Seeing Red: A Texas Politics Podcast
Seeing Red: A Texas Politics Podcast is where Texas politics gets the scrutiny it deserves. Hosted by strategist and writer Garrett Fulce, the show features in-depth conversations with lawmakers, activists, and insiders shaping policy in Austin and beyond. Each week, Garrett cuts through the noise with candid interviews and sharp commentary—bringing listeners beyond the talking points to the real mechanics of power in Texas.
Seeing Red: A Texas Politics Podcast
What Actually Matters at the Texas GOP Convention (2026)
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Texas Republicans are gathering in Houston for the Republican Party of Texas Convention—and while most coverage focuses on speeches and personalities, the real action happens in the committees.
This week, Garrett Fulce sits down with Texas Voice publisher Mark McCaig to break down how the party platform is built, how legislative priorities are selected, why those priorities matter to lawmakers, and what delegates can expect as convention business gets underway.
Garrett and Mark also discuss the race for party chair, the role of the Texas Secretary of State, the debate over open versus closed primaries, and how convention decisions can shape the political fights heading into the next legislative session.
00:00 Welcome to Houston & Convention Week
05:41 RPT Chair Race
10:10 How the Party Platform Works
19:36 Secretary of State & Election Administration
28:47 Legislative Priorities Explained
35:44 Convention Culture & Networking
41:12 School Closures & Demographic Change
49:58 Convention Prep & Final Thoughts
Topics include:
• How the Texas GOP platform is created
• Why legislative priorities matter
• The race for the Republican Party Chair
• Secretary of State speculation
• Open vs. closed primaries
• Election integrity debates
• School closures and demographic shifts in Texas
• What delegates should expect in Houston
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Find us at seeingredpodcast.substack.com for full episodes. Follow us on all socials at @theseeingredpod and online at our website Seeing Red Podcast. x.com/gwfulce
Welcome back to Singer Ed. I'm your host, Garrett Fulce. So glad to have you here, and so glad to have the delegates for the Republican Party of Texas Convention descending on Houston, the Metro that I call home. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for coming in and really have so many friends in town. It's gonna be a great week for everybody who's coming into town. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that today. You know, talking about the Secretary of State, Jane Nelson, is leaving the office. Governor Abbott's gonna have to appoint somebody to that office. Going to talk a little bit about that. I'm gonna be talking about education, school closures, what's happening with public schools and these and some some some areas that are generating a lot of headlines and how that's gonna play out uh over the next few months in the elections. And just generally, you know, we I like I mentioned last week, we had Mark McCain on the show last week, having him again on this week. We had a long conversation that's split up into both episodes. Gonna be talking about the platform and the legislative committees, legislative priorities committees coming out of the Republican Party of Texas convention that's happening here in Houston. So let's just jump into that. Welcome to Houston. As somebody who's born and raised in Dallas, born and raised in Dallas County. Uh family's originally from Lake Texoma, and I spent some time there myself. Family's been there for over a century. That is, you know, I'm I'm from up there. There's a kind of a rivalry between Dallas and Houston. There's definitely a rivalry between Dallas and Houston. I catch a lot of smoke because I still represent my Dallas teams through and through. Cowboys, Rangers, etc. And so being down here in Houston, there's a lot of give and take there on the sports front, but everyone is kind of used to that. Differences between Dallas. If you're in Dallas, you kind of you're used to driving everywhere. Same thing here in Houston. The food's better here, undoubtedly. The food is is better here, and the weather is worse. We have a lot more humidity. It's a little bit hotter in Dallas typically, but not that much. And the humidity really puts it through the roof. The weather this week's supposed to be pretty terrible. It's been raining for the past two weeks straight. It's going to be sunny most of the week. I'm just heating up, heating up, and all that water that's just soaking to the ground is going to be just going to be filling up everything. It's going to be miserable and swamp-like. Welcome to the swamp, the real, actual bona fide, natural swamp of Houston. So get ready for that. That is so dress and dress appropriately. You know, most of the stuff's going to be around the convention center if you're coming into town. But here's the thing, as I'm sure you've heard about, so is the World Cup. So the World, there's a World Cup game here in Houston. There's massive fan zones that are blocked off. My wife and I were downtown for dinner this weekend, and we were very near where they're the blocking off stuff. We just kind of peered into it, without about walking over there, and realized, no, it's the security around the area is is very secure. Uh everything's blocked off, police at every entry point. So that's just kind of what we're seeing right now here in Houston. It's traffic's going to be a little crazy just because there's going to be so many people in from out of town who don't know where they're going, plus, we have so many people in from out of town. That's led to kind of one of the reasons why people are had had a hard time, have had some hard time, and had an easier time finding hotels, was there were so many rooms reserved for FIFA at the same hotels that we were that the convention delegates are staying at, that that weren't released until far later. And you know, I I have taken RPT to task at times over