GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, June 8, 2017

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

[0:00:07 Speaker 2] morning. I’m Professor Shaw. First, McDaniel. Welcome to in the news for American and Texas politics. So it’s Ah,

[0:00:14 Speaker 0] week number two. And we got a lot of topics that have popped up over the last five or six days, and we want Teoh kind of gonna go macro broad level international stuff down to relatively Micro will talk about the legislative session. So let’s start big. A lot of news on the international front vote in Great Britain is the boat. All right, so, uh, festering, Daniel, I actually do a lot of work on elections and politics. Obviously, our focus is the United States, but this is an interesting election, the British elections. You’re probably aware there been some really significant changes in Britain over the last three or four years. The British voted to leave the European Union the so called Brexit British exit vote a couple of years ago, and now the current prime minister, Prime Minister May, who was a conservative, is the second female prime minister of Great Britain after Margaret Thatcher kind of sense that there was an opportunity about four weeks ago given the state of the Labour Party which is sort of left of Centre

[0:01:18 Speaker 3] Party in Great Britain,

[0:01:19 Speaker 0] that there was an opportunity Teoh expand for majority in the House of Commons, which is the main legislative body in Great Britain. And so I’m like in United States where you have ah set regular scheduled to elections in Great Britain. The executive and the legislative leader are the same person, right? The leader of the majority party is the prime minister in the Prime Minister has all the power. There is no president in Great Britain. So as you guys air looking at the constitutional arrangements that exist in the United States, these discussions of judiciary, legislative and executive on the powers there in keep in mind the United States the way we do things, United States is somewhat unusual. A lot of countries have followed our model, but the British have their own pattern. That sort of evolved over time where essentially, it’s a unitary system. As Professor McDaniel mints and several times in lecture eso, there’s there no states and localities in Great Britain the way there are in the United States, there’s only sort of national government. There’s a couple of local mayors and things like that, but they’re relatively powerless. So there’s a national government unitary system, and there’s no riel division of power the way there isn’t a nice checks and balances. If you have a majority in the legislative body, you control all the executive and bureaucratic functions in the country. And so Prime Minister May sees an opportunity to consolidate her position and the position of the Conservative Party. Now things have gotten complicated. Her lead in the polls has been diminishing over the the leader of the Labour Party. Labour Party, by the way right now, is considered to be someone in disarray. Their leader is pretty unpopular. He’s not well regarded within his own party, little of nationally. But you know, it’s a tumultuous time, and it’s not clear that anybody who is in charge of the status quo is gonna do particularly well. On top of that, you also have the terrorist attacks in London over the last couple of weeks, leading to questions, even though may you know, the leader of sort of a harder line, a party that takes a harder line with respect to terrorism. There’s some dissatisfaction with the way the government has handled the situation there with respect to immigration and homegrown terrorist threats and terrorist threats from abroad. So it’s complicated, but it’s it’s gonna be very interesting to watch. So if you guys have an opportunity, go to BBC America or just take a look online and see how those votes come in. People gonna look at that as a harbinger, a za predictor of something broader that might be occurring across Europe. And they have even felt over here at some point.

[0:03:49 Speaker 2] Yeah, I mean, because if you think the is related to what happened in response to the Manchester attacks as well is that the attacks in London? And many people argued that the election in France was a sign that this kind of populist or responsive you’re seeing within the U. S. Is with as well as in Great Britain really was not gonna make it through the rest of Europe and the European Union might be able to survive because if Macron had not won in France, there were there was really a case of France me and put up the European Union, and it would have been uploaded.

[0:04:22 Speaker 0] Yeah, let’s let’s go back a bit So you all are from the last kind of big national elections that we’ve seen recently in Europe were in France, where you had you have a two round system. France does have a president. They also have, ah, Parliament Congress. But they have a prime minister as well as a president and a president with fairly substantial powers. So but they have a two round election in France. And what happened in France was that Mari Le Pen, who is the leader of the National Front, which is a very conservative kind of, well, conservatives on the right, where it’s sort of a nationalist right wing party. Very, very pro France anti immigrant, made it to the second round, was one of the top two vote getters, and the other person who made it was this guy Macron, who leads sort of a centrist kind of coalitional party on and a lot of the votes that had gone toe. Other parties candidates went to Macron in the second round of voting, and then a couple weeks later you have a second round voting, with only the top two people advancing. So Macron is not really a fixture of any kind of party in France. But it was an indication that the kind of populist, I guess you might even say kind of trump like support that existed for Le Pen and some other candidates. And France had its limits. So Macron was seen as a have a triumph for establishment forces, more kind of traditional forces. So Macron wins in France, kind of a centrist party leader. May is leading in the polls in Great Britain to traditional conservative Party. It’s again right of centre. But at least it’s one of the established political parties

[0:06:00 Speaker 3] for people who are afraid of, you know, kind of the revolution.

[0:06:03 Speaker 0] So we’ll see how it shakes out that’s going on. There was a obviously we talked last week about President Trump’s trip to the Middle East, one of things that fell out of that trip. Questions about how causal these linkages are is that seven Arab countries announced that they were isolating politically and diplomatically. The state of cutter That’s I was always took me a long time to figure out how to how to pronounce Cutter Q. A t a r. I used to call Qatar. I was corrected, but no one told me what was right. So my understanding is that it’s cutter. So you know, if you guys have corrections, please, I’m happy to learn. But Cutter has been sort of isolated by these other Arab states. Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, etcetera. They see Cutter as basically kind of a puppet or a surrogate for the Iranians and Trump’s trip to the Middle East. A lot of ways people saw it as a response that Obama had been cozying up to Iran. And so Trump thought that was a mistake, that Iran hadn’t earned anything. Iran is, Ah, Shia dominated regime and support Shia insurgents and other countries Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt and center, these air Sunni countries. And so there’s a sense on the part of Trump people that we’re better off with Sunnis. We have more say there. Let’s isolate the Iranians. The trip to the Middle East emboldened these Sunni dominated countries to take more aggressive stance towards cutter what they think is an agent of Iran. What? Why are we talking about this in the context of American class? Well, parcel, because it could be related to Trump’s foreign policy, but also because the United States has significant military assets, including a sizeable nasal naval base in Qatar. And so there’s a question about what happens to American defence interests in this American base in Cutter, if in fact it becomes a political pariah, do we shut it down? I mean, it would be very difficult to relocate this base strategically positioned within the Middle East. And, you know, President Obama’s telling me he’s actually has some relatives who were stationed

[0:08:07 Speaker 2] Yes, because you think it was in that area. I think the key thing he told me was 125 degrees in the shade.

[0:08:14 Speaker 0] Oh, my goodness, We’ve had colleagues have gone to the United Arab Emirates one or two, I believe, to cutter also, So they’re actually very interested in American expertise and engineering, you know? So that’s going on in the world. Now let’s bring the focus. Look closer at home as were taping this right now. Are we to session? Former FBI director James Comey is testifying in front of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee about what President Trump said to him. He released an extensive statement. Basically, he gives an opening statement in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he released least two pages. I guess of that state because

[0:08:54 Speaker 2] it’s seven pages altogether. It was a pretty took, very detailed notes of all of his meetings of President Trump.

[0:08:58 Speaker 0] It’s a scary, scary thing. Well, as FBI director, I hope he takes notes. You know, I hope he records it. Frankly, I’m old school. I want my FBI people to be kind of sneaky. But the headlines that are coming out of Comey’s statement s so far as we can kind of you read the tea leaves or that, uh, he says that at several points during a meeting with Trump, President Trump is the president, President Elect Trump. At the time,

[0:09:24 Speaker 2] I think it was President Trump because its the dinner meeting they talked about was in the

[0:09:29 Speaker 0] White House in the White House. And so President Trump and said him, I hope you can let this go. I think it was. Let it go, which is not from frozen, although many of you may associate with. That s so he’s trying to let it go. Let it go. There was now this is interesting. I mean, this was sort of everything on CNN’s breaking news. I’m having a hard time watching CNN right now, because I keep getting tricked into thinking that there’s actually breaking news all the time. But this is sort of the breaking news thing on CNN that, you know, Trump said. This there. Now, there’s an open question. How you interpret the president of the United States, telling an executive officer, I hope you can let this go. This, by the way, was referent to Flynn. I think, Yes, Flynn, who was Ah, was a nominee at the time for a Cabinet level position, and it came out that Flynn had had contacts with Russians. So Trump was saying, You know, look, I don’t think it’s anything here. I hope you can just let this go Comey And he said, He’s a great guy. He’s a great guy. I hope you can let it go. What Comey said was, I said, Yeah, he’s a great guy, Not I was gonna let it go. So, you know, this was how Comey characterize his conversation. If you want Trump gone, then you can go obstruction of justice. See, the president is trying to, you know, use his position to threaten bleakly, you know, an executive officer who’s simply trying to fulfill his constitutional duty. If you like Trump, you’d say, Just is advising, You know, an executive official is saying, Gee, I hope you can see it our way I don’t think there’s anything here, you know, we’ll see what the reaction is.

