GOV310 – In The News:: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, July 30, 2018

[0:00:00 Speaker 2] in the news.

[0:00:08 Speaker 1] Hey there. I’m Professor Saw,

[0:00:10 Speaker 0] Professor McDaniel. Welcome to in the news for introduction to American in Texas. Government

[0:00:14 Speaker 1] week to three. Where are we? Where we act is week three. I’m not even sure. Okay, well,

[0:00:20 Speaker 0] she says week three, she

[0:00:21 Speaker 1] test week three and we go by the sheet. All right? We’re trying to move a little bit off Trump and Russia on the Cavanagh nomination. And these things we’ve been talking about kind of all summer. Eso We’re going off the board a little bit here today in our choice of topics with that got four topics today. I’m only contributing one. Professor Daniel did the lion’s share of the work this week, but I think you like my contribution. I decided that of all the things in the world I want to talk about this week, I want talk about Monkey Selfies. Let’s go to CNN, which has a nice little video on a recent case.

[0:00:56 Speaker 2] A long court fight over a monkey Selfie has finally then decided you heard me, right? That’s right. This is the photo at the center of the legal battle. This was taken in 2011 by a seven year old crusted, uh, with Atma cock name. What What macaw named Baruto? No, Ruto is his name. Is it him or her? I read the news. Baruto actually took photographer David Slater Camera from him, snapped the selfie after watching humans do it. Monkey See Monkey to Slater published the photo in a book three years later and was sued by the animal rights group Peter, which claimed no. Ruto owned the rights to the selfie since no Ruto, he snapped it. I guess it’s a him. The ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, coming down in favour of Slater ruling. Quote. The monkey lacked statute or standing Because the Copyright Act does not expressly authorize animals to file copyright infringement suits.

[0:01:51 Speaker 1] The monkey lacked statutory standing. All right, that’s the key phrase, my friends, that monkey lack statutory stamping. So I think this is kind of let me try to pretend that it has a lot of relevance to what we’re talking about in the course. Actually, there are a couple things I want to mention first. Is this question of standing and the court’s ruling on things. Andi, using the question of standing, is kind of the basis for not ruling on certain things is a big deal. Ah, lot of the cases that the Supreme Court just handle in the last session. Most of the cases coming down in June involved questions of standing. You know, does somebody suing? Does somebody bringing a claim? Do they actually have standing to bring that claim? This was kind of a big deal in some of the Obama care cases when there were groups who just didn’t like Obama care and they sued. And a lot of times the court would throw the cases out, saying, You don’t have standing, That is, you are not materially harmed by this. And so I don’t care that you don’t like it. You do not have standing right there. A lot of things out there that you guys may not like. But you can’t sue unless you personally air kind of involved in the case and experienced some harm, right? So in this particular case, is you guys have seen that the you know, anchors on CNN could barely contain their laughter on this. But there was a guy who’s taken pictures. I think there’s 2011 or something like that, Or maybe it happened in 2009 and the guy was trying to publish these things in 2011 but that he had, according to his story, established relations with the monkeys. So they were comfortable around him. He left is his camera went off, did whatever he did, came back and Naru to believe is a male had taken a picture of himself. So the guy you know later on puts together this sort of wildlife book of photographs. Then they get posted online without the guys consent. Right? So it, in fact, let me make sure I’m getting the right entity here. It was, Let’s see. Um, make sure it’s the particular the particular it wasn’t. It wasn’t Wikipedia or anything like that. But it was an online site who published the pictures of the monkey and that the guy had taken the pictures. I said, No, you have to pay me. And the company said, Well, wait a sec. You didn’t take the pictures. You know you’re not actually the photographer here. The

[0:04:17 Speaker 2] monkey

[0:04:17 Speaker 1] is the photographer, therefore and the monkey doesn’t have any rights to the picture. Therefore, the pictures are in the public domain. So that’s kind of the reasoning of the case. Right Guy wants to be paid for use of his pictures. No website says they’re not really your pictures there. The monkeys except the monkey has no standing on a snow, right, therefore there in the public domain. And so that’s kind of the third guy claims, by the way, that he’s sort of going broke. He’s got no money. No, He needs the money from the Monkey selfies, which is a sad commentary in and of itself. But any rate, that’s the kind of just of the of the case and that goes back and forth. But then, pita All right, people for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I get the right people yet people for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA gets involved now. Does Pito have an agenda in this case? Well, of course it’s It’s an interest group. Peter comes in, and

