- Coming up on "Austin InSight", we're meeting candidates hoping to represent Austin in the Texas House.

Plus, it's 25 years since 9/11.

We're sharing the story of a local man who worked at the World Trade Center.

"Austin InSight" starts now.

- [Presenter] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hi there and thanks for joining us.

I'm Laura Laughhead.

Election day in the 2026 midterms is less than two months away.

And once the votes are counted, Austin's delegation to the Texas House of Representatives will look a lot different.

State Representative James Talarico is vacating his seat to run for US Senate.

Gina Hinojosa is leaving to take on incumbent Greg Abbott for governor.

And Vikki Goodwin is challenging Dan Patrick for Lieutenant Governor.

This week, we're focusing on the race to replace Goodwin in House District 47.

The territory spans much of West Austin, from Bee Cave up to Lake Travis, all the way up to the Williamson County line.

The Democratic nominee is Pooja Sethi, Chief of Staff to Representative Goodwin and chair of the Travis County Democratic Party.

On the Republican side, Dr.

Jennifer Mushtaler, a board-certified OB/GYN, a former HOA president, and Austin Planning Commission member.

I sat down with both of these candidates to hear why they say Austinite should vote for them.

Let's start with Republican Dr.

Jennifer Mushtaler.

Dr.

Mushtaler, thank you so much for being with us today.

- Thank you for having me on the program.

- So, first, give us a quick intro about you and your background.

What motivated you to run for this seat?

- So, I'm a lifelong Texan.

I grew up right across the street from NASA Johnson Space Center.

I'm a daughter of our public schools.

I went through our public schools here.

I did my undergraduate at UT here in Austin.

Hook 'em.

- Hook 'em.

Yeah.

- I got my degree in electrical engineering and was co-oping my way through with IBM when I realized I'm a little bit more of a people person and I wanted to take that math and science and apply it in healthcare.

So, I changed courses and became a physician, did my training at Parkland and my residency at Peter Smith and Fort Worth.

Been living here in the Austin area for several decades, ran my own private practice, and I've always been involved in the community in some way, shape, or form.

I was actually working on one of our local city council races when a group of local women asked me to consider running for this open seat.

- Hmm.

And you mentioned you're a physician by trade and OB/GYN at that.

- Yeah.

- What unique perspective do you feel like you would bring to the House, especially when it comes to healthcare conversations?

- So, if I'm elected to serve, I will be the only board-certified OB/GYN in the House.

We have a few, - Mm.

- less than a handful of physicians serving in the House in the Senate.

And so, I would be the only board-certified OB/GYN.

And I think given the focus on women's healthcare, the initiatives from the speaker recently on forming the women's health subcommittee, I have a lot to offer in bringing real lived experience from my patients and my families, as well as from within the healthcare system.

- And let's delve a little more into that.

This is largely settled at this point, but given your unique background, what is your view on Texas restrictions on abortion access?

There was the Life of the Mother Act that was passed last session to try to clarify some things - Yes.

- at the urging of many OB/GYNs.

Do you think there's more conversation to have there?

- I do.

I think I worked at a Level IV maternity center.

That means we take the highest of high-risk patients.

We have a high-risk NICU that serves our earliest preemie babies.

And there are a lot of circumstances that come up that are very difficult to paper into legislation.

Like most OB/GYNs, I went into the profession because of the beauty of life and wanting to protect one of the most dangerous times in a woman's life and her journey through that and her family's journey through that.

So, it's hard to give case specifics, but there's always those one-offs.

And physicians need to be given the respect and the autonomy to do what it is we're trained to do according to the national standards of healthcare.

- Our audience tells us that education is currently a very high priority for Central Texans, and that is often tethered to public education funding and making sure our schools get the support they need from the state.

You mentioned you're a public school kid yourself.

What would you hope to do in the House to give schools, teachers, and students more tools to succeed?

- I feel like the further you dive into understanding the financing of the public education system, the more complex it gets.

