GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, August 3, 2016

In the news.

Welcome, I’m Professor Shaw. And I’m Professor McDaniel. Welcome to the news for American and Texas

government. Another quiet week. Yes. Nothing. Nothing going on. Sorry,

folks. Just a few things. So, again, a bunch of liberals got together in Philly

and they, you know, dropped a bunch of balloons in the end of the balloon

drop. Yes, I’m very pro balloon drop. Yeah, but the problem is the balloons beginning, if you notice, the balloons are getting

bigger over the decades. Also not really crazy about really old men like

popping the balloons and stuff like watching Bill Clinton up there. I was just hoping nothing went wrong because

it seemed like he was on dangerous ground there for a while. But nearby looks amazing. The balloons of

the revert to a child. But again, balloons cause people to want to talk about it. Hillary

Clinton freaking out when the balloons. Those boards are getting bigger each year. So if

I was a regular little balloon, I’d be OK. But I mean, they’re getting to be about, you know, the size

of a small SUV. So you’ve got to watch where you’re going in the balloon, the contrast

with the balloons. This is this is a shurn inappropriate statement at some level. But for a long time, Hillary

was wearing this blue blueberry blue pantsuit and she looked like Violet Beauregard from

Willy Wonka. And I kept expecting her at some point during the campaign season to just sort of expand into a blueberry.

Well, she stopped wearing that suit, which is a good thing, because I think she could have been mistaken for a balloon. Yeah, it’s a

bit on the stage. Had she gone there. But she went with a tasteful pantsuit. Oh, yeah. And again, though, my

whole thing was it was like she’s been freaked out about the balloons. They’re humongous. It’s the one of the worst things

the world has to accept the presidential nomination. They get a concussion from a balloon. So one

of the worst. One of the worst. Top five. Yeah, it’s tough. But again, as this campaign has shown us,

well, we hit new lows every day. But let’s actually go let’s talk about the substance aspect of the

of the DNC convention. So the DNC met in Philadelphia. We spoke a little bit last week about

the attempts to kind of curtail the anger of the Bernie supporters

and try to bring part up, bring about party unity. And you saw some of that coming about.

But again, deal with the e-mail scandal is going to be a little bit of a difficult hurdle to overcome.

Something about Hillary Clinton emails is don’t go well together. Oh, it’s a scandal.

But there are some key things that were said. Again, you see really a lot of

talking about unity amongst the party, but actually going after Trump and his credibility. That’s the great thing about

going second is that you can basically pick and

choose to pick apart when everybody else counterpunch. Yeah, you can counterpunch. And and that’s exactly what

was going on. But we also see coming out of this is President Obama’s war, the last major

national duress to the public, at least in terms of terms of a speech or

so. Let’s hear some of the clips from that. What we heard in Cleveland last week

wasn’t particularly Republican and it sure wasn’t conservative.

What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turned against each

other and turn away from the rest of the world. There were no serious solutions

to pressing problems. Just the fanning of resentment and blame

and anger. And hey. And that

is not the America I know. You

know. Nothing truly prepares you for the demands

of the Oval Office. You can read about it. You can study it.

But until you’ve started that desk. You don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis.

Or send young people to war. But Hillary has been in the room.

She’s been part of those decisions. She’s. She knows what’s at stake in

the decisions our government makes. What’s at stake for the working family,

for the senior citizen or the small business owner? For the soldier.

For the veteran. And even in the midst of crisis.

She listens to people and she keeps her cool. And she treats everybody with respect.

And no matter how daunting the odds, no matter how much people try to knock

her down, she never, ever quits.

That is the Hillary I know, that’s the Hillary I’ve come

to admire. And that’s why I can say with confidence. There has never been

a man or a woman, not me, not Bill. Nobody

more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United

States of America. I guess leading the allies in World War 2 against the Axis powers

doesn’t qualify Dwight Eisenhower more than Hillary Clinton. But

OK. Sort of possible partisan hyperbole aside. There

you see the president on the Wednesday night, the Democratic convention Wednesday night. Right. Wednesday or Tuesday,

Wednesday night giving. I think by all accounts, a very effective defense

of his policies about what the administration has done, setting its own, basically.

You know, as Professor Dean are talking about counterpunching. Republicans want to say things are really bad, things are in tough

shape. No, I think this is Obama. You know, the country is sort of fundamentally solid,

tapping into the optimism that most political consultants will tell you is necessary to effectively

campaign for president. So so that’s the contrast right there. Doomsayers, doom and gloom.

We are the party of optimism. And so this is in some sense for those the sense of history, kind of an interesting

historical flip flop. Usually it’s the Republicans who get out there and talk about spending the

days of Reagan. You know, Clinton did this a little bit, too. But we always think of mourning in America.

Is the advertising campaign associate Ronald Reagan and the Republicans in the 1980s? Well, the Democrats

kind of stole that page out of the Republican playbook this time around, effectively contrasting

Hillary is the candidate of optimism and forward looking progress in this sort of thing.

