In the August 23 episode, Democratic state Rep. Ana Maria Rodriguez Ramos discusses the new state audit of the Texas Education Agency which revealed a bloated bureaucracy and more managers than state regulations allow. GOP state Rep. Jared Patterson explains why he's creating a bipartisan voting bloc of DFW-area representatives who plan to advocate harder for North Texas. And Austin Council Member Mike Siegel explains why he's a Democratic Socialist, what it stands for and how much he's accomplished.
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Straight ahead here. Democratic socialism having its moment. Nationally, we want you to meet the Democratic Socialists in Texas already in office, defending the movement and defining success, plus the bloated bureaucracy in Texas. What a state audit uncovered at the Tia. State Rep Ana Maria Rodriguez Ramos requested the review.
Her reaction to the new discovery. Two Texas counties have now turned off their flock cameras for different reasons. But will more counties now follow? And lawmakers from North Texas planning something next session? No other part of the state is done before state Rep Jared Patterson in studio with his new bipartisan plan.
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Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whitely starts now.
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Thank you for being here. Let's begin with some political headlines that have folks talking right now. Two Texas counties have now turned off their flock cameras. The most recent is Hood County, outside Fort Worth. County commissioners there ended their relationship with flock back in April, and this past week, Constable John Shirley went out to cover up all the cameras, saying warrantless surveillance like that does not belong in a free society.
Guadalupe County outside San Antonio or Seguin is also got rid of their flock cameras. The sheriff says they are too costly to repair after vandals hit them. Texas is now projected to overtake California and become the most populated state in the country over the next decade or so. This came from the University of Virginia.
It took over population projections when the U.S. Census Bureau stopped it. Researchers predict Texas is going to add another 10 million people between 2040 and 2050. And those researchers projected California is likely to shrink by a few million people. And an unusual behind the scenes development in the U.S. Senate does have people talking in political circles right now.
James Talarico scooped up a Republican staffer from John Cornyn. Jacob Smith, there on your screen, worked as a deputy legislative director for Cornyn. Talarico hired him in a similar role, saying this hire demonstrates that his campaign has a commitment to bipartisanship. You know, it is rare for staffers to cross party lines and go to work for political opponents.
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Let's start right now, though, with Dodge, the Department of Government Efficiency. Republicans have owned that term over the last couple of years, vowing to root out waste, fraud and abuse. But it is a Texas Democrat right now actually uncovering it in state government. State Rep Ana Maria Rodriguez Ramos got a state audit of the Texas Education Agency and the results just back.
They revealed a bloated bureaucracy there. Representative, it's good to see you again here. Let's start with this audit. You got the audit because you believe there might be something wrong inside the Texas Education Agency. State auditors discovered that there are problems with management, with contracting, with charter school oversight, also with grant oversight.
The question now, what are you specifically looking at to potentially change when the legislature reconvenes in January? One of the most alarming things there's really no reason why this shouldn't be done. One of the most alarming things in this audit is that for every three employees under Mike Mora's leadership, there's one manager.
So imagine that if you were in every school, for every three teachers, there was one principal. We would everybody would be an up in arms about our tax dollars. And so this is what is happening at the TSA. And we want to find out what is going on. Why are we there? Why is there such a failure in leadership and oversight?
And the regulation, I believe, for the state is it's supposed to be one manager for every ten employees, and the audit found one for every three and a half. Inside the tea. So it's it's top heavy. There's a lot of bureaucracy here. It sounds like. Is that correct? Absolutely. There's a 64% hike in salaries and management.
So the current rule is it's one manager to every 11 employees. And if you're going to have to reduce that amount, you have to ask for a waiver and explain why. Well Marathe has not done that. He has just moved forward, hired one manager for every three employees and increased his management, while at the same time schools are closing across the state.
So what are we doing in the agency? For a couple of years now, we've heard from Republicans all about waste, fraud and abuse, all about DOJ's, you know, the Department of Government Efficiency here. And we see what this audit has uncovered at one of the state agencies, the Texas Education Agency here. Does it surprise you that this was right underneath the noses of state leaders the entire time?
And would you describe this as waste, fraud and abuse. Um, we expected something like this, but not as extreme as as what is happening under our noses right now, and I don't I'm not surprised that it was happening by a, uh, Greg Abbott appointed individual over the Texas commission, uh, the Texas Education Agency.
I want to remind the public that this these party has been in leadership for over 20 years in the state of Texas. And so it's disingenuous when they're saying schools are doing bad things or, you know, there's too much waste over there and over there. If there is, it in fact, happened under this party's leadership.