[0:05:12 Speaker 2] Peed is

[0:05:12 Speaker 1] interested in establishing animal rights, including animal legal rights. So Peter comes in and says that in fact, you know the monkey owns this. You know the monkey owns the rights to this. It’s not the case that the monkey doesn’t have any kind of claim here. So Peter comes in, ensues. It works its way through the court system, and then you end up it goes all the way through. And then this April, the ninth Circuit Court, which is the court associate ID on. And you’ll see this when Professor McDaniel eyes when you see our modules on the judicial system in the United States, the Ninth Circuit Court is essentially the West Coast, the Left Coast circuit courts. The ninth Court takes these. It’s a matter of appeal. So it’s an appellate jurisdiction case. The court takes the case, and the court actually upholds the notion that the monkey lacks standing in the case. Right. So and they said pita. In fact, they kind of slapped, petered down a little bit here. What they said was, I got to make sure I get this right. Um, they said, uh OK, um, the ninth Circuit Court, first of a little backup here. It says, um, you know, one question you may have this is an article I’m writing about. The case was compete actually do this under the ninth Circuit precedent. So the ninth Circuit Court has heard cases like this before. And this Chris the president here is a case called Cetacean versus Bush. Now, if those of you out there have a biology background, you know what cetaceans are? This was a case where a, uh a self appointed attorney for all the world’s whales, porpoises and dolphins sued over the Navy’s use of sonar. Okay, so Peter had done this before, right? And in that case, what to the ninth circuit court ruled was that animals do not have standing unless Congress clearly writes it into a statute. And so in this case, So there was a precedent case Citation versus Bush. Bush out a tough run, right? You know, the ninth circuit court already ruled on this, and that precedent was used in this case, right? So in this case, and in fact, when the ninth Circuit Court ruled, they said, in fact, Peters seem not to actually be all that interested in Naru to they were more interested in quote their own agenda. So, you know, the ninth circuit Court slapping down pita in the naru to case too tough ruling by rate. So the monkey selfie case at this point has been resolved. The question of animal rights. Now, if you’re coming out, you’re thinking like, well, you know, shots kind of making fun of it. Now there is a legit question of animal rights, obviously. But you know what the court rules in this case? Come upholds precedent that unless Congress writes it into the statute, right that animals do not have standing in cases involving specific constitutional rights and guarantees, right? So that could always change if Congress writes it into statute. But at this point, it’s not simply a matter of constitutional law. All right, so that’s all I got. The monkey case, any thoughts, any insight into the naru to case

[0:08:19 Speaker 0] Well, I think the key thing about this is the ninth Circuit Court made this decision in the ninth Circuit Court is known for being liberal. So think of Texas being in the fifth Circuit, known for making conservative decisions, the fact that they could, arguably did some venue shopping and try to find a liberal district Teoh, for this appeal. And they struck it down pretty much strong Sign that this this won’t happen again and again, This is not to belittle pita. I mean, it is a bit of a funny story, but Peter does provide a service. It does provide a new issue of ideas. We think of animal rights if you think of the way in which animals treat on farms. So you have a lot of discussions regarding the mistreatment of animals on farms. And what does this mean in terms off the meat that humans humans consume? But then also, there’s argument of the way in which we treat animals is also a reflection of how we treat each other. And so if we can basically treat animals anyway, we want to that how does that prevent us from doing it to each other? So Pita does have, um, does play. Let’s play a role in It does. Yeah,

[0:09:23 Speaker 1] Pete is an interest groups like these other interest groups. We’ve been talking about advocating a particular point of view. You know, we’ll talk a little bit about, you know, interest groups and First Amendment rights and stuff Little Iran. But

[0:09:34 Speaker 0] yeah, I mean again, this is something where it’s easy to paint him as a fringe group. I mean, there are some things that Peter does for people can easily Pain is a friends group. But there are some core things that in your day to day you may not realize that Pete has played a role in. And so, uh, but at the same time again, when you’re an interest group, you’re tryingto try to make some headway. Sometimes you go big or go home and this is their time to go big.

[0:09:58 Speaker 1] Well, I think you know, toe Chris Me Dan’s point. Yeah, we might all agree. Maybe we don’t. But we might all agree that monkeys owning copyrights on you know, selfies is probably a bridge too far. But what if we took it back to more basic rights? You know, you know, right toe life for do animals, have you or your right not to be, you know, brutalized or, you know, treated unethically or harmed. You know, these are things that you know when we start talking about those. Well, okay, You know, we may not think monkeys of the copyrights when it comes to selfies, but when it comes to more basic rights, I think people you know, it’s a continuum. And where you draw the line with respect to animal rights is a matter of of negotiation, and Pita is aggressively negotiating for a much more expansive view of those rights

[0:10:50 Speaker 0] and get on again. This not to belittle Peter, but it’s also not toe say, Peter’s the greatest thing ever, but should say, Look, there part of this competition, part of negotiation. And you know, usually when you do a negotiation, you ask for the sun, the moon and stars. No, you will get it, but you get a little something, and so they’re trying to move it in a certain direction and again go big or go home.

[0:11:11 Speaker 1] Okay, A couple other things. We want to talk about what you got on your docket for

[0:11:14 Speaker 0] So one of first things that we were about to things that relate to the Trump administration so well, first dealing with the response of tariffs. Then second, the Democrats response to the Cavanaugh nomination. One. The first things is we’re seeing that the Trump administration is setting up a relief to farmers who have been harmed by the tears. I believe it’s a $12 million relief effort, and this is something part of a program that has been within the Department of Agriculture for years, and they don’t need congressional approval. And so there are. There’s a bit off, um, Democrats aren’t happy about this, and even you have a number. Republicans aren’t happy about this because they’re upset about the tariffs and specifically tested on things to soybeans. Or what were. The things you’re seeing is that increased tariffs and certain products, that’s what it makes makes it more expensive people who import certain goods from overseas. But you’re also finding individuals who are exporting goods that because President Bush has presented tariffs for certain goods, that these other countries responded by putting tariffs on other goods and refining that soybean farmers in particular, have been harmed by this. Where, where the tariffs against China, China’s put tears in the soybeans, and so because of that, they’ve lost a lot of money. And so the Trump administration is basically I wouldn’t call it a bailout, but in many ways it’s away. Just help subsidize them to ease the pain to the tariffs of caused. And again, there’s a lot of pushback because many people have looked terrified, just taxes. Many Republicans who want low taxes and tariffs, just another tax. Others see this as you know you created a problem and this is your way of solving it. Just get rid of the problem altogether. And so it’s It’s a really interesting to see how it’s going out being played out. But also you have those again. Are skeptics saying, Look, you had a lot of farmers who were very who support the president, and the president realizes this is his base and he heard his basis to find some way to protect his base. But also, many see this as a short term relief to really a long term problem. Now the giving about this is you don’t need congressional approval. So Congress may may be upset about this. Members of Congress may be upset about this, but the Trump administration argues they don’t need congressional approval for this to basically have this to spread this $12 million to help ease the pain caused by the tariffs.

[0:13:37 Speaker 1] You know, the question of tariffs has been controversial. Yeah, I’m a electoral politics Guyana coalitional politics guy. I always, you know, tend to see things through the prism of elections and the groups that support the Democrats on the one side of Republicans on the other and, you know, as I think I mentioned last week, but this is really interesting gamble or, um, you know, kind of outreach on the part of President Trump. I mean, he shook things up. Generally speaking, you know, farmers, blue call or whites in particular have been Democratic constituents. You know, they’ve been a group that’s been court to the Democratic Party since the New Deal in Franklin Roosevelt. And, ah, you know, Trump has made a real effort to reach out to them with the sort of populist rhetoric with this economic rhetoric by going after other countries and groups that he thinks are threatening. That these people see is kind of upsetting their position or role in American society. Um and, uh, so I find this interesting. I see it is simply a matter of, you know, Policy made these policy commitments. He’s gonna honor them. Hey, wants to retain their support not only in 2018 but more particularly in 2020. So? So I think this makes sense from Trump’s perspective politically. But Professor McDaniels suggested it’s a big public policy question now, and there are implications, and other countries don’t just roll over when the United States says, we’re gonna impose tariffs on your goods. I

[0:15:04 Speaker 2] think there’s

[0:15:05 Speaker 1] a sense that the United States has probably been, you know, a Z Low tariffs has allowed imports on. It hasn’t really charged other countries much for their exports. We haven’t been very aggressive in exploiting markets like Japan, which traditionally has enormous tariffs protecting Japan’s economy from American auto imports and, um, or Patrick American rice imports. Any of you guys air from Houston or in the Basin with a lot of rice production? No. You know, those Asian markets are really tough to crack into. They do not want American rice coming in because American rights generally is. Treat is cheaper and more plentiful, right, So So this is a long standing issue. Trump is playing Teoh a notion American society, which is pretty pervasive. And that is that, you know, the trade trade kind of structure right now is unfair. America operates in a disadvantage. We pay Mawr to our workers. We don’t have high tariffs protecting certain industries, and so Trump is playing into that. But other countries respond in kind, right? They impose their terrace, etcetera. So as is professional dance said. As the farmers kind of take a little bit of the brunt here, that is, his other countries raise their barriers to American, you know, agricultural goods. How do you kind of get through that? I’m I’m kind of of the opinion that I think this is in some ways a negotiating ploy. These tariffs that you know, you hit the tariffs, imposed the tariffs and then the other country responds. And you you negotiate some sort of settlement. I think that’s the way Trump operates. I assume that’s what’s going on here. But there is this question of in the meantime, when people actually experience difficulties because international trade is a complex thing. And, you know, in international markets dry up. Real Americans get hurt. So maybe we’ll see. We’ll see how this works out.

[0:16:51 Speaker 0] Oh, and so the next thing will move onto is going back to the cabin on nomination. But not so much talking about his credentials. Things about nature, but how Democrats are responding. So Democrats have highly criticized the Republican as well the Citizens United decision. Specifically, there’s aspect of this which allows organizations to make statements menacingly endorsed candidate, make political statements or make statements about policy about nominees. Things of that nature, uh, and not report who their donors are and so many others must report on their donors are. In this case, somebody turned the organizations they don’t, and so it’s referred to his dark money. You don’t know where the money is coming from. Now the Supreme Court has ruled that the majority’s money must be spent on something on something that does not do on non campaign. And so they see a judicial nominee as an example of this. This is not a campaign judicial nominee, and you’re saying that the Democrats who in the past have been outspent 20 toe one in regard to this and now saying, Look, we may be outspent again, but as opposed 22 want to be 6 to 1. And so we’re going to start using this dark money as a way to wage a campaign to make it clear how we feel about the Supreme Court nominee and again. So this is kind of a new tactic, and this is an organization that was started by a former aide to President Obama and two Hillary Clinton as a way to raise money and too many ways for the Democrats to get involved and get their voice heard in regards or Democratic supporters to get their voice heard in regard to the Campanile nomination.

[0:18:34 Speaker 1] A couple things to point. Let’s let’s let’s make sure Bay is on the same page with this here. Um, the Citizens United decision, which was in 2009 is a very important case in campaign finance law. What the court ruled in Citizens United was that groups, unions, trade associations, you know, any kind of special interest group, actually, interest group genital of his special interest has the same First Amendment speech protections that individuals do. In other words, if Coca Cola or the in Double A, C p or, you know, MALDEF for any of these organizations, sort of more or less political, decide they want to go out and say something, you know, political that they’re entitled to free speech protections. In other words, you cannot regulate that speech. Um, now these groups and entities, if they want to contribute directly to political campaigns, have to go through the federal election campaign system, and they’re subject to limitations in terms of how much they spend and coordination with the campaign. But this is something different. This is what we call independent expenditures. If they just want to go out and say what they want to say. Aaron Advertisement. If they want to go out and say, You know, we hate free trade, we really want high tariffs The court ruled on Citizens United. They could do that. They can do that that they have. The groups have the same free speech protections as individuals, right? Which, by the way, is kind of professor again. And I were talking before class. It’s sort of consistent with the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence throughout American history. A lot of the rights in the Constitution is that you and I would read and sort of see, obviously referred to individuals. The court has been more expansive in their interpretation. They say the Lotto’s rights apply to groups as well, and this is an instance of that. So in the aftermath of Citizens United, everybody got freaked out. They thought, Oh my gosh, all these groups are going to spend tons of money you’re advocating for political positions in campaigns and in public policy debates, and there’s been a little bit of that, you know? Not as much as people might have expected, but a lot of money now spent by interest groups and causes and, you know, kind of people with any kind of, you know, angle on politics, right? They just go out there, their own advertisements and put them out there. That’s protected speech. Okay, Now, however, we refer to dark money. What Dark money is is its referent to a particular kind of interest group. If you guys look at the I. R s code it, I would highly encourage you to do that. There is something called a Sith C four designation, a C five designation and a C 641 It’s for a one C four for a one C five for a one C six for a one. C four is essentially a social welfare group and you know, so you organize you file with the arts is a social welfare group, and it basically says you’re out there doing good stuff, stuff to promote the good. And as long as no more than 49.99% of your of your work is political, you can keep that C four designation as a non profit. Right. So this again, a tax designation C five. I think it I won’t make sure I’m clear this because I goof this up occasionally. C five versus a C six. Make sure I get this right. Uh, let’s see. A C five is a union and a C six is a trade association, right? So these are all nonprofits now, these groups, why do we care about nonprofits and I r s designations? These groups do not have to disclose their donor lists. So you’re a C four or C five or C six. You can raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals or groups. Then you can turn around and put out there in advertisement advocating against, say, Kavanaugh’s nomination, and that is completely permissible. So the dark money reference is kind of looking at this aspect of these groups that’s looking at this aspect refers to the fact that these groups do not have to disclose their donor lists. So if you know McDaniels got some corporation, he wants to give $5 million to a C four. He can do that, that group in, turn around and use that money is part of a pot to air are these advertisements, and we don’t know where their money came from. We don’t know the McDaniel in his cronies. You know we’re behind that money. So that’s the dark part of the dark money, right? And this is in juxtaposition to traditional campaign finance laws, which require you that you disclose your don’t So, for instance, a PAC a political action committee. You have to say where your money comes from. Candidates have to say where their money comes from, that to provide lists of donors to the Federal Election Commission. Right, so So this is one of those things is developed in campaign financing in money and politics and last five or 10 years that as people kind of freaked out a little bit. And as Professor McDaniels saying, it’s come up in this sense of Democrats have been very kind of critical of the Citizens United decision and dark money. Generally, they think it’s or nefarious. There’s a general sense amongst Democrats that this money tends to come in on behalf of Republican candidates and causes, right, so they’re kind of I think they probably have an ethical problem with it, but they also a partisan problem with that, right? So this is an instance where Democrats who’ve been moaning about dark money and Citizens United for years are using it to their advantage. Right? And that’s kind of the novel development It’s interesting in, like is, Professor McDonald said. It’s a way for Democrats or kind of freaked out about the court and where it’s going to be involved, right? You know, contribute money to one of these social welfare organizations. That social welfare organization goes out there and pounds Trump and Kavan on this nomination, hoping to move public opinion and maybe ditch this nominee. I think that’s what’s

[0:24:21 Speaker 0] an unknown reason why you see Democrats opposed to this, because it’s seen as a benefit for corporations. And so if Democrats present themselves as the working class, the anti corporation, they’re going to take any decision that seen as positive Corporate’s the oldest is bad, even though in May, even though it may benefit them, so part of this is a bit of gamesmanship.

[0:24:39 Speaker 1] Yeah, this is part of the Bernie Sanders and the Elizabeth Warren Wing of the Republican of the Democratic Party. That’s that’s really kind of talking about all these, you know, big moneyed interests that come in and tilt, You know, the system in using corporate in favor of corporate entities. But, you know, Hey, you know, all’s fair, right? And in this instance, I haven’t heard a lot about, you know, Bernie and Liz coming out complaining. I think this is going, so

[0:25:08 Speaker 0] it benefits you. You keep very quiet if it benefits but doesn’t benefit you. Oh, you raise. Holy hell.

[0:25:14 Speaker 1] It is interesting. I mean, I made this case in the interest group part of the class, but the notion that all these corporations air out there and that they’re all conservative, I think is a pretty strong miss no more. I mean, you see a lot of, ah, lot of major corporations out there that have ah democratic or liberal or progressive slander sensibility on day give money to. So I think corporations basically want to back a winner more than anything else. Yeah,

[0:25:37 Speaker 0] yeah. Anything of the day it’s there about the key thing is survival. And you don’t survive by hanging with losers.

[0:25:45 Speaker 1] All right, well, we got another fourth topic, Fourth and final.

[0:25:47 Speaker 0] All right, so fourth and final topic. We’re actually going back to rights. And this is moving kind of from an issue of national politics to local politics. And this deals with the state of Michigan in particular, the public school system in the city of Detroit. The, um, the federal court, actually throughout a, um, a suit against the state of Michigan and the schools and the school system Save Detroit sued, arguing that because the schools had very few resource is so overcrowded. Classrooms and very few teachers are lacking books, things, the nature of the basic things you need for an education, that the state was violated their rights and the federal court ruled that no, there is no right to literacy. There’s no right to education. While the court ruled that, yes, a good education is critical, it is extremely important for understanding advancement society for being able to vote, have a job. It is not a right. And so what you have here is this concern about what does this mean specifically in the state of Michigan, where you have again, you have the Flint water crisis where is clearly mismanagement of part of the state and its argue that you have mismanagement of the education system in Detroit on the part of state. And again you have Flint, and you also have Detroit too heavily to relatively low resource, heavily minority areas, and it seems as if the state is attacking thes populations. But addition, this layer with the to this special team with public schools is that Michigan is really won the states for advancement of charter schools. So if you think of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, you know, she started her charter school kind of empire in Michigan. And so this is seen. And there’s really this fear that this state of Michigan is really trying to choke out the public schools in order to increase the in order. How about the charter schools? And so this is really been a big this is again, a bigger concern. But also going back to whether or not and will not and education is a right isn’t is the issue that’s been it’s been up for debate for for quite a quite a bit. Eso There’s a discussion off. You know, certain school districts have much more resource is and are better than another other school districts. And so basically moving five miles in one direction could drastically change your educational resource. You have and may have argued that would drastically change your potential life outcome. And if we see education as right, well, then that means we have to make sure everybody gets an equal education. That means that people could put MAWR demands on this state to make sure that their Children are being properly, the Children being properly educated and one. The problems we know with education is that education is a service, not a good. So where is if you have a bad car like, Oh, this car is working, you can return it and replace it. If you get a bad education, you can’t really replace that, and it’s sometimes it’s very difficult to tell if you have a bad service, and so really, it’s too late. So many cases were dealing with doctors. You don’t know if the doctor made a mistake and so further down the line, and sometimes you can’t repair that mistake. So education is really one. These weird things that we realize is essential and we realize is important. We have a hard time understanding what What exactly is a good education? We may know what a good education is 20 years after it’s been done, but we don’t know what a good education is at that time. And furthermore, what qualifies as a good education changes as the demands of off the public demands of the end of industry change. And so this is a slippery slope in kind of a messy situation, Mr Situation. But again, it comes back to this issue of rights and what types of things the public can demand on the part of government. So if you’re saying you have certain rights, you could make demands on government to fulfill certain things. And the federal court ruled that education, while important, is not a right. And so because of this, this can. This may change the way in which we understand the public education system, but also the way the way in which make demands upon states to provide certain levels of public education.

[0:30:10 Speaker 1] Yeah, it’s a it’s a great conversation. I mean, one of things. I’ll be quick and get out. Tax your patients enough today, I think. But you know conservatives and especially getting back to the cabin on nomination. Conservatives think that liberals and progressives have been too expansive in their conception of rights, right, that you have a Constitution that says a few things. The Bill of Rights articulates, you know, right to assemble right to religion, free speech, etcetera, trial by jury, etcetera. In that, um, you know, if it’s not in the Constitution, that you know it basic and unless it’s in the Constitution, are directly related to rights in the Constitution, then you know what are we doing? Inventing word of a lot of conservative these rights and this is, But this has come up a lot lately. You know, a right to education is Professor McDaniels explains in Michigan case, we also heard this right to health care when Obama care and the controversy around Obamacare was kind of edits at its highest. And polls show that a lot of people do think that there ought to be a right to healthcare. We’re still again to use this phrase again. We’re still negotiating these, I would point out, by the way, I mean that the Constitution is pretty clear and pretty limited on the things that the federal government can do. But its not limited with respect to rights. In fact, the Constitution is pretty clear. The ninth and 10th amendments to the Constitution are underrated in my view and all kind of closed with this the ninth, you know, amendment to the Constitution basically says that just

[0:31:40 Speaker 2] cause we

[0:31:40 Speaker 1] didn’t put it in the 1st 8 amendments to the Constitution doesn’t mean it’s not there. You know, this is one of the arguments against the Bill of Rights, which is, if you expressly enumerated set of rights, then that could be considered exhaustive, right? Anything not in that list could could basically be correctly viewed as not being a right that Americans have. So in response to that, the Ninth Amendment was included in the original Bill of Rights, right, that it says, Just

[0:32:09 Speaker 2] cause we didn’t think

[0:32:10 Speaker 1] of it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And in fact, all of those unspoken rights revert to the people. So the Ninth Amendment says, you know, the federal government doesn’t You can’t just run willy nilly over things just because we didn’t put it in the Constitution. And then the 10th Amendment says, all right. All powers not expressly granted to the federal government are reserved to the states. So it’s interesting. Ninth says you all these unspoken rights, you know, they’re basically go back to the people. The federal government can’t touch him. 10th Amendment says powers not granted to the federal government go to the states, so the ninth and 10th should be taken. I think by you all and by kind, knowledgeable citizens is an express statement that the Constitution really wants to define a limited federal government. Having said that, countries evolved in this question of rights, which in many ways that ironically, is a way to unlinked or to increase the powers of the federal government. Now that’s what’s fascinating. Write The Constitution is expressly designed to limit the federal government to define it kind of concrete Lee, to give it more power than it had. But in doing so, they also kind of created the mechanism for increasing powers. And that is this notion. There are these other rights out there. Um, you know, so area. I’ve said too much already, but I just want to come throw that out there in this context of education rights and health care rights, which again we are still negotiating and there a lot of people out there who think that these are fundamental rights and that therefore the government has an obligation to provide these sorts of things to its citizens and, you know, keep keep tuned in. We’re gonna be talking about this stuff for a long time, I think,

[0:33:48 Speaker 0] Yeah, get the way in which rights or define rights are in many ways a social construct that the way we define writes change, change over time and change based upon location. So in some countries, there is a right to education there, certain there are certain rights that are given. And so, if you go refer back to the 10 good minutes, Professor Elkins, look at his constitute website. You’ll look at various other nations constitutions and the rights that they give their citizens. And you compare that to the U. S. Constitution. You realize like oh, like some people do see education as a right. They do see employment is right. Housing as a right, and so rights are something that are social constructions and that are constantly under debate, constantly changing. And so, you know, we may see an evolution to animal rights, and we makes you see evolution or in some cases, a devolution of certain rights on. And so it’s important to be aware of this and understand the rights and not necessarily set in stone that they are malleable, and they it can expand the contract over time. And many of these meaningless discussion of these rights are put in the hands of the courts, and so we may be able to change them in terms of a constitutional amendment. But many cases that the understanding and establishment of rights Congress does a lot of this, But a lot of it really boils down to the to the courts and the courts play a very big role. And so we think about linking our discussion of civil liberties and civil rights with the sketch in the courts. The courts play a very big role in establishing rights and really in the really four topics we discussed today. It’s about rights and the role of the courts and establishing these rights. And what happens once these rights are established.

[0:35:27 Speaker 1] All right, so that’s all we have for this morning or afternoon. So, um, Professor McDaniel on myself, like, say, you have a good week and we’ll talk to you soon.

[0:35:46 Speaker 2] Government 3 10 and The news podcast is hosted by doctors Darren Shaw and Eric McDaniel and is produced by the liberal Arts TS Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin