Brandon Waltens - Texas Scorecard Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven, twenty four time here in Houston's borning news. It's
not that a member of Dustin Borough's staff has been fired,
it's the reason why they were fired. Joining us to
talk about it from Texas Scorecard has a big story
on it, Brandon Walton's. Yeah, I was thinking it was
a nothing burger until I started reading your story Brandon,
and well, oh my god, he did what explained to

(00:21):
our listeners what it is that who this guy is,
and who he's married to and what he did.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well. Yeah, so Dustin Burroughs this week on Monday, actually
dismissed his general counsel and policy director, a guy by
the name of Jimmy Skipton. Reportedly and this is where
you know, capital sources come in, you know, allegedly put
put that in here. But the obviously he's not saying,

(00:48):
you know, what what happened. You wuldn't expect him to
go into why he got fired. But the reporting is
is that his wife, who is a lobbyist in Austin,
you know that he was essentially maybe representing himself as
two different members and chairs in the House pushing or

(01:12):
pushing against different pieces of legislation, purporting to represent Dustin
Burrows on these matters, but maybe was actually representing his
wife's lobby interests.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh Man, talk about your conflict of interest. Here's my
first question that comes to mind here is is how
is it the Dustin Burroughs took so long to figure
out what was going on?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well? I don't know. And that's why some people are saying, Okay, well,
well how long did they know about this? Certainly a
good thing that he was dismissed if this was indeed
the case. But the question is, you know, how long
did they know is this you know, this person they'
even just you know, they're trying to make this person
a scapegoat. And I think the biggest question is what

(01:59):
lets has been affected during this session by this? Right? Uh?
You know, we we've heard from members off the record
that that they were essentially being treated this way and
being you know, told different things with priorities are not priorities.
But we haven't seen, you know, what what bills were affected,

(02:20):
What would have passed or not passed were this not
the case.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, and and that's that's the important piece of information
to have. And if nothing else too, this also is
opportunity to highlight what a huge problem we have in
the Texas State legislature with lobbyists.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Absolutely, and it's a it's definitely a cultural issue, right
when you look at these staffs of you know, I'm
picking on Dustin Burrows, but you can look at you know,
most statewides, the governor, et cetera, and you look and
you know, these offices are essentially revolving doors of staffers
and lobbyists, and you know, I think that that's something
that raises a lot of questions.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Sure does, All right, Brandon, We'll look forward to the
follow through that I know you're going to have on
this story. Appreciated Brandon Walton's AID Texas scorecard