Master of the House

You You Master of the House, welcome to the Texas Take Because of You, the number one politics podcast in the great state for how long, Jeremy? Oh, look at that. Going on a decade now. Is that unbelievable? Yeah, it's a beast. It is, absolutely. I'm Scott Braddock. He is Jeremy Wallace. His work, of course, is at HoustonChronicle.com, and you can find the inside story on Texas politics at QuorumReport.com. So much to talk about. Jeremy, Evan, I've got all of this material to go through.

It's almost too much stuff. Are both of you in the mood to do a really long edition, maybe a double platinum edition of the show? There you go. I'm fired up. Evan? Let's do it. Let's do it. He's ready. There's all this stuff. We've got the band on THC.

which is going to be headed to the governor before you know it. It's the third anniversary of the Uvalde massacre, if you can believe that. We will get into that. But what should I start with here? Oh, I'll start with the top priority of Speaker Burroughs.

which seems to not be a top priority at all. In fact, it just seems to be the thing that they're kind of doing because it feels like an obligation at this point, Jeremy, which is more money for Texas public schools. You were so twisted off about it two years ago when it didn't work out for teachers, when they didn't get a raise.

like they will. And that's important to understand based on all the plans that we've seen so far. The House had a plan, which was approved in the House by about 140, I think it was 142 votes to five. It was a stout vote. as we pointed out last week. And it actually would, that plan would amount to potentially a larger raise for teachers, what they're going to see in the Senate plan, which is what we really have now. The House and Senate leadership.

Jeremy are kind of acting like it's all their plan, but this is really Dan Patrick's plan, from what I can tell. Some other folks are begging for some scraps, and they are getting them. And around here anymore, a lot of folks just have to live on scraps. But here you have this plan. Coming through the Texas Senate, $8 billion or so. I had a specialist in school finance say it might be the biggest and worst school finance plan simultaneously.

if you can imagine that, because of the way it ties the hands of local school districts to write their budgets. But do you remember this? Let me do a little flashback. Speaker Burroughs, and I'll give him credit for at least saying this throughout the session, that it's his top priority is more money for schools. Right, Jeremy? He said that over and over. Yep. Over and over. Now, he was asked by Jason Whiteley at WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth about why all this is...

not happening faster with the money for schools. And he was asking him about this during the whole debate about school vouchers. Lost in the conversation about vouchers is the historic. amount of money put towards public education how big of a deal was that it's the biggest bill we were past this session why do you think it was lost in this conversation i don't know

I mean, it shouldn't have been. All right, let me help. It's probably because it hasn't been treated like a priority even a little bit, Jeremy. They rushed to pass school vouchers, and the lieutenant governor then held money for school's ransom. For other things. Now, I had a former Speaker of the House. There are a few of them still living, you know. I had a former Speaker say that, look, they could have passed the vouchers, but pass it with some changes in the House. That way...

it would still be a situation where they'd have to keep negotiating between the House and Senate. And the voucher thing, which is the governor's big thing, that would still be able to be used as leverage to have the speaker's priority addressed as well.

when it comes to school finance. But that didn't happen at all. So what happened in the meantime? And I've had some people ask this question this week. And you know, Jeremy, as I said, we're here to help. That's what we do. We're here to help you understand. Some people were asking, How in the world did it end up that school finance and a ban on THC products are now inextricably linked in the legislative process? What's up with that? Well, the fact that the speaker just passed that voucher deal.

When the original promise had been that vouchers and school finance would move together through the process, that was what they had said would happen. That's what Governor Abbott said would happen. Patrick said that would happen. The speaker said that would happen. But because it didn't. Now you have the money for schools being used. It's being held ransom for other things. And the top priority of Lieutenant Governor Patrick at the moment is this ban, an all-out ban, full ban, complete ban.

on anything containing THC. THC, no regulations whatsoever, no one knows what's in it, and it's more powerful, as you'll hear a little bit later in this video, than what you could buy from a drug dealer on the street. According to Patrick's own pollster, the guy who does his political numbers,

Jeremy, people are actually not concerned about it. In fact, it's the other way around. Even among Republican voters, a lot of people who self-identify as MAGA and Trump loyalists would say they're not for an all-out ban. Among Republican voters, in the state. According to Patrick's pollster, I think it was around 60% of Republican voters do not agree with this. And of course, among the broader electorate, the opposition was even stiffer. Lucas Gilkey is the CEO of a cannabis company in Austin.

hometown hero and he says that patrick is full of shit they are trying to take away 53 000 jobs of hard-working texans right now and essentially hand our entire industry over to three license holders within the texas compassionate use program and yet somehow he's making claims that people are dying from what we do. They're becoming psychotic.

all of these crazy nonsense that he is literally making up. And it makes sense. If the hemp industry goes away, which had an $8 billion economic impact last year alone in Texas, guess where that money is going to go? Guess who is going to get rid- for being involved in the teacup program and within those companies. For those of you in the house that understand what is going on and being pressured by the Senate governor, we highly urge you to protect the 53,000 Texans.

that are very hardworking and dedicated to doing the best thing for Texas possible. You know, he's right when it comes to the argument about winners and losers. Usually conservatives would argue that government should not be picking winners and losers, which is what's happening here. There are going to be.

some of those companies that can get the license under the Compassionate Use Program. We could talk about that, Jeremy. But I also want to throw this in there. I took a bit of a field trip last week, and you can see I'm wearing my Ansira Salsa. shirt here by the way the one that i was out in taylor texas at the uh chili cook-off out there brought to you by ansira salsa they're not a sponsor but they could be um and this is the one you want jeremy this is the six-pack salsa oh yeah

That's killer, right? I think Evan had this last year. The Association of Realtors might have given him a jar. So good. They held this deal out at the Texas Beer Company brewery. out there in Taylor. And we have a lot of fans in Taylor, Jeremy. Everybody wanted me to tell you hello. They love you there. Small town Texas, great stuff. Chili cook off, a lot of fun. So when I got back to Austin, I went by the liquor store.

And I saw the THC drinks there in the liquor store alongside everything else on the shelves. I was just there to buy my normal stuff, stuff for martinis and whatever else. And I saw these cans of the THC drinks. And when I got to the checkout, Jeremy... The three people ahead of me in line, that's all they were buying, was the THC drinks. And get this, I didn't bring it up.

