In the August 9 episode, Congressman Craig Goldman remembers Kay Granger, the legend he succeeded in Congress. And the Republican tells us if sees a role for the federal government in regulating data centers. Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare discusses a controversial plan to reduce election day voting locations and defends his decision to arrest a former state lawmaker. And Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux on why he supports a proposed public safety bond and why he thinks it would help recruit the best officers to Dallas.
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Straight ahead. The race for U.S. Senate in Texas moving now from personality to policy, Ken Paxton and James Talarico, both nominees, now unveiling their first big policy proposals on the number one issue in the state. This week, Dallas council considers nearly $1 billion in bonds to rescue the police pension and replace the aging academy.
DPD chief Daniel Comeaux on what's really at stake here, and where he draws the privacy line on those controversial flock cameras,
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plus chaos at the Tarrant County Commissioners Court. Former state Rep Leon Burnham, carried out by deputies there during a debate over potentially reducing the number of voting locations this November. County Judge Tim O'Hair answers our questions. And remembering political trailblazer Kay Granger.
Congressman Craig Goldman on her legacy, whether Washington should reign in data centers and the biggest race in the state.
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Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whitely starts now. Thank you for being here. Lots happening. Let's begin with the headlines. City Council in Fort Worth faces some tough decisions this week. Fort worth has a $77 million budget shortfall. Part of the reason, the city says, is property values came in lower than expected.
Leaders are looking at spending cuts and potentially potentially having to raise property taxes. Council reconvenes on Tuesday. The race for the U.S. Senate now moving from personality to policy. Ken Paxton and James Talarico both unveiled their first big policy proposals. Both of these proposals address affordability.
Paxton proposes massive tax deductions on everything from medical costs to gym memberships. Talarico wants to raise the minimum wage and repeal tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%, among other things. Both candidates are now on the road across the state to take their plan directly to voters. And new data centers across Texas now in limbo.
Governor Abbott ordering a statewide pause until Texas knows exactly how much power and how much water that each of these data center projects will consume. Developments that don't pass a new state review could be blocked from connecting to the power grid. This freeze has no impact. All right, let's start wide here.
The race for the US Senate now entering that new phase. Over the last week more polls now trending towards James Talarico, the Democrat. Our first guest looking ahead to November and also looking back at a political trailblazer, the late Kay Granger, the first woman to serve as mayor of Fort Worth, the first Republican woman to represent Texas in Congress, Craig Goldman, succeeded her in Congress.
And he leads us off right now with this interview. Congressman, good to see you again here. Great to be back, Jason. You succeeded the late Kay Granger, who died a political trailblazer in North Texas, she was the first female mayor of Fort Worth. First Republican woman in Congress from Texas. You knew her personally.
What do you think her legacy is? And first, Republican woman on the appropriate appropriation is extremely difficult to do. Um, yeah. You know, she's she'll go down as a legend. A Texas legend. She really was. She was a trailblazer, like you said, she's so respected in Washington, D.C.. I can't say. You know, the number one question you get from more senior members as a freshman is who do you replace?
And every single time I said, Kay Granger, their eyes lit up and their mouths open, they're like, oh man, you have huge shoes to fill. Tell me about the last meeting you had with her. Yeah, the last meeting is after I had several meetings with her up in her office in D.C. during the campaign, when you were running for her?
When I was running for her seat. And she was very interested to know all the details of the campaign and all the, you know, she was very detail oriented. And then and then we got into, you know, her friends around the building and who I should go talk to and who should respect it. And so many, so many people in that building still respect her.
Do you see a role at all for the federal government to get involved in data centers? Well, yes, that goes through my committee. Actually, the Energy and Commerce Committee is has an AI bill, has data. You know, it's certainly been talked about data center. You know, in fact, the ranking member, the Democrat on the committee has said he would like a halt overall halt to data centers being built across the United States.
What's happening is not the right policy, but that's not the right policy. We need we we need data centers, but we need to build them smartly, right? We need to make sure they're not sucking up all of our water. We need to make sure they're not overbearing our grid. There is a way to do it, but we have to do it, Jason.
We have to. Because if we don't do it, China does. And then China wins the AI War. No one in America wants China to win the AI War. AI is here. AI is coming strong. It's coming even stronger. We need it. Every single person in this country, in this world needs a data center because every single person has a phone.
We all use it. But do you think at the end of the day, is there a role for the federal government to play in regulating data centers? I it's a let me put it to you this way. It's at the very small
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beginning stages of a discussion through our committee, but we're not there yet with overall policy. And don't and I don't know if we'll get there by the end of this year. Let's talk about the the Talarico Paxton race. What concerns you most about Republican prospects in this state in November? Because Talarico has led the last three polls that have come out.
