Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.
I'm Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
And I'm Brandon Rottighaus, a political science professor, also here at the University of Houston.
Thanks for joining us.
An exciting week, obviously.
This is a week where we've got elections all across.
Yes.
Finally, you and I are up late watching returns.
Yep, Lots of fun as well.
Indeed.
So we'll get into that for sure, especially talking about Houston elections and Texas elections, because that's kind of what we do.
But I also want to talk about first the some of the national implications to the elections that we saw.
In particular, I want to talk about Ohio and Kentucky.
Democrats had a pretty good night.
Maybe Jeronimo.
Democrats were fretting about Joe Biden's efforts.
And yeah, there of can take kind of a night off and say, “Whew!
” .
Yep, absolutely.
But of course, you know, there's no great prediction here, right.
Swing states for a long time and Democrats winning in Kentucky is like almost fluke ish, right?
Right.
The Kentucky gubernatorial election, like, never predicts.
I know, but it certainly it might mean maybe.
I don't know.
And certainly it's the case that Governor Beshear is going to be a national figure because of this.
And that's something they have to think about, Right.
They have to figure out who's next after Joe Biden.
And while.
HARRIS But give me your sense of sort of what you think happened that night, especially in terms of the big issue abortion.
That's the one thing the Democrats made such a wedge and it seemed like it worked.
Well, abortion won and especially when you look at Ohio, I mean, the returns are not very, very, very high or anything like that.
But it signals, right, that abortion is a hot button issue once again.
And Republicans have lost you know that I guess, touch that they had on the right, meaning that once the Supreme Court overrule Roe v Wade, then.
Right.
They lost every single power.
And they have been struggling.
They have been struggling in terms of trying to find how to pick that issue.
Right.
And that means, you know, having these, I guess, bans on abortion, especially in many, many, many states.
And the election in Virginia.
Right.
Was something that they tried to see if these was a test in terms of how to present the issue.
It was not a ban.
It was a limitation.
Instead of having, for example, six weeks or something like that, it was going to be 15.
So that didn't work?
No, it did not work right.
It did not work because Democrats, you know, flipped the House and then they maintain control of the Senate, a narrow majority.
But still, it still is good enough.
And like you said, I mean, the governor of Virginia decided that, you know, he was going to basically put that on the ballot.
That might have been a mistake, not literally on the ballot.
The right was like, yeah, like you say, we're going to basically after this election, the next session, we're going to try to pass a 15 week ban.
Yeah, no.
So obviously, that is something that still sells and actually, too, you're seeing national groups taking lead from that and from Ohio who put their constitutional right to it.
Places like Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota, they're all putting it on the ballot because they know that that would basically juice up turnout.
Yeah.
A big plus for Democrats, right?
It's a winnable issue for them.
And as you said, Republicans are really, I think, struggling to find a way to make this work.
So that's definitely something that we're going to see, I think more and more of and obviously the politics of this could translate to Texas, but we will see because a little different here.
Yep.
For lots of reasons, not the least of which is that females in Texas are less willing to sort of support abortion rights.
And so that's slightly different.
But it's interesting to sort of mind some of those differences.
Let's shift gears and talk legal strategy here.
We know Donald Trump has been in some legal hot water for.
Yep.
Various indictments.
He spends more time with his lawyers than he does with his family.
This week, the main event takes place in Manhattan where the former president is taking the stand in a case that's brought against him and his companies by the New York attorney general, Tish James.
Basically, this is a big moment.
It's a fraud case.
The allegations are that the Trumps have committed fraud by understating their net worth and overstating values and properties.
This basically is really about punishment, right?
Because they've decided that they've done this.
The question is sort of what the punishment will be.
Not surprisingly, the former president was pretty cantankerous on the stand.
Yes, challenging the judge saying, you know, this is something you're going to rule against us on anyway.
The kind of had to be reminded that, you know, he wasn't president in 2021 and asked him like, you know, what are you doing at this time?
He said, well, it was around the country.
And I said, Well, you are president in 2021, at least for most of it.
So what do you make of this in terms of like the politics of Donald Trump's ascendancy to the nomination to the Republican Party?
Well, I mean, we have talked about these many, many times.
Right.
And it seems that all these legal tribulations help the president.
It's only pluses.
Yeah.
I mean, the more nastier, the more complicated are the charges, the more that judges said, like, you have to have a gag order.
