In the March 15 episode, Colin Allred and Congresswoman Julie Johnson lay out their plans to keep voters excited and engaged for the runoff election for U.S. House District 33 and how they’re different from each other despite similar policy objectives. And Dallas Council Member Maxie Johnson explains why he couldn’t find the words to describe what he saw underneath Dallas City Hall and why it would make it even more expensive to remain in the building.
00:00 Show Preview: Dallas City Hall Fight, TX-33 Runoff, Corpus Christi Water Crisis
01:01 Show Open – Inside Texas Politics
01:06 Headlines: Corpus Christi Water Shortage & Possible State Takeover
01:30 Wise County Pushes Back on Texas Data Centers
01:56 Republicans Target Democrat James Talarico
02:21 TX-33 Democratic Runoff: Colin Allred vs Julie Johnson
02:49 Colin Allred on Criticism of Political Opportunism
05:37 Allred on Senate Race, Service, and James Talarico
06:36 Julie Johnson on Trailing Allred in the Primary
07:50 Johnson on Key Differences Between Her and Allred
09:15 Debate Over DHS Funding and ICE Policy
10:22 Roundtable: Could the TX-33 Runoff Be Close?
11:16 Gas Prices, Iran Strikes, and Political Fallout
13:16 Dallas City Hall Controversy & Possible NBA Arena Site
13:42 Dallas Councilman Maxie Johnson on Future of City Hall
18:11 Roundtable: Texas Water Crisis and Data Center Growth
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Straight ahead, the future of Dallas's iconic City Hall, now growing more contentious was the fix in last summer to tear it down and build a new NBA arena. Supporters insist this is not a done deal, but does Dallas even have a vision for downtown? Councilman Maxie Johnson in studio.
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Colin Allred with momentum in his race to return to Congress, defending against charges of chasing political opportunities, and after exchanging words with James Tallarico, we wanted to know whether the two have since talked. Plus Julie Johnson in that runoff, but trailing all red. Can she catch up? What Johnson told us she intends to do. And Corpus Christi facing catastrophe, potentially running out of water.
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The question now whether the state will step in.
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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 the latest political headlines happening across the state and that crisis in Corpus Christi. Potentially that city facing a water catastrophe, unable to meet demand within the next year unless something is done. Governor Greg Abbott now threatening a state takeover. Leaders have fought for years over how to fix this impending crisis. New industry, less rainfall, both have exacerbated the issue.
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A billion dollars worth of projects now in the works, but will not be operational until this year or even next. Commissioners in Wise County just northwest of Fort Worth are asking state lawmakers to rein in data centers that are popping up all across the state. County commissioners asked lawmakers to call a special session to deal with it or let county governments manage it themselves. Texas has more than 400 data centers now, dozens more said to be in the works.
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They use large amounts of water and electricity, and rural leaders worry these facilities could constrain local resources. And Republicans already clearly concerned about Democrat James Talarico, President Trump, Governor Abbott, both leading attacks against him. Talarico defeated Jasmine Crockett a couple of weeks ago. His campaign is driving momentum right now for Texas Democrats.
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Governor Abbott already attacking Talarico, saying he is not right for Texas and will be quote toast in November. The GOP worried Talarico could be the first Democrat since the 80s to win a Senate seat from Texas. Let's begin right now though in Dallas County and two well-known Democrats vying for one seat in Congress. Colin Allred and Julie Johnson are going to face each other in the May 26th runoff. He led in the primary. Can she catch up? Both candidates on the program with us.
< spk_0 - 00:02:49.4290000 >
Colin Allred is first up, followed by Julie Johnson. Johnson has argued without naming you that Texas 33 needs uh someone who has been present in the tough moments and not someone who's parachuting back in when another campaign doesn't work out. How do you answer that charge of opportunism?
< spk_2 - 00:03:08.9900000 >
I've been working here since 2014. Um, when I first started doing voting rights work, uh, for Wendy Davis, uh, I've been somebody who this community knows and knows well, uh, certainly have served us in Congress, uh, and, you know, one of the reasons why I thought this was important that we have a strong voice in this newly drawn district is that it's a district that is a heavily majority minority that has a lot of different communities in it, that has a lot of the places that I grew up in it, and that I know well.
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And that I can serve in a way that is not just about me. But it's about putting those folks first, that I have a record of delivering on that, and I've put in place certain restrictions on myself. So you don't ever have to wonder who I'm serving. You don't ever have to wonder why I'm doing something.
< spk_2 - 00:03:51.7290000 >
You don't have to wonder if I'm taking, you know, PAC contribution from Big Pharma, for example, and then saying that I'm gonna take on the cost of healthcare like Julie Johnson has done, or that I'm trading stocks on Palantir, which is a technology company being used by ICE in this administration, buying and selling that stock during my time in Congress, Also saying I'm going to stand up to them. You don't have to wonder if I'm going to do that because I never have and I never will.
< spk_2 - 00:04:13.4190000 >
And so I really look forward to having that that discussion over the course of these next few months because I think the, the thing I see us fighting often against is the cynicism that anything at all can be done and that maybe everybody's just corrupt, and I want to clean that up.
< spk_0 - 00:04:27.4200000 >
But there might be some skeptical voters out there, Congressman, who say, oh, well, listen, he left Congress to run for Senate and was unsuccessful in that against Ted Cruz, ran again for Senate. What do you tell skeptical Democrats about service versus political positioning?
< spk_2 - 00:04:42.8800000 >
Yeah, well, I mean, I think part of what I did in the runoff or in the Senate race was to make sure that we avoided a runoff and to give the nominee this time right now, uh, that they have, that the Republican nominee does not have, uh, because I know what that means to be the nominee for our party and to need to have those 3 months to build up to run against a machine that is in place here in Texas on the Republican side that has, you know. Hundreds of millions of dollars behind it and that it's gonna be incredibly difficult to take on.
< spk_2 - 00:05:11.9340000 >
And so I understand exactly, you know, why I did what I did, which was uh from a service-oriented perspective, knowing that I could have been, uh, still in this race for the United States Senate, but also thinking they've redrawn our districts, they've taken away our voices. We have fewer districts that a Democrat will have a chance to represent here in North Texas. And so in those fewer districts, we need to have stronger voices. We need to have our best players on the field, if you will, and, and that's what I think I can be.
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And Congressman, you exchanged words with uh Mr. Talarico during the Democratic primary for Senate. You told him to keep your name out of his mouth. Have you spoken to him since his victory?
< spk_2 - 00:05:47.7790000 >
I've not, but listen, I, I wish the ticket well, and I listen, I've been trying to elect Democrats statewide in this elect in this state, uh, since 2014.
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Well, will you ask for his endorsement?
< spk_2 - 00:05:58.5190000 >
What I'm looking for, what I'm focused on is my race in terms of, you know, I don't need to be endorsed really by anybody except for the folks who I think locally, uh, I respect and who I think locally can have an impact. And so what I'm, you know, most focused on, of course, is my runoff race, but also on the, the aspects and what we need here locally. And I think we sometimes can fall into the trap. Of making everything about, you know, the next race or a broader argument when really what we need in North Texas is a representative who's focused on us.
< spk_2 - 00:06:28.5290000 >
And that's certainly what I've always been when I was in Congress, and that's what I'll be again.
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Congressman, good to see you. Congratulations again.
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Thank you, Jason.
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Congresswoman, welcome back to the program here. Colin Allred finished 10 points ahead of you in the primary. What do you believe voters were telling you about your campaign that night?
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I think they were saying is what we saw was an incredible surge of new voters, of people who came out to vote that no one was expecting. There was, we had what, almost 72,000 people vote in this election, and I think generally most of us thought we'd have a turnout of around 30,000 to 35,000. So almost 40,000 people extra voted.
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The fact that Collin had such, had spent $100 million boosting his name ID over the last three years, and for people who didn't know or hadn't been communicated by neither myself or the two other candidates in the race that Colin didn't just win this outright is a big problem for him. I think it just demonstrates a lot of weakness that he has. He had a 16 point drop off. Jasmine Crockett, so he has no mandate in this race.
< spk_3 - 00:07:31.9330000 >
We're feeling really excited, you know, the people that came out to vote, who voted for me, voted, came to vote for me because they know me. They want me to be their representative. Collin got a lot of votes from people who just came to vote for the Senate race, didn't necessarily know a lot about the down ballot, and knew his name, and I don't know. If those people come back out,
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if voters are watching this race, Democratic voters, and wondering why they should vote for you over Colin Allred, what would you tell them that the clearest differences are between you two? You're both Democrats. You both have similar positions on a lot of the red meat issues for Democrats, but what's the clearest difference since you're both experienced with, with time in Congress?
