June 16th, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

[0:00:05 Speaker 1] The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party chart. Tell people on a regular basis there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution. They have become the norm. At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

[0:00:34 Speaker 0] Hello and welcome to the second reading podcast for the third week of June. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at University of Texas at Austin. I’m joined today again by Josh Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project. Just have been out of town a little bit. Took a little break. How was it?

[0:00:52 Speaker 1] Ah, it was great, much needed. But I got to say, you know, being in Austin, being out of Austin in terms of sort of people’s reaction to the Corona virus, very different experiences.

[0:01:04 Speaker 0] Well, I am not surprised by that, and we will come back to that. As it turns out, we’re gonna touch on a couple of topics today that are somewhat different in the response, and the politics of the Corona virus pandemic in Texas is one of them. But we’re going to start with action in the U. S. Supreme Court. Yesterday, the court handed down a decision that surprised a lot of people, and we can talk about the sources of that surprise. Uh, the U S Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act ah protects gay and transgender Americans from workplace discrimination. The the main case that this will be known as it actually consolidated three cases is Bostock versus Clayton County, Georgia, and that’s easy toe toe. Find out there in the world the decision was written, As these decisions are, buy one. You know the decisions were written by one Justice was written by Trump appointing Neil Gorsuch. This, which also raised a lot of eyebrows given the decision, and the court decision was 63 in favor and at the heart of this. You know, if you quote the decision, the court held that an employer who discriminates against homosexual or transgender employees necessarily and intentionally applies sex based rules. This is prohibited, the court says, by the Civil Rights Act, Um, and said so. They reason that any employer who discriminates on these ground inescapably intends to rely on sex in its decision making. Um, this is a big decision in, particularly in Texas, which is one of 29 states which has not enacted any state level employment anti discrimination laws that would protect LGBT Q citizens. Um, you know, and I sort of flag has relying on sex in its decision making, You know, this is based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the landmark Civil Rights act that strengthen the enforcement of 14 amendment protections for African Americans, women and, um, other racial ethnic minorities. Um, and the key provisioned, which you know is in the decision is Title seven and anything in the Civil Rights Act. Like the sections of the of the lar called titles, Title seven makes it quote unlawful for an employer to fail or to refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise to discriminate against any individual because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, asterisk or national origin. And it’s that term sex that this really turned on right and the interpretation of it by the court,

[0:03:53 Speaker 1] right? And so ultimately, you know, one of the i d. Here was what a sex referred to and what I think. Opponents of extending rights toe to gays and lesbians and transgender people said that sex only basically refers to gender. And really, what it only actually refers to in terms of when the law was originally rated is it refers to women, and they’re trying to make sort of the most narrow of narrow rulings. And and what the majority came to is you highlighted, was, Is it basically, you know, sex is being used is the determining factor when considering sexual orientation and gender identity? Because ultimately, what the ruling sums down to in a lot of ways is this idea that if a person comes in and because of, you know, private, you know, private decisions they make about, you know, their romantic life on the one hand, or how they should do choose to present themselves on the other. Ultimately, to the extent that an employer has a problem with that, it’s because it’s not aligning with their their their expectations of the sex of the person who should have those kind of romantic Proclivities or that kind of gender presentation. And so ultimately, you can’t separate the two. You can’t say these air about different things because you have to use the basis and in sex of bio, some sort of a biological birth gender, to then create the expectation that people are violating. That then allows for the discrimination and so that linking those things things together was was, you know, I mean, a really big deal. I mean, to go back to a point you have made their 29 states that did not provide any sort of employment, you know, protections for LGBT Q people. This is, you know, ultimately something that is different about Tuesday from Sunday is now. Those protections extend to everybody in every state and further anyone. Yeah, go ahead.

