Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:20 Hey, everybody. Welcome to Chuck Yates needs a job the podcast. My guest today on March 1st, 2022

0:29 received 241, 390 votes for railroad commissioner and the Republican primary finishing second since the leader Wayne Christian did not get above 50. We're going to have a runoff on May 24th. So

0:46 Sarah Stodger, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, Chuck. We joked with my priest because my priest Patrick was the first repeat guest on the podcast. And we joked about how sequels suck.

0:60 But anyway, no pressure.

1:04 No pressure. So give us an update. What's going on in the race? Yeah, so the update is we've got four days, I guess, until early voting starts.

2:15 I was gonna run through these just to, you know, we're all about investigation here at Chuck Yates. Needs a job. What is this is true? So first off, we have political views. It says Wayne is a

2:27 proud conservative Republican. It's got an A-plus rating with various conservative watchdog groups. And he's got a long history of fighting for Republicans. It says the X next to your name, and it

2:41 says you've never voted Republican before voting for yourself You made a political contribution to Beto, Roark, and you supported Beto for governor.

2:52 True. Okay, so never voted in a Republican. That's blatantly false. I've already provided evidence that I was a registered Republican voter in Louisiana because in Louisiana, you actually have to

3:04 declare a party. So evidence of that. And then I voted in Louisiana Republican primaries as long as I lived in Louisiana. True that I had never voted in a Texas primary before, because until I had

3:17 the realization that I wasn't moving back to Louisiana a couple of years ago, I maintained my primary domicile in Louisiana, even though I was living in Texas. So I was still voting in Louisiana.

3:28 So that's false. And then as a joke, in 2018, I spent 25 to buy a t-shirt off of Beto's website. And the funny thing is, is I never even got the t-shirt. Like it was a joke, and then I didn't

3:41 even end up getting it So I just wasted 25. But that was the only, you know, political campaign contribution history I had, 'cause I've never been politically involved. I just would show up and

3:51 vote - Gotcha. So, okay, I'm gonna hold you to this as a campaign promise. If the t-shirt shows up, you promise not to wear it?

4:04 Okay. All right, we're making progress here. Let's go to point number two. Energy security. says under Wayne with a big checkmark, a conservative businessman who's been a champion for Texas oil

4:16 and gas, endorsed by leading oil and gas trade associations, proven record of fighting against Biden overreach, overregulation, and taxpayer subsidies. Stuff all sounds good to me - Which is

4:28 funny though, because he has no authority or jurisdiction over any Biden policies. So I'm not quite sure how he can fight Biden, but that's aside from that, let's keep going - It was Biden's

4:40 overreach. So he's not fighting Biden, it's, you know, maybe he's going for the extra role at the Thanksgiving dinner. Okay, so what it says about you, a liberal lawyer who has publicly stated

4:50 Texas should increase oil and gas regulations to be more like Democrat states, Colorado and New Mexico, and that companies can pass along costs to consumers. True or false - False, so if you,

5:05 this is, I think you of anybody can appreciate this. This is a debate that we had on EFT Twitter last summer. I think it was maybe a week after the Estes 24 blew out. And I basically said,

5:19 somebody said something, we could pull it up and look at it specifically. But my intent was, and the conversation was, how do we fix this stuff without screwing up like we did in New Mexico and

5:31 Colorado, right? And I did say, well, how do people manage to operate? We pass it along, right? And my main concern or the reason that I stated the tweet to begin with was, let's take an

5:44 honest look. And maybe we can't make money at 40, right? Maybe our break even isn't 40 a barrel. If our break even is 60, because that's what it costs to be responsible operators, then our break

5:56 evens at 60. And I think we need to have intellectually honest conversation amongst ourselves of, what does it actually cost to responsibly produce a barrel? Some of that money needs to be going to

6:09 asset retirement obligations in the future to make sure that we don't have orphaned wells. Then that's what we have to do as an industry to look at. And so yeah, it's all there, but no, I mean,

6:18 I think you and those that have followed me know that I'm very much pro industry and don't think that New Mexico or Colorado have it right. But Texas has some work to do and the work we really need

6:30 to start with is just enforcing the regulations that are on the books of it And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's time and time again when you and I've spent time talking on the