You know, so that was Obama’s task. Now, Obama kind of set her up saying she’s the

heir to the throne. Right. You know, she’s going to continue my legacy. She’s uniquely positioned.

She’s uniquely qualified. Right. I actually think when you start talking about whether

the country is doing well or not, well, I’m not sure that debate has any real clear resolution right now. A

lot of people who agree with the Trump vision, a lot of people agree with the Obama vision. But the thing

that I think was really effective there is playing up the notion of qualifications, because

lots of people, 60 percent to even as high as two thirds of Americans do

not think Donald Trump is qualified to be president, lacks the temperament, lacks the knowledge.

So hitting on that and saying that’s the contrast you all ought to be concerned with.

It was a very effective thing that President Obama did in that speech. So, you know, I don’t want to get too wrapped

up these speeches too wrapped up in the particular speeches. I think, you know, we got all upset about

Michelle Obama’s speech and President Obama’s speech. I don’t know that those things singularly do a whole

lot. I don’t even know that Hillary Clinton’s speech, which we’ll get to in just a sec, does a whole lot.

But, you know, collectively they create kind of an agenda and

a theme for the fall campaign. I think what you’ve seen right now is the Republicans have tossed

out a theme that says things are going to hell in a handbasket. We need radical change. Not quite sure

what that looks like exactly, but radical change. Although I think it’s got to change here

on the Democratic side. It’s sort of stay the course, steady hand. Things

aren’t that bad. We really need kind of qualified, you know, experienced leadership right

now. That’s the contrast, right? So we’ll see what Americans think of this. You

know, then we’ve got Hillary Clinton speech. So let’s kind of wrap up our convention coverage here

with a little excerpt from Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech. First female to win a major

party nomination. It is with humility, determination

and boundless confidence in America’s promise that I accept

your nomination.

The former secretary of state, senator and first lady spent nearly an hour last night

laying out her vision for the future. Clinton said the country is at a moment of reckoning

and she urged all Americans to work together to meet the challenges to come. Nancy Cordes is

at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine will appear just a few hours from

now. Nancy, good morning. Good morning. This was a speech for the record books in more

ways than one. The first time in modern history that a nominee argued her opponent was

simply incapable of doing the job. But Clinton also acknowledged that many

Americans still don’t know quite what to make of her, despite her decades in public life.

Tonight, we’ve reached a milestone in our nation’s march toward a more perfect union.

The first time that a major party has nominated a woman

for president. It was a history-making moment

and Clinton savored it when there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit.

Clinton is the biggest speech of her life to try to explain what makes her tick. I sweat the

details of policy, whether we’re talking about the exact level of lead in the drinking

water in Flint, Michigan. It’s not just a detail. If it’s your kid,

if it’s your family, it’s a big deal. She said it is not a big deal to her opponent.

You didn’t hear any of this, did you? From Donald Trump at his convention.

Peaceful for 70 odd minutes, and I do mean odd

again and again. She laid into Trump’s character. He loses his cool at the slightest

provocation. A man you can bait with a tweet is

not a man we can trust with no player weapons.

Donald Trump says, and this is a quote, I know more about ISIS

than the generals do. No, Donald,

you don’t. Clinton spent the most time on the economy,

an issue where our poll shows Trump has the biggest edge Democrats. We are

the party of working people. My primary mission as president will be to create

more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages. And she said

his rhetoric I alone can fix it should alarm everyone.

Really, I alone can fix it.

He’s betting that the perils of today’s world will blind us

to its unlimited promise. He’s taken the Republican Party

a long way from morning in America to midnight in

America. Well, there you have it. It is. It is historic. I mean, I

know I said in the history of modern political, that’s not it’s, you know, the first major political party

nominee in the United States. Obviously, we’ve got, you know, Angela Merkel in Germany. You know,

actually, someone pointed out the other day that you could by January have female leaders

in the top executive positions in the United States, Great Britain and Germany, which

would be, of course, unprecedented. So so if those who were down for the movement, you know, there you go.

I mean, said we’ve had a female vise, presidents, candidates or Geraldine Ferraro, Sarah

Palin. But the idea of being the person was on the top of the ticket

is a historic moment. And I think one of things about it is while

there was a great deal of attention paid to Obama being the first

African-American to be president of Canada for a major party. I think a lot has been lost in

really a significant moment of what’s going on with Hillary Clinton. And so I think maybe because she’s been around

for so long and I think it’s a big part of it. Yeah. But there also because there’s some controversy

associated with her where the Obama’s you know, it was it was Harry Reid

who said he’s clean. He didn’t have many controversies behind him.

And so because of that, it doesn’t seem his seem to be much more of

a clean up. I guess Sinjin is. Whereas Hillary Clinton appears to be much more,

I guess. Jack, too, in that in that sense, where there’s a lot of controversy, a lot of weird things going on.

