May 26th, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

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

[0:00:23 Speaker 1] 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] Welcome to the second reading podcast for the week of May 25th. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, And I’m joined by Josh Blank today, the research director of the Texas Politics Project. How is your memorial day? Josh

[0:00:51 Speaker 1] rest ful and ah, stable at home, I guess.

[0:00:57 Speaker 0] Well, but But hopefully at least a little bit. Recreational as well.

[0:01:00 Speaker 1] A little recreational, not as much as some people. I don’t think

[0:01:04 Speaker 0] Well, yeah, so it would seem so. As we come out of that Memorial day we can. We want to talk about at least a couple of things. First, we want to talk about partisanship and views of the Corona virus to the efforts to contain it here in Texas. Then we’ll talk a little bit about the ongoing fight over expanding Texans, ability to vote by mail and how partisanship is shaping that to. In some ways, we the second discussion should fall out of the first, uh, just a little bit. So let’s start a little bit with partisanship in Texas attitudes toward the virus. You know, this has been a topic that is dominated political discussion nationwide until lesser degree, but still evident in this state for at least the last month, month and 1/2. I mean, it was it was percolating almost from the beginning of the pandemic, as we saw some evidence that people with different political predispositions were looking differently not only at the virus, but perhaps even more so at how governments were responding at different levels, from the national down national government down to the to the state, to the local level. Ah, lot of this really came to a head over this three day holiday weekend is we saw images from beaches and parties all over the country, um, of, you know, some beaches in some places seeming to be trying and end with some effectiveness respecting social distancing efforts to contain the virus. Other places probably more prominent in media coverage. Decidedly not doing that. Texas got in on that in a couple of different ways. And at least in the broadcast, I saw, uh, I saw footage from the beach Port Aransas so people kind of wall to wall with not seeming to be making a social distancing. But there were things from all over the country now at the state level. This really comes on the heels of the governors consistent movement in the last month towards trying to reopen Texas for business. And, you know, the There’s kind of a long trajectory there in terms of how the governor has approached this. Initially, the governor got heat from both sides if we go back to two mid march from the left for moving too slowly from the right for moving to decisively. And he was initially seeming to try to balance that to some extent he’s still trying to balance that. But it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that he is now leaning much more towards pushing on opening of the state, and this is really brought out even further. This notion of partisanship. Just we were principles, along with Darren Shaw and our partners at the Texas Tribune, on doing the first poll in Texas and in mid April early to mid April, I suppose, in which we tried to figure out what Texans were thinking about this. And once you talk a little bit about the first round of things we found,

[0:04:28 Speaker 1] well, I think the first thing you know the highlight here is that Texans as a whole were overwhelmingly concerned about the Corona virus. It jumped to the top of the most important problems facing the state and the country. Displacing is of long standing issues. Uh, the vast, vast majority of Texans perceived the Corona viruses, a significant crisis or, at the very least, a major problem. But is you very highlighted? I mean, there are major differences based on partisanship, and this is this in and of itself is not necessarily surprising. We’re used to seeing differences of opinion based on whether people identify as Democrats or Republicans, but it’s so it’s much more rare for those differences to sort of manifest themselves so quickly I think felt policy. I think this weekend is an example of felt policy, right? I mean, if we’re talking about, ah, you know, some sort of major, your piece of legislation on health care is going to take months, if not years, to work its way through the process, and then it’s going to get, you know, I think it’s past to get signed. It takes a while for to be implemented by the bureaucracy and all these things. And by the time you actually maybe feel this the effect of a law, it’s actually, you know, years later and only really a small part of it. Where is, you know, Memorial Day weekend? If you know you see these partisan differences emerging in terms of, ah, you know, Republicans, on the one hand, more anxious to see the economy reopened and more concerned about the economy than the virus where you have Democrats significantly more concerned about the virus than the economic impact of containing it. So in that April poll with, you know, similarly, we’re thinking about some of the constraints that the governor is facing from Republican voters in Texas. A majority of Republicans said that the bigger threat to the U. S. Pope came from keeping people at home for too long, as opposed Teoh only about 1/3 of Republicans who thought that the bigger threat came from not keeping people at home long enough. So even back in April of a majority of Republicans were looking to the end of this and saying, You know, we can’t go too long than is absolutely necessary. And then you can combine this with the fact that the belief that among Republicans that the virus either will be contained enough to resume normal activities in the next few few months or has already been contained enough or has already contained you know that adds even further still, to the to the impatience amongst Republicans so going to that looking more specifically that number 85% of Republicans of the virus either has been contained or will be contained within the next month or so. And that was in April, and now we’re almost into June. Ah, you know, 47% believe that the virus would be contained within the next few weeks or was already contained in that April poll. So what you have is you have a majority of Republicans saying you know, the virus is contained or just about contained are concerned about being at home for too long and are significantly more concerned about the economy. And that’s, you know, at least from the bottom. Ah, from the bottom up, I think where the governor is reacting and sort of the impatience that, uh, he, to some extent is channeling