Because I don't even like talking to people in the checkout line. I just want to get out of there, right? But people were talking about the fact that this is about to be banned, so they were stocking up. People have heard about this. And get this, they were using Dan Patrick's name.

They were saying that F this guy. He wants to get rid of the stuff that we like. There was a lady there who was talking about which one of the canned THC seltzers was the best bang for your buck. She was all excited to buy this particular brand, whatever it was. But look, Patrick has been on this.

for a long time, talking about this for about 10 years. And you heard this guy from hometown hero, the cannabis company saying that there are going to be those cannabis companies that make off like bandits here. But the thing that just clicked in my mind. As I was at the liquor store, I finally figured all this out from just a business standpoint. It's as plain as the nose on your face. The cans that are on the shelves in that liquor store were not delivered by one of the biggest opponents of...

this, that would be the beer distributors of Texas, right? They don't have anything to do with the cannabis drinks, the THC drinks. And they put out flyers and were pressuring members of the Texas House and Senate to pass this ban on THC because they don't get a cut of it.

when there are these THC drinks that are sold, and they don't like that. Plain and simple. Now, the liquor stores and the beer distributors are almost always joined at the hip at the Capitol in fighting for the alcohol business. But this was a rare example of them disagreeing because the liquor stores like the fact that those THC drinks are being purchased from their stores and predominantly by a lot of young people. They say in those younger demographics.

21 and up. They're going in there not to buy liquor. They're going to buy these THC drinks. And the beer guys think that any can of something that's not beer should not be on those shelves, right? When you think about beverage distributors, whether it's beer or... Coca-Cola, whatever. What they do from a business standpoint is fight for shelf space, right? They want you to see their product and not somebody else's product. And they want that kicked out and they're using the Texas government.

to kick that stuff off the shelves where they would say that beer ought to be. Yeah, absolutely. And there's another component to this too. It's like, and we'll get into all of this, but there's a whole medical component to this entire. debate that is also you seize the the medical part is also like

We're just taking business from one group to the next. It's kind of what you said. There's always winners and losers in this stuff. And it's like in here, there are some clear examples of, okay, so if you allow this product to be on the shelf, the beer distributors lose out.

You know, it's like and so but, you know, same thing if you're all of a sudden say, OK, these retailers and the corner stores can't sell this. Like now that business is going to go somewhere else. You're automatically pushing it somewhere else. So it's just, you know, I know a lot of Republicans.

We'll talk about, hey, we shouldn't be picking winners and losers. We shouldn't be benefiting one business over the other. But each one of these regulations has that push and pull. And this issue particularly has it just underlined three times with four. exclamation points, right? This is clearly going to create winners and losers in the entire state.

Yeah. And as I said, Patrick has been on this for about 10 years, back in 2014 when he was running, at least for 10 years, in 14 when he was running for lieutenant governor, he would do these little Q&A sessions on YouTube. I think it was on YouTube with voters and someone had asked him, what do you think about medical marijuana?

Why don't we do that? I mean, to your point about this stuff, Jim, why don't we do that? And at that time in 2014, Patrick was already a hard no on anything to do with anything containing THC. In the states that began legalizing. medical marijuana. It has been abused. People can find a doctor who will write a prescription for an excuse to get the marijuana. Just like you have these pain mills now where people go around and get prescriptions for pain medicine. What do they do with it?

They sell it to kids in our schools. And so it's been a problem that in some of the states that have legalized this for medical purposes, it's now being sold.

to children even 10 years ago he already sounded like a bitter old man didn't he sound full of youth and life there uh jeremy uh during the uh debate on this in the texas senate there was a lot of testimony from some families who have you know either their kids or their grandparents or whoever benefit from this, including this mother who has a son, a young son, who started having seizures basically almost after he was born. And she told senators that Patrick is just being...

cruel. My son deserves a shot at life too. He didn't have a choice. He was three when he started having these severe seizures and it's not fair. It's not fair for him to relapse and potentially lose his cognitive abilities, potentially lose...

His life. Of course, that did not matter to Republicans like Representative Tom Oliverson from the Houston area. He's acting on behalf of Patrick on the Texas House floor. Both of them share the same political consultant, by the way, Alan Blakemore. And Oliverson said that companies like the one in Austin that we were talking about, he said that those folks are taking advantage of the law that was passed a few years ago.

to support Texas agriculture has since been hijacked by a cottage industry of unregulated THC sellers. House Bill 1325 was never intended to legalize intoxicating THC products. and promote an industrial hemp market that was designed to encourage the development of non-consumable hemp products like fiber, rope and textiles. Instead, we now have the largest pseudo-legal THC market in the country.

not through legislation, but through regulatory drift. Delta-8, Delta-10, and other chemically altered THC compounds are being sold in gas stations, vape shops, corner stores, some with concentrations exceeding 90%. wrapped in candy colored packaging and marketed directly to children. This is always the line on this, Jeremy, that it's being marketed to children. Did you hear him say...

that legislators, when they passed that legal hemp law, that they never intended for what we have now. This is the same Republican legislature, the same Texas House, that just last week... passed a piece of legislation to say that legislative intent should not matter and that the only thing that business and the courts should look at is the words on the page. Can you imagine that your Texas legislature would pass legislation that they don't understand it?

That they don't understand what it does, Jeremy? Yes, happens all the time. Democrat Rafael Anchia from Dallas said that, look, those bans simply don't work. Regulation would be better because it's not like people are just going to stop doing this stuff.

Stop this amendment, members. You're going to be driving people into the black market. You're going to be criminalizing veterans. You're going to be criminalizing young people. All for possession. No. That's maybe what you expect a Democrat to say on this. But you might not expect a Democrat to roll out the words of a top Republican. In fact, the top Republican in the United States on this topic. I want to leave you with a quote.

It is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use. That wasn't a Democrat. That was President Donald Trump. To my Republican colleagues, I'm asking you to oppose the cartels, stand with President Trump.

and vote no on this insane bill. Now, of course, that did not happen. And I have seen all over the state, Jeremy, where conservatives are not happy about this. People who would say they're conservatives or would self-identify as MAGA. libertarian are you ready for some examples here oh yeah fire away okay now you know that lieutenant governor patrick and i were radio competitors in houston years ago

He was on the smaller station, KSEV, while I was on the big stick, KTRH. And Patrick came up through conservative talk radio. That's his career path, right? That was his path to power. And now you have, this is full circle, now you have... conservative radio talk show hosts all over Texas who don't like what he's doing. In other words, he now is the GOP establishment as it exists today.

