Latest / Pastor Plek's Podcast / From Stay-At-Home Dad To State Representative

Transcript

From Stay-At-Home Dad To State Representative · Pastor Plek's Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: And welcome back to Pastor Plex Podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Pastor Plex, along with none other than Pastor Holland.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: How are you doing?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Hello.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Doing great.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we have today a very, very, very, very special guest, John Hash.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I want you to introduce yourself with like tell us what you're uh trying to run for and uh and kind of like where you're going with your career right now.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, yeah.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_05: Well, first off, thanks for having me here.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my name is John Hash, and I'm running for Texas State Representative of District 50.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_05: District 50.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, first I'm gonna break that down.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_05: State representatives, what do we do?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_05: Who are they?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_05: All that stuff.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_05: And then we're gonna go.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, are you going to are you going to DC?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_05: Not exactly.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_05: Nope.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_05: I'm going to the DC of Texas.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_05: So that's here down the road.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_05: Kind of works out, right?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_05: Works out for you.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_05: I don't have to go very far.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of the other state representatives who come from Panhandle or you know out west, they they have to travel in, spend a few days, go back.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, that's a little bit more strain on family.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_05: So fortunately, we're very close.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_05: But a state representative, uh, similar to how we view our federal government that has uh an executive, a legislative, and a judicial branch, we have that here in Texas on the state level.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_05: So it is we have our executive with the governor, lieutenant governor, we have our uh legislative, we have our own house and our senate, and we also have you know a Texas Supreme Court judicial system.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_05: So we are just mimicking on a what I would say slightly smaller scale.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_05: So state representatives, they are elected uh based upon the district that they live in.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, I believe we have 150 uh state representatives uh broken up across the state of Texas.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and when we talk about how do uh how do we just the other day we had several uh proposed constitutional amendments.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_05: Those were the state.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: To the state.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, state constitutional amendments.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_05: Uh those were written by representatives and senators here at the state level.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_05: They will discuss policy, they will then work with lawyers to write a bill.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_05: That bill gets put forth into a subcommittee.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, could be on education, could be on healthcare, could be on veteran affairs, it gets discussed there.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_05: It then gets put to a vote.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_05: If it makes it out of the subcommittee, it makes it to the state house floor, which has uh all the members of the house can then discuss uh that particular bill.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_05: From there, it can go several ways, get kicked back to committee for reevaluation.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_05: If it doesn't pass, it can be passed and then sent on to in this case, uh, we're talking about from Senate or from House to the Senate.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and they have to be able to pass the same bill.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_05: So if the Senate looks at it and they make revisions, then that gets passed back to confirmation for the House to make sure that we're all on the same page.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so state reps, they represent uh certain areas.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_05: In Austin, we have about a dozen or so districts uh because dense population and it all is population-based.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so the district 50 does incorporate uh where we are sitting today here in the Wells Branch neighborhood.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we're kind of what I would say is the northwest corner of that district.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_05: So where where does that district cover?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like what's all the areas?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so uh here we're the northwest corner, it does cross I-35 to the east and it covers a portion of southern Flugerville.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the defining line there is Pecan uh Road, Pecan Drive.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like where the Pecan, West Pecan coffee shop is, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_05: So if you live on the north side of that street, I'm not your representative.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_05: Or what if if elected, I would not be your representative representative.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_05: You live on the southern side of that street, then yeah, you're part of District 50.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_05: So um how far west do you go?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh that one goes all the way till it hits 130.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um I mean, oh, so yeah.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, sorry, how far okay, how far west?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_05: East all the way 130.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_05: East all the way to 130 east, it goes to Mopak.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, we and we have a little north kind of up toward 45.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, it follows Mopak down.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_05: It takes like two little hop across Mopak, um, which I believe those are apartment complexes that it encapsulates.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: So there's like two apartment complexes that it goes whoop, swings right around them.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, then it comes back.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_05: It goes along Breaker Boulevard.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh southern boundary or kind of.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: That's the south uh uh west portion.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_05: South.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it then goes to Lamar.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_05: And then it goes south on Lamar.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, wow.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_05: And then from South Lamar goes to about 290.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow, that's pretty far down there.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_05: Then we're gonna stretch around 290 and we're gonna make our way back up almost all the way to 130.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but since 130, you have a big chunk of Austin.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's a big chunk of Austin, yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_05: All within Travis County.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_05: It incorporates uh three school districts because part of it here up here we're in Round Rock IST does have part of Flugerville IST and Austin ISD.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_05: So there's three districts uh that are part of it.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, so flugerville, it does again.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: You're working with the city of Flugerville, uh, Chamber of Commerce of Flugerville, also Austin here.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so that is where it is.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_05: And and again, it's a Austin being a denser population versus some that are it's a smaller geography, but a greater population, if if that makes sense.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_05: They all tried to keep the populations roughly similar.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but again, yeah, small geography because of the density.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_05: Smaller geography, yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so you're running for so you know it's not like you just got elected uh in on November 4th.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: You're looking for next November, correct for the midterms, if you if it's what they call them, right?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yeah, so correct.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_05: That is right.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_05: The the last one was just uh amendments or propositions.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_05: There were a few if you're in Flugerville or if you're in other states listening to this podcast, yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_05: You might have had your governor uh election or things like that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um flugerville just had their mayor, but uh what I would be first up is actually gonna be primaries, those are first obstacle uh when it comes to running.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason why the a uh it's the district fifty is open is James Tallerico is um I don't want resigning is the right word, or he's like, or he's going to run for he's running, yeah, he's running for Senate.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um you can't run for two positions at the same time.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: That makes sense.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: So he made his choice to run for U.S.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_05: Senate.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_05: So now we're now for a discussion about James, he's taken uh I would say a big step up going from state to U.S.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and going from a place like District 50, uh, which has a little over a hundred and something thousand uh people within it, yeah, to now the state of Texas, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_05: Which is um because the Senate, we have two senators uh in the state, uh, that is over thirty thirty million.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_05: We we tipped that uh in 2024, 30 million people.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_05: So being uh Do you know who he's gonna run?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Is it Ted Cruz or Chancellor?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_05: So uh well all of those are actually gonna come to fruition uh in March.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, right primaries the primaries first.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we're gonna do the primaries first.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_05: So it's James Talerico and um Colin Allred are uh Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: He played football.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Baylor.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and then for the Cowboys, I believe.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_05: Played for a little bit.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, sure.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so Colin Allred, and then we have uh John Cornyn, who is the current incumbent uh senator here in Texas, uh and um former, not former, but current um attorney general Ken Paxton has also put in Oh, is he running against Cruz or Cornyn?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Cornyn.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_05: So Cruz was last night.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, Cornyn and so Cruz is already Cruz is in, he'll be in for another uh uh four more years uh after these midterms.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um so yeah, so that is and those are gonna be state level elections.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_05: They're they're very big, very expensive.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my gosh.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so all right, let's talk about you just for a second, like your history, and then like you know, I'd love if you can clue that like your faith background and all that, it'd be really cool.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so um I wasn't born in Texas.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_05: I know if that's a shocking, sounds good.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_05: That is the same.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_05: I I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_05: Truthfully, though, I didn't have a say.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_05: My dad worked for the military, so we moved around a lot.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I was I was born in California, but we moved Texas, California, Texas, California, Texas, California, I think about a half dozen times between the two states.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_05: Uh before he decided he was going to retire.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_05: Oh so uh having like a home base, we really don't have it.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_05: But when I was young, we did have a little bit of a home base with the church that we were going to in Waco for a few years.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um it was a Catholic church there, St.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_05: Albans.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and then we were at a Presbyterian church in uh Sacramento, Granite Bay area, which is where we're living in in California.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but that was up until I was about seven.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_05: So a lot of it for me was Sunday school.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_05: It was very uh, you know, the I like to think of it as like it was it was the happy days of, you know, when you hear about stories, uh, biblical stories, we're talking about very, very positive, very reaffirming at that time.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_05: And then my dad retired and we stopped going to church.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_05: We he retired, we moved to uh uh South Lake Tahoe, uh, and he tried we tried out a few, and and it was more of like he wasn't feeling them, and so we didn't stay involved in any of them.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: But what we did do was Boy Scouts.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nice.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_05: And so my brother and I became very involved in Boy Scouts, which kind of kept a little bit of faith for both of us uh because there is a religious background, I mean, within Boy Scouts.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: What values?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so that's the you know, I can still recite to you today the the scout oath and the scout law because that was just something that we did all the time.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_05: And sounds cool.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_05: We we we made effort very much at a young age to try and be a part of it and live it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_05: And even now today, I know my brother and I, when we think about it, uh there are certain things maybe we're not living up to as much as we should, but we both think about it.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_05: We're both Eagle Scouts, uh, so it makes a big impact on our lives.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so growing up with scouts was very important to our family.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_05: It was, you know, it was our small community.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I know a lot of uh people when they have a church, they have a community there, and so that kind of became our community uh with with scouts.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um so that was like our pillar of you know, we were very much taught uh do a good turn daily.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: So as often as you could do something good for someone else.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and I don't know if you know the the his the history of of Boy Scouts, how it kind of got brought to the United States.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um so there was this journalist, his name was Bryce Boyce Boy Boyce, last name was Boyce.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_05: Anyways, he was lost in London.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_05: The the story goes that he was lost in the London fog and couldn't find his way back to like a hotel, and a young man approached him and said, Sir, can I help you?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the young boy helped him back to his hotel.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and he boyce went to offer him like a little tip saying, Thank you very much.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_05: And he replied, Sorry, I'm a scout.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_05: We don't accept uh rewards for doing what's right.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's awesome.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_05: And that's what like caught off.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_05: According there, according to history or you know, weather logical reports are like there was no fog on that day.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's just, but the truth is, yeah, a young man helped him find his hotel.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_05: He was lost in the world.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_05: He needed it to be a foggy day, so he didn't look like a complete imbecile.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he needed a foggy day to for there to be a reason why he was lost um as a as a as a grown man in London.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: But that is that is true.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_05: So uh Scouts was very much instilled in us that we are uh doing what is right and we are not doing it with expectation of reward.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: This is not what was instilled in us at a young age.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: So it kind of skept through.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: So then, like, did you you know you graduated from high school, you were an Eagle Scout.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do next?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_05: College.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but uh I was beneficial to have a family that one have both parents in my home each night, and my dad went to college, so he's like, Hey, your next step, you know, you're going to college.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_05: And uh when we moved for our final time, we moved back to Texas in San Antonio.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_05: So I ended up graduating in San Antonio.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_05: UTSA.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I uh for for uh high school.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, high school.