Welcome to Party Politics.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina, 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 hanging out with us.

And talk a little bit of politics because it's a big week and I hope you like balloon analogies because that's pretty much all we have this week.

Obviously, the state of the unions happening is some policy movement of some big policies in Texas.

But the first thing that's on everybody's mind is the balloon ride.

This is interesting.

Obviously, you probably have seen tell of this or you've heard about it or read about it.

The diplomacy between the U.S. and China is now up in the air.

This last weekend, attacks.

By balloon was.

Basically captured our attention.

Eventually, it was shot down by an F 22, firing a sidewinder air to air missile.

How do you like that?

Research basically marking the end of the spectacle, but also heightening the notion that the tension between the U.S. and China is now really high?

Oh, yes.

So what do you make of the sort of politics of the balloon?

Well, obviously, there is international politics and of course, there are domestic politics.

Really no rally around the flag.

No rally around the balloon.

No, no.

To the country.

Right.

It was argued by a lot of GOP lawmakers and political analysts that the Biden administration was very weak.

Right.

But, you know, it's more complicated than anything like that.

I mean, first of all, you know, shooting down a balloon is very easy to do.

Turns out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you have an F-22, no problem.

Yeah.

On the one hand.

Right.

But, you know, it's it's a matter of trying to, I guess, disentangle the difference between homeland security and national security.

Yeah.

So the response has to be, I guess, proportional to a homeland security issue and the national security issue.

Did the balloon pose a risk to people?

Well, maybe they shoot it down.

And you told us that the thing that the balloon was carrying was the size of a ball.

Right.

It's going to drop if that thing falls down.

Right.

The consequences are going to be for China.

The consequences are going to be for the people you know, in Montana.

Right.

Just waiting for something fall in the sky.

Right.

So that's, you know, a potential issue.

Right.

Is not the same the response as you would be, let's say, in a time of war, because there's going to be consequences for the other side.

And in this case, the only consequence is are on the American people.

So they had to wait this and that.

And it was the balloon drama.

Or did they?

Right.

Because you had like Republicans saying, shoot it down.

Right.

Literally.

Donald Trump tweeted out, shoot down the balloon in all caps.

Subtle message from former commander in chief.

But Republicans are saying basically the Biden administration didn't act quickly enough.

But like you said, Biden and the White House said, you know, we had to wait until it was over an unpopulated area, i.e., over the sea in this case.

So you don't think that they waited for too long?

You think that it was done properly?

Look, I mean, I've been thinking about these things forever.

A lot.

Yeah.

During Tropic, you.

Made your own.

Balloon.

Yes.

Yes.

Like the balloon from OP.

The movie is less colorful.

Sure.

Less fun, But, yeah.

It's less colorful.

But, you know, is like, at the end, the president makes or calls the shot ride, and he's going to say, yes, shoot it down or wait or whatnot.

But he's based on what, you know, experts and the military and everybody is given some information to make that decision.

Like, you know, if it was a national threat, I bet you that they would have shot it down in 35 seconds.

Right.

We don't know anything about the balloon.

We don't know anything about the surveillance capabilities.

We don't know anything.

Obviously, the Chinese say, I don't know.

It's just the weather, the weather balloon.

And we just, you know, whatever's.

Monitoring your weather.

Exactly like.

Sure.

Thanks.

Just like the tick tock videos you're watching, right?

Exactly.

Getting your information or the shape of your face.

Yeah, No, but that became an issue, too, actually.

Right.

Greg Abbott this week has promised to basically eradicate tick tock from Texas and I don't know that that's possible.

But, you know, he's taken another step than he did.

And I think that the context, broadly speaking, is that there's this a lot of distrust between the US and China.

Maybe the highest it's ever been.

And actually one of the things that happened as a result of this directly was that, you know, the secretary of state was supposed to go to China to have a kind of diplomatic summit to thaw things out.

But obviously, the balloon and the drama around it put a pin in that.

How do you like that?

Oh, and then even in that pop.

It popped the.

Yes, the relations.

But the relationship has been strained over a bunch of issues, including microchips, human trafficking, tariffs, Taiwan.

So there's a lot of things that are going on.

It also kind of took some of the swagger away from Joe Biden and the State of the Union.

I think I mean, obviously talks about this in the State of the Union.

There's a bit of saber rattling involved which can be effective domestically in routing support, but maybe also problematic in terms of the economy.

In fact, we know the scholarship on this suggests that when President saber rattle like that, it does tend to shake people, people's faith in right in the economy.

And so I think there's a real risk there for the White House and gives the Republicans another piece of ammunition.

Right.

We talked about Hunter Biden.

You know, obviously, he's going to be a big subject.

The IRS, you know, immigration secretary, and now you've got the balloon right as another kind of, you know, log on the fire.

So it's, I think, going to be interesting to see how it plays out and how many more balloons we shot down.

But actually, the big news of the week was the State of the Union.

This is like the Super Bowl in the World Cup, all mashed together in the same week for us.

No, I'm too too far with.

Yeah, I think your analogy goes I mean, maybe, I don't know, like regional championships maybe so you know.

Well, and actually your point is well taken.

That is that the State of the Union doesn't have the same impact that it used to have.

Right.

It used to be this sort of major agenda setting events.

And to be honest now, there are a lot of reasons why people don't watch it.

So let's talk a little bit about that.

It comes at a pretty tenuous moment for Joe Biden.

Obviously, there's a lot of political talk right now with the change in power in Washington.

There's a second state.

The unions attempted to kind of remind people here, you know, why he's doing a good job, Right?

Right.

That government can work.

He bragged about unemployment being low.

Inflation has cooled.

COVID 19 is a less serious problem than before.

There are also a bunch of bipartisan bills.

They passed gun control infrastructure.

Absolutely.

So there are things that you know are going well for the Biden administration.

But there are some real problems here.

On average, two thirds of Americans say that the country is headed in the wrong direction.

So despite all the fact that, you know, he's sort of able to brag about these things, it's not necessarily in a position to be able to, you know, claim credit for a uniform success.

So what was your what's your take on the State of the Union?

Well, I mean, it's a matter to see if what President Biden said is going to go down to the people.

Right.

So the idea is how to change perception.

Yeah, and it's a matter of perception because, you know, as you said, his administration has had very important wins.

The infrastructure bill, gun safety, so on and so forth that none of his predecessors were able to pass and he was able to pass one way or the other.

In a tough Congress.

In a very tough Congress.

But the issue here is if that message is going to go directly to the people and say, oh, yeah, we're better off, yeah, inflation is speaking down one way or the other.

We have had the lowest unemployment rate since the 1960s when you were born.

And so feels like it.

Right?

So it's a matter right, of how they're going to be able to send that message, especially when the state of the Union might be a I guess, a short clip of what we're expecting for a potential reelection bid of President Biden.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

And he's using this as a way to kind of frame that.

Right, In a way to say basically that, you know, we can work together in Washington.

I think that's a smart way to do it.

Calls for unity, generally speaking, have been successful for the president.

And even if people don't kind of feel it or sense it, it's still been a useful kind of way to move the needle.

And maybe, you know, he's not benefited politically, but like the Democratic Party might.

And that means down ballot Democrats might in a year where they're going to have to defend a bunch of these Senate seats.

So I think that was interesting.

I also thought that the pie in the sky to achievable ratio was like reasonable here, like the kind of things he was asking for.

I thought, you know, were doable in the context of where things are politically and kind of what he needs to have happen.

So I think that's a big thing.

But I want to ask you, fill in the following blank, and that is that the State of the Union is blank.

Now, we know what Joe Biden said, but what do you think?

I mean, logistically, realistically, how is the State of the Union right now?

Can Biden use this as a kind of springboard to be successful for the next two years where he's got opposition?

Congress polarization is really high.

People aren't paying attention like they used to.

What do you say?

Well, I think the State of the Union is strong.

Okay.

Thought that's a common answer, right?

Yeah, I know, I know.

But it's the but.

Right.

But I think that, you know, the message of Biden is we have done a lot of stuff.

We need to keep working and we have a lot more to do.

And, you know, that's part of the issue.

One of the significant problems that he has moving forward is political polarization, because his message is not going to have the same impact on Republicans that it has on Democrats and again, on some Democrats.

Right.

It's not all Democrats are 100% happy.

Yeah.

So they have to do a lot of PR and trying to communicate these in a very easy way to see how it's benefiting the American people.

I think it's a great point.

In fact, I pulled polling from the Washington Post and ABC and they said that 82% of adults say that he's accomplished not very much or little to nothing.

Yeah, that is tough.

The other thing is that even politically speaking, you know, he's going to use this as a kind of jumping off point.

But the thing is that even Democrats aren't that excited about him running.

Most Democrats say they want someone else to run.

37% of Democrats in an Ap-norc poll said that they want him to run for a second term.

That's down from 52% in the weeks before the midterms.

So I think that the kind of bloom is off the rose for Biden, that's a real problem.

The other thing is that obviously the State of Union rarely moves the needle statistically over time.

The bump in terms of approval rating is like less than one percentage point 4%.

If you look at the numbers, the kind of ways that they ask for Congress to do things tends to be formulaic.

Congress doesn't tend to, you know, take it up.

They get maybe a third of what they asked for.

Right.

So he's not in a position necessarily to be able to use this as a successful point.

And I actually think we need to redo the State of the Union, do something more fun, more engaging.

Right.

Like people don't respond to the same staid hour plus speech like the president gave.

Right.

They want to see more interactions.

We saw this with the January six committee, right?

Like the more you can have this sort of be interesting and engaging, the better you can communicate it.

So it's not surprising people don't pay attention, right?

It's not relevant because few people watch it.

People who do watch are partizan.

Yeah.

And, you know, politically speaking, people are so divided that, you know, they're not going to be persuaded by what you said.

So so ultimately, I think that they need to kind of change up the style of it.

Now, maybe Joe Biden's not the best president to do that.

Right.

Not the most dynamic.

A good, I think, solid communicator in terms of what he was asking for.

But that still needs to be a little bit different given the kind of way the world works.

I think it's a combination of let's bring the Grammys and the Oscars together.

A musical performance.

That would be great.

Beyoncé out like.

How they have, you know, half show or something like that and like you.

You are joking I think but I.

Don't I'm not sure.

I mean honestly like some of the suggestions were like they should go to a place go to like a manufacturing hub.

Right.

Have a presentation there.

Right.

And talk for a little bit.

There were kind of, you know, cutaways to people.

So you're suggesting making this like a week long event?

No.

Like but actually, no.

I mean, we know that the scholarship suggests that the more the president talk about these things, the more it penetrates the public mind and the more they can persuade people.

So I don't know what the solution is, but I just know that what they're doing is not working.

Yeah, you know, that's been true for at least two decades.

Yeah.

So I think it's time to do something different.

Speaking of decades long, the interesting kind of twist this week, Ted Cruz is this week talking about a couple of things.

Number one, he has suggested he's going to run for a third term, and the other is that he's filed a bill to limit U.S. senators to two terms.

We wait.

How I read that correctly.

You heard it correctly.

Yes.

It's obviously.

Way out.

The logic.

Everything's possible in politics.

Oh, because I believe.

Oh, okay.

So basically, yes, you heard that correctly.

Ted Cruz is announcing for a third term and also is suggesting through a bill that U.S. senators be limited to two terms.

This would require a constitutional amendment.

Obviously, it's unlikely to gain much traction because this is not something that politicians really like.

And actually to like in terms of how people have studied this, it doesn't really work.

Right.

We know actually that all term limits do is make the political scene swamp here.

It makes members rely more on lobbyists by executive agencies or kind of bureaucrats.

Right.

Which isn't something the voters want.

It takes the voters out of the equation.

And so these things really, I think, like in terms of how the scholarship on this looks like when people study this in other countries at the state level, they find it's not such a great thing.

So what's Cruz's end game here?

I have no idea.

I don't understand.

I mean, on the one hand is like, you know, politicians should not be more than 12 years running or serving the country or whatnot.

You know, his substantial argument was that the framers saw a government of citizen legislators that would serve and then go back home.

And then he's like, oh, by the way, I'm going to be running for a third term, so.

Vote for me again.

Exactly.

So I don't understand what it is.

I mean, I think that, you know, is thinking in terms of the substance.

I think that, okay, I see your point, right.

Someone that is going to be in power being reelected because we know that people that reelect themselves, there is about 98% chance that they're going to be reelected.

Yeah, so I see his point and I see that, you know, it's important to have, you know, some sort of recycling of, you know, members elected.

And once you get into office, it's almost impossible to get you out.

Yeah, so I see that right there.

But I think that, you know, limiting term terms is not the right way.

I think that his intentions are good in the sense of having, you know, these recycling, not allowing people to represent their constituents in different ways.

But I don't think that doing this is the right way to do it.

Yeah.

And as a kind of connection to this, the map, as we said, for Democrats, looks pretty grim in the Senate in 2020 for one of the possible pickups has been suggested that runs to the Lone Star State.

There are a couple people who are considering running.

Roland Gutierrez is one who's been kind of out in front on issues in terms of who all day you've got James Talarico, a member of the House, who potentially thinks challenge.

So maybe some of the Castro brothers, one of the Castro brothers might want to jump of that race.

So Cruz vulnerable in a way.

And so this is a way just basically for me to trick you into talking about 2024.

Right.

But it's interesting because not that far away, right?

Yep.

Yep.

Also, we'll see how the senator's bill fares.

But let's talk about Texas and some people who didn't fare so well last week, and that is that powerful winter storm really wreaked havoc with much of north and central Texas.

Tens of thousands of people were without electricity.

It was knocking down oak trees.

On Saturday, the governor declared a disaster for seven counties affected from Denton all the way down to Travis.

What do you make of these sorts of events and the impact on sort of public opinion on government, but also on the way that the state functions during these emergencies?

Well, I mean, it's very simple, right?

Yeah.

The issue is not that we don't have a hundred year weather event anymore.

They do not exist.

Yeah, we're talking about, you know, two years after the February winter storm of 2021.

Yeah.

So these things are happening.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm not going to get into it because climate change related, of course, CDs, but, you know, okay, I'm not going to get it.

We'll bracket that for another discussion.

Exactly.

So the issue is, you know, we know that these things are going to happen more often than we were used to.

So the state has to be prepared for that.

Companies have to be prepared for that.

Like, you know, they have these events in North Dakota every single day out of, you know, 365 days probably.

They have this event, 369 days.

More than the year before, more than the number of days in the year.

So and the power works.

Yeah.

All right.

So we have to rethink our infrastructure.

Yeah, we have to rethink about, you know, should we go underground for power lines or these or that, etc., etc.. Yeah, but it's something that we need to start thinking about because it's going to get worse and worse and worse.

This is reflect badly on Greg Abbott.

I mean, he promised basically to fix the grid and then he promised that the grid was fixed.

So too tough promises to keep in a world where this happens a lot, like you say.

Right.

Is this going to be political liability for Greg Abbott moving forward or people see this sort of isolated or unrelated to the issues of Texas government?

Well, I mean, this time it was a little bit different in the sense that, you know, the power outages were you can blame, for example, tree branches, okay.

Or trees that fell and pulled down power lines, etc.. And that's hard to say.

Exactly.

And I mean, you cannot control that unless you put them underground.

Right.

Right.

Or you basically tear down all the trees around the power line that they do sometimes.

Sometimes they do.

But but again, it's one of the issues that we need to think about how we're going to control and how we're going to build our infrastructure.

Is this a recession since we have a lot of money?

Maybe.

Yeah, yeah.

Give incentives to power companies to start putting, you know, all power lines underground.

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it's something to think about, but these events are going to happen more often than not.

Yeah.

And Elon Toxic Air, who is a former Austin City Council member and in the legislature, now suggested that maybe they would try to strip some companies from having monopoly of energy in certain cities.

So that happened in Austin, Houston and other big cities.

So this is something that might be on the table, you know, when these things happen during the legislative session.

It's always kind of a heightened moment of a patient and maybe nervousness because like, they could do this right now and maybe it would be a kind of knee jerk reaction to what happened.

But I do think that the issue of kind of stability of the energy grid is one huge issue, not just for people who live here, but who might live here because the governor still has to convince people to come here, right?

Yeah.

And that's the way that the economy grows and maintains itself.

So if you have these things and you know, you know, if you're only solution is don't have a tree in your yard, then it obviously makes it look like, you know, people are going move to Arizona where their notoriety is.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's the eternal debate of, you know, the Texas power grid is operating on its own.

Yeah.

We don't want to be part of these federal pact, which everyone shares in electricity and power through a connected or interconnected power grid.

Yeah.

So again, is one of these things that we have to rethink if we want to keep it separate, yeah, that's fine.

But that thing has to be reliable and we need to have backups, etc., etc.

So maybe they're not going to fix it right now in terms of having a lot of money, but at least they can sit down and create a commission and you know, let's do it.

It's a good point.

Speaking of sharing, this week, the governor has announced that he's interested in a voucher style plan.

This is a pretty far step for the governor, who has been a little bit more demure on this.

Now, they've been very vocal on parent empowerment issues.

And this event in Corpus Christi, he talked a lot about, you know, how we were going to give more power to parents to be able to act in these situations, but is been as vocal as he's been to date here, saying that some money used for public schools should be used for or allowed for kind of private purposes, like an education sort of savings event.

This is a policy opposed by teachers unions, education groups, disability, and until recently, the state Board of Education.

But this week, the State Board of Education basically had a resolution saying that they're not going to stand in the way of vouchers.

It didn't endorse vouchers, but they definitely are saying that they're more willing to allow this to happen as state board doesn't have any power over.

Right.

How vouchers are passed or not pass.

Right.

You know, their job is more about, you know, setting school textbook policies and curriculum policies and managing charter school applications.

But it does suggest that vouchers are gaining momentum in the legislative session.

Right.

There is that Governor Abbott has amassed a tremendous amount of political power.

I don't think we've seen a governor who's had this kind of sway to literally get these other officials.

Now, we know that the turnover in the board politically made it more conservative, and so they're probably more likely to embrace vouchers as a policy.

But this is a big change.

Yeah, I mean, it's a big change from a policy perspective.

I still do not understand.

And they are counting and and that's very important.

It gets really difficult.

Yeah.

The state has never had a voucher system, not even even like a like a trial period of it.

Right.

So this is not something that they've really dealt with.

Well, I mean, it's tricky, but like, for example, Senator Jim Middleton has that is senator from Galveston.

He introduced a bill, Senate Bill 176.

And the idea of that bill.

Right, is that families that opt out of the public education system would receive the average amount of money it costs to educate a child, which is around $10,000 a year.

Yeah, okay, fine.

Yeah.

What are you going to do with 10,000 a year?

I mean, where are you going to send your child.

Tuition cost at like your average private school.

Is not $10,000 a.

Year.

If you can even get to one.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

And that's why rural Texans.

Exactly.

Republicans object.

Right.

So I think it's really interesting, but I do think it suggests that there is momentum towards it.

Now, we know everything in the pledge takes a long time, multiple sessions to pass.

But I think if you need evidence that the Texas Republican Party has taken over Texas and has really gotten its roots deep, it's this where you look you don't look at statewide wins the is winning.

Okay.

The explanations for this like the deep in the cupboard evidence is that the state board of education is moving on this.

And so that's going to be a huge, I think, change.

It also suggests that parties trying to get their ducks in a row on this right, in a way that they're trying to get on gambling, expanded sports betting, right?

Maybe casino.

Yeah.

Charlie Garin, a member from Fort Worth, filed a resolution to legalize casino gambling at several high end resorts.

Republicans chairs Chris Leach are sorry.

Jeff Leach and Lois Cole, of course, filed constitutional amendments to legalize sports betting.

They have got the backing of basically every like sports team franchise in the state.

We've been able to bet on horse and dog racing since 87, but progress has been slow since then.

Do you think that we're going to be calm like post election on the congressional referendums in November, hypothetically betting?

Well, I think so, because when you look at education, when you look at vouchers, you need money to fund that thing.

Yeah.

And one of the issues that you can funded with is taxing gambling.

And just to give you an example, New York in 2021 guide in terms of taxes around $1 billion, they spend around $2 billion in terms of, you know, gambling spends is that people go, etc., etc.

and it's $1 billion that you can use to fund some of these programs.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a little bit more complicated in terms of that.

Also, you know, marijuana, taxes, etc., etc.

can play a role.

But again, it's an issue and the most conceptual part is how public education plays a very important role in terms of our ethos of being able to move forward as a society next week we'll continue talking about these things.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for watching.

And thanks to everybody here at Houston Public Media for putting us all together and making us look so good.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We'll see you next week