You have a lot of grassroots folks who don't like this at all. In fact, a lot of grassroots folks who didn't like that school voucher thing either. We talked about that a lot as well. Here's Ken Webster, who is a right-wing radio host in Houston. I think he would describe himself that way. He wrote this on Twitter, Jeremy. Quote,

If Dan Patrick is worried about unregulated THC commerce, then forcing a massive industry into the black market is only going to make things worse. He said this is a catastrophic mistake that will increase crime. MAGA legalized these products. Neocons took them away, close quote. Here's my friend Chad Hastie, another very conservative radio host out in West Texas. He said, quote, shame on Republicans, including Dan Patrick, who vote for a full ban. Big Pharma will win.

Texans who use hemp not to get high but to deal with pain will lose. Why would he say that, Jeremy? There's a big reason. You know, his father... Michael Hastie, who's from DFW, suffers from chronic pain and has found relief from THC. He posted a video on YouTube about all this. And listen to this guy, Jeremy. He ain't some Cheech and Chong character. Not at all. This is an older...

white Texan at who, you know, at 70 years plus is still just trying to work for a living. I'm from Grand Prairie, Texas. Been there over 60 years. member of the Rotary Club. I'm a Paul Harris Rotarian. I'm a business owner, have been for many years. I'm in construction. I climb a ladder quite a bit. And I'm still growing my company. I'm still working. Being close to 70 years old, I'm still working. And I'm working pain free. He said Dan Patrick could not be more wrong about this. This plant.

is not going to kill anybody. It's going to cure. It's going to help people. It's going to take men and women that have PTSD, have... herniated discs have all kinds of pain issues that they can't function. And you're taking this away from them. So you have the health aspect of this. You have the shifting politics on this. And after this vote... A lot of folks were asking, Jeremy, does this mean there will now be backlash to Patrick, to Republicans who voted for this, etc.?

Previously, and we had one of our, Evan, it was a listener named Evan who asked this question. They said, is Braddock still right about this? Is this... an issue that will not motivate people. Because what have I said before? Well, first of all, potheads are not the most motivated folks. Just sort of the throwaway line about it. But the other thing that I've always said is this.

And I only sort of ask this tongue in cheek, Jeremy, even though a lot of things that contain THC are still illegal and have been illegal in Texas, straight up pot, for example, going and buying a pre-roll or whatever, you're not. allowed to do that. But does anyone who wants marijuana in Texas, do you know anybody who wants that who can't get it? No, the answer is no. People get it all the time. What might be different now...

is that people have had access to this legally for a few years, and now it's going to be taken away cold turkey. And that might be the difference. I mean, that is where the comparisons to prohibition of alcohol. you know, decades ago, that, that is where the comparison I think, you know, is, is more valid because you did have something that was legal that people had access to. Remember, I mean, marijuana is in the.

marijuana and THC and all this stuff, it's in the process of maybe becoming legal across the United States or most other states go into completely the other direction, right? With alcohol. You had it become legal. People had access to it. It was all over the place, all over the world. And then in the United States, what happened? They said, well, you can't have alcohol anymore. It's now illegal. Which, of course, to the point of Anchia.

Tallarico, and those right-wing talk show hosts that this is the biggest gift to the cartel during Prohibition. You know what really grew in influence and was running the country? The mob. The mafia.

They had something illegal that people wanted and moving things. A cartel is just something that gets the thing that people want to the place where they want it, right? And that's what these folks will be doing with these products as well now that they're going to be illegal. And there was testimony to this effect.

in one of the committees, I think it was in the House State Affairs Committee, that legislators heard from experts who said that, look, all of this is just going to go into the black market. All those young people I mentioned who were lining up at the liquor store to buy these drinks, that's just going to be in the black market.

completely unregulated. These folks are saying, wow, this stuff isn't safe. You know how unsafe it'll be when it's completely unregulated in the black market and, you know, legit business has nothing to do with it. Now you're creating a really dangerous situation.

And I think this is almost stolen from a Wade Bowen song somewhere, but sometimes you can be both right and wrong on the same issue, right? It's like, and here, Dan Patrick makes an important... Good point that a lot of these facilities – these places of business opened up near schools. That's for sure true. The Houston Chronicle did a big investigation into where they've grown over the years. And my colleague Isaac –

and his team really kind of was able to show that explosion of, you know, these type of retailers around schools. So it's absolutely true that's the case. But on the other side of this thing, I think... The idea that Patrick's pushing that if people do have pain issues, if veterans, if older people want to get.

you know, get this stuff, they have to go to a doctor to go get it through the Compassionate Youth Program, right? It's like, that's the solution. But I think what that... argument misses and i think this is where chad hasty's world really fully understands what he's talking about if you're in dumas texas or you're in pampa you don't have a lot of medical options that are easy and quick

to get access to, right? It's like you're talking about people who might not have health insurance to begin with, having to now go get an appointment with some doctor to, you know, and look. If you try to make an appointment with a doctor in regular suburban Texas, it's going to take a while. Imagine what that's like in Dumas, Texas. Imagine if in Dumas, Texas, you want to go see a doctor. You can't do that on Friday. You're going to have to plan ahead for like a month.

So you're putting all these additional barriers and costs on this veteran who wants to get the same product he has right now. He can go to the store and go get it right now. He's a grown adult. And we're saying, no, no, you can't do that. You have to go get it. insurance, you then have to go to a doctor who then will prescribe it for you and then you are going to have to use one of these other places to get that prescription filled. We're asking him to do what?

It's like – and remember, Texas is not on a real island. It can feel like it at times. But like all those people in El Paso are going to go across the border to get what they need. All those people up in the panhandle are going to have to go to Oklahoma or to New Mexico to kind of get what they need. All those people in Beaumont are going to just pop over to Louisiana, right? But guess what?

All those people in the middle of the state, you're going to make them drive, what, eight hours? I'm not... I get not wanting these near schools and not wanting this to be in the hands of children. But there's a point where like if grown adults who are of age are trying to purchase this and you're telling them, no, no, no.