how they've planned certain things, but you know, we figure out our convention locations well in advance of things like the World Cup deciding to come to Houston and how those dates are going to align with it. And so that wasn't really something they could predict, and there's only so many places they could go. The other place being Dallas, who has the same problem? I guess it would have been better to have it in San Antonio this year, but they were in San Antonio last time, and they can't usually stay in the same place from year to year. So just those things in mind, you know, it is what it is. People have found hotels. I haven't heard a lot of people having a hard time finding hotels now, but it wasn't cheap. It's never cheap to come to a major city and you know spend a week there or even a few days. So, you know, a lot of these delegates are spending their time, money, effort to get down here to do the business of the party. There's gonna be a lot of fun stuff going on, a lot of lunch and learns, a lot of galas and after parties and open bars and whatever else. So people will be in town, it's gonna be a good time. That's you know what it the party will be a bit of an actual party in the evenings, and it'll be a bunch of sitting around the convention center talking to one another during the day. So that's what we have going on here in Houston. We're gonna talk with Mark in a little bit. I just want to kind of talk a little bit about the chair race. It's basically a two-horse race between chair Abraham George and Vice Chair Dorinda Randall. I don't know. Everyone just calls her Dorinda. So my here's my I think Mark and I touched on this. I don't recall how much we touched on it in the episodes that are coming up. But my here's my read on the race as we get in close gotten closer. There's also Brooks McKenzie's now on the race, who's sending out a bunch of of mail or email to the folks. My my read on the race is that Abraham's gonna take it. So let's just talk a little bit about how the chairs can be nominated. And the rules can change. One of the committees that's happening right now is the rules committee. But typically it takes winning outright netless, at least three SREC conventions to be eligible to be nominated to the floor on the floor. What happens is each SREC nominates someone to the nominations committee to what their nominations and who they want that person to vote for. That person's bound for that vote for the first vote, and they end up trying to get at least, I guess, 16 SRECs to back a chair candidate, uh, and that person will ultimately get the nominations committee nomination on the floor. Anyone who received at least three votes, meaning three SRECs, Senate District Caucuses voted for them, they get they they are eligible to be nominated from the floor, and then we have a floor fight, which is what happened two years ago. And I and it happened four years ago too, but that race consolidated really quickly, and there's only one ballot. And so my read is that Abraham will win the nomination. I don't know if he wins the floor fight because it's hard to tell. We just don't you don't know who the electorate is. You don't you know who the delegates could are, the people who the maximum people could be there, but a lot of times delegates don't show up, and you don't really know how that boating strength's gonna play out or where that strength is coming from. And so you ultimately end up having the situation where it's it's hard to tell what'll happen. My read though is based off of he has a since he has a such a wide swath of support, though not necessarily intense support, Abraham has the better shot of winning. And Abraham, I think, has been the of the last three chair, so Alan West, Matt Rinaldi, and Abraham, he's done the best job of maintaining the financial stability of the party and then working with more elements in the party to actually do the business of the party of getting people elected. So I think he's in a decent job. I don't Dorinda doesn't seem to have much experience that I can tell beyond what she's done as vice chair, and that might be enough for some people right now as a delegate. My vote's leaning towards Abraham, but I'm you know, I can still be swayed by any one, you know, whatever else. We'll see what happens on the floor. But that's where I'm that's where I'm personally sitting right now. Not an endorsement, not even sure I'm gonna vote for Abraham, but and I I I've known Abraham for six years, seven years. He was an SREC when I worked in for the governor, and he wasn't in my area, but I did go to a couple of Collin County events where he's from. And so I interacted with him a number of times. He was always professional, worked well, and you know, that's my impression of him on a personal level. Uh, obviously, there was some reporting from friend of the show, Tony Report, Tony Ortiz, before the election last time that you know brought some a scandal up involving him, that there's not been more to that scandal in the sense that there weren't more information and there weren't additional scandals that people are aware of. And so I think looking at the job he's done, he's done as good a job as I think he could do in that role, and with the way the party is currently kind of at odds of with the Civil War going on. And I think that though he's from a different faction typically and aligns on different things, I think he's probably earned another two years. But once again, maybe more information comes out at the convention and stuff will happen over the next few days that I'm not aware of. But and so that's where I land on the chair race. All right, it's gonna cut over to Mark real fast. We're gonna talk with Mark McCaeg, publisher of the Texas Voice. We're gonna talk about the platform committee and what the platform is. So go take a listen. Welcome back to the show, The Voice of Texas. Oh, sorry, no, the Texas Voice Publisher, that is, Mark McCaeg. We can found at the Texasvoice.com or at the Tech TX Voice on X. Mark McCain, welcome back to the show. How are you today, bud?
