Not.

Oh, yeah.

But now that we're.

All out there, welcome to party politics.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston, Go Cougs!

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

We are sweet 16 bound.

We are decked out in our cougar stuff.

This is not my lucky cougar shirt.

I'm going to save that for the actual day.

Now, as you all know, we're not taping the day that it comes out, but we are prepared and we are committed.

So this is going to be a good year.

I think they look strong.

Unfortunately, all my other all alma maters got knocked o So I'm all in on the cougars, baby.

Let's go.

But we were not the only ones with a bad week.

Northwestern, Purdue.

Both went down.

My alma maters, but even worse perhaps than that.

Is Donald Trump facing potentially an indictment in New York City?

This is the return of the hush money caper.

Obviously, this dominated the news at the time of our recording.

We don't know for sure what's going to happen, but all indications are that the former president will be indicted this week.

Effectively, this is a case involving hush money.

So like I said, this is a allegations that the former president paid off porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign to keep her quiet about an alleged affair she'd had with Trump in 2006.

The Manhattan district attorney apparently is planning on indicting him.

Basically the charges against violating state law, against falsifying a business record.

So kind of boring.

Not the kind of thing I think that most Trump opponents were hoping that he'd get called to the carpet on, but certainly something that he is going to face a reckoning on.

Or will he and I guess that's my question to you is are we really thinking here that Donald Trump is going to suffer some political consequence for this or do you think that this is going to just be one more grievance he can throw in the fire?

Well, I mean, he's still have at least four more investigations, right.

This won't be the last time you hear about an Edwards indictment and Donald Cycles.

I mean, most of it I think it has to be related to how the Republican Party and the MAGA movement is going to respond.

Yeah, obviously, if he gets indicted, then, you know, it's going to be problematic for him to run a presidential campaign under indictment.

But, you know, Trump being Trump, yeah, he's going to use that to his advantage.

So he can be or actually the district attorney from New York can be actually helping Trump to get that spark that he has not gotten.

Yeah.

Especially now on especially with the you know, the Santis shadowing him.

Yeah.

Step by step.

The shadow boxing of Donald Trump.

Oh, yeah, that's good, actually.

So I think I mean, that's how I see it.

You know, regardless of the legal ramifications that this could happen.

Yeah, yeah.

I kind of feel like it's, it's ho hum because I mean, as somebody who studies scandals, the biggest and most important scandals are the ones that are more recent.

So the potency matters in terms of his relevance and we already know the story, right?

This has been kind of discussed.

It's salacious and bizarre, but it's already something we know.

And so it's not like it's new information.

So those are the ones that really hurt.

And so in that sense, I don't think is going to hurt him that much.

But there's a lot of new stuff here, the right one.

I mean, you're talking about a former president who was going to be indicted.

And although the charges, like I said, are a little bit boring and really stem from basically like a like a records fraud type thing, it's still pretty novel.

The Republicans are saying that this is kind of a stretch.

Right.

Like this isn't something that is a federal case.

And so we know federal prosecutors passed on it.

So the Manhattan DA's comes out for blood.

So we're going to certainly see that.

And the other thing that's really interesting about that connected to that is that the Congress has talked about bringing in the D.A., brag to have kind of a justification for this.

And this would be kind of an unprecedented intervention in state level prosecutions.

So there's all kinds of new stuff here.

I mean, do you think the novelty of it is going to have an impact on the American public sort of impression about how Donald Trump is as a politician?

No!

No?

The correct answer is no.

Absolutely not.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's going to be another show.

Yeah.

And that's the point.

Now, instead of, you know, being the Democrats calling the shots, it's going to be the Republicans calling the shots.

Yeah, and that's about it.

And again, these are, you know, ignites a little bit more of or gives Trump a little bit more oxygen in terms of reviving the fire.

You know that what we saw a few weeks ago in C PAC was, you know, same thing, right?

So he's trying to change the narrative.

And I think that changing narrative is going to be very important because he said social truth-ed it?

Mm hmm.

Yes.

Instead of tweeted.

Yes.

Social truth-ed it.

The truth-ed?

He truth-ed.

The truth told?

on over the weekend.

Yeah, yeah.

And since then it has been nonstop.

Yeah.

Right.

And it's going to be this week and he's going to be next week.

So he already changed the narrative.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, Donald Trump does nothing.

You know, if he does anything, well, it's about getting attention to Donald Trump, right.

Like that is a winning strategy.

And so I actually think this is good for Donald Trump and this is going to be sort of controversial.

I think scandals are good generally because they highlight this malfeasance and they encourage the rest of the system to react.

And so the scholarship that I've done in this, I think clearly shows that scandals have a positive effect.

But in this case, the positive effect is politically for Donald Trump.

So, number one, the base loves it, right?

They love Donald Trump's, you know, bloody nose politics.

Right.

The money that's going to flow from this to him is impressive, too.

We know the controversy sells and certainly it's the case for the base that they are going to pony up that money.

And also, too, we know that the scholarship on this says that when a politician frames themselves in a scandal as a hero versus the villains, which everybody else, it's successful.

So that narrative really, like you said, does sell.

So I think that that plus the fact that Republicans are all circling the wagons right now.

They're all in retreat this week in Maryland.

Right.

Kind of talking about legislative strategy.

And honestly, for the first couple of months of the Congress, they've done pretty well, like they've gotten things passed and they've been able to kind of hold the line and keep everybody in order, even on a face of having their former leader indicted.

Right.

They're circling the wagons for him.

So there's a lot of things here, I think, that point to possible success for Donald Trump on this, which is bizarre to think about, right.

Considering that, you know, possibility of serving jail time is a political win.

I don't even know what that world looks like.

Right.

So that.

Right.

So it's interesting to see.

Well, we're going to obviously follow this because there's a lot more to be discussed as things shake out.

But the kind of other good national political news of the week was that none other than Ted Lasso and company were at the White House.

So your TED Lasso fan out of you're a soccer fan.

So you're you're you're a biscuits with the boss kind of a we should do biscuits here with you know biscuits with party politics.

Yeah we can work that out.

I mean, those look very good.

They look.

Good.

Yeah.

Well, Eddie, back to themselves.

So with care, that's.

That's good.

Right?

Right.

That's good.

So I think we all need a little fresh air.

I had a little, little, little breath of of humanity.

Right.

So before we talk about the rest of the chaos... System and, you know, he's basically, you know, highlighted a very significant problem that, yes, we all have.

Right.

And that's just mental health awareness.

Yeah.

Mental health is, you know, one of the most important health public health problems that we face.

And it has always been a taboo.

Right.

And I think that having him and the cast and Trent Crimm asking questions, that was kind of funny.

Yeah.

But having, you know, raising that issue, I think it's extremely important.

And I think that he dealt with it in a very humane way.

Right.

Like, you know, trying to reach across.

And obviously his message was, you know, this one thing that affects, you know, both sides of the aisle.

I think that was a nice gesture.

And I think it's important to I think so to underscore it once again, it's.

Nice to see it.

Yeah.

Especially in the midst of all the kind of negativity and friction.

Right.

It's good to have a kind of reminder that, you know, we're all human here.

And so we have these kinds of problems.

Well, thinking about problems in a more functional public policy sense.

The other big news of the week is that there's a hostile takeover of HISD by the state.

And how hostile depends on your perspective.

I think because there are some people who look at this and say HISD is this brok It needs to be re figured.

And some people say that this is basically an disenfranchisement of all of the voters in HISD and all the people who have committed to making HISD better over the years.

And as we know, you know, things have actually gotten better.

So if you haven't been paying attention to this, the news is pretty profound.

That's the Texas Education Agency is taking over HISD.

This ends a four year legal battle.

Just some history here.

In 2015, Texas passed a law mandating a state takeover.

If a district has a campus that has a failing grade for five consecutive years, how many schools are in HISD?

How many high schools?

200, something like that.

Right.

So they had one that was failing.

TEA try But then there was a kind of legal fight.

This means that TEA will replace the democratically elected school board and superintendent with a board of managers starting in June.

That means that the 187,000 students, staff and faculty are all kind of in limbo a little bit right now.

So talk us through what this means and kind of what the process looks like in terms of on the ground changes for HISD.

Well, I mean, it's very interesting because this process starting 2019 right now, then it got halted because of the pandemic and then, as you said, the legal challenges, etc., etc..

Since then, you know, two things that happened right?

Whitley High School, that was a high school that failed to meet the standards, now receive a passing.

Rating better than Dallas ISD and San Antonio Northside ISD.

