00:30We just voted.
00:31We already voted?
00:32Yeah, we already voted.
00:33All right.
00:34Good to see you.
00:35We're proceeding.
00:37Okay.
00:38Good to see you.
00:39You too.
00:40You remember Ashley?
00:41Of course.
00:42Absolutely good to see you.
00:43What's your name, sir?
00:44No, Mike.
00:45Good to see you.
00:47Good to see you.
00:49And the county judge is over.
00:53Governor, good to see you.
00:54Thank you so much.
00:55You got it.
01:00I want to thank everybody for being here for what is a very big day, very important day
01:14for the city of Victoria.
01:16I want to thank Senator Kohlkhorst, Representative Lauderback.
01:20I want to thank so many of what I call the stakeholders who are behind me.
01:26You got the mayor, the county judge.
01:29You have one of the Board of Regents members, Mike Hernandez.
01:34Team Michael O'Connor, Ashley Thomas.
01:36And the list goes on.
01:38People who have such a meaningful interest in the outcome of what happens in Victoria.
01:46And one thing that's important to happening in Victoria is to ensure that they have a first-class university in their city.
01:57Let me explain why.
01:59There's a new economic triangle in the state of Texas.
02:05The eastern part is Houston.
02:07The western part is San Antonio.
02:10The southern part is Corpus Christi.
02:13Right in the middle of that economic triangle is Victoria.
02:18Victoria currently, and in the future, is going to play such a pivotal economic role for our entire state.
02:26And it's going to benefit from everything that happens within the contours of that triangle.
02:32It is essential that we as a state work collaboratively with Victoria to ensure they're going to have the university system that will provide the well-trained and well-educated workforce that's going to be needed in the next decade, in the next century.
02:48And the bill that I'm about to sign is going to achieve that goal.
02:53The bill that I'm about to sign transfers the University of Houston-Victoria to Texas A&M University and is going to be a game-changer for the future of Victoria.
03:06Texas A&M at Victoria is now law of the great state of Texas.
03:31I want to thank Senator Cocors for her tireless work in making sure this bill got to my desk.
03:47I began talking with her about this early on.
03:51She remained heavily engaged throughout the process.
03:54And then Chancellor Sharp said this would not have gotten across the finish line without our tireless work.
04:01So, Senator, thank you very much.
04:02And let me turn the mic over to you.
04:04Thank you so much, Governor.
04:05Well, thank you, Governor, for your leadership in the great state of Texas.
04:08And I will say that not everybody gets a signing ceremony.
04:12I'm so grateful for this signing ceremony because it is a very big, monumental effort to move a university from one system to the other.
04:23And so I'd be remiss in not thanking Chancellor Renou Couture for our many long talks.
04:30I don't know that she's here, but we had many long talks and some of those very frank.
04:35And it started about a decade ago.
04:37And so I keep smiling.
04:39And sometimes these are kind of serious, but I'm smiling today because it's something I've worked on for a decade.
04:45It was my first goal when I became the senator for Victoria.
04:49And we had a pretty, I would say, lively conversation in your office with some of the leaders that are behind us.
05:00And what Governor Abbott did was he challenged us to prove that this was the right move, not only for the community, but for the economic viability of the state of Texas.
05:13He wanted to know how many students from that region we were leaking, if you will, going elsewhere.
05:20Could we pull those students into Texas A&M Victoria?
05:26And we did all that research.
05:29I want to thank Ben Keating and so many of the others behind me who pulled together some statistics.
05:34And I've got to say this, Regent Hernandez and UTEL Chairman Albritton and now Chancellor Hager, this is going to be one of the finest universities in the state of Texas.
05:46Because if you look at the economy, as you said, what's going on in Corpus Christi, look at what we have with Formosa plastics right here with Jack Wu behind us.
05:59You look at what goes on at Dow Chemical and the SMRs, the nuclear reactors that we're creating down there.
06:06So we've got the petrochemical world, the oil and gas world.
06:10And then we have agriculture.
06:12And that was just a perfect fit for Texas A&M.
06:15So many thanks to University of Houston's system for recognizing that they are more of an urban center kind of university.
06:24And for us to be now able to partner with the world-renowned Texas A&M system, I'm so excited for our community.
06:34And it's going to impact the crossroads in that entire region.
06:38And I will say pay big dividends for the state of Texas.
06:42So thank you, Governor, for sometimes very hard meetings that make us all a lot better.
06:48There you go.
06:49Good job.
06:50Now, go ahead.
06:51Representative Lotterbeck.
06:56Governor, you know, it's a tremendous day on bringing Texas A&M Victoria to the Texas Gulf Coast.
07:07The representation, the culture, the values, all of these things combine to be a tremendous boost to the Texas Gulf Coast in so many ways.
07:20From economics to the education, from higher standard for our kids, the type of kids we're raising in the Gulf Coast today, this is a tremendous opportunity.
07:30It truly is a monumental day to put this in place here.
07:35And I'm so proud to be a part of this and was able to file the bill to help get this thing across.
07:42And so I appreciate Senator Colcourt's leadership on this.
07:46She carried the heavy load, did the heavy lifting on here, and has been so engaged for so many years on this effort.
07:55I appreciate the folks behind us today who were there, you know, right behind everybody, just making sure that this got across the finish line.
08:06And it truly is an honor, and I so look forward to the Texas Gulf Coast growing in so many ways because of this.
08:17And it's just a tremendous honor to be involved in this.
