In this episode of Energy Newsbeat – Conversations in Energy, Stuart Turley is joined by Kristi Antonick from Americans for Prosperity to discuss Texas’s major policy wins—from the passing of SB2 on school choice to the fight for property tax reform. Kristi shares grassroots success stories, like rallying over 1,000 citizens to the state capitol, and highlights the role of community voices in shaping legislation. They dive into the impact of education freedom, rising energy demands from AI and data centers, and the urgent need for grid capacity—making a compelling case for nuclear innovation and local engagement in shaping Texas’s prosperous future.
Our interview with General Flynn gets released on Tuesday, and he brought up some critical points that Kristi and the Americans for Prosperity have been talking about. That is, we ALL have to get involved at the local level. Get involved by volunteering to count votes, attending school board meetings, and participating in local government.
We have let the left control all aspects of our lives for too long.
Thank you, Kristi, and we really appreciate all the great things that you are doing over at Americans for Prosperity! – Stu
Connect with Kristi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristi-antonick-0375122a1/
Check out Americans for Prosperity: https://www.freedomisbigger.com/about/
And most importantly – Get involved.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
00:28 – What’s Going On in Texas?
01:22 – Property Tax Reform Push
02:00 – Major Win: School Choice (SB2)
03:32 – From Valedictorian to Advocacy
04:13 – School Choice Isn’t Anti-Public School
05:23 – Grassroots Engagement & AFP Events
06:49 – Energy Roundtable Recap
08:04 – Energy Grid Concerns & Data Center Growth
09:29 – Nuclear Innovation & DOE Pilot Program
10:14 – AI, Energy Policy & Texas Advantage
11:09 – AFP’s National Focus on Energy
12:05 – Can Texas Eliminate Property Taxes?
13:00 – The Freedom Unleashed Tour
14:14 – A Real Fix is Coming
15:47 – How to Get Involved
16:12 – From Anger to Action
16:42 – Final Thoughts & Thank You
Full Transcript:
Stuart Turley [00:00:07] Hello everybody, welcome to the Energy Newsbeat Podcast, my name is Stu Turley, President and CEO of the Sandstone Group. Today is an absolutely wonderful day. I’ve got Kristi Antonick here, and I’ll tell you what, this is an exciting time to be in Texas. She is with the Americans for Prosperity, and you’ve got some great updates. Welcome Kristi.
Kristi Antonick [00:00:28] How are you today? Thank you, Stu. I am great. We are busy right through the summer when it’s supposed to be slow. So I’ve got all kinds of things to share with you today. All right, well tell us what’s going on in Texas. Well, in Texas, we have a number of things going on. First and foremost, you’ll know there’s a special session on and as Americans for Prosperity does, we are involved today calling our volunteers, our ambassadors, because they’re taking up four different bills around property taxes in committees today. And so we want our people being able to comment, they’re doing that. Electronically, they’re doing that through the websites, and so we are on the phones getting them out and getting their voices heard today.
Stuart Turley [00:01:10] So did I just hear you say that the governor is going to be signing away taxes on property?
Kristi Antonick [00:01:15] I said that there’s four bills in committee today, and we are rallying our volunteers to have a voice on those.
Stuart Turley [00:01:22] Oh, fantastic. I think that, wouldn’t it be nice to have all that behind us? Property taxes are not right.
Kristi Antonick [00:01:30] Well, property taxes are our big push right now. We came out of the regular session with some big wins and I can’t start this conversation without saying that we are the people’s lobby, Americans for Prosperity. We put the people in the room with legislators and we helped make a difference and we had a huge win this year, Stu. We we’ve been working for decades on school choice and you know that SB 2 was passed next year school year 2026 we will fund students rather than systems and we’re excited about that I’m excited about that I I’m going to share a secret with you I’m not from Texas I originally came from Arizona 25 years ago my husband and I were driving down an Arizona road talking about our son. He was in third grade and couldn’t read. We knew he was really bright. We had moved in from public school to a charter school, but we still were seeing no results. And as a kid, I grew up hearing that everything was bigger in Texas. And you’d heard that schools were better in Texas, and so my husband left his job, I sold my business, and we came to Texas for better opportunities. 25 years down the road, my son graduated from high school valedictorian. Went to Texas Tech on a merit scholarship, graduated with honors, has published two children’s books and a poetry book. And I worked for the largest policy and grassroots organization in the nation and got to help be a part of this huge win. So life is a circle, but I’m really proud to have worked on this and our AFP Texas team did enormous work. We had, my gosh, we brought over a thousand people to the capital around policy this year. Yes. So regular session was busy and special sessions had some work around it, but we’re already out in our communities doing more work around property tax reform.
