Welcome to Party Politics.

And Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

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

Thanks for joining us and talking some politics on a pretty exciting week, actually.

We had a visit from the president, right.

POTUS in the house.

And then we also have a legislative session starting.

So lots of big news, not the least of which is that we've got a resolution on the throwing of a hard seltzer at our junior senator.

So we'll get into all of that stuff.

But first, let's talk about the biggest national news.

And that was, like I said, that the president was in town.

President Joe Biden came to the border, specifically El Paso.

For the first time since he's been in the White House.

He surveyed border enforcement operations, met with local officials.

He traveled with a delegation that was mostly made up of Democrats, which was to some degree the ire of Republicans like Tony Gonzales, who said I should come, too.

So this is obviously kind of interesting because as we talked about last week, border security has been a major issue in Texas.

It's becoming more important national issue.

And so there's lots to unpack here.

But basically, the Biden administration is saying that he's willing to meet the kind of, you know, people who say that there should be more resources for the border halfway.

He touted the fact that he added an additional 300 Border Patrol agents in recent months, and that's to join the other 2300 already, or 23,000, rather, who are working at the border already scaling up ground operations in their operation.

So lots are going on.

But what do you make of the kind of politics behind him coming to Texas specifically?

Republicans have been saying, you got to come here, you got to see it.

Right.

Greg Abbott, of all people, right.

The biggest antagonist meets him at the border, hands him a handwritten letter that says, give us more money.

Basically.

Right.

What do you make of this for the politics of it?

Oh, God.

Well, I think there's a couple of issues, right.

One is, if you look at on the Republican side, it's like, okay, finally they have or the Biden administration.

Precisely.

The president has capitulated right now.

You know, he's following our advice.

Right.

That can be, you know, one way or the other.

The other side could be that, you know, the Biden administration is calling the bluff.

Yeah.

In a sense that, okay, I'm going to be here, right?

I'm going to be boots on the ground.

I'm going to give you more resources.

Right.

And then we're going to see what happens.

The like.

Is it a my problem?

Exactly.

Just a general.

Problem.

Exactly right.

That's a good point.

So because, you know, immigration, especially the crises that we have at the border, is not made during the Biden administration, just didn't materialize, just like poof.

Right.

So it has coming and brewing from even from the Obama years.

Yeah.

So it's interesting to see if they're going to call the bluff or not.

And more interestingly enough, I think, you know, once the Biden administration actually moves forward by very throwing the ball, I think, to Congress.

Okay.

Why?

Because Congress by law is the one in charge of immigration policy.

So I think that politically speaking, if the Biden administration pivots this issue back and say, well, I went to the border, gave you more resources.

I'm paying for these things, etc., etc..

But you know what?

Yeah.

It's not my show to run.

It's Congress.

Oh, by the way.

Yeah, you're the majority in Congress, so fix it.

Yeah.

Stop, stop.

Like obfuscating, right?

Right.

Yeah.

One of the things that the president did do was to announce additional policies to try to curb illegal border crossings.

Democrats are saying this is problematic, like we talked about last week.

It's sort of inhumane.

They say Republicans say doesn't go far enough.

So basically he's a between a rock and a hard place.

Right.

You know, it's impossible for him to be able to politically make any move because this is something that it's just no one's really happy with.

One of the things they did do, as we said, is to use Title 42 to to expel people who had illegally crossed the border.

It also was the case that the president announced that they were going to give up to 30,000 migrants a month, a kind of new expanded quick asylum process.

So kind of a parole process.

Separately, agencies are also proposing a rule to disqualify asylum seekers who attempt to enter the U.S. without first pursuing legal pathway.

So the I think Biden administration has kind of become more aware of this.

I mean, do you think it's coincidental?

Well, I should say this.

I don't think it's coincidental.

Right.

Well, that's a good thing.

And I think it's coincidental because there are no coincidences in politics like it's always done for a purpose.

But the fact that the Republicans are now kind of resurgent is, I think, probably a good recipe for him to say, time for us to move on this.

But Bob Menendez of New Jersey says that use of Title 42 is basically a relic.

Veronica Escobar says that the policies are outdated and needs to be reformed.

Republicans like Mike McCall say that, you know, you're just kind of scratching the surface.

Tony Gonzales is complaining because he didn't get to go to the border.

And also that, you know, there are lots of things they could do.

So, I mean, is there a risk here for the president in terms of trying to put this front and center because now it's like you're on display?

Well, absolutely.

But I think it's to his advantage.

Right, because this is the prerogative of the US Congress.

Yeah, right.

So Congress, both the House and the Senate has have to fix this mess.

Yeah.