[0:05:41 Speaker 0] Well, there’s, you know, there’s I mean, I think there’s a couple of interesting things there. One which you touch on is, you know, the you know, we might call the politics of interpretation here, and, you know, we’ll talk about expectations in a second, but right. You know, who would have thought that? I mean, well, you know, people were wondering how this was gonna unfold. But you know how you view that interpretation can be kind of a complicated thing to get the complicate the interpretation in the decision, you know, because one you know, the as you said the amount, the opponent’s argument. Waas look, When Congress wrote this, they met men and women, right? You know, we have lots. You know, we can say that there are that. There’s lots of sub contextual information that tells us that, and and that gets us into the politics of how judges air picked. And we don’t want to go too far down that road. But you know just how closely they Hugh toe literal readings of the Constitution and of the law. And there’s an interesting dynamic here internally just how literal that this was. And then there’s the history of the civil rights acted as it was passed in Congress at the time. The fact that sex is included was really deeply embedded in the politics of the time and that, um, I mean, I think there’s an overly simple view of this because in some ways you know, the the story version of this is that the Virginia congressman who initially included the amendment that included sex into the bill in the House, was a conservative, anti civil rights Democrat from Virginia gunning Howard Smith. And that, he put it in is a way to complicate the passage of the bill. Now it’s often said it was a poison pill, and it’s a little more complicated than that he was. I mean, he did it in a spirit of in an antagonistic spirit, and he did it to not help the bill. But it doesn’t mean that there weren’t there. There were people on the left that were, you know, um and even, you know, among Republicans at the time who wanted to include women in this, but for complicated reasons, some of which had to do with a straight for desertion of women’s rights. Others that weren’t a straightforward that were worried that this would give women of color writes that white women didn’t have. And so it was a very complicated discussion at the time. And in fact, many of the people that we would think of as the Liberal Democrats supporting the civil rights bill opposed including women in the bill at the time because they thought it would hurt its chances of passage. So now you know, whatever. 55 years later, this interpretation that is amore expansive interpretation turns on what was ultimately on obstructionist, uh, you know, effort to scuttle the whole thing.

[0:08:40 Speaker 1] Well, it’s funny. I mean, here, you know, hearing you recount that it does make me think of how, in recent years, you know, oftentimes, you know, conservative opposition to serve the expansion of rights to sort of, you know, newly ascendant groups in society. Not to say that these rooms didn’t exist in society before. They certainly did. But but newly recognized

[0:09:01 Speaker 0] emptier, legally record legally and socially recognized. Yeah,

[0:09:05 Speaker 1] well, I’m saying this is even, I would say this is even before the point of legal recognition. Right? So, you know, walking up to the point of legal recognition. You know, I think especially in recent years has been a lot of discussion about, you know. Well, what would these new rights implies? So, you know, going back over the last 10 or 20 years and look at the issue of gay marriage, for example. It wasn’t uncommon in the nineties, and in the two thousands and even into the 2000 tens. Early part of that it intends for. You know, a lot of opponents of same sex marriage is a well, once we extend, you know, rights to gay and lesbian couples to marry will. Certainly. Then people could go and marry whoever they want. They can marry their brothers and sisters. They could marry their pets. I mean, these were these were not, you know, hidden arguments. I mean, these were arguments that you’d hear Bill O’Reilly making on Fox News. Not, you know, the exemplar of

[0:09:51 Speaker 0] members of the U. S. Senate. Some of them

[0:09:53 Speaker 1] from Texas. Sure. Yeah. So I mean, this idea of, you know Well, if we do this, then what has been ton of accommodating? Did you recount this sort of this complicated story of adding, uh, sex to the list of protected classes? Entitle seven against discrimination? It kind of highlights again. This idea of like, Well, what would this mean? Who else would get rights? Who would get rights more so than someone else and the and this is sort of This has been a common, I guess feature in some ways of American politics when it comes to The idea of extending rights is that all of a sudden opponents will come up. I mean, all of a sudden, but opponents will come up and say, you know, and sort of proposed often the most outlandish sort of possible consequences. You know,

[0:10:34 Speaker 0] it’s a hyperbolic version of a threat to the existing hierarchy. Yeah, and existing cultural norms. And it’s ah, it’s Ah, it’s a regular feature of the playbook, I think as we as we watch this, So So I think, you know, as we kind of step back, you know, and look at this. You know, first point. This is a huge step in the legal status of LGBTQ Americans five years after the case that legalized gay marriage in the US itself a major seen as a major step. And I think that, you know, there are a lot of advocates, um, you know, in in those advocacy communities today saying that, you know, arguably this is bigger than gay marriage, giving this sweeping economic applications in the implications Here, Um, you know, at the end of the day, marriage is a relatively, you know, narrow thing, if you will. I mean not that it’s not important is an institution, but it doesn’t, you know, And at the time there were, there were I remember there being arguments in the lead up to to the advocacy for gay marriage about whether marriage was the right place to start. Whether it was a big enough prize, whether it was inclusive and up or whether broader anti discrimination, you know, measures should be the primary political goal. And, of course, you don’t always get to choose you, don’t you? Generally don’t get to choose what you get if you’re in advocating your urine examination room, but you know, opportunities, right? So this turns out to be a and, you know, as cases go up to the court, I mean, you can only control so much. I mean, you can control what litigation get started, but you can’t control the pace at which it progresses through the system and how it’s received.

[0:12:15 Speaker 1] Well, you know, and the thing is, I think your point here is this is arguably bigger, you know, thingy. A marriage, I think is an important one, you know, I mean, is important is marriages, you know, at its at its base core in the most unromantic way possible. Marriage is a contract between two people that bastos upon them a set of rights. Ah, lot of them are economic. A lot of them have to do with dispensation of funds, you know, death, certain rights on hospital visits, things like that, you know? And ultimately a lot of people don’t get married and never actually gained any benefit from these rights. And ultimately all of the rights that, you know, this is protected in terms of serve how assets air handled actually relate to sort of, you know, economics. And ultimately, you know, your economics. There gonna be a lot worse off if you can’t gainfully employed yourself. And there’s tends to be this interesting sort of stereotype about, you know, especially gays and lesbians in general that because, you know, in many cases they’re not having as many Children at the same rates as heterosexual couples for obviously you know, biological reasons that they don’t have the same expenses that heterosexual couples. So there’s a sort of idea of these, you know, basically homosexual couples living in this economically, you know, robust lifestyle because of the things they’re not paying for college education can close orthodontia. And the truth is, the data actually don’t show that in most cases, because gays and lesbians are actually until Monday because it was perfectly legal to discriminate in employment decisions against gays and lesbians in the majority of states and in his aunt, and mostly in states where attitudes towards gays and lesbians are not as positive as they are, let’s say in a California or New York where it’s not legal to do that. Actually, you know, the economic outcomes for gays and lesbians tend to be a lot worse than for heterosexuals. And so, like, that shouldn’t be surprising when you really start to put together. I think that’s that’s part of why this is such a big deal. It’s actually a lot more sweeping a benefit than gay marriage. Waas

[0:14:12 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a good point about the evidence of of where gays and lesbians are and, you know, sort of popping that stereotype of the prosperous, you know, urban gay couple, which is not representative Now you know the other. Another major point about this or thing to think about is how the story was framed We started by saying that this was, Ah, a surprise decision and these air expectations based largely on the impact of Donald Trump’s appointment of justices who were clearly chosen for their conservative credentials. And and this has been a major. You know this, you know, the you know, the position of court appointments over the role of court appointments and Donald Trump’s rise has been really important. We know that, you know, going into the election, you know, national polling, our own polling in Texas show that, you know, to the extent that it’s reliable, not because of the polling, that because the attitude, you know, that, uh, people you know told pollsters that if Republicans told pollsters that probably the most, that the most important issue affecting their vote was supports court appointments. And so there’s been an enormous amount of of weight put on this and and the Trump administration has followed up on this with Mitch McConnell’s cooperation in the Senate in appointing lots of conservative justices, you know, even before he was elected as part of his campaign strategy, they released a list of judges that would be their favorite candidates that was supplied to them by a very conservative organization, the Federalist Society, known for having the objective of making the federal courts more conservative. Um, you know, but this really does raise the question once you say that people were disappointed because the conservatives didn’t rule the way they were supposed to. And in fact, again, the justice that wrote the decision Neil Gorsuch was a Trump appointee appointed because he was verifiably verifiably conservative. Judge, um, you know, kind of raises questions about you know how the Supreme Court makes decisions. What are expectations should be, you know, and on issues that are in the public eye, the court, conservative or liberal, often seems to stay pretty close to what public opinion is. And in this case, public opinion was leaning. You know very strongly in this direction, right?

