top of all this stuff. So definitely check out.

her work. And thanks a lot for joining us on The Texas Take. Thanks for having me. Now, let's get out west. I want to take you way out down I-10, basically as far as you can go in Texas. We're going to Loving County, which is... really often forgotten in texas you know because it's such a small county it's basically new mexico and it has a really small population with about you know fewer than 100 people living out there you might be at a fit in the entire population

into a water burger i'm not kidding it's like it might be the double decker water burger down in corpus christi but you get the point it's a pretty small place but it's that size that is exactly what has attracted a band of new residents to move out there i am Eric Dexheimer with me, who's been following what's been going on out there and will clue us in and what is going on. So who are these people going out to Loving County and what is their purpose out there?

So these folks have been invited out there or lured out there by a guy named Dr. Malcolm Tanner. He's a resident of... Indiana. He's this kind of mysterious but charismatic and slightly divisive figure who has a large social media following. He has been promising them free houses. And a $5,000 monthly stipend if they move out there to two five-acre parcels that he purchased in the beginning of the year. And if they set up permanent shop there, he wants them to register to vote.

And once they register to vote, his intention is to start winning countywide offices. So, so far, there's been about three dozen people who've moved out there. According to the people I've spoken to, they have come from all over, really, not just the Midwest. Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, a few from Texas. And so far as I know, about 15 have successfully registered to vote.

Oh, well, that's actually a lot for that county because there are elections out there where there might be like, you know, 40, 50 people entirely on the voter rolls. Right. So, you know, even 15 people is really going to have an impact. Yeah. So if you look at the kind of precinct offices like county commissioner, those can be one with a dozen votes for the countywide positions like sheriff, the county judge, which in Texas is the highest administrative office.

in the government. Those can be one with a few dozen, you know, four dozen, maybe five dozen votes. One of the glitches and attractions for this group in Loving County is that it has... a history of very, very loose voter registration. So as a result, it has this quirk of having about, as you pointed out, you know, a few dozen residents, I think 64 to 70 in the last count. but well over 100 registered voters. That seems to be a math problem, I think.

Yeah, math or electoral problem. Most of them are members of kind of longtime Levin County families who have moved away or their relatives. kind of kept their political home in Loving County for the purposes of voting. Because of that kind of disconnect, most elections there are challenged in court with a number of people being struck off the rolls because of improperly casting a vote because of their residency.

So what are the people in Loving County who've been there for years, if not generations, what are they thinking as they're seeing these new people coming in? What did you hear from people out there? It's kind of a mixed bag, right? Some of them are just very curious. First, I should point out that the name of this group is called the Melanated People of Power, so it refers to skin color. Most of them, if not all of them, are black.

In Loving County, most residents, I think as of 2020, all residents were white or Hispanic. So first of all, these folks stand out visually. But, you know, there's so few people out there that it's also possible not to see that. many newcomers. There's also a segment of people out there who kind of are seeing it as the chickens come home to roost. That is that this community has been so lax in voter registration.

that this group coming in and trying to kind of take over the county government is just dessert. So there's a bit of schadenfreude. No. Is that how you pronounce it? Sure.

And this region is really important. How close are we to the oil patch out there? When I think of Loving County, my basic frame reference is that Charlie Robinson song I played earlier, which is basically guys who worked in the oil patch. end up living out there at some point. It's like, how close is it? And are those resources in that county? Yeah. So Levin County is right in the middle of the Permian Basin, which, as you note, has been enjoying a very kind of prosperous, ongoing gas.

oil boom. As a result, the taxes that this very sparsely populated county collects are enormous. You know, back in 2008, I think they had collected maybe about, it was under $5 million in taxes. As of next year, it'll be up over $60 million. So nearly $1 million for every permanent resident.

out there. So there's kind of ample financial incentive for someone to want to run the county government. When I've been out there before, I had noticed that even the janitor in the courthouse was making over $120K. Oh, wow. I can see the attraction then to, you know, why somebody might set up a few RVs out there and try to attract more people thinking, boy, if like the janitors are making over 100.

maybe we could do okay here too. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of money out there. And I have to point out, even though there's only 64, 70 permanent residents, there are many, many more people who are out there temporarily living. in the man camps and so on who work in the oil fields. You know, hundreds and hundreds of people come and go every day. It's a very bustling place. If you were to look at Loving County from a satellite map at night, it's...

It's nearly as bright as some of the larger metropolitan areas in the state of Texas because of kind of the 24-7, you know, fracking activity that's going on out there. Turns out it's not just me reading your stories. I love these stories, mind you. Y'all should really check it out, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express News, and even the Austin American Statesman. We've been all running those stories. But definitely check it out.

It turns out Ken Paxton also apparently is a reader of these stories, too. The attorney general clearly has raised some concerns about what you reported on out there. And there seems to be some governmental action now. try to like dig into what is happening out there and maybe even stop it. Right.

Yeah. So since our story came out, law enforcement has moved pretty quickly. The state representative and state senator out there, Brooks Landgraf and Senator Sparks, sent a letter to the secretary of state. asking for her to look into elections irregularity and also ask the attorney general to look into this, the newly elected attorney.

