Brandon Waltens - Senior Editor, Texas Scorecard Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Five fifty two. Now here on the Houston's Morning News. Right,
politicians take donations from all sorts of places, So I'm
always surprised when I here a politician criticizing other politicians
for taking donations, but especially taking donations from billionaires. But
that's exactly what Texas State Representative James tell Rico has

(00:22):
been doing. He's been railing against billionaire influence in politics, yet,
as it turns out, political has revealed he accepted a
fifty nine thousand dollars campaign donation from a pack which
is backed by mega donor Miriam Adelson. If you don't
know who that is. Miriam Edelson is the billionaire owner

(00:43):
of the Las Vegas Sands Hotel in Casino and the
majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks. So here we go,
pot neat Cattle. You're talking about whether us Brandon Walton's
senior editor Texas Corecard. You know, it seems pretty obvious
that people are going to find out about this. If
you're going to be railing against something, best not do
it yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
And James Tallerica folks don't know. He's sort of becoming
quickly one of the latest darlings of Texas Democrats. It
was on the Joe Rogan podcast last month and has
been someone who's been very outspoken against, you know, for
a lot of left wing issues, but has been someone
who's been really outspoken about how you know, he claims

(01:26):
billionaires are running Texas politics, and yet you look at
his campaign finance and you know he's receiving money from
some of these billionaires himself.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well, my guess is maybe he thought, and a lot
of people do think that they can hide behind the pack.
Right I got this contribution from this pack. I had
no idea that this guy was a part of the pack.
You complete ignorance when it comes to something like that, right.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I suppose, Or maybe he just thought nobody would look.
But you know, it's it's one thing, you know, Look,
I think people can have disagreements about what should be
done with campaign finance, but if you're going to be
somebody who's out there and positioning yourself as someone who
says they want to get moneys, you know, influence out
of politics, then you probably should take a look at

(02:12):
your own campaign finance reports before you start doing that.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yea, let's take a look here for a second. At
this guy, Miriam Miriam Adelson, who owns the Las Vegas
An's Hotel, majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Is this
one of the reasons. What other causes does this pack
contribute to him? I'm wondering how many politicians that he
has in his back pocket that are against casino gambling

(02:35):
in Texas or any other form of legalized gambling here
in Texas. Because of the fact that they've got somebody
backing them who's a casino.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Owner, well, you know Las Vegas Sands. This is a
group trying to bring actually casinos to Texas. Sheldon or
Sheldon Agelson's widow, Miriam Agelson, runs the pack. They have
nine million dollars that they're ready to spend on the
campaign elections this cycle. They spent out as much last
election cycle. So this is a group that spends pretty big,

(03:05):
at least has in the last two years in Texas Poltico.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Okay, But they're pro casino in this particular case. But
then there's other ones, probably out of Leuisiana neighboring states
right that are anti Texas casinos and don't want us
to have them because they want our business.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Exactly exactly. You've got all sorts of competing interests the
playout like that.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, it'd be very interesting to know. I've oftentimes wondered too.
You know, right now, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has this
thing about THC that just strikes me. He's over the top.
You know. He's been lobbied by all these different PTSD
groups who want to be able to use THC in
order to be able to deal with the issues that

(03:44):
they're having. He's vehemently against it, and I always wonder.
I always suspect that somebody is somebody who's backing him
would find that to be competition and doesn't want that
to be legal here in Texas well.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Certainly he's seen people make that argument at Bill points
to oh, well, you know, if you've received money from
the alcohol lobby, maybe that's what's driving that. Look. I
don't know. I can't say what motivates the push, but
I think that all these are good questions. I think
it's always a good thing when people, you know, can
take a look at the campaign finance, which is all
public records here in Texas and they tend to draw

(04:18):
their own conclusions.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah. Yeah, more transparency when it comes to where those
donations are coming from would be appreciated. Brandon, Thank you.
Brandon Walton, Senior editor at Texas Scorecard is five fifty
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