[0:16:42 Speaker 1] Yeah. I mean, you know you. For what it’s worth, we haven’t actually pulled on gay marriage in Texas for a long time because it’s become less of an issue. But, you know, I went back and I looked at gay marriage, for example, in 2015 when we pulled 43% of Texans thought the gays and lesbians should have the right to marry. By 2017 it was 55%. We haven’t pulled recently on this, but national numbers released, I think, just this month by CBS News on the 82% of Americans saw that said, the Supreme Court should extend civil rights protections two people identifying and gays lesbians and includes 71% of Republicans. So the reality is, I mean, people talk about this all the time, partially because I think, you know, gay marriage in and of itself is such, uh, it’s almost an exception. I mean, I would say it’s an exception that proves the rule, but it’s It’s such an interesting case in that we so rarely see such drastic moving in public opinion. And when I say drastic, I mean, even over the course of a 5 10 20 year period. But gay marriage has moved so quickly, and I mean a lot of, you know, I mean, the wise of that are all speculative. But I think what a lot of people point out is that is, is gay. Marriage, you know, again became it right as gays and lesbians became, you know, Mawr, represented in popular culture and became more free to live their lives openly around people. It turned out that a lot of people knew gays and lesbians that never did. And it becomes hard to discriminate against against you know, your friends, your workers, your family, your family members. And so and so you know, you’ve seen this drastic. Ah, shift over time, focusing on Texas, you know, a little closer to the president. You know, 2018 74% of Texans said the transgender people face either a lot or some discrimination. 68% said that gays, lesbians face a lot or some discrimination. And so there’s no denying or, you know, sort of the acknowledgement of the fact that we are, you know, as a society, you know, LGBTQ plus people are being treated differently than heterosexual people, you know? And so So that’s not a question. What is but the same time? There are pretty big differences here, right? In terms of

[0:18:46 Speaker 0] Yeah, sure. I mean right. I mean, it’s not as if Republicans were just letting, you know, can just let the issue go per se,

[0:18:53 Speaker 1] right? So, I mean, you know, when we were saying about, you know, views of discrimination. 89% of Democrats but 67% of Republicans say the transgender people face a lot or some discrimination for gays and lesbians is 87% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans. And then, actually, just last June in 2019 we asked whether Texas’s state government is doing too much, too little or the right amount to protect the rights of LGBT Q. Texans. 64% of Democrats said too little. 40% of Republicans, which was a plurality, said too much. Only 6% of Republicans said that the states doing too little to protect gays and lesbians. And so I mean, the other thing about this I was thinking about you know what you were saying before, you know, absent a court decision, you know the probability of Texas passing some kind of a statewide anti discrimination ordinance in any a reasonable amount of time. Two years, five years, 10 years absent the court movement is almost unthinkable, right?

[0:19:51 Speaker 0] Right. I think that’s right. And I think part of that is that you know, if we when we drill down into those numbers, were you have I mean There’s two things about the numbers you talk about that, you know, I think stand out. One is there is a difference between, you know, and the differences numerical. It’s about 12 15% Republicans who say no, these spokes experienced discrimination. But do I think we should do anything about it? So I think government should do anything about it. Are two different dimensions right that make it, you know that, have that And then the other pieces that, you know, you didn’t break this down. But my recollection of those numbers is that, you know, the you know, the concentration of opposition or or a kind of, ah, you know, a remaining bias against LGBT people. Just call it what it is, really is concentrated among older and the most conservative and most, you know, intense of Republicans. These are people that vote in Republican primaries, and they have helped make this kind of ah, hot button, you know, kind of 1/3 rail issue for Republican candidates in this state, no matter what the overall kind of arc of public opinion is. So I think you kind of to keep that in mind as far as the politics of this.

[0:21:14 Speaker 1] Well, it’s being the politics of it. I mean, what would be surprising to me would be if in the next few days or weeks, we don’t see a move by somebody in state government at a high level, whether it be the attorney general, lieutenant governor or the governor to either, you know, push back on. You know the ruling, either in terms of what it’s limits are and or even try toe frontally challenge its applicability because that’s actually what we’ve seen in the past. Whether it’s, you know, the fact that a conservative justice wrote the majority opinion, I don’t think really matters. And I think one of the interesting thing that strikes me in this kind of going through this discussion so far is the fact that, you know, conservatism isn’t one thing, right? You know, you kind of I mean, not to get into a deep discussion here, right? But I mean,

