In the October 19 episode, what Congresswoman Wesley Hunt said about his place in a new poll, where he sees a path to victory and why he’s attacking John Cornyn rather than Ken Paxton. Plus, Republican Party of Texas chairman Abraham George on what role the White House played in keeping veteran lawmakers on the ballot. Also, Kendall Scudder, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party wiped away the party’s debt, but how will he restructure party offices and is he outsourcing responsibilities?
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Right now on Inside Texas Politics, Republican Party of Texas Chairman Abraham George on what role the White House played in saving incumbent lawmakers from getting kicked off the ballot by the party and what he says when asked whether he will seek reelection next year.
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Kendall Scudder, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, has wiped away the party's debt, but how will he restructure party offices and is he outsourcing responsibilities? Two weeks into his campaign for US Senate, what Wesley Hunt says about his place in a new poll, where he sees a path to victory and why he's attacking Cornyn rather than Paxton.
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Within months, parents will be able to apply for school vouchers in Texas. We'll get into that. And state rep Gina Hinojosa launches her campaign for governor. Does she now have the inside track for the Democratic nomination?
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Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley starts now.
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Thanks for being with us. I'm Jason Wheeler in for Jason Whiteley this week. Let's get to some of your political headlines to start us off here. We're just months away now from parents being able to apply for school vouchers in this state. The company that'll manage the voucher program for the state says it's preparing. To have the application process ready by February, vouchers then go into effect next fall. The Texas Tribune with this story.
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Uh, parents can get up to $10,000 from the state to pay for private schools, but not all private schools have to accept it. The future of those storied summer camps here in Texas is uncertain right now. Camp owners say they need more time to implement new safety requirements like getting broadband to their rural camps for emergency alerts. Otherwise, they told lawmakers some camps may have to close.
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Those new requirements are in response to the deadly July 4th flash flooding last year, this past year, uh, which claimed the lives of dozens of young campers and camp counselors. And a lot of eyes are on Arlington right now, and it has nothing to do with sports or entertainment. The city is considering eliminating its LGBTQ+ protections, the first in the state to do so. City staff says the failure to make the change could jeopardize $65 million in federal grants.
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Council put that decision on hold, uh, to study the implications of it. The mayor says he wants to remain compliant with new federal directives, but also welcome everyone to the city. Now let's get to the biggest political race in the state. Congressman Wesley Hunt jumping into the US Senate campaign two weeks ago. We asked him about his place in a recent poll, and we noticed in our interview that he attacks Senator John Cornyn more than Ken Paxton.
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Jason Whiteley spoke to the Congress. from his district in Houston as he settles in the Senate race.
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Congressman Hunt, welcome to the program here. Uh, this new poll from the University of Houston, Texas Southern shows you 10 points behind John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, 5 months away from the primary, plenty of time for things to change, but what does your internal polling show?
< spk_3 - 00:03:22.6190000 >
To have that kind of support already going into the race really says a lot, especially when you're running against a 24-year incumbent in the current attorney general of Texas. I also want to point out though, in that same poll they still had me performing better than Ken and John in a head to head against the Democrats. They had me at 5. They had John at +3 and they had Ken at +1.
< spk_3 - 00:03:46.9190000 >
So the fact that I'm already outperforming these incumbents statewide before I even got into the race really means that there is clearly an appetite for a candidate like myself.
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Let's talk issues for a moment. Do you differ from Cornyn or Paxton on any specific policies?
< spk_3 - 00:04:03.6000000 >
When I'm a senator, my first order of business is going to be to repeal the the anti-gun legislation that John Cornyn co-authored, not sponsored, co-authored with Colin Allred and was praised for it by Joe Biden in the Rose Garden. Look, this is Texas. You don't mess with our 2nd Amendment as a combat veteran, as a gun owner, there is a slippery slope whenever you start infringing on those 2nd. Amendment rights and the Constitution clearly states that these rights shall not be infringed.
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So again, we differ mightily in that regard, and that's also the reason why he's lost a lot of faith with the primary voter.
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Couple of last questions here. With 3 people in this race, Congressman, it's highly likely this could go into a runoff election after the primary. You've been talking a lot about Cornyn here. Do you, do you think you're going to be stealing more, uh, votes from Cornyn or Paxton?
