<Music> Welcome to party politics, where we prepare for your next political conversation.

I'm Karen Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

And I'm Brandon Roundhouse, also a political science professor here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for hanging out and talking politics with us.

Election week is here.

There's a lot to cover there, but we've got a bunch of things in the news.

Brian McKnight is back, my friend.

I'm sorry.

You're.

I know you're.

A super fan.

Oh, Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau are dating.

Apparently, this is sort of all I know.

The socials that you did.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

You still can't get visa tickets?

I'm going to blame the super moon on that.

Some kind of weird cosmic thing.

I'm trying my hardest.

Working a deal.

If anyone knows, like, who's listening or watching?

Yeah, just help us out and help out me.

And my kid, and that's it.

That's all.

And finally, the shutdown continues, with some possible hope for recovery.

We'll talk about that.

Yeah.

Skeptical hope.

But hope.

Okay.

Right.

Isn't that the best kind of hope?

It's like the, you know, will my team win?

Hope so.

I think that's among the most, like lucrative.

I'll hear what you have.

Well, let's talk about Brian McKnight.

And I know you're a big fan.

As is John Whitmire.

Apparently, the mayor of Houston has decided to invite Brian McKnight to be the MC for the Thanksgiving parade and tree lighting here in Houston.

Brian McKnight was a famous artist, R&B from the 90s.

Some very famous songs.

I know that you don't know, but you maybe just remember because you kind of blocked out just the the the dulcet tones of of Mr.

McKnight.

I mean, I was 90s more, Garth Brooks kind of person.

Even Shannon, our twin.

She's Canadian, but, yeah, she had, nice country music and obviously Garth Brooks.

Yeah.

What was that album?

Oh, yeah.

This storm was a storm front.

He did.

He covered that.

He.

Yeah.

That was a great a great, great album.

It's still the best selling country.

Oh, yeah.

Madison, I mean, like, she still has the records.

Yeah.

But Brian McKnight does not, but he's going to be here in Houston if you want to talk to him, because.

Sure.

But people push back on this, I think, for this kind of reason, they're saying, like, why Brian McKnight like and actually, as it turns out, Brian McKnight has some public controversy with his children.

This dramatic, kind of estrangement from his older biological children who in 2024, he referred to as the products of Satan and evil.

I know that this is sort of the way that you refer to your children.

Not publicly, maybe, but privately.

Is this a good choice?

It's going to be a problem for John Whitmire.

Does it lean into the notion that he's, like a fuddy duddy?

Right.

Kind of doesn't understand, like, the current zeitgeisty of Houston and the young, dynamic city?

Well, when you mention his name, I have nothing against art or music or anything like that.

Sounds like you do, though.

No, not at all.

I didn't know who who he was.

And you have as as we have said, you know, Brian, say, why not?

Yeah.

Beyonce is a good choice, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's from Houston.

Yeah.

That would draw crowd for sure.

Yeah.

Not sure Brian McKnight's going to, but there are people on social who are like, you know, this is just, you know, a mistake.

We need to do better.

We're Houston, we can yeah, have this sort of huge litany of people who are not only from here, but also who I. Can do it.

Have come.

That would be amazing.

Yeah, you can sing Despacito at that point.

Oh, yeah.

It would really go for that.

The crowd would just go wild.

Oh, absolutely.

Well, that scene and boom.

I love it.

Little choreography goes a long way, I know.

Yeah.

I just ask your friend Beyonce.

Well, let's talk about the rest of the political landscape because there's a lot of big news this week.

Nancy Pelosi has announced that she is not seeking reelection in this next cycle.

She's 85 years old, but she has been a trailblazer, a pioneer when it comes to women in politics.

And when it comes to passing big legislation for Diana.

Oh, yeah.

In this moment, she was, of course, the first female speaker of the House, elected in 2002.

And and seven she was, legislative, guru.

She was able to get through the Affordable Care Act, the, the and even the repeal of don't ask, don't tell.

So a lot of these big coalition moments for Democrats were because of Nancy Pelosi.

What do you think is her legacy?

Well, I mean, it's huge.

We would have to devote a whole episode to talk about her legacy.

I mean, including with obviously, that we're going to talk briefly about it, Dick Cheney's, legacy.

But I think Nancy Pelosi, brought, in an era, where politics was controlled basically by men.

She basically said, move aside, I'm going through.

And that's what she did.

Yeah.

I think it's the right time for her to retire.