[0:21:59 Speaker 0] it’s a very that’s a that’s a very yeah, as you know that that’s a very pregnant my question. At this moment, I mean the telescope out as we think about you know, this decision as we think about the ongoing discussion about race in the country about policing. And you know, the various, you know, we could pick out another half dozen right issues related to race. You know, Confederate monuments. How we think about the past. Ah, you know how you you know, in a sense, it’s kind of who’s going to get in a very over simplified sense. It’s kind of who’s gonna call the tune now if you’re in the concern. If you’re a conservative, you consider yourself part of the conservative movement. Or more directly, frankly, you know, given the way that the parties have sorted part of the Republican Party, you got some big decisions to make about what’s gonna be on your agenda and where you’re going to emphasize that we saw some of this. I mean, you know, the response to this was kind of split among Republicans and conservatives in the last 24 hours. As we’ve seen the response. You know, on one hand, I think the kind of movement conservatives some of the pronouncements I saw from people from the Federalist Society who I mentioned is producing these lists of whose causes judicial conservatism. Um, you know, for lack of a better term were pissed and kind of hostile about this, um and, you know, pushing even harder on this. But there were a lot of, you know, they’re a couple of prominent U. S. Senators, including John Cornyn, as I recall, who were saying it will have to look at this, but you know, it seems to me that Judge Gorsuch made a reasoned decision that we can live with and other conservative activists on the religious right saying, Look, our main issue right now is still abortion, and you know, the protection of religion in public life. This has not been an issue that we have been emphasizing me, and I think so, that that discussed still going on even among the most conservative of conservatives.

[0:24:03 Speaker 1] When I think I think that I think that’s kind of what’s in me going to the politics of this and how this all under sex. I mean, I think what makes this such a you know, an interesting I mean, you know, setting aside, we’ve addressed this piece of it, which is, you know, huge fundamental expansion of civil rights in this country. It’s a watershed moment for the LGBTQ community moving. Pass it to the mirror area of politics, right? I mean, the thing that’s interesting, I think, is that, you know, in the immediate term, a Z had pointed out you know, where the biggest issues for Republican voters, both in 2016 again in 2018 you know, was the appointment of conservative justices. I mean, this is what they kept telling us. You know, For Democrats, the main issue has been healthcare. Ultimately, you know, the Trump reelection campaign was originally based on a strong economy. That’s out the window, right? Uh, you know, ultimately, the response to the virus is gonna be a problem politically to address. You know, the one thing that I would say, you know, Republicans could hang their hat on and say, Hey, we’ve appointed more justices and more quickly, then basically any administration ever. We put multiple conservative justices on the Supreme Court, And so this is the thing we’ve done for you, you know, base voters, the really engaged conservative voters. And now they have to explain this and in of itself, I think that creates difficulty. But I think what you’re saying also points out the difficulty of having, you know, someone at the top as the leader of your party and the president who’s not really a traditional conservative. I mean, he’s not someone who came up through the Federalist Society. He’s not someone who really was even a Republican for a long time. And his ideology is clearly not fixed in any sort of traditional conservative, you know, you know, easily describable conservative fashion and accepting the fact that there are multiple possibilities of what that could mean, right? And so I think that’s why you are seeing this sort of I would say both, you know, multiple reactions and obviously not one clear response from Republicans in particular towards this issue, because you know who is the leader? I mean, who would they follow at this point? And so you are seeing the different factions of conservatism kind of coming out and some saying, Well, that was a fair textural read of the case on the one that on the one hand, or, you know, that’s not really originalism, because nobody in 1964 was thinking about transgender people when they said this, you shouldn’t either right to you no more. Milton Friedman, Economics style conservatism that says, Hey, we don’t have to worry about discrimination, cause the marketplace will root it out right? Ultimately, which ultimately not good enough. But some of that is happening anyway. And you’re seeing that with businesses. So I mean, this sort of fight is likely to kind of go on because there’s not a lot else I think for, you know, to hang hang ones hat on right now.

[0:26:47 Speaker 0] Well, and I think, yeah, it’s gonna be interesting to see how this is handled, particularly because the Trump administration has been catering to the same constituency that is interested in conservative justices with executive orders rolling back, sort of Obama care executive orders made in favor of LGBT rights