It has happened all of this, these failures that they say it's not in failure in the community working hard, trying to make ends meet. It's a failure in the leadership. And it starts at the top with Governor Abbott. Let me tell you what the T.A. told us. It says, listen, no taxpayer dollars were misspent, according to the audit.
TSA says this was an extremely clean audit, and it also pointed out that it only gave 10% salary increases, while the state average among all 100 something different agencies was an 18% salary increase. What's your reaction to that? The audit was extremely clean and no taxpayer dollars were misspent.
I don't know what his definition of clean is, but when we're throwing away millions and millions of dollars in contracts where individuals approving those contracts haven't even disclosed any nepotism, I don't know how clean you want to call that or when the your budget has increased for management.
But they're, you know, fewer staffers or schools are closing. I don't know if that's necessarily clean or he's once again, the tactic that they have is look the other way. There's nothing to see here. Yes, Texans, your hospitals are closing. Your schools are closing. You can't afford rent. You can't afford to buy gas and groceries.
But don't worry about that. But they don't want you to focus on that. And we got to remember it's starts. The tone starts at the top. This is the same leadership that's telling you focus on this, but don't worry about you can't afford your daily living and we've got to make some changes. Representative we appreciate the time as always.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
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All right. Let's bring in the roundtable to talk about the politics of this. Bud Kennedy is here from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Matthew Watkins, editor in chief for the Texas Tribune, and our friend Ashley Goudeau, political director at Kvue and Austin. But let's start with you. Republicans have talked for a long time in this state and elsewhere about small government.
And here we are with a bloated bureaucracy right underneath their nose. This is already a tighter than usual race with the governor. His reelection campaign. Is something like this going to be an issue? Well, and really, you know, it's Lieutenant Governor Patrick who said that he actually threatens school districts if they don't cut down on their bureaucracy.
This has been going on at T for several administrations. It keeps getting bigger. They keep getting on taking on more work. They are taking over school districts and they add more people. It's something that the state will have to clamp down. And, you know, to be fair here, Matthew, Republicans agreed to support this audit that Ana Maria Ramos or Rodriguez Ramos decided that she wanted to, you know, get on as a rider in the last budget bill.
But are they now going to come out and defend the CEA and the commissioner here?
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Money is spent. And you know how agencies are seeing things. I think, you know, I think we will see more debate around, you know, our school districts operating as efficiently as we want to on one side. And also maybe the argument from Democrats that, you know, they're underfunded and they needed more funding.
I think an audit is a tough thing to build a whole campaign around. And I think the bigger, broader picture of our schools being effective, do we like the level of state oversight in our schools right now? Are more of the kind of things you'll be hearing people talking about on the campaign trail this year and Ashley on the gubernatorial campaign here.
One thing that Gina Hinojosa, the Democrat, is saying is, hey, why won't the governor debate me? She he debated Lupe Valdez. A few years ago. He debates his other one other opponents, but he's not debating me. Do you expect to see a debate?
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I mean, I think that it's obviously still early. I think that Governor Greg Abbott has really not shied away from a debate because he does so well on the debate stage now. Do I think that, you know, debating Lupe Valdez versus debating a Gina Hinojosa that's totally different, right. We know that Gina Hinojosa is probably going to fare much better on the debate stage.
And so I think he does have to be really thoughtful about what am I really going to get out of this? This is something that we're going to do. But hey, I think it can still happen. We shall see if it does. And you're right about that. Two completely different candidates there. Back to you in just a moment here, guys.
A lot more ahead, including this.
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When we come back here. Lawmakers from DFW planning something next session that no other part of the state has really done before. And a half dozen Democratic socialists already serve in Texas. We'll meet one of them when inside Texas politics returns.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. State lawmakers from DFW are joining together to do something. No other region in Texas is doing right now. They're creating their own caucus, a voting bloc. Lawmakers from Houston have won this very specific to Harris County, but state Rep Jared Patterson from Frisco says the five counties making up DFW, they need to go bigger.
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Representative, good to see you again here. Good to see you. Thank you. Why in the world is DFW need its own legislative caucus? Look, this is a great opportunity for our region. You know, if DFW, if those five counties Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton and Rockwall were its own State. We'd have the fifth largest economy in the country.
If we were own nation, we'd be in the top 25 economies in the world. We have done a good job, I think, of advocating on behalf of our region, but I think what we're doing is we've got some serious legislators that have banded together to say, we're going to be more intentional about this moving forward. Is Dallas Fort Worth getting our fair share of transportation, funding of water funding, infrastructure, economic development, those sorts of things.