You cannot, you know, belittle the jury members or go against the judge, etc., etc..
The more points that he accumulates.
So, I mean, for him, either eventually.
Well, we know that, you know, it's as you say, it's an issue of punishment.
And the punishment can be $250 million fine and then ban the Trump organization of conducting any business in New York.
So, you know, that would be a huge a huge blow because that's the Trump brand, right?
It's Trump Tower in the middle of Midtown, so on and so forth.
But the issue here, I think, is that, you know, how is this going to play in terms of the other Republican primary contenders?
Right.
The real question is, if this thing happens, how the second runner up and, you know, nowadays is Nikki Haley, can she basically use the situation to her advantage?
And really so solidify her spot as I am the Trump alternative?
DESANTIS No.
CHRISTIE No diva, no, exactly.
It's going to be either Trump or I.
So I think that that gives her, you know, some steam to maintain the momentum that she has having here.
Pain.
Yeah.
And I think you're totally right.
Of course, not that you're ever wrong.
Thank you.
As far as I can tell, yes.
But the polling agrees with me.
Basically, polling this week suggests that half of Republicans say they would not vote for former President Donald Trump if he were convicted of a felony.
2% wouldn't vote for him if he were in prison on Election Day.
I guess this is good, right?
Having a president in prison is logistically complicated, although, yeah, easy to defend him.
Right.
I guess the secret Service is like, that's great.
Yeah, but this is not great for him because it does show that there is a kind of catch point where at some point Republicans will say, okay, enough is enough.
Yeah.
President who's in jail.
On the other hand, the same polling suggested that he basically is almost at 50% in a hypothetical match up against every other opponent in the primary.
And so there's still a lot of support for him to do, say, but there is a point at which that exactly go away.
But we will see because, yep, he could go to prison and he could also go broke and both of those things would be bad for the Trump.
Well, just ask Giuliani and all the other friends that have been with huge legal bills that they simply cannot pay.
True enough.
Yeah, that's going to be expensive and complicated politically.
Yep.
Speaking of complicated politically, let's turn our attention to Washington this week.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is certainly something as a military matter and as national security matter.
It's been on people's minds, But it's also the case this has become a kind of wedge issue in the Democratic.
Yeah, we'll talk about this more as things unfold.
But this week there was a censure of very outspoken member from Michigan, Representative Rashida Tlaib.
She basically made comments that made it sound like she was defending the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
To some people, it sounded like a call for Israel's elimination to use certain language that has been used that way in the past.
And so she basically got the rebuke of her own party.
Right.
You've gone, too far on this.
Marjorie Taylor GREENE, representative from Georgia, you know, is very outspoken on all kinds of things and wanted to do something more severe.
But they ended up pulling that back.
How do you read this in terms of like where the Democrats are on this issue, but also where Congress is in terms of trying to police its own members?
Right.
They might speak their minds, but also how they might misrepresent, you know, kind of the position of the government.
So I think there's two issues here.
The first one has to do with, you know, member of Congress, First Amendment right.
Right.
Is this a First Amendment right violation or not?
Right.
You know, that's perhaps something that is very well, perhaps something that is very well, there are lots of caveats to the first.
Right.
I mean, there are very few on the house floor.
But I think you're right.
You know, making sure that people are engaging in a debate on this is important.
But, you know, this is certainly something Democrats are divided on, Right.
Joe Biden certainly has chosen.
His side is very clear.
Right, right, right, right.
So what do you go about?
You think politically this is a problem for the Democrats?
And I think I mean, I think it's the problem is the issue itself.
Right.
And the issue is so complicated and so polarized that if you say something that can be, you know, that some side is not going to like or the other, etc., etc., it becomes a problem.
Right.
Public opinion certainly here in the US, you know, wholeheartedly supports Israel one way or the other.
But obviously we have seen these within the Democratic Party and this is once again a manifestation of the perhaps more progressive wing of the Democratic Party versus a more traditional wing of the Democratic Party.
So you have these particular tensions.
Right.
And I think that, you know, as you said, the Obama administration has been very clear in terms of its position and very clear saying, well, Israel has a right to defend itself.
BEARD End of question and then trying to navigate through Secretary of State.
BLINKEN You know, ceasefires, humanitarian aid, so on and so forth, but is due to the complexity of the issue, due to the atrocities that were committed.