I was speaking with one of our local superintendents and he said 900 pages later and you're still not gonna have it figured out.

- Mm.

- That right there to me is case in point of a problem.

Our system is so complex that it requires teams of people to figure out the finances for every single independent school district.

HD47 has seven independent school districts within there and we're paying over 800 million back in recapture.

There is a disconnect between the cost of educating students and how the funding is being doled out.

And so, we need to have clear, transparent conversations on what the districts are needing and how we can match the funding to serve those needs.

- And certainly, education has been a contentious issue on the ballot on both sides of the aisle this time.

- And it doesn't need to be, right?

We all want the same thing.

We all want our kids to be well-prepared to go into the workforce, to go into graduate level education, and to be able to leave meaningful and independent lives.

So, we all want the same thing.

The question is how do we go about getting there?

Public education accounts for almost a third of our state budget.

It's a big question.

It's a big issue.

It's tied back to property taxes, another big item in our district.

And so, it's layered and complex.

And I think the first thing we do is we start by studying it and having open, respectful conversation with our teachers, with our districts, and with our state lawmakers.

- Another issue right now bubbling up across Texas is how communities are balancing development, particularly AI data centers.

It's kind of like what's hanging over everyone's heads right now.

There are concerns about energy, water use, the local environmental impacts.

We're seeing both sides of the aisle really talking about this and concerned about this.

What are you hearing though from people in the district on that topic that you would hope to bring to the next session in the House?

- Mixed, like you said, both sides of the aisle.

And I see both perspectives.

I've served two terms on the city of Austin's planning commission, and one of the things we don't do well is large regional planning and oversight.

In the last legislative cycle, the legislature passed a permanent water fund and that how that money goes forward is gonna be laid out in the upcoming legislative cycles.

It's a huge issue for Central Texas.

It's a big issue related to the AI data centers.

So, it's all gonna wrap around and come together.

And it is a big paramount concern for everybody in our district.

- Indeed it is.

And we are seeing people, Republicans, who at first were in favor of this development and they're now taking a pause and walking it back.

And I think this issue is going to uniquely play out the polls this year.

But what are some of the other issues aside from those which are kind of hot button that you are hearing that are important to the people in District 47?

- So, education, the concern about how we grow and how we develop with infrastructure, and that includes the AI data centers, - [Laura] Mm-hmm.

- and then property taxes.

- Yeah.

- Always.

- Taxes, yeah.

And Austin voters have been very concerned about taxes as of late.

- Our tax rates are up 27% in the last two years.

Yeah.

- Hmm.

- And HD47 is comprised of not just Austin, but also parts of Lakeway, parts of Bee Cave, parts of Lago Vista.

So, it's not just an Austin vote.

HD47 is really kind of unique.

It's almost a gateway district between our urban core and getting out to the Texas Hill Country.

- Well, certainly from top to bottom on the ballot this year, much yet to play out, much conversations yet to be had.

Dr.

Jennifer Mushtaler, Republican running for Texas House District 47.

And thank you so much for your time today and best of luck in the election.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Now, let's hear from her opponent, Democrat Pooja Sethi.

(upbeat music) Pooja Sethi, thank you so much for being with us today.

So, you've been in District 47 for years already now as Representative Goodwin's Chief of Staff, so you know the district well, but what motivated you to take this step to run for office yourself?

- Absolutely.

So, I started, as you mentioned, as Representative Vikki Goodwin's Chief of Staff.

About four years ago, I was her past chief for four and a half years is what I put into the district.

Before that, I was an immigration attorney and I was driving up to San Antonio to reunite the children who have been separated by the Trump administration under the last term.

And Governor Abbott had decided to shut down that convention center up in San Antonio.

And I called Representative Vikki Goodwin and I said, I want the convention center to not be shut down.

Why is this happening?

And she said, "Well, why don't you come and interview to be my Chief of Staff?"

And I said, absolutely not.

