GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, July 2, 2018

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] in the news. Professor Shaw and Professor McDaniel. Welcome to in the news for American in Texas

[0:00:11 Speaker 1] politics. Yeah, we got a week, One segment here and, you know, we use the in the news segment to comment on what’s going on in the world or stuff that kind of strikes our fancy. That is consistent or parallel to the stuff you guys are encountering as you do the readings and some of the lecture modules. So week one we’re talking about, you know, starting up a country talking about the United States Constitution and some of the core concepts that underlie the Constitution like federalism and separation of powers. And that kind thinks so. I’ve got three topics. Chris McDaniel. I have said on three topics for today. We want to talk a little bit about the national anthem and kneeling in the NFL, sort of under the rubric of civil liberties and civil rights. We want to talk about ah, Supreme Court decision that came out recently about those states and gambling laws. But I want to lead off with something I encountered in a podcast. I’m not being on podcast, but they’re a couple of them that that. Actually I like quite a bit. One of his Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History and the Season three initial podcast Revisionist history talked about something that Professor McDaniel and I are actually really kind of interested in. And that is the Constitution and interpretation of the Constitution in a particular context and the context that Gladwell kind of alluded to were served as the focus of his season three kickoff to revisionist History involved Texas right and I want to Talk if we can. There’s a particular of article in the Constitution particular section from an article in the Constitution. I have the quote. I want to put this quote up here because this kind of sets the table for the brief conversation we wanna have today so you guys can take a look at and I’ll go ahead and read it to you. This is from Article four, and it’s Section three of Article four. So article ones about the Congress article twos about the presidency. Article three is about the Supreme Court. Article four talks about a lot of different things in American government. It’s much less well known clears Section three. The quote from the Constitution new states may be admitted by the Congress into this union semi colon, but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state. Semi colon. This will be important later, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, comma or parts of states comma without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. All right, now, why would we care about this particular article in the Constitution? This section from article four? Well, a couple of things. The focus of the podcast revisionist history was two states, one West Virginia and the second, Texas. Now the West Virginia part should be pretty self evident, right? The quote that you guys saw there says, and let me make sure I’m getting it right. Um, no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state. Well, West Virginia, as you guys probably know, was in fact, formed immediately after Virginia seceded during the Civil War, precursor to the civil war. So one question that has come up from time to time in American history is is West Virginia in fact constitutional, right? It’s, it seems, in fact, that it probably isn’t. If you read the text right again, no new state shall be formed, erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, right? Pretty clear. However, However, if you read the rest of that particular passage, you do notice that little further along, nor any state be formed by the junction two or more states or parts of states without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. Okay, so the Gladwell podcast focuses on Semi Coghlan’s. And how do you interpret semi colons and what I want to draw your attention to? Here is the semi colon in this particular section of the Constitution. Now why do we care about the semi colon? Well, here’s the deal. If you read the semi colon as like a period that is a full stop, you would get the following. No new state shall be formed, erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, period, right? That’s pretty clear, but it’s not a period. It’s a semi colon, and the next clause says, basically, you can’t form a state with the junction of two or more states without the consent of the legislatures of the states as well as of the Congress. Well, people who have looked at West Virginia have said, Now, wait a sec, it gives you an out here. It basically says, Well, you can do that so long as you have the consent of the state Legislature and the Congress, right? That would be interpreting the claws. Are the semi colon more like a comma? Right, that it says, Well, you can’t do that unless you get consent of the state Legislature or the Congress. Now, in the case of West Virginia, when Virginia seceded, there were a number of counties in the northwest part of Virginia that said, Hey, we’re not interested in going along with this. We want to remain part of the union. They they had a state Legislature and the state Legislature met and said, You know, we essentially want to be an independent state. The Congress, which of course, was dealing with Virginia seceding, said that was OK. So in fact, you had the consent required, so long as you read that particular clause as being relevant, that is, you know, if you get the consent of the state Legislature in the Congress, relevant to the subject matter. In the first part, Like the pre semicolon part, Red says, Yeah, you can break up a state, inform new states so long as you get the consent of the state Legislature. Now I always thought that this is interesting in what In the Gladwell podcast they talked about, You know, how do you interpret the semi colon and one of the things they went to? A woman who is the editor at the Atlantic? And she said that in fact, you probably should interpret it more like a comma than a semi colon, because immediately after the semicolon, you have the word nor. And so he said, you can’t do this. Nor can you do that unless you get the consent. And you wouldn’t have the nor if it was only reference to the second part of that clause, right? So I’m sorry to go all grammatical on you here, but this is the kind of stuff that the Supreme Court pays a lot of attention to. And in fact, the constitutionality of West Virginia does in fact hinge on how you interpret that semi colon now the Supreme Court has weighed in on this and said, in fact, that it’s OK the West Virginia waas, you know, within its rights to set up a separate state. So the question has functionally been decided. I mean, I suppose you can always reopen these things right now, but how does this relate to Texas? Okay. When Texas was admitted to the union, it was admitted as part of, you know, congressional authorization. And let’s go to the quote. There’s a particular quote in the admission of Texas to the union that I think is really relevant here is Well, okay, now bear with me seconds. Kind of a long element to this. So this is the from the joint resolution for annexing Texas to the United States. It’s approved in 18 45. All right, new states of convenience size not exceeding four in number. In addition to said, state of Texas and having sufficient population may hereafter, by the consent of said, state, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution. And then it goes on to talk about, you know, slave states versus free states within the state of Texas. So you guys have all probably heard people talk about Texas having the right to secede from the union. I’m not talking about that. Forget that. That’s another question, and that’s actually been adjudicated on as well. And the short version is Texas does not have the right to secede. But this is a more interesting question. Eso West Virginia formed its own state out of Virginia. Texas actually has congressional authorization on the books to form New States from within the jurisdiction of Texas. So what do we think about the proposition of Texas saying, You know, we have two senators right now, but we would like 10. We could break into five separate states and have 10 centers. There’s already is. You guys recall from that provisioning the Constitution. It says to do that, you need authorization of the state Legislature and the Congress. The Congress has already granted that authority to the state of Texas in the terms under the joint resolution admitting Texas, and they have never gone back on that. So, you know, the point of this revisionist history podcast was to say that Texas has been way too conservative, small c conservative in thinking about how to enhance its power, Texas could quite constitutionally break up into five states and enormously magnify its power, at least in the United States Senate. Interesting idea. Right. So So I wanna do little exercise for you here. Let’s go and get that map up of the state of Texas. Right on our tablet. All right, so we have authorization here from the Congress to create five states. Now, it says has to have sufficient populations. So it so they got to be, you know, fairly reasonable with respect to equity in terms of the size across these five jurisdictions. But first with Dan, I’m gonna do this for you. We’ve been thinking about this a little bit if we’re gonna carve up Texas into five states, right? So it said the four. You know, the initial state Texas and four additional states. How did we do this or I’m going first? I’m taking the first move here since I got the pin. I am going to take this area up here, right. I’m gonna create the state of Houston, right? So I’m taken the first shot here. The state of Houston are Our flag is gonna have the Astros symbol. All right, so that’s our first state, Chris McDaniel. What do you want? What you claiming?