And thus, you know, the Democratic Party did what they did.
It's controversial for sure.
And I think it's definitely the case that this is going to be an issue for the president going forward.
It's not obvious that people got in lockstep on the right.
He's going to have to navigate through.
And clearly, Congress is having some trouble passing this.
And this is mostly the kind of Republican organizational question in terms, you wonder why.
wonder if you can imagine.
Right.
They seem to not have their ducks in a row.
The ducks are kind of scattered all across the capital, which actually is something that you see is image collecting for Mike Johnson, speaker of the House.
You know, chasing ducks here.
Bump it.
Yeah.
Like move it.
That would be easier for him to prioritize the ducks on Capitol Hill, than organize Republicans.
But they're having trouble getting funding passed for Israel.
That's something.
Yes.
Because we are up against a very tight deadline in terms of getting the government, you know, funded for Right next year.
So little details.
Yeah.
Tomato, tomato, Yeah.
We hope.
Just like elections in Houston.
This is Party Politics.
I'm Brandon.
This is Jeronimo.
We spent all night looking at these returns, Waiting and waiting and waiting.
And now we have some results to talk about.
Big picture take away from the Houston mayoral election.
Obviously, it's going to go to a runoff.
John Whitmire, the senator from Houston, and Sheila Jackson Lee, member of Congress here from the Houston area.
So this is as expected, but yeah, takeaways.
So, you know, 43, 35 for Whitmire versus Jackson Lee.
You know, in terms of turnout, same thing that we have seen before.
Nothing new faces.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, you know, a lot of voters were like, exactly.
Why?
What's happening?
I don't know.
I mean, I don't know because, you know, especially this election, right?
You have a new mayor.
We have a fiscal crisis in the city of Houston starting next year.
We had 14 propositions that many of them were extremely important.
We have two propositions in the city of Houston.
HARRIS County also had propositions in terms of, you know, the hospital district, so on and so forth.
Very important stuff that really, really, really affects your daily life.
Commuting traffic, your favored one trash pickup, you know?
Exactly.
So I don't know right.
I mean, it is kind of puzzling why, you know, it could be election fatigue or it could be that, you know, the campaign was, you know, kind of ho hum.
Yeah.
And 17 candidates.
Right.
So, no, I think you're right.
And oddly, I think that's part of it.
And that's that like of those candidates, there wasn't really a kind of strong Republican alternative.
And so you don't see a lot of Republicans voting.
And we have to kind of front the numbers to see for sure.
But I think the problem was that because without that, there just wasn't as much kind of energy.
Right.
It's a nonpartisan right, though.
These are almost, you know, two most known Democrats.
really?
But like, yeah, it's not obvious to everybody, right?
Everybody pays this much attention to politics.
Okay.
I have to tell you.
Okay, Fair enough.
It's a lot of people like, who are these people?
Yeah.
So I think that that kind of dynamic was a problem.
It didn't really generate a lot of turnout, which is usually pretty low in usable elections anyway.
But if you compare this to like 2003 or even 2005 when you had better turnout, even though you had a smaller main, then you know, you had enough of a viable kind of Republican alternative.
But right.
So that's one issue.
The other is just that it's been hard to get people's attention on a race where they're talking about kind of generic things.
You basically agree on stuff.
Yeah.
And the stuff they agree on is kind of kind of boring, right?
I mean, everybody knows this were problems the city faces.
And so they just have to be kind of fixed.
Right.
Is like a personality question.
Like who do you think's better to choose that?
So really, to me, the kind of story is on who voted but who didn't vote.
We had about 10% turnout, which is pretty low.
Yeah, Houston, where as you said, there are some serious issues, right?
Yeah.
City council districts are interesting.
You had seven incumbents who retained their seats.
We also had three incumbents who were going to a runoff.
That's interesting.
I want to ask you about Council District G. This is council member Mary Nan Huffman, who has been on council for one term.
And she faced against trial lawyer Tony Buzbee, who is wealthy and has more tanks than you and can park them anywhere he likes, He thinks, What do you think about this?
That's a runoff which wasn't looking that way for a while, right?
Eventually, you know, he got there.
Right.
What do you think about this?
I think that this race.
So it's going to be interesting, right?
It's going to be interesting to see because it seems that Tony Buzbee wants it and wants it bad.
So why all the mailers I get at my house?
Yes.
