GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, June 29, 2017

[0:00:00 Speaker 1] in the news

[0:00:07 Speaker 3] Morning. I’m Professor Shaw. And I’m Professor McDaniel. Welcome to in the news for American Texas politics.

[0:00:12 Speaker 2] Got that creamy meant going right. That’s right, Yeah, early breath mints. We’re focusing on Prince Thursday, little purple for all of you. And we’re also discussing whether it’s cost effective to go with the unlimited data plan associated with text messages. Verizon is informing me by the minute that I’m going over and I owe them more money. And so it’s like a running tally. It’s like one of those billboards talked about the national debt of so first. McDaniel recently switched to Unlimited, and he’s only got one child, so

[0:00:43 Speaker 3] I don’t know about that. There’s no phone till told her 14 straight days

[0:00:47 Speaker 4] that an app in it, I think, to

[0:00:49 Speaker 2] be continue like we got a thing with, uh, my kids were in Boy Scouts. My boys and some of the parents say you have to get Eagle Scout before you get a car. Freaking car, which is a substantial, sent it to become an Eagle Scout. I’m not sure that sort of incentive structures, probably the way it ought to be working, but, you know, hey, whatever gets you through the night. All right, so we are in the home stretch. Uh, the second of three midterms was this week. So congratulations told you for getting this far in the class. We hope things are going well. Please come to office hours. If you have any questions or just want to stop by and humanizes, we like to be humanized. Uh, this week, we’re going to talk about a couple. Things were gonna really focus on the national because most of the action has been going on at the national level this week. And once again, we’re trying toe connect some of the things that are in the news with points raised in the class. Some of them are a little distant, you know, when we talk about federalism. We’ve already talked about that, you know, quite a bit ago, I guess. Um, but also, uh, things were talking about in the modules in the coming weeks Would be elections and campaigns in public opinion. So we’re trying to connect up to things past and present that we’ve been doing in the class, and we’re going to start with a substantial debate policy debate that’s been going on the debate so much as the Republicans trying to craft a bill that will repeal and replace Obama care. Right? And so the news this week eyes you all know from your modules and our discussion of the Senate leadership structure. Mitch McConnell is the majority leader for the Republicans in the Senate, and he is trying to shepherd the Senate’s version of the what they called the

[0:02:25 Speaker 4] American Health Act. I

[0:02:27 Speaker 0] think the eight h A

[0:02:29 Speaker 2] something like

[0:02:29 Speaker 4] that American, the American Health Care American Health Care Act.

[0:02:34 Speaker 2] So, uh, which is different from the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as obamacare. So the Affordable Care Act is Obamacare

[0:02:43 Speaker 4] American Health Care Act. I

[0:02:45 Speaker 3] guess that’s trump care, or McConnell care

[0:02:47 Speaker 2] of America. Yeah, so that’s the Senate replacement bill. Now we just want to point out, because we’re tryingto shepherd ourselves through this as much as you guys. There is a House version. The House has already passed a bill It was a couple weeks ago. The Senate is passing its version of the bill, and they haven’t done it yet. They had to postpone a vote because the Republican majority in the Senate is 52 or 53 Republicans in the Senate right now, I think it’s 53. They also have because they control the White House. If it’s a 50 50 vote than the vice president, Pence can break it. So you know effectively, really. They need to get 50. That’s all they need. But they’ve lost far more than three people on this version of the Senate bill. So and the weird thing is that opposition is coming from both sort of moderate Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine. It’s also coming from Libertarian or right wing Republicans. Like Rand Paul from Kentucky has said, You know, he doesn’t like it at all. He thinks they ought to. Just basically, he doesn’t think there should be any kind of government health care plan. Ted Cruz has said, You know that it’s not cost neutral enough. It’s gonna blow up the deficit and you know, So this is a tricky balancing act that McCall has. He has to get a bill passed and you all. We also want to point out that that Senate bill isn’t what’s going to go into law, even if they pass it anyway. There has to be a reconciliation between the House bill and whatever bill the Senate passes if they pass a bill, right? So just in terms of process, we wanted to get you guys kind of engaged and involved in this because it’s an example of a very complex system. So not only do you have federalism, you know? So what the states do if and when the federal government passes something, not only do you have checks and balances, so the president has to sign off on this at some point if there’s something past. But you have the House and the Senate within the legislative branch and then within the Senate, you’ve got all these coalitional issues. And so you know, if you’re out there and you know you like gridlock and you don’t really want this administration or this, you know, Republicans to pass something you probably big fan of checks and balances and federalism and party politics. Right now, if you’re you know, with the president, you want reforms to the affordable care act. Maybe you’re not so happy. But the system is Professor McDaniel. I’ve been repeating throughout the semester. It’s designed to make it very difficult to pass things. I mean, you gotta really want something in the American system and be pretty skilled to get something through. And looking back, you kind of have a lot of, you know, admiration for the chutzpah of the Democrats to get the affordable care act passed in the first place. That wasn’t easy either. Yeah. Now the Republicans are finding out how difficult it is.

[0:05:37 Speaker 3] Think what you’re pointing out here is extremely important that we understand any patches of policy. There are multiple veto points. While we we think about the president in his veto, a Z being the one place where something actually know most bills dying committee eso things going and never make it out of committee that make it then. So they have to make it out of some committee making a committee. Then they get a floor vote off the house, Then it goes to the Senate. Where goes the committee could die there thin the Senate votes on it. You could die there. Then you have the joint session with the reconcile it at the how and if the house just hates the reconciliation, it could die there. The Senate hates I wish it could die there and then, you know, go to the president where the president veto it. And so there’s a lot of work that goes into this. And so it’s very important to be aware of when we’re talking about why it’s so difficult for, you know, a bill to get past is because it’s the system is set up in such a way that it it’s really an uphill climb. And there are so many veto points, so many places where I just won’t end. So think of it like game of Thrones. If you if you lived this long, you’re doing pretty good. But it doesn’t mean you’re still gonna live. All right, So, uh, the whole I’m just a bill. It’s very nice and sweet, but Lord have mercy. It is very naive in terms of all the things that has to do a

[0:06:58 Speaker 2] couple of points. One is when professing dances, veto points. The president’s a formal veto, the institution, the veto. But if you think of veto points has just been points at which players can stop the process, that’s what we mean by veto points. So there’s the The president has a formal veto but informally, there are all these other players who have the opportunity, and we call these veto points to kind of stop public policy processes. The second observation is on Game of Thrones. I really think that what’s her name? The blonde Dragon Queen. She’s a lousy ruler. I’m sorry. You know she’s talents. I was rooting for her around season two or three. Uh, now, not so much. You can

[0:07:39 Speaker 3] overplay our hand. Easy seasons to get stronger. Strong is one thing of note in game of Thrones. Is that strong? You get the more like you’re gonna get

[0:07:44 Speaker 2] lopped off of. And I just I also thought the dragons in the arena at the end of Season five. They were defeated far too easily by just some dudes. So, anyway, we’ll go into We’ll probably do original part cast off later on this semester. All right, We also want to just mention that with respect to the health care plan, something that’s been kind of in the back of our bodies minds all along, people have been observing the Affordable care act. Obama care. Ah, a lot of the advocates of it kind of had a premise going in, they thought, Once you put it out there, once it’s in play, it’s gonna be very difficult to take away from people. And I think that’s what you’re seeing in the public opinion data. Right now. I’m involved with the Fox News poll, and we just had a survey out last yesterday that showed for the first time there’s been about a 10 to 12 point increase in support for the Affordable Care Act for Obamacare since it was initially implemented. Uh, it’s a significant increase in support now. It’s not overwhelmingly popular, but its support for Obamacare is crept up above 50% for the first time. That I remember. That’s significant. And I think what you’re seeing is that, you know, some of the people who have benefited who have insurance, who didn’t have insurance, they like it. Other people aren’t necessarily so opposed, and they’re also not really sure what the Republicans are doing on. And that has become kind of, ah reason that the Senate version, the Senate bill, which I don’t think anybody really knows much about. I mean, I’ve read some articles, Professor begins, read some articles we know a little bit about it, but it’s not entirely clear what it will do. The Congressional Budget Office just scored it and said It’s gonna reduce the deficit significantly, but it’s also gonna leave 22 million Americans who got health care. I shouldn’t say healthcare. It’s wrong. Health insurance under Obama care will no longer be covered. Now that’s a complicated not to get too much into the weeds here. That’s a complicated number, because what Obama care did was it extended Medicaid coverage to people who had previously not been able to get. It’s a lot of lower income people because Medicaid, its origin point. It’s sort of for the elderly, for the indigent, the elderly to provide them with health insurance. But what’s happened over time is that we’ve expanded Medicaid to cover other people who we think you ought to get government assistance to support themselves for healthcare toe, qualify for health care. So Obama care extended that, and in order to pay for it, Obama Care insisted that certain other people who no longer who didn’t have to get covered also purchased coverage. So that’s why it’s it’s not quite revenue neutral, but it’s close because a bunch of people your age who tend not to purchase health insurance because it’s expensive and you don’t really need it. You all have to do that under Obamacare. You either purchase it, re pay a fine, and that you know the fact that insurance companies make money off of you guys because you guys pay a lot of money and you don’t actually get sick, right? That allows them to absorb these other people who are now getting health insurance who are probably going to use it right. That’s so that’s what’s happened. And, in fact, of the 22 million. Some appreciable portion of that group has health insurance because they’re required to by law under Obama care. So it’s it’s it’s complicated. That’s not toe be pro or con. It’s just to explain why you know the 22 million. It doesn’t necessarily mean that 22 million people who were, you know, in poverty and couldn’t get health care now have health insurance and Republicans cut them off. Actually, some portion that number are relatively healthy. They’ve been told by the government you all have to get health insurance now and they’re paying into the pool so you know as a whole, it doesn’t sink the system. The problem, of course, is not as many healthy people have signed up as the government thought and would sign up, and that’s produced some revenue problems. And so you’re seeing, uh, some insurance companies pulling out of the markets in different states. It’s complicated, but public opinion now is slightly favorable to Obama care, probably because they, some people, have gotten the entitlement and other people look at the Senate version of the play of repeal, replace and going. I don’t think that’s a particular good solutions. So So right now the Senate bill is very unpopular. Obama care is marginally popular and, you know, it’s sort of an instance of the devil, you know?

[0:12:03 Speaker 3] Yeah. I mean, one of the key things about why the mandate exist is when we talk about health. Insurance is all about pooling risk, and what you want to do is you want to have much of healthy people there to help subsidize their very unhealthy people, because the problem is that the only the only people who have insurance or the very unhealthy people that means the using all the resources and the basic go into a death spiral and financially, in the sense that they’re just using all the resources you need. Some people who won’t be using the resource is as much, and we think about pooling risk that this is what we see in a lot of things. So I think car insurance also, when they mortgage loans, they bundle the loans. You know, we have some that are high risk, but I have a lot that are safe, you know, way. Try to bundle risk. We try toe hide risk in a variety of ways. The end again is Professor Stop playing out of the biggest problems. The mandate is that it wasn’t strong enough to get people to healthy people to purchase insurance to help offset the cost on again. If he there bunch of documentaries you can watch about health insurance and how small businesses. It’s very expensive for them to buy health insurance as opposed to a large corporation. So if you have a business with like 50 employees, let’s say one employee has a very complicated pregnancy, you know, which may cost a $1,000,000. Well, that means everybody everybody else’s premiums go up or as if you have a corporation. 10,000. You know you’re gonna have three or four people have that problem, and it really would not affect, um, affect that because there’s so many other people there to offset

[0:13:33 Speaker 2] The cost of insurance is a gamble. When you think about it, insurance companies can’t. This is the irony, the insurance company company of gambling. You’re gonna be healthy. You’re actually gambling that you’re gonna be sick at some point, right? The only way you win is if you get sick, because then you purchased insurance and they will, you know, basically subsidize your illness. But if you’re healthy, the insurance company wins in the sense that you’re paying premiums and you’re not taking anything out. And so Obama care was an attempt to expand Medicaid coverage coverage of people who are less healthy, more at risk. And the way you do that is to say, Well, let’s let’s get these young people who aren’t paying anything who aren’t insured. Let’s get them into the system. And the moral justification is as well. Those young people could get sick and a lot, you know, if they do get sick, they’re not covered and they’re exposed. So it’s not a terrible thing. Professor McDaniels raised analogy that a lot of people have used. It’s like car insurance. I don’t think it’s exactly like car insurance, but that’s the you know. That’s basically the analogy, right? So why is it that all these insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies went along with the Obama care plan in the first instance when it was a shakeup of a system by which they were making bazillions of dollars? They agreed to because the Obama administration said, Hey, we’re getting these young, healthy people in It s o with the mandate mandating young people buy insurance. So you guys are gonna be okay and the insurance company said that sounds good. It hasn’t quite worked out. I mean, it’s a tricky thing. Is Professor McDaniel says, You know, how do I get you guys younger people who are healthy, how to get you to buy insurance? And they said, Well, if you don’t buy insurance or pay a fine or a penalty, well, the problem has been we haven’t found a sweet spot that will actually induce you to purchase insurance rather than pay the penalty a lot of younger people are just saying, I’ll just pay the fine and then, you know, paying it or not paying taxes or whatever it is that younger people do these days on DSO. So the insurance companies haven’t I made money like they thought they would, or that hasn’t been revenue neutral. So they’re pulling out of some of the exchanges as they call them. The state run entities were there providing health care, so that’s what’s going on. So it’s not like the administration Obama administration has been a roaring success, but they’re still start tinkering with it and to kind of ease the passage, they offered subsidies for companies. They haven’t really enforce the mandate the way that they will in the future. They put off a lot of this stuff until after the 2016 election. Now it’s kind of coming home to roost, but all the problems that the Affordable Care Act has had their there but replacing it and taking away some of the things that the act did that people now like people who have insurance on the cheap like it, people who have preexisting injuries, parents who can keep their kids on their health care for love till they’re 26 years old. All of those things are attractive. So the Republicans are trying to figure out Well, how do we How do we undo this thing without taking away the things that people like? And how do we know if we continue to subsidize the things that people like? How do we do it without busting the budget?

