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Seeing Red
The Seeing Red Podcast dives head-first into Texas politics with its hosts Garrett Fulce and Andi Turner, as they bring the facts, insights, and commentary on the issues that matter most to conservative Texans.
Our mission is simple: facts matter and an informed opinion is the key to making positive change in our great state.
Seeing Red
S001 E030 - Run-Offs and the RPT w/ Rep. Cole Hefner
Episode Summary:
In this week’s alluring episode of 'Seeing Red,' hosts Andi Turner and Garrett Fulce welcome Representative Cole Hefner to dive deep into the intricacies of Texas politics. The discussion is rich with insights into recent primary outcomes, legislative successes, and house dynamics pertaining to the conservative movement in Texas. Listeners are in for a treat as Hefner shares his on-ground experiences and reflections on policy-making in the Lone Star State.
Following a victorious primary, Representative Hefner discusses his overwhelming support in East Texas and responds to various political movements within the state, highlighting the importance of honest and constructive actions in politics. The conversation transitions to the pressing issues of party roles, election integrity, and balancing representing local constituents and engaging with broader state initiatives.
About the Guest:
Representative Cole Hefner, hailing from East Texas, has a storied career in public service and business. Currently serving in the Texas House of Representatives for District 5, Hefner's roots in Mount Pleasant run deep. He is a former county commissioner for Upshur County and a seasoned entrepreneur with 16 years of experience running a construction company before taking over his family's business. Today, Hefner owns an insurance company, maintaining ties to the local business community. Married to Carrie since 2002, they are the proud parents of seven children.
Cole Hefner's campaign website: http://colehefner.com
Email contact for Cole Hefner's campaign: cole@colehefner.com
Follow Garrett on X/Twitter at https://twitter.com/@gwfulce.
Follow Andi on X/Twitter at https://twitter.com/@AndiMTurner.
Follow us on all socials at @theseeingredpod and online at our website Seeing Red Podcast. x.com/gwfulce
Welcome to the Seeing Red podcast with Andy Turner and Garrett Fools checking up on Texas policies and politics, with some federal issues thrown in, like the assault weapons ban, interest rate hikes. You get it, but it's mostly Texas, since we can't ignore the big stuff either. And now here are your hosts, andy Turner and Garrett Fools.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome back to this week's edition of Seeing Red. Andy Turner and Garrett Foles single minute. You can find us, if you want to make comments, at facebookcom slash theseeingredpod. You can email us, if you prefer that, at seeingredpodcastcom, and you can find us on Twitter at theseeingredpod. We have a really special guest today and I'm very excited. I worked with him a couple years ago and he's just a true Texas gentleman. Garrett, tell everybody who we've got.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We have a special guest today. You've probably seen it in the thumbnail or somewhere else, but we have Representative Cole Hefner today from Texas House, district 5 in the Texas House of Representatives. Representative Hefner was born and raised in East Texas and currently resides in Mount Pleasant. He has a district that represents Camp County, rains County, titus County, upshur Wood and parts of Smith County. This is East Texas, deep behind the Pine Curtain. Before being elected to the State House, he was a county commissioner in Upshur County and he owned a construction company for 16 years, eventually took over his family's construction company and today he owns a small business owner of an insurance company. Cole has been happily married to his wife, carrie, since 2002, and they are blessed with seven children. So welcome to the show today, representative Cole Hefner. How are you doing today, representative?
Speaker 4:Man, I'm doing great. Thank you all for having me on your show Fantastic.
Speaker 3:Well, there was a primary recently and I was looking at the results and I hadn't seen anything crazy. It looks like you beat your two opponents quite handily. What was the final on that?
Speaker 4:You know we were just shy of 70% of the vote. That is a number we wanted to get to but didn't think it would happen in reality, and so we got really close and so we were really pleased. It felt good. It felt good to know that our people like the job that we're doing.
Speaker 3:Well, that's great.
Speaker 4:Well, it was interesting because did any?
Speaker 3:of the statewides endorse against you? Yes, one, I believe Was it Sid Miller or was it Ken Paxton?
Speaker 4:It was Ken Paxton. That's the only one I remember being statewide going against me.
