Welcome to Party Politics.

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

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

Thanks for hanging out with us and talking some politics after kind of a long break.

It feels longer because.

Oh, I don't know, like the entire political world changed, right?

I made a list.

A short list of some things that happened.

Let me see if you have anything to add to it.

Vice President Harris takes over for Joe Biden.

Two assassination attempts, not one, but two assassination time on the former president.

President Trump is also found guilty on 34 felony counts.

The Supreme Court has given broadened immu presidents, on a bunch of actions.

This is important.

We'll talk about this later.

JFK, RFK Jr.

Sorry, bragged about dumping a bear in Central Park and then drops out of the race.

We had 9 house - a whale carcass.

I forgot about the whale.

Sorry.

You know what?

It's just a it's going to be an animal focused show.

I still love it.

Nine Republicans in the Texas House lost their primaries and six of eight lost in runoff races, dramatically reshaping what's going to happen in the next session.

I finished a book.

You finished a book.

And oh, by the way, early voting starts in like a month.

So did I miss anything?

The circus is in town.

Yeah, I don't know.

Oh, no.

I think you have covered everything.

And this has changed, you know, the whole entirety of the landscape.

That's a great point.

The whole interior of the landscape.

Now we have, you know, looking 30,000ft above ground.

A competitive race between, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

And also increase the level of competition in down ballot races.

So it's going to be interesting.

So buckle up.

And obviously, don't forget to vote.

Yeah.

We'll see.

I think you're right.

It shifted some of the landscape.

And Democrats are obviously hoping to pick up some seats in the Senate.

They're hoping to pick up some seats in the House.

This may or may not happen depending on how things go.

And I think you're right that the landscape has shifted.

But there are some fundamentals that haven't changed, including how Texas might go.

So we'll get into all of this this season.

There's no question.

Right.

We're going to see the way this shapes up.

But one thing we're watching this week in particular first is we're talking about spending bills.

Oh my.

The government is going to run out of money.

I know it feels like deja vu, my friend, but this is actually 2024.

I think that we need to stop talking about it.

And then the issue is going to disappear.

Maybe they'll just settle it on their own.

Yeah, and they actually might settle on their own.

Let me just set the stage.

All right.

The House comes back into session this week.

They're going to vote on a spending package which is not that abnormal.

But what is abnormal about it is that they know it's going to fail, right?

They literally know it's going to fail.

The reason it's going to fail is that there's internal dissent about exactly how far to go and what to spend this money on.

So basically, Speaker Johnson is going to put a bill on the floor that the entire leadership team knows is not going to go.

What it would do is to effectively have a continuing resolution in a short term.

But the problem is that this is not consensus among Republicans.

Democrats prefer a longer version of this, Ryan.

And they're pairing this bill with what they call the Save act.

Now, this is a bill that was sponsored by Chip Roy, who is a member of the House from the Austin area.

Basically, it requires there to be, kind of proof of citizenship and voting, which is already law.

But this just cements it.

Of course, in an election year, this is going to create controversy and again, not going to pass.

So the issue here then is sort of what will happen as a result of this.

Well, I mean they have to fund the government, right.

Because well, I mean, because it would be very risky politically speaking.

As for Republicans.

Right.

Why?

Because, you know, Democrats can just throw their hands in the air and say like, yeah, it's them.

And Mitch McConnell, as much as admitted as he says, it would be folly for us.

That's right.

Absolutely.

Sort of have shutdown.

Right?

Absolutely.

All fingers.

It's exactly it's hot potato like right off to out of the microwave after five minutes.

The microwave potato is the hottest.

Yeah.

So you just want to throw it away immediately right.

So I mean eventually they're going to come up.

With something.

Yeah.

Now on the save act, I mean, it it's it's very interesting because most electoral systems around the world have, as we have here, that in order to vote, you have to be a US citizen.

Right?

The way that you're saying it.

Yeah.

Cementing and providing ID, you know, tackles a very important segment of the population that is most likely college kids and for example, people that are disenfranchized, for example, homeless, etcetera, etcetera.

Right.

So people that are do not have proof of citizenship readily available are going to be the most affected.

And where they are, you a citizens.

So that's going to be potentially corroding.

And that's why, you know, Democrats are saying Yeah it's a no go.

And I think you're right.

Yeah.

Actually there's a lot of scholarship on this which suggests that people don't know and or aren't able to kind of quickly prove that they're citizens even though they might be.

And that creates sort of havoc in the election.

And so partly that's the reason Democrats are going to vote against it.

But it's not the only reason it's going to fail.

Part of the reason it's going to fail is that even internally, Republicans say we don't want a continuing resolution, like we want to kind of fund this for a longer period.

And I want to give Donald Trump when he's elected, they're hoping, a chance to be able to, you know, kind of tinker with this, you know, after after the election, which this is a risky strategy.

In addition to that.

But.

Well, the problem is that if they don't have some kind of a wedge to try to force them to get something done spending wise in December, then it jeopardizes other must pass bills like defense bills.

It also jeopardizes the potential for there to be more money for FEMA and disaster relief, more money for the Secret Service, right.

Which of course seems to be a continual problem.

Secret service is asking for more money to defend Donald Trump since, you know, apparently it's hard to defend golf courses, which makes a lot of sense.

They're huge.

Right.

So this is a problem that, you know, Republicans are going to have to really face, but it doesn't sound like they're that worried about it failing.

But at the end of the day, it does, I think, indicate that there is a real kind of internal problem.

The other problem I want to note is this Ronnie Jackson, who's a member of, Congress here from Texas, basically said that, it would be difficult for Speaker Johnson to continue if these things continue to fail in this way, which is a sort of, I don't know, kind of backhanded way to say that, like, your speakership is in jeopardy.

I want to flag one last thing.

Right.

And that's that.

Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker.

Right.

Ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been raising a ton of money.

He's been raising $10 million.

He's going to give a bunch of this money to Republicans, $4 million he raised this last weekend here in Texas.

Is there a possibility of, McCarthy the 2.0 or is this just sort of a chaos sort of situation that can't be resolved?

Oh.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

A little intrigue for.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, yeah, I have to think about that in terms of more possible ways.

I don't think that there is a clear path because you still have those that really, really, really, really oppose.

Just ask Matt Gates.

Yeah, exactly.

That's what I was.

Yeah.

And that's the other thing that we saw Matt Gates in the Republican National Convention with a different look.

Yeah.

So yeah, I don't think that money can buy, you know, good.

You know, grievances with Matt Gates I thought money could buy friendship Yeah.

No, I don't think that not no, not in this case.

Too difficult.

I think it's a great point.

I think for sure that the next session will tell us a lot about what's going on, right?

Because, look, we have an election and there are a lot of seats that are up and potentially the balance of power shift in a way, the Republicans could have more moderate to say that we'd like to have somebody who knows what they're doing, like Kevin McCarthy.

Yeah.

So we'll see.

All right.

Well, let's can you talk about voting here?

We know we have a competitive Senate race here in Texas.

This week in the US, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is basically trying to use Donald Trump statements on IVF to make a wedge into the Republican coalition.

Ted Cruz's bill that is co-sponsored with Katie Britt of Alabama, basically says that the the the the the country will deny Medicaid, reimbursements if a state decides to ban IVF.

Right.

There are Democrats put a bill out that goes a step further, that says that as Donald Trump said that he would do, we're going to pay for all of your treatments, which is insanely expensive and probably totally impractical.

But Schumer calls Trump's bluff and says, hey, let's vote on this.

Now, Cruz is mad because this is a bill that he had sort of tried to get passed, didn't pass the first time.

It hit in his mind is a more kind of common sense, Bill.

But for Democrats, especially for Schumer, they want a wedge.

Right.

What do you think about the way this is playing out politically?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, he's what you would expect is what Republicans have done with immigration, right.

Saying that there's going to be, you know, or there are millions of people crossing the border every day.

That's their issue.

Yeah, right.

And that's politics.

And that's the game that they're playing.

Yeah.

And Democrats are playing the other game.

Yeah.

And obviously both issues such as immigration and reproductive rights have issues, right.

Especially after, Roe v Wade was, erased from the books by the Supreme Court.

And obviously, these things, you know, need one way or the other, legal protections, etc., etc., both things.

Right?

Oddly enough, fall into Congress, but we have a dysfunctional Congress.

So dysfunctional Congress is not going to be able to pass any legislation one way or the other because it's completely split in half.

So I think that Democrats are just taking one, page from, Republicans playbook and saying, okay, we're going to do this.

Yeah.

And they got what they wanted.

Right.

And what's interesting to me is that has a kind of like geopolitical strategy.

If the Republicans had the ability to pass a budget that everyone agreed to, they could kind of put that aside and focus on these kinds of messaging bills, which is exactly what people do an election year.

Yeah, this is not a surprise.

But now that they're tied up with trying to figure out how to fund the government, no small thing, right?

This is a, like, a missed opportunity for them.

But I think you're right.

Like, the abortion issue is a big issue, right?

This is something that definitely is going to be part of the way Democrats are able to win, especially in coalitions like these college educated suburban voters, men and women, but especially women.

Right.

The gender gap is going to be big.

We'll talk about Taylor Swift versus Donald Trump in a second, but this is going to be a major issue.

So I think the Democrats know exactly what they're doing and they're kind of using Donald Trump's kind of how do you say it?

Sort of, inconsistency against it.

Right.

And also this issue tends to be, you know, when you're talking about reproductive rights, IVF, abortion bans, etc., etc.

this is an issue that is, you know, very clear in every single, you know, men and women understands the consequences.

Yes.

Right.

Dads and moms understand the consequence of that.

So it is very clear to say these side ones, these and these side ones that.

Yeah.

On immigration, I think that Democrats have been able to muddle the waters a little bit.

So it's like, yeah, we won, you know.

Yes.

Asylum seekers, etc., etc.

but all worlds are going to throw some.

Yeah.

You know, especially some, you know, secure national security or, security enforcement, whatever.

You want for sure.

Exactly.

And you see that, for example, in, in, in our is it going to work?

Well, soon enough.

We'll see.

We'll see very soon.

But it's, it's more, you know, nebulous.

And then on the other hand, you know, immigration may be something abstract, right?

If you go to farmers, ranchers, etc., that, that have H-1b, workers, it's like, yeah, we want immigration because there's no one work in the fields.

Right?

So for some people it's going to be very clear, but from some other is going to be like, oh wait, what?

Yeah, it's a great point.

Let's talk about Collin Allred Yeah.

As usual.

I mean, yeah, just making sure that that our viewers and listeners know.

Oh that I like I think they.

Know them in case they're.

Yeah.

Stuck in traffic.

Are they tuned out for a second?

Oh, gotcha.

Let's talk about Collin Allred.

This week, U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, who was formerly a member of the House from, Montana, a fairly conservative Republican, right.

She was ahead of the J6 committee.

She, came out and backed calling all red for the US Senate, of course, running against Ted Cruz, they raised a bunch of money.

Cheney says her biggest problem with Cruz relates to his actions on January 6th, which basically he would he objected to certifying the results of the presidential election.

In contrast, she says all Red was prepared to physically defend the House.

Right?

Not surprisingly, the guys built like a mountain.

Yeah, I played linebacker in the NFL.

Obviously, that's a big plus, when you need to defend something.

But I wonder from you kind of what you think about this.

And if you think this will matter.

To me, as you mentioned, the kind of race policies come down to the following, right?

We're talking about the sort of democracy and abortion versus immigration, border security and inflation.

Right.

The Republicans.

So it's going to be a turnout game, right, for both.

But I think my question to you is sort of do you think that this in particular will have an effect, like the democracy portion of the concern will be important?

I mean, I don't know.

And my - its because it matters to a certain segment of the electorate.

Right.

For other segment of the electorate, like it doesn't matter.

Like it's whatever.

For them.

Democracy is not at risk.

You know, changes in terms of how, you know, the executive have, for example, control over the bureaucracy, over career bureaucrats.

And, you know, career bureaucrats means people are specialized in a very specific role of governmental action, right?

Like, for example, scientists working at the EPA that do science, you know, so for them it's like, yeah, whatever.

Sure.

So what it means is that, you know, you have to reach to the middle, right?

You have to find a message that is going to resonate among especially, you know, that some will call independents and the so called undecided.

How would they undecided?

I have no idea because it's it's not like you have 11,000 choices, right?

You have very clear choices.

You can make your mind decide or that side.

So I don't understand the undecided or, you know, the third choices I'm we're going to vote then you're not on you're not an undecided board.

You are simply a non register.

Well no a registered voter that is not going to vote.

So you go to that side.

All right.

Leave the people here.

And the question is like can they be brought in with this messaging.

Right.

It's possible.

But it's really expensive to do this.

I mean, you and I had an academic work on this.

It's really hard to get people who don't otherwise tend to vote to vote.

So definitely a problem, I think for Collin.

All right, here in Texas.

And we'll talk a lot about this in the next coming weeks.

But there really hasn't been a big investment from outside of Texas into Texas.

Now he's raising big money.

So is Ted Cruz.

Super are backing them both.

But it hasn't really manifest in terms of a lot of money.

And part of the reason is the map is really a challenge for Democrats, right?

They're trying to win a bunch of seats and defend a bunch of seats that are really hard.

So they're probably going to lose Montana and West Virginia.

That's already, I think, baked into the cake.

Maybe they can win Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida.

They're close races there.

They'd like to see that because they need those for also the presidential side, they're doing double duty.

They're probably going to win Arizona and probably going to win Maryland.

But that's not really a net gain for them.

So just the map doesn't look good for a big investment in taxes, even if it's the case that people say that's possible.

Another kind of wild card on this is Taylor Swift.

Now, I know this is your favorite topic, right?

Your boys love Taylor Swift.

My boys love Taylor Swift.

I didn't know that.

But I do love Taylor.

I love them, the kids don't.

There's definitely a gender gap in our house when it comes to Swift.

At least mostly a.

Gender, right?

Right, right.

But obviously she came out to endorse, for president or sorry to former vice current vice President Kamala Harris.

Yeah.

And, Donald Trump didn't like it.

He said that he literally, in all caps hates Taylor Swift.

Yeah.

What do you make of this is going to matter?

I mean, once again, is is these things right?

One thing is, you know, all the lights in the world and.

Yeah, let's go away, you know, on both sides riding boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

But a very different thing, right, is, first of all, check that you are registered to vote.

And if you're not registered to vote you have to go and register yourself.

Right.

And then the most complicated part right is to set a time.

Time.

Yeah.

That doesn't take long, right?

Especially with both centers here.

In most or very significant, big counties in Texas is to go out and vote.

Yeah.

Right.

So it would be very interesting to see, you know, how that, you know, Gen-Z, young millennials, are going to actually go out in term out.

So over the past elections we have seen that it has been growing consistently.

And I think that the issues at hand in this election, especially when you're thinking about, you know, reproductive rights, etc., etc., are extremely important to motivate people.

Yeah.

I, we saw Billie Eilish and and her brother, Finneas.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm.

I'm nodding like I know what you're talking about.

I know who Billie Eilish is.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good.

You know, also endorsing, Harris.

Right.

And the reason behind was, you know, these two same reasons.

Right.

They said, well, on the one hand it's about reproductive rights period.

End of story.

And that was said.

It may make a marginal difference.

And honestly that's what the election will come down to.

Right.

Yeah.

She's from Pennsylvania and they need to win Democrats in Pennsylvania.

Whoever wins Pennsylvania is going to have a major advantage in winning Electoral College, correct?

It's possible, but honestly, polling suggests it probably doesn't have that much of an effect on people.

I'm not surprised, but it does, I think, indicate that Donald Trump and JD Vance are not worried about the historic gender gap that's likely to come for them, so that's a probably yeah, like a like a real blind spot for them, because that's going to be a problem for them to win the kind of coalition they need, especially in suburban areas where they're going to lose these in in numbers that are problematic.

For them, and especially where, you know, since the 70s, that tendency of, you know, going against, for example, abortion or reproductive rights, has been close and closer and closer.

And the difference or the partizan difference, right, does not exist anymore.

Yes.

As I said, used to be in the 1970s.

Right.

So that is very, very important in terms of that.

And I think that the messaging that some Democrats are saying is like, look, we need the right, right, whether you or you or you will, you know, go for it or not.

That's a personal decision.

We respect that.

No one is making you do anything.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk a little Texas because there's a lot of things happening here before what promises to be a very contentious legislative session.

We've got six people running.

John Smith, who this week announced he's the fifth Republican running against state felon Anna Maria Ramos from North Texas, a Democrat running, for speaker.

What do you make of all this?

Oh, boy.

Well, first of all, obviously, you know, the Republican caucus or conference or whatnot, we'll have to narrow it down.

Well, that's what they're doing this week.

Almost exactly.

At least the ones who are against.

Are.

Going to join.

Yes.

Obviously.

So they have to narrow it down.

Yeah.

Right.

And then I think the Ramos situation is very interesting.

Right.

Why?

Because the fact that Representative Ramos is throwing her hat in the ring and say, like, I want to have a, you know, a go.

Yeah.

Right.

There could be a couple of rounds in terms of, of voting, but it could distract, right?

Whether Democrats are going to support Phelan or not Phelan wheather Phelan wants Democrats to support him.

100%.

Or not 100%.

So he just creates, I think, a little bit more of, interesting, dilemmas in terms of who's going to get where and how.

And obviously for, you know, if Phelan wants to win, he will need to have, you know, 100% of Democrats supporting.

Yeah.

And that's going to be a political problem for him.

If he doesn't win, this is going to be, slow down the sluggish, most sluggish session we've seen.

And we'll talk about this when we get closer to it.

But the fact that you have so many people running is definitely a political kind of jab against Phelan and sort of his kind of moderation, I guess you could say, but obviously is, you know, only in the eye of the beholder.

Some of the people running for speaker are actually running for Senate or for other higher offices who just kind of prop their profile up.

And I think you'd probably include Representative Ramos on this, right?

I mean, I think that this kind of muscular play is definitely designed to show that Democrats still have relevancy here.

Right?

As you said, it's something that they need to have.

And Republicans can't ignore it and certainly feel and can't ignore it.

So in a way, this is a kind of kind of really interesting kind of power play.

But it's also, I think, the sort of story that Democrats are not in sync.

Right?

She would never have announced for speaker without clearing it, right, with somebody who there was a kind of real unity and strategy.

Right?

But no way she cleared this bride, Trey Martinez Fisher, who's the caucus chair.

Right.

This is sort of, you know, her own thing, which is definitely kind of in keeping with her kind of agitator mindset, but also definitely is going to kind of gum things up the first couple weeks of the session.

And as you say, I think that, you know, the House, especially the House, the Senate does not.

Right.

But the House needs Democrats if they want to move something, even if Democrats are not with any, committee chairs or anything like that, they still can derail these things.

They can slow things down.

Oh, yeah.

The point of order is right.

I was dreaming about last night.

About point of order.

Should you gavel, gavel to gavel.

Boom.

Point of order, then boom, boom.

So the busiest person is going to be the Parliamentarian, right?

It's going to be I mean, that's going to be the person that he's going to be working the hardest.

The whoever speaker is going to have like a huge forearm on one side from banging that.

Oh yeah.

So, so it's going to be interesting.

And we'll see after this week what happens with the potential.

You know, for sure.

Runner up from the Republican Party.

Well, let's shift to Houston for our last point.

And that's about John Whitmire is the mayor state of the city address.

What did you make of it?

What grade do you give him for his first, you know, year or so in office?

I'll defer to you.

I'm going to give him a B, okay.

On a curve.

There are two bright points.

One is that, you know, there are two other disasters which the city handled.

Well, there's also a big settlement with firefighters, but the problems have been some unforced errors, right?

He's been challenging people on mobility issues.

He's, kind of run afoul of some member city council on that and other points.

There are some unforced errors, like his comments about the, you know, people who are immigrants in Gulfton, in, the fact that he called Lina Hidalgo, his fiance, a nerd, right?

In a joking way, I think, but it's been a mixed bag for him.

That said, people knew what they were getting.

They're getting a pugnacious mayor, and that's pretty much the way he's been.

Yeah, no, I agree, another you know, interesting point is that, you know, yesterday he says, well, at least we now have a working relationship with Austin, with the state government.

And that's important because, you know, just from a pure public policy perspective, forget about the political issues.

Right?

You know, see, these are creatures of the state.

We don't have, legal standing, constitutionally speaking.

So, you know, is it good to be in good working relationship, professionally speaking, you know, on the policy arena with the state?

Absolutely.

But yes, I agree, it's, a matter that, you know, you need to have especially city council, you know, like.

Yeah, you know, as a strong mayor, he can do a lot to set the agenda and get his way.

But you still have to kind of work with the other side and with other members.

We'll see.

It's like early.

But we're going to continue talking about those things next week and many, many more.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina and I'm Brandon Rott more Party Politics next week.