[0:16:45 Speaker 3] Yeah, this is extreme. I mean, this is social policy. It’s about redistributing of resource is And how much do you redistribute? So if you think of the Obama administration and the way Obama care was framed is that health care is a right, so you have a right to this. So the government obligated to provide you with this whereas always said no, it is a privilege. It is is a not a is not a human right, but really a market piece. And so the idea is you earn the right to have this and these kind of go back and forth. But what exactly do you have a right to house and you have a right to certain things and what are certain things that are privileges and so we think of a right to education. If you think of a right to, uh, clean air things of that nature do we also have a right to help? And if we have a right to help, how do you How do you carry that out? And many times we’re talking about social policies. This is about for securing certain rights for individuals, and so we could argue that the elderly have a right to help. That’s why we provide Medicare. We could also argue the elderly have a right to, um, live, have a certain level of living. That’s why we have so security. And so when we talk about rights and then Connect writes the policy, that’s where things get very interesting, because right so we can talk about him all day and we’re blue in the face and a very abstract sense. But when you actually put them into policy, that’s when things get get very, very different and really time really in order, care these things out, you have to redistribute resources. And how do you know you’re redistributing things fairly? While we’re all supportive of taxing the rich things of that nature when you over taxing the rich on When are you? What do you basic? Allowing some groups to not pay their fair share. So these these are very important concerns and we would talk about entitlement programs. That is where we see a lot of us coming into play. If you really want to decrease the budget, decrease the entitle programs. Medicare, Medicaid, you decrease those you really you significantly decrease the budget. But those are kind of you know, everything about those the third rail of politics you don’t mess with. So security. Don’t mess with Medicare because the elderly vote, the elderly are very are very active. Plus, most of us plan to be elderly. And so we want to make sure there’s something something there to care for us when we get there. And so it’s one of these things that when you put it out there, people really clap clamps on clamp onto it, and the problem is, sometimes you need to adjust it. But there are costs to the cost of making these adjustments. But then, because you know and then we need to remember, this is not just some type of political game. People’s lives are actually at stake here on, so we need to be aware Power people’s lives being affected by changes in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Onda. While a lot of attention is being paid to the political game, we also you painted really actual real people that are affected by this. And I think one reason why you’re seeing the support increases because people are actually saying don’t know this actually does benefit me on. So you’re seeing that on the ground floor at the ground level, you’re seeing more support because people begin to see the benefits and and some, in some cases being saying of the burdens that they they see with it, are not as great as

[0:19:57 Speaker 6] the benefits

[0:19:58 Speaker 2] are. Speaking of the political aspects of this, we’re gonna run a short clip from Morning Joe, which I think was this ran Tuesday morning talking about. And this was before Mitch McConnell postponed vote on the Senate version. So let’s take a look at Morning Joe on a quick analysis on the political fallout from this Senate reconsideration of obamacare like

[0:20:20 Speaker 8] you didn’t let’s do it

[0:20:25 Speaker 1] on the campaign trail. Shocked by that, but somebody trying to sell you an apartment But this is Brian about things, says the potential toe to be a defining moment in the Senate because that vote on this bill, if there is a vote on this bill, is gonna be a test of conscience and character for these senators. By defining, you mean any Republican who votes for it? Swing states gonna lose for the rest of their life.