The district attorney out there, Sarah Stogner, has also said she's open an investigation. And then Ken Paxton earlier this week filed a lawsuit and asked for a temporary restraining order against Dr. Tanner from... doing what he's doing. And as of today, I think that TRO was granted. So they're all moving pretty quickly. I think the sheriff's office is assisting out there. So everybody's kind of mobilized and all seem kind of alarmed about this.

Okay, now, and just as somebody who's followed your work for years, you seem to have a particular affinity for Loving County. This is not the first time you've written about Loving County. It's like, you know, so what keeps drawing you to, you know, get out into that? you know, dusty community. Well, I mean, as you know, there's value in getting as far away from the newsroom as possible and Loving County kind of qualifies, but also it's just a...

Fascinating place. I mean, it is kind of the epitome of West Texas, right? The patriarch of the powerful family out there, the Joneses, was a sheriff whose name was Punk. His son is the county... A judge, his name is Skeet, and he was recently arrested for cattle rustling, although I think those charges have been dropped. The county has this fascinating history. It was commissioned, but then decommissioned. because of voting irregularities. So if you look at the...

County patch that's worn by law enforcement. It actually has two dates on it for when the county was commissioned because they tried, failed and retried. And who knows? There have been kind of rumors that I've heard ongoing for the past couple of years that. Maybe it's just too small a place to have its own county government. You know, why not merge with Reeves County or some of the other communities out there? And maybe 64 people is just too few to actually run themselves.

Yeah, there's one point, I think it was in the 40s, it looked like they had over 220, 250-ish type people living out there. But you see over the, while the rest of Texas is relatively growing, they're not. They've actually been seeing a decline. And I'll be interested to see what happens out there as the oil...

industry is kind of starting to struggle a little bit. We've been kind of seeing some signs that as the price of the barrel of oil comes down, we're also seeing an increase in the abandoned wells now where, you know, people who are, you know, using the wells.

oil and gas are just leaving them because it's not profitable anymore. And we're starting to kind of feel like we're getting into an era where maybe things aren't as profitable. And it'll be interesting to see what happens out in a place like Levin County does become less attractive.

to Tanner and his bunch. Yeah, I would think it would become less attractive to someone wanting to take it over. I mean, you know, there's very little out there. I mean, not to take anything away from the term of the place, but, you know, it is a harsh... physical environment outside the oil and gas industry. There's a few kind of support businesses out there. And look, they've done, you know, they did fine.

Before this big gusher came in and they've been looking for ways to spend money, right? They bought a new or they built a brand new community center. I'm not sure how often it's used. They started a brand new fire and kind of EMS department. And I know they've had trouble finding firefighters. out there. So if they suddenly were to lose most of their budget, they'd probably go back to doing things the way they did before.

Well, it's a very intriguing story about what's going on there, what might be going on there, like all the speculation of what the ultimate goal is out there. It's just the must-read type stuff. So, you know, definitely you all got to check out Eric Dexheimer's work at the Houston.

Chronicle, and the San Antonio Express News, and now the Austin American Statesman as well. Be sure to check all that out, and we'll keep you posted as we move along in this thing. If there are new developments on this, I'll get Eric back on here. Thanks a lot for joining the show, Eric. Eric, and good luck. And, you know, keep replacing those tires as you head back and forth out West. Yeah. As long as they keep full, I don't care. Perfect. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Finally, y'all, let's wrap this whole show up by going back into Houston. Monday is a big day. Early voting for the special election for the 18th Congressional District finally gets underway. Remember, that is the seat that's been vacant since March 5th. Yes, March 5th. They've had no member of Congress, no votes, no nothing. That's when Sylvester Turner died. As I mentioned, other seats that became vacant...

after Sylvester Turner's death, have since been filled. They're already in Congress. But this district still remains without anybody there. Governor Greg Abbott delayed having the special election till now because he said Harris County needed the extra time because they're so bad at running elections. Of course. Harris County officials dispute that. Yeah, I've had Rodney Ellis on the program earlier this summer talking about how that's a bunch of hooey. Did I mention that by having that seat?

vacant that whole time. It left the Democrats with one less vote in Congress. And guess what? Trump's big spending bill, you know, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, passed the House by one vote. It doesn't take much imagination to see what the impact of Abbott leaving that seat vacant for this long has had on Congress and on President Trump's agenda. Anyhow.

There are now 16 candidates piled into that special election, hoping to win that seat and finally bring representation to that district that was once held by Barbara Jordan, Sheila Jackson Lee, so many others. Voting will run through November the 4th. Now, all 16 of those candidates are in the same race. If none of those candidates can get to over 50%, this would kick to a special election runoff sometime probably in December.

The date hasn't officially been set, but once this election is certified, that is when they would set that. Well, anyhow. Thanks again for listening to The Texas Take. And a big thanks to all the guests who were included on this show. That includes State Representative Gina Hinojosa, reporter Megan Kimball, and of course, Eric Dexheimer. Be sure to check out also my Texas Tech newsletter, which you can sign up for free by going to my pinned post on my X page.

Just this last week, I had this piece on how U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has made Galveston a key hub for building heavy-duty ice-breaking ships that are going to be used in the Arctic to counter what China and Russia are doing up there. And I had another piece focus on how Texas could end up with just three Democratic held congressional seats out of the 38 if the U.S. Supreme Court does what many people expect they're going to do.

anyhow lots of material there please go check that out you won't regret it Adios, y'all. Thanks for joining me for this week's show, and I'll see y'all next week. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk.

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