[0:27:11 Speaker 1] recently is just before this decision,

[0:27:13 Speaker 0] right, So we will continue to see a lot of this unfolding. You mentioned the Corona virus and when we got about five minutes, But I do want to hit on a little bit of this, um, in park, it’s just because we said we did and we had the great set up of your travels. Oh, yeah, your and your anecdotal adventures with Kobe 19 uh, awareness. Now along the point here. We’re being jocular. But it’s, you know, many indicators are up statewide for Texas, in terms of indicators that the pandemic has has is far from being suppressed in Texas. To understate the case, 70 moving average for hospitalizations has been steadily increasing since about the first week of June. As I read the data and will put an asterisk on the data. Same with the number of daily new cases. Um, you know, number of reported deaths is not increased at the same rate. That’s been a little bit more jagged E and and a little flatter. Um, but the infection rate that is the share a positive test results increased in late. Main hasn’t gone down seven day average. There is just under 6% which is kind of the the benchmark threshold. I think that the governor, Abbott said. And when it comes to testing data, which is really in a lot of ways, the foundation of what we’re trying to interpret here when it comes to infection rates. As of today, Texas is again breaking 43rd out of the 50 states and text in testing. That is, you know, you measure this by controlling for populations that we look a test for one million population. Texas is testing at a rate about the third about at a rate that’s about the third of New York’s rate. Now again, New York was a the initial hot spot they started earlier. Um, and but our rate is also a bit lower than half the rate of Louisiana. That’s not Yeah, which is not saying much, you know, I could go on and make it even worse. We’re actually behind Mississippi on that, and is, you know, somebody was saying to me earlier, You know, you don’t hear very often. We’re

[0:29:17 Speaker 1] not buying Oklahoma bar away

[0:29:18 Speaker 0] worse than Mississippi. I don’t think we’re behind Oklahoma, but okay. I have to go check. So, you know, we want to kind of, you know, I think I think it another time We’ll talk a little bit about data issues here. I mean, but, you know, one should say that people are using the data different way because of the low level of testing and because of all the pieces of reporting, you know the data, our you know, whats the world.

[0:29:47 Speaker 1] I’m just gonna say problematic. I mean, you know, I think I want to flag. Let me let me just real quick. I mean, why you’re you’re flagging sort of the number of tests and ultimately, you know, So we do a lot of polling, and the idea is, you know, you want to go to find out what a group of people think about something. You want a random sample of people. So it’s representative of that whole. Testing is not random. And the less testing you have, the less random it ISS. So ultimately, if we’re only doing a little bit of testing, that testing is not being given out randomly because most of those tests would be wasted, right? So ultimately, the testing goes to the people who are most at risk. So it’s the people in, you know, where there are clusters of cases and nursing homes or first responders. Ultimately, as we increase the number of testing at some point, it can look like we’re going down. But we’re actually just expanding. The populations were testing, and the reason we want to get so high is because, yeah, we’re still going. Everybody still gonna prioritize testing people who think they may have been exposed or who are in certain positions where they’re more likely to be exposed. But is testing gets, uh, is the rate of testing across the population gets larger than we’re starting to bring in More people who, you know, maybe a little bit exposed, may or may not have. It may have to just get tested because of work or some other reason. And then we’re actually getting closer to something that looks at least a little bit like a random sample so that when we’re looking at these trends, we can stay. Oh, you know, this actually is a decline. This isn’t because of the way we’re testing or this actually is an increase. It’s not because we just tested this prison population is. That’s why you know, the number of test is so important. Partially,

[0:31:12 Speaker 0] yeah, and it shapes the politics because people take, you know, the people that you know, those who want to say that we’re doing OK or it’s not as bad as it seems will lean on the part of your you know, the first part of the explanation. Well, yeah, we’re we’re testing where all these people are at risk. It’s either hot spots or people that we know had possibly been exposed. So it’s not as bad as it looks.

[0:31:38 Speaker 1] The only problem is that every time that somebody said that over the last two weeks a reporter from some news organization has gone and said, Well, wait a minute, look a little

[0:31:47 Speaker 0] more closely

[0:31:48 Speaker 1] and ultimately it’s math. I mean, you know, I mean, ultimately, when someone says no, it’s because we started testing you know, these prisons and there’s a big outbreak there. Will you know how many cases came back positive from that prison? You know how many new positive cases there were? So therefore, one could say this only makes up 20%. You have the increase in cases. So what? What’s the other 80%? And that’s that’s been I think that sort of the troubling thing,

[0:32:13 Speaker 0] the weakness of that argument is manifesting. You know, I was I was gonna get there. Sorry. No, no, it’s all right. So, uh, you know, So I think, you know, as we watch this going forward, you know, right now, as we record this, we’re seeing these bad trend lines reigniting tension between state and local officials. You know, the Austin area has seen a resurgence in in a lot of these indicators. The city of Boston, you know, in the city of Austin in particular, has seen increased cases, and the mayor and local officials want to take steps to slow or even reverse some of the steps to open up. And in a way, they can’t right. And they can’t because the way that the executive order is written in the way that the Governor Abbott has approached this says that TheStreet eight order trumps all local orders and you can’t do anything that’s that’s in contradiction of the state orders. And so the mayors of cities with with upticks are stuck just basically trying to exhort people to be more careful and toe wear more masks and

