Texas Curriculum Wars: Bible, Islam and the SBOE

Texas schools made international news after the State Board of Education approved a statewide literary works list that includes Bible passages.

So what actually happened?

This week, Garrett Fulce sits down with Brandon Hall, State Board of Education member for District 11, to talk through the SBOE’s new literary canon, why the Bible made the list, how the fight over Islam showed up in the social studies TEKS debate and what the board actually controls.

They also get into the Revolutionary War almost getting stripped from the draft standards, local school board authority, convention strategy, campaign bracketing, Dan Patrick’s new podcast and the fight over closed primaries in Texas.

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 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome back to another episode of Seeing Red. I'm your host, Garrett Fulce. We got a great episode. We got Brandon Hall with us, friend of the show, second appearance, member of the State Board of Education from up in the Fort Worth area. He's going to be talking a little bit about what the State Board of Education is and what they just did that made international news over the past couple of weeks. So we're going to talk with him. We're going to talk about a lot of what some conventions are happening, right? We just had the Republican convention. We did a lot on that. The Democrats had their convention. There's some fun stuff happening there. Republicans are having a midterm national convention in Dallas. That just got announced. And there's other conventions happening. So we're going to talk a little bit about what these are, what's happening, and it's going to be a little interesting. Also going to dive into a little bit of the behind-the-scenes knife fight of just opposition communications and political campaigns and kind of what's happening and why certain things. You might be seeing a lot of the political theater that's happening. So all of that and more on this week's episode. And not to not forget, there's a new player in the podcast space. It's not CN Red. It's somebody you've heard of. That's right. Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Dan is the name of his show. He had a great first guest and second guest, but we're going to talk about his first guest, Ken Paxton, and kind of what they talked about a little bit and just react a little bit to a new player in this podcast space here in Texas Politics. So all that and so much more on this week's episode of Seeing Red. Welcome to the show for the second time, friend of the show, State Board of Education member from District 11, Brandon Hall. Brandon, how are you today?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I'm doing great, Garrett. Good to see you again. Good to be back.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Well, for those who don't know, before you are the illustrious member of our lovely State Board of Education, we briefly shared an office while we worked together on the ABIT campaign. There was a lot of a lot of body heat in a very small office there. But we uh we persevered and helped the governor win that election.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah, I'm having a little bit of fear of missing out with the current campaign. I almost wish I could get back in there. It looks like a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Oh man. They're gonna yes, you say that, but also you're not up this cycle, so it's easy to say that when you don't have an election, your own election bearing down on you. So you made a lot of news. Well, not necessarily just you, but the state board of education made international news over the past week after y'all got into a little bit of, you know, kind of a normal, what should be a pretty normal quarterly meeting. Why don't you talk to people a little bit about what the state board of education is? Because a lot of people think it's just somehow it's part of it of TEA. What really is the SBOE?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, that's I mean, it's a great place to start because a lot of people, you know, are confused. And I think it's getting a little bit more attention now. So people are starting to focus on it a little bit more with the consequential things we've done. But the SBOE is, you know, a 15-member elected body set up by the Constitution of Texas. And so we are separate from the Texas Education Agency, and we're the elected body that set the policy uh for Texas public schools. And each one of us represents a district of about 2 million people. So it's about the same size as a two state senate districts, almost the size of three congressional districts. So we have a very large constituency, and we decide, you know, basically what's going to be taught during the instructional day in the state of Texas. We approve uh new textbooks, charter schools that want to open up have to come through the SBOE. And that's basically what the SBOE does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Well, I know you were probably not making international news because you approved a charter school. That ship has sailed a while back. It did seem like you got into some news because of the literacy lists that y'all were working on. Let's talk a little bit about that. Why are we making literacy lists at the state level and kind of what went into that process and why are y'all making news?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Well, it it the literary list is an interesting process because this is the first time we've ever had a standardized literary works list across the state of Texas, or you could say a required reading list. Usually it goes district by district, and you know, often school by school or classroom by classroom of what a teacher is going to choose that she wants, you know, to teach her students to read. And so we've said at the state of Texas, we think it's important. This comes from the legislature, actually. So it's not just like the State Board of Education got the wild hair and came up with this idea. The legislature said through HB 1605 that they passed that we needed to do this. And the idea behind it is that we need to have sort of a literary canon in the state of Texas or, you know, a common body of knowledge. So if you move to a different, you move your kids to a different school district, you know, they're going to be studying some of the same works. And then, you know, just as a people in Texas, we can be sort of tethered together, you know, with this common understanding of a literary canon. And so it's super important. We've also seen in recent years a lot of the classics being replaced in Texas classrooms with more shallow modern works of literature and that are less rigorous. And of course, everybody knows we have a big literacy problem in the state of Texas. About half of our kids are below grade level when it comes to reading. And so to increase the rigor and to get some of those good classics back in the classroom, we started working on this list. About 30,000 teachers were reached out to by the TEA just with a survey to see what are you teaching in the class now? How much time do you spend in a day teaching reading? And so that kind of helped us determine how long this list needed to be, how many works needed to be included. And so we passed a list that's about 25% of the instructional day for English language art classes. And it'll bring a lot of good classical works back. And then, of course, what was a little bit more controversial is probably for the first time since 1963, the Bible will come back into instruction in every classroom across the state of Texas.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Well, one of those things that you mentioned is that it's only going to take up about 25% because while there's a required list, it's not that those are the only books that are allowed. These are just the bare minimum of what needs to be taught in a given year for by grade level in English language arts classes. And like you mentioned, you did add a few works from the Bible. Now, were there other any other any other texts from any other religions or religious traditions being included?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Well, let me tell you, you know, the the thinking with including the Bible is that, you know, no other religious writings have had such a big impact on our culture, our laws, and our history as the state of Texas has the Bible. I mean, if you want to talk about proportion, nothing else would even come close. We even have laws in the state of Texas, you know, like the Good Samaritan law that gives you immunity if you stop to help someone on the side of the road. Like, how would a student understand the Good Samaritan law if they didn't know the story of the Good Samaritan? So there's just some like key things that are a big part of our common vocabulary in the state of Texas. Even, you know, when I was looking into some of this, Psalm 23 is going to come into uh the seventh grade. Students in the seventh grade will be looking at that. Psalm 23 is a work of literature. It's one of the greatest and widely read poems, you know, ever written. And, you know, I was looking at even in popular culture, like even in rap songs, you know, they'll mention the valley of the shadow of death. I mean, it's movies and everything. So, really to receive a complete education, you have to understand some of these key passages. And, you know, we didn't take the time with some of the other religious texts, it just wouldn't have had the same educational value that the Bible does for the state of Texas. So if you were to go somewhere else, that might be different. But here the Bible's kind of the important thing you need to know.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