Interested in seeing that.
Right.
So, you know, it was 49 versus 41%.
And it's going to be very interesting.
I mean, we're going to see once again, this is going to be more interesting because, you know, the choice is very clear between the candidates, at least in terms of perhaps, you know, how they approach the political system.
Right.
So that was very cryptic way of saying.
going to blow things, which now he can.
Yeah, as you said, propositions on the ballot were important.
Proposition eight here in Houston allowed for three members of council.
Now instead of the five normally to be able to bring up.
Yep.
Agenda Houston's the only strong mayor system in the state.
Yeah and so it's something that the basically the mayor gets to control the agenda period that gives them a lot of power but now he's got more council with them.
Their own thoughts on this and with a Tony Buzbee on council and some new dynamics in terms of the other players.
Right.
Replaced you know, Dave Martin in E!
Who was a kind of loyal opposition to Turner and they worked together on a bunch of things.
So normally in Houston it's like, go along, get along.
But your tone of voice makes me think that you're expecting to see a little bit more fireworks on this.
I mean, I think that I think that if Tony Buzbee wins the runoff election is going to be more complicated for whoever, you know, gets elected as mayor.
Right.
Because he's not going to hold back one iota in terms of, you know, looking to, you know, create bridges or something like that.
No, As long as he has two members of city council, he can put whatever he wants in the agenda.
It's a great point.
And honestly, with kind of a likelihood of of a meager turnout for a runoff, I think, you know, there's a chance that could work for him.
So we'll see hopefully better turnout or reasonable, right?
There's going to be, like I said, several of these runoffs that are happening while another runoff is in the controllers race.
This is Chris Hollins in Orlando.
Sanchez are going to face off.
Sanchez obviously has been in and around Republican circles for a long time.
His run for mayor before his former treasurer in the county.
And Chris Hollins is kind of a Democratic newcomer.
This is interesting race because this is definitely kind of a kind of old guard Republican where the county used to be in a kind of new style of Democrat, where the county's moving.
So what's your take on sort of what that's going to look like in the dynamics of it?
Well, I think it's going to be a very interesting race, right?
First of all, I think both candidates are, you know, have the credentials in terms of, you know, they know what this job entails and the challenges.
Right.
Exactly.
So I think that, you know, in terms of, you know, experience on and so forth, perhaps I'll give the edge to Sanchez a little bit because he was a Harris County treasurer before, so he knows the numbers, etc., etc., how the county operates and obviously how the city operates.
And Hollins also has that.
You know, he also understands, you know, finances.
So it's going to be very interesting because this is might be an obscure quote unquote position but is going to be extremely important next year in terms of, you know, the budget, because we are looking literally right standing on the edge of a fiscal cliff, just looking down the road.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Ride don't ride rollercoasters don't have the nerve for it.
There you go.
But Hollins and Sanchez hopefully do because they're going to have a stare down.
A mayor and council were facing a serious financial crisis.
Yep, the city.
And so that's the real question for me is like they know the numbers, right?
The X's and O's and dollars and cents, this is going to be done.
And also they don't do a lot of that anyway.
They're just kind of managing the office.
But they have to stand up to council, the guys.
Yeah, because these are going to be some big, really hard items they're going to have to have to undertake and they're got to convince the public to some degree that these things are acceptable, especially because during the campaign, you know, all the candidates were talking about spending.
The only one was Councilmember Gallegos that says all lower.
Everybody agrees with this thing.
How the hell are we going to pay for this?
So that is going to be a role.
It's like, we're going to hire, you know, 500 new police officers all, and how are we going to pay for that?
We are not I don't want to pay it, but we may have to there may be no choice.
But that's the real question.
Yep.
Face Proposition B was also pretty easily now passed by a less healthy number, but still a pass.
It's going to basically reorient the city of Houston in the region in terms of this sort of shared partnership of governments over kind of flood control issues.
So basically, they're going to have to either re-engineer how much how many votes Houston gets in, Harris County gets, or Harris and Houston are pulling out of this by really telling let's talk about statewide propositions.
They all passed.
So we're going to have no wealth tax, which is good for you since you're exceptional.
Absolutely.
Not surprisingly, people.
Yeah, good, good news for them.
Energy fund, right?
Universities.
Yep.
Yes indeed.
Though that went down was Prop 13.
Yep.