6:41 podcast. We've hung out a little bit outside the podcast. That's the vibe is, hey, we've got rules. Let's just enforce them. Let's start there. So, okay. All right. Now, this is this is a

6:56 really important one, given the name railroad commissioner as well as your job is to regulate the oil and gas business It says Pro Life. So Wayne has big check mark, 100 pro-life. He's endorsed by

7:11 various groups. You've got a big X, says, says your pro-choice, publicly opposed the heartbeat bill stating stay out of my uterus - So let's start with Wayne's. We, I actually posted a few days

7:28 ago, I think in 2011, he publicly stated that it was a war on birth control and that pro-life was including a war on birth control. So that's his position, okay? My position was I'm tired of old

7:42 white men passing legislation without consulting with the women and the families whose lives that it impacts. And I'm very much pro-life, but I don't believe that we can legislate morality. And I

7:55 think as Republicans, we need to do a better job of making sure that no woman ever feels like that's a choice she has to make And I think - Right? Like we've had this discussion many a times too, I

8:06 think off the record in various times is, I don't know how we do that. And I don't, but we have to keep a separation of church and state just because I'm a Christian doesn't mean that I think that

8:17 those need to go away. Right? I think that that's very important. But how do we make sure that no woman wants to make that decision? And I don't necessarily think that legislation specifically

8:28 this legislation is the right way. Although I do think that the Supreme Court's leaked opinion is the right opinion, right? I think it's a states rights issue. And I think that this is why you

8:39 elect leaders that espouse your views that actually have jurisdiction over that. And I'm not running for Senate. I'm not running for House, right? I'm running to regulate oil and gas, interstate

8:50 pipelines and surface mining. And I don't have the answers, but I'm pro-life and just don't think that the heartbeat bill is the way to go - Yeah, no, it's interesting. You know, I've spent a

9:00 lot of time. of thinking about that as all Americans have just because it's what happens. And I don't know that I have a good answer for it either. I agree with you that at the end of the day, it

9:12 ought to be a democratic process of some sort, you know, involving legislatures, elected officials, etc. I mean, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg felt that too against Roe. And so we do have a

9:28 laboratory that gives us some data on that Europe. I mean, basically all the European countries went through a democratic process as opposed to a judicial process on abortion. And what you, where

9:40 it kind of shook out is 95 of the countries in Europe or 95 of the population of Europe lives in a country where abortion is legal. It generally is legal for the first trimester. And then you get

9:54 into restrictions beyond that. And that it was interesting because Bill Maher The big liberal actually said this week or last week on his program that he had no idea America's abortion laws were way

10:08 more liberal than Europe, which they are. I mean, we have longer under row. We have a lot. So I don't know that I have a good answer for that. And that's why my podcast is about oil and gas

10:23 as opposed to political issues

10:28 So anyway, let's go to the next. The second amendment.

10:33 Wayne is a champion of our gun rights consistently received a ratings from the NRA in the Texas House. Let's see what it says about you. Criticize the NRA is absurd and has advocated for gun control

10:47 calling it common sense. So I did say that the NRA has become absurd, right? like what started as if you look back to the.

10:59 and what the mission of it was in the beginning. I very much fundamentally agree with that. Again, it's like so many other things. Over time, it's become a life of its own. And it just like when

11:11 I publicly withdrew from TechSoga a couple years ago because they took a ridiculous stance on the winterization. I think that the NRA has taken some ridiculous stance on avoiding mass shootings in

11:23 schools And as a mother with a kid in school, I think that

11:30 I'm not totally opposed to having some rudimentary background checks and waiting periods, specifically where, you know, like at gun shows and things like this, where if the data supports, and I'm

11:42 not, again, not educated enough to know, but I've seen enough to question some of the things And when I ran for office, I decided that I wasn't going to go and scrub my social media. I was going

11:54 to let people. hopefully do their research and see who I really am. Was that a mistake maybe? Because most people don't really care and they listen to stuff and maybe, but I think again, my

12:07 history shows, I'm absolutely pro-second amendment. As far as assault rifles and weapons and things like that, it's not like an oh, it's for hunting, no, it's for personal protection. And I

