Outbreak!

Outbreak, welcome. to The Texas Take, the number one politics podcast in the great state. I'm Scott Braddock, and he's Jeremy Wallace. Of course, his work is always at HoustonChronicle.com, and you can find the inside story on Texas politics at QuorumReports.com. I feel better than I have in months.

Jeremy, I felt like for a month and a half, two months or whatever, it just was six. It wasn't even six weeks. It was at least two months. I felt sick. I felt like I needed to say it every time we started the show that I'm just feeling like I'm feeling terrible. Because I didn't want people to think I normally sound like that. But I'm getting back to 100% here. Do I sound 100%? Just in time for pollen season, right? So boom, here we go. So lingering allergies is what's going to happen.

So now that I'm better again, let's talk about disease. And we're going to talk about the passing of a Houston political legend. who passed away this week. We're going to talk about the latest on vouchers. The heat is really getting turned up on the Republicans who are supporting it back in their communities. But first, I had a lot of questions about this this week, and you know we don't take requests here, but I am...

Those are different. And we got lots and lots of questions about the measles. There's a measles outbreak in Texas. And I kind of think, and this is not to criticize anybody's coverage in particular, but maybe... Maybe I'm criticizing us. Maybe we haven't talked about this enough because it was going on. It was ramping up. As you were taking a look earlier, Jeremy, you saw the numbers are ticking up after this outbreak in West Texas, right? What are we up to now?

Yeah, it's like the state just today says we're now up to 198 cases and 23 patients have been hospitalized. So this ain't small, man. Of the damn measles in 2025, what is going on? I mean, this is the kind, Evan, this is the kind of thing. that you wouldn't really hear about anymore. I mean, at least not since the 1970s or something. What are you doing all from school? They sent me home. Neasles.

See, their measles are a strange case of red freckles. You have got a temperature. They told me, 101.1. So now we have measles cases. We have one death from measles in Austin, at least one. There might be another. Was there another one in New Mexico? related to this on the other side of the state border. I think that's right. But anyway, we have an increased population at risk for this because they're not vaccinated. We'll get to that in just a second. But I've been reflecting on things.

Recently, Jeremy, remember the other day I started the show by sort of reminiscing about, you know, the old school TV in Houston. And we talked about Marvin Zindler and related that to what's going on with Dan Patrick now. I have at times been accused of being someone who holds grudges forever. And it's not really that I hold the grudge forever, Evan. It's that I just never forget things.

And I can't let it go, whatever. And I have tried to do better recently about not letting it screw up, you know, just friendships or whatever else. But I can't let certain things go. And I certainly can't. forget them. There is a, there's an old phrase that they use at the Texas Capitol, Jeremy, it goes like this, forgive and remember. So the forgiveness is about you, right? The forgiveness isn't about the other person, it's about you feeling better, right? You don't need to hold on to anger.

about but you know about the thing but remembering what they did informs your you know, future interactions with that person. It was Babe Schwartz, the late Senator from Galveston who came up with that, you know, down in, in Galveston, there's a Babes beach there. You would think that was like, you know, Beach babes. No, it was it was Babe Schwartz, the Democratic senator from Galveston, who, by the way, wrote the Texas Open Beaches Act. All of our beaches are open to the public.

Sort of. By law they are, but there are some places that are harder to get to. Anyway, he had said, forgive and remember. So I was thinking about, this may not surprise people. When I was in the fourth grade... How old would I be if I was in the fourth grade, Jeremy? Nine years old? Something like that? Yeah. I remember having an exchange with my teacher about diseases. We were in science class.

And there was a discussion about diseases. And I thought I knew everything about science because when I was six, seven, eight years old, I loved watching those science shows on PBS. And the one that comes to mind immediately, and I was telling a friend about this this week, the one that comes to mind is one that was really popular. It was from the Children's Television Workshop, which...

was responsible for teaching so many kids so many things across their shows, right, Jeremy? I mean, television workshop. They taught us a lot of things before our teachers ever taught us things. And people my age will remember this show. And other people won't even know what I'm talking about. Because...

It was a very specific demographic. You know, I'm 44, and I think this show came along a little bit too late for Jeremy to have been impacted by it. Yeah, but we were getting the same lesson on Mr. Wizard's World. Mr. Wizard's World, right. Yeah, that was ours. So there was Mr. Wizard's World. There was 321 Contact. Shows like that gave way to shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Bill Nye. is a property of matter.

So because I had watched shows like that and 321 Contact and Mr. Wizard, which you mentioned, I thought I knew everything about science. And so I was in class of fourth grade, I guess nine years old, and this teacher was talking about... vaccines and viruses communicable diseases and my teacher had i'm not going to give the teacher's name because she can't defend herself now but but she had said something about

she had said something about curing viruses. She had said that certain diseases like measles and polio, these things had been Cured. And I don't know if I raised my hand, but I pushed back. I know I spoke up in class and I said, you can't cure a virus. And I, you know, she was using the word cured. And I thought that's not right. Now she pushed and look.

I'm not mad at her. I know what she was trying to do. She was trying to promote the use of vaccines. I remember exactly what she said. She said, no, these things have been, quote, eradicated from the planet. They are cured. And I remember just thinking and saying that that's not right. They're not cured.

