September 1st, 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. So I 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 raised her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room? Hello and welcome to the second reading podcast for the first week of September of 2020. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Joining in today by Josh Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project. How’s your workload, Josh? You managing? I’m better now that the conventions air over. Yeah, that made for some late nights and cognitive dissonance to sometimes, yeah, it’s a strange time. Yeah, so today on the podcast, we want to hit two subjects. The emerging law and order frame that is being promoted by the president and his campaign and national politics, although that certainly has bled into state politics in some ways we’ll talk about. And then we also want to touch on the lawsuits filed against the Harris County clerk over their approach to mail in ballot applications. We’ve talked about mail in ballots here, I think more than once and voting by mail. And I think as broadly anticipated, the subject was not settled and has arisen again. And we can talk about who, if anyone’s fault, that is, um, but let’s start with the presidential race and really kind of a dominant national story for the last, you know, several days, really starting during the conventions with the events in Kenosha. Um, and the theme and that theme is you know, the Trump administration’s doubling down on, you know, you know, we can call it the Law and Order frame a law and order rhetoric, the you know, er approach of one order that has really taken center stage in the Trump campaign. And as we record this, uh, the president is on the ground in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the scene of yet another police shooting of a black man last week, which sort of went unremarked upon in the immediate moment at the Republican convention, certainly by the president, though it loomed in the background, right? I mean, you were talking about the convention. I mean, even though there was lots of talk that nobody really expressed any condolences or said much about it, it was very much there. Well, they may not have said expressing the condolences or said much directly about it, but they certainly conveyed a lot, right? I mean, and I think that was clear over both the Democratic and the Republican convention, right? In the sense that, you know, setting aside for a second sort of the thorny issue of whether you see sort of the recent, you know, protests, you know, protests in response to, you know, the killings of African Americans by police, in particular, systemic racism in general as basically, you know, peaceful protests on the one hand or violent uprisings and rides on the other. So setting that aside for a second, right, uh, for the moment, you know, I mean, it was it was notable the extent to which I would say, you know, the Democratic Convention really leaned into the protests and really had videos, you know, montages of people protesting in the streets and sort of I would say almost on every night made an attempt to actually kind of lean into that movement and say, You know, you’re welcome here, you know, just as frequently, if not more so. I think during the Republican convention, you know, you basically saw lots of, you know, mostly statements about you know, the importance of law and order. And, you know, Democrats quote quote unquote Democrat led cities where this violence is taking place, which I think, you know. I think in some ways you know, shows that both both campaigns in some ways, even though the Republican campaign seems to be a little in Trump’s campaign to be a bit more focused on this law and order attack, for, I think some particular reasons, both campaigns are focused on social unrest right now. I mean, that’s clear. Yeah, and I think that, you know what we’ve seen is a you know, an interesting deepening of the divide on this As we’ve seen more of a counter reaction. Now, this didn’t start with this round. This really goes back in many ways to Charlottesville. When Donald Trump seemed to want to give, you know, at least equal validity. I mean, his famous statements about there being quote unquote good people on both sides when the Charlottesville protest was really started by white supremacists and, you know, Nazis, which set a tone that I think he’s never quite gotten away from. I mean, I think he’s, you know, the people around him have danced around that. And, you know, I think we’ve seen him double down on that in the last 40 48 hours by his sympathetic comments about the young militia members and member in Kenosha who, you know, traveled to Kenosha from, you know, a couple of towns over from Illinois and, you know, it’s pretty close, but nonetheless Hey crossed the state line and and and wasn’t from there and wound up, you know, with other people and was fully armed and wound up shooting three people, killing two, you know, in a situation which you know, is still being sorted out to some degree. But there’s some fairly unambiguous video in which he is least it looks on ambiguous at this point, what we know about it in which he shoots to people and you know that. And now that he killed one of them and injured the other and had already shot somebody else by all reports. And he doesn’t seem to be denying that at this point. And I think the president, you know, by sort of wanting to give