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_05: We moved back to in the middle of high school.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_05: My dad picked us up and moved us back to Texas.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, wasn't it fun?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_05: Right, yeah, that's brutal.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_05: But uh a couple of things about having to move so many times as a young kid, you learn to just make friends everywhere you go.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_05: So that's that's a great that was a positive thing about that.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_05: But moved to high school uh in San Antonio and then graduated, ended up doing one year at UTSA before I transferred to the University of Texas at Austin.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_05: So that's what that's what brought me to Austin the first.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and also my brother, uh who is immensely smart, got accepted as an out-of-state student to Austin, UT Austin from California.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_05: He's he's a couple years earlier.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_05: He's just super smart guy, bright.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and that's what uh kind of brought my family back to Texas uh because my mom did not want to be too far from him.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_05: Like we can be an hour and a half, but not three, four states away.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when when did you kind of get reconnected to church at that, you know, if you kind of drifted away from it, Boy Scouts, and then when did re-engaging in church?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_05: Reengaging in church came in college uh through a few means.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_05: I had a friend who just like you just gotta go with me.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, okay, I'll go.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: I I went a couple times, but uh, and I'm not gonna knock on it, I'm not gonna mention, but it was just overwhelming the first two times I went with him.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_05: I said, Whoa, dude, there's like a thousand people here.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like, what is this?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_05: It it wasn't what I was used to or what I had memories of, and so I was like, I was like, oh no, I'm I'm I kind of was a bit scared about it because it was it was overwhelming.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_05: There were so many people.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_05: Huh.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um was it a church or was it it was it was uh uh what's it called?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh student ministry.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_05: He he we went to uh this was when I was at UTSA and we went to uh the first uh San Antonio Baptist downtown there and like it was packed packed, yeah.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, that's kind of fun.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so then you came to UT.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_05: Came to UT and um I think what really happened was meeting a few people that said, Hey, come out and check uh the Austin Stone.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_05: We went and did that for the downtown uh uh the the like campus one uh that's on Austin High.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Austin High School, yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, that's where I kind of started, okay.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_05: I'm kind of let's get back into it a little bit.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_05: Let's try and refill the stuff.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_05: That is that wasn't a small crowd.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_05: That wasn't a small crowd either, but uh having more people there that I knew.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, that was very helpful.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that was helpful because yes, I you know, I love this guy, Sam, who's the one that took me to the San Antonio Baptist, but it was just he and I, and I was like, we know nobody here, dude.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_05: You're from Amarillo.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_05: I'm brand new to the like reintroducing into the church, like we know nobody, and so that was a little intimidating for me at the time.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so then you go to the stone, yeah, and uh uh meet your wife there.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_05: Or well, how did that happen?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_05: So actually, I met my wife and she had heard from a friend about the stone, yeah, but we didn't meet at the Austin Stone.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_05: We met um prior, we met in an organization on campus.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: It was about sports.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we both love playing sports, watching sports, all kinds of stuff.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: And so we met uh there, and then we had a mutual friend that said, Hey, you know, let's check out the stone.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_05: I want to go.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_05: He wanted to go, he was from Houston.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_05: I think that was like a thing.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of college kids were trying to find a place, yeah.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_05: Uh a church community that they could go to that they felt comfortable.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_05: So that's where we we attended the stone and and we did for a while.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then I graduated.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I had to go back to San Antonio, not like uh not in a bad way.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um like well, you had to go to San Antonio.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_05: And this was uh, yeah, so I had to go to San Antonio uh for my first job, and it was as a college advisor.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I was a college advisor at a high school at Roosevelt High School, uh down there, Go Rough Riders.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but um it was a program built for uh near peer uh assistance with high school students on their next steps.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_05: So Advise Texas, you were like the college advisor, but we did more as much as we could, more than just advising them for college.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_05: It was do you want an apprenticeship program or a certain certification program that we can get you in touch with?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_05: Do you want uh are you thinking about military?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I'll help you take your ASVAB, uh, I'll get you signed up for it.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_05: But uh I I will tell you, Chris, I always I always did say, can you do one semester of community college and make sure college is not fit for you?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_05: Because it's it's six months, and if you don't like it, hey, then let's get you into the military.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_05: But if if you go into the army and you realize if you don't like it, like there's no quitting.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_05: There's no quitting.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_05: That is a four or five year commitment sometimes, what you're signing for.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_05: I said, okay, so let's make sure.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Especially when they get a bonus to you and you're like, oh, ten thousand dollars for just two or three more years.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm in.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_05: So I did encourage kids, I was like, hey, just try college.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe it's maybe it's high school that that's really not your thing, and not necessarily learning at a university or or at a community college.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but depending upon what school the the program placed people, uh recent college grads all over the state.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_05: El Paso, Dallas, Houston, the Valley, Austin, San Antonio.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and some were small schools that had like 200 people and some were giant schools.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_05: We had a little over 2,000 students at Roosevelt High School.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, about almost 600 were seniors that year.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, so it was one of my responsibilities.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_05: And it was to help alleviate a lot of the pressure on uh guidance counselors.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and many of the guidance counselors hadn't been in college for a decade or so or more.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and having just been there, I was able to answer questions for kids.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it was like that was your first gig out of college.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: That was my first gig out of college, and uh what got me into it was realizing um, you know, again, I was fortunate to have a dad that went to college, both parents in my home that were very supportive of whatever we're gonna do.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but then realizing even on my mom's side of my family, there was a few that didn't graduate, cousins uh who didn't graduate high school.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_05: They dropped out of high school.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_05: We had out of 16 of us, uh four of us went to college, uh, three of us graduated.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_05: So I wanted to try to make a difference there.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_05: I wanted I wanted to again come back and think about how am I gonna help those that that need it.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_05: Right as they need it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_05: So that's that's really kind of where that base is stuck.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and then they were like, okay, you can either do one more year of this advising, but two years max.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_05: Because they want near peer.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_05: They want somebody who's just in college, who's just done scholarship applications and and financial aid talks and that experience.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_05: They want to kind of keep that fresh.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so I said, okay, and I found another outreach program through the University of Texas uh that I had met before.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_05: And actually, my girlfriend, who is my wife now girlfriend at the time, she she was a student who had participated in their program.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: And so I met all of them.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, even before I applied, I I knew them, uh, knew the the team.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it was called GeoForce, and it was a science-based, geoscience-based outreach program.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, nice.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and we worked with primarily students in southwest Texas, so Eagle Pass, Del Rio, Uvalde, yeah, and all the tiny towns that are around, which is where my wife's from.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_05: She's from Catula, Texas, which is about a halfway between San Antonio and Laredo.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, fun.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, tiny town.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_05: But that was one of their regions.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and then Houston was the other region.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_05: So worked a lot with with GeoForce in Houston.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_05: And then again, this was another program taking kids from these schools that maybe don't have science teachers, or science is not a big uh proponent for their schools, uh, and allowing them to experience hands-on.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_05: We're we're going outside the classroom, we're gonna learn about geoscience, we're gonna take you to it and we're gonna look at it directly.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_05: We're not gonna look at a picture of it.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: We're gonna bring in uh a teacher, we're gonna bring in a professor, we're gonna have you know activities outside where we don't want you to just be stuck in a room all day with us.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um so that's what we did.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was I was a coordinator for that program.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_05: I would lead 45 students and 10 staff to various regions, sometimes outside of the state, um Oregon, Washington, or Arizona to take them to where the geology is.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and we did I did that for a little over a decade.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, wow, that was like your thing.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_05: I was that became my thing.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I kind of rose through the ranks as the coordinator to slowly be the one that uh led out outside of our director, I was leading the other coordinators, training them.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, it's uh for for uh again, it's about that one was really based in logistical planning and safety.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_05: How can we make sure our summer programs are safe?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but then also what are we doing for these kids beyond just a summer program?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_05: How are we building it out for them?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the last thing we want to do is to say, hey, here's us for a couple of summers, and then boom, you're you're gone out the door, and we never see you again.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_05: We we we wanted to build relationships with these kids and know that if they had questions, they can still come back to us uh about again college life when they're trying to make these big decisions in their lives.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_05: What am I gonna do for the rest of my life?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_05: What am I gonna study?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and those kinds of things it's okay.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_05: She didn't do that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um so so yeah, that was kind of like the premise behind it was just trying to make sure that we uh are really taking care of these kids that we interact with.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so that's that's where it was.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I was there until I became a dad.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_05: And when my daughter was born, uh, my wife and I had a deal.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: We said, hey, whoever is kind of making more money, doing really better, they need to be the one that stays in that job, and the other will step aside home and be a stay-at-home parent.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh my wife, who was uh working uh in the healthcare field, yeah, left during COVID and started uh with a a tech company, tech company.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, nice.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_05: So she just took off from there, did super awesome with that company, and I was like, you do you, and I will take a little change of pace.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_05: I will I'll be a stay-at-home dad.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, which I'm actually just so thankful for uh these first two years spending with my daughter uh have been really impactful for me.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um and and actually this last year has been okay, how do we want to uh think about our time together and then our time as a family and going to church too?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_05: So we we made like a an effort this year to to start going back to stone during COVID.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_05: We had slowed down again and stopped.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you know, we were trying to do some online uh listen super hard.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_05: It was very difficult, very difficult.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_05: So hard.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but after that, we then okay, well let's let's make an effort.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_05: Like I I probably need to do more effort on my part uh for that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_05: So we we started back up again, uh going to the Austin Stone North Campus.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: North campus?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: So um oh that's awesome.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: So how long have you been going there now?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we we just started at the beginning of the year.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_05: So I guess we're in November now, so it's about 10 months.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_05: Minus minus, you know, if we're out of town and sure, sure, sure.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's awesome.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: I got a question.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, kind of related, you're sharing stuff about your education.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so in uh Texas State Representative, you're in the legislative kind of um focus, right?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you're lawmaking and stuff like that.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have uh like what are the requirements education-wise for this position?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: Great question.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my gosh, Holland.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't know until I was I when when James made that decision to step up to U.S.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_05: Senate.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and I had been thinking about wanting to run, but then I said, okay, well, I'm gonna jump in with two feet.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_05: What do I need?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_05: What do I need to make sure I have?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_05: You need to be like 18 and a resident of the district in which you are uh running.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_05: And uh to get on to the ballot, it's$750.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: $750.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: $750.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_05: You don't need a law degree.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_05: You don't need a law degree.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_05: And actually, like I can we can we like jump back a little bit because um being a representative, that actually in in my opinion, it's okay to have a law degree, but you are also not always if you have just if all your representatives are all lawyers, they're not truthfully representative of the community.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_05: You need a mix of people, you need educators, you need people in healthcare, people in the service industry to to want to step up to those roles a lot.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have lawyers who are gonna make all your stuff for you, they're gonna help you write it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna help you write this.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because you have a staff.