And I know I said this at the time. I said, it just means that nobody has them right now, right? And I should have been a lawyer, I guess, because the words right now are key, right? Because it could have been still growing in a lab somewhere. This disease, this virus, it still exists somewhere on Earth. So what happens over the last couple of weeks, Jeremy? I've got, let's see, I've got my remote here. Let me turn on CBS News.

and see what they're talking about on the news in Texas right now. Welcome back. A measles outbreak in West Texas continues to spread. The Texas Health Department says it's primarily affecting children and teenagers. without measles vaccinations. As numbers grow, doctors warn measles can spread incredibly fast. It's more contagious than the flu, COVID, polio and most other infectious diseases. So we have the measles in Texas.

Why would that be, Jeremy? We have a widely available vaccine for this. All the kids would get the MMR, the measles, mumps, and rubella. Well, you know, my teacher back in the fourth grade. And others maybe could not have anticipated that we would have a political movement that is organized around.

refusing to take vaccines. And I was watching Nate Schatzlein. I've got this here on my phone, Evan. I'm gonna try to play this for you. Nate Schatzlein, who's a state representative from North Texas. He was standing outside the Texas Capitol on a day. And this is kind of funny. You'll want to listen to the audio on this, Evan. He's trying to shout over all of the wind that afternoon. People who were in Austin will remember it was so windy that...

that dust was being blown in from Lubbock. And for some reason, Schatzlein in his social media posts, he always puts music in the background of his videos. And so you will hear some ZZ Top playing, and you'll hear him trying to shout over the wind, and he's bragging about the fact – listen for this. He's bragging about the fact – that the school where his kids, where they attend, where they go, that they have the lowest rate of vaccination for any school in the state.

private school in my district also happens to be where i send my kids to school he said they are the least vaccinated school in the state of texas now i was incredibly concerned uh for a couple different reasons I was concerned that, number one, we're just finding out about this. Because the second concern is, why haven't we celebrated this sooner?

He's saying that they should be celebrating the fact, Jeremy, that they don't have vaccines. Now, Democrats were quick to blame Greg Abbott for this. There was a video posted. by a group called the Lone Star Project. And they were saying that Abbott has been really slow to respond here, similar to the way that they argue he was slow to respond during COVID. When it comes to protecting Texas kids.

Greg Abbott fails. Okay, what did he do wrong? Texans are battling the worst measles outbreak in 30 years. The disease is ruthlessly contagious. It started in rural Gaines County, but already is spreading to Austin, San Antonio, and across our state. A child has died. Dozens more are hospitalized and the numbers are rising daily. All right, Democrats, I need you to focus. None of that was what Abbott has done wrong. Would you would you tell me about that, please? So what is Greg Abbott doing?

He's not addressing the outbreak publicly. He's not promoting life-saving vaccines. And he's refusing to declare a public health emergency despite the threat to kids across our state. He is trashing Texas public schools to pay off billionaire donors and cram private

school vouchers down Texans' throats. All right, we'll get to the voucher issue. But Jeremy, you wrote about this earlier in the week that Abbott was compared to RFK Jr. in the Trump administration. And in some ways, Kennedy... was being more proactive than the governor on this for sure, right?

Yeah, the whole reason I kind of brought up, because RFK, he had written an op-ed piece for foxnews.com where he talked about having reached out to Texas. So I reached out to the governor and his staff, and they said, yeah, they did talk to RFK.

about the outbreak. You know, the feds have promised to help us however that we can. The state was getting their resources together to make sure they were, you know, prepared to, you know, send TETAM, the Texas Department of Emergency Management, you know, for coordination.

logistics if they need it. So certainly Abbott is in communication with the federal government about this. But the problem was... RFK Jr., despite the state, the State Department of Health Services dishes, despite them telling people they should get vaccinated, the one thing that was missing in RFK's...

you know, op-ed piece was telling people to get vaccinated. He actually, you know, it makes it almost sound like an optional thing. And that was kind of what was concerning. At that point, you know, we were up to, I think, 128 or 130, you know, 146. measles outbreaks at that point but like then so he's given a chance to kind of tell people to go get you know

the vaccination. And instead, what he says is, well, good nutrition is the best way to avoid any of this stuff. He says parents should consult with their medical providers, but then makes it very clear the decision to vaccinate is a personal... one. Which, again, is a fine thing to say during a normal time. But when you have measles outbreaks and concerns all over the state during rodeo season and during festival season when people are going to be congregating.

in places, and it's a highly contagious disease. You can get this in a crowd of people, certainly if you're not vaccinated. Instead of just telling people to get vaccinated, he just stops short of it. And Abbott never quite told people to go get vaccinated either. They're all saying, hey, we're on top of this thing and people should consider doing it. But they're not telling anybody, go do it. Go get this done, especially if you're out there in the panhandle right now.

Yeah, of course. And, you know, I mean, there's one thing to say that people have and there's a whole group called this that they say they have vaccine choice. Yeah. It's one thing to say that when you don't have an outbreak going on, I would say that it's still ridiculous. say it when there's no outbreak going on because because guess what if you had people take you know getting the vaccine when there was no outbreak

then there would be no outbreak later, right? I mean, the whole idea is prevention. That's why we hadn't heard about a large outbreak like this of this disease. For decades. I mean, I think the last time there was some large outbreak about this was really closer to like 1999, 2000. Yeah, and the crazy thing is for – look, RFK Jr. just went through all of these hearings in the U.S. Senate. And I wrote about this in my piece. Like he just went through all these hearings trying to –

push back at this idea that he's anti-vaxxer. Like he said, I'm not that. I'm not that. I'm just, I'm for information. I'm for people making the choices on their own. And so he went through this whole thing and for them to be, for him to be confirmed and have this outbreak.

in Texas, and him largely being quiet on this. He hasn't really said a lot until this week. It was Monday when he did this op ed piece for Fox News. Again, he didn't do it with us. He didn't do it with the biggest newspaper chain in Texas. Or forget that, any newspaper in Texas. Anyone around here.