that person the benefit of the doubt in such a direct way, you know, has has raised the ante on this again, even though you would think that he couldn’t. Yeah, I think every time you know, Trump throws in a bunch of chips, you think he’s kind of bought the pot to use? Ah, ah, poker metaphor. But no, I mean, he just he keeps throwing chips in there, and I, you know, I mean, I think it’s really, you know, strengthen the frame of this, but it’s taking it, you know? It feels to me he’s taken it yet to yet another toe and yet another level, maybe, yeah, but But Well, that’s But that’s the question, right? I mean, I think you know, we have really talked about this this way. I mean, you know, that is kind of the question is, is that, you know, is there a line at which, you know, even setting aside disagreements about, you know whether or not what’s going on in Kenosha is better to find as protest or riot again, I’m just, you know, setting that aside. I think it’s, you know, it’s important terms of how people view it Not to say that there’s some objective standard, right, but in terms of how people view it, I mean, ultimately, you know, the question becomes, how far can you go and ignoring? You know, the claims made by the protesters or the rioters? On the one hand, Uh, and how far are you willing to go in? You know, your you know, and basically your stated commitment Thio, tow law and order, injustice. And I mean, it just seems like again a step pretty far. I mean, during the convention, you know, the president said, Hey, look, you know, let me know and I’ll send the federal troops in and I’ll clean up your cities in a second, which was, you know, pretty unambiguous about yeah, what was meant by bad. And that’s one thing, and you say, Well, it’s another thing to say. Hey, you know, I’m willing to use the you know, the use of force to create law and Order. It’s another thing to sort of, you know, wink and nod at ordinary citizens taking guns across state lines into, you know, clearly dangerous situations. Regardless of the specifics of what happened, I think I would also just to clear some of the underbrush there, say that, you know, I mean, in their relatively pure forms. I mean, I think it’s, you know, I don’t have any trouble telling the difference between a riot and a protest, and I think that, you know, for the most part, if you’re looking well, there’s that. But we’ll setting that aside for a moment. I mean, I think there is a difference between you know, people marching in there being no conflict and no destruction of property with a political message in that being pretty clearly a protest or a demonstration or an exercise of free speech that doesn’t involve much in the way of trade offs. You know, when you see you know, buildings burning and and you know, violence in the streets, you know you’re getting mawr to something that you, you know, you would call. The term riot becomes loaded, but you know it’s not a peaceful protest. At that point, it’s something else, right? I think that’s E but in the broader. Not that we’re seeing here to try to find the difference, but in the broader discussion. You know of this of the phenomena that we’re watching right now of the social movements, whether their protests or riots and ultimately the question kinda comes down to how much of a riot makes it a riot, right? I mean, ultimately, if you see one burning building, you know, by one dare do well, right? Does that make it a riot? And I think the point that we’re gonna I think that’s fair. I think that’s you know, I mean, people are wanting to be careful because it’s that it’s not entirely in the eyes of the beholder, but yeah, I mean, I think the manipulation of images and and and, you know, again there’s a There’s a media piece of this with so many things now that’s kind of unavoidable in this. But we are, Yeah, but you know, the point being there’s enough, Uh, via the beholder piece that people are looking at this and using other, you know, other kind of predispositions and other attitudes to fill in any kind of ambiguity or judgment calls that might be there. And so, you know, if Donald Trump stands up before a group of people that support him and say thes people are rioting. The one burning building in your example is what comes to mind, right? Right. If if Joe Biden stands up, I mean, to be fair in front of, you know, the Democratic Convention and talks about a social movement. The first you know, the images that are being invoked are not the images of, ah, burning building, whether it’s one or 10. Or and I would and I would add to that, just in terms of the way the mind works is that, you know, those images don’t even need to be from the event that we’re talking about. So ultimately, I mean, you know, the reality is it’s not like people are making distinctions between what exactly happened, You know, in Kenosha versus what the protests slash riots looked like in Austin versus Philly vs Portland. Really the ideas. If you think these air riots, the images that come to your head or a burning building things if you think there’s a social movements, you know, you’re gonna be thinking of something different. And they’re just people just coming to this from a different perspective. So that so that brings us then tow, like the in a lot of ways. What The kind of gotta started thinking about this at least this week and then thinking about talking about it today, which is, you know, what kind of attitudes is this law and order frame landing on, You know, how is how is it being received and, you know, in a very kind of cold sort of way, is it a winning strategy for Donald Trump or not? I mean, and clearly it’s the strategy they’re taking, and there’s really no ambiguity about that at this point. E think One of the ways we look at that, you know, as we always do, is to look at polling and see, you know, how is standing with whom and it at one level. I mean, you know, this is a clearly a partisan mobile. It works in some part. Is a partisan mobilization strategy for Trump? Yeah. I mean, I would say, you know, we’ll come back to this, but I mean I think the point is, you know, is it a good strategy or the best available strategy? And right now it might be the best available strategy. So we’ll come back to that, you know, maybe if we remember. But but But ultimately, you know, is a partisan strategy you know, is a strategy to mobilize core supporters. You know, honestly, it really works pretty well for both parties. I mean, I’d almost say to some extent, it looks like a bit of a draw. And what that means is that, you know, we have a bunch of questions that we asked on the June 2020 ut Texas Politics Project Poll about race and policing and Discrimination Society. A couple of these items, I think, you know, illustrate the point as well as any others. Which is that, for example, when we asked Texans whether or not, uh, you know, the deaths of African Americans at the hands or in the custody of police in recent years are isolated incidents on the one hand, or signs of broader systemic problems between race and policing. What you end up fighting as you find 76% of Republicans saying this is an isil. These are isolated incidents you found find 88% of Democrats saying that these air signs of broader systemic problems And honestly, you know, we could get into these go down the line police favorability, favorability towards the protests or or negative attitudes towards the protesters. And honestly, the splits look roughly the same where you’re seeing, you know, between somewhere between 70 and 80 some odd percent of Democrats taking more of a social justice, you know, position on Republicans. Sort of questioning the premise, to say the least, come falls down to attitudes towards police. You know, again, attitudes towards protest attitudes towards black lives matters really even attitudes towards discrimination, writ large, so ultimately, is a is a mobilization strategy for both Side has witnessed. I think that both conventions, although in different frames you know, it’s a good bet. It really lands squarely on issues where you have, you know, 70 80 90% partisan support for your position on the issue. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s interesting that you chose the item you did first. That is the most that is the most polarizing one among Republicans and Democrats in a sense, You know, to your point that this actually maybe works for Democrats to some degree, you know? I mean, it’s only 12 points, but the kind of, you know sign of broader problems, which is ultimately the systemic racism presumption For most people, it’s actually a higher among Democrats than three isolated incidences among Republicans. Now there’s still lopsided. It’s still 88 76 so the point it holds. But that does underline now. I think other areas are a little I mean, especially the police thing. And I think this is why I think Biden and we’re seeing this. And in some of the care in which Joe Biden took yesterday to say, and for the last couple of months to say, Hey, look, I’m not in favor of defunding the police you know that’s not what’s going on in the Biden administration, because on police favorability, um, it is a little a little more closely divided again. 53% of Democrats have a favorable view of the police and 84% of Republicans. I’m sorry, 54 53% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of police. 84% of Republicans have a favorable view of police. And so if you look at that, I mean and then you look at the intensity there. 23% of Democrats have a very unfavorable view of the police, but more than half 55% of Republicans have a very favorable view of the police. So, you know, to get out of that garbled words salad. I mean, basically, you know, Thean intensity of support for the police is stronger among Republicans in terms of a base level than it is among Democrats. And we’ve seen more movement of that sense over time. You know, in in the interim, of of the more recent reckoning with race, I think that’s right. And I think you know the way you set that up. Besides, the word salad, it was was right, right, Which is that? You know, I think what you find is that, you know, when we look at this item both in isolation in June, obviously. So first to say, you know, at a time in which this was very salient issue, what you see is, you know, Democrats, you know, from previous times, we’ve asked this question, uh, showing slightly more negative attitudes towards the police. But still, you know, I would say, on balance, relatively split. And this is something else to, you know, we asked, you know, by race in which you end up finding is, you know, I think you know kind of mixed views towards the police among African Americans as well. And I think you know that someone wrote something recently that I thought was really you know, interesting In kind of a good point here, which is, you know, as much problems is, you know, if you’re living in a, let’s say, a, you know, community, Uh, that has violence that has a lot of crime. Ultimately, you may not like the way that police handle every situation, and you may have serious problems with that. But ultimately, you still want the police to show up when there’s crime, and that’s something here. And so where’s for Democrats? It’s a little bit of, ah, complicated and open question about how they want orientate themselves towards police, and it goes back to that, you know, is this isolated or systemic? And even that could go beyond just evaluating individual police and police departments. But for Republicans favorability towards the police is something of an article of faith. I mean, it’s basically police in the military art overwhelmingly, positively viewed here and usually more so than any kind of other government actor, Uh, you know that really we could ever measure. And so it’s It’s not a question to be defending the police if you’re a Republican like official for Democrat. I think you’re watching what Joe Biden is doing and trying to be more careful about acknowledging problems but also making clear Hey, we’re not talking about all police. Most police air. Good. He has a little bit more of, ah, fine line to walk on the police question. Yeah, and I think I was gonna say to his credit, but certainly at least in in this instance, to his advantage, he seems to natively get that. And I think when when Joe Biden goes out and says, Hey, look, you know we’ll do little Biden, you know? Hey, look, man, no one’s trying to get rid of the police, right? I’m not I’m not that guy. You know me. I mean, it comes across at least as credible in a way that you know, you know is helpful, but does raise the question of helpful toe. What? I mean, we’ve been talking about partisans, you know, and then the issue is okay. So if this does sort partisans with a couple of asterisks, I mean, in other words, you know, Biden has to make a little bit of effort to make sure he doesn’t go a bridge too far on this, even with Democrats. Yeah, but I would just just just just to go back a beat, I mean, I would just say the thing is, I think that’s why I kind of started with that item about isolated incidents vs signs of broader problems. I mean, ultimately, for Democrats, the issues that they are talking about with respect to policing and race, or actually just a subset of the broader questions about sort of systemic racism and racism in society that impacts everything from, let’s say, home ownership and, you know, lifetime wealth and, you know, susceptibility Thio, you know, negative effects of co vid, right? And all these other things that they kind of keep coming up again and again, of which policing is one right. And so ultimately, you know, I mean, Biden doesn’t need to be the guy, you know, shooting a paintball gun at the police to be, you know, someone who’s credible on this issue because the issues broader than that for Democrats, in a way that it’s doesn’t seem to be for Republicans. What do you mean by that? I’m not sure I’m tempted. Did not agree with that, but I’m not sure what you mean for sure. Well, I think it kind of. I mean, I think you know, when you’re thinking about the idea of that question about, you know, the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police in recent years. In this, in this question of you know, is this is something about isolated incidents or is this a broader, systemic problem that we need to address? Right. And we kind of talked about this before in other ways. But honestly, you know, if you do come down on the side of saying that these shootings that we see you know, weekend and week out are actually just isolated incidents than the fixed in and of itself is basically just to be, you know, really honestly give give police more money and better training, you know, would be one potential solution right now. That’s well, remember the other. And the other piece of that we hear a lot is, you know, raise kids better. So they and this goes to like, the military police thing, you know, And, you know, so that they respect authority. And that’s polling base. Just to be clear, I mean, you know, in addition, arguments are out there. No, but that is something that we do find, You know, when you ask people about these sorts of things So anyway, so I mean, that’s what I mean by it. I just you know, I think that for Biden, there’s not really much value in in standing in the space where we’re focusing solely on police. He’s much more comfortable and better off both with with Democrats, I think, and also, you know, probably the broader electorate and saying, As you said, Hey, man, I’m not looking to defund the police. I’ve been very clear about that, but I do acknowledge system. We got a problem, man. But we got a problem, man. Now I’m really leaning into my job thing. It’s gonna be a long campaign for you if I keep that up. Uh, so, yeah, going to be? Yeah. It’s already been a long campaign for everybody to be fair to myself, which I really wanna be, um So let you know, for you. Move on. Let’s talk a little bit about how this has played in Texas because there’s been a couple of episodes of this, you know, you know, manifesting itself in Texas. And I think, but But most, most notably recently had, you know, And I think we talked about this on when it happened a couple of weeks ago on the podcast when the City of Boston restructured into some extent reduced its police budget. I mean it. You know, the budget