I'm doing really good work here.

But when they shut down the convention center, I had so much anger about what was happening to children in Texas.

I said, you know what?

The only way I can change it was by going into that building.

And so, four years later, mom, immigration attorney, and I added to my resume Chief of Staff to House District 47.

- And now, here you are.

- Yes.

- Your opponent in this race is a physician and an OB/GYN at that.

And she brings that perspective to this conversation about healthcare policy.

You also list healthcare as a top priority for you.

- Mm-hmm.

- What differences do you see in your approach to that issue?

- First of all, I am pro-choice.

I am very actively pro-choice.

I think that women who enter a doctor's office should be able to make the choice for themselves and politicians like me or elected officials shouldn't be allowed to step into a doctor's office and make that decision for them.

I have been there, I've been knocking on the doors.

So, as I was knocking on HD47, they have told me different things.

One woman actually told me, "We knocked on over 30,000 doors in the primary."

One woman told me at the door that she can't afford her incontinence medication and waits for free samples from her doctor in order to be able to get her medicine.

That is what I'm fighting for, expanding Medicaid, fighting for healthcare affordability, making sure all aspects of healthcare, including access to healthcare.

We passed a bill, a budget amendment last cycle where family practitioners got to get certified in OB/GYN training for rural hospitals so that people across the state of Texas had access to that.

Because as we look at maternal mortality rates, especially in Harris County, - Mm.

- that is a big issue.

And so, we have passed bills around that.

I've been working on healthcare policy forever.

(chuckles) I am not a doctor.

My entire family are doctors, (Laura chuckles) both of my sisters and my brother-in-law, so.

- Doctors, lawyers.

- Yeah.

(laughs) But healthcare policy is top of mind for me at all times, but it's also, it goes deeper into not rubber stamping a party's agenda.

It's really standing up for the community and giving everyone the choice that they need and deserve when they enter the doctor's office.

- Now, our audience also tells us that education is a very high priority for Central Texans right now, and that is often tethered to public education funding and making sure our schools get the support they need from the state.

What would you hope to do in the House to give schools, teachers, and students more tools to succeed?

- Absolutely.

As I mentioned, I am a mom, so this is very personal for me with a school-aged child.

I will say this, we need to fully fund our public schools.

I know that they like to say that we funded in the last cycle.

We haven't kept up with inflation at all.

I have sat in community meetings time and time again in this district, watching communities get torn apart where they're literally trying to decide whether they should close this school or the school next to it, and whose schools should get shut down and what families have to suffer, and what children get to lose or have to lose their friends.

That's not okay to me.

We need to fully fund our public education.

We also don't need to put a billion dollars into school vouchers.

When we have deficits that our school districts are facing where they're trying to stop bus transportation, they're shutting down their schools, teachers are underpaid, staff are underpaid, teachers have to go get other jobs and buy classroom supplies, we shouldn't be giving a billion-dollar school voucher plan in the state of Texas.

Not only that, they're now saying that they want to double that amount in the next session.

I'm not okay with that.

The other thing that we really face in House District 47 is recapture.

A lot of our money leaves our district to go into recapture and what we need to have happen is the state of Texas needs to cover the 50% recapture costs that they used to instead of making the House District 47 individual taxpayer have to pay for that.

That's not okay to me.

So, that's another thing that I'll really be fighting.

- Another big issue bubbling up across Texas right now is how communities are balancing development, but particularly AI data centers.

I feel like you knew this was coming.

(Pooja chuckles) You know, there are concerns about energy and water use, as well as environmental impacts.

What are you hearing from people in the district on that topic that you hope to bring to the House next session?

- Absolutely.

And this is another place where I am different from my opponent.

They are talking about putting, potentially putting an AI data center on 2222 where the 3M campus is in my district.

And I'm a community first candidate.

Not against AI.

I promise my son I will not go Erin Brockovich and I'll go all around Austin (Laura chuckles) and say I'm anti-AI.