Get it to us so we can kind of get it out to the people what you're telling them. What's the federal government doing? Are you coordinating with the governor? We didn't know any of that stuff until Monday for the first time. That's the first time we were starting to hear this. And then, again, it fell short of telling people.

to go get the vaccine at least on monday you know i think since then he's done some interviews where he almost made it sound like he was more okay with it but what a time to have him as the you know this is kind of like the nightmare scenario where it says like well rfk jr

might not want you know people to take vaccines and then we have this outbreak of measles which again we thought we had mostly eradicated kind of like polio you know it's like it's like and i get a little sensitive this because like my grandmother had polio and i watched her struggle for her whole life dragging her fucking leg around trying to get

through life, right? And then to see people thinking, oh, we don't need these vaccines. And so one of the things that RFK really kind of went on, and this is absolutely on his brand, right? He starts talking about how it's a part of life before the 1960s.

People got measles all the time. But it was okay. He almost makes it sound like it's a part of the natural process. And that's where he made this whole case that, hey, people should get good nutrition. It's like, go take vitamin... them b12 shots yeah right like that and you're like okay well that's not helping the person who right now is in the hospital with their child again we know there's 23 who are hospitalized right now

It's like, that's not helping that kid right now, right? It's like, oh, you just should have better nutrition and you wouldn't get this illness. Yeah, it's unbelievable, really. To act like, you know, it was fine back in the 60s and 70s or whatever when they would get these diseases and before that when people were, you know, really... stricken with polio. It makes it sound like we never made any progress on this or to have progress on it is somehow.

A bad thing? What, that people ought to toughen up and just be sick? And I saw during some of the testimony about this during some hearings, the legislative level, congressional level, that some... Folks are now blaming immigrants for, you know, for us getting measles in Texas. When I think that didn't the government in Mexico put out an advisory, if you go to Texas. You might get the measles. Now it's the other way around.

Yeah, they actually sent out an advisory to travelers from Mexico going to the U.S. to warn them that they should get all their vaccinations before going to the U.S. to make sure they'll be OK. What a funny twist, right? And I get the difficulty. lot of Republicans are right now coming off of COVID-19 and all the pressure they got on, you know, you know, too many people were forced to take this vaccination that they had questions on. I get that. I get that. But this isn't that.

This is more of an illness that we almost eradicated and that children are most likely to die from. And so there's got to be a better way to walk the line than just to get vitamin B12 shots. Right. Speaking of the Texas-Mexico border, you were there this week. Where was that? Del Rio and Eagle Pass. You were on a helicopter there touring the area over the Rio Grande. And Vice President J.D. Vance was there as part of.

this group who came in from Washington this week. And he was saying that the Trump administration ought to get credit for a drop in migrant numbers coming across the border, even while President Biden was still in office. Well, I think. Like like so many Americans, apparently members of the Mexican drug cartel figured out in November and December after the election that Joe Biden was asleep at the wheel and they had to be dealing with the then president elect and now president. If you look at.

what drove the declines before the inauguration, people will tell you they knew that Donald Trump was coming back into office. They knew he was going to take border enforcement seriously. And so they were already getting ahead of actually cutting down those illegal crossing numbers.

We saw that from the Mexican government, of course, because we were threatening some economic sanctions against them. But we also saw it from the cartels themselves. Give us the report from the border, Jeremy. What was happening there? Yeah, well, look, barely 15 hours after Donald Trump finished speaking in Washington about how they were cracking down the border. That's why J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, were in.

Eagle Pass, well, first Del Rio, then Eagle Pass, to make the case that, see, look how great this is right now. They were in Shelby Park and Eagle Pass, which our listeners have heard us talk about before. That's that staging area that Abbott has put up all. these barriers and razor wire to kind of put on kind of a...

decent show to show when people want to do a TV hit from there on Fox news, that's where they typically do it from. And so on cue, that's where, you know, like all, I always love these things when people from outside of Texas comes to Eagle pass, they all put on their disaster. casual aware. You know disaster casual where it's like find your Columbia fishing shirt, throw that on, look like you're in the middle of the jungle. Again, Eagle Pass and Del Rio, just to everybody out there.

Eagle Pass and Del Rio are cities where there's an HEB and a Starbucks and McDonald's. It's a normal place. But if you want to dress in disaster casual... Go for it. So they went there to kind of make this case that like, look how great the border is. And any drop in numbers you saw before us taking office is really because of us, too. And I can see what they're doing. They're doing exactly the opposite.

of what Biden and Kamala Harris did when they got in. Remember, I think the criticism of Kamala Harris, which isn't totally off base, is she didn't even come visit. you know, the border after the campaign. Like she was down there in McAllen, but she never did come back and at least like, you know, take a look at things until much later on in the administration. They didn't give the image that they were paying attention. And so you can see from the Trump world.

where image is everything, right? They put themselves in this, you know, over-militarized park and Eagle Pass to say, ha, we got it. And Pete Heggs' thing, we're going to send as many people as we can to help fight this. But they never answered my... question, which is, will the federal government help the state of Texas out by taking all those National Guard members who we've called up in the state and then called them up themselves on the federal level?

If they do that, they would save the state of Texas millions, if not billions of dollars, if they put all those people that Abbott sent to the border on... the federal government's dime. They weren't taking my question on that. They were too busy taking all the softball questions. But I really wanted to know, it's like, does this show force mean you're going to cut the expenses that we as taxpayers are sending to the border right now by just...