12:18 think that we're getting on some of these other issues to the point where, yeah, you're gonna have to come and take it from me if we get to that point So, but just because I question certain

12:28 policies or challenge certain notions, doesn't mean that I'm against something. I just want to engage in intellectually honest, healthy debate - Yeah, and maybe, so one day when Chuck Yates, the

12:41 job is actually a big real podcast. We can do like Rogan does and have a fact checker there while we're talking. I believe, so I may be wrong, but I believe the

12:54 background check was actually proposed by the NRA in the 70s. I mean, that that's where it came from. That's how it even got into the discussion lexicon because of the NRA. So yeah, they have

13:07 changed on that over time.

13:13 At that point, at that point, gun control, I don't know that I have a good position to discuss intelligently there anyway But again, none of these have anything to do with the position that he has

13:28 shown, I don't think he's qualified to have, or the position that I'm seeking, none of this has to do with oil and gas. This is just pandering to what they think the polls say that most primary

13:40 Republican voters care about -

13:43 Fair enough. So with that, let's go to the next one. Critical race theory So. Wayne is opposed to critical race theory and believes it should not be taught in our classrooms. He gets check Mark,

13:59 you've got the X because you support critical race theory and you've opposed the Republican efforts to ban it from our classroom - I'd like to objection, what is the definition of critical race

14:14 theory? I've said that I just wanna teach real history and that after living in Mississippi for a couple of months last year and really learning about the invention of the steamship and how it

14:27 impacted the slave trade, specifically on the Mississippi River and Natchez New Orleans all through there

14:35 and the history of policing and versus the history of the sheriff's office. And let's just say this, I went to high school in Hunts, Alabama. I had football teachers for history teachers and I

14:46 didn't get exactly the most accurate or thorough education on history. in high school. And so as an adult, I've learned a lot of things. And I'm like, I don't think that they taught that in my

14:57 high school. And I think that it's important that we give teachers and parents and kids an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation and actually teach the truth and learn from it. And I

15:12 think that again, critical race theory is this buzz term that now everyone has a little bit different definition. Do I want white children to be taught that they should feel guilty for being white?

15:22 No, absolutely not. But I think that it's reality that we all have biases, right? And I if I look and dress a certain way and go into a situation, I'm treated differently. And I see it every day

15:35 as a woman out in the oil field, right? So I think that we have to be able to recognize that people have certain expectations when they see us. And that's a matter of fact, because I experience it.

15:47 And so that's it. Yeah, some might. My take on critical race theory,

15:55 I have a really good friend named Seth who was teacher of the year in Colorado. He's retired now. Anytime I run up to tell you your eye, Seth and I hang out, and probably could not be more

16:05 diametrically opposed on political issues. And we talked about critical race theory 'cause he's an educator. And I'm like, tell me what this is. And the way he explained it is teaching history and

16:20 that certain biases actually lead to sustainable type influences over time. For instance, I mean, one of them, blacks were zone restricted from owning houses in various neighborhoods. And

16:39 unfortunately that led to blacks renting as opposed to owning. So when regentrification happened 75 years later, in these poor neighborhoods, the beneficiaries are the owners of the houses and not

16:54 the actual inhabitants of the house. And that carries on, you know, 'cause of the home has actually been the biggest builder of wealth for American families for basically the whole history of the

17:06 nation. So to me, that sounds like something we ought to be cognizant of. Do I have a solution on how to address it? No idea, but we ought to be cognizant of. We ought to know that We ought to

17:16 know what happened in Tulsa in the 1920s. And if Seth wanted to teach my kids, I'd be blessed to have Seth teach my kids. I think what happens is it's the hands that critical race theory has fallen

17:30 into with various teachers where it's not that. It's used as a weapon. Yeah, and that's not okay, regardless of what we call it. Yeah, exactly, exactly So, all right, let's see what else the

17:47 flyer said. sexualized content in school, supports parental rights and opposes sexual content in our classrooms. Now you've got a big X here and says, stated support for written materials on

18:04 gender and queerness in our schools.