But we’ve reached this historic moment. And I think, you know, it’s something we should know,

rather partisan or not should take time to acknowledge that we are manyways, are expanding

the field of people that we see as worthy. We us. So we think of Kennedy with

open the door to Catholics who think of Obama, African-Americans,

Romney with Mormons. Now with Hillary Clinton, you see this with women that in terms of leadership,

we are expanding the number of people we can see as leaders of the nation, even look at the Republican

primary contest. And for, you know, for all the, you know, kind of scorn that was heaped upon the 17

candidates, I think at its apex, 17 candidates were involved. But you think about the Republican primaries and you had

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Cuban-Americans running for president. You had Carly Fiorina, female running

for president. Ben Carson, African-American running for president. You know, it’s even on the Republican

side. And the Republican coalition, as we talked about in lecture modules, is not as diverse as

the Democratic coalition. It’s just not as you know, historically, the groups that animate the Republican

voting public aren’t as racially, ethnically diverse as the Democrats coalition.

But even on the Republican side, all sorts of you know, in the case of Cruz and

Rubio and Fiorina, these are credentialed people who ran for president.

You know, I think you could say Carson, perhaps less so. But, you know, the fact that he’s running and

the fact that he drew a sizable portion of the vote from social conservatives was, I think, meaningful. So Professor McDonnell’s

point, I think, you know, is an important one, and we can’t take it for granted these days. You know, female senators running in

Texas, of course, we have a history. You’ve had female executives, female governors. You know, we’ve

had a female senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, you know, so it’s maybe less exotic

at the state level. But oh, no. I mean, I’ve sort of mixed feelings, I think, like almost every American

about Hillary Clinton. But I thought it was a really kind of impressive moment when you actually see her up there accepting

the nomination. You almost forget she’s Hillary for a moment. And that’s kind of hard to do, I think.

You know, so we have a fresh batch of polls that have come out in the weeks we these two conventions back

to back. So, Professor McDaniel, I can say a couple of things now about what we think the result

of these conventions has been. And so we take a look. This is a trend

line that takes these data points and you’re looking at on the slide right now. All of the, I think,

credentialed or, you know, kind of professionally legitimate. It’s probably a little loaded

phrase. Public opinion polls that have occurred over the past six

to eight months and the trend run line, the red dots show particular point estimates

of Donald Trump standing in a trial. BALLOT matchup with Hillary Clinton that as a poll asks

if the election were held today, would you vote for Donald Trump, the Republican, or Hillary Clinton the Democrat?

So the red represents point estimates of Trump’s support. The blue dots represent estimates of Hillary

Clinton’s support. The trend line shows what’s happened over time. And you see at the beginning of the time series

a fairly significant and fairly stagnant sort of a massive lead for Hillary Clinton. This is national polling results.

As you all know, we don’t actually have a national popular vote in the United States, but it

is very indicative of overall support. As we’ll get to in a second, we show the Electoral College breakdown.

So you see that significantly narrowed considerably as Trump march

to victories and close to about five points or so that it bumped along.

And Hillary, as you see, you move across from left to right. Hillary opened up a fairly significant

lead over Trump, you know, on the order of double digits. As you move through the spring, that

lead began to narrow. And, you know, Trump seemed to close the

gap. You all see then it opened up a little bit, you know, as Trump faced

some controversies at the beginning of the summer. And then you see an uptick in the red and a downtick

in the blue that represents basically Trump’s convention bounce. You see,

he closed it to just a point or two. But then at the very end, that’s what we want to draw your attention to.

The newest polling information suggests that Hillary Clinton got at least as significant a bump as

Trump did out of her convention. Probably more significant. How significant? I think

you’re seeing some polls coming out right now that show the race between six to 10 points in favor

of Hillary Clinton. So she seems to have opened up a fairly significant national lead. Was that expected?

No, not really. I mean, there was a sense that would be difficult for Clinton to move the dial much because she’s so well-known.

You know, it’s difficult for candidates who have a long history to convince voters to take a fresh look or two to

move to them from some candidate who’s typically kind of new and fresh. Like Donald Trump

is whatever else you want to say about him. Well, new and fresh might not be the right word, but no different,

at least. But right now, if you’re asking us where the races, you know, I’d kind of split

the difference in this six to 10 margin and say it’s probably eight or nine point Clinton lead. And I think

the Donald’s in serious trouble. There are examples of candidates overcoming that sort of deficit

in the course of American presidential history. But they’re not a lot of them. And, you know, if the events

of the last couple days are any indication, he doesn’t seem to be on task to doing the sorts

of things he needs to do to, you know, move that race back to within a two or three point margin, if you’re within

two or three points, then, hey, anything can happen. But if you’re down eight or nine, you’ve got some serious

problems for us since you don’t pick fights with babies. Yeah, I think that’s probably probably

not the smartest thing. Now, we can also take a look, as we’ve explained

the few times in the modules, we really want to focus your attention on this. Presidential elections

are not won in the popular vote. The popular vote is right. Here’s the thing that happens.