When we can get on the same page, we're going to get on the same page and advocate for this region. Kind of reaction have you had to this? I mean, you might be creating some jealousy out there where you might have people ganging up on the DFW voting block here. Yeah, that can backfire. Look where it is. We're at a disadvantage already.
I mean, if you look at the state budget, for example, you know, both budget riders are from the Houston area. You know, they do a great job. I'm big fans of Doctor Greg Bohannon. You know, just outside of Harris County and Joan Huffman and the Senate and Senate finance, you know, in the Harris County area, they do great work, right.
But they're both in the Houston region. And so that's just one example where we need to have a little bit bigger voice in the process and their strength in numbers. And so the group of and look, the group that we put together, Ramon Romero from Fort Worth, Tony Rose from Dallas. Matt Shaheen from prosper and myself from Denton County live in Frisco.
You know, these are all serious legislators that are policy oriented people. These are leaders in the Texas House amongst the groups that they're in. And so, you know, these are people that are going to be taken seriously when it comes next session. You saw what Harris County had set up with its own caucus just for a specific county.
And you said, listen, DFW, the greater region in North Texas needs this. Yeah, I think so, because, as you know, look, we're the largest inland population in the United States. We have more suburbs of 100,000 plus population than any area in the United States. You know, we're number three in job creation.
We're a big exporter from the Dallas region. We are every bit as much as the economic powerhouse that Harris County and Houston is. And so as a region, we ought to be able to compete better against some of these. Now look, budgetary and everything. You know, we're getting about the same slice of the pie as Harris County is, but there's always more that we can try to get.
And I believe that if we're intentional about it, if we've got a good bipartisan group of serious members that we can do even better for our region. You do have that bipartisan group, but this is a large delegation from North Texas on the right and left who isn't joining. You know, I've heard from a couple of people that aren't that excited about it, but overwhelmingly a bipartisan push for several bipartisan push.
Yeah, absolutely. And look, you know, our board why are they excited about two Republicans, two Democrats. Well, you know, look, in the Texas House, there's workhorses and show horses. Some folks want to be on their own and do kind of things their own way. It's very difficult to get policy done that way.
If you want to pass big bills, if you want to advocate for big solutions, whether it's for your district, for your region, you need friends. And and, you know, I think if you look at the group that we've put together, this is a group of workhorses that are leading this caucus in the Texas House, and I'm excited about our possibilities next session.
Representative, good to see you. Thank you. On this week's episode of Yellow Ticks, we are looking closer at the left. Democratic socialism is having a big moment right now nationally. Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mayor Mamdani but it turns out Texas has a half dozen Democratic socialists in office as well.
But what exactly do they stand for? And are they accomplishing anything? Mike Segal is one of them. He's a council member in Austin, and he's on this week's podcast. Council member, I appreciate you being here. Thanks for the time. Thanks for having me. You choose the label democratic socialist. Tell us what that means in plain English.
I'm a Democrat and I'm a democratic socialist. The two are not in contradiction. Um, you know, I was raised by a family that my parents, you know, protested the Vietnam War were part of social movements in the 1960s. So these were values that I was raised with. You know, that we are trending as a country to a more just country, a more equitable country.
So that's almost my family upbringing. But to me, these are things that are very popular and very needed, because right now, what's happening in America is there's a greater concentration of wealth. Right in my backyard is the first trillionaire that's ever existed in human history. And there's no way to be a just trillionaire.
The only way you get there is by extracting wealth from other working people, by polluting the environment, by, frankly, ripping off the government. That's the only way you can concentrate so much wealth in one person's hands. And so I think there's there's a greater resentment that so much money is concentrated in the hands of so few, and this is a part of the movement to counteract that.
And can you tell us one thing you've actually accomplished in Austin that you would describe as a democratic socialist ideal? There on the council?
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I can talk about several, um, I think paying our city workers more so they can afford to live in the city is a democratic socialist program, uh, using public dollars to fund affordable housing so that it's not just these wealthy people that can live in downtown high rises, that working class people can live in the community.
That's a democratic socialist program. Uh, frankly, fighting for privacy is a big concern right now. We've had these, you know, license plate readers and surveillance programs and flock safety. And in Austin, I led the effort to discontinue those programs and to end our contract with flock to prevent surveillance, invasion of our privacy for corporate profits.