< spk_3 - 00:04:54.3290000 >
Quite frankly, I think there is a path to take votes from both of them, and we are going to fight until the end to get that victory. If it goes into the primary and it goes into the runoff, this is why this is a young man's game, and I am here for that battle, and I am here for that fight. A lot of people ask me this continuously in order to do this, you have to give up your congressional. Seat and I have one heck of a congressional seat, but this is not about being comfortable.
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This is about giving the Texans the best option to have the best candidate moving forward, and I believe in term limits, and this is an opportunity for the people of Texas to term limit John Cornyn.
< spk_2 - 00:05:32.3990000 >
Well, would you agree to serve 123 terms if you get elected?
< spk_3 - 00:05:37.0490000 >
Of course I would. I and I have actually already signed a term limit pledge of 12 years. So this is something that I'm very interested in. Unfortunately, nobody is willing to take that up because there are a lot of people, the next generation that quite frankly don't want to fire themselves. Uh, but at the end of the day, my generation is a generation that believes in that believes in getting in, doing a great job, working as hard as you can, and then moving on, stepping aside and letting the next generation come in and do the work.
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Congressman, thanks for the time. Good luck to you.
< spk_3 - 00:06:09.2440000 >
God bless you. Thank you for having me.
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All right, so let's bring in the roundtable to talk about the politics of this. We got Bud Kennedy from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Ashley Godot, political director at Caview in Austin, and Natalie Haddad, uh, political reporter at WFAA in Dallas. Uh, but, let's start with you on this because, uh, Hunt says his first order of business would be, uh, trying to repeal the bipartisan Safer Communities Act that was legislation championed by Cornyn.
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Of the 2022 Uvalde massacre, among other things, that increased funding for school security and mental health and for red flag laws. The GOP GOP base had criticized Senator Cornyn for that. Is this a winner for Hunt? Well,
< spk_4 - 00:06:49.9030000 >
red flag laws obviously is a touchy point with the Republican Party. He is looking for one place, one little wedge where he can get to the right of John Cornyn. So the gun law, that one gun law is the one place where he can be more conservative. He's not paying attention to Ken Paxton. He will argue that he's he can win, that Ken Paxton can win, that he's the one who can really defeat John Cornyn and carry the Senate.
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Yes, what do you make of that, Ashleigh Hunt in the early going anyway, only criticizing Cornyn? We're not hearing much about Ken Paxton from him.
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I think that this would have been different if polling wouldn't be showing Paxton and Cornyn so close, uh, you know, initial polls had the attorney general way ahead of the incumbent senator, and that's really changed that gap is closing, and I think you're seeing more and more Republican groups come out supporting, uh, incumbent Senator John Cornyn, and so I think that is where he has to turn his attention. You've got to try to make it seem. Like a two man race if you're going to want to win in March.
< spk_0 - 00:07:53.1050000 >
Yes, and Natalie, that first poll showing Hunt double digits behind both the other candidates here, he says that's where he wants to be, that this was done before he entered the field, but he had been running ads for months with his name on them.
< spk_6 - 00:08:04.9150000 >
I think people would agree that it is probably a good sign that even before he entered the race, he was already involved in these polls, and I mean he seems very confident. He said he was going to take. Votes from both, and I think that is very possible, especially as, as Ashley mentioned these numbers between Paxson and Cornyn are closing. People are, I think, are naturally going to trust Cornyn more. So if I had to guess, Wesley Hunt is going to focus more on taking votes from Cornyn, but he will certainly take from both.
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All right, uh, when we come back here, the state's top, top party leaders, Abraham George and Kendall Scudder, clearing up their own recent controversies when Inside Texas Politics returns. Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. Republicans watched last weekend to see if the state party's executive committee would carry out its threat to kick some Republican lawmakers off the ballot. The effort fizzled in the end after the White House got involved.
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Jason Whiteley sat down with the state party chairman, Abraham George, soon after the event.
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Mr. Chairman, welcome back to the program. Party leaders have been threatening to censure 10 elected Republicans and kick them off the ballot for not being conservative enough. That this was what was up, uh, you know, ahead of the, uh, SREC, uh, the other day. In the end though, only 5 people were censured. No one got kicked off the ballot. It all seemed to kind of fizzle. Is this how you expected it to play out?
< spk_7 - 00:09:27.6500000 >
Not really. I mean, we, we, the Rule 44 allows the party to censure. It doesn't always mean someone is off the ballot. It, it could be someone will be censured and no penalty whatsoever. It could be, uh, we don't like you, we're gonna work against you or support your opponent, um.
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This 10 censors, I looked at it, to be honest with you, Jason, uh, it wasn't strong enough for us to go to court because obviously when you remove someone from the from the ballot they're gonna take you to court, they're gonna fight you over it, right, uh, so we looked at it and we said, all right, none of this will probably. gonna be out there, a judge will look at it and go, Yep, you're so bad. I think they have the right to remove you. The Rule 44 must be preserved for a real issue that could happen in the next session or the session after.
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So we just wanted to have a good case to take it to court.
< spk_2 - 00:10:19.7050000 >
The White House was reportedly watching this live stream, uh, and, and, and I'm told got directly involved. Is that, is that one of
< spk_7 - 00:10:26.4340000 >
the reasons they didn't have a specific. Uh, requests, but they wanted to know what, uh, everything is going, and they, you know, President Trump endorsed 86 out of the 88 Republicans and some of those Republicans who were censored was endorsed by him so obviously he didn't want anybody kicked off the ballot who was endorsed by the, by his administration. So we've had those conversations, but ultimately it came down to what the SREC wanted to do.
< spk_7 - 00:10:52.9600000 >
And if we could fight this battle in court and and we just looked at it and said there was not enough, enough, uh, substance to remove someone from the ballot, and that decision came down to the 64 members.
< spk_2 - 00:11:04.2190000 >
The Republican Party of Texas meets in Houston next summer for its annual convention next June. Is that right? That is correct. Are you going to run for reelection as
< spk_7 - 00:11:11.7000000 >
chairman? I haven't decided. I will make an announcement in December. Um, I am looking through some things and, and I've got a business that doesn't pay, so I gotta do some work. Uh, all of those things that
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kinda come together come down to though is, is, you know, keeping the lights on at your house or, or handling, uh, state politics
< spk_7 - 00:11:29.4240000 >
all matters, right? I've gotta, I've gotta keep my wife and kids happy and, and, I've got employees that I gotta feed, so I, I gotta take care of that part of it. Uh, when
< spk_2 - 00:11:37.4240000 >
will you decide
< spk_7 - 00:11:38.6640000 >
December, um, the next SREC meeting, I'll, I'll make an announcement. That's, that's the plan now, yeah.
< spk_2 - 00:11:44.3690000 >
The Republican Party of Texas is suing to close its primaries. You and I talked about this once before. That means you have to declare you're a Republican ahead of time before you actually vote in the primaries. Where does the case stand now? When do you expect some type of a ruling on this?
< spk_7 - 00:11:57.7700000 >
We will, we'll have something probably by the end of the year. That's the. That's the understanding at this point. Then again, you know, with the lawsuits you, you have no idea when it's gonna go if
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the party wins in court, though, all 18 million registered voters in Texas would have to declare a party though that can't happen overnight. How soon would this go into effect if you guys win?
< spk_7 - 00:12:17.1900000 >
It depends on how we look at it. I mean if you look at it and say everyone who's registered or voted in the Republican primary in 24, we're going to consider you as a Republican, then it's much easier because we have the data. The state already have that data. So if it goes to like you have to re-register, then it's a. Much larger process and much longer process and it's gonna take a lot more resources so it depends on how we handle that once we have a close primary lawsuit finalized at the court level so we'll see how that plays out
< spk_2 - 00:12:46.5200000 >
all right, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time
< spk_7 - 00:12:48.5990000 >
absolutely thank you for having me.
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And now to the other side of the aisle, the new chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, Kendall Scudder, is making seismic changes to his party, quietly clearing out the party's debt and opening new offices. But is he outsourcing responsibilities to expand and reach more voters? Jason Whiteley sat down with Kendall Scudder.