These are respected polls. Yeah, these are respected polls. Jason, you've been in long enough to know polls don't matter. But if you were on the on the receiving end of these polls, you'd be telling me, hey, listen, we were heading all the polls. When a Democrat wins statewide in this state, then I'll buy you a beer.
It's still. It's still Paxton's race to lose. It's absolutely Paxton. Well, it's not as lose. Paxton will win. How close do you expect it to be? Well, look, I mean, you know, the Cruz Beto race was what? Three points. Three points last time. So. But it doesn't matter. It wins a win. And I fully expect Ken Paxton to beat James Talarico on the issues alone.
Congressman good to see you. Good to see you too Jason. Appreciate it.
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All right. Let's bring in the roundtable now to talk about the politics of this. Natalie Hadad is with us, political reporter at WFAA in Dallas. Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texas Tribune. Ashley Goodell, political director at Kvue in Austin. Ashley, we want to start with you.
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Talarico and Paxton, both now traveling the state, laying out their affordability ideas here. Um, there aren't a lot of undecideds left to sway. Who or who is this aimed at? Yeah, I mean, it's all about the independents, right? I mean, Democrats are going to vote for the Democrat. Republicans are going to vote for the Republican mainly.
Right. We see a little bit of crossover when we look at those polls that, as you just heard Congressman say, don't matter. But I mean, I think that everyone kind of knows that you've got to sway independence if you're going to solidly win. And I think that is who they're talking to. And, Matthew, still plenty of time for Paxton to turn things around.
Now for polls. The latest one from Texas A&M. A smaller sampling size, only 600 or something. Voters there. Paxton still has time to turn things around. The GOP has not yet hit Talarico with the attack ads, but Talarico could also run the numbers up from here. Yeah, I mean, you know, the polls are not incredibly reliable this far out from the race, but you'd rather be winning in the polls than losing.
And right now, Ken Paxton is losing in the polls. And that's got to be a cause of concern. But even going back to that affordability issue too, it's it seems like a lot of these topics are being sort of played on the Democrats home turf. Right. In 2024, we were talking about immigration, an area where Republicans really trust are really trusted by the voters.
When you talk about affordability, that's an area that Democrats feel more comfortable talking about. And so that's another thing to be concerned about if you're Ken Paxton and you know what, that poll, Nataly on Friday from Texas A&M, showed that respondents giving James Talarico higher marks and Ken Paxton on affordability, thinking that Talarico might be able to do more on affordability in the state if he's elected rather than Ken Paxton.
Right. You know, I don't think Texans woke up this summer and decided that affordability suddenly matters. They are asking themselves, can they afford to continue living in Texas? And I think they are looking for the candidate that is going to best help them to do so. Yeah. All right, guys, back to you in just a moment.
A lot more ahead here in just a moment.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. Now to Tarrant County, where the elections administrator proposed reducing the number of places to vote there this November. The public pushed back former state Rep Lon Burnham, even carried out by law enforcement when he refused to leave. County commissioners unanimously, unanimously delayed a decision on this until next month.
Our next guest is Republican Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare. Judge O'Hare, it's good to see you again here. Let's talk about these voting locations on the surface, not being, you know, part of this with a dog in the fight here, this looks like another attempt to reduce voter access. The November general election, obviously, creating a lot of interest, especially at the top of the ticket.
Is that not the case? Is this not reducing voter access? Well, it's good to be here. And thank you for having me on. Uh, absolutely. It's not reducing voter access because despite the narrative that one of our commissioners likes to push, everything's a conspiracy. Everything is something somebody is trying to sneak around.
At no point that I tell our elections administrator that we wanted to cut our polling locations, that we wanted to cut them, certainly by the percentage that he brought to the table. And, Jason, I can tell you at no point was any Republican going to vote for that. At no point did any Republican tried to make that happen, and any assertion to the contrary is just false.
And to be clear, judge, do you want to see cuts to voting locations, and if so, what's a what's a reasonable number? I think what people in Tarrant County need to know Republicans, Democrats, independents, anyone who's going to vote. There will be plenty of places to vote by the time the process is over.
There are 13 days to vote between early voting and election Day. The way you're asking, do I want it cut? Well, I don't want to waste money by having two locations right next to each other. If that ends up being 300. Great. If that ends up being 284, great. If it ends up being 312, I want it to be equally spaced amongst precincts, equally spaced throughout the county.