Changing the number. And it's not my idea. Joan Huffman, the state senator from Houston, she brought this up herself during one of the budget hearings earlier this month, actually last month now. But like, you know, so she brought that up, got it in my head.

thinking, boy, it's like, yeah, why can't they just do that one little tiny fix to kind of really help out the state of Texas? But of course, they never get the answer. Well, yeah. I mean, if they're going to do this stuff, there's a human cost and there's a cost to taxpayers.

a question about whether it's going to be texas taxpayers or you're going to have it paid for federally which is still tax dollars it's just everybody's including ours right all pulled together but you know it's cosplay it's cosplay this is the border cosplay like you were saying that they act like they're out in the wilderness

their fishing shirts, but it's cosplay. One way you know that it is just that is that here you have Vance coming to the border in his fishing shirt, but he readily said and admitted that he'd never been to Ukraine. But did say he knew exactly what the president of Ukraine ought to do, lecturing, you know, Vladimir Zelensky in the, you know, in the Oval Office. And, you know, I mean, they come down to the border, put on the fishing shirt.

And then they won't take responsibility for what's going on down here. I mean, you know what? Actually, we'll take credit for the numbers going down. But Texas taxpayers can have the responsibility of continuing to pay for all this stepped up border security.

Yeah, and if people have been reading my Texas Tech newsletter, you've seen these numbers going down. I've been reporting on this for six months now as these numbers have been getting under control. And look, the Biden administration does deserve some credit for that. This wasn't all because Trump's about to—

win so all the migrants stayed home there's some truth into that where i'm sure people were dissuaded like once he won it's like well you know maybe it's not a good idea i get that but like but this was kind of but it went beyond just the staging of the event you know you can

see they were trying to kind of win over people like myself too by putting me on a helicopter to fly over in a military sense and by the way just so everybody knows i was wearing a shirt and tie and a sport coat because i refuse to wear disaster casual to chew Good Texas cities that are just normal places, like I said. I'm not going to play the game. I'm going to dress in my blazer.

Do the interviews from there. If you guys saw me on Twitter or TikTok, I did videos from there wearing my blazer. I'm not going to get into that game. You're right. By the way, I know that it's Volodymyr Zelensky, not Vladimir. I'm from Texas. It all sounds the same to me. I've never been to, I have been to the border here.

I haven't been to Ukraine. I'm not trying to tell them what to do in Ukraine. That's the difference. Did you see that the Republicans and God bless them, Republicans who chose to face their. their voters, the people in their communities this past week about school vouchers. Some of them were just booed off the stage and not in liberal places. In Palestine, Texas. Right. I don't know if there's one liberal who lives there.

Honestly, in East Texas, it might be illegal to be liberal. I don't know. It's an open question. They were having this town hall in Palestine. That's Anderson County. when Representative Cody Harris was hosting the chairman of the Public Education Committee, Brad Buckley, and they were talking to...

People who have their kids in the public school system, they're talking to teachers as well who showed up for this town hall. They had a pretty good turnout for the town hall, and you can tell that by listening to it, by listening to how loud the booing was. They had a lot of people there, Jeremy. The crowd got kind of rowdy as they were trying to sell these people in rural Texas on the idea that a private school voucher system would be a good idea. Not a good reception for this.

Listen to this. Why is school choice important for families? School choice is important for families for one reason, I believe. Is that parents need every tool in the toolbox. It is. They don't. That's Brad Buckley there trying to speak about school vouchers, and the crowd just isn't having it, as you can hear. You can shout.

But why wouldn't we want to give parents every option? Most parents that I talk to will tell me this. They say luckily I love my public schools. But I wouldn't mind having... I wouldn't mind having that choice.

Yeah, people are not buying this. It gets so bad that – and you have to see the video of this. I posted it at quorumreport.com, Jeremy. Representative Harris, Cody Harris, you've got to listen closely to this. Basically what he says is he gets up and leaves because the – crowd is just they're not they're not into this they're they're booing it at him and at buckley and this is pretty close to a direct quote he says we appreciate your time you'll never get my time again

Thank you for your time. We'll have a good evening. Now, after the event was over, Representative Harris released this statement. I'll read it to you, Jeremy. I'll get your reaction. Harris said, quote, Unfortunately, some in the crowd chose to disrupt the conversation, turning it into a Palestinian-style protest that drowned out voices meant to inform, engage, and debate in good.

Faith. I'm sure that there might have been some people there who thought school vouchers are a good idea, but you can hear just from the volume of that that the folks who were there just were not interested in this even a little bit. Yeah, and how does he call it a Palestinian? Make that reference in Palestine, Texas. It's like, there's like, he clearly, was he meaning to do that?

Was it just like the first thing that came to mind? He's spoofing himself, right? In Palestine, Texas. Yeah, it's like, come on. Of all the criticism, that's what I didn't expect to hear there. the news coverage of that and it was just like No, no, you can't have that as your response. I get it. But it also speaks to the bigger issue, right? It's in these rural areas, particularly in East Texas. I know a lot of people talk about West Texas on this stuff, but East Texas, there's...

so many school districts out there. There's so many ISDs with so many people who work for all the different IDs. That's a lot of school board members. There's a lot of superintendents. There's a lot of people's lives affected out there. It's part of their identity in these places. And so I think that's kind of the big thing. And I think that's what Buckley and Harris and a lot of the people out in East Texas are going to start seeing more and more of.