Speaker 3:yes, yeah, he didn't do too well in his endorsements, unless it was coincided with somebody that the governor endorsed. I think he was only one-two against people that you know. It was like it was. His efforts were quite poor on the state house level, though you gotta give him. It looks like he was probably the driving force behind getting the Court of Criminal Appeals justices primaried, I think, from what I can tell. But that was the long and short of it. Looking back to that vote and how it was handled the impeachment vote do you have any reflections now, nearly 10 months later?
Speaker 4:It's been something we've talked about. I feel like I took the right vote. I stand behind my vote. We had a lot of reasons to believe that there were some problems there that needed a closer look, and so the House took action to send that to the Senate to have a closer look taken. And you know, the process that we followed was the same exact process that was used to expel a member of the House. There was no complaints about the process that was used in that situation, and so basically the same process through the same committee was followed. It did move kind of fast.
Speaker 4:I think we saw the outside influence that was just like nothing I'd ever seen come down on the Senate for the trial. I think the House must have made the decision to move quickly so that people didn't experience that level of outside pressure. And so you know, could we have done some things different? I think we could have done a little better job telling our story over the summer. If you remember, there was a gag order that was placed right before campaign finance reports were filed. We saw a huge donation to the lieutenant governor that had been had been donated should have ignored the gag order and talked to our voters and told the story about why we did what we did, and so I think the House took the right action. We saw that there were problems, we sent it to the Senate, they took their action, and now it's time for us to get back to work.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Do you think there's going to be any reforms to the impeachment process? That was born from this how this one went down.
Speaker 4:You know it's hard to say. There's still a lot has happened since then and there's still a lot yet to happen between now and next session. Every session has its own personality, its own atmosphere, its own feel, and so we still don't yet know what that's going to look like. But I mean, I think there's probably on the trial side and the impeachment side, there's going to be some people that are looking at it and we'll just have to see what comes along.
Speaker 3:Well, not everybody who was as blessed as you. Not all the incumbents got 70% in their elections. Some folks are still in an election. There's a number of runoffs that are going to be happening. The most notable one, of course, involves Speaker Dave Phelan. What are your thoughts on the Speaker Phelan's runoff race? Runoff yeah, what do you think? Are you seeing anything on the ground? Have you heard from stuff that's coming out of there? What do you think? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4:I think his team has done some evaluating of where they are and how they got to where they are, and I think there's a plan in place to execute for the runoff. I think Speaker Phelan's done a good job for his district. He's done a good job representing the conservative values of Southeast Texas. The results of the session prove that up, and I think when you get in a runoff, it's never a fun place for an incumbent to be in a runoff, but a lot of people try to nitpick. Who got first place, who got second? Are they three points ahead, four points behind? And you know, when you go into a runoff the score is zero to zero. I've been in two runoffs before one of them both but I was second place in one of them and first place in the other, and so runoffs are their extra. Campaigns are miserable People that say.
Speaker 4:I love campaign and I'm like what is wrong with you? But there are some really really good parts of the campaign. Don't hear me wrong. But there are some hard parts, but in a runoff it's especially hard and so but I think they're going to be working hard, got a lot of conservative victories to run on and I'm hopeful that he prevails in that race. I mean, there were tons.
Speaker 2:And so you know, I'm a big fan of Dave Phelan and I'm watching this race and I'm watching certain groups try to make this into some sort of referendum on his job as speaker. But he was not elected by the people of his district to be speaker. He was elected to represent them and, to my eyes and I think Garrett probably shares this opinion, but I will let him weigh in on that he has represented them very, very well. But I will let him weigh in on that. He has represented them very, very well.
Speaker 2:And so the race, hopefully and not being down in that area, I don't know, but I have some friends I want that race to stay about. Did he represent our values? Did he represent us correctly, how we want to be represented, and not, like you know some house politics stuff on? You know what his title is. So either he did the job in public policy that you wanted him to do or he didn't. And I know from watching that all of the conservative initiatives, that that the governor called for, that he called for, that the lieutenant those all got through I mean 2021, we got 19 2A bills through alone, and that would not have happened, you know, had Speaker Phelan not been on board, I mean well, and I'll tell you there's.
Speaker 4:I'm a fan of Governor Abbott. I think he's doing a great job, especially with the border, keeping our state a leader in economics with a low burden, low governmental burden, and so businesses are allowed to thrive. We're one of the freest states in the country and but you know, we've been trying to pass permitless carry, we've been trying to ban abortion, we've been trying to do historic property tax relief. There's a lot, of, a lot of issues that have we've been working on for decades and not until Dade Phelan become speaker Did these policy, these pieces of legislation, begin to move. And you know, it doesn't matter who you like or who you don't like, the truth matters, results matter, and the results show that we've had the two most conservative sessions we've ever had under the most conservative speaker we've ever had. And, like I say, every speaker has their challenges right. Everyone has their strong suits and their weak suits. Some of them are more involved in the details, Some of them are more standoffish, more hands-off, some are high pressure, some are low pressure, and so there's always members that say, well, I wish we'd have done this, I wish we'd have done that, I wish I could have done more, whatever, but it's about more than just an individual member. It's not about me. It's not about what committee I get to serve on or what bill I get to carry or what chair I get to sit in. It's about what 56,000 abortions performed in this state in 2019.
Speaker 4:In 2023, after the heartbeat bill and after the trigger ban, we had less than 40 medical abortions performed in this state. So if that's the only victory that that we achieve in my time in the Texas House, that is monumental in my book. That's the reason that issue is why I got involved in the first place. And abortions are banned in Texas. We didn't slow them down, we didn't put up a hurdle. We said, boom, they're illegal. Now we do have some other things. There's abortion pills, chemical abortions that are still coming in. That's a complicated issue. I filed a bill on that actually last session. They're being mailed from Canada, from Cuba, in pet medicine boxes, and so there's still work to be done there. But the fact is, 56,000 abortions were not performed in Texas. That were in 2019.
Speaker 4:You look at the massive property tax relief $18 billion 2019. You look at the massive property tax relief $18 billion. Everybody's pretty much homestead or home property taxes went down. We've got people out there saying that we raised, that they're telling lies, that we raised their property taxes when we in fact lowered those property taxes.
Speaker 4:Look what we did to protect kids. We banned dirty books in our schools. We banned kids at drag shows. We banned kids on pornographic websites. We made it harder for kids to get on social media sites. We banned boys and girls sports. We banned men and women's sports. So many things that we've done for our kids, from abortion all the way up through college there. The border security bills the strongest border security bills ever passed in the history of the state allowing this, you know, authorizing state law enforcement to enforce those to catch people and punish them for coming into our country illegally, and the list just goes on and on. And so for people who say that we don't have a conservative speaker or we don't have a conservative house, they're just ignoring the facts and, to be blunt, they're just telling you a lie Well there's so much misinformation that came out during the elections outright during the primary, especially from this group of folks who align with the Fend Texas Liberty Texas Scorecard.
Speaker 3:formerly Empower Texans, now it's Texans United for something as well as all their affiliate organizations of Texas Gun Rights and Texans for Vaccine Choice, which didn't used to be part of the group and now is, and, like I, have all of these different groups that are kind of falling into this ecosystem that are pushing out the same talking points from the primary donors of those groups, which end up being Tim Dunn and the Wilkes brothers. So there are a few of those champions quote-unquote in the Texas house, notably Brian Harrison, steve Toth, nate Schatzlein and Tony Tenderholt. I think Brian Harrison came out this week and was saying that this was the most liberal session in the state's history. You just listed off a lot of stuff. Is that a liberal platform you just kind of listed off, or is that a conservative platform? Brian Harrison just lied to everybody again.
Speaker 4:Right when he made that statement on Twitter. He lied. That's just all there is to it. The agenda that we passed last session and the one before is the most conservative on anybody's scale anywhere in the country. I mean, these are massive, landmark, historic wins that happened in the state of Texas and not before Speaker Phelan became the speaker. And so did we get everything we wanted? No, we didn't. There's always more work to do, but we got a lot of massive wins. I mean permitless carry. You haven't been able to carry a gun without a permit in a couple hundred years. And so carrying a gun to your hotel room, not closing gun stores, gun manufacturers, shooting ranges, things like that for any reason, like a pandemic or any other kind of disaster so make sure people have access to those places. Making Texas a sanctuary state. For the Second Amendment Clarifying where you can and can't carry a firearm, and, like Andy said, I don't know how many bills we passed. She said 19 in 2021. I think we passed about a dozen last session, and so these are. These are massive wins, and you know it's it's.