[0:07:33 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, I I think that this really under lines of the kind of circular dynamic of public opinion and political leadership and and how partisanship is just fueling it was like wind blowing. This thing is wheel that just keeps going round and round. I mean, I’m struck by the fact that, you know, I probably hadn’t really thought about it on a timeline as much until we were just going over this. That, as we’ve seen more and more pressure in the public sphere in any news coverage and a lot of this is anecdotal, Um, but that anecdotal pressure from Republicans does have a basis in public opinion, and the timeline was kind of telegraphed when you know, in the poll data, 47% of Republicans thought either it was contained already or would be contained within the next few weeks. We’re now just past the next few weeks, time for him, of you know, what people were responding to in that poll. Now, you know, you and I have written some stuff, and I think it’s one of the things that I’ve been interested in all along. Is that this this and has been going on Not just as people you know, off on a on a large basis or trying to figure out when it’s safe to go out of their homes and when it’s safe to go back to work and you know, for the weekend when it’s safe to actually be around other people and get out and enjoy yourself. It’s also been go now in the context of very high profile profile protests, some in Texas, some somewhat larger in other states. Michigan has been the most prominent one, maybe in which you know, folks there really fundamentally against the stay at home. Orders have been protesting loudly and publicly against these policies, but, you know, and that’s been taken and as a real sign of impatience. But I think if you look beneath that media coverage and and being beneath that impatience, you know, there’s still a core belief among these same Republicans that the pandemic requires a serious public policy response. So in that same poll that you were citing data from a minute ago, any 1% of Republicans supported requiring a mandatory 14 day self quarantine for anyone exposed to the virus. Now they’re still also ready for business to resume. But nonetheless, you know, another statistic. Another number from that poll 69% of Republicans supported to stay at home order as of early to mid April. So, you know, we’re still seeing that that the lion’s share of Republicans are, you know, aware and cognizant of the severity of the pandemic. Um, and and we even found that, you know, more than half were still leaving their residences on Lee when they had two and a small share. 5% said they were leaving home at all. So there is a real struggle here going on, I think,

[0:10:51 Speaker 1] Yeah, it’s a really fine line to walk, right? I mean, I think I think honestly, it is the, you know, not sort of Look, it’s not normative Lee the correct line. I’m not saying, you know, it’s certainly not necessarily what what public health officials would caution. But you start to look at these public opinion numbers and you look at the path that that the governor has has created for himself moving forward, and it all makes a lot of sense. He’s got, you know, pressure from, you know, basically the wrong side of the majority of his constituents to open up the state’s sooner than later, but also at the same time, you know, real concern among those same constituents about the impact of the virus. And so you know, one of the you know. So I mean, so I think in and of itself, you know, that creates a certain amount of pressure that’s guiding this path, boarded in some ways, I think you highlighted even guiding the timeline. I mean, the degree to which the governor’s own timeline lined up with the perception of Republican constituents in the state about you know how long it would take for the virus to be contained is

[0:11:52 Speaker 0] somewhat

[0:11:52 Speaker 1] uncanny. But I think you make a broader point that is driving me a little crazy in the news. Coverage of all this is that you really have a very, very tiny share of Texans and really Americans who are sitting back and saying, you know that, you know, basically, for lack of a better way to put it, you know, this is this is all BS, right? I mean, but for the most part, you know people, you know, people Democrats, Republicans, independents understand the seriousness of this and have been supportive of most of the efforts made to contain the worst consequences of this virus. Even if they’re getting antsy about the economy, it’s only a small, small share of taxes in particular in this case. But I think Americans in general who are actually, you know, who we would say are the broader group represented by these massless people showing up at state capitals with guns.

[0:12:42 Speaker 0] Yeah, or, you know, showing up at places and, you know, argue, you know, could be rating for people wearing masks or kicking because they’re asked to wear a mask or or whatever. And I Yeah, and I you know, I mean, I can I can accept that that’s a moving target share, you know, And that maybe, hopefully we’ll have more data soon to see how much that number is changing the national tracking does show that, you know, we are seeing movement in which more people, this impatience we’re talking about, more people are getting more impatient and voting with their feet, if you will, you know, based on that impatience. But I think you know, that’s really does come back to, Ah, you know, a fairly traditional aspect of talking about politics. And that is what kind of keys people are getting from leadership. And that is also such a deeply partisan factor Now. I mean, the truth of the matter is, I mean, you were talking about a minute ago Governor Abbott balancing pressure from his constituents in the degree to which he’s got a A majority of constituents, at least certainly in the early phases of this, who is, we’ve said, took this seriously. And then there’s this thes, very noisy constituents that are getting a lot of media coverage because there frankly causing conflict, and that plays well,

[0:14:14 Speaker 1] shuttle shoulder that guns do It is a capital, right?

[0:14:17 Speaker 0] Exactly It It’s a pretty good visual right, or, you know, you know yelling, You know, they there’s like a mini genre on social media, of reporters showing up to cover openings, wearing masks and then lots of people that mass sitting there yelling, or a crowd of people sitting there yelling at them. But we don’t have much context like frequently. This is happening, etcetera. But the other piece of this that we haven’t talked about yet but which is critical, particularly for Republicans, is that you have the president acting as an exemplar in a model of behavior, and it’s somebody that is providing very powerful partisan cues. And it’s hard not to imagine that as long as the president’s job approval numbers continue to hold up among Republicans is what they have that that won’t continue to move the needle among. You know, an increasing number of Republicans

[0:15:14 Speaker 1] well and further. I mean, it also constrains what the governor is able to dio Justus Muchas that his constituents constrained sort of the realm of what’s possible in terms of how the governor is going to go about responding to the virus. The reality is, is that Abbott can’t take a position too far from the president on any of this and he’s chosen not to. And the truth is, I mean, he could look around to the rest of the country. And two governors, even Republican governors who have made decisions at odd with with the president’s line on the virus. And there, you know quickly and unceremoniously kicked, usually on social media by the president for for their lack of fealty to him. And the reality is, Abbott has not done that. And the the sort of the byproduct of that has been aton of praise from the president for Texas is handling, in particular, Abbott’s handling of the virus. Now Abbott is technically, you know, his his job approval Rain in Texas is higher than the president’s when it comes to the Corona virus. But the reality is, is you already said, You know the president is extremely extremely popular among Texas Republicans, has remained so during the entirety of his presidency, and you know, there’s really little to be gained for Abbott by creating any sort of wedge between he and the president, especially when he’s getting, you know, support from again. His constituents in particular, to move forward with the reopening is similar to what the president wants.