This was a proposition that would increase mandatory retirement age for judges from 75 to 79.
But it went down.
And this rarely happens.
Usually these are passed by a fairly healthy right.
This one went down.
So just said one implication to this.
Nathan Hecht, who's the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, is 74 years old.
So this would have actually saved him from having to retire.
But now after retire, the likelihood is that he'll basically be replaced by Abbott on that bench, which is a very common occurrence for governors.
But I think this is a win for Democrats, right?
Yeah, They wanted to have a position where like basically more churn on the courts means more open seats.
But right to take those seats and in some cases, like the courts are really the kind of first tip of the spear.
That's how it was for Republicans.
Yeah, winning bigger at the state level in these judicial races.
So what do you think about this, surprising or no?
Well, I mean, on the one hand, yes, it is very surprising, right, Because I thought it was going to pass as the other 13 propositions, but it didn't.
And I think it shows also, perhaps, you know, that those that voted had a very clear idea, what does this mean?
Red is not just, you know, regardless of the political party ride is allowing, you know, that recycling of judges so they can present new ideas in terms of how to rule or how, you know, whatever it is that they were running on.
So I think it's important.
I think, you know, it's a good result in terms of allowing that, you know, just to recycle and it's okay.
Now is the new time for the newcomers.
Yeah.
And do you think that like there's the kind of backlash against this kind of older sort of politician in office?
Right.
We've talked a lot about this.
Right.
Well, Dianne Feinstein, sadly, rest in peace, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, like they're all.
Above 70.
Yeah.
Is there a kind of reaction to this and saying like no more?
Well, probably.
I think probably there is.
Right.
I mean, when you look at all you know, we just mentioned them, all right.
It's it's they're more well known that they're more.
Absolutely.
But you know, the most visible I mean, I think it's time, you know, just to, you know, retire and seriously spend time with your family like was or something.
Right.
But but I think that's that's true.
Right?
I think that that's true, especially when we see the Texas electorate that is changing so much in terms of becoming younger and younger and younger.
Speaking of elections, I want I wanted to mention thats not in Houston is a mayoral race in Uvalde, Texas.
Right.
Is the location of the tragedy where 19 children and two adults were killed in a school shooting.
In addition to the botched response from law enforcement, this drew a lot by controversy.
One woman who was the daughter of one of the young women killed.
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, lost her election.
Right.
She basically made this a national issue in some cases because it was about sort of the availability of guns.
Right.
Tried to get the Texas legislature to increase the age to purchase an assault rifle from 18 to 21.
She was successful there.
So she thought, let's go the politics route, the route she didn't win.
But ultimately, they literally hugged it out, right?
Yeah.
Win Cody Smith was a former mayor, is going to return to office but they kind of embraced and I like it because I think it's good for you know first of all us to accept electoral losses.
That's important, right?
Yeah.
That like there's a community atmosphere.
Yeah.
Together.
Yeah.
I always agree that, like, we have to be, like, aware that these things are meaningful and that the community matters more than just, like, our individual pride about losing an election.
No, absolutely.
And when you see, you know, the hug that they post on Twitter for, you know, on X, formerly known as Twitter, you know, it really shows right?
that it was like wishing Mata- Rubio was literally in a good, decent way, wishing Smith, you know, good luck.
So so that was very nice.
And also, her little son was also saying hello and the husband was there.
So I think, you know, that shows yeah, I mean, we can still be civil, right?
And we can still be, you know, accepting losses so on and so forth and work for the community, although so that was very, very, very nice.
So on contrary, right now, we're going to have a new special session where civility might not be perhaps the rule.
Yeah, you have the.
You know, Governor, just back from Israel, Dan Patrick has a viral pneumonia.
Mom and dad are fighting right at each other on X. only two bills.
But that's the last special.
Is the fifth time going to be a charm here?
Like, I just don't know because the governor thinks there's a deal to be had.
It's not clear.
They're about 24.
25.
Yep.
Yep.
And they didn't get any kind of traction in terms of immigration bill, Right.
What's going to happen?
Everything is up in the air once again, and we don't know what's going to happen.
I mean, it's very, very, very tense situation.
And the governor has put a lot of stuff into it.
But this is going to be one of the issues that we're going to talk about next week.
I'm Jeronimo Cortina and I'm Brandon Rottinghaus, the party.
And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.
The conversation keeps up next week.
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