18:08 Where'd that come from - Again, no idea. I suspect maybe that someone had like a band, again, like a band book list or something And kids have Google, the fact that we're fighting over

18:23 educational books in high schools now. And look, I have a first grader, right? And we're laying in bed the other day, I'm putting her to bed and she's like, Mom, how are babies made? So I told

18:33 her, right? Like if she's in school and asked that question of the teacher, I would like the teacher to be able to have an age appropriate anatomically correct response that. like, well, you

18:47 know what, maybe we start, wait, maybe we talk about how baby horses are made, or maybe, you know what I mean? Like there's other ways of doing it that's age appropriate. And I've multiple

18:56 times expressed interest because again, kids ask questions. And if we don't answer their questions, then they experience shame and all these other unintended consequences. And I don't want her to

19:08 experience that or have issues regarding sexuality and shame And so I think it's, I'm very openly supportive of LGBTQ communities, right? Like, no, I'm not. I happen to be a straight woman, but

19:24 you know,

19:26 I'm very much of a personal liberties and freedom and I don't think the government should intervene in our personal lives. And so, and I also think that there's lots of kids with lots of questions.

19:38 And you know, I grew up in a very Baptist house where fortunately my mom was a nurse. And so I would ask her questions about that about. reproductive issues and she would be able to give me an

19:49 anatomically correct response. But from the social aspect and the religious aspect, her response was always true love waits for marriage. And so what do I do? I go and get married at 22 and we'll

20:01 see how that first marriage ended it for me, right? Like, I mean, so I just want, I want to make sure that we avoid some of these issues with our kids. And I've seen kids, you know, suicidal

20:10 or distressed with like, we should love our children no matter what God loves us, no matter what. And I just find it infuriating when people pick and choose what parts of scripture, right? What

20:23 parts of loving our neighbors like ourselves that we tend to pick and choose from. And again, I want the library at school to be a safe place for kids to have a real education. And I think that

20:37 maybe if there's books that aren't where they should be, it's probably on an age basis and not on a content basis because again kids have Google and I'm not afraid of her getting misinformation from

20:49 a school library - Yeah, and you know, you get into, again, we come back to, if Seth is talking with our children about where babies come from at age five, I'm okay with that because - Because

21:05 they ask, right? I'm not saying they should routinely go and push this information on them, not at all. But kids are curious. So when they ask, we need to be able to have educated responses -

21:15 Yeah, and Seth would handle it on an age-appropriate basis and 'cause my story on that, my eldest kiddo, five years old, seen mom, been pregnant twice. Dad, where do babies come from? Where do

21:29 babies come from? And so I went down and talked with Charlie's teacher, Julie Paragary, a wonderful woman, really glad Charlie was in Julie's class. I'm like, what do I do? And Julie's just,

21:40 well, you tell him. And I go, what do you mean you tell him? five years old and Julie's like, yeah, just tell them. You know, you don't have to go into gory details, but you know, give them

21:50 enough. So we started with, well, when a mommy and a daddy wants to have a baby, that wasn't good enough. Dad, how's the baby get into mom's stomach? You know, I'm like, so one night we're

22:02 laying in bed and I'm like, all right, you wanna hear this? And yes, dad, I need to know. So I started with daddy takes his penis and blah, blah, blah, and just kind of walked right through

22:11 it. So giggling, covering the head, you know, all that. And we get to the end and I'm like, well, you got any questions? And yeah, dad, I got one. I'm like, oh, okay, what's that? I'd

22:24 really like to see that.

22:28 I said, well, that's a thing a mommy and a daddy do in private. And oh, okay, daddy. But you know, I mean, so I'm kind of with you that I think we need to talk about those things And with

22:40 anything, we're gonna demonize kind of. just certain words that you're right have no definition. It means one thing to me, it means one thing to somebody else and all that. But I do think it's a

22:53 little scary to think of teachers not handling it age appropriately. And there is that. And I don't know how we police that in our schools, but yeah, so it is a real issue, but it's hard, you

23:11 can't have that discussion on 140 characters on Twitter - Right - And I think ultimately, it's

23:18 interesting, so I'm on the board of an after school literacy program. And so I dig into educational research. Do you know what the single greatest correlating fact to the ranking of a school is or

23:36 how well it's judged on how it's doing - Money - Actually, it's not. It's the merits of the principal. It's actually the merits of the

23:47 principal.