[0:16:44 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean, I think the of the I mean to be Farish I mean, I think that the not entirely fair but fair ish, you know, the governor’s political opponents, of course, would say that, you know, those were all political judgments on his part and that, you know, if he wanted Teoh, I mean, if you know they would, they would couch it and have couch. That is a matter of political courage in terms of his willingness to take on the president and spend some of his political capital. But I think you know what you say is, you know is right in that you know, it’s a huge political risk for a governor that has not shown himself to be, you know, particularly inclined to be a risk taker. And so you know, he has taken this this tact. That said, There’s risk on the other side here in that if this policy direction of opening, even though the numbers in Texas are mixed in terms of infection rate testing, you know all of these things,

[0:17:59 Speaker 1] UK says, etcetera.

[0:18:00 Speaker 0] Yeah, there there is. There is political risk. For some reason, hot spots do tend to do wind up happening around the state, and you know, it’s just a big unknown. There’s uncertainty there now. I would say that, you know, to switch towards a transition to our next topic. One area where there is, in fact, less certainty, less uncertainty and more certainty is the politics surrounding voting by mail. And this was really the, you know, one of the hot topics in this states political circles in the week leading into the holiday weekend. It’s a national issue and where that is the idea that there are, ah, provision in Texas law that allowed voters to cast their votes by mail under certain circumstances. So the state law in Texas is that Texas Texans can seek an absentee ballot that they can mail in, bill out at home, in male in if they’re 65 years or older, have a disability or an illness. If they’re going to be out of the country during the election period, they’re gonna be confined in jail but not convicted in a way that would otherwise disqualify them

[0:19:13 Speaker 1] to make it just want correct. And I think you said at the country out of the county where they reside.

[0:19:17 Speaker 0] Oh, yeah, Out of the county. Sorry. You’re right. Um, so no, no, that’s good. Um so if you know So given that their give and given the conditions of the virus, there’s been a concerted movement again, mainly by by the chemical by Democrats and and allied groups to expand mail in voting opportunities for Texans Based on the idea that showing up to vote, uh, on a crowded election day poses a health risk because you’d be there standing in line and, you know, going through the voting process and in terms of predictability, this has been fought tooth and nail by Texas State government with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Ah, you know, playing the role that we would expect a elected attorney general to play leading the fight against this. And it’s it’s been, you know, a huge partisan piece that really is familiar to all of us, based on partisan fights over voting in the past, right?