[0:20:51 Speaker 8] Former Treasury official on Morning Joe Economic endless Steve Rattner is with us. If

[0:20:55 Speaker 1] only we had somebody that could break down the numbers. Looking for that? Only

[0:21:02 Speaker 8] NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Casey Hunt joins us as well this morning. The CBO’s assessment of the Senate health care plan is making it that much harder for Republicans to push it through. The nonpartisan group found that over the next decade, 22 million people fewer would be insured compared to Obama care and that deficit savings with large a clump on the back of cuts in Medicaid spending. $772 billion of the 15 million people who would no longer be on Medicaid. As a result of the law, the CBO forecast wouldn’t not purchase private coverage since the Senate bill would encourage them to purchase plans whose premiums and deductibles are too high or be attractive options to them. In the end, the plan would reduce the deficit by about $320 billion. At first, the CBO estimates premiums would go up by 2026. Premiums could be 20% lower compared to Obamacare. Still, that doesn’t account for reductions in coverage for out of pocket costs.

[0:22:08 Speaker 2] Well, you can tell Mika Brzezinski is not a big fan of the Senate version of the bill. But you see kind of the different aspects of the debate. You know, you have what you basically done with the Affordable Care Act if you’ve extended Medicaid, and that wasn’t how it was sold. That wasn’t how it was debated. It was debated. As you know, Hey, if you like your health care, you can keep it. It turned out that really was fairly a fairly significant expansion of health insurance, providing it to ah range of people who couldn’t afford it before expansion Medicaid on. Then additional people were basically told, like Hey, you need to purchase it That’s the the mandate, the younger people. And so that 22 million is an important number. But first term again, you and I were just talking about the fact that you know, there’s what is it now? 370 million Americans?

[0:22:58 Speaker 3] Yeah, I mean, the number of Americans and this is what makes it very difficult is that the number of Americans who are actually affected by not having insurance is pretty small. Most Americans received their insurance from the room from their employer and won the arguments for why the American health care system is, as is so long qi and kind of messy as opposed to maybe the retirement system is that what the retirement system the government led first was so security? Then the companies filed suit with health insurance, the company started, and they had all kinds of convoluted ways of doing it. And then the government came in to try to fill the cracks. And it is kind of a hot mess. And but for the most part, people are covered by by the private employer and so many people who are in this fight, Really, our argument really are getting along ideological grounds, not necessarily self interest. Eso it’s either you believe you know, cares to be expanded to more people, and you’re willing Teoh to sacrifice for that. Or you believe that no health care is not a right or the way it’s being expanded is too much of a burden on me. And so it’s very important. Understand that this fight about health care and people’s discussion of it, most people don’t really have to worry about this. There is a certain portion of the population that we need to be that we need to be concerned about, and I don’t again. They’re not as well represented as we would say these other groups are. So

[0:24:27 Speaker 2] it’s an important point. I mean, I think the number initially in 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was first being debated, a number of uninsured, and so we’re not talking about. If you need healthcare in the United States, you will get health care. I mean, you know, if you’re bleeding, someone will take you to an emergency room. So it’s not a matter of health care. It’s had health insurance, which is a related but important issue, financing right. I think the number was something like 40 million Americans did not have 40 50 million Americans did not have health insurance in the United States. What Obama care has done is that it’s reduced that number by about 40% right? And so they’re talking with these figures on Morning Joe or whatever they’re talking about. 2022 million Americans would would lose it. These were people who did not have it prior 2010 but are now covered because of this expansion of Medicaid and because of the individual mandate. Right? And so you know, we want to put that in perspective. It’s not that that’s not obviously very significant number of people, but as with respect to the entire to the United States, it’s It’s not like one out of three or something like that. It’s an important debate but need a little bit of context. I didn’t want to just mention that Joe Scarborough, in that clip, had sort of a throwaway line where he said, Basically, any Republican in a swing state you know who votes for the Senate bill will lose forever. This is the conventional wisdom in Washington that any Republicans who take a very difficult vote in favor of the House bill in particular, the Senate bill are gonna put themselves at political risk in the next election cycle and probably the election cycle

[0:26:03 Speaker 4] after that. And after that,

[0:26:04 Speaker 2] it’s gonna be a very difficult vote to justify in the next elections. That’s the conventional wisdom in Washington, and I just want to use that as a quick Segway. We want to spend a ton of time on the 2018 elections. I didn’t want to point out that, you know, this is consequential. The Republicans in the majority party in both the House and the Senate. I just was looking this up because we keep having these special elections that Phil different seats. Right now, the Republican majority in the House is 241 Republicans, 193 Democrats with one vacancy. Okay, so the Republican majority is, what, 41 plus 7 48 seats. So there has to be a swing of 25 in order to give the Democrats the house so they’re Democrats have to take 25 seats away from Republicans. Is that possible In 2018? Yeah, it absolutely is possible. It’s tough. We haven’t had many swings of that magnitude, however, we have had quite a few recently. In 2006 the Democrats picked up more than 25 seats and retook the House in the second part of the second half of the Bush of Bush a second term in 2010. The Republicans had a swing of like 47 seats and took over the house in 2010.