I want everybody to be able to get to a poll easily, and I have zero doubt whatsoever that that's exactly what will happen for the 26 midterms. It's exactly what happened in the 24 midterms when I was in office, and it's exactly what happened in the 25 constitutional amendment and special SD nine election.
I do want to ask you about one pretty high profile, uh,
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part of the opposition here. You had sheriff's deputies at one point forcibly remove former state Representative Lorne Burnham because he picked up the microphone, walked around and turned around holding the microphone. There, law enforcement dragged him out. A 73 year old man. Do you think that was handled appropriately looking back now?
So what he does, uh, pretty much every time that he comes to court is he purposefully defies the orders of the presiding judge. Um, he tries to agitate the last meeting. He was there. His time was up. I usually politely say your time is up. He keeps going. I say, your time is up, and he keeps going on purpose because he's trying to create a scene.
But you asked, taking him out. Well, why did they take him out that way? The reason they took him out that way is because when they went up to gently say, please remove, um, they're not grabbing him. They're not yanking him. And then he drops to the floor. So is the right way to handle it. Let him stay in the floor for the rest of the meeting.
Uh, let him disrupt the meeting again. What do you do? Wait. Sit there. Stop the meeting! Stop, everybody! This. They're on county business. And just wait till he decides to get up off the floor. I mean, ultimately, you have to maintain some decorum and some order to run a meeting, and that's what we do. Judge, good to see you.
I appreciate the time, as always, sir. Yes. Thanks for having me on. On Wednesday, Dallas City Council decides whether to add almost $1 billion in bonds to your November ballot. The money will rescue the police pension and replace the aging academy. Police Chief Daniel Como is up next here on what's at stake, and he takes our questions also about those controversial flock cameras.
Where does he draw the line on privacy? Chief, good to see you. Thank you for coming in here. Absolutely. Council appears split on these bonds. What is at stake here? If this does not pass and get on the ballot in November? Look, we need a new police academy. We need a new shooting range. And I've been on the record saying when I went to qualify for the first time that I was in Dallas, I was appalled at the facilities.
I could not believe that our shooting range for the Dallas Police Department look like that. I thought they were actually playing a joke on me. I couldn't believe it was that bad. I hadn't seen a shooting range in my entire law enforcement career from 1991 that looked that bad. If the bond fails, what happens to Dallas policing?
Well, look, recruiting becomes harder and then all of a sudden we're just taking those who pass. We don't want to be a police department. That only takes those who pass. We want to have a line outside the door of people wanting to be Dallas police officers, and this plays a part in it. But recruiting is already tough, not just for Dallas, but for so many departments, large departments like yours.
Yeah. And right now we're trending in the right direction. We're one of the few major cities that are trending in the direction that we are. We're filling Academy classes, but I do believe at some point we'll hit a wall, especially if people understand that we don't have the facilities. And when you don't have the facilities, it also shows that basically the council or the community is not behind you.
Let me ask you about the flock cameras, because there's a lot of controversy about them. How many arrests can you directly link to those flock cameras? I don't have that number with me, but the flock cameras help us make arrests. I like talking about one story. It's probably a month or two months after I became chief.
I'm quite honest. I believe we were going to have a serial killer in Dallas. And if it was not for the flock cameras, we wouldn't have solved that as fast as we saw that before. We could have a serial killer. Flock was the direct responsibility for helping the great detectives of homicide solved that case.
There's a lot of questions about privacy with these cameras. Where do you draw the line on that? Look,
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it's there for us to use to solve crimes and to protect everyone. There's no one looking at the cameras. There's policies, policies and procedures in place. So anytime someone accesses those cameras, the system tells us, and if someone is using it in a manner that they should not be using it, they'll get disciplined for that.
Well, The Washington Post recently reported about officers nationwide abusing the system and using flight camera technology to track down ex-wives and girlfriends. Has Dallas ever disciplined or investigated any officers for that? We haven't seen anything like that yet. But if someone at all I don't know, uh, don't know before me, and I'm not even sure.
I cannot think of any cases. Since I've been here, we've had questions about, uh, mainly regarding Ice investigations. How do we use FLoC for that? And we had no officers using FLoC for Ice investigations. That was related directly to immigration. If residents don't want cameras in their neighborhood or their communities, should they have the power to veto that?
I don't think so. My job here is to keep the city of Dallas safe. This is a great tool for us to keep the city of Dallas safe. What do you tell those folks who are who are concerned about privacy on this, concerned about the Fourth Amendment right to unreasonable search? I understand the concern, but these cameras are not being used to violate anybody's rights.
These cameras are being used to keep everyone safe. Chief. Congratulations, chief. Good luck. I appreciate it. Thank you. The roundtable is ready when we come back here on Inside Texas Politics.