[0:33:23 Speaker 1] courage. Mint. A lot of

[0:33:24 Speaker 0] scenting and current encouragement is just not the same. While the governor is in and more problematic political position, you know, having already taken heat for waiting too long toe open up or opening up too slowly from people that are, you know, broadly speaking more in his campaign on his right and for being reckless in and opening up too soon after waiting too long to shut down by his opponents on the left. The governor is going to give Ah press conference right after we finished recording this A Z. Listen to this. You’ll know more than we do right now about the governor’s response. But, you know, we wanna watch those politics as they unfold. It’s obviously important for public health and what we’re all doing. And, um, but, you know, winds up intersecting a lot of different underlying threads of politics in this state right now.

[0:34:18 Speaker 1] Yeah. I mean, the challenging part is, you know, for the governor, and that is that, you know, in the position that he’s taken, which was to allow the cities and the county is to take the lead on combating the virus when it first broke, but then essentially taking them out of the decision making process. Once the economy opened, the governor got to clean, basically take credit for opening the economy and lifting. You know, these owners restrictions off the city, but ultimately now he is the owner of the policy and the consequences of the policy going forward. And the reality is, is that you know he’s gonna face blame and criticism no matter what. And that’s partially something, you know. And I mean, look, we’re you know, we’re all adults or quasi adults here. That’s something he’s balancing along with the public health metrics in the data as well. Um, you know, and not trying to be, you know, making any comment about that either way. But it’s just part of the process. And so the reality is, is that you know, if the governor decides basically to stay the course and deaths keep, you know, hospitals a chance keep rising and deaths go up in cases, go up, he’s gonna own that. And he’s gonna face a lot of criticism at the same time. You know, if some of the city start to see some major spikes and he decides to allow them to go and basically really reinstitute, you know, some restrictions that slow the economy. One You know, he’s going to hear criticism from within his party in this state, especially among some of the most conservative members of his party, you know, who have expressed no interest in basically really fighting the virus at all. Relative Teoh the importance of the economy. He might also get criticism from the president. Uh, you know, at the same time by not doing anything, he’s gonna get criticism from Democrats. And even if he does actually go and make you know it’s a allow restrictions to be reimposed, he’s still gonna face criticism from Democrats in the state for letting it get to this point in the first place Run. So it’s not? Yeah, Go ahead.

[0:36:06 Speaker 0] Yeah. There’s no real win for him here. Uh, you know, given the path that he’s taken, you know, And it was gonna be it was gonna be He was gonna face criticism and pressure, no matter what. I mean, you know, I think you know, our polling numbers suggested back in the last time we were in the field in mid April that, you know, a lot of people thought that it was going to take a few months, at least for this to happen. But there were partisan differences there, and I think, you know, we’re seeing, you know, in a way, we’re seeing those play out. It will be interesting to see how much those change the next time we pull.

[0:36:44 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, ultimately, the thing about where we are right now is that we’re exactly where we were predicted to be when the reopening happened. I mean, this is when there was, you know, when all indications were based on, you know, the late and see of the virus. Uh, you know, uh, and everything This is when we expected, basically cases to start going up in this, especially in this next two week window. And I think, you know, I mean, obviously easy for me to say. But I think you know, this poses maybe one of the biggest challenges to have its governorship is gonna be taking place over the next two or three weeks to paint on what these numbers look like And how he responds.

[0:37:21 Speaker 0] Yeah, I think that’s right. And, um, I mean, he’s got mawr a little bit more latitude than some do since he is not on the ballot in November. But, you know, he is a careful, judicious politician, and he is mindful of his position. And it’s, um I think early on he showed a certain willingness and the the outset of the virus to take a few risks and to take some incoming. But the plan that is that is happening now seems to have changed that calculation. So we’ll leave it there. We will no doubt come back to this and we’ll, you know, good chance will know what the governor had to say when we start next week. Thanks, Josh. Blank. Thanks to our crew, it liberal arts I ts at the University of Texas at Austin and we’ll talk to you next week. Be safe. Second reading Podcast is a production of Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.