[0:27:24 Speaker 4] Part one. Reaction to obamacare, right, right. And

[0:27:27 Speaker 2] so you notice. By the way, there’s a pattern here, right? Incumbent president. His party loses seats in midterm elections that’s been a consistent, not inviolable, but a consistent pattern in American politics over time, they’ve only been three times, I think, where the president’s party did not lose seats in the next midterm. One was 1998. The second Clinton term one was 2002 which is the first Bush term. But it was after 9 11 and in fact, Bush didn’t even win the popular vote in 2000. So you know, he didn’t exactly have some super majority that he was losing from. And so it’s happened recently that the president has managed to insulate himself from this loss, but it’s more common than not so. 2006. Bush loses seats. 2010. Obama loses seats. 2014. Obama loses more seats, so our expectation heading into 2018 because the Republicans have a large majority. There are a lot of seats that Republicans were winning, where there is kind of a Democratic, at least not a Democratic majority. Then certainly competitive Democratic presidents in the district on Democrats were targeting those seats. We call this, by the way, the phenomenon the president losing seats in the next midterm election we refer to as surge and decline with Serge refers to the influx of the president’s party’s supporters coming in for the presidential election. The decline is that they either switched their votes or they don’t show up in the next midterm. And there’s a very got a long and boring actually funded sort of interesting. But you’ll probably would be that interested debate about whether it’s persuasion that’s more important, that is, is it is it that people voted for the president, just get disillusioned and they vote the other way? Or is it that they get fat and happy and they don’t turn out? So it’s a persuasion versus a mobilization explanation, I guess, would be a demobilization explanation for the surge in the presidential and then the decline in the midterm election. But we assume now it’s kind of curious for 2018 though, because Trump lost the popular vote. So if there wasn’t a huge surge for Trump in that sense, we don’t we don’t expect as much of a decline. On the other hand, the Republicans are kind of an overbuilt congressional party Right now. They hold a lot of seats. The demographics in partisan underlying partisan predispositions would suggest they’re not really very strong Republican seats. And so the Republicans are at risk to lose these seats. What factors play into surgeon decline? Presidential popularity. Right now, the president is not very popular. He’s in about 40% approval presidents and 40% approval are ripe for a decline in the midterm election. The economy matters that’s pushing in the other direction. The economy is moving along pretty well right now. That might help the Republicans in 2018 so the magic number is 25 seats in the house. The Republicans only have 53 seats out of 100 in the Senate. So the Democrats have to pick up four seats. 50 50. Mike Pence breaks ties in favor of the Republicans, so the Democrats need 51 seats. Can they get those seats? It’s very difficult because the class of 2018 remember from our lessons about the Constitution. When was the Senate class of 2018 elected, most recently, 2012? What do we remember about the 2012 election? That was a pretty good election for Democrats. So the Democrats, their Democratic class of 2012 is up for re election in 2018 now in the Senate. The Democrats, I believe, and I could be off a couple on this. But I believe the Democrats have 22 seats that they are defending in the Senate class of 2018. The Republicans were only defending, I think, 11. So the Democrats have more seats at risk than the Republicans, and that’s so mathematically you’d say, Well, the Senate’s much easier. The Democrats only need to pick up four seats, only 11. But there aren’t many targets. Yeah, there are many targets that I guess the most prominent target is probably Nevada. So one thing you know those. Are you really interested this Watch the senator from Nevada? Heller. I think his name’s watch his vote on repeal and replace Obama care because that’s an individual who is probably pretty vulnerable. But he’s one of the few. Otherwise, the Republicans are basically defending safe seat states and very Republican states like Texas, for instance, Ted Cruz is up for re election. There are a lot of people. I’m sorry to my better O’Rourke fans out there. There are a lot of people who think that better is gonna take down. Ted could happen, but it would probably take something going on, you know, some sort of murder or yeah, maybe that. But anyway, the Senate actually looks to be less of a target than the House, even though the Republican majority is much weaker in the Senate. In the house.