I was an English minor and did a lot of higher-level English courses, and I had more than one professor. So let's just say two. It was two professors who both independently said if you want to really pursue English as you know for grad school or whatever else, you need to become very familiar with the Bible and its stories because it's going to unlock basically anything written before 1920. Because everybody, from T. S. Eliot to and before, like but everyone, poetry, literature, all of that, are building on what was then the common stories and common backbone uh building blocks to tell their stories by leaning on the stories of the Bible. And it's just one of those things where if you really, really, really want to understand literature at its at its as it was intended, then you're probably gonna need to have a better understanding of the Bible and its stories. So I've been a big proponent of it, especially with given the passages that you put in there. You have David and Goliath in there, I think studying in second grade. Like you mentioned, Psalm 23. Uh, there's some stuff from Job, the things that really stood out to me. But let's just kind of take a step away from this, but also on the same topic. You know, vocationally speaking, you're a pastor. So do you see this, your work on the SBOE as part of your like pastoral mission?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

You know, I would say obviously it's it's a different, it's a different job, a different vocation. I look at a lot of the work that I do on the SBOE. A lot of it's you know similar to pastoral ministry ministry, which is you're helping people. I have parents call me all the time and you know help them with different issues. And, you know, so I look at both as a calling that that God has for me. Obviously, they're you know two separate jobs. And but I think you know, Texas, and you mentioned with the literary works lists, you know, how important it is to understanding other works of literature. It's the single most referred to work by other works, and it's also the best-selling book of all time. So, you know, taking it out of the classroom was somewhat arbitrary. And I think it was interesting to have, you know, my perspective as a pastor, somebody who studies the Bible literally every day on some of these passages. There was a lot of questions that came up about why these passages were important, what translations we were going to use. So I think that, you know, I wouldn't call myself a scholar if still working on that, but I would say sort of that perspective as a pastor really came in handy to the board.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Absolutely. Now, the other things you were talking about this week or last week, I should say, or recently at the second quarter meeting was social studies teaks. And there's a lot of lot going on there. Let's explain a little bit about what you're doing, what a TEAK is, what it stands for, and then what it is you're working on through right now.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yes. So and there we use a lot of acronyms in education, and TEAKS TEKS is one of them. It's Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. And so, you know, the acronym sort of speaks for itself. It's our you know, standards that sort of, you know, it's what teachers are required to teach in the classroom, and therefore it's what our publishers are going to be basing the textbooks on. And so we're kind of, you know, it's standards like, you know, explain that the Revolutionary War, you know, was important for America's founding, things like that that'll come into the classroom.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