Well, you know what I'm reminded of? And there was a time when I would tell the story and give this analogy frequently. And then I kind of stopped, Jeremy, because I thought we were kind of past it. And I realized this past week that we're not past this. Do you remember? In 2004, you love this kind of history, right? In 2004, when George W. Bush will always be Governor Bush to me. When when Bush was running for reelection against John Kerry, you remember what his campaigns.

were about, what the campaign was about. It was two big themes, right? It was number one, if you elect the Democrat, Kerry, then terrorists will kill you and your family. That was theme number one. from Bush. It was effective, right? I mean, this was after 9-11. This is in the midst of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then the second big theme, it's easy to forget this.

But if you go back and look at the coverage from the time, the second big theme from the Bush campaign that year was that they were going to push for, they were going to pass a constitutional amendment nationally to ban gay marriage. Do you remember that? He was really rallying the evangelicals. And then after he got into office...

It was almost like he didn't say any of that about the gay marriage thing. He was still out there as a wartime president. But do you remember what he tried to sell people on in 2005 when he was sworn in again for his second term and he traveled the country?

Just like these town halls we're seeing now from these state representatives in Texas, they're traveling the state. In 2005, the first six to eight months or so of the second Bush administration, President Bush went around the country trying to sell people on what? It was privatization of Social Security. That was the big proposal. And that had never come up in his campaign. And at that time...

The more he talked about it, the more people didn't like it. And the same thing's happening with this voucher thing. Now, the more people hear about it, the more they don't like it. And it's not what Abbott campaigned on, right? What were the big themes from Abbott? I mean, he's talked about this a lot. He's been at the private schools where you've been.

Some of those events, Jeremy, where he goes to friendly crowds. The crowds that Cody Harris and Brad Buckley are appearing in front of now, it's not the handpicked crowd that's going to be friendly to the idea like what Abbott has been dealing with when he appears.

at private schools. What did Abbott campaign on? Number one, border security. And number two, cutting your property taxes. This stuff about vouchers has been in the mix, but those two things were the big promises to people. Cutting your taxes, keeping you safe. from what they would describe as border violence or violence that's spilling over the border and all of that. And it shouldn't shock anybody to understand this for me to say it.

that when republican primary voters in texas when they voted for abbott when they voted for his candidates that what they wanted was a secure border That shouldn't even be controversial for me to say that, right? But Abbott and some of the supporters of this are saying, no, no, no, that election was a mandate for school choice. It's not really what they ran on. And as they go around the state trying to sell this to people now.

People don't like it. And the more they hear about it, the more they don't like it. Now, during your live event. last week in san antonio democrat christian carranza who ran for the house last year said that lawmakers ought to be focused on supporting community schools instead of this san antonio right now is the epicenter for school closures and it is happening on the south side harland isd where i went to school we lost

four elementary schools last school year i mean it's the whole reason i even ran for office and just like rep allison mentioned earlier any isd northeast isd it's one of the more affluent school districts we have in the county they're also closing schools overall throughout the whole county.

in the last three years we have closed 27 schools either they're closed now or they're about to close that's shameful the reason that's happening is because schools have been chronically underfunded for decades here in Texas. And so what we have to do is make sure that we're funding our schools first. And you can see in the legislative hearings so far on this, Jeremy, that what she's saying is popular across Texas as far as putting more money into.

public education the house and senate both agree on some version of that the house has a bigger version of that of putting more money into schools they're promoting a plan that would spend about eight billion additional dollars for public education there is some disagreement about

way folks in Austin want to dictate to school districts exactly how they have to spend the money. And we can get to some of that. But in a broad sense, more money for public education, that's popular. Republicans and Democrats all like that. All polling I've ever seen. or am aware of, of Republican primary voters, shows that it's never been a problem for Republicans to support more money for public education in this state. That may be different in some other places, but you might think...

it would be controversial among GOP voters because they would say, oh, that's more money for government. But that's not really the way they see it. Now, if you suspect... that voters want to have their cake and eat it too you're correct because the same polling shows that gop voters don't mind for there to be a school voucher program

Right. They would say, yeah, we support that, quote, unquote. And in fact, they support, quote, school choice, not necessarily a voucher program. That's always kind of left. kind of vague in that polling. The problem from the policy standpoint is you can't really do both and be able to afford it in a state where we have, you know, approaching six million kids in K through 12 public education.

Yeah, and one of the really important points I thought Carranza had made during that live event with me was that... Look, on the south side of San Antonio, those schools are really kind of feeling it right now. So people in tougher economic conditions are struggling to keep those schools open. The kids who are left behind as those schools get...

closed are seeing like it's harder to get you know quality teachers in the classroom all that stuff right you know it's like you have all that happening at the same time this voucher plan you know it's like and i don't mean to use loaded words in the thing but What ends up happening is...

As Carranza pointed this out, it's going to be largely kids already in the private school and their parents who get access to that, right? So they're going to get a discount to go to San Antonio Christian School, which is a fine... school, I'm sure, but they're going to get a discount to go to that school and more money for that school, ultimately, right? They're going to get that $10,000 from the state for each student, potentially, you know, going into a Christian school like that.

like on the south side or on the west side of San Antonio are losing. And look, they're losing students, that's for sure, but that's no reason to cut them off even further, right? And so when parents in those places see the rich private school north of 1604 getting... Getting $10,000 of funding for their kid while their kids on the south side are getting fewer teachers, schools closing. Yep.

and no way to get to the private school. Because look, there's a reality in all this. As much as we like the idea of some kid from the fifth ward getting accepted... in you know a private school in the river oaks it's not likely to happen right it's like it's like we're not it's not like all of a sudden a bunch of kids in cashmere uh gardens are gonna head over to You know...

a private school right now. It's like a private school has all the power in this. They get the state money. They get to make the decision if the kid's going to be there or not. And so that's the kind of the problem. And so that's that dynamic was, you know, it got hammered home when Carranza has talked to me about like the South side schools are, are, are, are getting hurt right now. They're getting screwed.

They're having a hard time making ends meet, and they're watching a private school that charges $16,000 a year potentially getting $10,000 per student. When I was 24 years old working in radio in Houston, I had lots of accomplishments, but one I'm thinking of in particular. When I worked at Clear Channel Communications, I did a news story.

And Clear Channel owned 1,200 radio stations. I did a news story, Jeremy, that when we posted the internet version of the story, and this was back when you were doing broadcast news.

This was back when it was a new thing that you also did a version of the story for your website. And we did this story, and I'll tell you all what it was about later. But the point for this... for this discussion is this when we posted it to our website it became the most clicked on thing in all of clear channel communications websites across the country out of 1200 radio stations went straight to the top

And so my prize for that, the thing I got for that was a hundred dollar gift certificate to the Capitol Grill Steakhouse. And, you know, this is at that time that was out of my price range to be able to go to the Capitol Grill Steakhouse. That was fancy.

Now we just go there all the time in Austin. You'll see Dan Patrick and Alan Blakemore over there. But at the time, I thought, okay, I've got $100, so I'll take me and a friend, and we'll go have dinner at the Capitol Grill. This will be great. Jeremy. I see you're laughing already because, of course, even with the $100 gift certificate, I couldn't afford to eat at the goddamn Capitol Grill when I was making $30,000 a year.

That is what I made when I was 24 years old. Come a long way since then. But of course, I owed way more walking out of there. than I could really afford. That blew a hole in my budget. Same thing with these vouchers. Like you said before, it's a coupon. Those families that don't have the means to send their kids...

to one of these private schools are not going to be able to afford that. And the people who can afford it, well, it's like they got the $100 gift certificate to the Capitol Grill. They get a little bit of a discount, right? The state's going to pay.

for their car note or whatever else it is. And in the meantime, all these other, you know, the kids who are, you know, all these folks talk about the kids who are in failing schools, the poor children in inner cities, and the kids on the south side of San Antonio that you're talking about, they won't get anything.

They'll be told to leave the restaurant. Yeah, I was going to say, imagine you got your $100 gift card and you're trying to get into the Capitol Grill, but there's a doorman out front that says, Mr. Braddock. Move along. We're not going to accept you because that's what the private schools are in. Again, the private schools don't have to take any kid they don't want. They can pick and choose who they want. It's like if they just don't like a kid.

They just don't take the kid. They don't even have to explain it. And it's completely legal. There's nothing that says that, like, a poor kid from a poor neighborhood has to get accepted into Central Catholic in San Antonio. It's like, it's still up. the school i can see uh what people are probably going to say is you know when you get all of your science education from you know tv shows

Of course, you were making $30,000 when you were 24 years old, working at a radio station in Houston. Speaking of H-Town. a Houston political giant who I knew for about 20 years, something like that. And he was, of course, prominent in politics before that, before I knew him. He passed away this week, Sylvester Turner, who, of course, I mean, look at this.

And I was thinking, Jeremy, you know, when someone is formerly in office, of course, he was last in congressional office. He had won the seat that became open when Representative Sheila Jackson Lee passed away. And we'll get to some of our coverage, a little flashback on that in just a little bit. But Sylvester Turner, you know, when someone used to be in office, you would refer to them by the highest office that they had been in. So I think in this case, I would say.

Mayor Turner. Right. And there's a reason in some places it would be the member of Congress. But I have always maintained that the most powerful Democrat, whoever it is, the most powerful Democrat in Texas is the mayor of Houston. and that's for a few reasons one they represent so many people number two more than the county judge there are some others

The mayor of Houston, by the nature of the office, is so much more powerful even than other mayors because they have a different form of government in Houston. It's a strong mayor form of government. They set the agenda. City Council can't do anything unless the mayor wants to do it.

But you see the way that Mayor John Whitmire has governed since he got into that office. And he's a good example of how powerful that office is. He can just make stuff happen real fast. Well, Sylvester Turner, this one, I got to tell you, Jeremy. I had to take a breath. I had to stop when I heard this the other day. I've known this man a long time.

He was a player at the Capitol, a major player at the Capitol, certainly bigger than you or I or some of the other people that we deal with. But I had clashed with him from time to time. Of course, we're doing, you know, recovering news. Had to ask him some tough questions here and there. Um, and, um, I was thinking about, you know, what a good sporty was about it. And just this guy who had, um, a certain gravitas, you don't, you don't see it from every, you can tell.

when a person just has it it would they just they have the respect of everybody in the room and even people who vehemently disagree with them will really respect them Well, he passed away. Think of this, Jeremy. He passed away. He was at, we mentioned that speech from Trump earlier. Trump gave his, it's not the State of the Union because he hasn't been in office for a full year yet. So the first speech the president gives like this is just a joint session of Congress speech.

Turner was at that speech the night before. And then we got word the next day, I started to get some text messages from some of my sources who said, I just want you to know Sylvester Turner passed away. And we knew he had been ill with cancer previously. He had been declared cancer-free. He still looked frail, though, but it still hit me. And it hit people in Houston. And this is part of how they covered his death on KHOU television. Tonight.

remembering the life and legacy of Congressman Sylvester Turner. We will work to make sure that the least of those in the 18th, that those who want to do better, are given the tools to do better. A longtime civil servant who fought cancer and won so he could keep serving the people of Houston. Being diagnosed with cancer doesn't mean you go sit down and die.