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Mr. Chairman, welcome back. Good to see you. Thanks so much for having me. You, you've hit the ground running. We've talked about this on the podcast, on our Y'all podcast. You're making changes within the party. You're, you're splitting up the responsibilities for headquarters between three cities, Austin, Dallas, and Houston. But, but let me ask you about the news that's been out there. 7 of the 9 paid employees for the party have announced they're leaving the party is what I understand here. Only a handful of job openings. Who's gonna run these
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offices? Well, those numbers aren't entirely accurate, but here's what I'll say. Anytime you. Change in an organization, you're, it's going to be a little hard, but in an off year is the time to do it. No one is sitting at home right now thinking if the Texas Democratic Party would just keep doing things the way they're doing it, we're on track for success. Every Democrat sitting at home right now wants to see our party shaking it up and doing things differently, seeing that we have a plan of action that's different than how it's been in the past.
< spk_8 - 00:14:04.5300000 >
We're not going to adopt this consultancy strategy where we sit inside of rooms in Austin and try to buy our way out of the problem anymore. We're doing a 254 county strategy. Well, we're going to show up in communities and ask people for their support, and that means organizing county chairs, precinct chairs, uh, kind of reminiscent of the better world back in 2018 when we got so close. I think the establishment learned all the wrong lessons from that campaign. What they should have learned was that better work showing up and working his butt off, got us really close, and we needed to keep building on that, and that's what we're going to do.
< spk_2 - 00:14:32.4430000 >
Let me ask about the, the, the, the paid employees. You said those numbers aren't exactly accurate. How many paid employees do you have with the party now and who's going to run these offices in Houston, Dallas? And the remaining one in Austin,
< spk_8 - 00:14:43.3560000 >
we're scaling up and you're gonna have to make sure we have staff that are in those cities that are getting it done. I don't have exact numbers for you. I didn't prep that to have it today, but what I'll tell you is we're certainly staffing up. I think we have some jobs posted actually right now, uh, and where, please, if you're a qualified person, go and apply for this. We'd love to have you working for the state party. Uh, we're building a juggernaut that's gonna operate all across the state, not just in the urban city centers.
< spk_2 - 00:15:05.1950000 >
Well, how do you do that if you guys are kind of hitting the reset button right now and, and we're, we're in the middle of the game heading into. The primary election in 5 months. How do you become that
< spk_8 - 00:15:15.4290000 >
juggernaut? Well, you know, filing starts in November. Filing closes in December. We still have a primary election, and I'll remind people who may not be familiar, but I'm the chief filing authority for the Democrats in Texas, so we don't involve ourselves in primaries. So we have quite a runway to start pulling this coordinated campaign together, building the team that we need to. The best time to do it, I think, is in an off year, and we're running out of runway in an off year to do it. So we need to do it quickly so that whenever we hit the hit the ground running in January, February, March of next year, we're full steam ahead.
< spk_8 - 00:15:44.4090000 >
We're not spending all of our time trying to figure out who's sitting in what chair. We're staffed up, we're ready to go. That's how we're setting ourselves up for success.
< spk_2 - 00:15:52.0900000 >
I wanna ask you about some news we, uh, we saw the other day. The Texas Majority PAC backed by George Soros is doing things it looks like the party once did collecting data, boots on the ground, knocking on doors, things like that. Is the party now outsourcing its work?
< spk_8 - 00:16:05.2500000 >
No, absolutely not, but it is awesome whenever we have partners that are willing to come in and help resource what we're. Doing, you know, of course money isn't everything, as I said earlier, but it is a big piece of the puzzle, and Texas is a very large, expensive state to operate in.
< spk_2 - 00:16:20.3590000 >
So we have to have money to play, obviously, but is the Texas majority PAC doing any work at all for the state party?
< spk_8 - 00:16:26.0900000 >
We're all going to be coordinating together we're legally allowed to do to make sure that we're delivering results. They're going to have some components that they're doing on their own. We're going to have components we're doing on our own. There are going to be times where we come together in a coordinated fashion everywhere that. I am able to do it. I'm happy to do it because I want to make sure we're operating on a team and we're not shutting people out. It's silly to have all of these different groups operating independently of one another in the state.
< spk_8 - 00:16:51.2890000 >
We should all be in the same funnel where we're allowed to do it and coordinate to make sure we're not duplicating efforts. There's been a lot of duplication on the Democratic side in this state and, and our, our efforts right now are to try to eliminate that and try to get everybody moving in the same direction, singing from the same hymnal. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thanks for having me.