[0:10:14 Speaker 0] Really? For the state of Houston, I would have gone with, uh, basic. The flag should have been cotton sweat, cotton oil, rig and sweat.

[0:10:23 Speaker 1] Yeah, the old oil Derrick. Like

[0:10:24 Speaker 0] the Oilers? Yeah. God, what’s our second state? So, of course we have. The next year, the state of Dallas all rights were going Dallas on their state flag would be, Ah, tornado in a trap house.

[0:10:34 Speaker 1] Okay. All right. So we got Dallas del Sport worth for those of you from the Metroplex area. All right, The state of cow cowboy. All right, I’m gonna take Central Texas. I’m in. Exclude San Antonio. Some believe bear Obama takes Central Texas here. So I take Waco. And since I’m in Austin, Ian, this will be the state of Austin,

[0:11:00 Speaker 0] are in their state flag, would be a breakfast taco and a mid cap.

[0:11:05 Speaker 1] All right, so we’ve got three states now. Dallas, Houston in Austin. What’s your fourth state here?

[0:11:10 Speaker 0] Uh, well, clearly where that the state of San Antonio I think San Antonio. Um, you

[0:11:16 Speaker 1] want to run all the way around the border?

[0:11:17 Speaker 0] Yeah, it probably run all the way down. Yeah, man,

[0:11:22 Speaker 1] you wanna give El Paso to West Texas, or you want to give that to this border?

[0:11:25 Speaker 0] Giving a pass to the west Texas, I think up casos. So cut it here quickly, and it’s all in the world. You got a name? Um, right now, my called Popovich land. Okay, so we’ll Popovich. Yeah. Popovich, AEA Popovici. Oh, yes, I think that’s a a much better. All right.

[0:11:43 Speaker 1] You know, the spurs cassettes are four state, and then I will close it out by taking West Texas. Right? So we got West Texas in a cool name for that. Uh, we call it Friday Night Lights.

[0:11:55 Speaker 0] Yes, FNL. At first I was thinking Nowheresville, but no, no, no. There we go. So

[0:12:01 Speaker 1] we got our five states carved out of Texas as per authorized by Congress Is joint resolution admitting Texas to the union. Right. So they’re roughly I think the West Texas State here Friday night lights is a little under populated compared to the others. But you could easily do this now if we played this out. Here’s kind of the interesting thing. I think Republicans initially conservative, probably look at this and say, This is pretty great right we can get. Instead of having two Republican senators from Texas, we could get 10. Not so fast. Not so fast will sink this through. What kind of representation? What kind of senators? Partisan terms. When we get from Houston, I think that’s a 50 50 proposition at best. Agree. Okay, so let’s let’s do a partisan tally here. Let’s talk about our 10 centers, Democrats and Republicans. So or 10 senators. Let’s give one to the Democrats and one of the Republicans out of Houston. All right, in the Dallas Fort Worth. I’ll probably go the same.

[0:12:57 Speaker 0] Yeah, it’s probably 50.

[0:12:58 Speaker 1] There’s well, right, So we got for if we go to. All right, let’s go West Texas here.

[0:13:05 Speaker 0] I think Republicans have an advantage.

[0:13:06 Speaker 1] Get to Republicans there. But if we running along the border in San Antonio, I think we get to Democrats, right? All right. And then we go to Central Texas, where Austin kind of dominates. But in the surrounding areas you get a lot of conservatism, so

[0:13:23 Speaker 0] that might be a massive. It might be like a 60 40 split, but I still think he probably about one Republican, one Democrat. I think you’re

[0:13:30 Speaker 1] probably right. So if if you guys were out there thinking is, uh, you know, naked partisans looking to enhance the power of your political party, it’s It’s not clear to me that either side, especially the Republicans, you think, Wow, you know, in Texas if you could magnify the power, you get these 10 Republican senators. I don’t know now, obviously, this is just a thought game. It depends on who actually ran. And there’s gonna be a lot of changes in the populations in our five different states here over time. But, you know, it’s something worth thinking about. All right, thank you for the indulgence. I love the idea of the semi colon, and, you know, we’re pointing out elements of the Constitution that air there. They don’t get as much attention is the three major branches or the Bill of Rights. But please pay attention to the Constitution. Look at it. There’s all of these interesting provisions, and I got to say grammatically if you read that Section three of Article four that is a tortured closes. So no clarity does matter with respect to language, any rate. Okay, so let’s move away from sort of a textual reading of the Constitution. But we’re not going too far from the Constitution’s second topic. Where we go, we got a little bit about gambling.

[0:14:43 Speaker 0] Oh, yes, So on May 14th the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that banned commercial sports betting in most states. Again, certain states were allowed to do it, but most states were not, and Nevada was Nevada. Nevada could still do it, but it opened the door for legalizing an estimated 151,000,000,000 with a B in illegal on illegal wagers on professional amateur sports. Americans make every day. Now. The decision overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which prohibits states from authorizing sports gambling. However, New Jersey now it was written or one of the sponsors was Senator Bill Bradley, who was a Democrat from New Jersey

[0:15:27 Speaker 1] late with Knicks Princeton.

[0:15:29 Speaker 0] When the parents, then thank you, um, did even won a gold medal.

[0:15:33 Speaker 1] I think he did.

[0:15:34 Speaker 0] It won a gold medal, did one great players Um, And so he said the law was there to safeguard the integrity of sports because again there concerns point shaving. There’s always these point shaving scandals, things that nature the people concerned about. She wanted prevent that. But the court actually ruled There was. It was in constant. It was unconstitutional. And Justice Samuel Leader stated in the majority opinion, it is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers on were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. So, UM, or directive for into state sovereignty is not easy to imagine eso. What you have here is a is it is a leak, alarming six to do this. But one of things it’s really important to understand about Supreme Court decisions is the logic that’s used to make this to make these decisions. It’s a lot of times people talk about well, this is the immediate outcome. States can now legalized gambling. But if you look at the rhetoric and you look at how it is discussed, this really deals with what the federal government can do in relation to the states, and this has opened up the door for ah, lot of other challenges that states can make the federal government saying what the federal government can and cannot force to do. And specifically regarding sanctuary cities, where the photo governors try to force certain certain cities that want to protect immigrants from ice, things of that nature that they are. Get isis immigration, Customs Enforcement. Not like that stuff on the road. But there is talk about the federal govern trying to punish thes cities. However, the Supreme Court ruling in many ways limits what the federal government can do, whether enforced the states to do. And there’s going to be very important to see how this plays out. Because while we think of this is dealing only with gambling, it has large ramifications, huge ramifications for understanding the relationship between the federal government and state governments regarding who can dictate what type of action.

[0:17:34 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, it’s ah, it’s clearly a federalism case, right? So, you know, in this first module that you guys were getting for set of modules that you’re getting, we’re talking about the Constitution. We’re talking about federalism, and clearly the fascinating things Professor McDaniel says about this gambling decision is the Supreme Court said. Look, the federal government can’t tell the state legislatures you can’t pass legislation on this. This is You can’t do that, right. So and then it’s got this kind of interesting set of ramifications because it’s gambling and we’re all sort of interested in gamma. There’s always potential revenue that’s available to the states. But from our perspective, whatever you think about that, and that’s obviously very important. But there’s a larger kind of principle involved here, and that’s, you know, States rights and very limited nature of the federal government as prescribed in the Constitution. And so all right, so we wanna move from, you know, the Constitution, we what we talked about something is very key to federalism, and we’ll sort of end on. Our third issue today is you know, we’ve got some information in this module on civil rights and civil liberties, and this has come up very recently. Last week in the NFL, the National Football League, where you all probably seen this, And if you haven’t let me just give you a little bit of background. Last football season, there was a lot of controversy as players set of players would kneel in advance or during the national anthem. Colin Kaepernick was the most notable on, Actually, Kaepernick’s protest. I think go back a couple of years. I don’t think it was last year and in Kaepernick was protesting. You know, police and law enforcement treatment of African American individuals. And so he took a knee, actually think it. First he did something else.

[0:19:19 Speaker 0] He sat at first, but then, after talking to veterans, he said, Taking me

[0:19:25 Speaker 1] took a knee during the national anthem and the NFL came out and basically said, We don’t like this at all. And other players and Donald Trump talked about another player’s sort of picking up as the lines were being drawn. Other players began to kneel during the national anthem as well in the NFL had some declining ratings last year. You know, some people think that’s because of the politics of the NFL. Some people think it’s just because you know things like the Red Zone or, you know, mobile mobile devices which allow you to get highlights and not have to sit through an actual. There’s all sorts of explanations for that. But the NFL owners decided that the sort of politics in a backlash against players taking stands not necessarily against the national anthem but to do these protests that that was hurting them. So they got together and enacted a policy and the policy, just so I make sure I get it right here. The unanimously approved a new national anthem policy that requires players to stand if there on the field during the national anthem you know they can stay in the locker room if they want, um, and do whatever. But if they come on the field, they’re required to stand. If they do not stand during the national anthem while on the field, the team will be fined. Now you know, it’s a couple of combinations here. They said, like, Well, you can stay in the locker room, But if you come out, you have to stand. They also said that the teams are the team will be fined and the team can elect to pay the fine on behalf of the player or they can pass it on to the players. So that’s their attempted compromise here. However, both the news media and the NFL Players Association said. Look, this is a free speech is a civil liberties issue and, in fact, the National Football League player, the NFL p a National Player Association executive director, their leaders. A guy named Demaurice Smith. He had the following tweeted this last Wednesday. History has taught us that both patriotism and protests are like water. If the force is strong enough, it cannot be suppressed. Today, the CEOs of the NFL created a rule that people who hate autocracies should reject. So that’s a pretty powerful statement. Subsequent Tweet management has chosen to cost the same freedom of speech. First, women issue that protect someone who wants to salute the flag in an effort to prevent someone who does not wish to do so. The sad irony of this rule is that anyone who wants to express their patriotism is subject to the whim of a person who calls himself an owner. I know that not all of the NFL CEOs air for this, and I know that true American Patriots are not cheering today, right? So that’s your reaction from the Players Association, and this really is kind of interesting right that we all know via the First Amendment we have the right to free speech But we also know that free speech, like other civil liberties, is subject to limitations. Right, you know, and you’ll get into this as you do the readings and you study the Constitution. But you’re not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater that’s not protected speech because you infringe on the right of others, right? There’s fighting words doctrine. There’s all sorts of limitations on free speech. But this not only involves that, it also involves kind of another question, which is The NFL is a business at its core. It is a business. And is it the do owners have the right to basically tell people you can’t protest or or if you protest you will be fired, You will be fine. You will be subject to these other sorts of, you know, kind of demonstrably penalties. I think most of us would probably say that you know, you you have the right to protest. But you certainly don’t. You know, if you’re working for a company, the company, and you are representative of the company, the company has a right to set the standards for which, by what you say certain things. And so I think we agree with that. But you know this this really is, you know, in a little bit of another region, right? I actually think that this thing probably would have gone away if President Trump hadn’t breathed life into it. And I think it probably would have gone away if the owners hadn’t reacted the way they did. But But again, it’s We’re gonna be dealing with these issues all semester, right? You have constitutional rights, you have freedoms, you have liberties. But those liberties aren’t absolute. And the question as a society and its government is how do we navigate that? What’s appropriate? What’s not? Do the owners have the right to silence the players? I mean, can you Can you blackball Colin Kaepernick because you think he brings negative attention to your organization? Or is that essentially unconstitutional? Right. Are you denying him an opportunity to, you know, seek gainful employment? Because the NFL’s a monopoly? Right? Colin Kaepernick can’t go to an alternative professional football league in the United States because there isn’t one. Well, you know, I guess there’s arena football, but But you know, these things all come into play. So first of Daniel get some experience with this What

[0:24:24 Speaker 0] it’s it’s Ah, interesting topic. I mean, I think one of the key things that people have tried to stress is that the protest is kind of they’ve lost control of the people who started. We’re trying to start a conversation about police brutality about equal treatment under the law. And one of things you’ll see about Colin Kaepernick is that he is. He has evolved during this. First he was sitting there talking some veterans like Look, that you can’t do that Taking me way. We understand you’re taking in me, Um and that is actually respectful in that regard. But then on top of that, people like, Well, what are you doing beside just taking me? And he said, OK, fine. So he started teaching classes on civil liberties and civil rights to make people aware of that, right? So So he’s actually shown commitment to this, but I think that’s happening. All of this is people have lost track why this is happening. And I think this is the same thing that happened in the civil rights movement. This happens with with almost all protest. People are mad about the protest as opposed to why their protest ing and so this really gets lost. And this is common to our issue of being respectful of disrespectful the flag, which again is somewhat loaded. But then, also you were just seeing is this increased amount of, um, patriotism during NFL games, which is relatively new. But the idea that military being there and actually the NFL used to charge the military to have these to do these things, and so the militants. So the NFL discussion of protecting the flag and being respect to the military is is problematic because used to charge the military to show their support. So it’s it’s a It’s a hot mess in many ways, furthermore, of the authoritarian nature of the NFL. Given what’s going on with concussions, things of that nature, it’s taking a lot of bad hits and excuse the pun. But it’s, you know, it just seems to have PR nightmares. But I think also because it’s so popular that it’s like, well, you know, weaken, take any hit and rebound in some way. Yeah,

[0:26:28 Speaker 1] it zed. It’s It’s an interesting question, right? I mean ah, and there’s a lot of diversity of opinion as the NFLPA executive director, points out within the ownership in the NFL. So you’ve got the ownership structure in San Francisco, which has come out and said, We’ll support our players. We will pay the fines if they want to come out in the field and engage in their protests, then you know we respect that. And we will pay the fines at the NFL levies. And

[0:26:51 Speaker 0] they actually abstained from the vote.

[0:26:52 Speaker 1] Yeah, that’s right. And then you’ve got Jerry Jones, for instance, who’s basically said like, Look, you know this This isn’t something that’s gonna fly in Dallas. It’s gonna hurt our ratings. It’s gonna, you know, alienate us from our fan base. Um and you know, we’re not gonna have it. Um, and you know, I think one things professor began, and I want to emphasize here, is it? Yeah, we have views on a lot of these things, but I think what we want to convey to you all is the complexity and nuance involved in these sorts of questions, right? I mean, I think most people would would clearly agree that your players have First Amendment rights to free speech, even as employees on the other hand, I think we would also say that you know, the ownership is trying to protect its product. In fact, they have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders and to the people who invested in the team to maximize the profitability of the team. And, you know, so these things all come into play. We would acknowledge that there are limits on free speech. The question is, where’s the appropriate line? And we don’t have any answers. But we want to pose these questions to you guys and get you thinking about them because you all are going to inherit the country, right? So all right with that, anything else? We good?

[0:27:58 Speaker 0] Oh, no, that’s That’s all we have

[0:27:59 Speaker 1] for this week. That’s a wrap for first in the news segment. Good luck, and we’ll talk to you guys next week.

[0:28:12 Speaker 2] Government, 3 10 in the news podcast, is hosted by doctors Darren Shaw and Eric McDaniel and is produced by the liberal arts at TS Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin