In the September 27 episode, Republican U.S. Representative Jodey Arrington tells us why he’s calling for a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget and why he chose Dallas for a field hearing to discuss the $40 trillion national debt. Republican nominee for Ag Commissioner Nate Sheets explains why he’s not calling for a data center moratorium and how he’d help Texas farmers and ranchers stay in business. And Dallas Council Member Paula Blackmon on the coalition now calling for Dallas voters to decide the fate of City Hall.
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Straight ahead. No debates. For the first time in almost a quarter of a century. Texas voters will not see US Senate candidates face to face. Neither Ken Paxton nor Greg Abbott planned to meet their challengers before Election Day. Plus, the $40 trillion national debt. Congressman Jody Arrington, chair of the House Budget Committee, says it is time for something that's never been done before.
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A significant development in the effort to save Dallas City Hall. Business executives, philanthropists and local leaders are now starting a new campaign to let voters decide the building's future. Council member Paula Blackmon, on what is in the works and how to handle data centers. Now, a key difference in the two candidates for Texas Agriculture commissioner.
Republican Nate Sheets defends his position and takes our questions from the road.
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Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whitely starts now. Thank you for being here. A lot to get to over the next half hour. So let's begin with the headlines. For the first time in almost a quarter of a century, it appears that Texas voters will not see their U.S. Senate candidates face to face before sending one of them to Washington for the next six years.
James Talarico challenged Ken Paxton to three debates, including one on Farr in Dallas. The Paxton campaign originally participated in planning with WFAA, but stopped responding to messages on August 24th, more than a month ago. Time is running out for a Paxton Talarico debate. Early voting begins a little more than three weeks from now.
Texas is finally supposed to get back billions of dollars for what it spent on border security during the Biden administration. The federal government will soon send Texas $7.5 billion in reimbursements for National Guard troops, DPS and border barriers at the state used. Congress allocated the money more than a year ago.
Once finally received, it's available to state lawmakers when they reconvene in January and get ready to see a lot more campaign ads about Ken Paxton in the coming weeks. Republicans in DC now adding an additional $30 million to this race. This is on top of the 70 million already spent by the Senate Leadership Fund.
That group originally backed John Cornyn, but now is trying to defend the Republican majority in the Senate in the ad race with that money. It's now likely to level the playing field with Democrat James Talarico. Let's begin right now, though, with a bold idea that's never been tried in the history of the United States.
A convention of the states to amend the U.S. Constitution. Our first guest says if Congress will not stop overspending, then the states should force the issue. Congressman Jody Arrington is a Republican from Lubbock. He is chair of the House Budget Committee, and warns that the nation's $40 trillion debt is an existential threat, Mr. Chairman.
Good to see you here. Good morning. Good to be here. For Texans who might not understand what is at stake here. National debt exceeding $40 trillion. Now, what would you tell them is the need to to address this immediately? We're borrowing $6 billion a day. To put it in perspective again, more than 50% of that goes just to the interest alone.
Not to a soldier or sailor, not to a safety net for seniors. Nothing productive. And we're getting into this vicious cycle of debt and interest. And if we don't intervene now and soon, then we will not only undermine our economic strength, but our national security, our global leadership in the world as the US of a and and worst of all, our children's future.
Are people going to see cuts, do you think, to their Social Security benefits, to their Medicare benefits in the next ten years? I think those questions and the answer to those questions take up all the oxygen in the room, and they prevent lawmakers from coming together. And just saying, we have to collectively develop the solutions that are consensus, and they will be across the board.
It will be programmatic reforms, they'll be revenue considerations. Everything is on the table. So to pick something in isolation, we'll have people politicize it and weaponize it. And that's really what's happened today for decades, is that when you come up with one solution, let's say you say, we got to raise the retirement age or we have to means test whatever it is.
We'll focus on that. The hyper focus is there, and then we never get to the point where we are quietly, productively building consensus. What I would tell the seniors is it's a lot more likely that if we do some very minor things, they can have their benefits and those can be sustained through their lives.
The question is, what will we do For the young people today, those coming out of college. Those in high school. Those being born into a system that is just an actuarial nightmare. Doing nothing is unacceptable. You're calling for this article five convention, which will get the states together and force a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
There are democratic states who might be suspicious of Republican states that Republicans might want to do more than just put a balanced budget amendment on there. How do you ensure that this would be the only thing to get everyone to come together? There's a lot of political suspicion out there, as you well know.
I do, and I think it's a fair concern, I think, on both sides. You know, you don't want the proverbial runaway convention. You can cordon off the focus of the convention to just one or 2 or 3 issues. And I think making this about what I think is the biggest threat to the country. There are lots of ways to probably consider amending the Constitution.
I'm all for term limits, for example. But I think what needs to be done. The the biggest imperative would be a fiscal responsibility requirement. So focusing on that I think is one way. But when you talk about Democrat states, there are plenty of purple states run by Democrat governors and Democrat legislatures that may be more libertarian and liberal on the social policy side, but are concerned about the fiscal recklessness of Washington.
They have to keep their fiscal house in order. They have to balance their budgets. So I suspect we would get a number of Democrat, uh, run states to participate. We did in the past. I think we would today. Mr. chairman, thank you for the time. Great to be with you. Thank you for the opportunity.
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All right. Let's bring in the roundtable now to talk about the politics of this. But Kennedy with us from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Gabby Birnbaum with us, the Washington correspondent for the Texas Tribune. And Ashley Goddard, political director at Kvue and Austin. But let's start with you in the national debt there in the convention of states.
This idea that's never been tried before. Balancing the budget would would force some painful choices, most likely on entitlement programs. This has never happened before. Everyone is afraid of a runaway convention. All these things added to it. How likely is something like this? Yeah, this came up in connection with in the 80s before in connection with the balanced budget amendment.
It always comes up about budget, but nobody wants to start tinkering with the Constitution or with the Bill of rights.
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He's not going to get three fourths of the states to sign on to it. So it would be it's a waste of energy anyway. And the whole idea that we might change something in the Constitution, bill of rights. He talked about the business community and the economy. Nothing is worse for the business community than creating uncertainty over the United States of America.
If you start saying, we're going to tinker with the government and tinker with the Constitution and the Bill of rights, the business community is not going to like that, whether it's Democrats or Republicans. Gabby, I want to shift gears and ask you about all the additional money now coming in for Paxton, Ken Paxton running for U.S. Senate, the Senate Leadership Fund, the SLF now spending a total of about $120 million to boost Paxton.
There was concern about whether it would get involved since it originally backed Cornyn, and it's remarkable because this group did back Cornyn and say, listen, if we had Cornyn as a nominee, it would have saved everyone a lot of money.
00:08:16.340 — 00:09:07.670
Yeah. I mean, if you take all the political spending and apply that to the national debt, that might help a little bit, right? But yeah, you look at a you look at a group like we're talking about Senate Leadership Fund who made this sort of PAC to do Texas spending. And like you mentioned, this was a group that explicitly made the sort of economic case for John Cornyn nomination, saying that Senator Cornyn can fundraise on his own.
He keeps this seat safe. And, you know, Aslef as an organization won't have to spend in Texas when they have such a broad map and they're having to think about states, you know, where they're on offense, like Georgia or Michigan. But a lot of defense in Iowa, Alaska, elsewhere. And now they're in a scenario exactly like they described where they said, we're going to have to spend, you know, these nine figure sums if Ken Paxton is the nominee and here we are in September, and that's exactly what they're doing.
And we are in that scenario, as you said. And Ashley will a wave of ad buys for Paxton. I mean, the big hope is that it boosts his numbers and knocks down Talarico. How likely is that so close to the election?
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You know, I think it could happen. I think if they find an issue that really resonates with voters, really speaks with voters, and they bombard those voters with those messages as they're getting ready to head to the polls. You know, we're just about three weeks away from the start of early voting. I think it could have an impact.
I mean, look at what happened with Colin Allred when he ran against Ted Cruz. Things seem to be going well initially. Right. And then you had that influx of ads about some of his votes dealing specifically with transgender sports. I think if, you know, Republicans try to attack Talarico in a similar way, they could end up with a similar result.
And of course, these ad buys are well timed. Guys, back to you in just a moment. A lot more ahead here, including this.
00:09:53.720 — 00:10:19.680
When we come back here. Data centers is the one clear distinction between the two candidates for Texas Agriculture Commissioner. Republican Nate Sheets defends his position from the road, and a new effort to save Dallas City Hall now underway. Business and civic leaders stepping forward, wanting voters to decide the building's future.
Council member Paula Blackmon on what is in the works when inside Texas politics returns.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. Now to the other side in the race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner. Last week, we questioned the Democratic nominee, Clayton Tucker. This week, the Republican Nate Sheets, who he reached on the road in Childress near the Texas Panhandle.
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Nate, it's good to see you again here. I want to start with the same question I asked your opponent in the very beginning here from water and tariffs and diesel and data centers. Rural Texas faces a lot right now. What issue is it do you think is going to decide this election in this race. Well, the number one issue that we see all across Texas and really across the United States, number one is affordability.
I mean, the cost of fuel, the cost of food, you know, the cost of health care. I mean, those costs are continuing to be impactful, especially, um, you know, the cumulative effect of all of that is very challenging. And now we get down into Texas, especially rural Texas. You know, the data centers, the infrastructure related to data centers, whether it's land or water or the 765 power lines.
People are very frustrated with the development that's coming at the expense of what they feel are rural communities and agriculture across Texas. Let me ask you about data centers, because that is the one clear difference between your plan and your opponent's plan. Your Democratic opponent, Clayton Tucker, is calling for a moratorium on data centers, something that the governor supports as well.
You're not calling for a moratorium the way I read your five point plan. Instead, you want data centers to essentially pay their own way. Why is a moratorium the wrong answer, do you think? Well, I'm not against a moratorium at all. It's just not the place for the ag commissioner. Um, to. That's not within my purview.
I have relationships with the governor. I was actually just with him two days ago, and I have continued to encourage him to to step out and be bold with ensuring that we're protecting Texas land and water. What do you tell a rancher who says, I vote Republican all the time, but I don't want data centers? And Nate, you haven't come out and said, I want a moratorium or I want to end these things.
Um, I want to see local control. So what's missing right now? Like here in Childress, Texas, they've got one data center. It's already here, and they have another one that's coming in. But, you know, the Republican legislature in Texas has gradually chipped away at local control for, you know, session at procession in the state.
Well, I'm going to advocate and I've been advocating for, you know, very limited tools for county commissioners courts to be able to manage these projects. And, you know, I've met with some data center companies the other day, and they were asking me, what can we do to invest back into agriculture in Texas?
And I said, well, we need $178 billion to fix our water issues in Texas in 30 years. We continue to lose agricultural land. And so why don't you go put money in the Texas AG Water Fund? And why don't you go put money in Tafa, which is the Texas Agriculture Finance Authority, to be able to provide resources that we can help producers be able to be have greater longevity and stay in business.
And so let's make sure that, again, if local communities want to negotiate with data centers and bring them in, let's just make sure it's benefiting those communities. I want to ask you about a topic that I know you've had to address before, but you built nature into this major honey brand here. But but your Democratic opponent, Clayton Tucker, says he's the real ag guy, the real rural farmer slash rancher in this race here.
Should voters see that distinction as important or not important? How big of a deal do you make of that? Listen, I've got a 10,000 acre ranch in Guthrie that's actually in my name. I've got, you know, 2000 stocker cattle out there currently, and we've got seven cutting horses in our program that will sell this coming December at the Futurity.
When you go and look at Clayton Tucker's personal financial statement that he just released, his job description is community organizer, funded by some leftist group out of Washington, DC. And that is his job. Community organizer and his total ranch assets are 11 to $22,000. I mean, the shredder on the back of my tractor costs twice as much as that.
And so here, you know, Clayton's advocating and going against data centers and flock cameras. Yet his dad is in that very industry and probably, you know, provides the house that that Clayton lives in with his parents even today. Nate, always good to see you. Thanks for the time. Absolutely.
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A new effort begins on Friday to save Dallas City Hall. Opponents say this fight is no longer just a small group of council members. Now, prominent business and civic leaders are also joining the push, and they want Dallas voters, not council, to decide the building's future. Our next guest is Dallas council member Paula Blackman.
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Council member. Welcome back. Thank you for having me. Some big names in the business community and civic community are now coming out. You know, stepping forward, wanting to put this issue with City Hall on the ballot next May here. Is this the Hail Mary option to save Dallas City Hall? It's actually the strategy to win the game.
Okay, it's not just a Hail Mary option. I believe that there's enough appetite with the with the constituents in the citizenry to figure out a way to save the building. And so this is a way to say to the rest of my colleagues who have been voting to look down the path of disposing of it is, you know, what people want this to.
They want to keep this building. Can council move forward with a vote on this before the petition drive is done. That will be interesting because of course, counsel can, you know, put forth a vote and move on. But I do think they will go to the courts. It will end up being a court issue. Council votes for this.
I do think it will move into the court system. I don't know that for for a fact, but I do think it would move to the courts because I think what the argument would be is it's they've gotten enough signatures or they're in the middle or the midst of getting signatures. Let's see how that plays out. And then if we do get those signatures, then we can take it.
You know, the courts would say, let's just wait for May. What's six more months and let them decide. Um, I don't know if that is an option, but I think that would be a next play. Let's say that this effort succeeds. Dallas voters decide to keep Dallas City Hall here. Who develops the plan to renovate it? And where does the money come from for that?