We don't want you to purchase it this way. We want you to purchase it this way through all that I just said. We want you to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on insurance and doctors to get what you can get for like $14 right now.

Isn't that fair exchange? I can see why people are losing it over this. I'm a minor TikTok user. I certainly know TikTok star, but... When I posted video of Dan Patrick lining out how he was going after all these, you know, THC people, I got a million views like almost overnight.

Like nobody – I don't have any subscribers. So it's like it's not like that many people were coming to me. But like on that thing, that thing spread like wildfire. I had a million views on that in a minute. It was just crazy. You can see this is a really big issue. And I don't think – Dan Patrick understands how big of an issue it is with regular people who maybe aren't regular voters. I don't think he – he does a lot of polling.

And I get he does a lot of polling with people who are voters who vote in Republican primaries. I know he certainly is going to favor – Republican primary voters traditionally. He's going to want to know how things are going. So I think he does try to get the pulse of those people, but I don't think he's getting the pulse of the guy who's working in an oil field somewhere out by Dumas and is just making his trip. He's hurting.

He's trying to retire. He can't. His hands hurt. He's going to take this thing at the convenience store that he's been using. But you're saying, no, I want to stop that guy. I don't think he knows that guy exists. Well, what's wild about it, though, Jeremy, you're right. He usually follows the polls. But on this, he's...

not. As I said, his own pollster said, and he didn't want me to, you were there at that press conference where I tried to ask him about it. He did not want me to bring that up, that his pollster I'll just say, he's embarrassed. His own pollster, who he always looks to, you know, as a political guidepost, always looking at what the polls say. I mean, Dan Patrick passes out polls.

He passes out sheets of polling numbers to senators before they vote on his priorities. And he'll say, you know, I'm just trying to be helpful. Just want you to know exactly how voters feel about this. He did not do that with this bill because his own pollster says that about 60 percent of Republican voters. voters do not agree with what he's doing here. And so on the politics of it, it is, as I said, maybe, maybe, I don't know, it's a question mark.

maybe something that will motivate the people you're talking about to actually get out and do something they wouldn't normally do which is maybe you know maybe vote in a republican primary or vote in a general against a republican and to the you know to the question about

How all this got tied together with school finance, this is what I wrote at Quorum Report because a lot of people were a little confused about this. And I can understand. That's why we're here, to help you get it. That's what we do. You're guiding light through times of confusion and tumult. Here's a part of what I wrote. Now that the school vouchers can't be used as trade bait at the Capitol,

Everything else is. That's why THC and school funding are now linked the way that vouchers and school funding were two years ago. Right now, Patrick, Jeremy, I reported this on. Late, I guess late Wednesday, Wednesday night. Patrick, his operation, it wasn't just videos that he was putting out online. His operation dug deep into the house on the evening that they were voting on the ban.

on THC. Not only were there members of the House who were told that everything that they care about, all of their bills that are now in the Texas Senate, all of their bills would die. If they didn't vote for the THC ban that Patrick wants, Patrick's operation was even reaching out to Democrats and saying, hey, if you'll vote for the THC ban, we'll have a meeting with you about your legislation too.

And we'll actually have a conversation with you about what you want to do as well. And they did get some Democrats to vote for the THC ban by applying that kind of pressure. And there have been some jokes in Austin of people saying, oh, you know, all hail Speaker.

Patrick, as he's now running the House, he is the presiding officer of the Texas Senate, but now he wants to run the whole legislature. And Speaker Burroughs has been on the big things. Some folks are going to push back on me and say, well, you know, he's... Burroughs is doing the smaller things that some of these legislators want. But on the big things, the House is getting rolled. Here's part of what I wrote. The first standing order.

of a Speaker of the House is to protect the institution. That's one way to say it. You could also just say the Speaker's supposed to be the one to stand up for his members, especially when it's politically risky for them to be the ones who do it themselves. You're the guy there to take the arrows.

for them. So there could be other explanations, Jeremy, but it seems like there are two scenarios that one of these is playing out. Either Burroughs meant it when he said the school funding was his top priority and he's just not equipped to handle the onslaught from Patrick. which would be understandable now that the man is the master of the Texas Capitol.

Or Burroughs didn't really mean it, that school finance is his top priority, and he's mostly got his eye on just cutting deals, avoiding a special session, and getting the hell out of Austin. He just wants to do that. at all costs. And that would be understandable given the misery of the multiple special sessions they had two years ago.

Yeah, and I think it's fair to question his strategery on this. I may steal from a quote George W. Bush never really said, but people think he did. But nonetheless, it's like, look, I've gone – I think – Burroughs is a very shrewd political...

I think he knows what he's doing. I'm not saying he doesn't. But in the way he let this get structured, by not pushing that the teacher pay raises and the school finance component go first, to bring all the attention to that. Look, the math tells you why it was important to make a much bigger deal about that than the school vouchers, right? Aside from the billions of dollars, whatever. Let's remember there's 5 million kids in public schools.

Five million. With the school finance program, you're giving pay raises to the teachers who teach five million kids. The voucher program, the school voucher program. We're talking about helping mostly private school students, right? As like people who are in the school, there's 300,000 of them. So like the math tells you, do you want to try to help 5 million?

families at least or do you want to try to help 300 000 which one do you think has more political bang i think it's obvious right you know look like i i don't look i don't think that the public school teacher world is going to give you as big of a donation as, I don't know, say,

billionaire from middle pennsylvania but no but they'll deliver votes yeah exactly but it seems like but but just from okay take the politics aside for a second just for the sake of the public wouldn't it feel better if you're the house speaker to say we're not budging Until we make sure.

Your 5 million school children are getting teachers who are better paid and maybe just a little happier with the tough job that they have. It seems like that could have been a great, like I'm holding out for this. I'm not giving you, like I'm okay with the vouchers, but I'm not giving it to you. until I get this pay rate. It should have been linked to that and not let it get unlinked like it did. And so now that everything else is now getting linked to THC and to all...

sorts of other priorities that Patrick has. Patrick's running it because he's basically got the jump on Burroughs here, which I think is so frustrating to a lot of people who thought Dade Phelan wasn't standing up enough. to Patrick. And now to go to this where Patrick gets this basically being played out almost exactly how he would have cooked it up.