(Laura chuckles) But we don't need data centers in our communities.

There is no reason why next to a high school, next to Vandegrift High School, and why next to a high school, we have concerns about there being a data center there.

And what does this mean for our energy use and what does this mean for our water?

We need strong regulations.

We need them not near communities.

Communities should be able to have a voice and vote on whether we want a data center right there.

We also need purple pipes.

We need to do reusable water around the data center.

We are in a water crisis in Texas.

I mean, there are parts of the district that haven't had water for a week.

A few weeks ago, they called the office to let people know that they don't have water.

I mean, this is getting, we see what's happening in Oasis County.

I mean, we don't need to be open doors to every data center in the state, in the country actually, and then put Texas residents at risk to not have our basic needs met.

That's not okay to me.

- And I think a lot of people in the community, interestingly now across both sides of the aisle - Mm-hmm.

- are asking those very questions and I think that will play indeed a role at the polls.

Well, Pooja Sethi, Democrat running for Texas House District 47, thank you so much for taking the time today and best of luck in November.

- Thank you.

Thank you so much.

- Our election coverage will continue next week when Austin PBS teams up with KUT and Austin Current for a series of candidate forums for Austin City Council.

Voters in five council districts will pick their representatives at City Hall this November.

We'll kick things off with District 1 and District 3 here at Austin PBS on Tuesday, September 15th.

We'll have highlights from those forums next week here on "Austin Insight" and the full forums will be posted on the Austin PBS YouTube channel.

Meanwhile, Austin Police are stepping up enforcement and education efforts around e-motos, those electric-powered bikes you might have seen zipping around your neighborhood.

At a press conference last week, city leaders talked about their efforts to define and regulate those vehicles and help parents especially understand which laws apply.

- That would apply here, but those are the main ones that we see and the calls that we get to are the kids that are driving through the neighborhoods at 40, 50 miles an hour on one of these e-motos, and that vehicle's not registered.

They obviously don't have a driver's license for it.

And so, those are the things we're looking at.

We want to make sure we're educating the parents and the users of these devices so that we can all enjoy our streets safely.

- [Laura] Police note it can be very difficult to distinguish just by looking at a bike which laws apply.

They are working on building a website to help people learn.

- 1:00 and 3:00 PM for- - This week marks 25 years since the September 11th terror attacks, a day that changed the United States forever.

For many of us, it's a memory now growing more distant with time, but for those whose lives were forever changed, that day is never far away.

John Drucker spent eight and a half years working on the 81st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

His last day was Friday, September 7th, 2001, just four days before the towers would fall.

In the days after, he returned to ground zero as a volunteer firefighter.

Now, Drucker has a new home here in Central Texas, but he still carries the stories of the place he loved, the people he lost, and the lessons we all can still learn from that day.

I joined him as he visited the 9/11 Memorial at the Texas State Cemetery for the first time.

(birds chirping) (water trickling) (water softly burbling) (birds chirping) (John sighs) - Look at this box columns.

(birds chirping) I walked by columns like this when I was on the mechanical floors, which were more exposed day after day.

It's sad that I'm touching them now.

That's the sadness, that majestic building, that great building that these were part of, but it's sad for me to think that it's gone.

We've lived in New Jersey all our lives, 68 years.

We now live in Lampasas.

The driving force, number one on the list, was our grandson Monty.

In 1975, way back in the day, I joined the volunteer fire department and I eventually became the captain of the company.

The bombing of the World Trade Center occurred in February of 1993 and the World Trade Center was severely damaged.

So, the Port Authority at that point made a decision to renovate and modernize the World Trade Center.

My powers to be said, "John, you're gonna be the project manager at the World Trade Center.

Just you're gonna be here for like 90 days."

Well, 90 days turned into eight and a half years.

Our offices were in the North Tower and the One World Trade Center, Suite 8127, which tells you it's on the 81st floor of the North Tower.

It was a city in a city.