[0:11:06 Speaker 2] E. One of things that that former director Comey discussed is that I guess in two months of being there with President Trump, he spoke to my want to say I think, nine times total So two face to face seven of the phone, whereas with President Obama, they only spoke twice. People like Why don’t speaking twice? Well, one of the reasons is people want the FBI to be independent of politics, and this is this is the problem Comey got into during the election is that he paid himself is being independent of politics. But what he said mattered in politics, specifically with the Clinton investigation now is getting thrown in with the with the Trump administration investigation

[0:11:45 Speaker 7] of those officials.

[0:11:46 Speaker 2] And one thing you see coming out of seventies is this is really big fear that the FBI and that the Department of Justice is really a political machine. So think of J. Edgar Hoover, who pretty much everybody says, abused his powers as director of the FBI to curtail individuals he saw as threats to the American public. This is also why FBI directors only have short, short terms as well as opposed to who. But I think maybe over two decades eso on. So there’s this idea because again, if you think about, um, if the president has a lot of control over the FBI, well, then that means the president able to use the Justice Department to punish, punish opponents and let allies off. And this is kind of the accusation here that you have. This system, which is basically gonna benefit, trumps Trump supporters and hurt Trump’s opponents. And it really hurts the legitimacy of the FBI to carry things out and hurts legitimate the generously of the justice system. And so, and I guess it would also make it what, so again, the idea of letting go, but also the dinner conversation where present Trump kept kept asking for loyalty and that that right there might be The biggest problem now is that something is going to seek President Trump. No, use the argument. Look, this is an ethics violation, or this is something that you shouldn’t be doing. But it’s not going t to sink him at all. I think it does hurt him. And in May, it’s just Mawr amel people to use in the 2018 2018 elections to try toe hurt Republican candidates. It may. This controversy may stall his domestic agenda as well, because again, he’s losing a lot of political capital and doing. And one of his problems people have is to what degree will Republicans support him because they realized supporting him? They’re losing political capital. So which remained up with maybe kind of a lame duck president quicker than you than you thought, Because because of these controversies,

[0:13:55 Speaker 0] I wanted to read you guys something. So there’s two articles I was looking at this morning on real clear politics, which is sort of this news aggregation site, real clear politics. I like it. It presents stuff from the left and from the right, often times back to back so you can get different points of view in a relatively efficient fashion. There was one article by Jeffrey Toobin basically titled, If This Isn’t a Smoking Gun, I don’t know what is right. So that’s one statement basically saying that Comey’s statement about Trump shows that Trump obstructed justice. And then, right below it was an article by Alan Dershowitz, who was a Harvard law professor and ostensibly no friend of President Trump, saying that, you know, this isn’t a smoking gun. I want to read you just a quick excerpt, which isn’t really about the argument referent Teoh, whether trump obstruct justice, turn up but kind of a general argument to what Professor McDaniels talking about about independence within the executive in the presidential branch. So get Dershowitz writing about Comey. Comey did not say he would let this go. Ah, and indeed, he did not grant the president’s request to do so. Nor did Comey report this conversation to the attorney general or any other prosecutor. He was troubled by what he regards as a breach of recent traditions of FBI independence from the White House, though he recognised that in. Here’s the quote. This is Comey’s statement. Throughout history, some presidents have decided that because problems come from the Department of Justice, they should try to hold the department close. Then, Dershowitz writes, That is an understatement. Throughout American history, from Adams to Jefferson Toe Lincoln to Roosevelt to Kennedy to Obama, presidents have directed not merely requested the Justice Department to investigate, prosecute or not prosecute specific individuals or categories of individuals. It is only recently that the tradition of an independent Justice Department and FBI has emerged, but traditions. This is Dershowitz ready. But traditions, even solitary ones, cannot form the basis of a criminal charge. It would be far this. So this is Dershowitz is more sort of legal argument. It would be far better if our Constitution provided for prosecutors who were not part of the executive branch, which is under the direction of the president in Great Britain, Israel and other democracies that respect the rule of law. The director of public prosecution or the attorney general are law enforcement officials who by law are independent of the prime minister. But our Constitution makes the attorney general both the chief prosecutor and the chief political adviser to the president, to the president on matters of justice and law enforcement. And that’s the rub. That’s kind of a the problem. The, you know, the the Department of Justice and the FBI gets even some sense have these dual roles there chief law enforcement agents. But they’re also the chief adviser to the president, the executive branch. And that’s where it’s very complicated. So Aziz said, You know, look, we’re you know, we always have our own views on these things and takes on them. But our obligation to you guys is to try to present this context in a way that helps you figure out what you think of this that’s going on right now. The Congress continues to do or not. Do you know what Trump wants? And I say that because it’s not clear exactly. You know where their footing it. There’s talk about Trump kind of reinvigorating his agenda with infrastructure bill, and they’re still talking about the Senate version of Obamacare or Ah, repeal and replace on Obamacare. Our own Senator John Cornyn said, Hey, that’s coming. It’s gonna be done by, you know, middle of the summer, OK, but you know, it’s interesting. There’s a lot of stuff that Trump has done, but in terms of legislative accomplishment, you know, it’s just so tough to get anything done right now, and it’s not. It’s not clear how much progress he’s making on his agenda.

