In the June 14 episode, Democratic nominee for Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa’s campaign is focused on public education and she explains why she’d fire the TEA Commissioner on day one and why she would pause the A-F accountability system. Mayor John Muns discusses traffic concerns surrounding the Dallas Stars’ move north to Plano. And state Senator Paul Bettencourt reacts to the Governor’s call for data center regulation.
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Straight ahead backlash in conservative counties over data centers. Republican leaders now responding. Governor Abbott pushing strict new regulations for the legislature to consider next year. State Senator Paul Bettencourt on what lawmakers might do. Plus, state Rep Gina Hinojosa on her campaign for governor, putting public schools at the center of her campaign and the three changes she says she will make if elected.
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Plano Mayor John Muns, taking a victory lap after getting the Dallas Stars to move north. But what will it take to finalize the deal, and how long has it really been in the works? And Dallas City Hall's future nearly decided the pivotal council vote that may seal its fate.
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Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whitely starts now. Thank you for being here. Let's begin the program, as always, with the top political headlines happening across our state, the Trump administration says it will build a border barrier along the Rio Grande. Here in the Big Bend National Park, after all, it canceled plans for a wall, but said it's now going to put 17 miles of small metal barriers about four feet high through the park to stop vehicles that might be able to cross the Rio Grande.
Environmental groups have said this militarizing the national park and ruins vistas. The fate of Dallas's iconic city hall now really all but sealed. Council voted Wednesday to stop putting money into repairs of the building, getting it up to code. Estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps.
Two council members won a temporary restraining order preventing council from voting on Wednesday to actually redevelop the property. The judge said the council does need more specificity on that issue and time to prepare for a decision like that, and some encouraging news for Texas public schools.
The results of the star test out right now, and students have improved in every single subject, from math to history. Scores are better than last year, but still below how students did perform before the pandemic. As educators still try to recover from learning loss that happened during Covid. Let's begin right now, though, with public schools.
The Democrat running for governor, Gina Hinojosa, is making that issue front and center in her campaign. We met her in Richardson as she began to roll it all out. Representative, good to see you here. Good to see you. I want to start with something you said there a moment ago in the roundtable. You said Texas public schools won't survive four more years of Governor Abbott.
Is that hyperbole? I will say what I have seen over the last ten years is that it's just been cut after cut. Attack after attack on our public schools. And I do not see our public schools surviving another four years under Greg Abbott. He doesn't support our public schools. He works against them. And I'm running to fight for our Texas public schools.
You're rolling out this new initiative in the campaign called Team Texas Public Schools. What's your plan? Here is my plan. On day one, I will fire Mike Morath, the Texas Education Agency Commissioner, and appoint an educator to that position. Our kids deserve that much. I will also pause the A through F accountability system, which is currently rigged.
I will tell you, I can go into detail into how it is rigged. It is focus on a very deficient star test and we want accountability. Don't get me wrong, those of us who support our public schools, we crave accountability, but we want a fair system. There's a lot of consternation across the state right now. People concerned and upset.
The schools are closing not just in urban areas, but suburban areas and even rural areas. But if enrollment continues to fall in so many of these districts, Dallas ISD, I'm thinking here, Plano ISD, is it responsible to keep these schools open? I will say that a recent enrollment is falling. Not the only reason, but a big reason is because parents are opting out because of the star test.
It is because there are charter schools where those charter schools don't have to take all kids, and they're opting into that resource. We keep growing our charter school network without any plan, without any end game, and it takes resources from our neighborhood public schools. So what we need to do is stabilize our neighborhood public schools, invest our money into them because they are the single option available for every Texas child.
We need to make sure they are the best. Would you support raising taxes to increase school funding? No, we don't need to. Our taxes have gone up 75% under Greg Abbott, yet schools are shutting down. We pay more, we get less. We are all paying the Greg Abbott corruption tax. What I mean by that is more and more of our money is going to vendors who are connected to the governor.
We need to wipe clean the corrupt vendor contracts, use that money to invest into the classroom, to pay our teachers to be amongst the highest paid in the nation. I followed that bill. Last session I had MAGA moms standing with me in support of this effort. It's what we all want a back to basics approach, but how much money is it going to cost to to get these kids going to charter schools, get the kids in private schools homeschooled, get them back into their neighborhood schools that so many of these districts invested in.