I think it's the right time to step aside and do these, generational, you know, passing the baton and just have, and as you said, I think one of the most important aspects, maybe not only in terms of ceremonial positions, but the first, speaker of the House, that pushed forward legislation in such a way that was extremely, extremely effective.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, her ability to hold that coalition together through some tough times is a real model for her.

Oh, yeah, it happens today.

It also created some backlash.

And I think part of the reason that like she's retiring when she is, is that there is this kind of passing of the torch.

Right.

You're seeing the older generation of, Democrats and Republicans decide to hang it up and, you know, leave politics.

And the younger generation is now becoming kind of prominent.

It's happening very slowly.

But she definitely, I think, exacerbated some of that tension, even while being successful kind of in what she did.

It's funny because you see this as a transition point for John Cornyn.

A lot of people who are antiwar and, and are saying, well, look, Nancy Pelosi stepping aside, you know, how about you step aside, too?

So it's becoming kind of this more national discussion.

But I think for her, at least, you know, the intraparty tension definitely rose during her time in office, one of my favorite Pelosi moments, it's still a gift that I use often is where she, like, rips up the state of oh yes, after the 2020 Trump State of the Union, dramatic moment and definitely one that makes her a lightning rod for these issues in a way that she didn't care and she was able to really use, I think, politically as to her effect.

But obviously it did create this kind of tension that now exists today, whether it that caused it or whether it was caused by something else.

You know, there's just a lot of, kind of uncertainty.

Yeah.

But for sure, it's the case that it was in the keeping with kind of how politics were at that moment.

Speaking of some sad news, former Vice President Dick Cheney has passed away.

His legacy in politics is also significant.

And controversial.

So what are we to take away from Dick Cheney's life and career?

Well, I mean, you know more about these things than I do because that's your area of study.

But I think that it was a transformation, an office that constitutionally doesn't have it any boundaries whatsoever.

Right?

He transformed also, I think, yo important vice presidents, al Gore may be in the same category, but, I mean, it's, shape, I think the role of the office, that other vice presidents have not followed through.

At that level, but at least, I guess opened the door and said, like, now we are, also part of the governing coalition one way or the other.

Yeah.

Starting with Walter Mondale, you start to see those presidents have a more advanced role.

But I think Dick Cheney is one of the most dramatic and impactful vice presidents in history.

Oh, yeah.

He really was a co-president.

One of my former colleagues, she wrote a book about the co presidency of Bush and Cheney, which made it sound like President Bush wasn't adequately able to govern.

And that's not true, was most just that Cheney insisted that there be this kind of parallel arrangement where whatever the kind of meeting was that was happening and presidents, kind of staff was there, the vice president staff would be.

So it was.

This kind of.

Parallel government that really did work well, at least in terms of kind of keeping things orderly, especially after 911 when things.

Yeah.

So controversial.

Yeah.

So he goes from the kind of Darth Vader to Trump antagonist, which is really interesting.

Right?

But he had very firm opinions about kind of how politics should work.

And he played it as hard as anybody did.

And really, I think set the stage for the way that we think of the presidency today.

Right.

Like his approach to the unitary presidency, his willingness to, you know, kind of press Congress and to try to press the executive, to, to to sidestep Congress when necessary is definitely a model for how we see the presidency today.

So that is.

Effective, for sure.

And made him really, an outstanding, kind of vice president in the way that we sort of characterize typically vice presidents as being, you know, not that important, right?

Which is totally wrong.

And, you know, the joke, of course, was always like Vice President Nance Gardner used to say, like, the vice presidency is not worth a warm cup of spit, but it really is actually.

And you can see in Cheney how effective oh, yeah, it was to your point, like we did this survey with a the colleague on presidential greatness.

And we ask people about vice presidential greatness, to which a lot of people in the survey responded like, what do you mean?

Vice presidential campaign is like, what does that even look like?

But we got some great verbatim where people had comments about kind of how a vice presidents function.

And one of the things we found was that Gore is the one who ranks highest on policy advice and to his to their president and Cheney's number two.

So this is a new breed of vice presidents who weren't just picked because, like, you balance the ticket geographic, right.

And even politically, like you're able to be a real policy advisor.

Right.

And Cheney really did, I think, change a lot of that.

But it's still controversial, right?

I mean, oh, yeah, defines the split in the Republican Party.

We're looking at today.

He was a hawk in a changing political party that now embraces, to some degree at least, kind of in like lack of interventionism or non interventionism.

So why is that to blame for the kind of tension foreign policy wise, in the Republican Party today?

I mean, it would be interesting to trace the steps, right?

I because I understand these, unitary executive theory.

But there was a limit.

Right.

And I think that, Cheney had some conceptions in terms of politics or political decorum or, something.

And the line that you don't cross.

Right.

And I'm, I'm not an, an executive scholar, as you are, because the presidency's a riveting and fascinating topic.

Given n equals one problem.

But exactly.

It's that one is pretty impactful.

Yes, indeed.

I think that the idea that you have to respect the Constitution and these balance and separation of powers, he's like, I'm going to push it, push it, push it, push it, push it, and then to the line as close as I can.

But I'm not going to cross the line.

And I think that these presidency, this strategy is perhaps less cross the line.

Right.

And see.

Yeah.

How the Supreme Court is going to send us back or maybe not.

It's a good one.

And that is a, a risk that we're going to see starting today when, the Supreme Court starts discussing, the, the, Trump administration types.

Yeah.

So we'll see.

It's a great point.

And there's some discussion that Trump might show up to this.

Apparently he's decided not to.

So I think that's probably for the best when it comes to the separation of powers, as you say, which can be very delicate.

It has to be handled carefully.

Yep.

Dick Cheney is, to my knowledge, is the only political science PhD who served as vice president.

Oh, till now, I mean, maybe you're going to throw your hat in the ring on this.

Yeah.

No, I don't think, not.

You're not happy about that?

You could be, you know, in all these meetings.

Yeah, sure.

Vice president gets a helicopter to say.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And a plane, so.

Oh, not bad.

Right?

Okay.

You know, I like the Dick Cheney kind of scenario because obviously there's like, long life for his, his daughter.

My daughter's, in politics.

And that's interesting too, to see that legacy on.

Yeah.

And become part of this but a more antagonistic storyline for Donald.

Sure.

But for every intern out there in DC who's wondering, you know, kind of what my trajectory looks like, Dick Cheney went on an intern.

Yeah, to chief of staff, to the president in like a handful of years.

And so by 34, he was like the chief of staff to Gerald Ford.

So that's crazy.

Yeah.

Wild, right?

It probably didn't happen much.

I mean, I'm 35 now, so I guess that Rudy's gone, but yeah, I can see it.

Well, if we're not going to tell the truth and let's, just move on to other untruthful items, including the president, the current president's ballroom donors, there is some concern that the donors themselves have too strong a linkage to the policies.

And then there's concern that, like, they're they're not telling a truth about all of the donors like you and your your age.

Okay.

So what do you take about what do you take from this?

Is this a problem for the Trump administration?

I think it is a problem.

And it is a problem.

It is a problem, especially not so much with those are antagonistic towards, President Trump or the McCain movement.

But I think it's a problem within the MAGA movement because the MAGA movement, believe it or not, there are some purists within the MAGA movement.

Right?

And, the whole premise of, clean up the swamp or dried the swamp or whatever it is, right, increased transparency.

They do not have these mingling of obscure interests mingling with politics on.

And so for the also resonate very well with, I think an important part of the MAGA movement.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Those are the ones that are going to turn out and vote every single day and are going to be there to support that movement.

So that is very tricky because the lack of transparency.

Yeah.

Can say yeah.

That's a great point.

I think that the divide between like MAGA Trump and MAGA is real right.

There are people who came to the moon because of Trump, and they were people who came to the moon because they like the kind of issues.

Right.

But Trump is not the purest MAGA.

I think you make a great point where.

Right.

That is a very devious, and distinction.

And so it's useful to consider that in this context where there is concern about ethics and transparency when it comes to government.

The donor list is incomplete and includes a lot of people who, are on, kind of various, enforcement related violations for labor or consumer environmental issues.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of, kind of complications there.

And really, at the end of the day, it's about a quid pro quo, right?

If I give you this money.

Yeah.

For this ball room, there's an expectation that you get something in return.

Maybe it's a meeting, maybe it's a favorable contract.

Who knows what.

Right.

But that's the concern that that happens now.

I mean, and some of the reports that we have seen in the media is that some of these donors have billions of dollars of contracts, with the federal government.

Yes.

Right.

So it's tough.

No, that's not and that blurs the kind of, yeah, line between private and public government.

And it also complicates oversight, right.

Where Congress can't look at it and say, well, look, we're going to scrutinize your budget, right?