SPEAKER_00I I am I am excellent, Gary. Appreciate you having me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fantastic. Well, we are talking today. We're gonna talk right now about the platform, and in a minute, we're gonna talk about legislative priorities. Last week, we kind of explained what the convention is, why people might care about uh a political party convention, what a political party even is, and then you know, we promise we talk a little bit about the platform and legislative priorities because that's what people, if they care, really care about from the convention. So let's just dive right into it. What's a party platform? Is it like a like are we are we voting on what the stage looks like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so the party's platform are basically a wish list of things that I would like to see. It's essentially what what the state party stands for. The current state party platform has 252 planks, some of which are more politically viable uh the than others, but that's just essentially you know the party's stand on on different issues and gives party leadership a chance to say, hey, you know, the Republican Party, you know, our official position on this particular issue is this, and point to you know, particular plank, particular language that that appears in the state party's platform.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So the political, so it's basically different different issue positions. So I guess like how does that platform get created? Like, how does a plank go from you know an idea to being in the in the platform itself?
SPEAKER_00So the at the state convention, the platform is is eventually adopted by by the delegates, but there's you know an entire process of how an idea can't can get into the uh into the state party platform, almost thinking about like the famous schoolhouse rock video of uh how a bill becomes a law. Very, very similar process and and how you know an idea or resolution uh can make it into the state party platform. It starts at one level, works its way through the process, and like it doesn't it technically have to be voted through doesn't it have to be voted through a precinct convention and then that county says not not not necessarily the state party platform committee can do whatever it wants, the state convention can do essentially whatever it wants. Okay. Uh now you're you're gonna have a better chance of getting your your idea in if it you know works its way through the system, but I would say for all intents and purposes, what the the platform committee at the at the state convention does 99% of what what they do makes it into the final product.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well let's talk about the platform committee then. Like, how does one get on the platform committee? What like what's its composition, and then like do they do they just get to decide what's in the platform?
SPEAKER_00So the the platform committee at the state convention uh is composed of a committee chairman that's appointed by the state chairman, and then a representative from each state senate district, they're appointed by the SRAC members from that state senate district. Correct. Uh yeah, the chairman and 31 committee members.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so 31 people so 32 people get together, and those 32 people get to pick our platform.
SPEAKER_00Pretty much. So there's a temporary platform committee that meets for several days before the convention starts. They they essentially take the the platform from the last convention and use that as a starting point, go through resolutions that are passed by the various county and uh state senate district conventions, and then sort of tweak language, add new language, take out language, essentially as they see fit.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Okay. And so let's let's say they come up with the perfect platform. It's it's beautiful. It goes to the floor, and at that point, the there's like an up or down vote on the platform, or are there's there more debate once it gets to the the convention floor?
SPEAKER_00So the platform committee let me just go back a second, because there is an additional step where you have your temporary platform committee that meets before the convention, and then you have the permanent platform committee that meets after the convention's gaveled in. Typically, you know, they'll approve the product of the temporary committee, maybe make a few changes uh from the temporary committee's product to the final product that will be voted on by the delegates. And 99% of the time, each state senate district caucus will ratify the temporary member from their district to be the permanent member occasionally. There are challenges, but those are are very rare. But essentially, once the permanent platform committee meets and approves their product, that then is taken to the floor of the convention for the delegates to to debate and then vote on.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well now, and then this vote voted on by voting strength, which is what we talked about, or it mightn't be whatever, but it's voted on like we mentioned before. Here's my question what a minority report and why is it a terrible movie? No, I'm kidding. Like, what is a minority report and what is it, how what is its role in this process?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So so sometimes the committees, particularly the platform and the rules committee, they don't always agree on things. And it's a majority vote in the committee of what's included in the final committee report that's presented before the delegates. But under the current party rules, if 20% or more of the members of the committee want to sign on to a minimum a minority report, then that minority report is also presented to the delegates that they that the delegates essentially can choose, you know, which position uh the convention wants to take on on that particular contested issue.