reduction in terms of absolute funds that were gonna be missing was about $20 million. Three overall amount, including that 20 that got moved around was 150 151. Maybe to be precise. But the statewide Republicans really jumped on this in Texas, and, you know, in in no time, you know, the governor issued a statement condemning this and suggesting that legislation would be written that would prevent cities from raising their property taxes if they cut their police budgets. Broadly speaking, uh, you know, press events were held, statements were issued. Not only Abbott, but also all of the big three, you know, But, you know, it really underlines, I think the degree to which we have to think about how salient this is and how much it depends how much getting mileage out of the issue and hitting some of these attitudes that we’ve been talking about both directly. But also more broadly in this kind of traditionalist view of authority. Um, well, you know what? You know, you know, how able are you to keep that front and center, and also, we kind of, you know, didn’t hit it. But but also, you know, does this move votes in a political system in which the parties are becoming more competitive? Well, I think there’s two things here. I think when it goes back to, you know, mhm, you know, good strategy or best available strategy. And I think you know, for Republicans right now, whether you’re Donald Trump or whether you’re, you know, Texas Republicans looking to maintain your majorities in the legislature, ultimately, you know, you’re looking at the issue space right now, and you think, like, Well, can we talk about the strong economy? And it’s well known anymore, you know? Can we talk about how how well, the Corona, you know, our our efforts to combat the coronavirus or going like, Well, not without, you know, some difficulty. Could I order off the menu? Well, exactly. Well, I mean, I was gonna say, actually, you know, the issue that they normally would return to would be immigration and border security. But, you know, at the moment in which the president has had four years to construct, you know, a border wall by hook, and by crook, I mean, anyway, he could come up with it, you know, I understand. I mean, I think even the quote that he had from the convention was something around the neighborhood of, you know, we’d be done with, you know, about 202 103 100 miles of border wall. There’s 1200 miles of border just between Texas and Mexico. So I mean, you know, it’s hard to kind of look at that and say, Well, what have your normal issues would you pick off for? What would you like to and really the issues available are the issues that are at least the most salient to voters in general. Republicans in particular don’t look very good for Republicans right now. This is a much better looking issue, and part of it is. And so the why of this is some of these subgroups to so setting aside the fact that you know it may have the ability to mobilize partisans. And that’s an open question we say may like how silly it is and how important is it relative toe other issues and how How long can they keep it on the front burner? Or how long do events keep it on the front burner? I’m here all open questions. But then the other piece of this is how this you know, this this constellation of issues sort of effects. You know, the narrow slice of either unaffiliated independent voters on the one hand, and I think you know what what I think we’re increasingly focused on in Texas, you know, for reasons that don’t just have to do with people talking about it, but the reality of the way the populations or movement is how this effects basically the people who live in Texas is suburbs, and that’s a pretty diverse group of people. Alright, getting more diverse, all the things. Part of the story. Exactly. And so you know what we tend to find is, you know, on these law and order issues, I mean, this is kind of important, I think, you know, is that among political independents who in the last year or so are increasingly souring on on Donald Trump’s leadership in our job approval numbers in Texas, what you find among these independence is, you know, on balance, I would say mawr on the law and order side of the equation on a lot of these items than on these little just the social justice side, right? And that, yeah, they look a little. They look more like Republicans than Democrats, though they’re not as intense on most of a lot of these things. So on the police favorability in Texas, I’ll try to read this chart again. You know, independence are 44 favorable and 29 unfavorable now. Same direction is Republicans, but not quite as not quite not quite as intense. Right. But ultimately, you know, we’re at the point we’re at the point in this election cycle where we’re talking about here is we’re talking about, you know, the nature of do independence, you know, give Donald Trump an extra two points or do they deliver Joe Biden a point? I mean, we’re kind of in that we were kind of thinking about that. Space is we’re talking about elections and especially, you know, again if we think the election in Texas is gonna be close, which all pulling up to this point, although relatively inaccurate, was taking place during the summer, has shown a close race, you know, the better work. Ted Cruz Race was close, right? So there’s some assumption that we’re gonna see closer than usual race here. And then all of a sudden, you know, we might care about, you know, a three point swing from plus to Trump among independents. Two plus one biden. But this is an issue that, you know, looking again across kind of were independent of all the fact that on balance, there a little bit mawr law and order oriented and a little more conservative, which is 10 generally tends to be the way that Texas Independence look, you know it. Z not a bad play. The suburbs air a lot more complicated. Yeah, much more complicated. We’re still kind of sorting that out, because in a lot of ways, the suburbs writ large. Look, mawr less like the rest of Texas on a lot of these issues. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, if you kind of look at the top line results just among Texans overall and then say, Well, let me look a rural residents, you know, suburban residents and urban residents. You know, the suburban residents know Josh just mentioned education. Ron Brownstein is gonna take you out to the wood shed. Yes, I know. Well, I didn’t mention e. No, it’s okay. No, I know. I don’t even think I mentioned them yet, but I mean, but the main point, you know, we’ll make in terms. Look at this. Data is you know, this is the thing about Texas is suburbs at this point is are you talking about, you know, white suburban voters or non white suburban voters? Are you talking about suburban men or suburban women? And I would overlay on all that, you know? Are you talking about Suburbans? Who are suburban voters? who are under the age of, let’s say, 40 to 45 or over the age of 45 over, and you could combine all of that. I mean, ultimately, you know, with the data suggests, is that you know the views of, ah, you know, likely college educated Hispanic woman living in the suburbs are gonna look pretty different from a college educated, you know, E said Young. Right, so young. So it’s a 29 year old, college educated, get college educated Hispanic woman, on the one hand, versus a college educated, 62 year old white man. Not only, you know, are they both living in the suburbs, but they’re actually probably living. And it’s kind of different suburbs, even a 16 year old white, college educated white woman. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And and that’s the thing. So I mean, how this is actually kind of splits out in the suburbs is really a question of mobilization. I mean, at this point, and to the extent that this issue carries through, it is important in the election. I mean, ultimately, it really kind of comes down to, I think, the central idea. I think animating these elections which is, you know, which is basically, can Donald Trump recreate his coalition and not lose too much while, you know, ideally expanding his base a little bit. On the one hand for Democrats, I mean, what there seem to be doing, especially in Texas. But I would say, you know, watching the National Convention generally can they appeal to younger, uh, you know, diverse, but maybe lower propensity voters. You could see that in the suburbs. Here, you see that plane out? Speaking of, you know, do they turn out? Let’s talk at least for a couple of minutes and we’re almost out of time about the return of Male of voting by mail to the courts. Now, you know, in the in the spring and early summer, this was all you know. This went through that we went through around in the courts, um, in part triggered by the run offs in which you know, Democrats for the most Democrats were suing to loosen the rules for voting by mail. As of now, in Texas, you can vote might you can request a mail in ballot and cast it for two for two reasons. Either you’re over 65 or you have a disability or health condition in a way that becomes three reasons. Well, there there’s one more. Which is, if you’re not gonna be in your county of residence. Yeah, if you’re gonna be just yet. So they wanna be accurate. Uh, and so the Democrats were suing, essentially, to say that the pandemic should allow for, you know, an excuse. You know, in essence, no reason. Mail in voting, right? And they lost in court with an asterisk. Um, and that asterisk being that the u I mean, they lost in federal court and then in the Texas Supreme Court held that while the general coronavirus vote by mail card wasn’t legit, that it was up to the voter to make a judgment about what was a threat to their health and that it was up to the county clerks to take their word for it more or less, you know, based on on the information that the voter provided some you know, since then, the Harris County clerk. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, the one thing I want to add for a broader context of this. So again So the courts basically more or less have said, You know, the coronavirus is not a disability. So therefore, you know, by through the courts were not expanding mail in voting. It would have to be some other mechanism. But it’s important. Though contextually, Texas is one of only six states that hasn’t opened up mail in voting in some way due to the pandemic. So that’s just a broader context. Goto Harris County Now and so in Harris County, they, the Harris County clerk had was planning to proactively sent out mail in ballots to every voter or mail in ballot applications to every voter in Harris County, which would be more than two million voters, despite being told by the Texas secretary of state not to do so. So they are now being sued by the state of Texas and the personage of the attorney general. Who does such things? Um, you know, on the argument that they don’t have the authority