23:51 And I didn't believe that either, but I've read enough research that time and time again, that score's really high as what separates a good school from a bad school. And I think one of the things

24:01 we need to do in education is stop taking our greatest teachers and promoting them to principals, because just 'cause you're a good teacher doesn't mean you can manage people.

24:14 And we're talking about regulating the oil and gas business, and we've gone off on a tangent on education, but I really do think public schools ought to have separate paths for principals and

24:25 principal training as we go through, 'cause that is, 'cause ultimately he or she on the front line is the one that's gonna say, Okay, Sess a really good teacher, he's handling things age

24:37 appropriately, Becky Liu or Bob or whoever the other teacher is just not. Right. Well, and you know, you say it's not related to oil and gas, but it kind of is because this is what happens in

24:48 politics, right? We have people that run for politics in a smaller position, they get in, they make friends, they raise money, they share money, they get into a higher position. And then next

25:01 thing, you know, you've got a 70 something year old gospel singer regulating oil and gas of a state that if we were a nation would be the third largest producer of oil and gas in the world. And so,

25:12 you know, I think it's a good segue into we just spent however many minutes going over this ridiculous list, right? And this is what voters are making decisions on. And so my dilemma has been how

25:23 do we get the attention of people to actually pay attention to what matters, which is oil and gas regulation, it's the future of our grid, it's the future of our economy. And I'm so tired of

25:35 politicians politicizing and

25:39 taking advantage of people's emotional responses to very important social issues, right? And weaponizing that in the political process. And at the end of the day, like the reason that I'm running

25:51 commercials, the reason that I finally gave in and set my ego aside was we've got to win this for the future of Texas, right? For the future of our economy, for my daughter's groundwater. Like I,

26:05 that's not hyperbolic. I firmly believe that we are at a tipping point and we're seeing it with the insanity of federal policy, right? Like make up your mind. You want us to have more reasonably

26:16 priced oil and gas. Well then stop shutting down pipelines, stop shutting down lease opportunities, federally, right? And then on the state level, like let's make sure we don't let a few bad

26:28 actors who make really large political contributions, do whatever they want and bully everyone else so that it makes the industry look bad when we lose power, right? pipeline companies that have

26:42 too much power, operators that have too much power, landowners that have too much power, right? You've got these elite billionaires who are basically buying elections. And that's scary. Yeah,

26:54 no, it's, I mean, the important thing about Texas and regulating the oil and gas businesses, it's a big huge driver of our economy. And like you said, and what I've said, kind of multiple times,

27:08 energy is so incredibly important. People die when energy costs are high and they die when we have to buy energy from authoritarian dictators. They'd, you know, it just it's that and it deserves a

27:21 thoughtful, meaningful, intellectually honest discussion about these sort of things. Because we can rhetoric it all day long. Adam Schiff sent out a tweet the other day where he was sitting there

27:35 saying something to the effect of.

27:39 where he was sitting there saying something to the effect of oil prices are down, gasoline prices are still up, this is profit-tearing. And I tweeted back, I was like, Okay, please explain to me

27:51 that you don't understand that the price of oil is a future financial contract for delivery of an oil barrel sometime in the future. And the price of gasoline is after weeks of being produced,

28:04 transported, refined, sent to market That's the price of gasoline. Are they connected? Sure. But I think somebody tweeted back, Yeah, it's like getting really pissed off at the farmer because

28:17 cereal prices went up. I mean, there is some. Right. Anyway, it deserves that discussion. And that's the thing that really worries me because I think the Warren Ukraine has hit the nail on the

28:28 head. Energy security actually matters. Yeah, absolutely and we're an island in Texas. We're big enough, as you said, we'd be the third largest oil producer. We in effect have our own grid

28:44 where a lot of what needs to be done in the world, shipping more LNG to Europe, all these various things, we can do a lot more of that because we don't have to deal with the feds on certain parts

28:59 of it. And man, if we give that away, we're host. Terrifying. Yeah, the world's host So

29:09 anyway, well, okay, last time we did five questions. I don't know that I have five questions this time, but I do have a couple of questions for you that I looked up. So according to FairVoteorg,

29:20 since from '94

29:24 to '22, there have been 248 House and Senate primary races that have had a runoff. Okay in 240

29:36 of those races, there were fewer votes than in the main primary. What's the average decline in voter totals in the runoff from the original primary? 20. It's actually 38. Wow. So

29:59 40 of the people that showed up last time may not show up this time Second question, how often does the person that finished second wind up ultimately winning in those run-offs? Okay, I've heard

30:14 the stat of like 80.