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right. So why like like you said before, there's 252 planks. They can kind of like you be used as a as a guidepost. Why does there's so much fighting over this? Like, does it does it really matter? Like, is there any real what are the teeth of the platform?
SPEAKER_00Again, it's one of these things that it it depends on on who you ask. You you have some folks you know that they they wave the party platform around like it was uh divinely inspired, that this is what you have to abide by if you want to be a Republican. Others sort of view it as, you know, the opinions of a group of party activists. And at the end of the day, you know, a lot of elected officials, they they may consider the party's position on things, many of which are in in line with you know what Republican voters typically do. There, there's some stuff in there, issues that are more specialized, you know, not not necessarily things that get a lot of attention or that really a lot of voters care about, but you know, are important to some people. Um so it's one of those things that that are hotly debated. I know we'll also be discussing uh the legislative priorities, and and I think you sort of have seen the the growth of the legislative priorities in recent years sort of as an outgrowth of uh of the platform and sort of less emphasis now on the platform and more emphasis on the legislative priorities from state party leadership.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's a good place to kind of keep people in people interested. We're gonna be talking about the priorities in a few minutes and how they differ from the from the legislative platform. So we'll get to that and Mark will see you in a few minutes. Thanks, Garrett. So the platform is both important in that it establishes what we as Republicans believe, what the Republican Party of Texas would like to push for. There's a lot of stuff in it, and not everything ever gets addressed. There's also a lot of stuff for federal office holders in there, and that doesn't really get talked much about because the federal office holders are so or more distant than the state office holders, and there's been a lot of focus on the state party, but a lot of stuff in the platform has to do with foreign affairs. Obviously, the state doesn't have to deal with. But kind of talking about foreign affairs, let's talk about the Secretary of State. Secretary of State Jane Nelson stepping down. Governor is uh has yet to announce who her replacement's going to be. She's been the longest serving Secretary of State under Governor Abbott. Secretary of State's kind of a thankless job. It's a it's probably the high, it is the highest profile appointed position in Texas government. We vote on a lot of things in Texas and for a lot of different statewide officials, but Secretary of State's probably the one that's the highest appointed position. It's not, it's never voted on. And there's three big things that it does. And probably least prominent, let's start from the least prominent, is that whenever we Texas involved interfaces with foreign governments, you know, for economic development or whatever the case may be, maybe a dignitary is coming here for some other reason or whatever else, they're a representative, they're the governor's representative to that to that government. And so that's important for expanding Texas and the Texas economy and Texas business interests. The second, probably most notable thing, but probably the most important, is its role in business filings. If you ever started a business, you have to go to the Secretary of State, do all your filing stuff there. And that's the business records for the state. And then probably most important or most well-known thing, I guess should say probably the most well-known, is that it's the official, the government official in charge of Texas elections. So anything to do with Texas law regarding elections, they end up being the person whose office handles that that. So voter rolls, all sorts of stuff. And so the next person to take that role on is going to be somebody who has to, who's going to jump into the fight of a number of different things. Now let's talk about party. Let's talk about talk about what the Secretary of State's been doing. Governor Jane Nelson, a Secretary of State, has been doing her best to uphold taxes current law, which uh establishes the primary system how we have it. It's technically referred to as semi-open, and people within the Republican Party have been pushing to close the primary. I am of the position that we should not switch it. And if I was in a different state that had closed primaries, I probably would also have that same position, which is not switching it. Whenever it comes to massive voting procedures and changes, I'm my my gut is usually the amount of education necessary to change it outweighs the and the loss of people voting from a change typically isn't worth the change. Like the benefit or the the alleged benefit of changing it isn't usually worth it. And so that's where I come come down. On the issue, but you know, there's the there's a compelling argument from the Republican Party of Texas, who's been charged by the processes that you know we've been talking about with the platform and committees and different rules and stuff to push for closing the primaries, that as a private institution, they have the right to choose how their people are nominated. The caveat to that, or the argument against that, is that Texas has a long history of abuse by private parties limiting elections in particularly smaller jurisdictions, and so they effectively disenfranchising a whole number of people. That's the history of it, and that's why the state has typically been given the prerogative by this by the feds to limit or to add to to how do I say this without I'm not a lawyer. My understanding is basically the state establishes the rules for ballot access. And so if the Republican Party wants ballot access, and especially the ease of ballot access that it