So you're working on social study teeks. We're trying to get those, you know, revamped. I did see that there was a lot of stuff from different groups talking about they're trying to either add or take out just any reference to Islam, and then also apparently some stuff about just basic battles and the Revolutionary War accidentally got stripped out and added back. Like, can you add some uh context to for for the listeners about what was what was happening there?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, let me give you a little insight sort of into the process. It so just like with the Literary Works List, this is an important moment in the state of Texas because this is the first time we've revised our social studies standards in 16 years. So obviously, anytime you go back and do that, it's gonna be a big deal. You know, social studies and especially history is probably the most controversial topic that we do touch at the State Board of Education. And so a lot went into this. We've had an ad hoc committee for social studies that's been working on this issue for a couple of years at the State Board of Education. So this is, you know, no fly-by-night process by any means. Years have gone into this. And then even with as we entered sort of our official process on the State Board of Education, you know, we started with appointing expert content advisors that are helping us, you know, develop sort of what the key topics need to be, what the important context that we need to include in history. And then also we had you know several work groups of teachers. So we literally engage thousands of teachers to help us write these standards and they would go through, you know, sort of line by line and revise these things and help get that actual content in. And then it comes to the state board of education for first reading. So at the last meeting in April, you know, we had a whole week-long meeting where we debated these standards line by line, all the way through history, from kindergarten all the way up to our high school courses. And then we came back at this SBOE meeting in June and did the exact same thing. And it's such, you know, sort of an intense process that we will put many hours. The the SBOE meetings are one week long, but we will be there sometimes from eight o'clock in the morning until two o'clock, you know, the next morning, just putting, you know, 18 hours at a time sometimes, going line by line, debating, sometimes word by word, what's going to be included in these standards. And so when you see the the revolutionary war issue, you know, that was something that I didn't vote for that to be stricken out of the rules, but I think they were trying to narrow down the content because there's sometimes there's more content than teachers can actually teach. And so we're trying to look for things to get rid of. Obviously, taking the revolutionary war out uh was a big mistake. And so we were able to correct that mistake, it's it's back in. But that's why you know we spent so many hours doing this to make sure that we get it right. Obviously, Islam's been a huge topic, and just like, what are we going to say about Islam? How are we going to cover it? And so Islam was definitely a controversial topic. We had to decide exactly what content to include. And uh it's the fastest growing religion in the world. So obviously, our students should know something about it and how it started. But a lot of people were concerned that you know we didn't include any pro-Islamic content because we definitely had groups coming, bussing people into the SPOE asking us to do that. We had the Council on American Islamic Relations, which is a uh designated as a foreign terrorist organization by Governor Abbott, you know, telling us to do some of those things. And so we just had to make sure and hold the line. And we had a lot of amendments come and we had to make sure that we voted the right way on those amendments.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Well, that's an interesting way to word that. When you say make sure you voted the right way, was that just a turn of phrase, or were you worried that if you make an accident, if you accidentally make the wrong vote on one of these teaks or something, that you might have some issues down the line?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Well, there's actually a lot of controversial issues that will come up as we're debating these, especially you have Democrats and Republicans on the board. Republicans are in control of the board, but the Democrats will propose hundreds of amendments. And a lot of these amendments, you know, sort of have a negative slant towards America. And so, you know, we sort of have to hold the line on an onslaught of different amendments that would paint, you know, our founding fathers in a negative light, portray Islam, you know, in a non-objective, more positive manner. And so, really, what I did is is oppose, you know, pretty much all of the Democrat amendments. And but even, you know, sometimes coming from Republicans, we just have to make be very careful. And we have expert content advisors that are there on the scene with us uh that can answer you know questions of historical accuracy, but it's really important which way we vote in those issues.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

Absolutely. Now, there's been some controversy on the SBOE, and I say this because there's not a lot of attention to the SBOE until we're getting into these big fights, and then it kind of drops off. But occasionally you'll see some stuff pop. One of those is I believe some people, one SBO member is suing another SBOE member. Just kind of what is the background on that to the to with your understanding of the case?

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Well, one of the people that is being threatened uh to be sued is actually me. So I do I do have a little bit of insight on that one. And it's, you know, in the debate about this, we have Democrat members of the State Board of Education that have publicly admitted that they're working with the Council on American Islamic Relations to carry some of their pro-Islamic amendments and to take out any references to the Christian foundations of the country, things like that. And then, you know, we have some of them making statements like the founding fathers were villain. There's nothing exceptional about America and Texas. And so, you know, the ideology of the people proposing a lot of these amendments is actually really important. And so that's something, you know, when I when I hear things like the founding fathers are villains, that's something I started calling out before this meeting, saying, you know, we really need to, the Republicans on the board need to stick together and vote against all of these anti-American amendments that would paint America in a negative light. And and so, you know, I was just honest about uh the critical theory perspective that's coming in from the Democrats, and I called it Marxist. And so Marissa Perez Diaz, who is one of the Democrat members on the board, sent me a cease and desist letter threatening to sue me uh for calling her ideology Marxist. And so I sent her a formal response telling her that she could file her cease and desist letter right next to all of her amendments in the garbage bin.

unknown 17:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Well, I I will let's take that as for what it is. I don't want to wade too much into the legal waters there. But it is interesting that the you don't usually see members of a government body threatening to sue each other over things said about what's going on in the chamber itself, especially when it comes to questions of ideology. My question for you is let's go to the the literary the critical theory. Now, it's just generally critical theory, especially when we're talking about literature, what kind of came out of France and then really found itself at Yale in the 60s and 70s, and then has percolated across English departments and the United States ever since then. And it is arguably a postmodern, like it is deconstruction, it's all those things, and it's uh likely Marxist. So yeah, there's a decent argument to be made that a lot of the academically Marxist rhetoric being pushed by Democrats may be in fact be academically Marxist. Who knew that? That's crazy. So well, Brand, Brandon, what what is something that people don't know about the SBOE that you think they should know, and you want you wish you could just yell out from the rooftops. This is your rooftop. Take your moment.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Okay, that's great. Well, I I think what they should know about the SBOE is that, you know, obviously there's a lot of things that we do not touch. We have, you know, our local districts actually have a ton of autonomy. I wish people knew that more. So a lot of the issues, you know, I will have people call me and I'm I'm so happy to take calls and appoint people in the right direction. But having two million constituents, you can imagine how many calls I get for things like, you know, a school bathroom issue or things like that. And the SPOE really does focus more on the curriculum, the textbooks, and what's sort of being taught, and not as much in like the local school issues. So I think it's important, and I wish people really knew more of the difference between the local school board and what the SPOE does. And I would say generally, if you have issues in your local school district, the local school board is a really great place to start. You can show up there, speak to them in person. And so I think it's important to know that that role that the SBOE has in approving curriculum. And so I'm always happy to come on shows like yours and you know, let inform people a little bit more on what a difference it makes because it is a really important body. You know, I wish I wish people were were more informed. And so that's what we're we get to do on your show, and I'm very thankful for that.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

I can't tell you how many people. So just as a matter of background, the school district I live in close a number of elementary schools, and before they did, there was any number of save the school efforts. I cannot tell you how many people said we need to talk to the state board of education, and I had to be like, they don't have any power over whether they close a school or not. You need to talk to a legislature, but you need to talk to the school board. That's basically who makes that's it's just that's there. That's the decision maker. So, yes, I I I'm right there with you. I'm glad we we had this opportunity. Brandon, where can people find more information about you and what can they do to help you in your efforts?

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Well, thanks for having me on today, Garrett. I really appreciate it and the opportunity just to share the good work that we're doing at the State Board of Education. Uh, people can find me at Brandon Hall TX on X, and then they can also go to my page on SBOE.texas.gov to find all my contact info and my bio as well.

SPEAKER_03 20:43

Thanks, Brandon. We had learned a lot about what the SBOE is and the kind of what they've been working on recently and what they aren't, which is probably as important in a lot of ways for just everyday residents as they're trying to navigate state government. We're gonna shift gears a little bit, but just definitely want to make sure you go follow him on X, follow him on socials, and make sure you show your support for Brandon as he's working on the State Board of Education, if that's your jam. But we are gonna switch over a little bit and talk more about the campaign side of things right now. You know, we talked a lot about the convention. I was a delegate to the Republican convention in this m multiple times, especially this year. I was appointed to a committee and everything. But what we have this week recently is what we had the Democrat convention. Now, our friend at the current revolt, Tony Ortiz, was down there, or he had sent folks down there and got a lot of video of very empty, kind of sad looking convention that took place. We saw more news, or at least on my perspective, coming out of the bracketing events from the governor than from anything that was happening inside the building. And that's what I kind of want to touch on real quick bracketing. What is that? Bracketing is a communications term for when you are in a a space. Like a campaign, or it can happen in businesses as well, where there are you're adversarial to somebody that isn't necessarily the press. You might be adversarial with the press, it's politics, but you're also adversarial against Democrats. And when that happens, is there might be some time where you are having a big event and you're just gonna suck up all the media attention. Well, one of the things you need to do as a communications strategy is make sure that you're getting your message into any story about those, about that event. So in this case, the Democrat Convention, you have its campaign for governor doing a bunch of stuff. They rented moving billboards, they had all sorts of like costume-y things, and they had a taco truck with different like funny names of whatever of different like vegan brisket or whatever. I don't know what all specifically. But what I do know is that there was a lot of art around it. So the press is always just looking for a story, and they're always looking for counterpoints. When you're at a convention, you're not always gonna get that counterpoint unless you make yourself very obvious that you're a Republican, that you're doing something, and then that stuff not only does the theater that you're doing, the street theater or whatever, show up on social media, might get mentioned in some news stories as well, but they know where you are. So when they need to find comment, they don't have to like go on their phone, try and get a hold of somebody and whatever else. They can just go across the street where all the Republicans are, like, hey, who's on the record here? And now you can just have a quick statement from your spokesperson that's going to be included in everything. So now every time they do a story, it isn't just Democrats doing whatever, it's Democrats and Republicans, and you kind of are able to help shape news coverage and help shape the free media of your opponent in order to, you know, highlight your own candidacies. So that's kind of why you see street theater, especially at the events. I do know there are word paths around the Republican Party of Texas. I heard about some stuff that was happening, but they didn't really break through in the same way that Governor Abbott's team did. And that just is a show of how competent the governor's team is and how they run comms. They're a very good shop. So that's kind of what's happening there. But let's talk more convention stuff. President Trump announced the worst kept secret in Texas politics that there was a lot of plans towards a midterm convention in Dallas. They decided to pull the trigger. Now let's talk about what this is because there will be delegates, though there's not really a selection process, and there won't really be any business for delegates to conduct. That happens on the presidential year. But it'll be a two-day event, it'll be a lot of rah-rah, and it will drive national attention because they're calling in the convention, they're going to pull all these people in. It will drive messaging. It's only four times since the Civil War has the Republican, not the Republicans, the party of the president picked up seats in a midterm election. Only four times in 150 years. That's not a great track record. It just means typically the party's the president's party loses ground in a midterm election. If you keep following the old playbook, that's probably gonna happen this year, too. So President Trump and his team are pulling out the stops. Now, will it work? It's hard to say, but they're at least trying a new playbook instead of trying the playbook that's never worked. And so what this is likely to do is gonna generate a lot of buzz and will hopefully energize Republicans in Texas and across the country to really push forward into election day in November to, you know, hold off that tide. But yeah, there's gonna be a lot of reporting about that. It's gonna be great for Republicans in Texas because there's gonna be a lot of news coverage around it, local coverage that's going to push Trump voters who are lower propensity because they're new and they came out to vote for President Trump. They are not quite in midterm election voters yet. The thought is it could help push midterm voters, Trump voters to becoming higher propensity. So I'm all for trying it. I think it'll be a great time for a Republican. So if you're in the Dallas area or if you want to commute up there, I would highly recommend doing it. Being at a convention, the national convention, or just around it, whether you're a delegate or not, whether you're inside the security perimeter or not. There's a lot of fun stuff that happens for Republicans, a lot of events and things around it. So keep that in mind as something you might want to do. I will mention Texas General Republican Federation is having a convention as well. They have it annually at the end of August. I know a lot of my vote uh my viewers are younger. There might be younger Republicans. Maybe they're involved, maybe they aren't. But you should look into attending. Whether you are part of the Young Republican Club or not, you can attend as a guest, talk to your local club about becoming a delegate if that's something you're interested in. I'm not sure if that prop where that process where they are in that process, but it's in San Marcos and top, you know, it'll be a good little party in the San Marcos area. Fellowshipping with local Republicans and meeting with people who will be going and doing strike forces. Young Republicans do a great job of getting big groups of you together to go block walk for selected candidates and high-profile races and those competitive races all across the state. They typically focus, I believe, on uh Texas legislative races. I believe that's kind of the how that stuff gets divvied up typically. So, if you want to get involved, that's a great place to start. Uh, I will link to where you can register for that in the in the uh description. And there's a good chance I'll be there and might be doing some interviews. We'll see. So, all of that's in the works right now. Let's talk a little bit about some other reporting from the current revolt. The newspaper of record, the tabloid of Texas, our once again, our friend Tony Ortiz did some reporting on some things that are happening coming out about Abraham George's tenure and the handoff to Dorinda Randall, the new chairperson at the Republican Party of Texas. I will say this right now, it's too early to really tell what, if anything of an improper nature may have occurred in the previous administration. It seems likely that something may have happened. But they're basically Dorina Randall's basically come out and said it was a there was a difficult handover. It took a while for the new administration to get access to the bank accounts, and they're currently reviewing the bank account records on top of any contract signed that the party may be on the hook for, as well as the records held by council, legal counsel. And so those things are going to be an ongoing, that's gonna be an ongoing little black eye for the Republican Party as you know that is uh ferreted out one way or the other. I will say take the things with a little bit of a grain of salt until we have a little bit, until we have more documentation. We're talking about banking records, we're talking about contracts, and we're talking about legal counsel records. There will be a paper trail, and unless there's public information that's made public via lawsuit or criminal indictment or just because they they release it, there's going to be p politics being at play in the process. So until something happens where we have more information, I would ask people to reserve a little bit of judgment and just wait to figure some stuff out. But reserve that judgment until you have more information and then let that judgment fly. So just until we have more information, I would just ask people to kind of keep that a little low because that's not what we need to be focusing on at this moment. Now, the people in the party right now do need to be focused on writing the ship. They don't need to be focused on bad mouthing the previous administration, they need to be focused on the game of hand and working towards election victories in November and legislative victories in the next spring. But to that end, there's a new rival to this podcast and to all podcasts in the Texas politics space. That's right, our esteemed lieutenant governor Dan Patrick has decided to dip his toe into this podcasting role. Now, this should be a surprise to no one. I'm actually surprised it took him this long to do it. The man is a broadcast professional. He came up on television, he came up in sports, he did went kind of into the shock drop world for a little bit, and then found himself kind of, as he says, on the conservative just news like wave of the 90s because he was the one who brought apparently Rush Limbaugh to Houston and I believe to Texas. He was the first station to syndicate or purchase or for syndication Rush Limbaugh's show. And he wrote rode that wave, started his own show, used that uh as a springboard to run for state senate, lieutenant governor. So the man knows how to get in front of a microphone and talk. Clearly. He knows how to listen to the grassroots and to find the thing and find stuff popular stuff to talk about. So I was all I've always been surprised, especially after Ted Cruz did it, Dan Crenshaw, all these other politicians have podcasts. I was always surprised Dan Patrick didn't do one. I think he still owns a radio station. I think he still has equipment to do stuff. So I was just always surprised he hadn't done it. But he's done it. He's called it Lieutenant Dan. Obviously, it's kind of a reference to Forrest Gump, but it's also just, you know, his name. And his his first guest, I'll show a clip real fast in a minute, is him talking with Ken Paxton. Now, I'm gonna show you this clip and I'll kind of tell you what I think about it. By the way, did John Cornyn ever call and concede?

SPEAKER_02 31:42

So he sent me a text. I never saw a phone call from, but I texted him back and I said, Thank you. You you know, I appreciate your service to Texas and to the country, and I'd love to get together again. You think you guys will get together? If it's up to me, we will. I don't, you know, you're gonna both parties willing. I don't I don't know what John's gonna decide. I haven't heard back from him. I'd be happy to talk to him. I'd love to have his help and support. I as you know, I I committed partly because you said you suggested it, but I was already in that mode anyway. I would have supported John no matter what. And I said it publicly and I meant it. I do not want James Tallerico, and I would I would vote for John 10 times before I voted for James Tallerico.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

And had John won, I'd be all in money, marbles, and chalk to help him win. I hope he comes around. Look, I get as long as he served how tough it was for him to lose. I think he really believed he was going to win, particularly since after the first round, he probably had a little bit of confidence, but he kind of ignored the Wesley Hunt factor in there. I hope John comes around because we are Texas and Texas Republicans need to stand together. Look, I he just needs to kind of come back around because we need his voters, you need his voters, Texas needs his voters, and he's a Texan at heart. Look, we built the party on his shoulders. I the first time he was elected was 1985. I mean, he was one of the pioneers. And I and so I I hope that he does come around because it's interesting, Ken, when I thought about this, because again, I've known him for 30 years and I like John. Disappointed, you know, I was disappointed when he said, Well, we're gonna get massacred and and you know Trump's gonna have a bad year. I just, but you know, that's an that's an emotional reaction to the loss, probably. But I thought about this. The voters who voted for him for 24 years, sending him there, 24 years, they just decided to send someone else. That I mean, it's as simple as that. It's not like it's not like you beat him. The voters decided to vote for you because they wanted to go in a different direction and trust that you would do it. So when he or anyone who loses an election, like gets upset who the opponent was, it's not about being upset with you. If John's upset, he's upset with all those voters who voted for him for 24 years, loyal to him, just made a decision to go a different way. And that's the voter's right. So no, no candidate who loses an election should ever be mad at their opponent, to be honest with you. They should just accept the fact that the voters decided it was time for a change. And that's that's you don't you don't win by 28 points without the voters changing their mind.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Right. And look, I voted for John 24. So did I. I mean I voted for him every time I I had the opportunity. So I I've been a voter for of John Corners for for what deck two two almost three decades. So but I really would love to have his help because he, as you said, he's he's been involved in the party a long time. He's he's he's connected to to a lot of Republican voters and and a lot of them respectfully. So and you know, it'd be really nice to to have his help.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