08:20Thank you very much.
08:21Thank you, ma'am.
08:22Governor, could I add something?
08:23Please.
08:24Representative Lauterbach is a freshman.
08:26And y'all heard me say I worked on this bill for a decade.
08:30He was a great partner.
08:32And I put a lot of pressure on you.
08:34I said, don't screw this one up.
08:36And I can tell you, my staff who's here today, your staff working together, constant communication, you were a hard sell.
08:45And so were the Board of Regents.
08:47I want to thank my colleague, Paul Bentoncourt, who is here today as a fighting Texas Aggie and was very supportive of this.
08:57And I also have to thank Joan Huffman.
08:59And in the end, we were able to secure $25 million for this campus so that we can start up all of those degrees that will meet the needs of that region, that growing region.
09:13And so a lot of collaboration from everyone.
09:18And as Senator Zaffirini said to me as I passed this bill in the Senate, she walked up to me, the Dean of the Senate, and she shook my hand and she said, wow, that's a really big deal.
09:30What you just did is a really big deal.
09:32And it went smoothly.
09:34And there was no fighting.
09:35Congratulations.
09:36So thank you very much.
09:38And thank you, Reverend Lauterbach.
09:39Of course.
09:40I might add this in closing.
09:42There is something very special about this particular university component to the Texas A&M System.
09:50This is the 12th university in the A&M System.
09:54The number 12 means a whole lot to the A&M System.
09:58So congratulations once again to Texas A&M Victoria, and most importantly, to the future, the very bright future of the city of Victoria and Victoria County.
10:11Do we have media here?
10:13Right, right.
10:14Should we call on them, see if they want to ask any questions?
10:17Sure.
10:18All right.
10:19Go for it.
10:20If you're coming around, we're just reading.
10:22You are.
10:23Yeah.
10:24Ah, we go right there.
10:26Well, if you almost have these maps to today, Sean, how quickly do you plan to use it?
10:35Sure.
10:36Well, first of all, let me thank you for acting so quickly yourself.
10:40All right.
10:41And going right past on-topic questions and getting off-topic.
10:46And so I will sign that legislation as quickly as you got off-topic today.
10:53Yeah.
10:54That's great.
10:55What's your reaction to California has now passed its map right on the ballot, which is
11:04following a Democratic seat, which essentially wipes out the GOP games in Texas for five more seats in Texas.
11:11What's your reaction to California?
11:12Well, first and foremost, California is a joke.
11:16Second, if you look at the polling numbers in California, two-thirds of the people of the state of California already do not support that.
11:24And that's before the advertising efforts that will come out that will really criticize Governor Newsom and what the Democrats are doing out there.
11:32So I think the probability of anything passing is very minimal.
11:37I think the legal challenges they're going to face will be far different than the legal challenges Texas will face.
11:43I know that the maps that we passed in the state of Texas are going to be fully constitutional.
11:46I know that they're going to be, in order for California to draw the maps they want to draw, it is going to subject them to lawsuits that will have those maps overturned.
11:56I'll add this, however, and that is Republicans are not finished in the United States.
12:03I know that there are efforts underway as we speak right now, where there will be more than five additional Republican seats added from these other states across the country.
12:13And so all that California is going to do is fall behind.
12:16And then let me add these two last points.
12:18And that is, one, if a new census truly is done and done this year, that's going to change the game dramatically.
12:27Because the fact of the matter is California is losing people right and left.
12:31Texas and Florida and other Republican states are gaining people right and left.
12:35Just a new census alone that would allow us to do another redistricting would mean that Texas would be gaining one or two congressional seats that will be lost by California.
12:45And then on top of that, even if there's not a new census done now.
12:49And we know that in the next decade census, California will be losing more seats.
12:55New York will be losing more seats.
12:57Illinois will be losing more seats.
12:59And Texas will be adding more seats.
13:01Texas is on a trajectory where we're going to continue to add far more seats that will be Republican seats.
13:08And the blue states will be shedding their congressional districts as well as their electoral college votes.
13:14Does anyone have an on-topic question?
13:17We've got two more questions.
13:19Governor, can you just address the government and complaints about these panels concerning racial considerations in the history of the world right now?
13:30They're absurd.
13:32And they certainly have no validity in the law.
13:38What gave rise to this in the first place was the Federal Court of Appeals ruling last year that said that coalition districts are not required.
13:47When the maps were drawn in 2021, they included coalition districts.
13:51And so we weren't required to adhere to that anymore.
13:54What is allowed by the United States Supreme Court is drawing maps for political reasons.
14:00And these were drawn for political reasons to ensure that Republicans would have greater representation in Congress.
14:06However, they were drawn for political reasons in ways that happened to coincide with what is happening in the state of Texas.
14:14What was happening that the Democrats refused to acknowledge is the fact that Hispanics in Texas are voting Republican.
14:21And they are running away from the Democrat Party because the Democrats are for open border policies.
14:27They're for men and women's sports.
14:29They're for abandoning any pretense of public safety.
14:34They are against law enforcement.
14:36And so Hispanics, as well as African Americans, as well as all Texas, they are supporting the policies that the Republican Party stands for.
14:44They're fleeing the policies the Democrats stand for.
14:47And so what we did, we ensured that the voters in these five new congressional districts would not be trapped by members of Congress who are hostile to their values and to their vote.
14:59Last question.
15:00All right.
15:01Can we do a gigum?
15:02There we go.
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15:04It's okay, yeah.
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