has, then it has to abide by the state's rules for that access. If it wants to go its way, what will could happen, if depending on how the state fights it or if there's not legislation to fix it, this the Republican Party as an as a private group can always step away from it, but they wouldn't necessarily have automatic ballot access like they do now, which means they would have to gain ballot access other ways, which means a lot of petition signing. And that's a whole other process. And so that's my there's also the secondary thing, which is the Republican Party of Texas would be effectively forcing is trying to what they're trying to do is effectively force the government, the state of Texas government to add registration as part of their voter as party registration as part of their voter registration. And so that's not currently something that the state of Texas like law allows or requires. And so there would probably need to be legislation to do that. And judges typically don't like forcing the government to do something, but not don't like don't like forcing the government to do something like that. It's a whole that's a whole bill, it's a different branch of government that's not been legislated. And so there are a lot of complicating factors with it. It's not so much that the legal argument is wrong from the Republican Party of Texas, it's that by doing the judicial fight the way they're doing it, I think is more of a brinksmanship thing. The the secondary ramifications of that is like there could be more problems down the line with depending on how it's legislated in the future. So that's going to be a major topic of like so when people are talking about the Secretary of State's race, or not race, the nomination, people keep putting out these certain kind of more fire brands from certain factions of the party that have been very close to primary positive, they've been look pushing to close the primaries. Well, Governor Abbott's team and officials thus far have been fighting against that. So without knowing for sure, I don't know, I don't see that shift in that position happening with this appointment, unless without there being a much larger push from the governor to close the primary. And so that'll be very indicative. So basically, it's it who the governor picks will be very indicative. Historically, he has picked folks who have with long track records of excellent public service in similarly high-demanding roles within government already, or including former elected officials like senators and whatnot. And so my guess is that he'll find somebody that he's you know really liked in a different position and move them there, or reappoint them to state government in that role, and it'll mostly be basically be a bureaucrat or former politician, would be my guess. But I've seen basically any name in involved in Texas politics has been suggested online, and so there's just nothing, there's nothing to report there yet except the fact that something will be reported eventually, it'll make big news, and that'll be interesting. So that's the Secretary of State. It's a it's an important role, and it's something that, like I said before, because of the business filing part of it, it's not just an elections like position. That business filing stuff is hugely important for Texas and expanding its economic footprint and it's ease and making sure that if the Secretary of State's office works, that businesses can be created and can get started, and that that friction is taken away from the business creation process. Because as somebody who's done it a couple times now, like Texas is a pretty easy state to open a business. There's a little bit of stress, I guess, just because you're opening a business, but honestly, the form's pretty easy. You pay your $300 fee and you're all good to go, and you move on. And so, like, it's like it that's an important function. You want you don't want to have someone in there that breaks the bureaucracy of that part to make sure that can't get done quickly. So, all right. Gonna jump jump back to Mark. You know, one of the major legislative priorities that we have is probably gonna be the continued the continued fight to close the primary from the party level, and so that'll likely be my view, probably end up being a legislative priority. So let's go talk about what those are with Mark. Welcome back, Mark. We uh thanks for for sticking around. We were just talking a little while ago about the platform, and you you kind of teased us a little bit, so thanks for doing that. We're gonna be talking about now about the legislative priority priorities. I know right now we end up with eight legislative priorities. Why is that different from the platform? Like, what's the point of having a legislative priority platform if we're gonna prioritize some of the stuff?
SPEAKER_00So for for years and years and years and years and years, the the party's had its platform, which has been the party's position on numerous issues. Uh, right now the state party platform has 252 different planks, and some of those planks are on issues that uh you hear about all the time that are being talked about by uh Americans at large, and some are issues that are very that have only a very narrow uh interest. So several several uh conventions ago there was a push to have the state party uh essentially adopt legislative priorities so that you know obviously among 252 issues, not all those are created equal. And the purpose of legislative priorities is to say, hey, state legislature, these eight issues are the ones that are the priorities, these are the ones that really have to be addressed. Obviously, you know, we have 252 planks, they're important to all of us. We we want to see you know the entire platform put into law, and obviously that's uh you know easier said than done, but that we really have an expectation that these eight legislative priorities uh need to be the first things that you guys take care of when you uh go into the state legislative session.
SPEAKER_01Well, how are those priorities even chosen?