If they don't fix it, the president in this country, they can have, you know, 11,000 billion executive orders.

Those executive orders are going to go to court.

Right.

And then it's going to be the same endgame.

But I think what it's very interesting here is that part of these new reform is increasing the use of expedited removal, which is Title eight, and Title eight will kick in once Title 42 expires.

Right.

You lost me.

When did we kick the field goal like that?

But it's it's one way or the other.

what Republicans really want.

Right.

What are you going to do when Title 42 wins?

Yeah.

So now they're revamping those rules.

They're revamping expedited removal.

It is like you're not.

Yeah.

One, two, three, four, five.

You're out of there.

Right.

So that creates, you know, putting them on the spot and say, what is it you want?

You want wanted these.

Yeah, you got it.

You got it.

And on that point, actually, too, I mean, there's a framework for this, right?

Thom Tillis from North Carolina.

And of course, the Sinema from Arizona are working on this to be able to try to get a gang of senators to try to find some progress on immigration reform.

That's hard to do because even if the gang is able to cobble together 60 votes in the Senate, which is already pretty challenging, they still have to go to the House and it's chaos over there.

Look about that in a second.

Yeah, I don't know if you heard, but it's ungovernable, right?

It's like it's completely like.

Like an out of control soccer match or something, right?

Like ungovernable.

So we'll see if that works.

But speaking of legal issues, though, Ken Paxton is back in the news.

And of course, Ken Paxton has to.

Ken Paxton, he is suing the Biden administration over the public charge.

This is basically a rule that says that people can't come to this country unless they have some kind of independent means of assistance.

Right.

So that they can't be overly dependent on government assistance.

The attorney general from Texas is suing with a 24 page lawsuit, which seems short, but basically saying that Biden is not doing his job once again.

So this is another kind of wrinkle to this Ken Paxton, right back to work.

Right.

Right where things left off pre-election.

Right.

And now he's back to it.

So what do you think that's going to happen here?

Anything that's of note, I mean, is this a sort of legal challenge?

It's going to really kind of put a skip into the step of the Biden campaign.

I mean, yes and no.

The public charge is something that has been on immigration policy since the 1800s.

So it's something that they're digging.

Are they like trying to find something to write.

Let let me say something so I can sue the Biden administration?

Yeah.

Yeah, whatever it is.

Air Force One's color looks weird to me.

Exactly.

I think the blue is not the it's not a feeling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Pantone or whatever color rg bs you know whatever is called that they use.

But I think that, you know the public church is interesting because on the one hand we know that, you know, first of all all, most of the social assistance programs are means tested and for most of them, either you need to be a legal permanent resident or a U.S. citizen.

So migrants, by definition, do not have access to a broad number of federal programs.

So the public charities like interesting because it's like, well, yeah, but they're not qualified.

So how do you measure it?

Right.

That's one issue.

And the other issues are we know well, part of these parallel programs that the Biden administration is going to implement requires them to have a work permit.

Therefore, they need to work.

Okay.

So and they need to show that they have, you know, support not to be I mean, financially speaking, from family or friends or whatnot.

Yeah.

So it creates I don't think it's going to go anywhere.

I think that sometimes Paxton creates a structured legal ride, creates a legal argument that can move forward.

And in this one, he's going to be a little bit more complicated in my mind.

Interesting.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, speaking of work, the US House of Representatives is back to work in the time between when we recorded and today the new Speaker of the House has been elected.

It only took about 14, 15 ballots.

Right.

So it did take a little while and actually almost came to blows a couple of times.

Right.

There's a great story about how Majority Whip Tom Emmer basically had to protect Matt Gaetz from the Republicans, some of whom, according to Politico, had been drinking, reproaching Matt Gaetz and physically assaulting him, who was effectively holding things up.

Ultimately, family unity is preserved.

The big tent is now still big enough for everyone to come have refreshments and not fight each other.

If you're not watching this, the daytime drama is amazing.

I mean, I don't know about you, but we watched this, like, four days.

Oh, yeah.

And it was better than anything.

General Hospital's put together.

Our Ladies in a coma again.

It doesn't matter.

Like, this is the best stuff on TV.

Days of our lives on steroids, right?

Yeah, it's the best, right?

Yeah.

So everything got patched up, right?

We have a new speaker, but now, of course, there's lots of questions about kind of what's next.

Right.

And there, I think, are some implications to how this came about.

Although Kevin McCarthy has the gavel, it's probably a gavel that's a lot smaller than it was before.

Yeah, not like a big jumbo 1/1 because the Freedom Caucus has got a pretty significant new veto power.

So some of the new rules allow for the Freedom Caucus to have three of the nine seats on the House Rules Committee.

And the House Rules Committee is basically the kind of traffic cop of Congress, one to determine kind of where legislation goes.

So it doesn't take many of them to basically completely sideline legislation.

And it's not so much about kind of how you fight over the substantive policy.

It's about getting it to the floor where you fight over the substance of policy.

So that's a big issue.

The other issue is that you're certainly seeing some tough votes ahead for moderate Republicans.

And although Republicans took back the House in a very narrow fashion, the Freedom Caucus is going to make sure that their legislation that gets voted on is going to be much more conservative.

So a lot of those moderate members are going to have to swallow hard, take a tough.

Oh, yeah.

And then go back to their constituents in moderate districts and say, you know, I voted for this, you know, kind of abolishing the IRS, right.

Which, you know, for some sounds really good for most people.

Sounds kind of nuts.

I think that's going to be a real problem for a lot of those members.

So what do you make of the kind of implications of the speaker fight and the results of the kind of first round of rule votes?

So first of all, I think that Kevin McCarthy is going to be the speaker of the House for what?

How long?

It may be just in name only, right?

Oh, yeah.

Because you know, the real power.

Yeah.

Is gone.

Right.

And there's positives on that.

Those handful of Freedom Caucus members basically control the House.

Oh, absolutely, 100%.

So, you know, Kevin McCarthy now has to really think hard about be careful what you wish for, but it's very, very, very, you know, I.

Want to be speaker and then.

And then, oops, I don't want to be speaker anymore.

Like, can I send it back?

But the other argument, I think that it's it's interesting and some members of the Freedom Caucus are making is that this is going to increase transparency about how legislation is put together as the economy say, wow, spa responsible.

Right.

Everything held constant.

Okay.

Right.

Because that is an assumption that ideology is not going to be there.

Right.

Right.

And that creates, you know, a huge hurdle.

Yes.

But let's suppose that, you know, politicians can set aside political goals, ideologies.

Okay.

Okay.

That's an assumption.

It's just this.

Is the sky in this.

World.

And yeah, it's red pink.

So the whole idea is that, you know, that create transparency, pride in terms of allowing legislation to go to the floor.

Right.

And legislation has to be, you know, about one topic.

Yeah.

So you cannot create a whole sausage of legislation inserting one bill, which, you know, from a public policy perspective.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

And Republicans complained about this, right?

Right.

Like we're pushing too much all at once.

And no one was reading the bill.

Exactly like we don't give them 72 hours right before, you know, the bill goes to the floor so they can actually read it.

Yeah, the discussion and amendments have to be germane.

That means that they have to be on the topic like you cannot start making any amendments on you know, if the bar from, you know, FIFA World Cup soccer could be there or not because that's not part of the legislation.

Yeah.

So I think that those issues are going to be important.

But again, you have to be very careful because as we saw with with the first vote for Congress, McCarthy was able to pass like, you know, the House rules, so on and so forth.

And but you said abolishing quote unquote, perhaps not the IRS.

Yeah, but it was 220.

Yeah.

Yeah.

220 versus 213.

So what.

I mean.

Yeah.

So it's like your margins really thin.

My gosh.

Yeah.

Very, very, very, very, very, very small.

No.

And what's also interesting is that like and we know this because like we have colleagues like Sarah Binder at George Washington who's tweeted out that like effectively the speaker's overtime don't follow their own rules and they change them.

And that's for a reason that they need control.

And he has no control, right?

Oh, none.

It's a soft speakership at best.

And so one of the things you see is that these restrictive amendments like so here's a good like, you know, term, right?

Research of amendments like how many amendments you can add and what you can add.

So what this does effectively is like, yeah, over time, the number of those increases, even though like they're supposed to be flat.

And so that's something that speaker is definitely ignoring.

So he'll go back on his word.

He'll almost have to if he wants any kind of control.

But I mean, I don't expect his half life to be longer than like the lettuce.

Right.

You've seen this like with the lettuce out and like, how long is he going to last?

This this.

Yes.

He may not outlast that lettuce.

It could be like couple of weeks because the first tough vote they're going to take is this.

And that's going to be the vote on defense spending.

Right.

Part of the rule was that McCarthy promised basically to hold a vote on a budget that would balance the deficit in a decade.

Yikes.

And cap discretionary spending at fiscal 22 levels.

That could mean about a 10% cut to the Pentagon.

There are a lot of the GOP who say, oh, that's not going to work.

This is the first fight that I think, frankly, maybe his undoing before they even, you know, get into the rest of it.

So we'll see how that plays out.

But one of the things for sure we're going to see, but that's not legislation that Congress will do, is hearings.

They're going to have a lot of hearings, I'm going to say, about Hunter Biden and like the laptop raid, the IRS overreach, there's a bunch here.

And so it's like releasing a chupacabra in Washington, D.C.

It's just going to be like chaos, right?

People running for their lives, they're going to investigate.

According to some of the discussion from this week, White House emails, memos between big tech companies, communications between tech giants and the Biden administration.

Anthony Fauci, who, of course, was, you know, outgoing kind of COVID czar, I suppose the they're creating a new set of these committees.

They're going to call it the weaponization of the Federal Government Committee.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah.

Which is actually quite brilliant.

They're going to investigate the Twitter files, which sounds like a terrible kind of Fox branded TV show.

Right.

There's a lot going on here.

And actually, this is breaking news.

This is something you're going to hear a lot about, and that is that the Biden administration has been dealing with allegations that basically DOJ found some classified documents in the vice president's sort of papers.

So it's going to kind of just be a whole conspiracy cabal again.

Tell me what this all means, like what the American people want and Republicans need to get traction from this, or is it just going to be more kind of, you know, tossing red meat to the base?

I don't think they're going to get any traction.

And I don't think that, you know, given the stage in which we are, issues about inflation, issues about possible, you know, worldwide recession, issues about, you know, normal bread and butter issues.

Yeah, I don't think that the any any member of the public has any appetite for finding even a hunter.

Biden Help a Ukrainian Natural Gas Company in 2019 or if they bought a cobalt Congolese you know what, mine or something like that I don't think that they're interested in doesn't make good.

TV, I guess.

I mean, it appeals to the base, right.

So obviously that's why they're doing it.

And there's some clear need to be a will for oversight.

Well, I've seen Congress has this prerogative, but.

Yeah, does it really connect to people?

Stuff that happened years ago and I just don't know yet.

I guess we'll have to kind of find out how far they go, right?

Because you can imagine they might go pretty far.

Right.

Some of the stuff they talk about and the things they float may just be kind of a kind of a piece too far.

So they can definitely overreach on this.

And I think that's the real risk if they.

Overreach and then not taking care of business, right?

Oh, yeah.

That's and that's what's going to hurt them very, very, very bad.

Yeah.

Because remember, 90% of the Republican Party in the House is perhaps united and it's perhaps more moderate.

Right.

One way or the other.

Yeah, the rest is not.

Yeah.

So that 90% has to say one way or the other.

Yeah.

You know, are we going to ban just for sake of the family with these guys or do you think that and this is an interesting question, do you think it's always making.

Yeah, I mean, I assume that is true.

Yeah.

It's the way that things go.

Thank you.

Do you think that, you know, perhaps once they enter into a space where more moderate Republicans are going to be forced to go and talk to them?

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, basically get the 218.

Yeah.

With help from Democrats and just getting rid of these folks.

Yeah.

I like how you got real quiet when you said that, like, well, just kind of see if this works, right?

Right.

Maybe as a kind of backup plan, because you're totally right that that is frankly where things are going to be headed.

Right.

With the speakership in chaos.

And you've got the Freedom Caucus kind of running the narrative, setting the agenda.

I think that at some point a lot of those moderates might say, we need Democrats to work on this.

That might be a good for the country because we got unity on these things and bipartisanship.

But right.

Legislation is always better.

So and it's this idea of having divided government behind the divided government can do three things, right?

One can create gridlock, right?

Like BLEEP.

No, he said, yeah, right.

Can create cooperation.

Right now these factions need to cooperate with one another.

Yeah.

And the third one is that they can, you know, govern differently.

And I think that we're going to be in the governed differently situation here because those coalitions are going to come naturally because.

Yeah, yeah, there's no choice.

Yeah, that's it.

I like that idea, actually.

I know.

We'll keep out.

Look for that.

Right.

Many a book has been has been noted today.

Has been written today.

So yeah, we're going to we're going to see how that sparks.

But yeah, let's talk Texas because there's lots going on here, including the very west Texas town of El Paso.

I know that you pay all of your fines and fees and you get caught for speeding because you got a bit of a.

Never had a ticket in my.

Never have a ticket.

Never.

I've.

Well, good for you.

Well, you are unique in that you could.

Probably in the state of Texas.

You could probably run for city council in El Paso and be okay because there are a couple of current new members of our council in El Paso who have not paid all of their fines and by city charter they're not allowed to be on the city council.

So two of these members are potentially ineligible.

One is Brian Kennedy and the other is Art Fierro.

They both have outstanding balances with the city of El Paso for moving and parking violations.

This actually might jeopardize a vote that they took on some development of a kind of controversial part of El Paso.

Actually, that's been much debated.

And so it's of interest to that for sure.

But what do you make of the fact that such a strange like sort of screw up here?

Well, I mean, it is.

Right.

And apparently, you know, looking at the response from these members of city council, it's like, oh, I didn't know I'm going to pay attempt, etc..

But the funny thing is that, you know, once they take the oath of office, they have to read.

I furthermore solemnly swear that I'm not in debt to the city of El Paso.

Was well.

Speaking of a careful reading of the law, let's talk about something happening here in Harris County.

And that's a challenge to the election in 2022.

Yes, you heard me right.

We're still challenging elections at this point.

Republican Alex Mealer is challenging the results of the election where she was running to unseat County Judge Lina Hidalgo.

She says after careful review and analysis of the facts available that there was enough problems that they want to look at it again.

These are pretty commonly known sorts of problems.

They say that there is a not and statistically insignificant number of residents who either were locked out of the potential to vote or there was some illegal, unconstitutional scheme to keep them from voting.

A lot of these polling locations had problems, were in a paper, didn't have staff.

So there are a lot of these problems that are listed in the petition.

I guess one question is, do you think that this is going to go anywhere?

And the second question is, what does this mean for the kind of big picture in terms of where county government is?

I mean, I had the sense that like, Mealer was probably in position to be able to be a pretty active player in the Republican Party.

Now, I'm not so sure the fact that this came on January 6th.

Right.

Not a coincidence.

The fact that it was done when Hidalgo was out of the country on personal business, not a coincidence.

So I guess that is my question to you.

Do you think it's going to make any difference here?

Oh, I mean, legally speaking, I don't think he's going to go anywhere.

Yeah, it's very complicated to show that there was intent to suppress voters.

Right.

Because the big question is, you know, bizarre is tantamount, for example, to having, you know, poll taxes or discriminating people because of the color of the skin.

We the primaries.

Right.

Or having the grandfather clause.

No serious concern?

Yes.

Yeah.

The answer to that is absolutely not.

Yeah.

And the other question is, you know, did people leave because, you know, they went to a different vote center or they just were asked to leave and.

Prove.

It's impossible to prove.

Right.

And the other part of the of the big argument is like, you know, last session we passed or the state legislature passed Senate bill number one.

Right, that, you know, did not allow for 24 hour voting.

Well, that could be interpreted the same logic, right.

As voter suppression does.

These happens here, you know, drive by voting, etc., etc.. Yeah.

You know, the rejection rate in the primary election was very, very, very high.

Does that means that is voter suppression?

Well, you know, that's up for discussion, but we are in the same well.

And they're asking for the election to be thrown out, which is like saying you hit a pothole in the road and you sort of tear up all the roads.

Right.

Exactly.

Like there are mistakes.

Yeah, absolutely.

100%.

But yeah, it's definitely the case that that has to be fixed.

But yeah, to have a new election is something that's unusual.

Well, legislators session is underway.

One of the big pieces of news was that the the comptroller has to tell the state which money they've got.

The good news is that we're rich.

Yeah.

There's about a $32 billion surplus.

That's mostly because of inflation.

So a bunch going on there.

My notes here look like an economics class I took in college.

There's like, you know, billions and percentages.

But basically it's about the budget.

Right.

And this bill, Harvey once said, the former lieutenant governor, the only thing the legislature has to do is pass a budget.

Everything else is poetry.

So the good news is that they're flush.

The problem, though, and you and I talked about this offline, is that, you know, the current budget can be pretty big, but the problem is that they can't spend it all necessarily because there are these caps.

Right.

Ross Ramsey of the Tribune once said that this is like the budget, like a dog carrying four leashes, like they're constitutional limits.

There are statutory limits.

So there's only so much of this money they can spend.

But I guess that's the good news, is that, you know, there's something to be able to said here for for having more money in the pocket.

Right.

Well, so, look, the only thing that I'm going to say is very clearly, I hope that they don't do what I do when I get extra money.

Right.

Spend it on bourbon, basically.

Right.

On books.

Okay.

I see.

Just on books so.

Understood.

Yeah well we'll keep that.

Yeah.

So they go into session this week.

We wish all the state legislators all the good luck in the.

World and staff.

Yeah yeah.

Lots of hours Oh.

Absolutely is going to be hard is going to be 140 days of hard hard work.

But, you know, enjoy the ride, do what's best for the state and we'll see you next week.

But for this week, that's it.

That's it.

Well, thanks, everybody here at Houston Pu for making this sound so good and putting this all together for us.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina and.

I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We'll see you nex