It's like, I'm going to get my vouchers. I'm going to then hold their pay raises hostage for every little pet project I ever wanted. I'm going to get my homestead exemptions the way I want them. The house didn't want to go this far on the homestead exemption, but he's going to get that.

You know, but you can see he's getting everything he wants out of this thing. And what we didn't get is a big show about every school teacher in the state of Texas maybe getting a pay raise. If I'm Burroughs, that should be the headline of this entire. session i am doing everything i can to help all of your kids instead we're helping voucher kids at private schools mostly and we're helping you know you know kill a thc industry and

Whatever else Patrick has going on. To me, I think it's just a negotiation issue that I didn't think was going to be like this with Burroughs as the speaker. I think that's where I'm really surprised. I thought we were going to get more of like a negotiator. Like I think Bonin.

When he was the House Speaker, you know, had the potential to match up against Patrick pretty well because he knew where to call him out and where to stand up against him. Of course, his speakership was incredibly short. Let's just say it was truncated.

Exactly. So we didn't get to see that play out. But it would have been nice to see if Burroughs was going to be more of that line versus somebody who you kind of end up ending the session. I'm glad to hear what you said about it because I was wondering if I... Am I the only one who's starting to feel like Patrick just was able to get Burrows to do exactly everything he wanted to, you know, and not much in return?

Because I'm just not seeing what the return is for the Texas House to just capitulate to everything Patrick ever wanted. The Democrats voted for Burroughs. To be speaker, in a lot of ways, and a friend said this, they voted for proximity to power. They didn't really get much of it, just proximity to power. I mean, all of these right-wingers who say the Democrats run the House. Well, that's ridiculous. Look at what's going on. And they chose someone who I think was put there.

With this in mind, that he was going to cut deals and overarching everything is that he just doesn't want to be in a special session. So he'll just capitulate on everything. As we said on the show last week, acquiesce on.

everything. Um, you know, they had that school finance plan that passed out of the house, 142 votes to five and Patrick just completely rewrites it and makes it into something else. And the speaker, you heard it on the show last week. He says, Oh yeah, Patrick's plan is great.

And they're still tinkering with some of the stuff as they were moving it through the Senate last night. And they're all going, Jeremy, believe me, you'll see the spin. They'll all act like this is the greatest thing in the history of the world that they're doing for schools. It's a historic investment in schools.

around the state are not thrilled about it. Remember, they were thrilled about the plan that the House passed to Burroughs Point. Some of those superintendents appeared with him at a news conference about that plan. This plan ties the hands of those school districts. It really is Dan Patrick trying to write the school district's budgets for them.

He's doing it from his office in Austin because he doesn't trust them. What we heard over and over again during these negotiations, some of the folks who were privy to the conversation said that whenever it would come up, you know, that they would like to give more flexibility to the school districts.

Patrick just says some version of I don't trust them on how to spend the money. And so this is what they're stuck with. And if it doesn't seem like school finance was a priority, it's because it has been absolutely treated as an. All of this talk of medication reminds me that I didn't take my pills yet today. I've got my blood pressure pill, Evan. I need to take this. Hang on a second.

Let me get Jeremy kickstarted on something here. So what is it that's going on in Washington? There is a hostility towards single mothers in this legislation that is shameful. that's uh congressman joaquin castro while i take my pill what is he talking about jeremy

Yeah, I was on a call with Joaquin Castro this week because as part of the – I hate calling it the big, beautiful bill, but it's the shortest version to say. But it's part of that Trump spending package with all the tax cuts that they jammed together. And as part of that, it's like –

beyond the tax cuts and everything like that, there are provisions in there to really kind of change how food stamp programs are run in the state of Texas and everywhere. But the way the program would be set up, they want to put more work requirements on people who get food stamps.

which sounds good on paper, right? It's like, yeah, everybody, every able-bodied person should be working. And that's kind of how they pitch the changes that they're trying to make to the food stamp program. They want to make sure that...

people are working and what is, but here's the problem. What happened with this situation is this has now been passed out of the house. So this isn't some pie in the sky idea that might happen. It's like, it's no, it's really in the bill. And unless the U S Senate does something is going to happen. And what it does.

is like there's two key provisions in this one it will require you know already people on food stamps have to meet a food a work requirement like if you're already on the program you know this like you're having to work at least 20 hours a week stay in the program to get free food for your family, right? It's like, so that already is happening. But the way...

the Republican bill is written, people between the ages of 55 and 65 will now have to also have a work requirement. Let me slow that down. People ages 55 to 65 are going to have to have a work requirement of at least 20 hours a week to get their benefits. So grandma better get back to work if she wants free food.

Just so you know how that works. But on the other side of this thing, and this is the part that Joaquin Castro was really kind of nailing at, they're changing what it means to be a parent of a dependent child. Right now, if you have a child who is 18 or older.

You have to work. If your child is under 18, you can get a waiver. So you don't have to work those 20 hours if you're providing care for them. Right. But they're changing what is called a dependent. They want to make it from people from for children. ages 7 to 18. So we're talking about parents with children who are 8 years old will have to work 20 hours a week. It won't be an exemption for them. But what's even worse about this is like... How it treats single mothers versus married mothers.

To make this point clear, single mothers will have to meet that 20-hour-a-week work requirement. If they have children between 7 and 18, even if they don't have anybody else helping them with that child or have access to daycare. But if you're married, you'll be able to get an exemption. If your husband's working, then you don't have to meet that exemption. So you can see how like women who have two or three kids and aren't married.

they're going to feel this thing. And that is not going over with some of our members of Congress that you know very well. Yeah, and you asked Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia of Houston about how this may really screw over these single moms. I think you're reading it right, and it is discrimination against single parents. uh and it's in there and some of us have spoken about it but we're also very concerned of course as you said the work requirements uh because it puts a lot of women in having to

to try to figure out what to do with two or three children that are older than seven, but still at home under their care because of the lack of daycare. Yeah, and one of the things that... by putting these additional requirements and there's a lot of other things are doing the snap program that really is going to have a lot of impact. We have about 3 million people in Texas who rely on or are enrolled in snap right now. And it's like,

Part of this legislation will shift some of the responsibility for the program to Texas. So the Texas legislature is going to be on the hook for sorting out about 5% of the cost of... you know, these programs and they're going to be, you know, have more of the administration costs as well to kind of manage. So that's going to be putting a lot of pressure on the legislature to find money down the road, right? They can start cutting corners. So the problem

have here is you get 3 million people who you're putting a lot more paperwork potentially on to get their benefits. And this kind of goes to like, I think this maybe even applies to THC stuff. Like we were talking about, like all the half, so all the red tape you're going to have to go.

through to go get health insurance, to get a doctor, then to go get the prescription and get all that done now versus just going to the store. Well, for the food stamp program, what's going to happen now, you're going to have single moms.

focusing on them right now because I think it's important. Single mothers are going to have to fill out all this paperwork, and if they don't get that paperwork filled out right, they might get rejected, not because they have children who need food, but because they didn't fill out paperwork right.