It's one.

Yeah right.

And the other one is that the previous board has been replaced.

Yes.

Right.

So you know, if you look at the substance of the of the takeover, it's like, well, yeah, but.

What are you taking over now?

You're taking over a new thing.

Exactly.

Different these thing already.

Like, you know what, you were habeus corpus, right?

Yes.

It's not there anymore.

Yeah.

There's no dead body or anything like that.

It's gone.

So still ta has, you know, the right to do it and they just did it.

But the question is, why are we trying to accomplish.

Yeah Commissioner Moore that has experience as a support member.

He was part of the Dallas ISD for a couple of years or even more.

He's person that perhaps understands more than we do in terms of what school districts need to have.

One thing is that for sure, right no one thinks that is the is performing at the level that it should be performing.

Yeah, right.

Number one.

Number two, yes, there are operational issues within the budget issues, control measures, etc.. And obviously, you know, the bickering that we have with the previous board that is non existent anymore.

Yeah, I do think that these board wise really trying to concentrate on important issues that refer to, you know, educational policy.

Is this good or bad?

Well, we just have to wait.

Yeah, right.

It's a process that can take four years.

It can in this case, it can take up to two years.

Right.

In terms of the the process, yeah.

You said he didn't know as much about this as Mike McGrath, that maybe you do.

Actually, it sounds like you do.

So let me throw another one at you.

They outlined the following goals to decide how and whether or not reform efforts are successful.

Number one, no campuses should get a failing grade for multiple years.

Number two, the special education program should be in compliance with state and federal regulations.

And number three, the board should demonstrate procedures and behavior focused on student outcomes.

Can they meet that goal in a reasonable amount of time so that they can carry the momentum of success forward?

Well, I mean, in my opinion, the metrics are good, right?

Okay.

Doubt any politics or anything like that?

Yeah, right.

Just look in from a pure, you know, public policy perspective.

It's like, yeah, I mean, those make sense.

Okay, right.

What's behind?

I'm not going to get into that.

Okay.

Yeah, that's a that's a whole other thing.

That's a whole can of worms that we don't know what's going on.

Right.

Right.

And that's the politics surrounding this.

Yeah.

And it's a political event.

Well, that's one.

And that's one thing we are interested in is the politics of it.

Right.

And I guess then there's this general push from the state to control what happens at the local level.

One thing we didn't talk about last week, but that was important is that the House is held hearings on a wide ranging preemption bill that would prevent local governments from doing virtually anything in terms of economic changes.

And that's really most of what the ordinances at the local level do.

So the state is continuing this long tradition of about a decade of controlling what local governments do.

This comes at a weird moment.

It wasn't planned this way, right where this cascade comes in, you've got the state taking over all the local functions, but it certainly hits at that same moment where people are asking questions about whether or not the state should be the one in charge of this.

Right.

So that's one question I think that we need to have addressed.

You know, obviously, it comes in the context of having vouchers be a major force in the politics of the session.

And we talked about this a lot.

But this week, the governor and the Texas Public Policy Foundation is busing in supporters for a big rally.

The Senate Education Committee held a hearing on the voucher plan.

So things are moving quickly in terms of public and political pressure.

So do you think that this is all part of a bigger play to introduce vouchers by implying or even outright saying that public education's broken and so something else.

Has to be.

Oh, yeah, absolutely right.

It's a it's a it's a PR strategy.

Yeah.

Because you say well look at each is the yeah, yeah.

The biggest school district in the state is failing and.

We can save it and so we need these vouchers.

Yeah.

But again that has implications in terms of how public education is going to be funded, etc., etc., that we discussed last week.

But you know, the other important part here and I guess the I guess constitutional nature of.

The quotes is disturbing.

But okay.

I mean, we know that, you know, cities, right?

Yeah.

Are, you know, creatures of this state.

Yes.

And they can do the states can do whatever they want.

They want to split Houston in Houston 2.0.

They can do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the power of the state.

Which Houston would you live in?

2.0 or even one as long as 2.0 has got Villa Arcos.

I'm okay with- Let's do that!

Breakfast tacos that's all I want!

The other the other point here is that you know the state right.

And the state leadership has always complained about federal intervention on state matters.

Yeah, right.

Like, you know, Governor Abbot made his, you know, political career out of suing the Obama administration.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So you are like, yeah.

You don't like intervention, but yeah, that's all you do now.

I don't I don't get it.

Well, and you say the constitutional question is important for a couple of reasons.

For the first is that obviously, you know, public ed is a big component of the funding model and that's constitutionally driven.

So that has to be thought through on the vouchers.

question.

But the other in whole, I'm not so sure that Republicans are worried about that, given that they control literally the courts.

On the other constitutional question is.

How much control local government should have.

So could the court step in and say a sweeping bill like the House bill 2127 that says we're going to basically local government can do nothing, that the state tells them that they unless they tells them they can do it right.

That's too sweeping.

Perhaps it could be.

The courts say, okay, too far.

You know what I mean?

You can do a piece by piece, but you can't do kind of everything.

So we'll see how the courts push back on this.

But I want to pick up on something you said, and that's kind of how to fix this.

So really, two questions to you.

You know, well, one one big question.

Is it will it work?

I mean, isn't that the thing?

I mean, obviously, people are frustrated because this means that, you know, you've got this sort of locally elected board that doesn't have any power anymore.

And so global control is going to be minimized.

That's definitely an issue.

But like, if it solves the problem and it's temporary, then it's a it's a good fix.

And so I guess that's the question is do you think that's the case?

Some of the data on this are kind of not so compelling, so call me skeptical.

This is going to work.

You know, we don't editorialize here.

It's on our roll.

We we report and you decide.

But like the data on the shows, the takeovers historically haven't necessarily produced better results.

Right.

And so, I mean, the lots of ways to kind of look at this.

So I'm not sure it's necessarily going to work.

Right.

And it's never been tested in a district this big.

The one thing that has been shown to work effectively is more money, right?

Simply put, like more money.

So Texas spends an average of $10,000 per pupil.

That's basically 3000 less.

The national average in USD, that number per pupil is $9,300.

So we're even lower than what Texas spends, which is already pretty low.

So I mean, is it just a money situation where that's going to solve the problem or is there other ways around it?

Well, I think well, resources are extremely important.

Yeah.

And those are, you know, higher teacher pay.

Yeah.

Better schools, better equipment, so on and so forth.

Right.

So that's one part of the question.

The funding, I think it's fundamental.

Right.

And why?

Because how we are funding school budgets is basically through attendance.

Okay.

And that is problematic.

Yeah, I do the head count and then, you know, you get more money, less money, etc., etc.. Yeah.

The other important issue is that we have COVID and that has decreased, you know, school attendance, the vouchers.

Right.

And all the politics surrounding education.

Education is extremely important for the well-being of the state, its economic future and everything.

Yeah, if we don't have capable human capital that is going to enter higher education or vocational schools or whatever it is, right?

Yeah.

We're going to be hurt.

Yes.

And these miracle that we experience with the budget surplus that we have is not going to happen again.

Yeah, it's not going to happen again because we had COVID .

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we have a lot of money from the feds that state government don't like.

Yeah.

They like the green.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

We like Uncle Sam when you know the wallets open.

Exactly.

So.

So that miracle that we're experiencing right now is not going to happen ever again.

Interesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

The fiscal growth of the state.

Some people have said that is going to go down.

Yeah.

By 2024.

Yeah.

Right.

So it's how we're using that money, especially for issues regarding school now going back to HISD, I don't know.

I mean, as I said, you know, the metrics are good, right?

And the metrics are like, oh, yeah, it makes sense.

We can hit these targets.

That's perfect.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Remember that.

Having those targets, if you have the right implementation.

Yeah, they're just you.

It doesn't matter.

And I don't understand how that plan is going to be done in two years.

That cannot happen.

Yeah.

The massive side of ACA is so big that having those things is going to be very problematic because now they're you're talking about, you know, pricing parts principals, school principals control.

Yes.

They have a lot of control.

So are you going to centralize that?

Yeah.

If you centralize the decision making process at the school level.

Right, you're going to be hurting, you know, the reaction and he's going to be the same time.

Yeah.

That you know, that HISD is going to take of local decisions at the school level.

Yeah.

So it's a mix.

Yeah.

And it's a moving target because, you know, not only will it be the case that you're making these reforms, but you're going have people who leave, right?

Some teachers are going to get fired up.

Principals might leave and may see students say, well, we're going to, you know, migrate to, you know, private school or to a different district.

So there's all kinds of different kind of churn.

So a short term fix is going to be really hard here.

We've never seen it work in a district this big that quickly.

So we'll see.

Let's talk about something less complicated.

And that's the presidential election.

Okay.

Donald Trump has picked Waco as his first 2024 official rally.

This wouldn't necessarily be news because he comes to Texas fairly often, but it does come in the middle of an anniversary of the Branch Davidians interaction with the federal government.

Right.

That was a moment where I remember very vividly growing up here that resulted in the death of 75 members in 1994.

I'm actually rereading a book that's really good by Geoff Garin.

It's called Waco, and really fascinating story about how that all went down and the implications for kind of civil unrest.

So one that we didn't talk about with respect to the possible Trump indictment was that he basically suggested that there be a defense of him in some generic way.

And now we know what this looks like because we've seen it before on January 6th.

Are we worried about the kind of civil interaction or civil intervention here?

Is it going to be another one of these moments where, you know, he's spurring on these groups to engage in possible violence?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I think that, you know, it's you just need to throw a match, just like just a spark.

Just a spark is enough.

Yeah, enough.

And that's going to be extremely paramount.

And I think that if he's clear about that, yeah, then the implications are going to be very hard for him.

And I think that that's going to be the moment where the GOP.

Yeah.

Is going to say, Oh, that's.

It, okay, that's.

Bad.

I'm going to.

Hold you to that because I'm curious to see if that's the moment.

But as of now, he's doing okay.

I mean, polling in Texas has got him in pretty good shape.

There is a bit of a weird dip.

So in November, DeSantis had a bit of a lead in polling by CWC Research.

In March, it shifted.

There's about 27 point swing, so Trump has got a lead of 43 to 27 in that head to head match up with Haley at 5% and everybody else that, you know, less than 5%.

So DeSantis is, you know, I think got a moment and then that moment kind of left.

And so Trump is using his visit here to Texas to kind of prime that.

And as we said, you know, obviously to being indicted actually may oddly help him.

But one thing that help may help Ron DeSantis is that he got an endorsement from Chip Roy, a congressman who has had some friction with Donald Trump.

So do you think that this is going to be a kind of meaningful change, changes the first Texan, the first member of Congress to endorse DeSantis?

Is this going to be some momentum shift again for DeSantis?

Well, I mean, yes and no.

Right.

Because I think that, you know, obviously, Chip Roy is not from Florida.

Right.

So he has hasn't, you know, I guess, political mystique.

Right.

That a congressman that is very conservative.

Right.

Yeah.

Is going to endorse it.

I mean, he has already endorsed someone that is not even.

Right.

Right.

Running for president.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

So that's one thing I think that, you know, what he said was very perhaps hurtful to Trump.

You don't want to hurt Trump's feelings.

That's a bad place to be.

You're going to get a nickname.

But but, you know, he said it's time for younger but proven leadership to offer American aid.

Solid use of transformational oof like boom.

It's like when my kids call me Boomer, you know, like, I'm not a boomer, first of all.

Second of all, I'm not old, even though now I am old.

I'm Chip Roy, I think.

Yeah, he's been a bomb thrower and I think they're tired of Trump.

I think the Freedom Caucus wants to find a way to win.

And we saw this with murdered Marjorie Taylor GREENE to write like they're willing to reform and work with the system to get things done.

So I'm curious to see how this plays out, but I think Chip Roy is going to get some blowback on, you know, in his own district who definitely supports Trump.

So it could be tougher in a primary for him.

I don't think he's going to get primaried since he's so well-liked in that community.

But I definitely think he's going to get some blowback.

So that's never politically fun.

Well, yeah, but I mean, the rallies are going to be, as you say, in Waco, in the regional, um, uh, Waco Airport and as the slogan says, you know, fly easy, fly Waco.

So I don't know if he's going to be an easy fly.

Okay.

For might be a little bumpy.

I think it's turbulence in the air.

Right.

And I think that, you know, it creates a different environment.

But again, this is on the heels of his announcement that he's going to be indicted.

We'll see what happens.

And next week, we're going to take another look.

Hey, thanks to everybody here at Houston Public Media for making us look and sound so good.

And thanks to you all for watching and for listening.

Go Coogs!

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rotttinghaus.

We'll see you next week.