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This is inside Texas politics with Jason Whitely.
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All right. Time now for reporters roundtable to put the headlines in perspective. Natalie, Matthew and Ashley all back with us here. And, Matthew, let's start with you. We saw the fraud case that happened, the chaos that happened at that public meeting in Tarrant County in Fort Worth last week over the over whether to reduce the number of voting locations from 316 last midterm in 2022, down to 176 now.
I'm sure a lot of people would put blame right on the elections administrator who proposed this, but state lawmakers gave every county across the state the ability to do this. And we just discovered not too long ago that Tarrant County is just the first. Right. Yeah. Caldwell County has also been considering a similar measure as well.
You know, this is a heated topic, particularly in an election that is feeling close, right? Democrats really emphasizing that they want, you know, everyone to be able to vote, make it as easy as possible to vote. Meanwhile, on the other side, Republicans, a lot of concerns among their electorate around the security of elections.
It's a heated issue, particularly in Tarrant County, which has been quite competitive in recent years between Republicans and Democrats. It's sort of a swing county. Yeah, a swing county. And the competition alone. Natalie, I presume it's what's fueling a lot of this. Democrats see an opening. They have a strong person at the top of the ticket that might be able to, you know, create a wave for some of the other down ballot Democrats.
Yeah. Shortly before the Tarrant County commissioners meeting, there were a couple of candidates on the November ballot who came to speak to Democrats. Nathan Johnson, running for Texas attorney general. Vicki Goodwin running for lieutenant governor. And they both said that they would like to explore the legality of this.
And I asked Johnson about this, and he wouldn't elaborate a whole lot. But there are a lot of folks who were there rallying outside of the commissioners court talking about that very thing. They they said that they felt that this was voter suppression. They're looking at slashing a lot of polling sites, and they're going to be at the next meeting when they decide to pick it back up.
Since tabling it and to the point that they made, Tarrant County is a major area where, you know, folks are really watching this and seeing where rural Texas is going. Look at Taylor Vermette, who won that and, you know, started from, you know, little money and then grew into a huge campaign. And he won. And I think many people were surprised by that.
And I don't I wouldn't be surprised if county commissioners felt the same way. Yeah. And, you know, it was unanimous decision. Every Republican joined the Democrat also to or Democrats to to delay this until next month. We'll see what happens with that. But but you know, Ashley, it's not just Tarrant County.
Caldwell county. Lockhart also considering this this week. Do you think that other counties might pick up on this?
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I think they're going to see what happens with Tarrant County. And it's either going to be a warning sign for some of them, depending on, you know, how people react, want to vote, and the decision is actually made. You know, it does seem like this would have really big impacts in rural counties. You look at Caldwell County, where folks live so far away from each other and the need to vote, the desire to vote.
Are people going to have to drive miles, hours, 30 minutes, 40 minutes to get to a polling location? I mean, this is something that's really concerned, and it's something that people really, really have to pay attention to. And switching off now, Matthew, over to data centers. If there is one thing that Texas Democrats and Texas Republicans might agree on.
Today it is data centers. Does that surprise you at all? At the end of the day, it seems like to me that that, you know, rural Texas is making a big stink over there saying, listen, we don't want these in our communities. The governor, lieutenant governor, every Republican official now clearly listening.
Yeah. You know, I mean, Texas was a pretty data center friendly state up until really a few months ago. But boy, the pushback has been intense in rural Texas. Rural Texas is, of course, very important to the Republican Party in close races. It's really what delivered Beto. I mean, Ted Cruz's victory over Beto O'Rourke in the last close US Senate race.
I think Republicans are really trying to show that they can be responsive to these issues, that they're hearing the concerns of their voters because, I mean, they're feeling the heat and and taking dramatic action in response to that. And, Ashley, since Republicans, you know, created these incentives years ago to to attract data centers here, but now changing their tune on this, could could the GOP be vulnerable this November because of this?
Well, there's a couple of things that, you know, when they approved those incentives, we were not talking about what we're talking about now. Right. Like the data centers of yesteryear are not what we're dealing with now. And so I think it's just responsible that you relook at these incentives. That's just, you know, plain, plain out.
I do think that this is going to the governor putting a pause on this. I think this kind of gives him a win to some degree, at least on the optics. You know, if Republicans continue to at least give the appearance that they're listening to people and they're taking action, then they could say that they're going to stick with, you know, rural voters because they're going to stick with Republicans.
Indeed, it does look like a win right now, at least for the governor to make that decision. 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 you'll join us then. Take care.