It's going to be an effort. I
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know how hard it is because we have fallen, and there's going to require work put into our schools so that parents can trust, again, that the public school is going to be the best option for their kids. Many parents who showed up today put in the work to make sure their kids get what they need, but it shouldn't be so hard.
And the state has a responsibility. In fact, a Texas constitutional responsibility to fund an efficient system of public free schools. And right now, the state is failing. Lieutenant Governor Patrick and all Republicans told me after the last session, listen, we set aside separate money for vouchers, $1 billion there for vouchers, and still gave public schools more than we have given in the past, including a pay raise for teachers.
So are vouchers really taking away from public schools? Absolutely. All that money is fungible. If you don't put it into neighborhood public schools. Um, it's going into vouchers, like you can move money around. That money would have otherwise been available for our neighborhood public schools. Our neighborhood public schools got a little more money, but does not approach the inflation that they have experience.
And in fact, we need another about $10 billion into the classroom that we have lost because of inflation, the price of gas, the price of special education. I will tell you, my district I represent spends 25% of their entire budget on special education because the state has a $2.5 billion deficit that is happening here in Richardson two.
Representative good luck to you. Thank you so much.
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All right. Let's bring in the roundtable now to talk about the politics of this. But Kennedy is here from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Natalie Hadad, political reporter, WFAA in Dallas. And Ashley Goudeau, political director at Kvue in Austin. But let's start with you. We just heard Hinojosa talking about education, education, education.
People were upset about it last year with vouchers. And we've also seen a lot of people are interested in vouchers. But is education really going to be an issue people vote on? You know,
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Hosa wants to motivate teachers to vote. Teachers notoriously don't vote. And she wants suburban parents who are upset with the deterioration of their public schools, their neighborhood schools to come out and vote for her. She is trying to motivate voters that the Democrats need but don't always get.
And let me ask you, Natalie, about this new Texas A&M Siena poll that came out. It shows Greg Abbott leading Hinojosa by six points. No surprise there. The numbers are really kind of baked in. The surprise would be whether these widen it all, but Dan Patrick's leading, Maes Middleton is leading, and Talarico and Ken Paxton are both tied.
Now, is this your going to be out of reach for Democrats again? That's a very interesting question. And I think we need to think about where we live. I think in Texas it's always kind of out of reach for Democrats, right? It's always going to be a steep hill to climb. And so Gina in Hosa, James Talarico, even for as well as we've seen him do so far, all of the Democratic nominees headed into the midterms are going to work that much harder.
They may have some momentum behind them, but it's hard to say whether it's ever really enough to have any sort of blue wave coming. Yeah, and we hate to talk about blue wave. Ashley, you and I talked about that for a long time here, but but it seems like Democrats really kind of started with a lot of momentum here.
And we have a long way to go. I mean, obviously we do, but they have their work cut out for them. Even with President Trump in the white House, the dissatisfaction there and inflation rising.
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Yeah. But one of the things I want to I want to take a pause and I want to say I love a good poll. I'm all about the polling. But I think also when you only talk to 807 likely voters, I start to question some of the numbers that come out, especially when it comes to those splits between the Democrats and the Republicans, because they were larger in that poll than they were in some previous polling.
Look, Democrats are going to have to work. They're going to have to work hard, and they're going to have to not have any missteps. That's the big thing. I think Talarico cannot get in his own way. He cannot have any flub ups. He cannot say anything that is going to upset people, because right now you have a lot of Republicans who say they are absolutely not going to vote for Ken Paxton, and that means opportunity for Democrats and a lot of time to see if anyone can materialize with that opportunity.
Guys, back to you in just a moment. A lot more ahead here, including this.
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When we come back here, Plano Mayor John Muns on landing the Dallas Stars, how long it had been in the works and the top priority moving forward. Plus, conservative counties have complained about data centers. Governor Abbott proposed a fix to the legislature. State Senator Paul Bettencourt with us next on Inside Texas Politics.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. Now to Plano in Collin County. It is racking up huge winds right now, getting AT&T to move its global headquarters from downtown Dallas to Plano. That was a big deal back in January. Now, though, Plano has also gotten the Dallas Stars to move north. But how long have these talks been happening?
When will it be a done deal? And you know what worries residents? We had a list of questions for Plano Mayor John Muns. Mayor welcome back. Thank you. It's great to be back. Huge congratulations since I last saw you, though. Tell me, how long has this deal with the stars been in the works? How long have you been working on this?
We've had conversations for a year and a half, right? Right. At the first of 25, they actually reached out to us. And I'm sure they they reached out to other communities other than just Plano, but, um, they, they were very interested in the Willow Bend site they really had from the get go. Yeah. I think that was the whole point of approaching us.
Is this a done deal with the stars? Any chance Dallas could pull the rug out from under you guys and offer something sweeter to keep the stars in Dallas? You know, I, I can't imagine that that, uh, they would do that. But at the same time, anything's possible. Dallas might be desperate right now, though. Dallas could be desperate, and and we understand that.
But at the same time, in that year and a half, we've developed a lot of trust between the two parties, the stars and the city of Plano. And I think the stars have realized the city of Plano. When they say they're going to do something, they do it. And we've been very committed to making sure when we say we're we're going to do this or we're going to do that, and this is the way we're going to go about doing it.
Uh, we've done that. And we plan to make sure that that master agreement, uh, is worked on over the summer and that we get that, uh, finished before we get to the November election. And when will this be binding? What would that master agreement be signed in, this thing be permanent? We're hoping by the end of the summer or early fall, uh, you know, we're just trying to make sure that we, we, you know, in the loi, the the non-binding agreement that we have right now, the letter of intent.
Yeah, we've, we've we've really agreed on all those things. I think we just have to get the specifics worked out with, with each party and make sure that it's, uh, it's a binding agreement at that point in time. And we'll be ready to go. Folks who live in Plano, folks who might drive through, are always concerned about traffic.
Yeah. Have you all started studies on traffic, how to mitigate, you know, traffic around what's going to be this huge complex. It's the number one priority in this whole conversation, quite frankly. Traffic is. Yeah, because I think people are really concerned about it. And so we've already interviewed traffic consultants that we're going to hire and really look into how do we mitigate the ingress and egress of Willow Bend.
We have multiple avenues to to get people onto streets. Nobody nobody's going to have to be all on the same street to get out or to get in. But we have to make sure that it's feasible that we can work through that. It's on the corner of the bush and the tollway, but at the same time, it's a it's a priority for our residents.
And we're going to make sure we we work on that as a number one priority. Last question. Let me ask you about some chatter we heard when the stars announced they're moving to Plano. This comes on the heels of AT&T leaving downtown Dallas, the star is leaving this kind of the city center here. People are saying the business center of gravity has left Dallas and moved to Plano.
What do you think about that? Has it? I think I think it has in certain elements. Um, when we talk about financial services and, and Dallas talks about, you know, being the financial center, well, we have a lot of that already, whether it's JP Morgan, Bank of America, Capital One, uh, uh, Fisher Investments, these kind of companies that have moved to Plano in the last 5 to 10 years.
But to have companies like Toyota and AT&T and Samsung now, uh, we we've always been a corporate community. But the expansion of that just in the last few years is pretty incredible. Mayor, congratulations. Thank you.
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The state's Republican leaders Finally responding to conservative counties concerned about data centers, Governor Abbott wants lawmakers to regulate them, require them to generate their own electricity and find their own water. Repeal sales tax exemptions as well that incentivize so many of them to be built here.
But it is rare that Texas Republicans will enact new regulations on any industry. So we turn to state Senator Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who chairs the local government committee. For his reaction to this. Hours after the governor released it.
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Senator, back in February, you said that counties cannot individually ban data centers. The governor now wants the legislature to do it statewide to blanket regulations here. Is this something you would vote for? Well, the the point that I made in February was as the Senate Local Government Committee chair, I'm recognizing the obvious.
Counties do not have the authority to do broad bands of industrial projects. The reason why, Representative Patterson, I wrote that, uh, that letter is because we had about six counties that were looking at o AI data center bands. Some people went to college in bands. They wanted apartment bands. There was actually people wanting to ban residential subdivisions.
And, you know, we had to put a basically a foot in the door in this discussion that says you don't have that authority, uh, on a initial brush. Okay. This just came out yesterday. Um, the, the, the concept of getting people to bring their own power if they wish to have an AI center is a good one. We actually heard from Peter Lake and Ludwig at the white House that that was probably an idea that was coming.