< spk_3 - 00:08:11.3090000 >
I think it's about who can get stuff done and who's actually gonna work hard. Collin had 6 years in office and he has very little to show for it. Um, in my first term, I've authored legislation across a variety of issues, just like the Vote Act that we, um, just recently introduced in res to talk about access to Polls addressing this problem that voters are having on voter suppression. I've led on a lot of these issues. We have a huge upcoming issues with AI.
< spk_3 - 00:08:41.2990000 >
What are we going to do there? How are we're going to protect our workforce? Healthcare access. I've clearly led in that space throughout all of my legislative time. People want action. And I think also, you know, people who have served with both of us side by side, Colin was in office for 6 years. I've been in for 1.
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I've overwhelmingly secured the endorsement of people who have served with both of us from across all broad aspects of the Democratic political spectrum and all of leadership, and I think that should tell the voters something that the people who have seen us both up close and personal in action have chosen me overwhelmingly.
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Here we are in the middle of March, spring break. There's a lot of folks flying, and, and we're seeing all over the country, these long lines, uh, with TSA people trying to get through security and people coming back into the country who don't have access to global entry if they paid for that program. Do you see any letup, any resolution in sight for Democrats to agree to funding DHS, especially now that Christie Nome is no longer Homeland Security Secretary?
< spk_3 - 00:09:41.0100000 >
Well, like I said, we're not, we're not going to fund ICE in its current form. We're not going to fund ICE with its current mission and how they're currently operating. It's unacceptable. It's unconstitutional, and it's illegal. And so until they have a wholesale restructuring of how they function and they operate. Uh, we're not going to see funding, I think, from the Democratic side. So, you know, this, this new Secretary, they could immediately shift course. They could change how they're doing.
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They could restructure internally, and then maybe the funding will come. But under this current, you know, plan of how it's operating now, that's just not going to happen.
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Congresswoman, good to see you. Good luck.
< spk_3 - 00:10:19.1590000 >
It's so great to be with you too. Thanks so much.
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All right, let's bring in the round table to talk about the politics of this. Bud Kennedy is here from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Natalie Haddad, political reporter at WFAA in Dallas, and Ashley Guo, political director at KVUE in Austin. Bud, let's start with you. In that Dallas congressional race, Johnson argues that Allred should have won this thing outright on March 3rd because he's run for two statewide seats. He spent $100 million or however many million dollars on name ID. What's your reaction to that?
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Well, the unspoken question here is how many voters came out to vote. Jasmine Crockett and also voted for Colin Allred, who won't be back in the runoff. I think this runoff election may be closer. You know, Julie's right when she says she's worked hard everywhere she's been, but Colin Allred really ran a good race for Senate. He gets blamed a lot, but you know, my gosh, he flipped what, 57 counties that Trump won over the Democratic ticket. He ran hard for the state of Texas, and he's running hard against her in this district. She has a lot of local support.
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Let's shift. Off now, Natalie, to the big consumer issue people are talking about now, high gas prices. If you filled up in the past few days, you have seen the prices have increased because of the war in Iran. Trump got credit when he won for the lower gas prices. Is he going to take a political hit because of this?
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I think he absolutely will, but I also think this depends on the person you ask, right? Anyone who is total diehard for the Trump administration will probably clap back and say, Well, I remember when the Russia-Ukraine. War, not the Russia-Ukraine, USA war broke out that gas was averaging $5 a gallon, but others may say, hey, President Trump did approve these strikes in Iran and Venezuela for that matter, and now our oil, our energy sector is struggling right now.
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And so I think it just really depends on the person you ask.
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And Ashley, I would presume this would be a great argument for Democrats who are campaigning on affordability. This is one more, one more example they could use.
< spk_6 - 00:12:12.4000000 >
Yeah, and not just on affordability, but anything that they see as counter to the president. I think the difference, Natalie, between the Russia-Ukraine situation is people understood what was happening and so they saw the need and so they understood why it was happening. I, I think the average person cannot tell you why we are launching strikes against Iran. They don't know. Polls show. People do not know. They don't agree. They don't know what's going on.