Speaker 4:It saddens me, it disappoints me, that some people in the conservative movement which I am part of, movement which I am part of. I was a joint author on constitutional carry. I was a joint author on SB4 and won the House version. You know, I filed a boys and girls sports bill, got a hearing on that in 2021, the first hearing on it and so I think Rep Swanson actually wound up passing that in a special election in 2021. The strongest election integrity bills we've ever had of anybody in the country.
Speaker 4:So it saddens me, it's disappointing, to see people that say that they're Christian conservatives and then go to Twitter, go to podcasts, go on the news and just tell lies. And I think it does. I think it damages our conservative movement Heck, it can say it damages the witness of Christians to say, whoa is that? I know that's not what's happening, but they're saying this and they claim to be Christian. You know what's what's going on here, and so we have plenty of problems in our state and country and issues that we need to be working on without without telling lies about what we're doing country and issues that we need to be working on without telling lies about what we're doing. So that's what I hope we get back to doing the work and telling the truth about it.
Speaker 2:Good, I do have a question for you. I did not catch this on Twitter, even though I like sit on my phone on Twitter like for hours, so I didn't catch this. Did Senator Harrison say why this was the most liberal session ever?
Speaker 4:You know I don't remember the details I do believe he cited some things that he that he pointed to some resolutions that were passed and maybe some things that didn't get passed.
Speaker 2:I don't remember the exact details, so some resolutions, not actual laws.
Speaker 4:I'm pretty sure there was a resolution that was alluded to and then probably some laws that we did not pass, and so don't quote me on that, because I'm going by memory and I was scrolling and I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it, but I scrolled by the tweet. So but yeah, do you think? Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Sorry, as we've. You know, the speaker is in a runoff, but there's going to be a speaker's race regardless when you get to session, because there's already people announcing for their bid to run for speaker. There's already people announcing for their bid to run for Speaker, notably out of the Houston area, out of HT29,. Dr Oliverson has announced that he is running for Speaker. He also cited a couple bills that didn't get passed and a number of other things. Is there anything in particular? I mean there's not really from that group of folks with the Fintech celebrity, but he is Dan Patrick's neighbor. He's more kind of just adjacent to it. Do you think that Tom has a chance of being speaker in the next session? You know?
Speaker 4:that's hard to say. There's so much to happen between now and then. I think everybody's more focused on these runoffs and, in particular, speaker Phelan's runoff, and so, you know, does he have a chance? I don't know. It kind of came out of nowhere, I didn't see it coming. Tom's a friend of mine, we were, we came in together and share a lot, of, a lot of the same political philosophies and so, but you know, I think we're focused on the primary runoffs and then hopefully getting the same speaker reelected so that we can continue to build on the successes that we've had in the last two sessions. Do you think?
Speaker 3:that if the Speaker returns to the House and retains the gavel, what do you think session will be like in your relationship with the Senate and everything else, given just the amount that Dan Patrick has campaigned not just against the Speaker but against a number of state reps?
Speaker 4:You know it's going to create some challenges. I believe, though, that the House will do what it's always done, and we will rise to the occasion to focus in on what is good policy for our constituents. I do think it's important that the house maintain its position as the house, and the senate maintain their position as the senate. There's a reason that we have a house in the senate, there's a reason that the lieutenant governor is elected statewide and that the speaker is elected by the members of the house, and there's a reason to have, um, you know, a check, checks and balances on on one another, um, so that we don't have one house ruling over the other and trampling on those checks and balances that our founders wisely put in place. And so you know it'll be a challenge.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you, to have the presiding officer of the Senate come into house races is not common. It's kind of unprecedented, and I'm not going to try to sugarcoat things. He endorsed me kind of at the last minute. I was not expecting that, but he did, and you know, typically, on policy, I agree, I don't agree on coming and getting involved in House politics.
Speaker 4:I think the House needs to run the House, the Senate needs to run the Senate, and I think that's to protect the checks and balances. So right now, we have conservative leadership, but we may not always have that, and so we don't need to tear down those rules and barriers that protect from one party running over the other for the fact that one of these days we may be in the minority, and we don't need one person running both houses. We need the House to be the House and it be the Senate, and so there will be some challenges coming back in the next session, but I think the vast majority of people in the House and Senate want to do what's best for this state, and we'll rise above it all and do what's best for this state, and, uh, we'll. We'll rise above it all and do what's best for our people so I'm gonna pick it something that you said.
Speaker 2:So you brought up the state party and, um, as people who listen to the show know that I don't have a whole lot of patience for the current head of the rpt, matt rinaldi. Um, as I oh, probably more than people want to hear, it is my opinion that the head of the state party has three jobs Raise money, get Republicans in seats and register Republican voters. That's your job. We don't take sides in primaries, we stay out of it, and then, when, when the general comes up, we go, we go and I I not being born in the state you guys know and call them. You may or may not remember I'm a refugee. Refugee from a very liberal state, not California, guys, california East. So I'm just wondering, like, do you think I mean you've lived here a lot longer than I have? Do you think I'm off the mark here?
Speaker 4:You know my, so my, belief in what the party should be doing. Like you said, recruiting people to run in those seats that don't have Republicans in them said recruiting people to run in those seats that don't have Republicans in them, raising money for the party, getting voters registered, getting voters turned out, and that costs money. To raise money to do those things I do, I do. I think I think to have a conservative platform and to have a party that can promote that platform is a positive we need as a conservative, as a conservative rep from rural East Texas. We need an honest rightward pressure on the process. If you don't have pressure on the process, everything kind of drifts to the middle, and so I think it's important to have that influence from the right to push policy initiatives and ideas and things like that. But it needs to be done in those seats telling the story of republicanism and they become to weaponize themselves against the office holders that are elected in the very areas they represent that they come from. And so you know, I like to say this and I don't mean this to be disrespectful at all. I appreciate the party structure. I think it's important. I was a precinct chair originally. It was the first office I ever held. I was appointed in a county before anybody ran for precinct chairs, you know, and so I appreciate that framework and the influence and the job that they do. But when I run for election, I'm not working for a party. I'm working for my voters, my constituents. I work for the people in my district. The party can change We've seen party go from moderate to conservative and back and so but East Texas stays the same right. And so we need to be careful that we're working for the people that hire us and we're working with our party and not for the party. And so hopefully we're working on the same goals and we're doing the same.
Speaker 4:But you know it's frustrating when you're one of the top conservatives in the House and you're fighting liberalism and the challenges that come with Austin. You know the normal stuff that comes. And then while you're down there, you know facing people in the front, you know you're getting shot in the back back home, and so many times it's based on lies, it's based on, you know, misinformation would be putting it mildly. It's just it's disheartening to see that happening, and so we don't need to be fighting from our back when we're down there fighting with liberals in the front. We need support, we need help and we need that rightward pressure that I was telling you about, and so, anyway, it's luckily, most of the people you know appreciate the job we're doing. They see the results. They see their tax bill going down, they see the gun bills, they see the banning DEI and CRT and banning cities that defund the police and the vote.
Speaker 4:Get people registered, raise money, promote the platform. Give us some support on those conservative principles that we're trying to move, not just weaponizing itself against some of the most conservative. We saw the party attack some of the most conservative people and then even leave more moderate members alone in the primary, completely leave them on hands off. Members alone in the primary, completely leave them on hands off. And so it's like what are we really trying to accomplish? Why are we attacking conservative members of the House and not more moderate members? What do we really have to hear? Is there money being made? I mean, are these groups? Somebody's paying for all this mail, somebody's paying for these text messages? Somebody gets paid to draft those speeches, to draft those, to draw those mailers up. Somebody's getting paid somewhere a lot of money to do those type of things, and so we need people that are here to make a difference, not make money off of misinformation.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There you go. That's perfect Well.
Speaker 3:Matt Rinaldi has announced that he's not seeking another term as RPT chairman. Do you think he's gearing up to run for something in 2026 or do you think he's just going to go make some money?
Speaker 4:You know, I don't know. He's an attorney. He's a pretty intelligent guy and so he's probably got a lot of options out there. I've heard a lot of different rumors but couldn't tell you. But I'm hoping that we see somewhat of a course change, not to moderate or to become less conservative. I don't want to see us do that. I want to stay conservative. I want to keep that pressure up, but I think it needs to be done in a more honest way.
Speaker 3:Sure, do you think that? Did you participate in the county conventions this weekend? Did you go give some speeches or did you get elected as a delegate?
Speaker 4:No, I. So I went to the precinct, my precinct convention, a couple of weeks ago, and then I, my kids, had sports things on Saturday, but my wife is a delegate and I'm an alternate, and so we will be there with bells on to cast our vote for those party offices.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I started on the nominations committee in my SD and we did not have enough people attend our SD to. We had more slots for delegates than we did people attend our SD, so basically everyone who wanted to go. It was just an effort of collecting information, but that was crazy, because 15 years ago I went to the same SD convention SD 17 in Fort Bend County and at that time there were hundreds of people who showed up. There was a massive process in fighting over nominations and today I mean we had like 100 people, maybe less than 100.
Speaker 3:Fort Penn County used to be as red as Montgomery County and today it's a purple-leaning blue county and like we won six out of the 13 judicial races but we lost everything else countywide in the last election. So I guess I say that Is there anything that you think the party can be doing to kind of? One of the reasons why forpin started drifting that way is we started losing educated women um as a party um, and there's not a lot of a large hispanic vote in in uh, forpin county. There's a lot of immigrants in forpin county but not hispanic um, do you what do you think is kind of the way to win back those suburban women voters just for the party as a whole.
Speaker 4:You know, I think the this is the nastiest primary that I've ever seen, and I've been. My first primary involvement was in 2010, and the attacks I saw, the way it has played out, has been about the worst I've ever seen. And I've talked to people that have been involved since 1980, and they say, man, I've never seen it like this. And so it's getting hard to get everyday good folks to participate in the process, because as soon as you disagree with somebody, they not only go after you at the convention hall, they want to go after you personally, they want to go after your business, they want to go after your family. I mean we had people, um, you know, threatening to, to, to kill the speaker of the house. I mean that's, that's where we are in some of these races. And so it's getting harder to get good people because people are busy, right, I mean I have seven kids, I have kids in baseball, one's in the Army, and so it's busy, and so they're living their lives, making a living, trying to pay bills, and when you ask them, hey, can you come volunteer for this? And they go sure, and they walk in, and it's just.
Speaker 4:You know, I had a man in my choir at church that I put on the delegate list at the precinct convention. He went Saturday and he's like dang dude, what you know, we're going to stay involved, but wow, you know, it's kind of crazy down there and so so, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a trend, that that that worries me. Like I said, I don't think we should moderate our message. I don't think we need to be liberal. I don't think we need to be, I don't think we need to back off a pro-life and pro-gun and pro-God and those things that we are. But there's, there's definitely a way to to do things without being hateful and dishonest, and we have plenty of problems without making them up. And so, yeah, until we get that mentality back that we're going to be happy warriors, positive and honest, we're going to have a challenge for a little while.
Speaker 2:It's called civility. It's called civility. It's called civility. When I first moved here almost five years ago, I went to the county to go be a delegate at the RPT convention and I was appointed a delegate. But I have like loads of GOP, you know campaigns and county committee and like, and my resume is long with Republican endeavors. So I just stapled that to the application because nobody knew me. But I found that it was at that time.
Speaker 2:I did not go this year, but I found at the time that if I I'm more of a Reagan Republican and I tend to not opine on social issues, like and I have no problem with anybody's standpoint on on whether you are far, far right or if you are more moderate, whatever smaller is smaller, more efficient government, less, less taxes.
Speaker 2:Those are my three, you know things and that kind of covers a lot of what you've been talking about. But I found that going to this convention I was basically they put baby in a corner because they wanted to pass this plank that said that a family was defined as a natural born man, a natural born woman and their natural born children and I was like well, I'm divorced, it's time I was divorced. I have adopted my children so I'm not a family and they were like that's not what we mean, I'm like, but that's what you said, and so if you put this forward, this is what you're advocating for. And so, fortunately, at the time we had a different RPG chair and they had the. The executive committee had the intelligence to go eh, not so much, but I was, it was very chilly in that room.
Speaker 4:Well, and, and you know, like I said, I'm I'm a social conservative first, so that's the issue. Uh, the other, the, the abortion issues. What got me to look into this whole thing at all? But usually some, typically somebody that is pro-life, uh, that believes in traditional marriage and those things, they're usually going to be pretty good on taxes, regulation and guns, and those things they typically intertwine. I mean, occasionally you'll see somebody that's socially moderate, fiscally conservative, but usually everything kind of lines up.
Speaker 4:Um, but we have a diverse state right, so we have 86 republicans, we don't have 86 coal heifners because we don't have 86 house district fives. We have highland park, we have river oaks, we have alamo heights, we have um rural, suburban, urban. So in the, even in the Republican caucus, we have, uh, you know, um, we're, we're uh, jesus lost the word but anyway, we're very diverse. We have a lot of diversity, even in the Republican caucus. And so when we have a member that votes with us on eight or nine things, uh, say, they vote for the kid bills, the abortion bill, all the gun bills, but man, he can't go for constitutional carry. Well, god Lee, he voted for me on all these other nine issues. And so I'm going to go primary and put somebody in there that can't win a general, and then he's going to a Democrat's going to win and I'm going to get zero votes out of 10. And so that person that votes with me eight or nine times is definitely my friend and um. You know, we wind up, wind up, turning that seat blue and not getting any votes out of it. So again, you want to keep that rightward pressure up, but you got to let members represent their districts and um, and that's, that's, that's what we've seen in the House, and we'll have elections after every cycle, every session. We come home, we run under the laws and the voting record that we have and we have to reapply for our jobs.
Speaker 4:People say we should have term limits. I submit that we do have term limits. I get one term and then I have to reapply. I have to be every time, and so and it's a good process. You know, I kind of wished it wasn't every two years, but because it gets expensive, but it does keep us close. You know, I knocked on thousands of doors with my, my knuckles and I had good conversations with families, with individuals. There's nothing better to connect you to those people to find out what's important to them than just going to see them at their door. They're all very appreciative. Most people want to talk. There's a few that don't want to be bothered, and that's fine. You just move on to the next one. But anyway, you know the process that we serve. It seems so perverted and corrupt, and it is in some ways, but it's still the best system on the planet and it takes citizen involvement to keep it, to keep it working.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work well if people don't participate and which is my attitude with my kids and my friends who are, you know, maybe Republicans, maybe Democrats, I don't care. Be educated on the issues. Show up and vote. I mean, I care I do and we're going to have those conversations, but show up and vote.
Speaker 3:There were very few people under the age of 50 at my convention. We don't have a lot of people under that and the reason that is youth. I think the median age according to the stuff I saw with Derek Ryan as the early voting was happening of the primary voters was something like in the 60s. I think I ended up around 65. I could be wrong.
Speaker 4:The average voter was in the 60s.
Speaker 3:I think got ended up around 65. I could be wrong, but the average voter was it was in the 60s, I think. Yeah, I mean that's the average. I mean most people are. Half of people are older than that. Um, so we have a problem when we don't have youth participating in that problem. We don't need a ton, we just need some. I think I was the youngest delegate from my uh, from my sd, and I'm in my 30s. Like there should be. There should be some people. Like there should be some representation below that. So we have an issue there.
Speaker 3:Um, you did touch on a point I wanted to touch on where it's like we can elect somebody and then they'll lose in a general election. It isn't always right away, though. Both don huffines and matt rinaldi beat out more moderate members in 2014, and then they lost their elections big time in 2018, just a couple years later. So you got to keep that. Have a larger look at, like, what the district is trending. It might not happen right away, but it's like if you start taking out some of the more moderate members in these more moderate districts, you might win the first election or two, but eventually things are going to shift. There's going to be a blue shift in the national politics. As you know, this has it happens, it's cyclical and we're going to lose those seats because of it.
Speaker 4:You know it's scary and things are changing all the time. We're watching those demographics, you know, and trying to work through it, work with it. You know, in our district out here, we're 80-20. When you go to the polls in November it's 80-20. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4:And you know, louie Gohmert used to say that he lives in the best district in the country. He said, man, I just go down here and just, I don't have to call my people and say what do you think? I can just vote my vote, and that just lines up with the people, and that's the way I feel. Very rarely do I have a vote that I'm like man, I wonder where my district is on this issue. I usually just vote what I believe and that's what they believe, and so. But the state's not like that all over, and so there's many members that are more conservative than their districts, and so we're blessed to have those in those districts to keep that rightward pressure up while we can. And so you know I'm proud of the record we've accumulated in the last couple of sessions and I just I just hope that we can keep it together and keep keep building on it.
Speaker 2:Well, keep and build on those seats, and that's and that's where the civility right. I'm not. I've said this before on the show. We've had Jared Patterson on the show and when I first met him, his Twitter said I'm conservative, but I'm not mad about it.
Speaker 2:And you know I may not be hard right, hard, hard, hard, hard right, but I'm not mad about it. Like you alluded to this in something you said a few minutes ago, and it's what Reagan said If we agree on seven of our 10 issues, then then we, we can be friends and we can work together.
Speaker 4:Right, that's it, that is it well, and you know I've I've gotten some pretty good knockdown drag outs with some of the most conservative members on the house. Me and jared are good friends. Uh, he had a bill in the 21 session that I was adamantly opposed to, and we argued about it and I voted against it all the way through the process, and so nobody's going to agree 100% of the time, but you can do that in the right way. You can be principled, you can be strong and you can fight like crazy for your beliefs without just trampling all over somebody that was elected. You know, we had, when I was a county commissioner, we had some county officials that were at each other's throats and it got so bad that they would attack each other in public and I finally said you know, I'm not going to put up with this anymore, because those officials the sheriff, the DA, the district judge, county judge, whoever it was, county clerk, whoever it was they were elected by the people. The people sent them there to work for them, and so I should show those voters respect by respecting the person that they chose to represent them.
Speaker 4:I may disagree with that person, I may think he's wrong or her, but their voters sent them there, and so I'm going to respect that and I'm going to work real hard to pass the laws that I think is best for the state and for my district. But I'm not going to disrespect that person. And it's got to where this just treating people right, it's just going out the window. The ends justify the means, and so lying is okay, personal attacks are okay, misinformation is okay. As long as we're supposedly as long as we say we're going for the right thing, we can act like total heathens on the way. Hey, we're going for the right thing, we can act like total heathens on the way, and I do think that doing things the right way is almost as important as doing the right thing, and so, like I said, I've gotten some pretty good fights with some people that I agree with nearly 100% of the time, and so, yeah, well, thank you so much for coming on today.
Speaker 3:Was there any?
Speaker 4:topic you want to talk about today that we didn't touch on, you know and let. If y'all think we've covered everything, good, um, let's see, we talked about the outside groups and the dishonesty there, so I guess we've about covered it, unless y'all can think of anything.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, there's always news happening, so if there's something you want to talk about that had come out, we'd let you. But where can people find more information about you or maybe donate to your campaign?
Speaker 4:You know we have our website. It's just coaleffnercom. We have an email there that they can go to coaleffnercom. We have an email there that they can go to cole at coaleffnercom. Email us if they have any questions. Of course, we have our state stuff. If they have any constituent issues or questions about policy or bills that we've passed, just Google us up and we're pretty accessible. I try to be accessible and easy to get to for my voters and so we like talking to our people.
Speaker 3:Okay, Well, I appreciate you coming on the show today. We thank you for talking with us about just kind of what's happening and you know, giving people a little bit of an insight to what's happening behind the scenes there in Austin. So we appreciate you, we're looking forward to have you back on the show in the future and, to our listeners and to our viewers, we'll see you next week. Bye guys, bye guys.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the CN Red Podcast. It's always Texas politics and beyond. We present the facts and opinions. The CN Red Podcast with your host, andy Turner, and Garrett Foles. Thank you and tune in next week and please do us a favor, hit the subscribe button so you don your host, andy Turner and Garrett Foles. Thank you and tune in next week and please do us a favor, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode.
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