30:16 That second place person wins 80 of the time? Yeah. Their stat was 35 So about a third, about a third of the time. The, so what's the game plan for the runoff? You've got ads going out, are we

30:33 gonna do any voter turnout? Have we done any voter ID in terms of calling polling, identifying your favorables - I know, it's a crapshoot -

30:45 I love it, I love it, perfect. And so the final and most pressing question, I guess this will be question number three since I don't actually have five questions Are we planning any more nudity

30:58 before the runoff - No, we are not. But you know, I joked that how do we get people to show up? Can

31:08 I like, be like, hey, I'll send you a nice, still photo from humpjack, if you send me a picture of you with your eye-voted sticker. And I haven't had time to research it, that may be like

31:20 improper offering something in exchange for a vote you know and the last thing I need is to accidentally have another joke. run afoul and give him more ammo to be like, look, you know, I'm. Hold

31:33 on. I just, I just, I just got an updated flyer that now has Wayne saying he supports all election laws and a big ex Sarah Stodgerner agrees to bribe voters. Oh man. So anyway,

31:53 you were cool to come back on the podcast. I appreciate it Um, you know, good luck in the, uh, the runoff. I think, uh, the, the thing that impressed me, uh, about your run and I've, I've

32:08 said these couple of things before one way more smart, you're, you're a lot smarter than people give you credit for out there, but I think you've done a really good job of refuting that narrative.

32:19 I mean, you've been impressive out on the the the stump and the second thing is This wasn't just a lark you

32:26 did it on. You've treated it seriously, albeit in the serastage in our way, but you've taken it really seriously 'cause you believe and we need more of that in this world - Well, thank you. Doing

32:39 the best I can, waking up every morning and as cheesy as it sounds, my daily meditation of like, use me for good today. Let me be a good example. And when you have no expectations of an outcome

32:53 and you're true to who you are, I'm having fun, right? Like I'm optimistic and regardless of what happens, like that's, it is what is. And so I'm really looking forward to May 24th. I really

33:06 need people to get out and vote. But if I'm meant to win, I'm gonna win. And if not, I'll figure out the next step - So just to rehash, early voting is win - May 16th through 20th. So that's

33:21 early voting. The runoff is May 24th and I read this today. So I'm up to speed. If you voted in the Republican primary, you're allowed to vote in the runoff. If you voted in neither primary, you

33:38 can still come vote in the Republican runoff. You just can't have voted in the Democratic primary and then come over to vote in the Republican runoff - Correct - Cool. Well, Sarah, thanks again

33:52 for coming in - Thanks. And if listeners are curious, I'll do an open invite for my campaign night party, DM me and I'll give them details, but we are gonna have an event in Midland on election

34:08 night, May 24th. So for the Midland, Permian-based and folks that are around, I'd love them to come and celebrate with me - Cool - Thanks What did we not cover?

34:21 No, I think that's it - Okay. Cool. Well, your boyfriend Tanner said hello - Oh, tell him I said hi - I will, I will. The, and seriously, good luck - Thanks. Oh, tell him I'm almost done

34:38 with a book I'm gonna have for him. It's

34:42 basically

34:47 like a people, like kind of bad people that help God's mission. It's got a better title than that, but I think he'll appreciate it. It's kind of like some of the ambiguous. You two might enjoy

34:58 the read. I'll get it and send it to y'all, the name - Oh, cool - It's a really good read about, you know, being imperfect and like just embracing your imperfections and still like letting God

35:11 work, so - Yeah, no, I actually need to go read that. I've been struggling with that for the last couple of months in a weird spot So I probably do need to read that. Yeah, and I've been like,

35:23 wow, I believe in God again through this whole process. So it's pretty phenomenal.