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And so if there's not a clear message for them to unify behind, absolutely the Republicans are going to take a hit for this come November if we're still dealing with this. Yeah,
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indeed, fair point. And also the, the, the end game here. I don't think anyone knows that either. Perhaps not the administration because if they do, it hasn't been messaged out. Guys, back to you in just a moment. A lot more ahead here, including this. When we come back, the growing fight over what will happen to Dallas's iconic City Hall. More importantly, does Dallas even have a vision for downtown? Council member Maxie Johnson up next on Inside Texas Politics.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. The future of Dallas's iconic City Hall took quite a turn this week. Was the plan to tear it down and build a new NBA arena actually set in motion months ago? Councilman Adam Bazaldua says thousands of internal emails show the city manager met with the new Mavs ownership long before the public heard a word about City Hall's condition or the. Team's potential interest in the property.
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Our first guest, Councilman Maxie Johnson, who is arguing that the iconic building is at the end of its useful life. Councilman, let me start with this your opponents say the fix is in, that Dallas is going to give the City Hall site to the Dallas Mavericks. There's no stopping it. The votes are there. Is this a done deal?
< spk_7 - 00:13:59.9190000 >
No, it's not. Uh, I could tell you right now, the city manager has not had any discussion, uh, publicly or privately with me. Uh, concerning, uh, the Mavs Mavericks situation or where they end up being. I believe that we need to keep the Dallas Mavericks and the Dallas Stars in downtown. They do not need to go to Valley View as some of my colleagues have suggested.
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So, so council voted to allow the city manager and city staff to go out and, and, and look and see what kind of other place that uh they could find for a new city hall. What if they come back and say, listen, it's gonna be $1.5 to $2 billion to move City Hall. What happens then?
< spk_7 - 00:14:36.4840000 >
We have to be very transparent with our citizens and let them know what's going on. If, if it costs us, uh, a billion dollars, $1.3 billion to fix City Hall and $1.3 billion to move, then we may need to consider a stand and fix it. What that looks like, we don't know. That's a decision for the council.
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Downtown lost AT&T's global headquarters. It was in the news a lot not too long ago. Councilman, uh, Co America's bank headquarters is going to move out of downtown Dallas after its merger with 5th 3rd Bank. Do you think Dallas actually has a vision right now for its downtown central business district?
< spk_7 - 00:15:12.4890000 >
Absolutely. I think our city manager, Kim Toba has a vision, but
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what is that vision though?
< spk_7 - 00:15:17.2800000 >
Growth. She believes in economic growth, she believes in opportunity and making sure that Dallas survives and thrives, and so I believe in her vision, I believe that she's trying to do the right thing and she needs the council to support and we just need to again speak with our community, let our community know what's going on because our communities wanna invest in downtown, you know, downtown is growing, it's just not just business. Now you have people moving in downtown. We just, we're getting ready.
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Dallas as this is, is putting like building a state of the art school right in the heart of downtown. So downtown is just not a business community, it's a community where we live, we shop, and we enjoy nature, parks, and etc. So downtown, making the right investment will cause downtown to thrive significantly, and that is her vision. She.
< spk_7 - 00:16:05.1320000 >
Has made that, that very plain and so I support that vision and I'm gonna say this again, as downtown thrives economically, it's just gonna flow right into our communities and we're gonna have the entire city of Dallas thriving the way it should be. Uh,
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a lot of folks don't even go to City Hall. They don't have to go pay their water bill anymore, they, they can do everything online. What are you hearing from constituents about City Hall, whether to, to save it or let it go?
< spk_7 - 00:16:28.8510000 >
They wanna know the truth. You know, uh, you have a lot of people that wanna say save City Hall. My, my statement to them is we need a safe city hall. We need a city hall that people can come to. If you walk down the steps at City Hall, you've been there, there's no rail for our senior citizens, for our handicapped. We're not ADA compliant.
< spk_7 - 00:16:48.2600000 >
And so we need to make sure that we have a safe city hall, and those that were saying that, that are saying save City hall, we should have been saying those words years ago when the city manager was trying to invest in City Hall and trying to make sure it's straight. It's, it's, it's common sense to me. If we don't fix up our own homes and, and, and let it go, then our own homes are gonna crumble. Uh, if we don't fix up our cars, it's gonna, if we don't do our bodies right, our bodies is gonna crumble.