Because both sides can agree on what it would cost to actually update the building. Well, I think that's when we're going to need our colleagues that have been on the other side after they've heard the voters to come and join us. And we have money pockets. We have pockets of money everywhere, as we found out, you know, two weeks ago when we saved the libraries.
And so we will find the money. If voters do reject keeping this. Would that decision sit well when you guys move on from it? I would be disappointed. And you know what? The voters the voters have voted and I would still probably continue to vote like I do. But, um, because I do believe that we should keep that as a our city seat.
Um, but I would be very disappointed. Would you continue? Would you and others continue to try to find ways to save the building? I think, um, at that point, I mean, like the voters have spoke and they've said, abandon it, move on. I wouldn't I would not like it, you know, but I would honor what they said. And I would continue to vote no and just let it let it fly off into the sea if it's financially cheaper to move somewhere else.
Would you support that at the end of the day? I don't think so. You don't think? I don't think so. I mean, because what is financially cheaper? There are some things that just don't have a monetary value. I mean, it's an I.M. Pei building, you know? I mean, who has one of those? Um, and I don't believe the numbers that she's giving us, I don't I don't believe they come.
I don't believe any of the other ones. They're not made for budgeting purposes. And so I think we I think we do need a real good evaluation that is not baked. Council member. Thank you. The roundtable is ready when we come back here on Inside Texas Politics. But first, Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott both breaking precedent and skipping debates with their opponents this year.
A political insider has a theory on why that might be happening at this stage of the campaign, he explains in this week's episode of Yellowjackets, available to download right now wherever you get your podcasts.
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All right. Back now with the roundtable. Bud, Gabby and Ashley all back with us. Ashley, we'll start with you. And breaking precedent. No debates. Looks like Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott both do not want to debate their opponents. What's this all about? They don't want to defend their records or worry the races are too close.
00:19:01.790 — 00:21:42.760
Look, Jason, this I like. I want to get on my soapbox about this one, okay? It's like we're living in a day in time where candidates just want to put out whatever they want, to put out whatever messages they want to put out, and then they don't want anyone to call them on it. They don't want anyone to ask them about their records.
They don't want anyone to ask them about their past. It's almost like they're afraid to get on the debate stage and have to face the moderators, not necessarily their competition. And look, I'm not here to toot your horn, Jason Whiteley, but when it comes to Texas politics, you are one of the most experienced, most fair journalists out there.
And for them to say they won't even do something with you, it blows my mind. I can't understand it. Well, thanks for the promotion there, I appreciate that, but Gabby, I guess for the handful of people who are still undecided in this race, it just makes it harder for Texans to make up their minds, right? Yeah.
I mean, I think debates are sort of like Ashley mentioned this time honored tradition. And just yesterday, you know, James Talarico challenged Paxton to a debate on Fox News. And we haven't seen any movement from the Paxton camp yet on that. So it just goes to show, even the issue of debates, whether to have them is becoming sort of an active issue in the Senate race.
But but reaction to this. What is it? Well, this shows the Democrats are a real threat this time. You know, Ted Cruz had no problem debating Paul Sadler. You know, Greg Abbott debated Lupe Valdez. You know, those were those were races that were not close. These are races that are close. Republicans are afraid they might make a mistake.
Ken Paxton should debate. He can talk about his successes in the AG's office, his sex offender crackdown, things he's done that are not being heard in the campaign. And, Gabby, let's shift off to a story you wrote the other day about the suburbs of Dallas. Fort worth may not be as reliably Republican as they have in the past.
What have voters been telling you? Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of both concerns from Republicans and Republicans who are admitting to me that they're planning to vote. And if you even vote for Talarico, they feel like in the DFW area and in the suburbs, there's sort of more of these sort of establishment style Bush Cornyn type of Republicans.
And a lot of these folks, you know, said to me that they don't feel like they can pull the lever for Paxton. They're going to skip the race or they're going to vote for Talarico. And it just means that, you know, in Tarrant County, in Collin County and Denton County, Talarico is trying to post, you know, the best numbers Democrats have posted in decades in these.
And if you have Republicans who are going to skip the race or stay home, that matters not just for the Senate race, but down ballot as well. Yeah. And but about 15 seconds left here. I mean, we've heard that before, but how likely is it that that, you know, Republicans will skip that race, hold their nose? Maybe.
Well, Republicans skipped the race when we had the special section for a special election, state Senate in January. One fourth of the Republicans who voted for that election actually voted for the Democrat. It has happened before. Guys, thanks so much. We appreciate it. As always. Thank you for watching as well.
We're back next Sunday. Take you inside Texas politics. We'll see you there.