Which was always a concern for the white House, like looking at their budget was an issue, but now they can just outsource it.

Right.

Let's call like, you know, Tim Cook and get me $1 billion for this ball room.

So yeah, aside from the kind of complications of the ballroom itself, which we've talked about, this definitely has kind of, you know, problems in terms of the ethical responsibilities here.

Well, let's talk about government in Washington, such as it is and that's the shutdown still continues.

It's now the longest shutdown in U.S.

history.

What are we doing?

What is going to happen?

Is it going to end anytime soon.

I don't know yeah I mean we.

Both have to catch flights this week.

Yes.

Are we going to get like a clean TSA line?

No, I don't think so.

And first and foremost is completely unfair, right.

To these folks that are working without pay is like, know that it simply is wrong.

Period.

End of story.

Yeah, but the main point here, I think, is that November 1st passed, right?

Yeah.

Democrats already have the notices of people like Obamacare is going to increase.

And if you know anyone that is on Obamacare and see how those, numbers are going to increase, it's insane.

Yeah.

I mean, he's got some help from, you know, some cases, I don't know, $300 to $1000.

Right?

And he's like, wait, what?

How?

Yeah, that's a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's a sizable problem for people.

And there are also this concern about Snap benefits, right?

Which, yeah.

The federal judge said that the white House had to pay.

They agreed to do so.

And then President Trump said, no, we're not going to do that.

So right to me, I think when it comes to this question about kind of who owns the shutdown, that creates a problem for Republicans when Donald Trump keeps saying, well, we're supposed to do this, we're not going to right the perpetuating the fight in effect, where he was on, with, Norah O'Donnell on CBS and basically she asked him what he was doing to end the shutdown, and he pivoted to say, well, it's the Democrats fault.

That may be true, but it's not the case that people see him as trying to solve this problem.

So when polling asked who's to blame by about 10%, people say Trump and Republican.

So he's not doing himself any favors in terms of trying to get the better of this.

And I think that the elections that we'll talk about in a 2nd May also have an effect of perpetuating this, because Democrats look at this and say, well, look, it seems to me then they're reading kind of the tea leaves here that the public is against Trump and they want to see push back and they want to return to normalcy.

And the fighting for the things that are kind of table kitchen table issues is not going to perpetuate things.

I mean, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, not perpetrate them in the sense of keeping the, the, the, the, the shutdown, but motivate people.

And the other irony of these, of these issues, I think the president likes to negotiate.

Right?

Yeah.

He's an innate negotiator.

Right.

So I don't understand why him.

Yeah.

Why aren't you negotiating?

Yeah, right.

That's the art of the deal.

Just to blame and rock.

Well, I mean, because I think he could extract something, right?

Or find the deal and the way that he, controls the narrative.

Right.

And he's online presence and social media.

He could flip the script in such a way, that would benefit him.

But as you say, the election's snap benefits airports, sluggish, economy in terms of, consumer prices, so on and so forth.

Those are things are is like.

Yeah.

You better get the thing open sooner rather than later.

Yeah.

And the east wing is being demolished for this grandiose new ballroom which you know has its issues.

But like the visuals of this are pretty jarring, where it's like the president's engaging in this billion dollar enterprise to basically only a handful of people.

Yeah.

And here are, of course, people are suffering because of the increase in costs and everything else.

So definitely problematic, I think, for the Republicans.

So we'll see.

I mean, there is a group of Democrats who are saying we want this to end, like it has to be some kind of out game.

Yeah.

And so there is movement towards that.

Now, of course, we're recording this midweek.

We don't know if this will be the determining factor, but it definitely is the case that I think frustrations have boiled over and people want a deal to get the heck out of this thing, so we'll see.

But let's talk about these elections, because there are a lot of interesting stuff going on here in Texas.

One of the biggest things was congressional District 18.

Yep.

Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards are headed to a runoff.

What do you make of this map?

No surprise.

Pretty much as expected.

Yeah, right.

As expected.

The difference between the two.

Not great.

I mean, not a great difference or anything like that.

Both.

Establishment.

Yeah.

Pretty traditional Democrats.

Yeah.

So it's the runoff that everybody was expecting with, 16 candidates.

So now we're down to two.

Right.

Yeah.

Now you can at least have a kind of something more clear to Tara.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Now there's a possibility that this will be setting up a race against Al Green because this is the temporary seat.

Yeah, right.

And then, of course, the primary comes back in March.

So the person who is in this position because the runoff won't be until January, probably because of the way the law works, it's likely that a person who's in the spot will be in power for like four weeks.

Right?

I don't have to run again in the primary.

Maybe against Al Green.

That's going to be a really intriguing matchup.

But as it is now, yeah, pretty expect in a district like that.

City council here.

Alexandria.

Alejandro Salinas, was able to get into a runoff with White Boykins.

Yep.

He's got about 20% of the vote.

Also, not terribly surprising.

This is sort of expected.

Yeah.

She spent a lot of money, and he benefited to some degree from the bump from CDP 18.

So this is sort of another race we're going to watch in December when, you know, that runoff happens.

There's other things happening across the state.

Senate.

District nine was pretty strong up in Terry County.

It was.

The Democrat Taylor met was able to almost avoid a runoff, against Republican Lieberman's, who was a well known conservative activist.

We talked about her a couple weeks ago.

Yeah.

Are you surprised by that?

Do you read this as a kind of rebuke to Trump Abbott?

Patrick.

I mean, if you add up the two Republicans numbers, they outnumber Democrats.

In a way that's expected in that district.

Right?

Exactly.

In that district.

But I was surprised that Democrats, I mean, you know, didn't win or didn't get the 50% plus one.

Yeah, but didn't do very shabby.

It's a good point.

I need was, Considering these elections tended to be low turnout.

Low turnout.

Democrats don't win in this spot.

And Dan Patrick kind of puts his thumb on the scale.

So that's a at least enough that, like Democrats are not going to be successful.

But yeah.

Not close.

Yeah.

Close.

And now, for the runoff, if it's well funded, well run.

Maybe.

Maybe so.

Maybe.

I don't think that that's the case.

The progressives did that well in Texas, not surprisingly.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

News at 11.

But basically you've looked down the ballot like in, here in in 18, Isaiah Martin, who was the kind of, you know, yeah.

The kind of more progressive candidate didn't win proposition Q In Austin, failed by a pretty big number.

You saw tax hikes rejected in Socorro ISD and Hayes, Blanco, Taylor, Liberty Hill.

These are definitely indications that conservatives are still very much, I think, political force in Texas.

Yeah.

It's not to say that there won't be some sort of moments where Democrats are successful, but this although you see nationally, that's kind of what people are calling a blue wave.

You didn't really see it here in Texas.

Let's talk about some of these consequential propositions.

There's a bunch that passed.

Well, they all passed.

Not surprising.

Right?

We anticipated that would be true.

But there's a lot of money at stake here for people's tax, you know, kind of pocket, you know, payer pocket.

But also like in terms of money spent, what do you think are the most important ones.

Well, I mean proposition for $1 billion per year for the water fund.

That's fantastic.

Down payment for the, Alzheimer Dementia Research Center.

Also, I think it's great.

Then you have a bunch regarding property taxes increasing the homestead exemption from 100 to 140,000.

And and then, some more controversial, like proposition 12 that talks about, the government having more control in terms of how to discipline judges.

So it's an overstep of the judiciary or not.

I don't know.

Certainly gives him more authority.

Yeah.

Gives him more authority to do that even.

And in addition to the already authority that, that he has in nominating vacancy so on and so forth.

So it's I guess I don't know, yeah.

Good and bad at the same time.

Yeah.

I mean, I think some of the bad is that there are always consequences to policy choices.

So the bail reform issue is one that ties to the proposition, denies bail to violent offenders, some violent offenders.

And that's going to put a strain on jail, especially like the Harris County Jail.

It's already pretty tax.

The property tax money is going to be helpful for people who own property.

But ugly.

It also is a complicated arrangement because it's going to be very expensive, like some 50 to $60 billion per biennium is going to be devoted to tax relief in this way.

And that gets pretty like spendy pretty fast.

So, yeah, obviously future budgets are going to have to accommodate this.

Happily, Texas's pretty successful economically, but that could change.

But in the last remaining minutes we have here, let's talk about the big picture about the elections.

Like what's your big takeaway from New York?

Virginia?

I think Democrats need great.

They had a great night.

And I think that, in may be sounding the alarm for the Trump administration.

Yeah, they saw the turnout problem.

They spent a lot of money.

Yeah.

They got a message that works.

It's a winning strategy.

But obviously it's temporary.

It's a winning strategy.

And we're going to talk more about those and many other winning strategies next week.

I'm Karen Cortina.

And I'm branded writing house.

The party keeps up next week.