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So what you're seeing is maintenance, defer maintenance that has not been taken care of properly. A council that did not support the former city manager when he was trying to bring it uh resources and funding to start working on the, on, on City Hall. That's what we're having now, so I understand we wanna save City Hall. I'm saying we need to save City Hall and be completely transparent with our community, with our entire city on what it's gonna cost to either stay or what it's gonna cost for us to reimagine a new building.
< spk_7 - 00:17:44.5400000 >
Councilman, good to see you. Great, great to be here again.
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The roundtable is ready when we come back here on Inside Texas Politics. And keep up with Texas politics all week long by subscribing to our podcast. It's called Y'all-itics. New content, fresh interviews, episodes drop every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, time now for reporters roundtable to put the headlines in perspective. Bud, Ashley, Natalie all back with us here. Bud, let's start with you.
< spk_0 - 00:18:11.8390000 >
We began the program with Corpus Christi potentially running out of water, maybe unable to meet demand, uh, within the next year unless something is done here. Water is an issue statewide. We've heard about it for a long time, but it just doesn't seem like, despite lawmakers putting a billion dollars or so dollars into different funds, it just doesn't seem like this is a priority right now.
< spk_4 - 00:18:30.6400000 >
Well, and the state has loaned money to Corpus for work that never got done because. Corpus couldn't make up its mind, but part of the problem here is that Corpus is trying to maintain some sort of business industrial base. They don't want to become just Galveston, that's a tourist town. They want to have the refineries. They want to have business there. Other businesses moved out because of the threat of hurricanes. They moved further inland, so they're trying to support business. They need water for business. They don't have any water in the oasis right now at all.
< spk_0 - 00:18:56.5050000 >
Yes, lack of rainfall there and the new businesses you're talking about. Natalie, let's shift off to the struggle. Over data centers across the state, these things that store all of our images online in our Facebook posts, etc. they're popping up all over the state. Wise County outside of Fort Worth says, Listen, these things need to be reined in essentially because they take up too much electricity and too much water here. What do you expect to happen?
< spk_5 - 00:19:22.3690000 >
Well, I think that's a wonderful question, and I think it's ultimately, you know, Wise County, you know, officials can say whatever they want, but at the end of the day they have so little control. Over what happens in their own county and so I think, I mean there's a lot of questions to be had for, especially, you know, state Senator Paul Betancourt who is pushing for these data centers for even more data centers thinking about this, you know, there is so little that they can do and if they are the ones suffering the consequences. So I think a lot of these questions are really posed more so for Mr. Betancourt
< spk_0 - 00:19:52.1550000 >
and Ashley, like Natalie said there, state Senator Paul Betancourt from Houston says there is nothing that local government can do to slow business down.
< spk_6 - 00:20:01.7390000 >
Which is so interesting right to hear a Republican say that there's no local control when it comes to the type of businesses going in their communities. I think you cannot ignore, you know, that we're talking about one city that's potentially running out of water and then bringing in data centers across the state that use a lot of water when we're already facing a water crisis. I think lawmakers are going. Going to have to take action.
< spk_6 - 00:20:27.3640000 >
They're going to have to do something because what they don't want to see is our rural communities basically just decimated like we've seen in other parts of the country whenever these centers move in.
< spk_0 - 00:20:38.0350000 >
Yes, and that's a good point, bud. I mean, Nueces County, Corpus Christi, and Wise County, these are, these are solid red Republican areas. I mean, at some point you would think the legislature would have to address this.
< spk_4 - 00:20:48.2440000 >
Well, Corpus is more like Fort Worth. It's Becoming a purple area and you know it's going purple very quickly at this rate if they don't get things done.
< spk_0 - 00:20:56.2700000 >
So and, and, but where does this end? Because there was a tense meeting in Fort Worth between residents and then developers pushing a $10 billion data center over in Fort Worth and Tarrant County
< spk_4 - 00:21:05.2290000 >
there. This is going to end and joint committees in the legislature that discuss things, mostly it's going to end where the lobbyists want it to end. Jason, that's the fact.
< spk_0 - 00:21:14.6550000 >
And, and, and yeah, who knows if that's going to be this coming up 2027 session or when it's going to be. Guys, thanks so much, we appreciate it. Thank you for watching as well. We're back next Sunday to take you inside Texas politics. Big show lined up next week, House District 98 in North Texas. It was a head to head clash during the primary. We're gonna talk to the Republican winner Arman Mazani and Kate Brennan, the Democrat, that he will face next week on Inside Texas Politics. We hope to see you here.