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All right, the roundtable is ready when we come back. Also among the propositions in the November 4th election, a Texas-sized proposal to use billions of budget surplus dollars to fund programs in Texas targeting Alzheimer's and dementia. We're talking with the lieutenant governor about it and the Texas resident who heads the Alzheimer's Association who explains what this could mean for patients here and for this state. You can, uh, look for your wherever you get your podcasts.
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This is Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. We're back to our roundtable once again to put the headlines in perspective. We still got Bud, Ashley, and Natalie with us. Uh, let's start off with you, Ashley. State rep Gina Hinojosa, Democrat around Austin there, formally launched her campaign for Texas governor on Wednesday. She's up against Andrew White, who is running as an independent Democrat. Uh, what are your thoughts on that run and can, uh, anyone in the field right now overcome the machine and the money that Greg Abbott has built up?
< spk_5 - 00:18:18.1300000 >
Well, OK, so you, uh, that's a loaded question, Jason Wheeler. Alright, so first off, Texas is red. It was red yesterday. It's red today. It's gonna be red tomorrow. And so trying to defeat Governor Greg Abbott is a really, really big feat for any, uh, any Democrat to try to take on when it comes to Jeannie Hinejosa and Andrew White. You know, I think she has a track record 10 years in the House of Representatives. She is gonna be someone who's gonna be running as a.
< spk_5 - 00:18:46.1080000 >
Tried and true Democrat, someone who represents those values opposed to some of the messaging you're hearing from whites saying I'm an independent Democrat and people are going, wait, what is that? We have not heard what that is. So he's gonna have to prove what that is. They both are gonna have to deal with getting their names out there and getting recognition and being known by voters.
< spk_0 - 00:19:06.1860000 >
All right, uh, let's talk more about, uh, this Arlington issue, uh, now, Natalie, because this has got a lot of people talking. Arlington considering, uh, eliminating its LGBTQ. Plus protections and its anti-discriminatory ordinance. They're saying they're doing this to protect federal money that is coming in in order to comply with federal, the federal government, but we haven't seen anybody else in this state do this. We, I don't know of anyone else in the country who's done this yet. What are the politics of this?
< spk_6 - 00:19:32.6050000 >
Well, I mean, as the Arlington City Council was pretty open about it, you know, they're trying to protect $65 million in federal grant money, but even the mayor said, let's hit pause, let's seek legal counsel.
< spk_6 - 00:19:42.7730000 >
Because despite needing to follow federal directives, uh, the mayor Jim Ross, he said we need to protect all of our people in Arlington and kind of take from what Ashley was saying about, you know, Texas, uh, the LGBTQ plus community existed here yesterday, they exist here today and they will exist here tomorrow and so the mayor is just taking a, uh, I, I would say even more empathetic approach, a more human approach to all of this and trying to protect the people of Arlington
< spk_0 - 00:20:08.9040000 >
and there's a real business interest in that too. Because Arlington has become this real entertainment draw for you know sports and entertainment and and you know trying to be welcoming to everyone as the mayor said, right,
< spk_6 - 00:20:19.6820000 >
and to be clear about, you know, what kind of protections would be rolled back on this has to do with any protections inside the anti-discriminatory ordinance and so this would change the LGBTQ plus community members from being able to make complaints to the city and make a case there and so this may shift where this community. Decides to live and that may that may mean that Arlington takes a hit, including in their entertainment district which has grown enormously in the last few years.
< spk_0 - 00:20:48.0100000 >
But last word goes to you about either that or Representative Hinojosa in
< spk_4 - 00:20:51.9790000 >
the governor's confusion in Arlington. They took gender expression out of the ordinance. It wasn't in the ordinance to start with. That tells you somebody was not, you know, working on this with the best intention. The White House wants to do away with affirmative action, not eliminate equal rights, and I think that's the point that's
< spk_0 - 00:21:07.6770000 >
And what do you think about uh Representative Hinojosa getting into the race?
< spk_4 - 00:21:10.5570000 >
She will bring the education vote, but you know, most of all, she has to keep Greg Abbott busy. There has to be a candidate who's strong enough to keep Greg Abbott focused on that race and not have him on all of the state campaigning for all the other Republicans on the ticket.
< spk_0 - 00:21:22.7180000 >
Bud, Ashley, Natalie, thanks as always, uh, for the insight here and thank you at home for watching us this week. Uh, we are back, uh, next week with a fresh episode of Inside Texas Politics. Have a great week. We'll see you next weekend.