Stuart Turley [00:03:32] You brought up some fantastic points. And I, you know, it’s kind of like when my, the generations are not far removed. My, my dad rode his horse to school. I mean, you think about where we’ve come. He didn’t have an, he did not have indoor plumbing until he was 16 and he was getting ready to go to college is when they finally got indoor plumbing. We’ve gone from riding horses to now we’ve come to a place where homeschooling is better than schools. And so your efforts with that school choice is critical for parents to be able to pick their choices in the school.
Kristi Antonick [00:04:13] Choice. This is huge. Yes, and there is that narrative out there, a narrative, a false narrative of public schools against private schools. And I really want to say that our son, we came to a public school here in East Texas and they identified his problem and he flourished there. But my work has been to ensure that every student across Texas would have that same opportunity to find the place where they could learn best. And that’s what we talk about every day. We hope that this improves public education as well as private education and also gives a lift to those parents who are homeschooling. And SB2 did exactly that. It funds $1 billion to students. And our private school kids and our homeschool kids will benefit from that. And those, it is a universal bill that prioritizes first of all students with disabilities and then low income students and then middle income students. But it will be available to everybody and we expect to see this grow over time but really lift the education opportunities for every student in Texas.
Stuart Turley [00:05:23] And so what we’re nailing though is parents need to be involved at the grassroots level with their school boards and get this down. How do people get involved with Americans for prosperity?
Kristi Antonick [00:05:37] Well, we have a website, freedomisbigger.com. Our events are listed on our calendar page. We have grassroots engagements directors across the state that our local people can meet up with, have one-on-one meetings, they can come out to educational meetings, but we also do trainings. And the important thing around SB2 is this could not have been passed. Without the stories from parents in our communities. And that’s what we did. We went out and we listened. And Stu, you know this because you and I met when I hosted an Energy Roundtable. We are a organization. Yes, we’re a bottoms up organization. We bring people in and we ask them to share their problems. What are the barriers in their lives? And then we also, you will remember, at the Energy Round Table, we asked them to share the solutions because we believe that people, especially Texans, not only do they see the issues at hand, but they also have ideas on solutions. And the best solutions come from people who are the boots on the ground. And so that’s where we go to, to look for the problems and to find the solutions.
Stuart Turley [00:06:49] You know, that was such a great event. You had Senator Cruz that was there listening to the folks from Abilene Christian University, the nuclear reactor there, you had people from Reese energy consulting about natural gas, you have all of these great leaders there talking about business. How do we get business going?
Kristi Antonick [00:07:11] That was cool. You know what? And I don’t know if you remember this, but that was right after a storm. We had to change the venue at the last minute because our first venue didn’t have electricity. So what’s the time to talk about energy? And we gleaned some really important information out of our round tables. We held them across the state with state and federal lawmakers. But we wanted to put those people who are in the trenches and know the issues. With our lawmakers. So at the first, at the very first round table, I learned from David Robinson of Align Data Centers, I had said that we would soon not have enough capacity on our grid. And he said, Christie, I hate to correct you, but the fact is we already don’t have enough capacity. Stu, I bet you know this, but I don’t know how many of your viewers know that right outside of Abilene, they’re building the largest data center in the entire world.
Stuart Turley [00:08:05] It’s about two miles from the house.
Kristi Antonick [00:08:07] Oh my gosh. Okay, so you’re well aware of that. And then just up the road you mentioned Natura and Abilene Christian College. They are working on a research reactor that is going to be able to provide the energy that we need for these data centers and all the other things that we have in Bethesda. So it is fun and it was fun to see these guys working together and and problem solving. We had some incredible innovators in the room at our third roundtable. I learned from David Slavinsky from Eastman that he said, hey, we love renewable energy, but it’s good for residential properties. But in industrial situations, it doesn’t create motive energy, which is what we need to use to run our fans and our turbines. And again, another light bulb that just comes on. And then to see them all rally around Doug and Andrew and ask, when is this nuclear coming online? So and we know that just recently that Doug and Andrew got word that the DOE have included them as one of 11 in the nuclear research pilot program, which just means they’re going to be fast-tracked and great things happening in the energy industry as we search for capacity, reliability, and affordability.
Stuart Turley [00:09:30] I’ll tell you, we have got a, a Chris Wright secretary of energy is absolutely one of the coolest cats on the planet. And by him fast tracking them into that program is critical because they’ve picked a couple of others. I’m working on trying to get a, A three-pronged energy dominance podcast in DC to talk about this very issue and with him. So this is kind of fun.
Kristi Antonick [00:09:58] I think it really is an exciting time for us. You know, Texas is the innovation state. So many things are happening here and we have people with concerns. But when we’re transparent and show them all the ideas that are coming online, their worries will go away.
Stuart Turley [00:10:14] I’ll tell you one thing I am noticing Christy is that if you are doing business and you’re looking to try to lead AI is going to make a difference, but you’re going to need to drop your AI or your business where there is good energy policies. That is either Texas or that is Pennsylvania. Those are the two biggies. There’s Wyoming. There’s a few other places, but you gotta have. Good energy policies, then you’re going to want to have good schools for your employees. So you are talking about the two most critical pieces of business and families and being prosperous. We won’t be energy dominant if we follow California’s path. California has got serious energy problems and Texas ain’t California.
Kristi Antonick [00:11:09] That’s right, an AFP on a national level is really going to be diving into energy policy. We have a working group right now. We’re talking with Speaker Johnson, and there is some permitting things that are gonna be coming out in the fall. We’re really excited about that. And we will at the state and the federal level be working on energy. You’ll see us more there because we always work on things that affect the American people and Texans’ pocketbooks. And so, if you’re talking about taxes, health care, energy, education, all of those things, housing, housing has been a big thing for us at the state level this year. We’re talking about putting more money back in the taxpayers’ pockets.
Stuart Turley [00:11:54] How real do you think it is, is that the potential to get rid of home taxes, is it real or is it a pipe dream?
Kristi Antonick [00:12:05] You know, we don’t pay state income tax. And so we fund our schools and our cities and our counties through property taxes. But there is a lot to be done around reform. Now what the state legislature has done to the tune of billions of dollars, 18 billion in 2023. And now another 10 billion in this session. And I’ve even seen the governor post about 51 billion. So that may be a total number, but those are numbers that they have provided buying down our taxes. But what we’ve seen happen is bills that come, our property tax bills come and they’re not lower, right? Everybody that we talk to, those bills are higher. It’s happening at the local taxing entity level. And so we are on a Freedom Unleashed Tour. We just got off about four weeks ago. This is huge. We are going to work on property tax reform. And we’ve got four pillars that we’re going to do that around. We’re educating around the appraisal process, the local-tax rate process. Right now, all across the state, Our field staff are taking their people to city council to commissioners court budget meetings and they are commenting and asking. For lower taxes and for them to be consistent in looking at funding and budgeting for needs rather than one. Because we see all these tax burdens coming from recreational needs in our communities. Right. If that’s what people want, then that’s okay. But we have to remember that even our local electeds, they’re our representatives. And what we teach people is you’ve got to share what you’re thinking with your elected representatives so that they know what you want. Exactly. So we’re being heard. We had huge groups turn out in San Antonio. We’ve had them in Longview. We’ve had yes all over and it will continue through the next few weeks then we will work on bond education. And this is a two-year process, but we’re going to replace that bandaid with a real fix. We’re going fix property taxes.
Stuart Turley [00:14:15] Well, I want to be around when you rip that Band-Aid off and we, we have a discussion right before the next time we have some of your Senator Cruz events or something, I’ll have a Band-aid in and Christy, I let you just rip it off. I’ll be glad to do that. That would be fantastic.
Kristi Antonick [00:14:32] Well, tell people how to get a hold of you. Okay, so again, freedomisbigger.com. That is our website. It tells you what we’re doing. It tells where we’re at, what locations we’re going to next. And people can always reach out through LinkedIn, Christie Antonick, A-N-T-O-N I-C-K. Feel free to reach out to our field staff but also on our website are our local grassroots engagement directors and their emails are there and so you can look up your location and then you can reach out and if there’s not a grassroots engagement director in your area then feel free, to reach, out to one of us and we’ll see how we can help you. We have sister organizations Libre and Concerned Veterans for America so we do a lot of work. Some people used to think that we were just a school choice or taxation but we are really working to help our citizens have the opportunity to really enjoy prosperity and that comes with giving them more of their money back to do because we believe in people. We believe that they can make the best choices for their family and we believe that when barriers are broken innovation occurs and we just continue to progress at a faster and
Stuart Turley [00:15:48] You know, what’s cool is you absolutely enjoy your job. You enjoy your messaging and you believe in what you’re doing. I think this is absolutely wonderful. I can see it for our podcast listeners. You ought to see her. She’s absolutely beaming because she believes in what she’s doing. I’m sorry. It’s just, it’s you believe.
Kristi Antonick [00:16:12] I do. And you know what? I was sitting here at home one day, watching video on a news channel of our border. And I thought, Oh my gosh, I can get angry, or I can get busy. And that’s the way you get busy And so that would be my challenge to every one of your listeners. If you’re angry, if you don’t have answers, if you want something fixed, come along with Americans for Prosperity because we’re going to help you fix the issues that are plaguing our state.
Stuart Turley [00:16:42] I like the way you think. Well, thank you for stopping by the podcast today, Christie. I really appreciate you.
Kristi Antonick [00:16:48] I appreciate it.
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