Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

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

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

Thanks for taking a break from Taylor Swift and or football to talk some politics with us.

I know it's been a lot lately and will be a.

Little convoluted now.

They're all saying.

You know what, It's all part of the same package and we're here to deliver it.

Right.

All right.

There's a lot going on this week, so we should get into it.

And I want to ask you the number one swifty in this country about what's happening in Washington, D.C., especially about the border bill.

We've previewed this a couple of for a couple of weeks now.

It's basically busted.

What is the sort of source of the complication in D.C. and why is it that we can't get some progress on immigration reform?

Well, it's President Trump.

Yeah.

Basically, he stopped a deal.

Yeah.

So if you remember correctly, a few years, I mean, a few weeks ago.

A year.

no, weeks maybe?

Yeah, a.

Few weeks ago.

We discussed this.

Right.

And what we said here was like, you know, Democrats should take advantage, should say, we'll give you whatever you want and then kill, kill everything that has to do with immigration and the election.

Obviously, that's not in.

The Republicans had been denied and the Republicans are just doing that.

They're just trying to play it.

Yeah.

Why?

Because if you call them out in terms of giving them what they want, in this case, closing the border.

Yeah.

And basically this deal will close the border.

Yeah.

The president would have the authority to close it.

And President Biden said if we pass this thing right now.

Yeah.

The moment I signed the bill, I will close the border.

It's title 42 with a different name.

Yes.

Yes.

So that's what's going on.

Yeah.

And it's honestly kind of doomed from the start.

Right?

You don't have anything the business community wants.

You don't have anything that the left wanted.

So ultimately, it's this sort of security focused bill that really wasn't appealing or appeasing to anybody.

So as you said to the politics of an election year, all backed into this and it's impossible to get things done.

And then, of course, Donald Trump comes in with the final deathblow yet and said, you know, this is something that I will work hard to make sure it doesn't pass.

And honestly, not every case, but in many cases, when he comes out against something, it definitely doesn't go anywhere.

The other thing to consider is this It's hard to get stuff passed in DC nowadays, right?

And so that is always true.

But in especially true when it comes to immigration reform in an election year with Donald Trump and Joe Biden at the kind of polls.

So there's no way to make this go in any significant way.

So I think at that point it's pretty much dead.

The Senate's still trying to work some kind of a deal, which I think is risky for them, because if the Senate Republicans pass something and ultimately it gets through that body and then goes to the House and the House says, no, we can't.

Right.

Basically, you've got Johnson is the executioner on this.

And Trump is sort of, you know, twisting his mustache like, you know, let's kill this thing dead.

It could backfire on Republicans because then it looks like the parties were trying to work something out.

But Republicans in the House said no and if you want to run on that, you know, Democrats would say then you need to do something about it.

But that hasn't happened.

Yeah, I mean, I can see that.

Yeah.

But also, you know, remember that I understand that the Republican Party is owned by President Trump, right?

Like 100%.

Yeah.

The Republicans.

He takes them out like, you know, from his little bag is right.

That's the Republican Party, Right?

That's, you know, these members of Congress, etc., etc., etc.. Yeah.

President Trump does not own the electorate.

Right.

And what we see is that there's also Republicans, right.

That do not like President Trump and that they think that bipartisanship is good, that decency is good, that, you know, crafting deals in the most legislative whatever.

Partizan legislation, it's held.

Hard.

So they may see these senators right as okay, yeah, that's what we.

That's what we need.

So I think I don't know.

I think that's the offense Democrats are trying to play is like if we can basically convince people that we should have done this, but the Republicans stood in the way, then it makes it look like all they want to do is just engage in the theatrics.

Right.

And I'm not sure that's going to penetrate the electorate because, like you said, this is really something where the Republicans have been very good at messaging.

So I'm not sure that, you know, time will change that much at least in terms of time until the election.

The other complication here is this, and that is that the House has voted to impeach Alexander, Mayorkas, who is the Homeland Security secretary.

This is obviously an ongoing kind of thing.

We've talked about this before, the politics of impeachment, the weaponization of, yeah, it is all wrapped up in this.

But this has to complicate the ability to get things done on the border.

Right.

Because, again, it's really just about blame game.

Right.

And the kind of use of grievances to try to get things done politically to prime your base.

So this is definitely part of the reason that this bill failed.

So ultimately, it's all just a kind of mess in Washington.

But really, ultimately, I think Republicans win from this no matter how you cut it.

Well, absolutely, because immigration is a we have seen it before and it has been used many, many, many, many times in our history since 1800s.

Right.

As a as a wedge issue that allows to rally the bases and also rallies base on both sides, rallied the base on the Republican side because they says, well, we're being invaded, so on and so forth, but also rallies the base on the Democratic side, on the more liberal side, because they say, well, you know, these people are just barbarians and, you know, they don't have any respect for human rights.

So it rallies them.

So it tends to maintain the status quo for both Republicans and Democrats.

Yeah.

So it's an issue that plays nice on both sides.

Yeah.

Republicans and Democrats have had chances in Congress.

Yes.

To fix immigration.

Yeah, that's true.

And like a decade ago, they were very, very close, but.

Not as are none of the both political sides have done it.

So I'm actually one of my pet theories is that because politics so visual now, it's hard for the Democrats to be able to kind of maneuver around this because if you show pictures of the border in the kind of chaos it's there, you can definitely see that people are affected by it.

And even if it's not true, and even if the numbers say a different story, the visuals or so on.

Right.

So I do think it's tough for them to reach some kind of agreement because the incentives really aren't there yet.

But you have the business community, right.

And they really want to see some change.

Yeah, I mean, there is a shortage in terms of, you know, to fill up certain positions.

Yeah.

And the business community wants, you know, workers.

Yeah.

So the business community has to step up and say, if you don't fix this problem, no more money to your political campaigns.

Yeah.

You know, whatever you want to do, we'll see.

That's a tough call.

We'll see how that plays out for them.

Right.

But yeah, some force here is needed because otherwise, yeah, nothing's going to get done.

And that just goes to the kind of intractable ness of this problem.

So obviously the big news of the week is about the federal government versus taxes on a border security issue.

This is party politics.

I'm Brandon.

This is Jeronimo.

We're going to talk all about how it is that Greg Abbott has gone to war against Joe Biden in the federal government.

This is a tough battle for the state because obviously the federal government has got the purview to be able to make these choices.

This has been an ongoing fight, but the most recent incarnation of this is that the Supreme Court of the US held 5 to 4, that the Border Patrol agents can cut and move wire to get migrants to continue to sort of pass through.

This has been a fight with Border Patrol.

It's been a fight with Greg Abbott.

But basically, again, the Supreme Court has sort of reaffirmed this idea that the Federal Government's responsible for border security.

Now, Greg Abbott and Republicans like Dan Patrick, a lieutenant governor, are saying, well, they're not doing their job, so we're going to try to do the job for you.

But obviously the kind of on the ground issue is problematic and has created this kind of real friction right now.

Texas governors forever have been successful at saber rattling against the federal government.

Right.

Going back to the 1950s, You know, through civil rights, you know, all the way through immigration issues, even just land dispute issues, just a lot of different interactions.

Republicans and Democrats as governors versus the federal government.

But this seems to be taking it to a new level, rising, this call for like Texas secession, which is completely impractical, illegal, and would not end well militarily at all, despite the fact that we have a lot of Ford F-150s.

So let me get your take on why it is that this has become such a fixed battle right now.

Is it just an election year thing?

Is it Greg Abbott's looking for a kind of motion towards a national trend, a national kind of politics?

What's going.

On?

I think both, both and, you know, the fact of the matter is that it's a very interesting case for many, many, many reasons.

Right.

The first one is obviously this would be a Supreme Court decision that it's you know, done right if you follow the basically, you know, base on many cases that go back to the 1940s.

Yeah.

Recent cases in terms of, you know, Arizona, United States versus Arizona back in 2012.

You know, it's easy because the Supreme Court has said, you know, this is these thing, it's federal policy.

But on the other side, you have like Briscoe Cain, a rep here from Houston, saying, well, like the Supreme Court has made the decision, come enforce it, like echoing Andrew Jackson.

So how does this get resolved?

Like, what's the outcome here?

That's it.

Well, I think that, you know, at the end it's going to be the Supreme Court, Governor Abbott and Texas is basing the, you know, the reticence of getting rid of the barbed wire.

These or that or the water barrier, so on and so forth, based on Article one and Section ten, clause three, that, you know, Texas is invoking its constitutional authority to defend itself based on an invasion.

Right.

But it's not an invasion.

An invasion, right?

I mean, it's not an invasion.

Right.

And the funny thing is that this question was asked, you know, in the 1800s to Madison.

Interesting.

And Madison as a founder.

Yeah, right.

He said, well, you know, Eve Friendly's not a foreign nationals come here without, you know, bearing arms and that kind of stuff.

That is not an invasion.

No Supreme Court has rule on these in 1996, on and so forth.

So we have the trend right.

Let me just explain.

Roe v Wade.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

It was the decision was these was not in the Constitution.

The founding fathers never thought of these things, etc., etc.. Well, now we have this interpretation that it's an originalist interpretation.

Yeah.

James Madison Answer the question like yeah, himself.

Yes, yes.

So we're going to see if the Supreme Court now says, yeah, but we're just originalism the things that we don't like, and on the other things we're going to be like something a little more flexible.

It's a for me, the real, real, real winner or loser is going to be the Supreme Court in terms of how they try to disentangle these things.

Because if they rule in favor of Texas, yeah, the Supreme Court is 1,000% a political.

Another political party.

Yeah, well, and it's true because, you know, we've seen like the like Dan Patrick push back on even Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts in saying, well, the, you know, Supreme Court once again, let us down.

Right?

So partizaning the Supreme Court, which, you know, of course, is inevitable given that they're weighing in on these political questions, but also really complicated and problematic from a rule of law point of view.

So, as you say, if Texas defies the Supreme Court, then all of a sudden you've got this erosion of the rule of law, which has all kinds of implications down the road.

I think we're probably going to see cooler heads prevail.

I don't think you're going to see a real honest to goodness sort of civil war on this.

I don't think anybody wants to push it that right.

But, you know, Texas governors, like I've said historically have had success politically by fighting the federal government with words, not so much with pitchforks and guns, but yet.

But now it is the case, right?

Yeah, maybe so.

But I think, honestly, it's not so much that that Greg Abbott and company have to win on this.

They just have to fight.

And the fighting is what really excites the base.

And so I think that's a big portion of this.

In fact, if you look at polling on this right for 2020, for the number one issue, voters say as important as immigration and the border, 29%, the next is the economy and then health care and then abortion.

So if you're a Republican running on the immigration issue and you can pivot a little bit to the economy, then you're going to win, right?

Those are the issues they're fighting about.

Those are the issues that they're going to win on.

So that's a difficult narrative again, for the Democrats to change.

But I have to say this, too, because like we said, as a national story, this is something Texas is involved in.

Donald Trump has yet to pick a VP.

Right.

It's possible that Greg Abbott may be in that spot and not that anyone really runs for VP, right?

Everybody says that, you know, I don't want to be anybody's VP, right?

That could be in the mix here.

So I do think that being a of a national profile like the hashtag I stand with Greg Abbott was ending during the time that this fight was going on.

So this is a real national story.

And to me, again, evidence that Texas politics is now national politics spans for at least 20 years.

But we're seeing it creep in in a way that is beneficial potentially for Republicans.

So that's kind of how I think this plays out.

The other thing, too, and I want to ask you about this, and that's the federalization of the National Guard.

Now by statute, presidents can do this.

They really do.

Right.

For like the, you know, riots in the nineties LA the you know, integration of Little Rock in the schools in 1957.

Even in 1971, you saw Nixon do this to dispel protesters in D.C.

But it's a really rare thing.

And I think, honestly, that Joe Biden doesn't want to up the stakes on this any more than there already is, because like you said earlier, politically, this is something it's hard for them to win on.

And the public is really not that excited about in a kind of aggressive use of unilateral presidential power.

So I don't think he wants to go that far.

He would like to kind of just pull back on this, you know, yank the reins a little bit and let things settle down.

But what do you think about the federalization question?

Because Democrats are saying you have to do it now.

Texas is openly defying the Supreme Court.

It's time.

Well, I mean, that's you know, they think that I disagree with you, that, you know, governors have of the saber rattling and that kind of stuff and fighting words.

This is not fighting words.

I mean, this is the government say, like the Supreme Court said, these guys can cut the razor wires, end of story.

Yeah, I'm the Supreme Court.

Like, yeah, Supreme Court robes.

And, you know in Texas and a lot of the of the state leadership so like yeah whatever they court it we're going to put it back.

Put it back.

What up Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you.

Do.

So exactly why are you going to do about it.

So right now it's, you know, kind of a game of chicken since the federal government, regardless of, you know, partizanship etc., etc.. Yeah.

If the federal government wants to continue the federal pact in terms of following that constitution.

Yeah.

Because this is a federal law.

Yeah, it's above.

It's in the constitution.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's in the James Madison said it, it's in the constitution.

And he would know.

Exactly.

It's like you have to do it.

You have to do.

This and we'll see.

Right?

Because this is the case of saying, well, you like the Constitution.

Do you defend the Constitution?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's right.

It's right here.

It's a it's hard to read.

It's faded, but it's still here.

So that's going to be very interesting.

So my opinion is that if they want to do it, as you said, they have to do it and they have to do it now.

Okay.

And we'll see what.

We'll watch this, because this is really going to be something that will, I think, be an issue up until the election, maybe even day.

yeah.

Where you see this is a motivator like that October surprise is going to be something in this mix.

absolutely.

My words absolutely.

Go away.

And finally, just very quickly, and then I understand the position of the states, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah.

The like we're spending all this money on this , right?

And so we have to have something for it, right?

No, it's.

I agree that there's a better solution.

yeah.

Like this tweet war about, you know.

Yeah.

How we're going to cut the wire if you put it back.

That's not the best solution.

No, it is not.

But let's talk about a different style of the ruling.

All right.

And obviously, let's switch to Texas.

And that's the thing that we do best.

This is party politics.

I'm Brandon.

This is Jeronimo.

We are talking now about Texas and about the all Republicans Supreme Court that has temporarily blocked the deposition of Attorney General Ken Paxton in the whistleblower case that basically spurred his impeachment.

There's a lot going on here.

Let me just give you a quick summary.

Basically, what this court said is that both parties had until February 27th or 29th, rather, to respond to the bigger legal arguments at stake here.

Basically, this is a legal case that the whistleblowers brought against Ken Paxton.

Ken Paxton said he wasn't going to fight any more, that anything that they said was going to be accepted.

And so basically, as a matter of fact, literal fact that whatever the whistleblower said was true is true.

But there were a judge in Travis County said, no, you have to be deposed.

So this is work its way up to the Texas Supreme Court, where the Texas Supreme Court said that we're going to pause on this until we can make some hearings.

Now, in the meantime, obviously, this has become very, very political.

You had none other than Donald J. Trump weigh in on this and say that the Texas Supreme Court should basically, you know, end this.

Right.

No testimony from Governor, from Attorney General Ken Paxton.

So not surprisingly, this is part of the political story.

Right.

In addition to that, you had this week former Senator Jerry Springer say that he thinks that maybe there should be a do over on impeachment, that maybe it was the case that Ken Paxton misled the Senate and made a mockery of the proceedings.

That's unlikely to happen, but for any number of reasons, there's no legal logistical mechanism to make this happen.

And also the politics of this, I think, have moved beyond this.

And now they're willing to kind of fight it out in primaries, which is what we're seeing happen.

So like, what do you think about the way that this has unfolded?

And do you think that there's any chance that Ken Paxton is going to be deposed on the whistleblower case?

I mean, I don't know if he's going to be deposed or not, but he's just you know, he's once he said that he's not going to contest any of the scenes of the whistleblowers.

You know, it's it's not of meaning, guilt, but also is not saying that you're guilty or anything like that.

It's like wishy washy, right?

Yeah.

Because Paxton says basically, you know, the impeachment process more or less exonerated me.

Right.

And so I'm just going to kind of admit to all these guys.

But Springer Center, Springer says, like, if you're meaning to this, you're meaning to guilt.

Right.

Exactly.

Actively in my state's going to have to pay, which means the ledge is going to have to ultimately, after all the impeachment stuff, right after objecting to the money that they were going have to pay, was going have to pay anyway.

Right.

So so the question here is like, if you're deposed, you're under oath.

Don't lie.

Yeah.

Don't lie to a judge.

And right.

If you're under oath, you're want to be deposed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just saying, I don't know.

I can see why they want to fight it, because that opens up liability issues.

But I actually think that, you know, it gives up the political side of things a boost.

Right?

That they want to play the martyr.

Ken Paxton wants to be the person who's seen as being aggrieved here.

Right.

He's the one who's being attacked.

So politically, it may actually benefit him.

The fighting, I think, again, is just about sort of making sure the base is happy.

But as a legal matter, I think you're exactly right.

There's real liability here that.

yeah, very much like to yeah.

But no matter how you slice it, the state's going to have to pay, right?

I mean, they're going to have to kick in this money because the whistleblowers have got a case and effectively the attorney general is more or less admitting this is all true.

So exactly how it happens and when it happens, we don't know.

But that money's going to come out of the state's coffers.

Let's think and figure out some other kind of deal.

But what's interesting to me is the politics of this, because, you know, Ken Paxton obviously has made this an issue in primaries, but there hasn't been a lot of money put into it.

Now, Greg Abbott and the kind of school voucher folks have put a bunch of money into primaries.

We're seeing ads ramp up digital TV, radio.

But Ken Paxton's allies haven't really ponied up a lot of money for this.

Now he's got about $2 million on hand, but a lot of that he's spent on his own legal bills.

The kind of big PAC, the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, is now basically defunct.

They've rebranded to now they're called the Texans United for a Conservative majority.

Again, inside this kind of ongoing churn of a battle, but in the GOP.

So there aren't a lot of defenders for Ken Paxton left.

Do you think this is going to be an issue in primaries where Ken Paxton can basically move the needle and say, this person supported me, so let's go with them?

This person didn't support me, so they need to go.

I mean, because there is like a crossover of of three, because you have the pro vouchers, anti vouchers, pro Paxton, anti Paxton.

Right.

So you have a major Venn diagram.

Exactly.

So some of them are, you know, pro vouchers, pro Paxton.

So they're endorsed by both the governor and the attorney general.

Yeah.

In some cases, that's not the case.

But as you said, Paxton doesn't have the money that Abbott has in order to support these things.

Right?

So it's.

Yeah, well, see.

I'm not convinced that it's going to be that much of a sway, but you never know.

Right?

We're looking at probably very low primary turnout, so that could make the difference.

Another issue that came up this week in terms of primaries is that Donald Trump once again is injecting himself into Texas politics.

He has endorsed David Covey, who's one of the opponents of Speaker Dade Phelan his Beaumont district.

The president criticized Phelan for supporting the impeachment of his ally, none other than Attorney General Ken Paxton, which the former president called fraudulent.

I think that you're right that Paxton can't move the needle on a lot of these because the money's not there.

And I think that people don't trust him or like him as much as they like Abbott.

But I do think that feeling should be nervous here.

He's got three opponents.

The recipe for getting a loss in this is that you basically split the vote three ways, get into a runoff, and in the runoff is where they pick you.

All right.

Because you have even lower turnout then.

So I think that's true.

The other thing interesting is that speakers are now the targets.

Right.

We saw it with, you know, in D.C., right.

With Mike McCarthy.

We've seen it with Joe Straus here.

And now we're seeing it, you know, with with Speaker Phelan.

So there's a good chance this could be a real problem for him.

I mean, sure, the record so far of, you know, targeting incumbents is not from Trump.

From Trump is is Meeks at best?

Yeah, he's more Barry Bonds than like Cal Ripken saying, like.

County average, not so good.

Now, he can hit for power, though.

And that's the thing.

Sure.

Because in a race like this that's really high profile, this might be one of those times where it's like people are really out to get for sure.

But, you know, the way that they're being targeted, Right, is, as you say, you know, Paxton is not like super loved among all Republican voters.

I think there's a divide.

So it can go both ways.

One thing the other thing is that, you know, if they're being targeted in this case, for example, for the passage of impeachment or support of bounces or whatnot, you know, Republicans that were opposing vouchers, why where represent the views of their constituents?

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's it's someone comes and say, well, they're not doing good that the voters are like these are grieving.

Yes.

They're doing good to me.

And to that point, actually, another thing that happened this week was that in House District two, which is a special election to pick, the replacement for Representative Brian Slaten, who was expelled from the House following an investigation that he had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with an aide, Jill Dutton, who was the kind of stall bought for that more establishment, winning the associate Republicans of Texas and Dade Phelan beat Brett Money, who was backed by people like Ken Paxton.

A lot of the money from West Texas, the sort of very conservative billionaires, the defense celebrity which doesn't exist anymore.

She wins by a very small amount.

But it's an indication perhaps that even in a very low turnout election that you're seeing the establishment not just kind of cowering and really, you know, winning in a close and pretty important election.

Right.

So we're going to see and the lesson of the day is that the Republican Party is fragmented and that there is a lot of things in the air.

You saw the vice chair in the GOP Exactly who's running for chair.

That, too, is another kind of one of these features that shows this divide.

The party itself isn't raising a lot of money.

They've become somewhat irrelevant.

So this fight about who this conservative core group is associated with, Right.

The kind of Nick Fuentes camp, the people who were in sort of associated with this very far right almost neo Nazi, is in some cases is, I think, not appealing to mainstream Republicans.

The question is, are they going to come out to vote?

And that we don't really know.

I think we're still going to see pretty low turnout polling suggest Donald Trump is going to run away with the primary here in Texas.

So I don't know if people are even going to show up.

So if the turnouts 7%, 10% in the far side of things, then I think you're probably in a position where that's just the most committed people, which could be a problem for like some of the more moderates who want to see bigger turnout.

Yeah, we'll see.

But that's a question that we're going to continue answering or at least attempting to answer in the next couple of weeks.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina and.

I'm Brian Rottinghaus.

The conversation keeps up next week.