They call this the error rate effect in Congress, where it's just like, hey, if you put a lot of barriers, you'll have less people trying to get on the program. And so what drives me crazy about this, of all the...

Places in Texas that are going to be most affected is going to be Houston in the 18th congressional district, which has more people on food stamps than any place in the state of Texas. They're the one that's going to face the most. And guess what? The 18th Congressional District, if you folks are listening, that is the old Sheila Jackson Lee District that became the Sylvester Turner District.

And of course he passed away. They don't even have a member of Congress right now in order to fight these cuts. And it's by design, because guess what? The entire package. you know, this week in Congress passed by one vote. Guess who that one missing vote is? Sylvester Turner.

yeah so this is uh an exercise in raw politics the in raw power the governor of texas could have called a special election faster which he has done for some republican districts previously former harris county attorney christian menifee who's running for that congressional district, says he can't believe that Abbott didn't move quicker on this. Greg Abbott should be ashamed of himself. This move was so boldly political.

And what makes it worse is we've seen Governor Abbott rush, act with expediency to call a special election in a couple of month time period when the district is reliably Republican. Or it is a district that is competitive for Republicans. And so you saw that with the Philadelphia race and some other races. Since Greg Abbott has been governor, he's called it in June. He's called races to take place in June. But he pushed this one back to November.

And he gave the sorry-ass excuse that Harris County needed more time to be able to properly conduct its election. Now, respectfully to Christian Menifee, I'll go further. Governor Abbott hasn't just been quick when it came to Republican districts. He actually bent the law previously to make an election happen faster when the seat that had been held by Blake Farenthold down in the Corpus Christi area when that came open.

Abbott used the fact that there was a disaster declaration after a hurricane where that's a coastal area. He had used the fact that. There was a disaster declaration to then say that he didn't have to follow election law and he could move the election faster, making the argument that, oh, because there's this disaster happening there in the aftermath of this hurricane that had happened.

They need representation, Jeremy. They desperately need representation. And of course, the chatter here in Austin was that he was really trying to fix it and rig the game for somebody who he preferred. to win that seat, who did not win that seat. It was Beck Bruhn, who I think used to be on the Water Development Board. Anyway, that was the seat that was eventually won by Michael Cloud in that election, Congressman Cloud. So yeah, Abbott has moved.

pretty damn fast in other situations with this it is obvious what he's doing and his excuse about harris county not Being able to conduct an election is really lame. I don't remember anybody, anybody who was a Republican saying anything like that after Republican judges were winning down there in the Harris County area last year when it was such a bloodbath for Democrats.

Yeah, I spoke to Amanda Edwards, who's also running for the 18th Congressional District. You have both Menifee, Amanda Edwards, and seemingly a cast of thousands running to replace Sylvester Turner. And so I get that. But I did talk to her about it. She told me this is like the worst case scenario that you could have envisioned with this, right? You have Sylvester Turner and Sheila Jackson Lee. Imagine if this were happening on Sheila Jackson Lee's watch. Can you imagine the bullhorn she had?

in front of the White House holding a press conference talking about this. You're going after my community. You're going to cut off food stamps for people in my community. She'd be losing it right now. But as I was talking to Amanda Edwards about it, she goes, this is the problem. that you might lose

The whole concept of taxation without representation, the whole principle of that is taken away, and there's one congressional district that's feeling it in Texas. It's the 18th congressional district. They don't even have a voice. They don't have anybody. who can try to maybe tell

you know, Republicans, wait, this is going to hit our community harder and there's already these food deserts out there. And as you cut benefits for people who have food stamps, that means they spend less in the stores around that area, which means you

create an even bigger food desert for the people in those urban pockets, in those rural communities. It's not just, you know, Houston. Those folks out in, like, East Texas, you know, the first congressional district that used to be the Louie Gohmert district, it's like...

They have a high percentage of people who are using food stamps. They're going to be affected by this, too. The Republicans have crafted a bill that's going to hurt not just these single moms I'm talking about in this very African-American and Hispanic district, but it's going.

to hit people in the rural areas too. You're going to see retailers not accepting food stamps anymore because of what's happening here because they can't, they're not getting any money off of it. Right. Absolutely. And, um, you know, no matter what they'd be saying on the bullhorn. They'd have the vote. Yeah. As you said, it passed by one vote. One vote? They wouldn't even have to say anything on a bullhorn.

It's not even like a what could have been. It's like, no, it's one vote and there's one seat in Texas that doesn't have a member of Congress to defend them. It's like to think – This is where like the 18th district, I'm single mom is losing her benefits potentially for her kids to feed her kids because of some politics because they wanted enough votes to get it out of Congress. What?

It's like it's a little kid. It's like there's an eight year old and nine year old who are going to have less benefits potentially because of this vote. I just don't understand. Look, I understand a lot of Republican Democratic politics, but I don't understand the politics of making restrictions on anybody who's trying – like go after the parents I guess to a level, but you've got to understand if you cut off the benefits for the –

single mom you're cutting off the benefits for that child to eat eat food like we're not talking about like some bonus thing like i don't think people understand what poverty looks like and i wish more members of congress would sit there butts in Houston's 18th congressional district and understand what poverty is, where everything is more stressful in your life. How you get to work is harder. How you get paid. How do you even cash a check is harder. Everything in life you can think of is hard.