Mayor John Whitmire, his successor in office, confirmed the death during a city council meeting that day. It's my duty as the mayor to confirm that... Congressman Sylvester Turner, a former mayor, state representative for 24 years, passed away last night. Despite their differences, which, Jeremy, there were many.

Whitmire said that he will miss Turner a lot. We've been together in good times and bad times. He asked me to speak at his mother's funeral. I was there when Ashley was born. He was there when Whitney and Sarah were born. As recently as two weeks ago, we were together as friends, as public servants, installing F.M. Williams II in Acres Home a week ago Sunday.

A lot of people really torn up about this, Jeremy, including Texas House Democratic Caucus Chairman Gene Wu from Houston. He spoke on the floor of the Texas House. There were only two names that I knew before coming to the work here, and that was... Sinfonia Thompson and Sylvester Turner because they were people who were outspoken for fighting for their communities and defending the poor and the working class.

and anybody who got stepped on. As I said, there were members of both parties who really respected Mayor Turner. Congressman – or excuse me, obviously was a congressman, was a mayor, was a state rep, all of that. Republican House Judiciary Chairman Jeff Leach said it didn't matter whether they were –

a Republican or a Democrat, that Turner had the respect of every member of the Texas House when he served there. There's no one, no one that I've served with, and it's not even close, who commanded that respect more than Congressman Sylvester Turner. When he got up at the front mic, it was time to listen. And we got up at the back mic with his abacus.

We would all do well to stop what we were doing and to listen to his wisdom. You know, he mentioned the abacus as the vice chair of appropriations um sylvester turner who was also the chairman of the black caucus in the texas house years ago there was very often jeremy uh that he turner would appear on the floor of the house with an abacus And I know there are people who are listening who don't even know what that is. Evan, do you know what an abacus is? It's the manual calculator thing, right?

Right. Okay. Yes. He would appear there to... do the math live in front of a person who was making a proposal to do something in the Texas budget. Somebody wanted to spend money in a certain way. And Turner would appear on the floor of the house with the abacus and he would show them.

how that's going to impact the budget in real time. It was always a crowd pleaser, always incredible. I had a few people, Jeremy, this week when they found out that he had passed away, a few people who just texted me a picture of an abacus. So I had tweeted it out with the picture of the abacus, and I just said, rest in power, Sly. Now, you talked to him in a couple of his final interviews.

Now, one of them was when he won the seat during a precinct chair meeting in Harris County last year after Sheila Jackson Lee had passed away. And here's how fast all this stuff happens, Jeremy. You think about... life kind of just grinding on and death being part of it. When I heard the news and I saw someone online had said something about I think it was the Wall Street Journal tweet about it had said, you know, he took the place of another Democrat who had died just recently.

And I had to think for a second, who was the one who died? And I knew the answer, because everything happened so fast. She passed away, then he's in office, now he passes away. And we'll go through all this again, and we'll get to what that election might look like in just a bit. But when you talk to him...

When he won the seat in Congress, he really stressed health care as something he wanted to focus on when he got to Washington. What's this opportunity mean for you after everything you've been through with your battle against cancer to get this chance to represent this district? in the United States Congress? You know, it's not just political, it's personal. And when I talk about the ACA Affordable Care Act, there are literally thousands of people in the 18th.

They don't have access to quality health care. You've got the cancer cluster in the 18th. And you have a zip code in the 18th where the death rate is 20 years greater than the neighboring zip code. So when it comes to going to D.C., fighting for the continuation of the ACA against Republican attacks, it's not only political.

is personal about a month into that term uh jeremy asked turner about having face cancer and confronting new discoveries of carcinogens in fifth ward like i said at the start of this like you're a month into your term in congress and you certainly have something big to kind of have Well, as I heard this minister say, sometimes you are called to be at a place for such a time as this.

That's the way I look at it. Tell us about those conversations, Jeremy. Yeah, first, it hit me really hard when I heard this news because... His office and I were setting up an appointment to talk after the... Trump's address to Congress, we were supposed to speak to each other. And I totally thought I was going to get another chance to talk to Sylvester Turner. And it just kills me to think that...

Yeah, yeah. It just hit me hard that I would not get to hear his voice again. Like he and I, you know, look, I... I only started really talking to him a lot when he became mayor of Houston. And certainly during Hurricane Harvey and post-Harvey, I spoke with him a lot. And certainly this run for Congress. But there was like...

There was a commitment in his voice, which made me want to ask those questions. Because, again, he had firsthand feelings about kind of representing this issue, particularly because of health issues. And for us to be like... Like in this position where I was having to ask him about cancer clusters and kids at a community center being really...

seriously way too close to this contamination, right? Of all the people that have to address it, Sylvester Turner seemed like probably the perfect person at the perfect time. to kind of have to deal with this. So I don't know. It's been rough. It's been rough. Boy, I really wish I could have gotten that last interview. It wasn't lost on me that that interview I had with him almost two weeks ago was probably his last full interview.

with any reporter, like for a lengthy one. And I will cherish that and listen to that for years to come. Yeah. And we'll just mention that Governor Abbott has options for filling this seat, calling an election to do that. We'll talk more about it later, Jeremy. But, you know, it could be fairly soon. It could be later. And when you get down to raw politics, it could be that Governor.

or Abbott move slower on this because it would deny Democrats a vote in the U.S. House. I could imagine Speaker Johnson giving him a call. I don't know that this has happened, but the Republicans would be in better position in D.C. If Abbott dragged, just read a little bit.