There was a concourse that connected everything together.

We had the observation deck on two World Trades, so you could go up and actually go on the roof.

There's no higher point in New York.

You could look everywhere.

(dramatic music) - [Laura] But your job there ended - Yes.

- Friday, September 7th, 2001.

When you walked out that day, did you have any idea it would be the last time you would ever see - No.

- the towers like that?

- No.

(somber music) - Well, we just got a report in that there's been some sort of explosion at the World Trade Center in New York City.

- I was in my office in New Jersey, a phone rings, and he says, "Hey, John."

He said, "The World Trade Center plane just flew into the World Trade Center."

And he said to me, I'll never forget, he said to me, "Oh, like a little Cessna or something."

I'm like, how did they not see the building?

I told them, I said, yeah, I got to go over to the World Trade Center and find out what's going on, and we're probably gonna be really busy fixing everything up.

And I started heading over there and I got another call, and they said, "Oh, another plane hit the building."

(dramatic music) And then, it dawned on me, this is no accident.

I, you know, got to Jersey City, parked my car, and I could see the smoke.

I could hear people on the radio that I knew trying to get out of the building, trying to get people out of the building.

And I was standing there and the South Tower collapsed.

(somber music) I couldn't believe it.

It's gone.

It's all gone.

(somber music) I went home.

I talked to my fire chief, Greg Papalu.

I was on the way down the turnpike and he called me.

He goes, "We were so afraid that you were in there."

And he says, "Now, get home because the Middletown Township Fire Department has been called to respond to the World Trade Center."

He says, "Go home, see your children, see your wife."

And I said to my wife, I have to go.

I have to go.

It's something I have to do.

I was fortunate that the people who were my direct team that worked with me on the 81st floor were able to get out.

But the Port Authority people, 75 of them, many of them who I had worked with closely, (somber music) my best friend, I think about him every day.

(somber music) They never did find his remains.

They found his keys, and I still have mine.

(somber music) Even though it would have meant my demise, I just felt like I should have been there.

And I carry that even to this day.

When you talk and you say, "Well, it wasn't meant for me to be there," was it meant for anybody else to be there?

That's the hard part.

(John sighs) I'm sorry.

This is 25 years, and so we'd say it's a marked anniversary.

And so, I'm fearful that 26 will... Well, it's just 26.

I think about the days after 9/11 when we as a country were united, when we stood in harmony, when we put our hands on our hearts.

(somber music) I wish we could go back to that.

It's very painful to see where our country is today.

I just wish that all the hate would end and that we would somehow find common ground.

I hope what happened on 9/11 was not in vain and I will never, ever forget.

(somber music) (somber music continues) - For many teenagers, prom is a highlight of the quintessential high school experience, a night of dancing, dresses, photos, and hanging out with your friends.

But for people with disabilities, that experience isn't always accessible.

A local organization is hoping to change that.

And this week, they're bringing their party back to Austin, designed so everyone can join in on the fun.

Unboredroom is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access and community for people with disabilities.

On Saturday, September 19th, they're throwing their third Annual Inclusion Prom.

- We have our volume adjustable silent disco headphones, our sensory sensitive glam station, our sensory chill lounge.

The whole party is designed very intentionally with low, medium, and high energy spaces for whatever mood you're in.

- There's some spaces where we can go and dance and have fun in the evenings, but people like my sister aren't really, it doesn't make sense for them to enjoy it with us.

But in a space like this, where we can all go together and do something that we all love with her and see the joy in her face as she's kind of, you know, dancing the night away, is really a gift.

- Again, Inclusion Prom is Saturday, September 19th, at Wanderlust Wine Company on Shady Lane.

For more information, you can visit unboredroom.org.

(upbeat music) And that's our show.

If you want to see more "Austin InSight", you can catch all our episodes on the Austin PBS YouTube channel and in the PBS app anytime for free.

Thanks again for watching.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Presenter] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(bright music)