[0:20:26 Speaker 1] Yeah. I mean, ultimately, you know what has tended to be the case, at least in the last, you know, would say probably about 15 years has been a concerted efforts by Republicans to as they would put it, shore up the election system, t make it, you know, safer and more reliable. And to avoid voter fraud, Democrats would would frame those efforts as attempts at voter suppression and, you know, limiting the extent to which people can vote. Ah, and this is, you know, and this has been a pretty thes patterns have actually been, you know, incorporated by voters on both sides. And I mean, we’ve we’ve watched this over time, you know, in terms of a lot of difference of public opinion fights where, you know, basically something gets proposed as a potential change to the voting system. Voter ideas, the most obvious one. And people say first, you know, that seems OK. Don’t I use this to vote? And then as time goes on, you know, and sort of the partisan elements into it makes me start saying, Oh, well, we’re gonna include, you know, in voter I d We’re going to include, you know, concealed carry licenses, but not college. I ds. And then people start to say, Well, wait a second. What is this about? Ah, and then people start to kind of get into their into their partisan camps. Now the reality is that that’s actually sort of automatic. Now I think it’s sort of served so built into the cake that you know, Lisa in most of the point that we see, even with a new issue here, like this idea about male and voting I mean, when we pulled on mail in voting in in April of this year, a za specifically is a response to the Corona virus. So expanding mail in voting. I mean, one of the things you find is you find 86% of Democrats in favor and 59% of Republicans were opposed. This was even rudely before the discussion began. And the reason I’m talking about the discussion is just because the discussion is what gives people and voters a sense of sort of where they might land on an issue that they don’t know what about. So if you hear John Cornyn and Greg Abbott and the the president talking about the ills of mail in voting in your Republican well, that gives you a signal that maybe you should be against mail in voting. And likewise, if you hear Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi talking about suppressing the vote. And you know that people should be allowed to vote by mail. Then for Democrats, that’s a signal that this is probably something they should be in favor of. But even early in this discussion, partisanship already colored, uh, colored this. And you know, there’s been a lot of articles sort of over the last couple of weeks in this national discussion about, you know, sort of what Republicans have against mail in voting and and all this sort of kind of speculative pieces. But but honestly, you know, it’s not totally complicated, and I guess I should say something that maybe goes back to one of our first podcast gym, which is just to remind people voting rules aren’t handed down from on high to us. And I think if you think about sort of voting in this country, if you know anything about it over over time or even in contemporary life, it’s not as though our voting system is set up to maximize turnout. If it was, we’d have compulsory, you know, we’d have automatic registration. We could have compulsory voting. We could have weakened voting. All these things given voting, holiday. All these things that we don’t have and choose not to have among all kinds of other historical anti see Dent’s in this particular case, you know, the thing to really focus on here is just kind of some of the basic numbers, which is Texas is becoming a more competitive state. And if we look at our polling, ah, and in particular, I’m looking at sort of the average party identification. How people identify, uh is Democrat or Republican or as an independent. So if I average across the last 14 surveys we’ve conducted from February of 2016 to April 2020 voters, so registered voters over 65 are significantly more likely to identify as Republicans 56% to 34% who identify as Democrats. Among voters under the age of 65 it’s about 45% Democrat and about 44% Republican. Ultimately, and as you get younger still, those groups will become more and more democratic. And so it a tour, you know, expanding mail in voting among Republicans doesn’t or expanding bail. And voting in Texas is not something that is likely to debt Republicans significantly more votes in the short run and going back to this to serve the same set of numbers we could look at a trial about. Basically, would you vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden if the election was held today? In that same poll, Trump was ahead 49 44. Among those over 65 Trump was ahead, 58% to 39%. Amongst those under 65 Trump was only had 47% to 45%. And so, ultimately, there’s just little incentive for Republican elected officials in a state that’s becoming increasingly competitive. Remember, in 2018 Ted Cruz only beat better work by 2.5% points. There’s not a lot of incentive to really extend this, uh, you know, to to a broader group of people,

[0:25:09 Speaker 0] right? And so I think that you know where you started there. You connect that really to the you know, I mean, I mean, one would be forgiven for listening to this and finding it, you know? Ah, fundamentally cynical. Reid says that this is really about incentives to maximize votes, but I think you know your point. The port restarted. That that discussion is has to be sort of underlying that. You know, there’s always rhetoric that appeals the higher principles in these in these discussions about voting and the degree to which voting is made harder, easier or in historical context, where the franchises mawr is expanded, Mawr contracted, and that’s always it play here, and it’s it’s ultimately kind of naive to think that it’s not. And so, you know, this has been going on in the courts over, you know, the last couple of months the Democrats and allied groups to underline the kind of part piece of this, um, it started taking court action a couple of months ago now to try to ensure that the that the vote by mail provision would be expanded and available to everybody, given the conditions of the pandemic, Um, they’ve been active in both federal and state court in federal court. They got a really big win. Um, in mid May that when a federal district judge issued a very strongly worded willing in favor of the Democrats, um, you know, saying that it was fundamental in that this was a constitutional issue, per the Democratic lawsuit that was appealed and has you know, all you know, was blocked almost immediately from from being implemented in a by a federal appeals court panel in state court. The Democrats argued slightly differently within the state route the rubric of state law that the Texans election codes provisioned for, you know, sickness or physical condition being one of the reasons that you could request mail in ballot should apply to anyone that was vulnerable to the virus, which is obviously ah, fairly broad category of people. Effectively, everyone, you know, the state argued that this was, you know, too narrow again. The Democrats won in a lower court by a you know should be say, Ah, judge immune to be democratically aligned. Um, It was then affirmed a little more surprisingly, I think, at the peak at the appeals court level in Texas. Uh, shortly thereafter, the attorney general got the state Supreme Court to issue, ah, in order blocking election officials from implementing male and in ballots. That’s where it stands. As of now, I would expect there’s actually going to be more action this week on this, with a lot of people expecting that that this will make it to the Supreme Court. Probably Texas probably won’t be the only case I suspect, should that happen. But there’s a real time factor here. Tear, because the immediate kind of object of this is the runoff elections that are scheduled in mid July. But the larger game afoot here, obviously, is the general election in November should the pandemics to be in play, which a lot of people expect it will but is again a big unknown. So you know, we’ll we’ll stay in touch on this and keep an eye on it. But it’s really going to be, ah, case that’s again going to come out of Texas That’s likely gonna have national consequences.