[0:32:16 Speaker 3] Yeah, I mean, one of things is important to note we’re talking about, like what may hurt the Republicans. These are some funny, funny things that to realize if there is a natural disaster near the election, incumbents for fair words now again, they had nothing to do with it. But it fares worse. There’s also evidence that if your football team is in the top 25 it gets upset the weekend before the election, incumbents are in danger. Eso One of things we realize is that when people go to the voting voting booth, incumbents are blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong in people’s lives. But one thing is also important, Remember, is that the press, when they talk about this, is going to run around like Chicken Little. The sky is falling, the sky spoken. This happens all almost all the time. All right, so again, CNN. But it’s breaking news breaking news. Sun rises in the East. This real will check for consistency again, sailing CNN I mean the kids. So again, make sure you’re able to kind of get through all the drama and get to the what’s at the heart of it. And that’s why, stressed the idea of, like, don’t just focus on the politics of the maneuvering. And things like that also pay attention to the policy cause that’s really what’s at the heart of the matter. Not so much the drama but the policies of the heart of it. And again the media has to be overdramatic because you don’t watch it unless it’s dramatic.

[0:33:37 Speaker 2] News is, by definition, what’s new? Ah, couple of the stories we don’t want to keep you Long s will probably go fairly short on these. But speaking of CNN and the media, there’s been a dust up this week in Professor McDaniel. I want to give you the sort of the big picture view, but the little picture is that CNN is once again in a fight with the Trump administration, apparently his CNN producer. A couple of things went on. A CNN producer was caught on tape, agreeing with the notion that CNN’s interest in the Russia investigation is mostly because of ratings and that there’s really nothing there. I would encourage you to take a look at that tape on yourself. I think it’s a more complicated in that. I don’t think the producer was kind of admitting some of the things he’s been accused of admitting. I don’t I don’t think this is a fate news story, and I don’t think that’s what he was implying. But he did. He was very kind of forthright about how the Russia story is good for CNN’s ratings and so they are focusing on that. And, of course, the White House picked up on this. There is a new White House press secretary. It was a Sarah Huckabee, Suzanne Huckabee. Huckabee. So it’s Ah, it’s former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s wife. Daughter. Sorry is the is the new White House press secretary, although I think that’s temporary. Replacing Sean Spicer of certain live fame. Um, and she’s been aggressive pushing back at some of these news stories. And the president, of course, continues to tweet about them. There was another CNN kind of aspect of this CNN story. Several people been fired over this. There was an investigation again of a potential trump connection with Russia that turned out to be kind of a hoax. And CNN. I don’t know that CNN went with the story, but they kind of were aggressively investigating the story. And so CNN’s kind of taken it on the chin a little bit this week, although it’s not clear to me it will hurt their ratings very much. Uh, we just want to point out that there continues to be this tension, and it’s not just Trump, uh, the Bush administration and a very tendentious relationship with the president. And that’s right. Dan Rather, former heavyweight in broadcasting, came a cropper on a fake news story. With respect to George W. Bush, the Obama administration was notoriously prickly and contemptuous of the mainstream news. They thought they were a dinosaur and they didn’t really need them and that they were kind of beneath um on dso that trajectory, this sort of downhill relationship between particular president and the press. This is simply, and maybe it’s accelerator decelerated a little, but it’s something you always consumers of news and his citizens auto watch because it’s getting pretty nasty and

[0:36:15 Speaker 4] pretty early. Yeah, and and the fact

[0:36:17 Speaker 2] that you know the White House, some tickets calling into question whether this this whole notion of fake news, you know, it’s not. We don’t like your spin. We don’t like your interpretation. We’re calling it fake, and that’s he said. That’s a de escalation, a acceleration of this trend on it. It’s not good. Um, we also want to mention the Supreme Court ended its session this week. Yeah,

[0:36:40 Speaker 3] so I buy to go take a look at some of the decisions. The Supreme Court is made when the big things is that it’s it’s our can’t speak correctly. It upheld parts of President Trump’s travel ban or travel restrictions that shouldn’t say bamboo travel restrictions. It upheld certain parts of it, but stated that will review the other parts. So this is seen as a victory for the Trump administration, and the fact of the Supreme Court upheld parts of of these restrictions. However, the Supreme Court will revisit it and will be interesting to see how how they look at the case. As things go on,

[0:37:18 Speaker 2] I got nothing much on that. I think there’s been a little bit of an over playing of what the Supreme Court basically says one will take the case. That was what they really said. We’re going to decide on, you know, basically is broader question of the president’s right to craft immigration policy to execute the immigration policies of the United States as defined by the Constitution and by federal statute. We’ll take that before. In the meantime, they unlocked some of the bands with lower courts, had placed the appellate courts had placed on President Trump’s executive orders. They didn’t unlock all of them. They had some kind of curious things. They basically said that you know, people who have What was it a direct and close familial? Or

[0:38:03 Speaker 3] I think stepsisters can come. Grandma’s cannot.