James, a couple things to note. He talked they but they both talk about John Cornyn respectfully on a human level. I believe that's probably true. They probably did have good working relationships with Cornyn in his office because they've all been in elected office for the same amount of time or for a long for a long time. So I can't imagine that they didn't have at least collegial relationshi conversations over the years. And there is a certain truth in that they're talking about like we're just after the election, it's Cornyn's first loss. Of course, he's gonna be a little there's gonna be some emotion attached to that, and there's gonna take some time to work through it. I do think this might be the proverbial olive branch being offered as a way of saying, hey, let's talk. I don't know how effective it is. It maybe Cornyn's talking to him behind the scenes, but when you go from complaining about not this unity or whatever else, and kind of hitting on like hitting him into kind of bullying him into like getting on the on board with somebody who he clearly doesn't really want to support at this moment, whether he will eventually or not, like, yeah, there's gonna be a moment, there's the man needs some time to like adjust. And I just don't know how effective that tactic's gonna be. And really, if they're if they're trying to they they they but they seem to realize they need his voters, and there is a big swath of Cornen voters who do not like Ken Paxton, and they were maybe more anti-Paxton voters than pro-Cornen voters, and so as much as Corny coming out will in support of Paxton at some point down the line may help bring some of those people home. I think more so Paxton needs to work on winning those voters over himself. For a lot of folks, like there they're in a position where there are voters out there where Calorico cannot win their vote, but Paxton can, but a lot of people may just undervote that race. And that's the danger Paxton has at the top of the ticket for some of these high propensity Republican voters that may just undervote that race because they don't like him. And he has to figure out a way to get them who will be out, who already come out to vote. We'll vote for the governor and vote for Republicans all the way down the ticket to actually click the ticket for him, too. I have said, and I'll say again, I think he needs to own up a little bit more publicly to his private indiscretions. I think he needs to apologize to a certain degree on that. He's a good politician, he's a skilled attorney. I'm sure he's can find a way to do it where he doesn't actually apologize, but he needs to make some sort of effort on the on the personal indiscretion side to acknowledge that. I I do think he probably on the allegations of corruption probably is probably handling that as about as well as he can, given the fact that he got impeached, there are tons of files out on it, and Republicans have hit him on it for a long time. He didn't matter. I don't know how that's gonna play or how that's baked into the general election audience or how the Democrats are gonna do it. But it seems like the Democrats are just running with the same stuff that Cornyn and all the other people who've run against Paxson have done over the years, and you know, he's stronger for it. So I don't really see that playing as much of a factor in the general election beyond what it already has, and I just don't know how those numbers are gonna get baked. But welcome, Lieutenant Dan. You know, I used to get to events first before him to make sure I could record him walking in. Because famously, at least in my own mind, I was Dan Patrick's tracker. So I worked for David Dewhurst in the 2014 election. My job was to go to all the opponents' events that I could get into and record the Republic remarks, come back out. Dan Pittrick would love to introduce me, say, hey, that's Garrett. He's my my tracker and point me out and give me a little a nod. So this is me doing the nod with the wave back. Hey, hey, Lieutenant Dan. But we always had a cordial and collegial relationship. I've always gotten a well. I said talked to him briefly, very briefly, at the convention. But it's neither here nor there. Welcome to the the podcast space. Welcome to this. Welcome to the show, so to speak. We're glad you're here. We're gonna close out today talking about something that's still developing. We talked about it already. We talked about Jane Nelson, has offered her resignation to as Secretary of State. She's the Governor Abbott's longest serving Secretary of State. She's been there for over four years. And the Secretary of State basically does two things: manages the elections and manages business filings. A bunch of other stuff, too. Those are the two big kind of everyday things, political things, newsworthy things that the Secretary of State's office does. And so we're still on the look for that. We're on the look for a new comp troler. Comptroller was elected, but our elected comp troller was appointed as Glenn Hager was appointed last year to lead the Texas AM system. And Kelly Hancock has filled into that role ever since. Kelly Hancock lost his primary to Dunhoff Heinz and has stepped us out of that role, and Dunhoff Feines has now taken that role. I actually don't think he has to have the interim title, but he's unconfirmed. I'm not really sure how what his title technically is, but he's the comptroller and he's in charge of the office now. So that's interesting. I think it gets him, you know, gets a gets him wet behind the ears and gets him into the office to start doing the job that he'll almost certainly win in November. So I think that's probably good for Texans that he's there. If he's you know more pretty likely to win that race. But the Secretary of State's job was rumored to be going to Representative Nate Shatzlein. He has instead been appointed to a senior role in the governor's administration as an advisor to work on election-related stuff. Uh, I always thought the Shatzlein appointment would be odd given who Abbott has put there in the past. Nate's my age, and to my knowledge, doesn't have a lot of administrative experience. And a lot of what the Secretary of State does is lead an agency, and so a pretty important one. And so he might be a good political appointee, but that role in particular requires a certain like business background, and by that I mean like just a having run a business. And I believe most of his work has been in politics or in the church, and so his appointment never made much sense to me from somebody who Abbott would pick. And so him actually being on the senior staff makes a lot more sense to me as a in a policy and legislative capacity. Now, there's still some rumors going around about who the Secretary of State might be. My bet or my guess at this point would be one of the reasons Hancock stepped down was he might be going over to the Secretary of State's position. I think that would be a very smart pick for Abbott. But if it was gonna happen, I figure it would have already happened by now. And maybe between when I record this and when it gets this gets released, something will have happened. But, you know, the Secretary of State's position needs to be filled because the governor's come out for closed primaries. Uh now's about the time to do it. This push for closing primaries, when it was happening, there was not enough people on board to get it done uncontested for this last election. I do think there's enough time probably for it to get done before the next election. A lot of what's going to have to happen is the state's gonna have to spend money to re-register everybody and to designate whether what party you're in. So part of that just takes time, it takes education, it takes dollars that haven't been allocated. And so it's hard to just force the state accredited to do something, and if they don't have the necessary budget to do it, if you have the governor on your side, which he seems to be like having some legislation and appropriation that can be spent for it, seems like you're gonna have to go through the legislative process to a certain degree in order to make this happen. And so I think that probably will occur. Uh I don't think it's gonna happen by executive fiat, it's gonna act, it's probably going to require legislation to get passed. So that's an open question about how that all that stuff's gonna work. And that's what I've always told people on my my views on closed versus open primaries was if I lived in a state with closed primaries, I wouldn't want to open them. If I live in an open state with an open primary, I wouldn't want to close them because it's just a real it's an expense. It's a big expense to change your system. And substantively, from a political science or from any other perspective, they don't have much, they really have very little difference because just they don't change much when it comes to election results. And so, if anything, really, the statistically very insignificant. And so, why incur an expense for no real gain? That's my view on it. Other people think it's like the greatest thing ever, it's gonna keep Democrats out, it's not gonna prevent Democrats from registering as Republicans. So, how do you get them out? That's the questi that's the next question. So, here we are. We are at the at the dawn of a new era in Texas governance, and all that uh uh assumes the Republican dominance of the past 25, 30, 35 years in Texas continues. But we'll see on that. Right now, Calchi kind of has whether I think the last time I saw it is that Cal she had Democrats had like a 50-51% chance of winning one statewide seat, just one. So we'll see. We'll see how that looks. Well, Texas looks like whether we it's all red for another four years or whether we we lose something. But next week we have a great guest. I don't wanna I don't want to give too much away. A little bee, a little honey bee is in my ear telling me we might have a pretty big pretty big guest next week. So stay tuned for that. But until then, like, subscribe, comment, engage with me, shoot me what you want me to talk about, email me. Everything's in the description. And but until then, I'll see you next time. Okay, bye guys.