That is also a democratic socialist program. When I started looking for democratic socialists in Texas, I couldn't find many at all. There, I think there are three on city council in San Antonio, the Travis County D.A., Jose Garza. There's you. Why are there any more in Texas? Well, you know, um, I think there will be more in the days to come.
Uh, obviously there is a lot of, you know, old anti-communist rhetoric, right? That goes back to the Cold War era. And sometimes it's a little hard to break through, especially if you're in a more rural community or, you know, not one of these urban centers like Austin. But I think bit by bit, as we win concrete gains that improve people's lives, that's when you're going to see this become more popular.
And so obviously, yeah, the New York, New York City has a mayor who, as the chief executive, can just do good things and he can prove the theory in action. But it's going to take time for for folks like myself, the folks in San Antonio and elsewhere to prove the benefits of this theory. You mentioned a couple of times here that just the word socialism has this terrible connotation.
You know, we were all raised thinking communism, socialism is terrible. The government shouldn't own things. You know, let free market work as it is. What would you say to to people, though, who do not understand this and do not understand how how voters out there would elect somebody who's socialist?
You know, they called Social Security socialism when it was introduced in this country, but now it's just universally accepted that all of us should be able to retire with dignity. Right. They called Medicare and Medicaid socialism. When those programs were brought forward in the 1960s. And now all of us think that everyone should have access to good quality health care.
You know, public education might, for some, might be considered socialism. The idea that for no money at all, we should be able to go to the neighborhood school and get an education and have opportunity in society. And so that's what we're fighting for. You know, basic human rights, basic human goods, so all of us can thrive.
So we don't have to worry about our neighbor being out on the street, not having enough money for food. That if all of us are taking care of us, if all of us are taken care of in terms of our basic needs, then all of us are safer. All of us are happier, and all of us have opportunity to thrive. Council members, good to talk to you.
Thank you for the time. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Our unedited conversation with Councilman Siegel on this week's episode of you all ready to download right now, wherever you get your podcast. The roundtable is ready at next, though, on this program when we come back.
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All right. Back now with roundtable Bud, Matthew and Ashley all back with us. And Bud, we got to talk about the Cook Political Report. Famous and respected for predicting races. Now says the Talarico Paxton race is a toss up. I don't remember the last time a big, high profile statewide race in Texas has been a toss up.
I don't think even the Beto races moved the toss up. I think they moved to lean but not toss up. You know, I think that there is a little difference going on here nationally. I think people are seeing the polls and, you know, the results are reflecting the polls. I think here in Texas, you know, maybe we're a little more doubtful.
What's your take on this, Matthew? I mean, this race feels differently to me than the ones in the past. And that doesn't mean Talarico is going to win by any means. But I think we are just the polls are different. The prognostications are different. The money factor is different. That that it's worth paying attention to in a way that maybe some of our past statewide races have been foregone conclusions.
But at the end of the day, Ashley, you know, don't don't. Republicans still have a numerical advantage here. There are more Republicans who show up to vote on Election Day than Democrats.
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Absolutely. And even when you look at polls and they ask people before they start asking questions, do you identify as Republican or Democrat? There are more Republicans right, than there are Democrats. So not just showing up to the polls, but but period. I think the problem, though, is Ken Paxton is going to have to be more accessible to the people, to the public in ways that he hasn't been before, and people aren't seeing that from him.
We talk a lot about the independents and how much of a role they're going to play, and they want to see a candidate who is accessible and he's just not. And so far we haven't seen that, but we aren't yet to Labor Day, the official kickoff here. We have seen President Trump saying he's going to be in Houston next Thursday hosting a fundraiser for Ken Paxton.
Tim Dunn giving more money to Paxton two. Is this indicative of something else, or is this just a regular play as we close in on Labor Day? This really is the Republicans kicking into gear, and it seems like it's a little late, but really there are two months before early voting starts. You know, you get the attention now.
You don't get it during the middle of July. And, you know, if the Republicans sink the money in and get the attention they can make. Hey, that's still possible. Matthew. Just like, you know, Ashley was saying a moment ago. Yeah. You know, and it's not great that Republicans are going to have to put that effort in.
You know that Donald Trump can only go to so many fundraisers, so many things. And this being a close race means this is a race that Republicans nationally are going to have to pay attention to and spread their resources out a little bit more, particularly in a state like Texas, where it costs so much money to run an effective campaign.
Yeah. And as you said, Republicans are not used to doing that in Texas, a state, the largest Republican state that they normally take for granted and win here, suddenly competitive. Guys, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Thank you for watching as well. We're back next Sunday to take you inside Texas politics.
We hope to see you then. Take care.