Yeah, and check out my newsletter on this because I wrote about this last night. They have a 218-214 margin right now with Turner gone. There are two seats in Florida that are going to be filled on the 1st of April. After that, I think Abbott will have... have the green light to start setting up a special for this because they'll have enough seats to cover themselves on the Republican end to get budget bills through. I know it sounds horribly crass. Oh, but that's how it works.

Yeah, it's sad, but the Republicans need every vote they can right now because they have Republicans who don't want to vote for even Trump's plan. So you're going to end up in a situation where they need every vote they can get. So Abbott might be able to help by... delaying and not going so fast and getting somebody in that spot. He doesn't get to pick the person. He can only sit the special election.

Yeah. One other thing before we get to the up and down of the week. You know that Lieutenant Governor Patrick has made it a mission to ban all products that contain THC in Texas. And there were some hearings on this this week that got pretty emotional. has kind of been in the same place about this all along, though, so I'm not sure that people should be surprised about it, although...

in office as Lieutenant Governor. He has overseen the loosening of our laws on this just a little bit, right, Jeremy? We have the Compassionate Use Program now. But if you go back to 2014, When Patrick was running for lieutenant governor originally, he would put out some YouTube videos here and there and he would answer questions from voters, you know, Patrick style, like he's doing a little TV show. And in 2014.

He took a question from a voter that had to do with legalizing pot. And he said, look, I'm dead set against it. This was Patrick more than 10 years ago talking about. legal marijuana in Texas and how he said, you know what, that is the worst idea that anybody's ever come up with. I'm only exaggerating his words slightly.

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.

So now he wants to get rid of all THC products, Jeremy. We've talked about the impact this could have on veterans with PTSD, on others who rely on this for some kind of treatment of chronic pain. You've got to hear this. This mother, Piper Lindeen, testified before a Senate committee this week that's considering this legislation. She said that what Patrick wants to do is simply – that it's simply cruel.

In a way that's hard to get your mind around. She got really emotional talking about her son. She's got a young son who suffers. from seizures and she wants him to be able to get the medicine that he needs. 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. Those other kids were given a shot.

My son deserves a shot at life. We need to start researching this and understanding how to treat people with this. This is why you see mixed results because... There's no focused research. If people think that Texas stands any chance of legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes or for any other purpose, Jeremy.

They are way off. I get this question all the time. When is Texas going to legalize marijuana? The lieutenant governor has set the state. I don't think this is going to pass. We'll see. I don't think this is going to pass, this ban on all THC products. What this conversation does do is it moves the center of gravity on this conversation in completely the opposite direction of where other conservative states are going, Arkansas.

Oklahoma, et cetera. These are not places that are more or less conservative than Texas. But Patrick is setting it up such that the conversation isn't about some expansion. of the ability to do this legally, even if it's for a medical reason, he's setting the conversation in the other direction that we're going to get rid of it completely.

Yeah, it's not unlike the gambling discussion, right? How now we're focused on the lottery, what is already in place versus trying to expand. I think he's doing the same thing with THC. He's going after what already is out there versus thinking about the full expansion. part of it. 100%. All right. We will keep an eye on the progression of that through the legislative process and what happens with it. One more thing, Evan, you got the music ready? It's called The Up and Down.

of the week. Let's go. Each and every weekday in his newsletter, Jeremy features the up and down of the day. And here on the show, we do the up and down of the week. Let's start with who was up this week, Jeremy. Well, I was tempted to make J.D. Vance the up since he and I were literally up in helicopters together going over the border. But, you know, look, he's going to have to take a back seat. I'm giving this one to Jocelyn Nungary, like President Trump during that speech.

announced that he was going to rename the Anahuac National Refuge on Galveston Bay the Jocelyn Nungaree National Wildlife Refuge. I thought that was, look, you know, criticize. If you love or hate Trump, it doesn't matter. This was kind of a good gesture. to kind of recognize this poor 12-year-old girl from Houston who was killed last year. And it's nice to see that they're kind of remembering her and not forgetting her. So she's my up of the week. She's got it. Down of the week, Jeremy.

Well, look, this was clear when I got the call from another member of Congress that Turner had passed, Houston. I'm going to give all of us this. Houston is down because Mayor Turner, again, whether you agree or disagree with this politic, the man loved the city. I talked to Abbott about this this week. Even a Republican. who clashed with Turner from time to time, he said, look,

This guy, we had a kinship and a friendship over everything that is Houston, and Turner absolutely embodied what Houston was all about. That's a guy, Abbott and Turner did not even have a speaking relationship. during some of the biggest disasters recently when when turner was mayor it during covid and during the winter storm those guys never even picked up the phone and talked to each other but

They both love Houston. Yeah, but he told me this week that he had a real friendship that went back. I know what he said. I'm telling you what happened. Even when he was a judge back in Houston, he said he knew Turner back then. Over the years, he felt like Turner was one of those guys he felt like he had a long relationship with. I'm not questioning your reporting. I know what he said.

I'm telling you that they did not have a great relationship toward the end. But it's what you say. It's nice, and the bar is low for this anymore, Jeremy. But it's nice to see people. engaging in some decency when a major player in Texas politics died this week. Yeah, and Abbott did have the flags lowered to half-staffed. And so it was a gesture, I think, that goes over well with people in Houston, even if you don't agree.

You can check out the up and down every day in the newsletter. It's the pinned post on Jeremy's X page at Jeremy S. Wallace on Twitter or X. or whatever you want to call it. You should be a subscriber at quorumreport.com for the inside story on Texas politics and houstonchronicle.com as well, of course. And we'll see you next time.