SPEAKER_00Uh so it's a process similar to to the platform. You know, there's there's a legislative priorities committee at the state convention that uh looks at different issues, and then a number of those issues are are put before the delegates at the state convention, and then the delegates get to vote on which of those issues that are on the platform or on the legislative uh priority committee report are the convention's priorities, and then those become the issues that are given to the legislature essentially as their marching orders from the convention. So do legislators care about the priorities or uh some care more than others. Yeah, yeah. Some legislators who are rah-rah, you know, the the the party's legislative priorities are are my priorities, and you have uh other legislators that maybe give them less of a priority. And I think a lot of it too is just gonna depend on what those priorities are. If the state convention's legislative priorities are in line with the priorities of the voters in a particular representative's district, then it will be very easy for for those lawmakers to to get on board with the legislative priorities, especially if you're talking about hot button issues like say cutting property tax. I I don't think there's a member, a Republican member of the legislature who doesn't support some some type of property tax reform. If if the state party convention were to, I'm just uh saying theoretically here, take a position that was uh contrary uh to something that that voters wanted. You know, let's say uh the convention was taken over by liberal activists who wanted open borders, and open borders somehow became a priority of the the Republican Party of Texas, you know, that that's not gonna fly in in these members' districts. So so the the importance of the party's legislative priorities, I think, is going to uh be directly correlated to what the priorities uh among legislators' constituents are.
SPEAKER_01Well, why should a legislator from Amarillo care about what the a convention in Houston of comprised of a bunch of urbanites from suburbanites like puts together into a platform like their legislative priorities? I think that the priorities of a you know of the different districts are gonna differ than the priorities of the state party activists to some degree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it just again depends on what those priorities end up being. If it's something I was just looking through through the list of legislative priorities, like you know, election integrity. Yeah, I think election integrity is something that's important to Republicans statewide, whether they be in Amarillo or or Houston. You know, other issues that that could potentially get into the legislative priorities, you know, there there may be maybe more contention on some of those. So so it really really just depends.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I know that when part of it is the legislative priorities committee also they put up a like a slate of priorities, uh, I think it ends up being 15, and then the delegates get to choose their eight favorite the the top eight of those 15.
SPEAKER_00That's the way it's been done. Obviously, the convention things can change, but but typically there's gonna be 15 proposals that make it out of the legislative priorities committee, and then we'll be given a scantron ballot and say, you know, pick your pick your top eight.
SPEAKER_01Now, remind me, is there any editing to those priorities, like for verbiage that people can propose for changes, amendments?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it yeah, yeah, it's it's a committee report, so so it's debatable on the floor. And how much time there is on the floor, you know, remains to be seen. That that's really the will of the convention. And it also depends on time constraints and things like that. But but yeah, no, definitely committee report is is debatable on the floor unless unless convention says it's not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, that's kind of like the the meat and potatoes of what happens at a convention, kind of on the floor, the work of the convention. But it's also kind of a giant party. It's not just like like a capital P political party. No, it's just like there's just a bunch of festivities going on. There's gate, there's a gala one night, varying like interest groups are hosting happy hours and lunches and luncheon learns and workshops. There's a large exhibitors hall with people selling tchotchkis and you know pitching their organization to Republican voters. Like there's a well, I think one of the reasons people enjoy the convention isn't necessarily they enjoy sitting in a giant convention hall arguing over where a comma should go on a party platform. Uh it's the the kind of ancillary events around it.
SPEAKER_00No, there's definitely a huge social aspect to it. I mean, obviously, when you've been involved in the party a long time, you get to know people uh from all across the state, and it's fun just to um have everyone in the same place, you know, go grab dinner, go go get grab drinks. You know, you have, like I said, uh, some of these other events. I know the lieutenant governor has an ice cream social, you have other uh other groups, you know, having their their galas, you know, their events, different meet and greets. So yeah, no, there is definitely a huge social aspect to to the convention as well. And I think that's what attracts a lot of the delegates is is is that you know, sort of community within the party that that they enjoy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's you know, having worked across the state and lived in three of the four major metros, having served as a delegate now from three different Senate districts, and you know, having gone to so many different CEC meetings and working with activists and grassroots and candidates and electeds and stuff all up and down the ballot across the state. It's really hard for me to turn a corner and not see three or four or three, three or four, or three or four dozen people that I know or have worked with or whatever else. So, yeah, there's a lot of just kind of that collegial camaraderie that goes into it. And, you know, people are talking about what's happened, what happened in the primary, what's gonna happen in the general, you know. There's a little bit of Monday morning morning corner Monday morning quarterbacking, but also just it's it's a it's a lot of fun. So if you're not a delegate, you can come as a guest and watch the fest watch the stuff. Uh you get really bad seating, but you can come watch as well as there's I think you can pay to then get an exhibit or get into the exhibition hall. And then a lot of the events around it aren't at you know, technically sponsored by the convention, so are just kind of free and around the event. So if you're in the Houston area or you want to come and check it out, feel free. And if you're gonna be at the convention, you're a delegate or otherwise, you see me or Mark. I think we'd both be welcome for you to come up and say hi. But Mark, I'll see you shortly. The convention, like when this episode releases, I'm looking at thinking about this. The platform committee is meeting right now. It started meeting recently. So the convention is the 11th through the 13th, technically, but that platform committee started meeting on Monday, or maybe Sunday, and will meet up until basically the convention starts. They have to go through a lot of different planks. There's 252 of them, and there's all these proposed other ones that they need to look at. And so they'll do be doing the business, they'll be doing 12 to 13 hour days, and you'll probably see some social media and posts about it uh if you really, really follow hard. But yeah, well, next week I'll be talking more about what happened at the convention. But Mark, for now, I'll see you soon. Uh, and thanks for joining us again, folks.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate it, Gary. I look forward uh to seeing everyone at the convention in Houston. I'll be around. So definitely, especially if you're a reader of the Texas Voice and you see me, come say hi. I'd love to shake your hand.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Mark, where else can people remind people where they can find you again?
SPEAKER_00So the texasvoice.com. Thetexasvoice.com is the website. Encourage everyone to sign up for the newsletter, get every article uh sent directly to your inbox. And you can follow us on ex formerly Twitter at the tx voice.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for joining me, Mark. I'm gonna do a talk a little bit more, but I'll see I'll see you, I'll see you at the convention hall in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00All right, look forward to it, Gary. Appreciate you having me on. Look forward to uh to seeing everyone at the convention.
SPEAKER_01Thank you again to Mark McCain of the Texas Voice for coming on the show the past couple weeks and talking with us about the convention. Right now, the convention's happening. It's happening right now. When I get done recording, I'm gonna go to the convention center, see, see what's happening at those platform and legislative committees to the legislative priorities committees today. Gonna get some, you know, get get out, about, do that sort of stuff. So if you're around, you see me, say hello. This will be coming out tomorrow. I'll also be there. And I'll definitely have to be there on Wednesday because I'm serving on the temporary organization committee. So come if you see me, come say hi, say hello. Tell me what you like, don't like, what you want me to cover, etc. But just this, you know, come say hi. So let's talk a little bit more about some stuff that's happening more broadly across the state. There is a big push on the left. Not just let me let me back up. Let me rewind a second. Across the state in formerly fast-growing districts, or still fast-growing districts, but that have been doing it for a while, you're seeing a lot of school closures, particularly at the elementary school level, but you're seeing some more at the higher levels. What this is being driven by is the fact that when bedroom communities were put into these areas, people end up staying. So they end up moving in with kids. They'd have kids, people would kind of cycle in for a little bit. But eventually, as the neighborhoods got older, they would end up not having as many kids coming in. And a lot of school districts had what was community or neighborhood-based elementary schools, where you had certain rules about the size of roads that could be crossed when we were to get to an elementary school and all sorts of stuff. And so what's happened is a lot of these schools were built for a certain size, and they've become their capacity has dropped. And these areas just don't see these districts, don't see any possibility of new development or demographic change in these areas. And so they're either forced to run schools that are underutilized, which costs money, or they need to start cons they have to start consolidating those schools and kind of changing how they they go about it. What's what you'll see happening is districts that are both closing schools in some areas of their district and then opening schools in other areas. And so you're seeing reports in every major area, including like the school right by my house, got closed here in Fort Bend County. And that one was a fight. I was in it the volume of the fight to a certain extent, but there were just different, you know, people don't want the schools closed by their house closed. Your house is worth more. And it's just not