Your gas at the pump is probably more expensive than other places. It's like everything on your side of the tracks is harder to deal with. And now you're putting this. problem on top of all of that you know oh we're going to give you free food but we're going to first make you jump through so many hoops that some people are not going to be able to do it and your child will just not get food

yeah well speaking about uh things that um have been neglected this uh weekend will mark the what are we on the third anniversary jeremy of the worst school shooting in Texas history. No, there's a school shooting. Okay, yes, ma'am. Are you with officers or are you communicating somewhere? I'm in classroom. What's the classroom number? 10112. 112? 112. 112, yes, ma'am. What's your name, ma'am? Please hurry. There's a lot of dead bodies. Yes, ma'am.

That little girl said, there's a lot of dead bodies. Please send help. As we know, no help was coming in Uvalde where all these kids were killed. And Jeremy, you remember the first interview. that we talked about probably after the shooting was this interview on CNN with the father of Amory Jo Garza, who was killed that day. And she was one of the ones.

just like that other little girl who was just trying to call the police and that's when she got shot she just tried to call the police she tried to she actually tried to call Yes, I got confirmation from two of the students in her classroom that she was just trying to call authorities. And I guess he just shot her. How do you look at this girl and shoot her? Oh, my baby. How do you shoot my baby?

Just devastating. You remember Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey, who I gave a lot of grief to this year over his film incentives thing, Jeremy. But I appreciated him speaking out after the massacre in Uvalde. He was at the White House. And remember he talked about little Maite Rodriguez who had the green shoes. And as a father, which you and I both are.

This was really hard to watch and listen to. Maite wore green high-top converse with a heart she had hand-drawn on the right toe because they represented her love. of nature. Camilla's got these shoes. Can you show these shoes, please? I wore these every day. Green Converse with a heart on the right toe. These are the same Green Converse.

On her feed, that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting. How about that? On May 24th, 2022, Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

An 18-year-old by the name of Salvador Ramos, a former student at the school, fatally shot 19 students, two teachers, and injured 17 others. Those were the final numbers after the doctors had responded. As we talked about, Jeremy, the... uh you know the uh life flight uh and and ambulance um uh transportation for the kids to san antonio which was the you know closest major trauma center to uvalde which is still

what two hours away from from there it's a small rural texas town i remember where i was that afternoon uh seeing the initial reports about this i was sitting at my cigar shop in east austin doing some work there I was there with some friends, and I just stopped what I was doing, couldn't believe what I was seeing. Do you remember Dr. Roy Guerrero testifying in front of Congress while he was speaking?

and he was one of the ones treating these kids, when he was speaking, he held up his cell phone to the microphone during a congressional hearing so that the members of Congress... could hear what it was like inside the school that day. And I have played this audio before, Evan, and I have always given this warning. If you just can't handle it, fast forward the show for about 30 seconds.

Because this is what actually happened. And even if you and I have a problem hearing it, it's my belief that policymakers absolutely should have to hear it and see what happened. Because they're constantly asked all these questions, Jeremy, about what should be done with guns, police response, holding certain agencies responsible for what happened that day. And as you and I have talked about...

over and over again on the show. There's not a whole lot on any of those questions that's different after this happened. Listen. The following is audio that I was given by a parent of kids from across the room where the kids were murdered. These children survived. This is a shrill screaming of kids trying to get out while their classmates are being murdered. Whoa!

Dr. Guerrero wanted lawmakers to know exactly what happened to those children. When you see pictures of Anne-Marie and her friends on the news, you should know they didn't get buried looking sweet and happy like their photos. Some were missing limbs. Some had holes in their tiny chests. You might mistakenly imagine a funeral where a child lies peacefully in a colorful... coffin. But make no mistake, there's no peace in the death of a child by a weapon of war.

GOP State Representative Don McLaughlin was the mayor of Uvalde that day and since then has been elected to the legislature. He's been pushing to try to change some things. As the mayor of Uvalde, I was one of the first on the scene that day. I watched nearly 400 officers, local, state, federal, stand outside while children and teachers were trapped with a shooter for over an hour. There was chaos everywhere. Leadership was nowhere to be found.

agencies deflected blame instead of stepping up. The response just wasn't delayed. It was disorganized, directionless, and deadly. He's a Republican, Democratic State Senator Roland Gutierrez from San Antonio, whose district includes Ubalde. He's been all over the national news talking about this for the last... Three years and he said not nearly has not nearly enough has been done after the massacre. There was failure at every level Eva Morales died in a parking lot

Because there was so much traffic around that school. We had 400 different types of police officers out there. They couldn't get this poor teacher off of the parking lot. She died in that emergency vehicle. Xavier Lopez, a young boy, died on his way as he was airlifted. DPS didn't have, they had three helicopters at the airport a mile away. They could have landed them on the school playground.

and we could have saved some lives for kids that bled out. That didn't happen because of the failure of this agency and those others. Jeremy, you were tracking some of this, and can you talk about what McLaughlin's trying to do? what Roland Goodyears was following up with there.

Yeah, yeah. House Bill 33 is McLaughlin's bill. And what he's trying to do is trying to create more training programs for the police to deal with school shootings. Look, there's already training in all of the regulations for police as they're trying.

to go through the process you know they already have to go through you know what to do in an active school shooting but they want to do more of that they want to just make sure it becomes more muscle memory and so you can see mclaughlin's bill is going to like you know make sure that there's specified training that everybody knows and understands. And also he's trying to make sure that there's...

more requirements for law enforcement to be communicating with one another before the next school shooting happened. Look, another one's going to happen. It's just the way this country is right now. It's like, there's nothing we can do to stop it. But so the question is, you know, can DPS work with the sheriff's department? and the local police department and the school district ISDs better? Well, obviously, they didn't all work at all.

During that shooting in Uvalde, it's like there was lots of communication breakdown. Who's in control? Who's in command? Remember, DPS had like 90 people out there and nobody went in. They did not take command of that scene when I think a lot of people would have expected DPS.

say okay move over y'all we're going into this building we're going to go save these kids they knew you know these calls were coming in and yet all of them stood outside the building so mclaughlin's bill is meant to fix that further and you know you know gutierrez's responses are to that bill that's almost ready to pass it may even pass tomorrow on the anniversary i'm not sure look and look the reason why this

all hit me so hard this week. So Uvalde's school year ended yesterday on Thursday. It was the last day. And all I was thinking about, there's 400,000 children who are in the seventh grade right now. Like those kids should have been in there and they're all excited planning for becoming eighth graders next year. But there's 19 kids who aren't going. And it kills me to think that that's happening.

to those families. Like we are not long enough away from this for this to be okay. And for everybody to just go about their business. It's like, those families have to live with that. And remember. And just like you brought up with those other kids in the other classrooms, the kids who survived that day in that shooting, they're carrying stuff behind them that we can't even fathom.