And you said power to them on electricity just to make sure I'm talking about electricity, right? Yeah. This is an industrial plant. So, you know, they need power generation to operate. Okay. Um, then the other thing they need is an industrial plant. They need process, contact water. They need to be able to cool what they are heating up.
Okay. So those two ideas we've discussed in advance, and I know Senator Perry is big on the latter. And if you're looking at that as a starting point, I think that there will be a lot of agreement on it. We will see what happens with that one. Reporters roundtable. Up next here on Inside Texas Politics.
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And keep up with your it's our political podcast. You can stay up with Texas politics all week long. Fresh interviews, new content. Download it right now wherever you get your podcasts.
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This is Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whitely.
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All right. Back now with the roundtable. But Natalie and Ashley all with us here again. Natalie, let's start with you on data center. Back last year, it seemed like conservative counties were complaining for a long time. State Republican leaders were almost ignoring it, but they weren't really paying attention to it like they are now.
Governor Abbott, now out with these sweeping reforms. He wants a legislature. Legislature passed. Is this bringing together political rivals? Oh, is it ever? Okay, so we have outgoing agriculture commissioners and Miller joining up with Clayton Tucker, who is the Democratic nominee for that same position.
They are speaking together. Or they'd rather this past week at a forum to talk about this very issue and how the communities are feeling about the lack of autonomy they have over their own properties because of these data centers. So, yes, I think it is absolutely fair to say that this is a rare issue of bipartisanship.
And still it is so complicated. And Ashley, it seems like the governor was feeling the heat on this thing, you know, pushing these limits out there. We talked to a few moments ago to State Senator Paul Bettencourt, and he would not tell me directly whether he supports these. Uh, which was kind of interesting.
I said, you know, several times do you support. Is this something conceptually you could get behind?
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Because I think that he has to walk a fine line based on things that he said in the past. Right. Saying that, like, we want data centers. You even had Governor Greg Abbott talking about Texas being the epicenter, right. Like for these data centers, we're slated to have more than any other state in this country.
And so I think now, though, when you're seeing so many of your constituents, the folks in rural Texas who widely vote Republican saying, no, no, no, pump the brakes, we don't even want this here, you have to respond to them, otherwise you risk losing them. So he's got to do something. Yeah. And but in an election, your last thing you want to do is upset your core base here, these conservative counties all across the state.
Well, and this is a rural vote. This is a big deal of rural vote. Jason, the real question this is, is there a way to get disposal wells, fracking water and use that to cool data centers? Ashley, let's shift off now to the sports talk sports story that's really turned political here. The Texas Tech quarterback he bet on games.
Big 12 teams are upset about this. Ken Paxton stepping in getting involved in this. Lay this out here. What's going on. How did this turn political.
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Wouldn't we all like to know how this turned political, Jason I mean, it's such muddy waters. I just don't understand why you want to get involved in this particular fight. Threatening schools, saying that you cannot punish or sanction Texas Tech if they try to do something to this player. Who. My goodness, we could go on and on talking about that case in and of itself, which, by the way, the speaker of the House of Representatives was one of his attorneys.
I mean, I think that this was something that the attorney general probably should have set out on personally. I know he wants to get his name out there. You know, obviously he wants and needs attention, and free publicity is fantastic when you're running a campaign and you need to fundraise. But this might not have been the fight for Paxton to get in, but it seems to me really kind of what this boils down to for Attorney General Paxton.
Well, it's publicity for Paxton, but, you know, this really doesn't make Texas Tech look good. You know, Ken Paxton does not have a good national reputation at this point. Everybody in the country is already mad at Texas Tech Reagan Ken Paxton on board to defend you and say nobody can say anything ugly about Texas Tech.
That just makes tech look worse. And then how does this briefly here how does this end up do you think bud. What happens here. Well, Jason, it just all proves that, you know, college football, everything is run by politics in Austin. The Texas capital runs college football just like everything else. Who plays in what league and this year, who plays in which games?
All right. Thanks a lot, Natalie. Ashley we appreciate it as always to back next week to take you inside Texas politics. We hope you can join us in. Until then have a great week. Take care.
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Thank you.