[0:28:54 Speaker 1] Yeah, Jim, you know, you learn. You alluded to me a few. Well, I don’t think you called me a cynic, but you alluded to Someone might consider us or me at least to be a cynic because, you know, sort of laying out these these attitudes. But But ultimately, you know, say is I’m actually pretty far from being a cynic. I’m kind of agnostic and a lot of this, which is the, you know, attitudes exist. People have them. You know, people have these opinions and it’s kind of hard to say, You know, I mean, look objectively, 40 5100% of people could be wrong about something that’s true. But it doesn’t mean they don’t believe these things. And ultimately, the things that we’re talking about when we’re talking about voting here and then the sanctity of the election system, the security, our beliefs and actually they’re not even, just believe, sir beliefs about what is going to happen in an upcoming election. And I think some of our previous polling kind of illustrates sort of the divergence of belief that air driving sort of people leave their support for or resistance to expanding voting. And I’ll just touch on them really quickly. You know, in June of 2016 we asked how often, ah, voters think that other voters knowingly break election laws in Texas. Among Democrats, only 9% said that this happens frequently. So again, this was, I think there was never happens, you know, not very often, sometimes frequently. Only 9% of Democrats said that people knowingly break elections laws frequently compared to 30% of Republicans. Almost one in three Republicans in the state thinks that there is some kind of fraud going on frequently, You know, how often do you think that people who are not U. S citizens vote in Texas elections? 8% of Democrats think that happens frequently. 47% of Republicans think that thinks that that happens frequently. On the other side. How often do Texans think that people who are eligible to vote in a Texas election are prevented from doing so? Among Democrats, 31% thinks this happens frequently Among Republicans, only 5% believe this is a frequent occurrence. So ultimately, you know, there’s, Ah, there’s an underlying perception here about the current, uh, you know, sanctity of our electoral process. That is just extremely different now, I should say at this point, as every article that you could ever read about this would say, There’s almost no evidence of any sort of systemic or widespread voter fraud in Texas or elsewhere now or over time. Uh, but having said that, these beliefs exists and again, this isn’t a cynical. This is just an observation that these beliefs existed. Do you believe that the election system is sort of constantly under threat from, you know, for different forms of malfeasance? You know that’s a reason to be reluctant towards expanding access to the vote.

[0:31:26 Speaker 0] Well, I feel like I should have issued a trigger warning with that statement, I guess. But I was really talking more about the elites than public opinion, though you know the reality of the public opinion and plays into that. I think it’s what I was thinking that some people might think this was cynical. I was thinking it more about the are thinking mawr of their expectations of leadership rather than the reality of what’s out there in the attitudes. You know, in the argument that, uh, you know, political leaders might be trying to maximize their own positions rather than and and ex either exploiting and feeling those attitudes rather than, you know, trying to, you know, expand the franchise, protect the sanctity of the electoral process.

[0:32:15 Speaker 1] Well, luckily, cynicism towards elites is broad and widely accepted, so we can do that

[0:32:21 Speaker 0] right? Okay, Dan, with that, I think we’ll call this one to, ah, close. Thanks a lot and will be back next week with another second reading thanks to Josh. And thanks to all our technical support staff, a liberal arts development studio at the University of Texas at Austin. Have a good safe week, and we’ll talk to you next week. Second Reading Podcast is a production of Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.