under state law explicitly to carry out the plan now they’re not prohibited from doing that. But the argument is good, you know, before the court is gonna be that they and this is now in a federal appellate court. Is that they don’t because it says they can’t do it. They shouldn’t. So, you know, they don’t have very They don’t have very long toe. Figure this out. But this is, you know, continues toe, you know, to sort of royal. The political system in this state is gonna wind up probably making a difference, depending on what this un one. What the decision is, I think, and that’s why it’s been so hard fought. Yeah. I mean, I’ll say this, you know, regardless of what the decision is, uncertainty about when and how to vote is not good for anybody, period. Right? And ultimately, you know that that is, uh, you know what’s going on here Now I should say, I mean, just add some, you know, get more context of this. It’s not as though Harris County can’t send out mail in ballot applications, and in fact, many counties are sending out mail in ballot applications to voters who are over 65. Basically, because you’re automatically eligible when you’re over 65. 60 sent him to everybody. Well, but the interest But the interesting thing I mean, I just, you know, just thinking right now about that argument is given that the voter has to determine, you know, their disability. Presumably, any voter is potentially eligible further disability or health threat or threats to their health. Yeah, but my point is right. But my point is that, you know, the state doesn’t keep a list of such persons. They wouldn’t know if they if they did so ultimately, you know, sort of this argument about, you know, well, we could only send it to these eligible voters, but not these potentially eligible voters, it seems to me, is gonna be problematic. But the point again is not necessarily to make it easier. You know, I should say something else about this. I mean, there’s a partisan aspect of this. Is that that is obvious, right? I mean, ultimately, you know, Republican elected officials don’t want, you know, significantly higher turnout in Harris County, which has been, you know, a big urban environment which even, you know, it’s suburbs have been trending mawr and more democratic over the last few election cycles. I mean, just just put that out There is kind of, you know, I would say it’s fair to say the Republicans have been getting creamed in Harris County for the last couple of cycles, right? Well, I mean, you know, the other thing about the partisan point here is you know, that we saw in our poll in in June is that, you know, we asked people that if they were allowed to vote, how would they cast their ballot? Um, 54% of Republicans said they would cast their ballots in person early. Another 28% said that they would cast their ballot in person on election day, Traditional Republican right. Only 13% of Republicans said that they would vote by mail, compared to 52% of Democrats who said they would vote by mail if they could. So, yeah, let me add one s. I remember I was gonna say I want to just have one nonpartisan spit on this, which is, you know, Harris County had some problems during the primaries dealing with, you know, with high turnout for primary, but not high turnout in any sort of real sense. And ultimately, a lot of these urban counties, we’re gonna have difficulty in terms of getting election workers. They’re having enough election workers because most of the time election workers are older people who have were available during the day to do these kinds of things. And there is just a election management piece to this, too, Which is, you know, to the extent that Harris County can get mawr people to vote by mail who are eligible to, it just means that they have to deal with less people voting on Election Day or around election Day when they might not have the staff. And the resource is, you know, Thio efficiently get people to vote. I mean, that’s that’s just, you know, a fair reality out there. Uh, you know, one of the thing I want to say that I think we should say, from now on, going forward, I just like, is a public service. You know, it’s not gonna be election night. We’re gonna be counting votes for some number of days, not just in Texas, all over the place. You something. I think you know. We need to just keep saying that to set expectations is the best weekend. There was a piece, I think, in Axios this morning. That was, you know, to the effect that you know, this is likely to play poorly in terms of the national discussion because given the patterns that we’ve talked about, not to be relentlessly about partisan differences, but because it’s probably very likely that more a lot more Democrats will vote by mail than Republicans. What it means is that the election night the initial waves of returns should deal. Clothes are likely to be disproportionately Republicans, counting disproportionately counting Republican votes. And some of those totals were changes. They is. They count the mail in ballots. E yeah, wrong. On that note, we’ll in that with the what could go wrong. Note. Thanks for listening, and we will be back next week. And when we post this a t least on our website, we’ll post some of the graphics nearby so you can look at some of the numbers that we were talking about, including the ones I fumbled. Uh, take care, Stay well and we’ll talk to you next week. Second reading Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.