nice for that just to be taken away because the district poorly planned. There's also the compounding fact that happened with COVID, which is that the way that Texas, the way that Texas finances schools is through what's called average daily attendance. And so they take it's not just who's enrolled at the school, it's how many people actually show up to school on a daily basis, and it's average out over the year, and that ends up giving them their average daily attendance kind of number, and then they are able to use that to pull funding from all the different pots that the state is it gives them money for. And so what happened during COVID was that was frozen at like 2019 levels because people weren't actually going to school, they were doing virtual school, or people were coming in out sick more, and the the state wanted kids to be able the the wanted to allow districts to let students stay home more if like they were sick, the quarantine or whatever, and ended up just baking in the 2019 enrollment for a while, and then that fell off, and there was sort of they started to see drop off. But this trade has existed for a while. There are two major factors. One is demographically, we're just not having as many kids. Two, there's been some in some areas, there's been some self-deportation talk and people being deported to just fewer immigrants, and then three, is just schools of choice opening in in these areas as well that are pulling students. But from my understanding, school of choice is are also seeing pretty significant uh enrollment drops or missing enrollment projections, both private and charter schools. And so you end up having this issue where it's not just the public schools that are having this issue, it's all schools, and they're all competing for the same students, which is the idea of school choice is for these schools to compete. So there's some consternation about this. There's a lot of people talking about it. It's gonna be an issue. Gina Anahosa is from Austin ISD originally, and before she got elected to uh the state house, and now she's running for governor. So she's trying to run as an education candidate. Unfortunately for her, she was a trustee at Austin ISD, which has just a tremendous number. of failing schools and has had elements of their their of their i district taken over and will likely have the entire district taken over soon and that's because they they couldn't get stuff turned around and now there's a controversy because they there's a thing called an 1882 partnership which basically the state tea allows for districts that are failing to partner with certain groups to come in and help with the turnaround and gives them a little bit more time a little more flexibility with how they can turn stuff around and also I see tried to do that then you know they're looking forward uh they took an RFP they've selected a a was a request for proposal so they were you know they solicited people to come in say hey can you help they got proposals back and selected somebody and then TEA rejected it well it turns out because they tried to hide this and it was found via TPIA and I don't recall who did their actual reporting on this so I'm sorry for not citing that but they did the TPIA and they found that there was only one proposal and the proposal came from somebody who's tried this in the past and has not been successful. And so TEA rejected it because the person that they they found to help them do the turnaround has not been successful in the past and they don't want to give them another try. And so that's a lot leading a lot of people to believe that AISC is probably going to be taken over soon. And given the number of failing schools that they have that just perennially can they cannot figure out with like absurdly low literacy rates that's probably going to be the case. What's that mean for education in Texas? What it means is schools are going to start competing private schools charter schools ISTs are going to be competing. They've already been competing but now there's it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think it's going to be to the benefit of children overall but we'll we'll that's that's that's the belief that's the that's the push for school choice but other places I had it when there was a little bit more of a boom of demographics Texas is implementing it while the demographic the demographic shift and it's getting old Texas is getting older and we're having fewer kids to need to educate and so what that looks like is yet to be seen it's going to be something that's worth keeping an eye on I think that education will end up being probably the biggest issue and it'll be the thing that both sides push hard on uh in the governor's race. And so I think that like I we're going to see how the race pays out but I think overall Republicans are going to win on the education issue in this election cycle. They have to be smart with how they message it but it's going to be something they're going to have to be thoughtful with talking about the stuff that they've done especially in those areas and those districts where they've had school closures because the people who had their schools closed are pissed. My neighbors are pissed but most of my neighbors who are pissed are weren't going to vote Republican or were probably or were 50-50 and so that is the but most people don't don't care or but like as parents you end up being flexible and a lot of the schools nearby are still pretty dang good. And so it ended up being like they like their community but they're going to be adaptive they're going to move forward they just didn't want to have to go through it. And so I think depending on where those school closures happen how long ago they happened and how people have how those things have been addressed we're going to see that issue not be as big a deal but it's something to be on the radar as an issue to be talking about statewide because it's not just happening in one area it's happening basically in any growth any area that was like oh fastest growing city 15 years ago 20 years ago all those places are having this problem. So that's something to keep in mind all right thanks for tuning in this week we're I'm gonna be live in Houston all week oh I'll be live in Houston all week I always am but I'll be at the convention all week come by say hi gonna be putting out some stuff and as a quick update a lot of the equipment's come in but you're gonna notice similar feel things are keep keep looking kind of the same yeah I I'm getting doing prep for the convention going to have stuff with me at convention come back from it and be able to start setting up this this home office to be a little more conducive to seeing red and I'm looking forward to the you seeing the different changes to it. So thank you so much and I'll see you if I don't see you in Houston I'll see you next week. Okay bye guys