[0:38:05 Speaker 0] Yeah, they basically said you need a

[0:38:08 Speaker 2] a close connection to justify being allowed into the United States. But they didn’t define what that close connection connection waas. And it was sort of odd, But any rate they’ll presumably, uh, articulated more clear, more forceful sort of interpretation in the fall. You know, it was, But that was one case. It was interesting. They agreed to take a couple of LGBT cases that are gonna come up in the fall. So the next session, which will be getting October the 1st 1 with all nine of the justices, including Gorsuch, is going to be pretty interesting

[0:38:41 Speaker 5] on then.

[0:38:42 Speaker 2] Last thing we just want to close on. Uh, you guys might have noticed this if you read the newspaper saw the statesman or anything online this week, but there’s been a lot of rallies. Protests where local governments, advocates of local government and local control, have taken aim at state legislation that has targeted state and local governments for kind of Reprisals and in particular its its revolved around the issue of sanctuary cities.

[0:39:07 Speaker 3] Yeah, I think I think that is also on the court’s docket are certain aspects of it, and that’s gonna be a really continuing thing. So it’s not just sanctuary cities. Remember, we talked about uber and lift and one of things. It’s very important to understand when we’re talking about politics and we’re talking about the way things get past is, sometimes you look for certain venues, you do venue shopping and so uber lip. We’re trying to work at the city level, but they lost in the Austin Austin they lost in Houston, and so what? They did it. They found a go. There might be something open force with state level, and so they moved from activities that, at the local level to the state level, they find an open a venue that could work with him there. And when we’re looking at various groups and how they try to defend their interests, they look for certain venues. So if you think about Professor Shaw’s lecture about social movements and really civil rights movement, you know there’s been you shopping there. First, you start off with the legal aspects. You start, you know, you start work to the courts as a venue. Then you know, think of the political action. I mean, that is another vineyard which in which to do these things. And so it’s very important. Understand that just because you stopped something in one place does not mean you stop it someplace else. And so if they lose in, um, and spot A, they may try to go to spot be and in many ways, you know, by moving from the local over to the state level, they basically fix the problem in Texas. And so they’re probably actively lobbying other state legislatures to work with them. And they found that those state legislators are not friendly towards them. They make the event, may move to the cities.

[0:40:36 Speaker 2] One interesting thing that dovetails with something the Professor McDaniel I talk about in our lecture about Texas and reforming Texas is that you know, Texas by design has limited what we call the ordinance power of local governments and municipal governments In a lot of other states. I come from California in California, San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Francisco, the’s municipal, local and municipal governments have a lot of power. They can determine, say, smoking ordinances or noise ordinances or things like that in Texas, local municipal governments have those rights, but that really restricted, and they’re really kind of governed by state law. And one of things that people really study these things and study kind of levels of government have suggested, is that Texas would do well if they would empower their states and localities to take care of a lot of these sort of local issues with local ordinances. But that’s not the way the states set up right now and that lack of power or I should say the oversight power in the overriding power of the state government comes into play when the state government basically says, Hey, we don’t want you to do certain things right We don’t want sanctuary cities. We don’t want uber and lift operating, you know, without regular. These things come into play and you know the reaction that you’re seeing driven by policy preferences, it’s it’s not like the people are protesting are necessarily inherent believers in local government. They simply think the local governments more likely to give them what they want here, and I got no problem that that’s presuming, Daniel said. You go with the horse, you know, that’s kind of deliver for you and eso. I don’t think this is a theoretical argument where you buy gum states and look out. Their localities have more power in the state. I think it’s an argument. We don’t like what the state is doing. We should let the local governments decide. And by the way, that both sides left and right do this right. You think of the Republicans as the local government party, the Limited they are until that local government doesn’t want to do what they would like to do.

[0:42:26 Speaker 3] Three. The Democrats became the States Rights Party when he came to LGBT issues because I realized that couldn’t win the national level. But look so they moved to. They became a States rights party there. It’s all about where you think you’re gonna win and where you think you’re gonna win is where you want to have the battle,

[0:42:43 Speaker 2] and I think that’s it for this week, and I guess it’s our last in the news a lecture, so make sure you guys get your in the news responses in on time. Take care of your Web text business and we’ll see in office hours. Or sometimes you have a good weekend.

[0:43:08 Speaker 7] 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 in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin