James Talarico

take us in this far right culture war direction at the expense of actual problems we need to solve.

One of the bills that didn't pass last legislative session was a bill that would have provided funding for flood mitigation and emergency systems to get the word out when there's a flood.

And we literally just saw the consequence of not passing that bill over the weekend.

That seems like— You want to know?

Okay.

We're honestly here?

Okay.

That bill was passed by Representative Ken King, a Republican, someone I often have disagreements with, but he's a good man.

He's from far north Panhandle, where they saw historic wildfires last year.

So he put this bill that would have addressed wildfires, also flooding—

And would have, I think, saved some of the lives in Hill Country over the weekend during those catastrophic floods.

That bill passed the state house, the lower chamber that I'm in, on a bipartisan basis.

Overwhelmingly, Democrats and Republicans said, this is good policy.

Let's pass it.

Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor who controls the state Senate, which is the upper chamber, he held that bill hostage so that he could get his THC ban through.

And again, I know this may be confusing people outside of Texas.

We legalized hemp a few years ago.

It's a booming industry.

It's a product that's providing people a lot of relief.

Dan Patrick decided to put this bill forward that would ban all THC products in the state of Texas, basically close.