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: I assume like James Tallerico, for example, has a some sort of a staff.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you'll have a small staff that'll help you with the policymaking.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_05: They'll you're like a chief of staff and maybe you know, one to two, depending upon also.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, I told you all like money makes a difference.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_05: If if you can use campaign funds, so if I raised a ton of money, I can hire more people throughout the year to be part of my staff because I can use campaign funds to pay for uh full-time staff if elected.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, wow.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_05: So the people who fundraise more can utilize those funds to say, Oh, I need a new analyst for this.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_05: I have, you know, 40K, I can hire somebody out uh part-time and and and get somebody else on board, which there is an allotment from the state on on staffing, but if you want to increase that, it comes from your campaign.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that makes sense.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_05: And so the the big the big fundraisers can really staff themselves out more.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but there always is law servicing, uh, you know, lawyers that are there at the Capitol that will help you.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_05: You come to them with your policy and you say, okay, we need to write policy about this.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so yeah, you don't need to be a lawyer.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_05: You don't need to uh like I could run if I want to run now.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, if I get if I can round up 750 bucks, then I could run.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_05: Actually, you can you can round up 750 bucks, or you can also round up signatures.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of paying, you could get like 750 signatures or something.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah, it's it's uh 500 signatures, but you always got to shoot for double because what they do is the state then audits those signatures to make sure they have to be the people in your district, they have to be registered to vote, they have to and and even if somebody like puts their wrong address or like writes ineligible.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, who go who checks that?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that's wild.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_05: There are people they go through and they check them, and and I'll give you a quick story about why it's very important to check that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there was a gentleman who was running for state house in Illinois that the incumbent said that they weren't going to run, but then at the last minute decided to.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_05: Now, Illinois has a slightly different regulation.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_05: You have to do a small fee and signatures.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_05: Texas, it's an either or.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_05: But so the incumbent who, you know, an incumbent is the the percentages of winning if you're an incumbent are skyrocketed high.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but this incumbent did not get all the signatures they needed.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, wow.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: Because they decided so they they turned around so late.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_05: They didn't get all the signatures and they got audited and they were kicked back.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_05: Well, the person who uh decided they were gonna run and started on their political career was Barack Obama.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_05: He got into that because the incumbent for that state house seat did not get all of their signatures.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_05: That's a good story.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's a good story.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_05: And that started him on his trajectory.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_05: And and um so yeah, it you can, but also$750.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Which which route did you go?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: 500 signatures or so I'm still in the process of the signatures.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, you know, I'm but I'm I'm I have Hilarious.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_05: But you're going the signature route.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_05: I am going the signature route, but I definitely have the a little bit of seed money that started my campaign to say, like, hey, I've set this aside.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not spending this$750 because I know if I don't hit my numbers, then I am going to make sure I'm on that ballot.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not gonna do any kind of uh uh uh second guessing.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: So how so how does this affect your uh decision to be a stay-at-home dad?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, because being a stay-at-home dad, and then also being a Texas representative is kind of like that might put a little does that like shift the plans now is she's gonna stay at home?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_05: Uh or it it does put a little uh little hinder uh into into our plans.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but we are trying to develop, okay, we have option A, option B, option C.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_05: Uh because truthfully, March uh primaries, that's my first hurdle to overcome.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_05: If I don't make it past that hurdle, well I'll still stay at home, Dad.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_05: It was a good run.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_05: It was a good run.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_05: And but that's not gonna stop me from now becoming just more involved in certain areas.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and then once it comes to actual election day, it it will actually be January 2027 by the time I actually go into office.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_05: That would be the first few days that I go in.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_05: It's January 2027.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you're in office, is this like uh Monday through Friday, nine to five kind of deal?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it like I know you have like a session.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a session where you're like working crazy hours and the rest of the year, like what's your work schedule like a slave flesh session, right?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_05: The session starts in January and it goes until May.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um crazy busy during that.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_05: Crazy busy during those like five months.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: So that's like when you first get elected from January to May, you're doing all the stuff.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then Yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: So uh um sorry, I cut you off.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was just like, um because you you only do you do session every other year.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: So like you get one year to uh wait to go.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: You get one year to um uh to run for election and then one year to do the work.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is then is that would that be a good way to put that?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_05: That's kind of a good way to put it because and again, when you're the incumbent and you have that that campaign funds when I talked about you can hold on to, you know, be employing your staff.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_05: You can be doing the work to writing those bills that you want so that when you come in day one, right, you are submitting a bill.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_05: Day two, I got another bill.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_05: Day three, I got another bill so that we can be efficient in our work during this five month session.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_05: So So um sense.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, right now my time leading up until election is going to be campaigning, make sure that I have the people to get those votes so that I'm I'm there.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_05: But then also preparing any bills that you'd want to submit.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_05: Like are you doing?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_05: So actually what I'm doing is looking at bills that did not pass and reevaluate and say, okay, like, does this seem like a good bill?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_05: Why didn't it pass?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, let's revamp it maybe and think about how we can change it so we can come to an agreement from each side.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's one of the easier ways to do that of like what bills didn't pass, why didn't they pass?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_05: And let's take a look at it.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nice.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and I think that's uh sorry, I think that's just a way for me right now to utilize my time wisely rather than again diving into data sets, trying to develop policy off of that.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna try and take, okay, they've done the work and let's see what needs to be done further to help bring that together so we can pass it.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, what was the thing like that you're like, oh, I am called.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's the right word.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: I want to.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what was it like the conversation with your wife?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're said that you're at church one day.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: What what was the thing that was like, I'm gonna go run uh for office?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it actually started with I want to volunteer more, I want to volunteer more.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I want to volunteer with you know campaigns that I feel passionate about.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_05: And that's how it kind of started.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_05: And then I so I was telling my wife, um, now that I'm feeling more comfortable as a stay-at-home dad, that first year, uh a little little like worried about keeping a baby alive and all of that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just gonna be honest, it was very, I was very focused on on that and and and her um for my daughter.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_05: After that, now I'm like, okay, I I have a little bit more comfort.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like now we can get more involved.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_05: I feel you know better if I need to say, hey, I'm gonna go out and do this for three hours if somebody can babysit, you know, more comfortable.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and so I told my wife, I said, I want to start volunteering more.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_05: I want to, you know, so I started looking out for uh things that I could become a part of.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, James is our representative here.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, okay, well, you know, if I want to learn it, his campaign to re-elect, okay, I'll jump in and I'll I'll learn what it's like to be in a campaign.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, what are the ins and outs?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_05: And then when when he decided, I was like, well, he's not running for House District 50 anymore.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I told my wife, I was like, somebody needs to do something about that.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_05: Like we can't uh you know, something needs to be done.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_05: So she looked at me and she was like, You've been talking about wanting to become more involved.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, you know, I have my my degrees in history and politics, you know, political science.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_05: So you know it wasn't this isn't like a super far jump for me to say, right, you know, going from one to another, you know, politics has always kind of been in my background.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_05: Anytime there's news, usually my wife's like, Hey, what's the news?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_05: And I'll fill her in because that's that's what I'll try to absorb throughout the day.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and even so, being uh being a stay-at-home dad, uh, I I took that opportunity as uh if I have let me let me rephrase this.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_05: Again, going back to being a scout, there's a there's a portion in that that uh scout oath that talks about keeping yourself mentally awake.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_05: When uh my daughter and we were I was taking my dog for walks each day, and I realized like here is an hour to two hours that nothing is going on.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_05: What can I do to fill this time?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_05: At first, I was like, Oh, put some music.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know, music isn't doing it for me.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_05: Music is, yeah, it's kind of like I'm wasting a little bit of time.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_05: So then I put on like NPR and I was like, okay, NPR is good for like 20 minutes and then it reruns, and then you can listen to NPR, it's really boring.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_05: And so I was like, I can do NPR.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_05: So then I started listening to books.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_05: I started doing audio books as much as I could, and my goal was to have books that are from both sides.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_05: I picked books that were on uh poverty or or uh memoirs of people, you know, like John McCain, Obama, uh Liz Cheney, uh book on, you know, uh from Desmond Howard on poverty.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_05: So I tried to keep myself not just in one compartment.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_05: I want to say I wanted to hear from everybody so that I can understand, you know, if somebody has a different opinion of me, hopefully I'm doing my best to understand where they're coming from.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_05: So I took that, I took that time to really start diving into some of these things, and they were all very pol politically based.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so then again, talking to my wife a lot about like I would give her updates on my book that I'm reading this week.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_05: And then it kind of came to the point where again, James decided to run for US Senate.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_05: She's like, You've been talking about this.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_05: What is holding you up?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_05: So it was it was a a push from my wife to say, like, this is your what you've kind of dreamt about a little bit.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_05: So let's go for it.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: So like James Tallerico is like one of those guys that's been very like he was on Joe Rogan's podcast.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, and you know, he he is a guy that kind of works across the aisle more than more than most, but is very left.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if if I is where I would say like as a he's a you know, die in the old progressive democrat.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so for us, we're like, that's kind of opposite of the spectrum from where we're at.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: But would love to kind of hear like what are the things that you thought were like, man, he killed it on like man, this is like Talo Rico crushed it on this issue, and I really want to follow that.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, Chris, Holland, you're probably gonna find me a little bit left too.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's fine, it's fine.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but there are a few things, and I I was like, okay, remember when I was talking about diving into some of these bills that you know didn't get passed or whatever.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_05: So it also led me into like looking.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_05: How many times have y'all looked to see what your state representative has actually filed?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_05: Zero.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_05: Zero.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's all on the website.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's very actually easy to look up if you want to see.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_05: Man, what does my rep even do?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've looked at stuff.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've followed him like on social media and see, but in order to find actual bills, um, like a list of them, I didn't even know you could do that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm familiar with stuff from social media, but to know, you know, tell us more.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_05: So I started with social media with James too.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_05: And so um really this the state holds on to it all and it'll give you a list.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_05: It'll tell you how many they authored, co-authored, andor sponsored.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_05: So where do you find that?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_05: It's on the the state website.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Texas.gov something.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_05: Uh uh, it's the Secretary of States who will hold a lot of that information.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and actually, I think the best way to go about it is just Texas House representatives and it'll take you to the Texas House website.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_05: And then you there you can look up who your representative is.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_05: So especially if you don't live in District 50, whoever's listening here, if you're outside of that, look up your representative and you can see what have they authored uh for each legislative session that they are part of.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_05: So it does take a little bit of footwork because it'll tell it'll show you right now the 89th legislative session.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_05: So that's that was this last uh uh last last 20, well, 2025.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's that, yeah.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was January to May of 2025.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_05: It really just happened.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so it'll go through all what they submitted there.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_05: And then you can look up each bill that they wrote or authored and co-authored, and you can then click on that bill, it'll show you the text and it'll show you how did it progress.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_05: It was presented to the floor, it was sent to a committee.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_05: Did it make it out of the committee?
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_05: Did it go for a vote?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_05: It'll it'll give you a little timeline, a little timeline of it, and then it'll also show you what the original text was, PDF versions, original text, and if it was updated or or changed, so you can you can really look at some of those.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I did, I have been looking at some of those, and uh some that I wanted to like highlight and that I thought was like, okay.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um one that definitely that that made it across was um creation of a commission on marriage and family.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_05: So he co-authored a bill that created a commission that did pass, and it is to investigate Texas families and what is happening to them.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_05: Why is divorce rate high?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_05: Are they taking classes before they're getting married?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: Who is authorizing marriages?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_05: Uh in when there's families, when there are children involved, you know, what kind of classes uh are they taking before there's a break in the family?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so it's supposed to investigate to try and build stronger um support for families here in Texas.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and their report's gonna come out at the, I think it's like the end of 2026.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: So essentially at the end of that, it'll say, like, oh, okay, the reason why people are getting divorced uh is they went to Vegas and then came back and or whatever.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_05: It's gonna come back.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, we have uh this many people that that got married that did not take any kind of premarital classes, uh, so they didn't have any kind of preparation for what marriage is like because marriage is a big step in our life.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean I'm very thankful for the the premarital class that I got through the Austin Stone, who's you know, kept me uh in touch with a lot of people.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, so that's what it's gonna do.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_05: It's gonna try to evaluate why we have the divorce rate that we do here in Texas, uh, why we have uh families that have just single uh single parent uh families, uh, and say, what can we recommend to try and mend this situation?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_05: Because, you know, um again, I'm super thankful that I grew up with both parents in the household.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm so thankful for that.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_05: And when we experience or, you know, when kids experience that, it is beneficial for them when they have the two parents in the household.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: And it it and and having experien having worked with high school students of all varying economic backgrounds in their family, it definitely made a difference.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_05: You could you could see when both parents were involved very eager to assist, or what was benefit beneficial for their kid versus parents that were late picking their kid up who had been gone for a week.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_05: Like you know, there were times where I'd be waiting at an airport with a kid for an hour and a half, two hours, and we had been gone for a week.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_05: It was like, hey, everything was scheduled to be picked up, but parents were on their own time.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: So that's hard.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_05: It yeah.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh okay, so that like that.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: What about things like um like what other did what what did uh Talerico author that you're like because he author he authored that bill.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: He was a co-author.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Or it's a res is it a resolution that he or what was that?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was a house bill.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: So a house bill was like, hey, we commissioned this study.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_05: And then what what other uh bills did he do that you um there was one that didn't make it out that I thought was actually pretty interesting for uh healthcare?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_05: It was called a prescription drug purchasing pool that would help employers pull and insurance plans pull prescription prescription drug purchases to help alleviate costs of prescription drugs.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um and that one didn't make it out of committee.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know why.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_05: So, but um there are uh when we dive further, I haven't I you know more diving to do.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_05: You can go in and see that they have notes on it.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I got it pulled up here.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I found it for I'm I'm uh 51, but uh I just pulled up his on 50, and he's got 68 bills submitted, and yeah, you can see them on just a list.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's wild.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_05: And there's a little, you know, each one has a topic line to show you.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_05: So if it's like, oh, this seems interesting, let me look more into it.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_05: Uh others are kind of basic, and you're like, okay, this is maybe a a correction of literature or correction of wording in a particular bill, so there can be an amendments in there.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the thing about why it's important to, you know, when the lawyers are making this, because words that are used are very important.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I always like to when I tell people why that's so important.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I give this quick little story uh that I was in um jury duty.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't get selected because the case involved kids and having worked with kids, they didn't want me to part as a jury.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_05: But the judge sat us down for about an hour and um he he really talked to us about the use of words and why it's so important.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_05: Because um, well, let me just kind of give you all this test.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_05: If I were to say, finish this quote or sentence, uh, you are innocent until proven guilty, until proven guilty.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_05: And that's what everybody says, but it is wrong.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_05: That's what we hear in the movies and in TV shows, and it's that word until because until means it will eventually come to fruition.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_05: Like this person is innocent until we prove them guilty, and until carries that context that it will happen.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_05: And so he hammered into us it is unless unless.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_05: And so he said, but the problem is TVs and movies, they carry this, and this word until always, but even though it doesn't seem like it at first, here when we sit in the courtrooms, like that carries a little bit into everybody's mind until like, well, he's innocent until we prove him guilty.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_05: So that's why it's super important to make sure when these lawyers and policymakers are writing laws, why words matter, sometimes it's super vague, and that actually can kill um a bill if it's just too vague because uh policymakers want a little bit of flexibility about it.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_05: But so they say, okay, well, let's make it a little bit more vague and not so specific.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_05: And there are pros and cons to that, um, because it allows for interpretation for future generations.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_05: So, like um the Texas Constitution, we have quite a few amendments, and that's because we were pretty specific in our original writing of the Texas Constitution.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_05: So we have to kind of come back and say, well, you know, things should not, if if there's a problem between people, it shouldn't be, you know, if it's more than five dollars, you know, which was a lot of money back in 1836, right?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: Versus now it's five dollars.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_05: Does that go to a criminal court with a uh, you know, a different jury, or should that be handled in civil and and lower?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_05: So uh use the proper use of words, very specific, very um meaningful when writing these laws.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_05: And so it makes a difference.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh one of the things like I'm just kind of looking through his uh things he proposed.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh did you have any were you just on the campaign, or were you actually part of any like sort of like volunteer staff role or like no?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_05: I just I just did a little bit of oh, sorry, I sorry, I just did a little bit of uh discussion with people in the neighborhood about him.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_05: But to be honest with you, uh everybody in the Wells Branch neighborhood knows James knows of him or knows him because that's this is where he, you know, his dad goes to church right down the street at St.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: Andrews from Round Rock, right?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, he went to Round Rock high.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think he grew up in Wells Branch.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well his his yeah, his family lives here now.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_05: So it's everybody who's like, Oh yeah, I know James.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I don't really need to ex, you know, explain to you what his positions are on a lot of things because he's you know, you you know him.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that he put out there, I'd love to hear your thought on this.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: I obviously I know you didn't write the bill, but he put uh reproductive health access protects out of state abortion travel, expands contraception coverage under state insurance.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously it did it got blocked in the Senate, but like that was his plan.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, hey, I know Texas has banned abortion.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um like I want to send this thing to uh other states.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: What was your what are your thoughts on that?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, um, first I always want to kind of any discussion about abortion, I want to emphasize I am a man and I will not have that decision ever placed upon me, really.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_05: Like um so talking to my wife a lot about this.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's kind of like one of the cornerstones that I use is like, okay, talk to me about it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um and she said, Well, you're never gonna experience it being pregnant.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a guy.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_05: So want you to listen to you know what I have to say.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so when he went through with that, I said, Okay, uh when well when Roe v.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_05: Wade uh was overturned uh several years ago, uh that kind of was like, well, it it it took it back to the states.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_05: That's what it didn't it didn't necessarily ban abortion, right?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_05: Roe v.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_05: Wade uh overturning with the Dobbs Jackson, like that didn't uh outlaw it, it it returned that decision back to the states.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_05: So the state of Texas had already a bill on hand that if it ever got overturned, it would enact uh very quickly.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and when we returned things to the states, but then we started saying, well, you can't go to a different state to do it, even if that other state does allow it.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_05: Missouri was trying to enact some uh that made it uh illegal to travel between state lines to receive that abortion.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that was a little overstepping for a state to say you can't travel between state lines if you want to do that.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_05: Now the state again, it's it's deciding what can be done within state boundaries.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_05: Now, if if if you're traveling outside of the state, again, that is your they're right.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_05: If that other state allows it, if if a state like California, New Mexico, if they allow it and you want to go there for that, then that is your right.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess my my hardest part with that is like as Christians, we look at, you know, that it is such a super tough conversation.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's murder, right?
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: So any whether it's in a woman's body or my body, like I think the reason why it becomes such a valuable thing, it's like human dignity, and you get to a place where now all of a sudden you're ending someone's life before it even started.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: And man, that's that's a dangerous place to go.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I understand people are in hard situations, and um, as a man, I'm not gonna be in those.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: However, as a man, I can say, like, I don't want evil to like when we start dehumanizing people to that extent, and that's why I'm like as a state of Texas, now granted it didn't get passed, but to say, like, hey, I want to make sure I fund the ability for this pregnant mother to go to a different state where it's legal there to kind of get around the state laws that we have.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: It just to me, that's that that to me is like, wow, that's so hard that we would, you know, we'd say, hey, we don't want to murder here in Texas, but you can do that outside of Texas.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and I know, granted, that that's such a hard word, but I think that's really what it is.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, unless you're like, you know, life begins when.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the problem.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, that's a great thing to to have that conversation about because there are actually really uh no federal laws on when life begins.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_05: It it it is up to the states.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_05: The states have the ones that have have made those distinctions.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_05: So uh federal law, there is no when life begins.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where a lot of conversation where people have, well, it's you know, upon conception, or is it upon first breath uh that is taken like when does life begin?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_05: Is it upon viability?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so and again, um to me, I I I look at that and it's like here's a like we save like baby dolphins in the womb or like baby elephants in the womb.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's illegal to kill them.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so if we we we give animals more rights than humans, that's the part where I just go, ugh, that's that's a hard thing for me to to take in.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I'm like, we've just elevated animals over human beings out of like a sense of we feel bad for the the mother that doesn't have a hu a lot of support.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: But granted, there's a gazillion number of people that are trying to adopt kids right now.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that that to me is like personally, it makes me like, oh, wounded, hurt for um just life that's not given a chance.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: That that's that's where I feel like as Christians, we we we need to kind of like echo that because the law, like I like what you said, like there is no law.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so what happens is you know, we have God's word, and you know, we are given our rights not by the law, but as a constitution by our creator.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the part where if we give up on the creator, if we give up on God and say, like, hey, what do we all think about this?
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: Then you're inevitably gonna kind of get to a place of um it's not gonna be God's word, it's gonna be our public opinion.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that can get just to be a dangerous spot.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where I feel like you end up marginalizing people and you end up like that's how stuff like uh the darkness can kind of creep in when you when you talk about like when we think about planned parenthood and how it was started.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a new eugenic worldview of I want to eliminate African Americans.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna go and put planned parenthoods or uh you know abortion clinics in all these low-income neighborhoods to make sure that they kill themselves off.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that part is just kind of hard for me as a as a Christian to kind of lean into that and go, whoa gosh, what is what's happening?
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I know that I know that I don't know where your stance is on that, but I think that's well, as I was looking at at what Talerico put out, that's where I would push back on him and be like, Hey, I appreciate some of the other things that that you're that you're doing, but man, that's that's hard for me to handle.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: I want to take one step back for that plant parenthood.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_05: Planned parenthood original back like 1890, it was for contraceptive.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that's what women wanted.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_05: They wanted to be able to have the decision of when they could.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_05: Then it was is something that it's thought of like it's a good start, but then the use of it became you're right, putting it into low-income areas where they knew people said, if I have a decision, am I going to have another baby that's going to put a financial burden on me?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_05: Or am I going to uh uh opt out?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_05: And and and that did actually affect a lot of communities, you know, but that origin of it started with the attention of like family planning.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and you know, women are they have that right to decide when they want to have a child.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_05: And at that point in time, uh there was you know certain certain state laws or certain local ordinances against like handing out contraceptives to to women to say, hey, if you're not ready to be pregnant but you're married, you know, here's a condom.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_05: And then they were like, Oh, can't do that.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_05: But you're right.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_05: It it it is a very difficult subject.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what makes it hard is it's not like they said, Hey, let's go to the white neighborhoods and hang and hand these out.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go to the poorer, more minority neighborhoods to hand this out because we don't want more of them born.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: I uh that's kind of where I look at that.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: The the racial intent of that kind of gets me off sort of fired up.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I I get it that um there's a you kind of look at oh, it's we know we don't want to put too much on families because they can't afford it and all that.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm like, the intent was let's limit birth because we don't want those people here.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where as a Christian I go, man, that that's a dignity of human humanity.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that's one of those issues.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and granted, that that was what 1916 or something.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 50s, 60s.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, 1916 is when I think Planned Parenthood thing started with the first birth control clinic, and then it eventually kind of went from there.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: But and so, you know, Margaret Sanger from 1916 probably had a way different worldview uh than we do today.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: However, I think it was a I want to eliminate those people.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't I want to uh see the flourishing of that community.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think that's where I sort of struggle.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like we want to see the flourishing of a culture.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so anyway, when death becomes a part of it, which eventually it kind of I'll give it to you.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was like at first we just want to limit the amount of births that were going on, uh, although it was minority births they wanted to limit.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I would say it got to a point of death.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where when you start advocating for death and like um affirming it, now we're in this dangerous place where we're like millions of kids or babies were terminated.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that just as a as a Christian, that breaks my heart.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh not because I'm like one that, you know, championing uh abortion or you know, pro-life, but because like that that's not God's desire and heart for uh humanity to see it flourish.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's an important conversation because we're you're talking about you know being in a position of legislation, legislating.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're making laws, all laws have some kind of moral foundation.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is gonna be which morals are they?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: So as a Christian, you go, okay, we gotta get our morals from God's word.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: There may not be currently a federal law about this, or there may but as Christians, we gotta legislate off of what God's word says is true.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Scripture says a civil magistrate, you know, a public governing ruler, um, public official, you know, has a responsibility before God.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so the what's what why this is you know really good is like our job as pastors is not to write bills, you know, unless we are also to become a representative.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: But and and in the same way, your job as a state representative would not be to, you know, administer communion on a Sunday.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a separation and different spheres of um work, but the conversation is important.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you know, the church's role is to speak to the civil magistrate, you know, speak to um political officials um and say, hey, we need to have laws that reflect the truth and justice and morality of scripture.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and you're talking about conversation, and that definitely needs to be done.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_05: And also listening on on our part, listening from the people, listening from communities.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: Because what are their desires?
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_05: And again, if we come to the point where it's like the the the uh church community is saying, here is what we want, then that should be my role as a representative.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_05: Whether it's it might be even against what I want, but if that is what that conversation is.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless it goes against God's law, right?
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you're talking about if it is something that's immoral, ultimately acceptable to God first.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, if it's an immoral act that everybody's saying we need to do this, okay, whoa, then let's pump the brakes on that.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: Slavery.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like we would go, okay, let's when someone comes up talking like that craziness, we're like, no problem.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we need to stop, shut that down.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna do that.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the the problem I think for a lot of us that we face is that we can look at maybe uh an a cultural era where one sin was like prioritized and like sort of advocated for, and then uh it took the church then having influence on the rest of the culture for that to be shut down and the true the inhumane treatment of people like that to be stopped.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which was obviously that's the role of the church to speak prophetically into the culture and and to uh to the state, uh as you know, government has the power of the sword to enforce law and to do all that.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the church has the you know the prophetic voice to say, hey, here's the things that we need to see, justice and righteousness and and that, and then to take care of the poor and to kind of love on people and then guide them spiritually, and then the family ultimately is where you know people are raised up.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I I just bring that up as like I know you didn't have anything to do with writing it, yeah, but I but I do feel like it's important to kind of what Holland was saying, is like where where do the where do people's rights come from?
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's that one question.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, she is such a sweetie.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: She is so cute.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I think like what what people would be interested to hear, you know, for you as a representative, or what I'm interested to hear, you know, is are you going to, you know, when you get your bills ready, you know, to present them, is the moral foundation of those things going to be the teaching of scripture and the the morality uh of uh what you know the Christian faith says is true?
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to be looking more to you know some other direction or source for that?
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_05: That's a good question because again, we talked about how I grew up uh not having church all the time.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but the the pillars that were there, like I said, scouts and scouts does still have that faith-based in that, you know.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_05: And y'all look up the scout law and look up the scout oath, and those are the things that we try to again adhere to, and I try to adhere to.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_05: And you're gonna see in there, it's on my honor, I'll do my best to do my do my duty to God and my country, obey the scout law, keep myself physically fit, mentally awake, and morally straight.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_05: Love it.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_05: And so, and again, that last part morally straight, you know, mentally awake.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_05: We've talked a little bit about that.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_05: So those are the areas where I'm coming from, and they do have a bit of basis within scripture because that's where Scouts was based in.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but beyond that, to also talk about uh this abortion conversation, it also it also needs to include what support there is for that mother.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_05: It can't just be like a hey, don't do this, like you can't get abortion, and then that's the end of the conversation.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_05: It also needs to say, here's support, here's you know, one, our our state of Texas, we don't have uh maternity leave for women who are working, they either and if they don't have support, they either need to take vacation time, take FMLA, which is an unpaid, we don't have support for them.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_05: So we also need to have that conversation of like, okay, if we are going to make sure that we are having uh women bring babies into this world, we need to take care of them as well.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_05: Because that is a transition that's good.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_05: Those first few weeks, which of the, you know, the the sleepless nights uh and those kinds of things, if that person is then expected to say, take care of a baby, drop them off at daycare, go to work for eight hours, come back, pick them up from daycare, spend the night with them, even though you're only getting a few hours of sleep, and just keep keep repeating that, that also is in a sense not taking care of people.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: We have a lot of teen moms here, uh, and so we're very familiar with this.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it'd be like it's one of those things where it's like, I want, you know, if you're like, hey, what's the plan?
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, local church, hey, community of faith, rally around this person because then you have the life support, and then people who are what happens when you start off with uh you know giving people money in some way, even if it's just Family leave, then there's an expectation the government's going to solve that problem.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: And man, then you take the the ability and the the personal touch away from the community to wrap their arms around a person and help them grow.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that it's like where the one it's a in what in some ways, it's what a blessing when the government's gonna step in and kind of provide money here.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: But the negative consequence of that is it prevents the community to come together because oh, you're the government has taken care of.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's the part that I sort of I kind of get.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: I not that I'm like anti-helping people, but it I want I would love to see the personal touch.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just talked to a woman who just had a uh a single mom who's 20, uh and she chose not to have an abortion.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, hey, way to go.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so proud of you.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: What do you need?
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna provide a family took her in.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like those are the kind of cool things that I feel like would be really special to give the church a chance, give the community of faith a chance to really invest in people's lives.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: And and again, this comes from a maybe this is not overly idealistic perspective.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I really feel like the church would love to step into that realm.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_05: That would be a wonderful thing, right?
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_05: If you have that communities, but not everybody does have a church community, not everybody goes to church.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_05: And and so when they're faced with that situation, a lot of time it is a very um independent situation.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_05: They're very, you know, by themselves if they don't have that church community.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then so then So I guess that's my my my point is then they they let's say we gave them money, it would prolong their independence and lack of community.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I know we all want everyone to have like they get to choose whatever community that is that they want, but at some point when someone loves you really, really well and they are they're involved in your life for your your benefit at their expense, that blessing is so powerful.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: So in my head, why not send some of that money to the community of faith and go, like, hey, are you guys gonna take care of these people?
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: I want to see the record of you guys stepping into people's lives.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden, now you have uh the ability for the church to really kind of support the system and infrastructure because we already have the system of support for people uh that are in need.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, our our little church, we give away about a hundred and hundred and thirty, hundred and forty thousand dollars away to help people pay rent, to help people uh, you know, when their transmission goes out, uh, you know, all the different things of of when their lives fall apart.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're involved in their lives.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think that's it's a beautiful, sweet thing.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but sometimes like if people are just looking for the the check, what what's really great about this, you have the the personal aspect of people invest in their life as opposed to a check that comes from the government and then go figure it out.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that's and I know they're social workers, yeah, but it feels like the social worker is working the nine to five.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't get in my hours, then I'm sorry.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas church people, they're up all hours of the night serving, loving, caring for people.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of what we do.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we're built for it because we have this mission, this great mission that comes from God to love, serve, care for the poor, to love, care, and serve for those who are in need.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying that anyone's intentionally robbing the church of doing that, but when you can get money independent of any person, you're gonna take it.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's the that almost robs them of the community they desperately need.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's my opinion on that.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you can take it for what it's worth.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_05: No, I think one community is a great thing.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_05: When people don't have community, I I that is a tough road to go down if you don't have community, whatever that community is.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_05: And and churches provide a wonderful community.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_05: Like I said, Scouts, that was a community for us, especially as a kid growing up, you know, that you had that group there.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it is important to have them.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, you know, my my dad, having retired, kind of fell into that role of, well, what does the community here need?
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_05: And he he helped he retired so he crushed it of that stuff.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and he was great about just saying, All right, well, if we need this, if we need somebody to go and fundraise for this, if we need that, if this community needs it.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_05: And there'd be times where you know he volunteered so much and he got to take me along to a few things like and it still sticks with me today.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_05: I was in like seventh grade that his local Kwanas club did a Christmas thing for for a few kids.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I got to be the one that helped out, pick out some of those gifts and take them to the family, these families.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_05: So good.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_05: And it still impacts me to the day, seeing expression of gratitude that these families are supported by a community.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_05: So again, you're talking about communities, and and the church is a wonderful community.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that's why I mean one Wells Branch Community Church.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it's not okay.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_05: So um that is important, but you did kind of step into here with, you know, if if that money could flow from the government out to the churches, and that's that's the thing that's going to be stopped right there.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think it I I we had a conversation a little bit about that, and I looked up, um, I think it's I wrote it down, I think it's the Lemon versus Kurtzman Supreme Court that put the end of, I think certain uh states were trying to use tax money to then fund teacher salaries at private schools.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_05: And that was where the Supreme Court came in.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, this is in the 70s.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think 71.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_05: So they came in and they said, okay, nope, this is we're putting up a block here because we're not gonna allow that.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_05: So when that conversation is gonna be a very tough one to try to run.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, now you're going against the Supreme Court.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but the the message should still be there.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: The message of saying because the government does give money to NGOs of all sorts that are helping people do all sorts of things.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I do feel like Austin, even the city of Austin, and maybe this is a city of Austin, might be different.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, because they really help support community first, I think.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like with uh what's the guy's name at Community First?
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, the mobile loads and fishes?
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Chris Chris.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh is it Chris?
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it was it?
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't remember.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's right behind my house.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um Alan.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: Alan, Alan Graham, yeah.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I cause I think they receive public funding of some sort, but yeah, they're not a church, they're just uh faith-based anyway, but they're but they are that kind of thing.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's I mean, what they got going over there is awesome.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I love community first.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I went this last year.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_05: We took this little one to go see the lights that they have there.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, my wife and I have donated.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you to uh that was uh PBS to introduce us to that.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_05: They did a special on them uh one year.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, whoa, that's right down the road.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_05: That's right over there.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_05: I had I had zero clue about it.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but then we started getting into a conversation about like, well, the here's an organization that's definitely helping out unhouse people and their their their method is effective.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's not, I mean, in right, yeah.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is effective up until a point.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and also, you know, scale-wise, it's it's it's something you can't scale super huge.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_05: It does have to, it's impacting a smaller bit of that community, but it is impacting them and it is effective in certain ways.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I got to preach there.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like they, you know, invited me out and I come came and preached there, and it was wonderful.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I truly was blessed by uh everybody at committee first.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I do feel like they they are have some at least some public support there.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I and I don't want to get into it more because you're like, yeah, you're well, hey, I'd love to do that, but Supreme Court, you can't do that.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_05: It would make it difficult.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: It would make it difficult.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: Can I add one thing?
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just kind of just going back.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just to, you know, we're here, you're running for um this office, you know, it's public office, we're pastors.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I would just you made a comment earlier about I would never understand the abortion, you know, situation as a man, right?
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just I I think obviously true.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we we there's a limit of a limit, a limit to how much I can understand.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe that's a better way to phrase it.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: But right, right, right, right.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: My encouragement would just be to you when it comes to bills and legislation, stand on you know, God's word.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: There might be a lot of situations or issues that you go, man, me as this or as that can't fully understand.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there's sympathy there, you know.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the end of the day, when it comes to law, we got to stand if God's word says that this is wrong, then it doesn't matter, you know, if I don't understand it.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've got to stand on what God's word says.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like what at least for me personally, like what I would love to see in public officials and government in um politics is Christians stepping into these places willing to stand firmly on God's word and say, we're gonna legislate according to what God says is right and wrong.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna legislate according to what scripture says is true, um, and use that as the moral foundation.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I would just commend that to you and encourage you in that.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let um let the scriptures really be, you know, your um uh moral foundation uh when it comes to these.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, what does the Bible say about when life begins?
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not what the federal government says, not what, you know, it's what does scripture say about the dignity of human life as image bearers, when life begins, um, those types of things.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_05: And and that's gonna be a conversation had dozens and dozens of more times.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and I think even within, you know, certain uh church circles on when does not church circles, but religious circles, when does life begin?
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_05: They're gonna have that conversation because I I think there are even gonna be small sects of that of the Christian church that will not view it as conception.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_02: And if you go, I mean that the what's really hard is as running as a Democrat, then you're gonna have a really tough go because I think the the platform is is very much about uh you know, what is it, reproductive freedom is the way they would put that.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and so that would just go counter to the whole party.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_02: So just something to I don't think about.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's not my top thing, you know.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_05: That that's that's it's there, it's definitely something I think is needs to be considered and and talked about and and bills put to law.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: So schools, I think, is one of your top things.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, uh public education.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things uh uh is Austin Austin ISD is part of your Austin ISD is part of the district, and so is Brown Rock and Flugerville.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Flugerville, Round Rock.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_05: Do you do you like what kind of role do you I mean, how does the So like what would the legislative branch of the government have to do with like what would you even be able to do?
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um so conversation I think is gonna be more along the lines of uh what we would then instruct certain organizations to do.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_05: It would be a bill that would put forth to instruct the Texas Education Agency uh that hey, this is what needs to be done, whether it's a commission like we talked about earlier that you know the team put together on marriage and family.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like we need uh a review of said X, Y, and Z to see what is more beneficial for our students.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_05: So that would be like the first conversations we probably have.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_05: And then based upon those, then enact something that would probably alongs again, it's probably gonna be working with the State Board of Education and the Texas Education Agency because those are the overarching um entities which oversee curriculum, testing, and and things like that.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, go ahead.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and but like funding though, the funding aspect comes from like what the legislative legislature kind of dictates the amount per student that you would receive for those that show up at second period on the day.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because like gosh, that's tough.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: That that's wild stuff, yeah.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think there was even uh Talerico put in a uh a bill that wanted to increase like uh teacher pay uh like for uh five thousand dollar annual but he's he's the one that kind of got five thousand dollar annual bonuses for educators in high poverty schools, which passed, which way to go.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then he also put something out for he wanted to increase per student funding by 500 bucks, I guess a kid, uh, and with fair distribution to low wealth districts with ties to teacher pay raises.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that got stuck in community.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I I do appreciate like that aspect of Hib having kind of an eye on education.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_02: But the one thing I'm noticing, at least it's in the news a lot, Austin ISD schools have a lot of F ratings, um, which affects property values, which affects, you know, I'm not gonna put my kids in those schools.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like I'm out.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's a lot of like smart kid flight to the charter schools or to the private schools, or they're just gonna move.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_05: They're gonna go out to like Ean's ISD, which is just across that way.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, yeah.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Or like whatever, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, you know, what I don't know if this this might be beyond anyone's pay grade, but like have you have you thought through solutions on what that what could be a solution for that?
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Just the problem of failing schools.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_05: So uh first, I think re-evaluating how schools are funded.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's property tax that's done majority is how school funded.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_05: And we used to have this we implemented a while ago, a couple decades ago, the Robin Hood program.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um my dad hated it, yeah, but under he hated it, but said, I understand it.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_05: And where we lived in San Antonio was a very wealthy area.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_05: It was the Alamo Heights independent school district.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_05: And he would tell me all the time, gosh, you know, your school district gives away X amount of dollars.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Oh, that's horrible.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_05: But having been to school there at this, the teachers that they were able to employ because they were able to provide a little bit better, they were providing uh salary that teachers could live in the district.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_05: We had many teachers that had kids that were in the schools.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_05: So teachers were living in the district, teachers were staying there.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_05: There was not turnover as we see in some of these bigger districts.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you go to Austin ISD, you know, uh a teacher probably knew, let's say she she's fresh out of UT, yeah, and she gets thrashed because she's like, I and we actually had one of because we were here at Wells Branch at um Jolie Johnson Elementary, and we had a really great teacher, and she was like, I'm quitting.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like she was it was her first year.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_02: She taught her kid Kidd.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, I'm out, I'm out.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: My and my wife, who was a teacher, she's like, Don't quit.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Just get out of, move to a different school, don't quit.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And now she lived halfway ever after.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think she's in like Leander or something.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, but so I think there's like the schools are so like the uh the conduct, the kids' attitudes, which makes the teachers like, I'm out, or like they're just in survival mode.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I don't and again, this gets into like as someone's just sort of observing.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know there's F ratings that the T gives, and I know that they're they're trying to put in new curriculum, they're trying to, you know, they've taken over uh Houston ISD and just Fort Worth.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Fort Worth is is taking over.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And they and now Houston had the greatest, like um they've had a good turnaround.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's wild.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_05: They've had a good turnaround.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_05: They've had some issues with that though.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_05: They've had a dip in their student population.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_05: You know, they've gone from 190,000 students in 2023 when the takeover happened.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_05: They've dropped like five percent of their student population because families don't want their kids in those schools to say, like, hey, we've now lost that that community.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_05: We've decided who the school board is and what they're gonna do, and they lose that.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so what's interesting, the people that left were probably the people that could leave.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where I'm like, they somehow turned it around with the lowest income kids that couldn't leave, that were stuck, and they turned it around at Houston I state.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Not and my only thinking it, and this is probably way beyond what you could do as a uh a Texas state representative, but why not make like we're I know this is we're all about freedom and uh school boards, and but man, wouldn't it be great if you had like a top-down, like here's the one system, and we are here are all of our like kind of like how UT has like all its schools, you know, um you know, UT Arlington or UT uh SA, UT UTSA, it's all part of the University of Texas school system or whatever.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_02: To me, it seems like, man, what an opportunity to kind of make it a uniform standards where people could kind of move in and out, and you're kind of like it's the army.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_02: I would love for teachers to kind of like, hey, you have to serve your time just like everyone has to go to Fort Hood at some point.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you go serve your time there, and then you know, you kind of get moved up and you're based on your meritocracy of teaching.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's just my thought on it.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what if you have any other thoughts on it.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_05: That is, yeah, yeah, it does sound like that's an army because then you're very, very everything is the same across the board.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, which is you're right, El Paso district versus somewhere down in the district and down like in the valley versus Dallas versus small school districts.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it all depends upon like how much money do they have at the time.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_05: What by by kind of standardizing everything, that's really gonna some people are gonna view that as like, oh, that's you know, totalitarian or whatever the distribution of the same thing for everybody.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um better school districts are gonna hate that.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the school districts like Ean's, yeah, is gonna be like, no, no, no, we're doing fine.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_05: Do not touch us.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_05: Don't touch us.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, whereas some other schools that are maybe struggling, they're gonna be like, well, that might be an option because then you can kind of come over and maybe we can focus on other other things to help us turn around.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_05: And there are three things I would like us to consider when like how can we improve schools?
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_05: First off, um, it is it is a safe environment.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, and that can be broken down, safe from exterior entities, kind of like like uh hardening of the schools.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh is that the right word for it?
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like where you don't know, hardening.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_05: I so uh so um the program I worked for, GeoForce, I worked in Uvaldi ISD.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_05: I worked at the high school, I worked at the middle school.
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_05: So I was one degree of separation from what happened at Rob Elementary.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_05: I knew the teachers, I didn't know anybody personally that was affected, but I I felt the community.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so we need to first talk about okay, secure schools, a safe environment from exterior, but also a safe interior.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_05: So that is you've talked about it with Jolie Johnson.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, teachers need to be safe.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, students need to be safe from one another.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_05: So we need to have a safe environment for our students, right?
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_05: So that's something we need to work on uh for our school districts.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think of the policy?
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_02: I literally don't know.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just like, what would you do to make it more safer?
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like you'd almost have like a bodyguard in there for the teacher or something.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't know.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm just I have no idea.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_05: We're yeah, I feel like bodyguard kind of getting into like a George Oral 1984, really watching everybody.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_05: But but sometimes, you know, especially in schools like camera systems, simple cameras.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_05: Camera systems should be utilized to make sure that what's are they allowed to have cameras on school on classrooms in certain areas, but I don't know if all classrooms are allowed to have that.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_05: That's a great question.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_05: That's something I think we should look at.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's like a privacy thing or something about that, but there shouldn't be right.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_05: Like what a classroom should be for learning.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, if if when when teachers have their break period, you know, if it's in the classroom and they allow students to come in, that should still be visible.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, we were always taught anytime you are interacting with students, it's it's a two-to-one rule.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_05: Either two students or one adult, one or two adults, one student, you know, always have that two to one rule.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, and if cameras allow you to kind of make sure that that's always a thing, then why not?
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_05: That's here.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like we're bouncing ideas.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we'll go to the two.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_05: Let's go right put the put a bill together.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, like first is always a safe environment, both exterior safe but interior safe.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_05: So teachers need to feel safe because anybody who works in any job, if you don't feel safe, you don't want to work there.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_05: And and teachers, let's be honest, teachers go to teach because they love the that idea, that idea of teaching.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_05: Teaching is such a a difficult profession because working with whether it's elementary age students, you have to have that love of kids that are just gonna ask you why, what, you know, yeah, all the time.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_05: And and um, or if you're working with middle school students who I think are the toughest to deal with, uh in terms of like they're still learning how to uh uh communicate, how to act.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and as a teacher, you're trying to control them in a room.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_05: It's a tough job.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_05: But if you want to be a teacher, like I am all for commending you for that.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_05: So you need to be safe, you need to have safety in your school because if you are not, you're not gonna want to do it long.
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then again, we're talking about teacher turnover.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_05: They're they're gonna come in, not feel safe, and leave.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um so safe environment.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, a quality education.
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_05: So uh we've had a lot of shifts.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_05: So so school boards are allowed to kind of identify what type of education they're going to put forth.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_05: And again, that's where parents have that opportunity to choose, to choose their school board and where they're going with that.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_05: So that should be, you know, again, if we want to talk about parents, hey, your school board matters.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_05: So if you have not voted in your school board elections in the last 10 years, then you have nobody to complain to about what your edge your child's education is about.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_05: They are the ones that can identify what they want to use.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_05: Now, you know, I'm in favor of certain, you know, educations over others because uh of what they put out there, but um, that is parents choosing that board for that.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so quality education.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I know we've talked a little bit about uh previously before this podcast, but I did mention that like I'm not a huge big person on standardized testing.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_05: But standardized testing has its merits.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_05: We've talked about okay, yeah, for for for merit, like how are they learning, how are they doing these things?
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_05: But um I think we need to identify opportunities for kids that don't rely upon standardized testing because there are those that that can't.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess the only problem with that is how you're gonna evaluate this.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_02: My kid has dyslexia, and I have another kid that there I have three of my four kids have like a 504 descriptor, which means that they're assistants.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_02: They're like special ed kids.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so what that means is like each one of them needs extra help.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_02: But that I only found that out through standardized testing.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_00: What are your I was just gonna see, like, what are your thoughts on in terms of like again, another intersection of faith and policy and stuff?
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um like should kids, should public schools teach about God?
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Should we, you know, if you look back at like the first history books that were used in America, it's very clearly like Christian God is at, you know, um the center of the history of the nation and the moral foundation again, um, things like having Ten Commandments in classrooms, teaching about God, or Bible stories, Christian values, like what how does that play into your view of education?
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_05: I think you know, moral stories that are coming from the Bible, they are beneficial.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_05: I think kids at a young age do need to learn that.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_05: Now, if we're gonna use them in schools, we are again gonna come up.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_05: I think at that particular Supreme Court case is uh was that Engel versus Vitali?
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_05: Also again another issue.
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_05: Another issue where uh that one was providing uh time for kids to do public prayer and and a particular prayer.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_05: So that one put up the wall for there.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um I putting putting up something like the Ten Commandments definitely needs to be done in in classrooms for like history classrooms, like that is history and and something that we should all learn about.
• 1:22:46
  SPEAKER_05: But at the same time, like there are other parts of history that need to be taught as well.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_05: So even prior to you know, if we're gonna talk about Old Testament, you know, um there are other uh um civilizations that were around cultures that were existing.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_05: Also need to be, we have need to have that discussion where that needs to be broken down, that the family.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_05: The family does need to provide a little bit more conversation to their kids about like, hey, I know you're understanding and learning about this, but if if we are going to have this conversation about morals, we have that based on the Bible.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So the T, the Texas Education Agency just put out uh blue bonnet curriculum, which is exactly that.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's wild, it's amazing.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_02: It has has pretty much the entire gamut of religion, but it's like where you where do you get all of your um semantics from, idioms from?
• 1:23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Here's like you know, the golden rule, here's where you get this from, here's the story of the golden rule.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, here's what uh the painting of the Last Supper, here's what the Last Supper, you know.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Then it also goes into, you know, um Buddha and all the other it does give a full disclosure on that.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's really exciting to see the tech the state put out something that does give a fuller picture of a historical worldview that includes scripture.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, that's what what what's really great is I think our country was founded upon biblical principles.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think one of the things that we need to teach his historically, like you said, is like, what were those principles that our country was founded on?
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And let's not uh get away from that.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, that's that's my only thought on on that.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Holland, would you what'd you want to add to that?
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was just curious, yeah.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_00: What you're like, you know, if let I mean Supreme Court can't, you know, rulings can be overrules.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right, that's right.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you know if they can, if uh what's best, you know, if it's like this is what's best for the education of Texas children, then you know, I'm gonna try to take this all the way to the top, and because this is what kids need.
• 1:24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it's like, no, I don't think it's important, just kind of curious where you landed on that.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_05: I definitely think when we talked about this blue bonnet, if they are, I haven't looked at as much into it, and so homework for me.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but if they are providing this full picture, yeah, because I think that's important that that children get a full picture and are able to make choice, you know, based upon guidance again from family.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_05: What are they, you know, what are your parents helping you learn about?
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's important.
• 1:25:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we would both agree, like the family is primarily responsible, obviously, for the education, discipline, discipleship of the children.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's kind of like, okay, how how does school support that?
• 1:25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you either you everybody homeschools.
• 1:25:27
  SPEAKER_02: You either homeschool during the day or you homeschool at night.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, like because everything my kid learns is because I either do their homework for them or uh I help them coach them and plead with them to actually do it.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so everybody's gonna homeschool at some point, or if they're working, they're not, and they're gonna be left to their own devices with some, you know, a teacher, God bless her or him or whoever is doing it.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_02: But that is like that is gonna leave them like with such a like you said, you had two parents at home.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a huge advantage.
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so that wild advantage is gotta be like there's got that's why that's why you need community, and because I think a lot of kids are struggling uh to make it through the school system because they don't have the support to pull it off, and they need community.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_05: But that's just my I mean, how do you expect a kid to come home?
• 1:26:17
  SPEAKER_05: Right, maybe help out with like the younger siblings, make dinner because parents are still working, maybe they're working two jobs.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_05: That is an immensely difficult thing for that kid, or even again, those younger kids that maybe they're taking care of, like super hard.