Students learn. You know, you all probably knew this intellectually. But when you take a class like this, it’s reinforced.

Hey, there is a thing called the Electoral College that actually decides presidential races. So then,

you know, those of you, you’re out there really attentive. It’s smart, will say, like, I care about the national. The national polls don’t mean

anything. OK. Yeah, they do, because states add

up to national votes. So the notion that Hillary Clinton, for instance, would move the dial nationally

and it wouldn’t be manifest in a change in kind of how certain states are leaning, it’s probably non-sense.

So while it’s true, we want your attention to be on the state by state races, because that’s where

you amass a sufficient number of electoral votes to win the presidency. Don’t ignore the national numbers.

I mean, what will happen is these numbers that we’ve seen moving in the national polls will now start to get state

by state polls that probably corroborate that story at a more localized level. So

the bump up that Hillary got in the national polls is almost certainly going to be manifest

in polls in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Florida, which haven’t been done yet. Takes a little while to

organizations to get the resources together and run state polls. So, Professor McDaniel, I’ve cobbled something

together. I’m actually involved in in the Fox News decision team, the national decision team. And we’ve

got something called the electoral scorecard. I’ve put up the latest version of the electoral scorecard

up here. Right. Which shows you and I think this probably reflects Professor Danielle,

I’ll talk about this here, probably reflects our best guess about the way things are right now

as you look across the nation. So we’ve got five categories here for you. The deep red

states that are pretty solid for Trump, the kind of shaded red. Those are states that are leaning

Trump, but could be in play. So there you see states like Arizona, Missouri, Georgia.

These are these are traditionally states that go Republican. But Hillary Clinton’s campaign is targeting them

right in Georgia. A lot of African-American voters who are, you know, newly. Registered could bring that state

into competitive status. Arizona, lots of Hispanic voters, a younger population,

they’re getting on the rolls. Now they could make that state more competitive. Missouri

home state. CHRIS MCDANIEL Well, in a way, you know, I got that Saint Luis connection. Yeah. All right.

That’s a state that used to be a real battleground, has moved towards the Republicans. But you get a flawed

candidate. Missouri becomes a bellwether again. Right now, the gold states here.

And I should also point on the other side. Dark blue are the Democratic base state. So there’s the

states. Hillary is almost certain to win. You see the Pacific Coast, Washington to California. You

see the upper New England states, Maine, New York, Vermont, all

the New England states, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc. Heavily for Clinton, Illinois. Hillary’s nominal

home state, Minnesota. Right. And then the shaded blue. Those are states that are leaning Clinton.

Michigan. Wisconsin. Couple others. Right. So we’ve got there on the key

how those add up in terms of electoral college votes. All right. But the gold states are where this election is almost

certainly going to be decided. And we’ve got Nevada, Colorado,

Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, the sole battleground state in the New

England area. We’ve got the Atlantic Coast states, North Carolina, Virginia

and Florida. Now, if this was done, I think late June.

Right. So this thing’s got a little moss on it. How would I change it right now? I would move Colorado

to lean Democratic. I think Hillary’s got about about an eight to ten point lead there.

I’ve heard she’s pulled her television advertising from Colorado, which suggests

to me they think it’s safe for her. Right. So I would move Colorado. The

other states, I think, are probably pretty appropriately classified. I

still think Florida, Ohio. I wouldn’t quite put Virginia in the lean

Clinton right now, but I’d be tempted to. I’d be tempted to. Right. I

think the states that we had leaning, you know, about a month ago, Arizona, Missouri and Georgia.

I see no reason. I do not believe that Trump locked those states up with his convention. I think

those states are still in play. I think you’re going to see Hillary advertising in Phenix, in Atlanta and Saint Lewis,

maybe in Kansas City in the next few weeks. Little side note, last night I saw Hillary Clinton

went to Omaha, Nebraska. And you’re looking at the map right now. You’re saying, you know, Nebraska

has not gone Democratic since since Franklin Roosevelt ran. Why would she

be in Nebraska? Nebraska is one of two states, along with Maine, that allocates its electors

by congressional district results. Every other state is a winner take all. If you win Texas,

you get all of Texas as electoral votes. But Nebraska does it a little different

if you win the state, you get two electoral votes for winning the state. But there’s three other electoral votes

associated with Nebraska. Those electors are determined by the voting results in each of the congressional

districts. So they do the funky way. So getting back, why was Hillary in Omaha? Because

Omaha’s congressional district to Omaha is the only congressional district in Nebraska that’s competitive.

Hillary Clinton could go in there and win Omaha and take the electoral vote out of Nebraska.

Obama did that in 2008. I think Hillary’s looking to steal a electoral vote. However, she can’t. I should

say Steele will still win strategically. Claim be better phrase. Right.

You add all this up, by the way, 270 is the magic number. Guagua 270

electoral votes to win a majority, 538 total votes. Think about

that, right? Go back. 435 representatives, 100 senators for

thirty five plus one hundred is five thirty five by five thirty eight. You say

Professor Schell’s math wrong? Well, probably, but there’s an extra three for purposes of presidential elections.

We treat the District of Columbia as as a state. That’s 538.

Fifty percent of 538. A majority is 270. So what you’re talking about in a presidential

election is amassing electoral votes to get to 270. Who’s got the edge

right now? Hillary Clinton clearly has the edge. We’ve got her right around

the two hundred and twenty vote range. I think McDaniel and I both agree on that. What

does that mean? That means if she wins Florida, she’s almost there. All she needs

is like one or two other states. So Trump has to win Florida. I would argue the

interesting thing right now is that Trump not only has to win Florida. I think he has to win Ohio

and Pennsylvania. Those three states, if you, you know, tune in on

election night in November and you see the early returns from Pennsylvania showing a Clinton

lead. If the networks call Clinton in Pennsylvania fairly early on. I think this race is done.

I think he’s put himself in a box where he’s got to win Pennsylvania. Otherwise, he’s in trouble. So those three states

are the ones out of this grouping that I would really highlight. So we think no. I mean, this is

an interesting case when I mean, looking at the national polls does tell you something. But

looking more at the state polls, this thing with the Electoral College, how to shake out Electoral College is really

interesting as well. So when people are talking about the I think this is a

more nuanced discussion of this. A lot of people have already tried to decide which states are going which

way. And so there are a lot of predictions that Clinton should win,

win handily. But you see that now there’s a little bit it’s a little bit more nuance than that. And there’s

a lot up for grabs, really. Florida really seems to be the state. It’s always up for grabs.

California consistently goes for the Democratic Party. Texas consistently goes for the Republican

Party. And, you know, these are large states. A lot of luck to our college votes, Florida.

I mean, basically, since my state since 2000, everybody’s been focused on Florida.

Either what Florida is doing right, what Flutter is doing wrong determines if it’s elections. It’s been criticized

for long lines, things of that nature. And the reason why there’s so much attention paid to Florida explore to have so many electoral

college votes. And so it’s important patents to which states have the most electoral college votes.

It’s not the number of states you win. It’s the number of states with large electoral

numbers, electoral college vote numbers that that are important here. So this is an important strategy

to understand of why they’re campaigning in certain states and not campaigning in others. Some this

is really you’re going to either you’re going to win it, you’re going to lose it no matter how much you do. But there are some that, you know, it’s

worth so much that you let you go in and take the risk. Yeah, I think there’s an interesting article

in The Washington Post earlier this week basically saying that Clinton’s math is so much easier than Trump’s. And that

is Professor McDaniel to me that she’s just got this thing kind of wired. And then there was a follow up article,

Chris Cillizza, who writes The Fix, which is sort of this interesting blog on The Washington Post Web site.

And he raised his point. He said, look, it is true. She starts off with an advantage, but

Trump has a path to the White House. You know, some of you may not like to hear that, but he’s got a path. The

path runs through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. You know, he’s I think he’s got

some real trouble, trouble in places like Virginia and Colorado, which are traditionally part of the Republican coalition.

But if he wins Pennsylvania, I think that’s what is the interesting thing about the strategy

in this election cycle. Pennsylvania’s been fool’s gold for Republicans for the last five or six cycles.

They kind of get within two or three points. They can never get over the hump. There just hasn’t seemed to be enough Republican

votes in Pennsylvania to really make it a truly competitive state. It’s a pretty big prize.

But if Pennsylvania really is within reach and it seems to be a relatively good state for Trump,

then they need the absolute necessity of carrying states like Colorado. Virginia really diminishes. So.

I think he does have a path, but he has to have Florida. As Professor McDaniels, it

has to. There is no path that doesn’t include Florida. There is a path that doesn’t include Pennsylvania,

but it puts a ton of pressure on him to carry states. He’s not carrying right now. Virginia and Colorado.

Right. I think he’s kind of thematically issue. Issue

bases better in Pennsylvania than he is in Virginia and Colorado. So it’ll be interesting.

But as I said, he’s got to thread the needle. So I think the point is kind of carries

even if I think he does have a path. I think he’s got one that is going to take a

very it’s a very difficult path and that’s doing something. No Republican has done since George

H.W. Bush in 1988. That’s carried Pennsylvania. So you’re right. There are things

could change. But, you know, right now, looks like Clinton got an edge about eight points. The national

polls starts off with a stronger basis in the Electoral College. But I been wrong so many times

before. We’ve sort of given up on predicting these things, right? Oh, yes. Yes. So, I mean, it’s one of these things

is to pay attention to committed to the key states and where they’re spending their time sort of. There is a strategy

associated with this now going along with what the 2016 election, there has been

quite a bit about voter I.D. laws. Well, last week we talked about the Texas voter I.D. lobbying

basically struck down, but being asked being rewritten it important for the 2016 election. However,

North Carolina, we’ve actually seen the law being struck down for a very specific reason. Let’s run that clip.