What they're bringing. Yeah, I just can't, I just can't understand how this became so commonplace. And I don't understand why, like. I think it should be a bigger deal. I think we should be asking tougher questions of DPS and of all the law enforcement. Nobody lost their job with DPS over this. They were just fine.

It's like, and I, I don't understand why, you know, cause you talk to anybody in law enforcement, the expert, I know a lot of people in law enforcement and like there, everybody knows the rule. Like if there's. if they're hostages in there if they're if it's an act of shooting get in there don't wait don't wait that's like i don't think enough has been made out and and into you know roland gutierrez's point the additional

problems. So just the logistics of the scene, you know, about trying to get medical care to people. There's one point where kids were being dragged out of the classroom who were wounded by law enforcement. you know, so they could be cared for. It's like, you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to be moving a patient like that. And that basic training is what like, you know, hopefully.

You know, this bill will kind of keep putting that pressure on in all law enforcement. Like, look, most law enforcement, you know, I they do a great job. It's like I am definitely a. I support law enforcement for sure, but they too need reminders of just kind of what do we do if hell breaks loose? It's like, and how are we going to respond? Because I think there's enough people in law enforcement who know, and you saw it in those early videos. If you all remember, it's like...

Some of those cops who were trying to like push people aside to go in, they wanted to get into that classroom, but they were being pushed back by other people in law enforcement saying, oh, no, no, we're waiting this out. It's like there were clearly people who instinctually in law enforcement. knew that the job was to dive into that classroom as fast as you can because there's one shooter in there and there's 393 of us out here. One shooter. Let's get our asses in there.

Once and for all. It's unbelievable, and it's not even a question to me that they screwed that up, obviously. All the questions are good to ask. It has been standard operating procedure in the United States since the Columbine shooting of, what, two decades ago? or more, that when there's an active shooter at a school, the cops shoot them on sight. That's SOP in the United States since Columbine. I think that the fact...

That the cops screwed up the response on the back end so badly, though also in this instance prevented.

a healthy discussion about things you could do on the front end to not have this happen in the first place. So let me bring up a couple of things you mentioned that maybe there's not a lot we can do about these school shootings. I would respectfully disagree. Number one, the families.

who, as you remember, we reported on, the families of the Uvalde victims who came to the Texas Capitol and were kind of jerked around when they were here, right? They weren't treated very well, in my estimation. All they were asking for was the bare minimum of a change. in gun law they're not trying to grab anybody's guns

These are people from a very Republican area, a county that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. What did they ask legislators to do? To raise the age to 21 for the purchase of certain firearms, right? Now, you might say, what would that do, Scott? Well, in this instance...

Might have stopped him from being able to get it because remember the day he turned 18, he went out and bought one of these guns, bought some of these guns and was hooked up and ready to go to commit mass murder of little kids at an elementary school.

The other thing is, and cops will tell you this. I mean, you said you mentioned supporting law enforcement. The cops will tell you one of the reasons they don't want to rush in there. This is not an excuse. This is a reason. Those are different. That a lot of times they show up to these scenes. And they are facing firepower that is greater than what they have as the cops. At people in body armor, powerful weapons with increased levels of lethality, you might think, oh, Scott.

So lethality, that's just a yes or no thing, right? Is the thing deadly or not? Is the gun deadly or not? But if you talk to firearms experts, which I have, They will tell you there are different firearms that have greater levels of lethality. What does that mean? It means they can kill more people faster, right? They have more and more guns that can kill more people faster. And when you have those weapons...

of war in the hands of a young man who is angry about whatever, this is the thing that's going to happen. And so a response has to be all of the above, right? The... The response to law enforcement was terrible or by law enforcement was awful. That has to be addressed. Mental health care needs to be addressed. All these other things that Republicans will tell you.

saying Republicans because they're the opposition on the last thing. The last piece of it has to be some discussion of any kind of gun regulations, but we don't have that discussion at all. Everything else gets talked about. Have you ever noticed?

That my dear friends who are Republicans don't really care that much about funding mental health care until something like this happens. And then they say, oh, we need to put a whole lot more money into that. Because they are obfuscating. They don't want to have the conversation about anything to do with a gun regulation.

And that's after this young man pops off, kills all those kids and teachers, and as you said, leaves those other kids scarred for life. Some of them saw things just as bad or worse as some people coming back from... the war zones in Vietnam and Iraq. And these are elementary school kids. So yeah, there are things that could be done, but in this country, we don't have those conversations at all. And I do think in this instance, because the cop...

response was so terrible that ate up so much of the conversation that there could be no conversation about the other piece. So I'm going to have like.

My newsletter tonight, you know, and for the weekend will be about Uvalde. And one of the things I'm hoping people look again.

I'm not sure what the solutions are to any of this a lot of times. I get – I know the politics are what they are. But maybe at the bare minimum, like I think just thinking about these children and maybe using this Memorial Day sometime – if you're listening to this on Saturday, which is – the actual anniversary of it you know you know think about like ever morales and uh annabelle and my day and tess and xavier and like amory it's like like remember they were real

Like this wasn't just some TV thing. This is like real, man. This is like one of our towns. It's like, I don't pretend you've all these a suburb of San Antonio, but it feels like I grew up with these people and like. It's okay for us to just, like, whatever your faith is or not, you know, it's like the power of just thinking about these children.

you know, maybe it's worth doing. So, so yeah. So check out my newsletter tonight. I'll make sure there's a link in there so you can see the stories of all these children and the teachers who gave their life for maybe the darkest moment. that I can think of. Yeah, there were only a few stories that I've covered that even come close or can be compared, right? I mean, 9-11.

Hurricane Katrina. Some of these things that were just horrific. This, unlike a hurricane, completely man-made disaster. Really unfortunate. And as I said, not much done about it. Not much done about it in the meantime. Check out Jeremy's newsletter. He's got all that for you there. His pin post on X is the link to the newsletter. And his handle is at Jeremy S. Wallace. And you should be a subscriber. at quorumreport.com, houstonchronicle.com. We'll see you next time.