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_05: This teenager is still learning themselves, yeah.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and now they're they're responsible.
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_05: And and that's a tough situation, and that's where we kind of you get into the conversation about like, well, we're gonna go back to that that commission on marriage and family, and how can we try and better on the city?
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm excited to hear see what that reports that comes.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_05: But then also we have that conversation of you know, if if families are having to work multiple jobs, we need to have a conversation about like you know, what is the cost of living in certain areas, you know, because if they can't afford even with you know multiple jobs, what are we gonna do about that?
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a And is that is that the responsibility of the state?
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I think that's what's hard, right?
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta go at some point, it's okay if there's either we eliminate property tax, which would be awesome, or or that person's gonna move.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and although migration isn't like the the the biggest win, it is an option.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think sometimes we kind of go, oh, we can't have anyone displaced or moved because that would be some sort of negative thing.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's the part where I'm like, some that's just part of life.
• 1:27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like you guys moved a gazillion times, and you know, I moved a bunch as well.
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think sometimes we kind of make that as like the ultimate negative thing, which it might be a great thing.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Why not live in a place where you're not stressed with the financial burden of the property taxes that you're around it?
• 1:27:45
  SPEAKER_02: But get rid of property tax.
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_02: There we go.
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_05: Ah well, then again, you're getting rid of a lot of like income for the state that especially goes to schools.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_05: But to kind of flip this, you know, have you ever uh seen these these uh news clips from wherever that's like go to Italy because of a dying town and buy this house for like one euro, but you got to renovate it and live there.
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know about y'all, but I I certainly love driving through some of these smaller towns in Texas and being like, man, what would it take for us to live here?
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but that that question is like a farmer.
• 1:28:14
  SPEAKER_05: Be a farmer.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_05: What is the job there?
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the thing is some of these small towns in Texas are struggling because people are leaving them.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_05: They don't want to be farmers anymore, but and they're they're moving to cities where they're looking for employment.
• 1:28:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like Austin, we you know, we had that surge of people, especially you know, with hope tech and with tech that are coming here and and yeah, they're driving up housing prices.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_05: So the people who originally were here, that's tough.
• 1:28:37
  SPEAKER_05: Property tax is a tough thing to overcome.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can you can really talk about you have a case for trying to case, or like just think even if they just left it, like whatever you bought it at, that's where it's stuck at for the rest of your life.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, you're gonna you really get into what California does here.
• 1:28:51
  SPEAKER_05: California has a a limitation on property tax increases.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like it's real hard.
• 1:28:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh um a friend who is moving to California, her father bought it in the 1960s, right?
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_05: And he's had minimal increases on his property.
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's like one percent each year.
• 1:29:08
  SPEAKER_05: And then when it gets transferred, it's when it gets transferred, as long as it's inherited, okay, she can inherit it at the same property tax rate.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, but that's that's California, that's California.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_05: That means you have to move out there.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, I I also think about I think about you know, these small towns in Texas, like, okay, well, if we can find ways that like employment can can come to these, we can have more affordable housing.
• 1:29:31
  SPEAKER_05: Everybody wants to live in the big cities, and I understand that, and I'm very fortunate, again, fortunate that my off and I, we had a great jobs that we could afford to live here.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but that is a conversation that that does need to be had.
• 1:29:40
  SPEAKER_05: You know, what is the responsibility of the government?
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_05: Is it to assist?
• 1:29:44
  SPEAKER_05: Is it to limit what is paid?
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_05: Is it to say, hey, you know, maybe we need to talk to some of these small chamber of commerce uh in small towns and be like, hey, what opportunities do you have for people to move here?
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, is it, you know, if is it uh employment process?
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_05: Problems, or do people not want to move there because maybe there's no community that they're associated with?
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_05: You know, how can we plant a church?
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_05: Plant a church.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_05: That could be one.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um in like all that.
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I agree.
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like all the different all the amenities, I guess, I don't know, amenities is the right word.
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of getting people in there.
• 1:30:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where the uh as a politician, is that your role to talk to the private sector and say, hey guys, can you guys it's not it's not my role.
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like like who does that?
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, someone's gotta think of like that.
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_05: Or a chamber of commerce to be like, you know, and again, that would also be a representative who is a representative of certain areas.
• 1:30:39
  SPEAKER_05: Like, how can we increase our population in our in our neck of the woods?
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I'm not gonna I'm not telling anybody not to move to Austin.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_05: But if you're coming here, please understand that it is a pretty expensive place to live.
• 1:30:52
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:30:53
  SPEAKER_05: You know, the people that I would be representing if elected, yeah, like that is a conversation we're gonna have.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_05: Like Austin is not a cheap place.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_05: Now, if you're looking to come to Texas, uh there are areas that are more affordable, but they don't have everything that Austin has or everything that Dallas has or whatever the cities have.
• 1:31:11
  SPEAKER_05: So that's you know, it's it's what are your trade-offs there?
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_05: And again, if we can have communities set up that are willing to say, hey, we need more people in this small town because we're we're a dying town.
• 1:31:22
  SPEAKER_05: And again, maybe you buy a property for 10 bucks and you have to renovate it and live there for 10 years, and then you know, that could be a way to try and try and help get uh get those communities growing.
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_05: That's good, man.
• 1:31:34
  SPEAKER_05: So actually, I I had a conversation with my wife.
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_05: I said, you know, with immigration that we have here in Texas, and we're seeing, and I and we drive, I love driving through the hill country and seeing some of these small towns um that are just look like I see abandoned houses, I see houses that haven't been, you know.
• 1:31:49
  SPEAKER_05: What is that town doing to try and bring people back to them?
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_05: You know, maybe is there a language barrier?
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_05: Are they are immigrants coming to big cities because they know that there is a a language that they can speak?
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_05: So could a chamber of commerce or could a church say, come here, we have uh uh classes for on learning English, and we're gonna bring you in and say, we want you to be part of our community and let's help you.
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_05: And if one of the biggest barriers that you have right now is a language barrier, how can we work on that?
• 1:32:18
  SPEAKER_05: That's good.
• 1:32:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, uh, so that was like a conversation that I was having because we were driving up past Waco to Lake Whitney.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and there was a small town that was like, Oh, this is a cute town, it has a little store.
• 1:32:28
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, this is so great.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm like, I see an empty house here, I see an empty house there, I see an empty house here.
• 1:32:32
  SPEAKER_05: It's like I wonder what small towns are doing to try and bring people back in.
• 1:32:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I don't know.
• 1:32:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's I think Tulsa at one point was paying people ten thousand dollars a pop to have people move there.
• 1:32:42
  SPEAKER_05: There were there were some places like Arkansas really trying to increase people to come to their street.
• 1:32:45
  SPEAKER_05: They did that.
• 1:32:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you did.
• 1:32:46
  SPEAKER_05: How did it turn out?
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they love it, they're still there, found a church.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 1:32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, what are the things that you want to la we have only a couple more minutes?
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_02: What else?
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_02: What else you got?
• 1:32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is there anything?
• 1:32:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you talked about some things that you really would like.
• 1:33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh probably last question for these uh you really loved about hey, here's what James did that I, you know, I really want to keep going.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you were like, I would do this differently?
• 1:33:12
  SPEAKER_05: Right now, I don't have it.
• 1:33:13
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not saying that it isn't, it doesn't exist.
• 1:33:16
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:33:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but right now what I have been looking at are the things that I'm like, oh, I like this.
• 1:33:20
  SPEAKER_05: And if it didn't pass, like, oh, I like this, how can we champion that?
• 1:33:24
  SPEAKER_05: Right now, that's been my my sidestep research.
• 1:33:26
  SPEAKER_05: So uh give me a little time and I will come back with like, hey, James, you know, if he had this proposal, I'm like, I'm not sure.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I 100% agree with this.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_05: I haven't really delved into those right now at the moment.
• 1:33:39
  SPEAKER_05: But okay, that's fair.
• 1:33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I appreciate you, man.
• 1:33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for thanks for coming on.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I didn't get to say my last thing.
• 1:33:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, say your last thing.
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_05: Uh on education.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_05: It was three things.
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_05: Like the security, we we we got into a sidebar.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_05: Don't worry.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, the security, so like uh uh, you know, um a safe environment, uh, the quality education, and I'm gonna be honest with y'all, I know it's gonna cost money, but I think we need to feed our students.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know what y'all think about kids who are hungry.
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 1:34:03
  SPEAKER_05: They can be mean, they can be crowded, they can be destructive.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_05: And what happens during the summer So during my summer program with GeoForce, there we fed the kids.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_05: They had breakfast, lunch, dinner, and I had a I had a suitcase that was always filled with like granola bars, uh, I carried apples and oranges.
• 1:34:20
  SPEAKER_05: We had snacks.
• 1:34:21
  SPEAKER_05: When you when I had kids say this is the first time I've had three meals in like one day, that yeah, that that kind of breaks your heart.
• 1:34:28
  SPEAKER_05: That that that that hits you right in right in your feels, and you're like, what do you mean?
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_05: Especially as somebody who never really experienced that.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:35
  SPEAKER_05: I mean that so yeah, how do I expect a kid who how do I have an expectation of a of a young, either a young adult when they're in high school, a elementary aged student, a kid, how am I expecting them to one, be attentive, uh not lash out if they are hungry.
• 1:34:54
  SPEAKER_05: And unfortunately, again, we've talked about economic uh issues in the home.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes food is not available for them.
• 1:35:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_05: And and if they're coming to school hungry, that is starting off on a man use the church.
• 1:35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, say, church, go and be a part of feeding kids and making sure they have lunches, making sure they have especially during the summer stuff, man.
• 1:35:14
  SPEAKER_02: That would be huge.
• 1:35:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, I appreciate that.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's so yeah.
• 1:35:18
  SPEAKER_05: That's the last, that's my third.
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_05: No, I like it.
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_05: I like it.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Man, thanks for being here, John.
• 1:35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh on thank you as always.
• 1:35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, thanks so much for watching.
• 1:35:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any questions, we can always bring John back.
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Text in at 737 231 0605.
• 1:35:31
  SPEAKER_02: We would love to hear from you.
• 1:35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh hey, thanks so much for watching.
• 1:35:34
  SPEAKER_02: And from our house to yours, have an awesome week of work.