The court called it the most restrictive voting law in North Carolina has seen since the era of Jim

Crow, saying the law’s provisions target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch was quick to hail the decision as the court found

this law was passed with discriminatory intent. The legislature passed the law in 2013.

North Carolina had emerged as a key swing state with registration and turnout rates for

African-Americans in the state nearly equal to those of whites. It was one of 17

states with new restrictive voter laws in 2016 and the third gutted in

the past 10 days. Republicans like North Carolina Representative David Lewis say the

laws are necessary to combat voter fraud. We just want to make sure that the

people that go to the polls to vote are, in fact, who they say they are. Opponents like

Allison Riggs of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice says North Carolina’s efforts went

far beyond those in other states. This literally was a monster bill. It attacked

every avenue of participation disproportionately used by voters of color. The law required

voters to show certain photo I.D. that white voters were more likely to possess and eliminated

other voter access tools like same day registration. Any full week of early voting

that black voters relied on more heavily, for example, in 2012. Sixty four

percent of African-Americans voted early, compared to 49 percent of whites.

Scaling back early voting effectively eliminated one souls to the polls Sunday,

where African-American churches provide transportation for voters. Now, opponents

say lifting these restrictions could increase turnout by hundreds of thousands of those,

and that could make a difference. In 2012, Mitt Romney beat President Obama by 2 percent.

And in 2008, Scott, Mr Obama beat John McCain by a razor thin three tenths

of 1 percent. Our chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford in the Washington NEWSROOM. Jan, thanks so

much. All right. So you can see how we’re seeing, again, the voter I.D. laws popped

up and there’s been a lot of suits and bodies. Specifically the Justice Department. So the Obama administration,

the Justice Department has been extremely active in these. I think the one in North Carolina sticks out.

So people have arguably these are racially biased, but the one in North Carolina sticks out because

that it seemed to be that many of the many of the tools that after Americans were more likely

to use for voting were the ones that were there were struck down. So it seemed to be in

there seemed to be a racial intent there. Now, again, people said it may be more partisan

because blacks more support the Democratic Party. That’s what they were really going after. But there does

seem to be a strong racial intent. This is why the court said here, again, more the most restrictive since Jim Crow.

Yeah, this is this is what’s going to happen when you have a group that is

on the floor of the legislature. By the way, this was also the question of intent came up in the Texas voter I.D.

case as well as in the North Carolina case, because in both instances, a Republican controlled legislature

instituted a voter I.D. law. And, you know, unless someone in the Florida legislature

is saying, I would like to disenfranchise African-Americans, it’s very hard to get intent. So

there’s this sort of questions of, you know, in fact, versus,

you know, in theory, sort of. Distinctions that the court raises and the courts have basically said that

this question of intent, we don’t need a smoking gun, we don’t need a statement from

some closed committee session where somebody says, I’d like to disenfranchise blacks. All we need is

to demonstrate that there would be discriminatory. You know, the act itself

would be discriminatory. There would be a disparate impact is the phrase that the court’s always looking at.

I mean, I’m sort of ambivalent on these things. I you know, I think the intent behind

the voter I.D. stuff. I actually sort of believe it is kind of nakedly partisan. I think are largely wedge issues

that Republicans use because most voters until recently, even African-American

voters and Latino voters. You know, when asked the question of do you think people should have to show a driver’s license

in order to vote on Election Day? Everybody said, sure, that’s fine. But these laws have gotten a little

cute. And I don’t mean to minimize the issue because it’s a very significant issue. But the laws are little cute

in that they do seem to require I.D. that are disproportionately

likely to be held by whites and less so by African-Americans or other racial ethnic minorities.

And that’s where, you know, DOJ, the Justice Department, has gotten heavily involved in these things.

I would say that the analysis provided by the CBS reporter there is probably not right. The

analysis says, well, you know, with this law being struck down, there’s going to be lots of racial

ethnic minorities who didn’t. 2012 was a record turnout in North Carolina.

There was enormous. What what had happened in 2012 was that the Democratic Party

was using some of these restrictive laws and things to mobilize their voters, saying,

hey, they’re trying to disenfranchise you. Don’t let them do that. And in fact, there was

an increase in voting in places like Georgia and Indiana and then in North Carolina in the wake

of some of these voter I.D. laws being passed. That’s because they were used as effectively as by Democrats

to counter mobilize against what they saw as Republican efforts to disenfranchise racial and ethnic minorities.

But that’s not a justification for doing them. I’m just a little skeptical about whether

these voter I.D. laws have much of an impact on turnout. They could

they could have a race with disparate impact, and that’s all the court is considering. But as a matter of fact, they don’t

really seem to have much of an impact. And the reason, as you all may have guessed, is the sorts of people who don’t have

I.D. tend not to be voters. They should be they should have the right to.

But they don’t tend to be voters. And that’s something that’s, you know,

just kind of a fact. But but again, that’s not to be confused, the argument that these

voter I.D. laws are right or that the court was wrong in their reasoning. So, yeah, I mean, a good one. The big

problem with this voter I.D. fight is, one, people were supporting this. There’s fraud. It’s very difficult to

prove fraud. And those who are against them say, OK, it’s going to disenfranchise, but it’s very difficult to prove

that that disenfranchises. And I mean, the thing about it is I think in many ways these laws

may have actually backfired. So even if it was an attempt to decrease the

turnout for Democrats. Well, basically, what you’ve done is you give

them an issue. You give them a nation is give them a clear threat. So now people are turning out to vote. And

so in many ways, I think this is backfiring now. Again, if these law stand for a long period of time, people may

it may die down. But, you know, it’s it’s a really interesting thing. But but also, I like

the idea of souls to the polls of churches just taking bus loads, people

there. So you you know, it seems pretty interesting also

given the work of Robert William Barber and the state of the

DNC, you kind of see the work he’s been doing in North Carolina, basically

taking a national spotlight almost overnight. Yeah. The other thing I’d mentioned

is there’s not a lot of evidence on this. The reason it’s hard to gage the impact of voter I.D. is

that we think about what you’d do from research design. You’d have to do a survey of

everybody right in the state. So let’s say we want to study it in Texas. So we interview everybody in the state of Texas.

Now we’ve got to find people who didn’t vote. So I asked. You know, President Danforth,

Shaw. Did you vote? And we say no. First of all, people are reluctant to say that. Right. But

so we find that those people and then we say, OK, why didn’t you vote? Well,

let’s say you do a survey of a thousand people. Well, only two hundred are going to say they didn’t vote.

Right. And of the two hundred who didn’t vote. How many are going to say why and vote because of. I didn’t

have the appropriate I.D. Well, let’s say 10 right now. We’re

going to say, OK, well, three of them are black and seven or five or more white and two more

were Hispanic. So our estimate is that, you know, that 30 percent of

the nonvoting of the portion of the electorate was disenfranchised

with voter I.D. is African-American. Well, yeah, that’s three out of

the 10. It’s a power problem. Power in the sense that our studies are underpowered.

It’s what we call classic low incidence event or low rate event. And it’s really hard to study things

that aren’t very common. You have to have massive surveys to get reasonable numbers

of people to make estimates. And we’re not even confident that the people we get are representative

because, you know, again, you’re talking about a population that can be extremely elderly, that can be homeless.

I mean, these are the sorts of people that, you know, are not going to have I.D. Not exclusively,

of course. But, you know, we’re gonna get very strong questions about how good our estimates. But

the other thing, though, that we have a few studies that are sort of interesting. And the one thing I’d like to point your attention to is that it says

that in the first election, there is some evidence that there is a drop in the turnout rate. Once you have voter I.D.,

that there’s a drop in the turnout rate, but that people by the second and third and fourth elections learn

and that drop out rate disappears. Again, not an argument for voter I.D. Baxley sort

of made sense when I thought about it. I can definitely see go to the polls and forgetting my I.D. and not voting.

But then the next election, you gotta learn how to. So we would have a lot of empirical evidence. That’s the

only stuff I’ve read. So take that for what you will. All right. So all we got we got

another issue, right. And one more issue going to state level. So just going focusing on policy. One of the things

we saw Halsy. Oh, yes. We can only talk about Trump so much

so. Well, Massachusetts passed a pay equity law and it sticks out from the others

because of one particular aspect. But we have a clip describing that Governor

Baker just signed a bill that says, simply put, women and men who do the same work will get the same pay.

The Massachusetts House and Senate unanimously approved the pay equity measure. Supporters say right now

women earn about eighty two cents for every dollar their male counterparts make.

This is a Commonwealth mass that in 1954 passed the first legislation around

gender discrimination. And I think it’s incredibly apt that we would be one of the first states in the country

here today to pass legislation to ensure that people are paid

what they are worth. This is a bill that also prevents employers from asking prospective

workers for their salary history. All right. So the Massachusetts bill is really sticks out

not because of the discussion of pay equity you’ve seen it’s going on with a number of states. But the key thing about it, that

it bars companies from asking prospective employees how much they earned at previous jobs. So

the argument here is that if the previous job took part in gender discrimination terms, the pay gap

doesn’t continue. When you take your next take your next job. And so the argument

here is that while women were paid less, they’re low job. So the first drops, they low bottom when they move to this next

job. So so the idea is if you’re making, you know, seventy thousand at

this one job men are making, let’s say seventy seven thousand, would you get when you get to the new job,

ask how much or maybe you like. No, I can’t. I can’t tell you that. Now, again, this law does not kick in for another

couple of years, but it’s a way of trying to keep

the prospect of lower, lower pay going. Now, also, would

you say coming on this law as companies cannot prohibit workers from disclosing a salary. So, again, higher levels of transparency

and then equal pay for says fro-, but for similar jobs and

jobs. Yeah, I guess I guess I got a little Shakespearian when I was typing this up and

work that is of comparable character. So basically the idea is if you’re doing a job that’s

similar in terms of its workload, they want equal pay. And so what’s really

important understand is there’s been a lot of discussion about the pay gap between between men and women.

And there are a lot of variables that explain this in terms of work experience, occupational choices,

things like that. However, they find, even when you account for that, women are still paid less than

men. And so there still seems to be something about gender, even when you control for your work experience

as well as as well as occupational choice. But what this is, is

part of a large effort, effort by states to prevent the gender or the

gender pay gap or get rid of the gender pay gap. And so what’s really important here is this

is a great example of policy diffusion, specifically horizontal policy diffusion.

What we’re seeing states learning from other states. So Massachusetts is learning from states such as California

in terms of how they wrote the law. Then they say, well, this seems to be a hole here, so let’s fix this. And so this

is clearly an example of states learning from other states. Now, again, this is a horizontal

policy diffusion. Now, what the women up this would become vertical policy. Diffusion will be interesting to see because

Massachusetts, again, is the state that gave you the kind of the archetype for the ACA

and to what degree. But you might see the House and Senate, U.S. House and Senate adopt

some of these ideas from Massachusetts as well as some other states for national laws will

be interesting as well. But again, it’s something that we’ll see in the future. And it’s example of policy

diffusion and how states are learning that always an example of advancing civil rights, but how

states learn from other states in terms of how to advance the rights of a

particular groups that that have historically been wrong. Couple other things as we close for

close for the weak economic numbers released last Friday, the

Bureau of Labor actually revised their economic forecasts for the second quarter. We typically

when we’re thinking about both in terms of economic policy and then its relationship with presidential elections, focus

on second quarter growth rates, second quarter before a presidential election

and just sort of ballpark if you get about 2 percent, 2.1 to 2 percent economic growth,

that’s sort of the cut point. A incumbent, an incumbent party seeking reelection. In this case,

let’s just name names. Hillary Clinton looking to be the third consecutive Democratic president,

presidential Victor Obama twice. And she’s looking for a victory in 2016

that she needs a growth of about to 2.1, 2.2 percent in order to feel

confident that voters will feel good enough about the economy to win, to reelect

her, essentially reelect her party. The growth rate was revised back into the ones

so interesting, even though the the employment numbers have been very promising, at least

the jobs numbers have been promising. You know, we’ve had job growth now for I don’t know how many

hundreds of months. The growth numbers are a little forbidding and

suggest basically this would be a very, very tight election. So that’s one thing. Second thing we’re going to talk about

the the the Gold Star family controversy with Donald Trump, except to say it was

interesting because Mr. Khan, in his speech before the Democratic National Convention, held up

a copy of the constitution and said that I don’t I don’t think Donald Trump has read the Constitution.

I just have two comments. One. I think that’s probably right. Sorry. I just don’t think he’s accepted the Constitution.

But secondly, there’s actually nothing in the constitution about immigration policy per say.

So while I thought the point was kind of really strong and emotional and Donald Trump

should stop arguing with families who have lost. Children in conflicts, I mean,

Kohn’s larger point, which is there’s actually really effective Donald Trump. You have sacrificed

nothing. You know that that’s true compared to somebody like that. You just stop arguing

with people in that position. But there actually isn’t anything in the Constitution on policy

grounds that would sort of justify the particular comment that Trump hasn’t read the Constitution. I think

that’s probably true for other reasons. And then third and finally say, I think, Professor, I’m getting a little bit of mop up work

on the voting rights thing on the voter I.D. case. Seven other point you want to make on that. Yeah,

I mean, the center point for that is that while the CBS News report focused

on the presidential elections, this is really important for a local election, state and local elections.

Somebody familiar with the Moral Mondays protest, this has really been this big push back amongst

progressives and using kind of religious language to push back against the Republican

controlled legislature. And they said that Republicans kind of swept in and made a lot of changes.

And so what this may actually do is change the structure of the legislature, may not change what the governor

is, but may change the structure of the legislature and may change things in local level elections. And this

is where you’re seeing a lot of attention being paid specifically in regards to number of movements

of trying to have some local control to provide some equity there. But again, these

are things that we’ll talk about more as as as we continue. But this

is all we have for today and we wish you a good week. All right. Stay cool.

The government 310 in the News podcast is hosted by doctors Daron Shaw and Eric mcdarby

and it’s produced by the Liberal Arts US Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College

of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.