[0:17:40 Speaker 2] Yep, the press been a big deal of the fact that he had a, ah, a bunch of people around him in a photo op for for signing and people thought it was a bill signing knows the signing of a memo to Congress. I mean, it’s it’s clearly you, clearly, President who’s trying his best to show the American public. Look, I’m trying to get things done. I am working, but but the problem is you have a number of people who just are not supporting him and whether this is deserving or not. This is a man who is clearly trying to work back, get some political capital back and pushes agenda for because it seems to be getting stalled confident. Start over the Russia investigation over all these leaks, things of that nature and which again, one thing he had ah, director, former director Comey did point out, is that he did to the president, you know you’re not under investigation and the president will let everybody know that I’m not an investigation and you know that is true. You said it multiple times you’re not under investigation on The president was bothered by the fact that nothing officially come out in regards then. So I mean, be truthful. If there were whispers that I had done something wrong and somebody was it was like, No, you’re not being investigated. But they never told anybody I’d be a little bothered to, but I think the way that made people upset about the way that President Trump handled it on. But this is thing is kind of interesting. But also one thing you also admit noticed the media is having a field day with this. So I may be blamed the media for the ascendancy of President Trump. The his presidency will probably bring the media back into in the focus because people consider watch what’s going on when they’re scandal kind of blood in the water somewhat that the media love that, and they’re gonna pounce on it. So CNN and with breaking news a the sunrise and East breaking news you know, Wolf Blitzer finds a canary in his beard breaking news. It’s all these types of things. They want people to pay attention and one of things I would advise you to be aware of is, you know, be what effect the media is. You know, there are the for profit, and so a lot of stuff they’re gonna covers, they want scandal. They’re looking for scandal, because when things going right, people aren’t paying attention is when things are going wrong when people start paying attention. And so, in many ways, a trump presidency is a boom for them because even provide funds for investigations are all kinds of stuff because people are just signal like bring out what What’s going on?

[0:20:12 Speaker 0] Yeah, this is a you know, the New York Times. It’s funny. I’m not a big fan of the president’s tweeting, not the particulars

[0:20:20 Speaker 3] of it or incidental, though they plan to a

[0:20:23 Speaker 0] little bit it. It’s just I just don’t think President should be tweeting all the time, but that’s a me thing, but I do love the failing New York Times like failing New York Times New York Times Readership for the first time in ages is actually up, and CNN’s viewership is up fairly significantly, almost certainly because of President Trump. Also, like sad, I said, I’m not a big fan of the tweets. But I do like, you know, we’ve used this on her own class. Last semester, when the midterm average was about 65 we said, You know, government 3 10 midterm average 65. Sad failing 3 12 So failing through 10. So that won’t happen this time. Let’s move on to the state. You know, the regular session regular decision came to a close, and I just jotted down some things that they got them. They do have a state budget, so they did get a budget passed transportation. They did manage to set state regulations that would allow lift and uber to come back. Now the state didn’t really have anything set on this but certain locations. For instance, Austin and Houston right? Houston had basically kind of set conditions and, said Lifton, Uber can only operate. If you guys do these things and Lipton Uber said, we don’t want to do those things, most notably criminal background checks for their drivers. And so Austin and Houston had bans on this. Will the state stepped in and set a you know kind of statewide for Texas set of regulations to allow Lifton uber toe operate. It’s a little bit of a slap on the hand to the localities, but it’s also in response to kind of public demand and and sort of a request that there be some consistency with respect to the operating arrangements. Both Lipton uber want this, but other entities wanted as well. There was some progress made on Child Protective Services. The Child Protective Services system in Texas has been a mess by object of accounts for quite a while. The foster care system here is in need of substantial reorganization revamping. They began to make some progress on that, although from what I understand, a lot of progress needs to still be done. And then immigration. There was some legislation targeting sanctuary cities, some state clarification on immigration policies. So it was kind of interesting a lot of these episodes. A lot of these issues the state was coming in and clarifying what was otherwise being adjudicated at the local level. So there’s a lot of talk about city versus state politics, but you notice there’s a lot of stuff they didn’t get done here. They didn’t do anything on. There was some talk about marijuana that the state would consider the circumstances under which minute marijuana would be allowed. Ah, lot of conservatives wanted tighter restrictions or clarified restrictions on abortion. There was clamour for more clarification on gun law and also clarification on transgender issues, including bathroom issues. None of those things got done during the regular session, which is why one of the reasons we have a special session, Professor McGonagle How long With special sessions last in Texas? 30 days, 30 days, 30 days? So who calls it Governor Abbott? So one of the things well reiterate throughout the semester is that Texas has every other year there’s a regular legislative session, you know it runs. They try to get all the business of the state done. They rarely do. And so the governor has the power to call special sessions with special sessions last 30 days, you may be asking, Well, is there a limit? You know, can you only call in what? No, The governor Abbott can cause many consecutive special sessions as he sees fit until the business of the state, as he defines it, gets done. So we’re just jotting this down beforehand. All right. Now, the ostensible reason for calling a special legislative session was sort of bullet 0.1. Here, renew these five state agencies. So they’re five state agencies in Texas include the Texas Medical Association, whose terms are set to expire unless they are renewed. And so Abbas said, Look, you have to come back in decision and renew these agencies beyond that, so that’s kind of the main reason. But that’s in some sense window dressing. He also laid out a list of at least 18 different issues he would like to see addressed in the legislative session of special session. So including so that’s the main bullet point. 18 other things, he said. I’d like to see you guys do something about property taxes. You know, you guys own property in Texas first. Well, congratulations if your parents own property. Also, congratulations. But there is a limit on how quickly property taxes can escalate. And so, you know, there’s Ah, a lot of people said like, Well, it shouldn’t be able. There’s a lot of people who think that there ought to be a tighter limit on how much you can raise property taxes over a set period of time, right? They like to cap the increase at tax assessment value at a certain level and conservative only one. Cap it lower. Liberals are always a little reluctant about cutting off the spigot. So because we do not have an income tax in Texas, there is no state income tax in California, by the way, just for comparison, where I’m from originally, 18% state income tax. Eso for those of you who are, you know, gonna take a job in California, please, please bear our advice in mind factor income tax in When you’re negotiating with your potential employer, right? We don’t have that in Texas, we have sales tax and property tax. So property taxes also linked to the funding of the public schools. So some people say I’m not so sure you want to cap that property tax rate in Texas. But, you know, as a property owner, uh, I love education, So I’m down for that. I would like more money for education, but I also own property and home man it it goes up and up and up around it. Also, property taxes. One issue transgender. Governor Abbott would like them to take up transgender and some kind of bathroom bill abortion again a lot of Abbott’s conservative base would like to Seymour regulation or clarification, especially in the second trimester on abortion. There’s also questions about what to do with fetal tissue and the restrictions on that. This is

[0:26:44 Speaker 3] all part of the

[0:26:44 Speaker 0] abortion issue that never seems to be reconciled American politics and then a lot of issues still regarding local power ordinances that are out there, where Abbott would prefer the state to come in and add some clarifying regulations. So and many more. But these are just the highlights. Okay, so, special session, it’s gonna run when we get this Pressman in July 18th. Yeah, right for 30 days. And then if they get a bunch of stuff done, maybe they go home. Maybe avid calls another session, right? So,

[0:27:11 Speaker 2] yeah, one of things with special session is that it allows the give the governor the power to set the agenda of the Legislature. And so many people talked about the governor of Texas not being as powerful as others. The government takes has moved up in the ranks in terms of pirates. Time was going on, but be able to call a special session really dictate what will be on the special session is a way for the present to control the agenda. The legislative agenda where he made it, where the governor made me, that I had the power before and on. So this is you know, a lot of this is very important about Okay, one taking care of things that happened there today. You’ve got to remember text slug such only meet once every two years and for six months and for a tech for a state is largest Texas with as much going on. The people argue that that really doesn’t make sense that we should at least meet once a year to deal with the budget. You know, uh and so it deals with the budget and then ah, bunch of other than other stuff happens. But the state is largest This as the verses this you that black people are you must meet really wants you to do with the budget. That really has not happened. It’s once every two years. But again, if you look at a lot of what’s going on is he’s made it clear Here’s the first. The first thing you do that here is a bunch of other stuff. I don’t want you Teoh to get done, and it’s really going to university what happens on how much can actually be accomplished. And some of that you may say it’s symbolic that Governor Abbott’s putting it on the agenda just so he can show his base. I’m doing something and may not really care. What passes or not where some of it might be really is he’s really concerned about is Priority one. But it’s clear priority one is dealing with these with the agencies that may lose their funding because of the sunset bills. And these are things to be very. Be very aware of what we talk about national politics, state politics and wells. Local politics really has, um, or immediate effect on you. So what President Trump does doesn’t really affect you in terms your property taxes. But what the governor sides with state Legislature decides, or what the mayor decides has a huge effect on property taxes when trash is collected, these things that deal with your day to day life and so be aware of those things and take some time to learn more about local and state politics because many because those are the things have the immediate effect on

[0:29:26 Speaker 0] your lives. Yeah, this is This is dovetailing with our discussion of federalism in the United States. Right that, you know, we’re not like Great Britain were not like some of these more unitary systems. And so, you know, press meet annually. We’re talking about this legislative session. They’re considering property taxes which directly affect all of us. Right. Available revenue in your pocket, in your parents pockets. Determine annexation. I live in an area outside Austin that was annexed a couple of years ago. Their areas now Onion Creek. Rob Roy. You know, these places kind of on the periphery. The city of Boston, where Austin has annexation power, often wants to increase its tax base. And they want to get that property tax money flowing in to the city of Austin. Right? So And But what’s the trade off? If they annex an area that formerly independent well, then they are required to provide services to that area. So there’s this interesting given take or pull and pull and tug, tug and pull with these local communities who say, like, Well, you’re gonna come and take our tax revenue But, you know, we have a nice municipal utility district that takes care of our trash services, and now the city of Boston is going to do it. And I heard you guys don’t mow the lawns on the parks. And you know, you don’t really care much about tax stuff there about trash pickup. So but this is the stuff, you know, whether your trash gets picked up. What’s your property tax rate? Funding for the schools? Professor Maria, We’re talking about this UT There’s a big conversation out of this legislation. How did University of Texas do? They didn’t reregulate tuition. You know, the economy funds available, but we’re a little bit in limbo. You know, all this kind of stuff directly effects our lives. And as you guys get the older first of all, you’ll see these things more clearly. And also they’ll touch on you more right as you own property taxes. As you have kids in the public schools, right? These sorts of things will really come home. So in with a federal system, yeah, there’s a stuff going on the national level. Consequential. Then there’s the state stuff that’s pretty consequential. And then there’s this stuff even you know what the legislature did Affects whether you can get a ride on, you know, on uber vs Rideshare. You know, when you’re on six streets some weekend, right? It’s consequential, right? So we want to mention a couple of the things first, all next week. We’re working on a special guest, possibly two who are going Teoh come with fresh polling information about attitudes of Texans towards some of these issues in the session, A swells more broadly. So we’re working on that. That’ll be cool. And we didn’t want to say one thing about the responses to the first in the new segment. Your ta said that you guys did a really good job on the whole, So excellent. To the extent that there’s room for improvement, I think the consensus was that you’re supposed to actually talk about something that you learn to connect it back up to some of the material that we’re learning about in class. And so it’s, you know, some of you maybe didn’t get entirely full credit. It was because you just said like, well, McDaniel in Shaw summarized X, we would like you to actually connected up to some of the course material. So today we talked about all these things connected to federalism systems of government. You do a little bit of that. You should be good to go. Are we doing? Are we good?

[0:32:30 Speaker 2] Yeah, I think that’s, uh, way today.

[0:32:32 Speaker 0] Yeah, it’s like 1/2 hour, so a little long. But, you know, it’s a busy week. Right? Is right. All right. So until next week, good luck. Regular office hours. Today I may leave a little early. I have Thursday office hours. 10 31 30. I may check out between 12. 30 and one. You know, if you need to meet with me, let me know. Otherwise, I’ve got a medical apartment and get out. You available?

[0:32:51 Speaker 2] I’ll be around for a little bit, but I have to leave myself around. 12 30.

[0:32:57 Speaker 0] Got to do it. All right, y’all, We’ll see you next week.

[0:33:08 Speaker 8] Government 3 10 and 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