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UNBIASED Politics
UNBIASED Politics (8/4/25): Trump Fires Head of Labor Statistics, Texas Re-Districting Drama Explained, a $200M White House Ballroom, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Shutting Down, and More.
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Emily Johnson
As many of you know, I recently took a week off to enjoy some time up north with my family. And I had the most amazing time. But on that last day of the trip, I had a four hour drive to the airport, A three hour wait in the airport before my flight, a three hour flight home. And then to top it all off, my husband and I got in the wrong Uber when it was time to head home from the airport and we set ourselves back about another 30 minutes. It was a very long day and all I could think about that entire day was getting in my bed. Seriously, all day I was just daydreaming of the feeling of of hitting my sheets and finally being able to close my eyes. And I have Cozy Earth to thank for that. If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to invest in good sheets. My Cozy Earth sheets have quite literally made my life better. I fall asleep in minutes. I wake up feeling so refreshed. The thing is, is their bamboo sheets are of course incredibly soft, but they're also temperature regulating. So you sleep comfier and cooler. And here's the kicker. Not only do I have a 40% off discount code for you, but you but Cozy Earth actually lets you trial the sheets for 100 nights. If you don't love them after 100 sleeps, you can return them. You won't return them, I'm sure of that. But you can. So head to cozyearth.com and use my code, UNBIASED for 40% off. And if you get a post purchase survey, make sure you let them know you heard about Cozy Earth right here. That's cozyearth.com code unbiased at checkout for 40% off because your bed should be more than a place to sleep. It should be your happy place. Co Cozy Earth makes that possible. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, August 4th. Let's talk about some news starting with a couple of executive orders from last week related to tariffs. So last Thursday, President Trump signed two executive orders modifying tariffs. I want to break down each of those orders and and talk about how they change the original tariff plan that we talked about back in April. So back in April, as I'm sure a lot of you remember, President Trump announced these so called Liberation Day tariffs, right? They were scheduled to take effect in two phases on April 5 and April 9 and they included two key components. So first, a baseline 10% tariff on imports from all countries except Canada and Mexico because of an existing trade agreement. And, and then second country specific tariffs. And these country specific tariffs were based on each country's trade deficit with the United States. And a trade deficit. Just so we're all on the same page, is the difference between how much the U.S. imports from a country versus how much it exports to that country. If we buy more from a country than they buy from us, we have a trade deficit with that country. So under Trump's plan, countries with which we have a higher trade deficit would face higher tariffs. Now we know since that original order was signed in April, President Trump has reached individual trade agreements with various countries like Japan, South Korea, the eu, the UK and some others. One of the two executive orders that was signed last Thursday modifies the original tariff structure. We just Talked about that 10% baseline tariff and then the country specific tariffs to, to sort of be in line with either updated information or the, the trade agreements that Trump has reached with these countries. Keep in mind, a tariff is essentially a tax on imported goods, right? So if a US Company, farmer, manufacturer, et cetera, imports steel, aluminum, soybeans, avocados, whatever it might be, that company or farmer or manufacturer is, is going to pay a tax to import those goods or materials. The tax ultimately then goes to the US treasury, which in turn generates revenue for the United States. In fact, back before we had income tax here in the United States, U.S. revenue was based primarily on tariffs. Now, obviously things look a little bit different because income tax makes up the majority of our government's revenue, but that's why tariffs exist, to raise money for the government. So this new executive order signed last Thursday titled Further modifying the reciprocal tariff rates, as I said, changes the rates on imports from various countries per the new order. Some countries have had their country specific tariff rates recalculated based on either updated information or those new trade agreements. For example, the eu, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, the UK And Vietnam have have all had their rates updated per the new trade agreements with those countries. The countries that have had the rates recalculated are listed in the annex section of the order. So it's basically an updated chart from what we saw in April. Countries that do not have adjusted rates as listed on that annex will simply face baseline tariffs. So for countries where the United States runs a trade surplus, meaning it sells more to those countries than it buys, the baseline tariff is 10%. For countries that have a trade deficit with the United States, the new baseline tariff is 15%. And that applies to about 40 nations. These updated tariffs are expected to go into effect on August 7. Now, the second executive order signed last Thursday made adjustments to tariffs specifically on Canadian imports. So back in February, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on certain goods from Canada and and a 10% tariff on certain energy resources from Canada. At that time, Trump said the tariffs were due to Canada's lack of control at the northern border, meaning Canada was letting too many illegal immigrants and fentanyl come into the United States. A month later in March, Trump amended that original order and one specified that these additional tariff rates don't apply to items that qualify for duty free entry under the US Mexico Canada agreement and 2 reduced the rate on potash from 25% to 10%. In his most recent executive order, though, Trump increased tariffs on Canadian imports from the original 25% to now 35% and this change took effect on August 1. So to recap, there is now a 35% tariff on certain goods from Canada and except those goods that qualify for duty free entry under the USMCA, a 10% tariff on certain energy resources from Canada and a 10% tariff on potash. So those are the new tariff related executive orders. Moving on. On Friday, President Trump announced that he had directed his team to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What I want to do here is quickly talk about what the Bureau of Labor Statistics is, the role of the commissioner, how Trump has the authority to unilaterally fire the commissioner, and why the Commissioner was ultimately fired. So first, what is the Bureau of Labor Statistics? The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the main federal agency for labor economics and statistics. So it's part of the Department of Labor. It's responsible for collecting, analyzing and publishing data about the US Workforce, job market, price prices and productivity. This data is important because it helps both the public and the government understand the health of the economy. It's used to influence important policy decisions, pay decisions, hiring decisions, investment decisions, etc, and it's used by the Fed in making decisions about monetary policies and setting interest rates. So the commissioner of the BLS as, as the head official of the Bureau is responsible for overseeing operations and this particular commissioner had served in this position for for a year and a half after being nominated in 2023 and then being confirmed in January 2024 following a bipartisan Senate vote. Well, last week the BLS released its July monthly jobs Data report and this is something that's released every month. It shows how many jobs were added in the United States over the past month, as well as other data points like the current unemployment rate et Cetera, et cetera. Now, the BLS collects job data in two separate surveys. Okay, so one of the surveys collects information from households where households around the country are asked for their employment status and demographic information. And the other survey is focused on businesses and government agencies. Through phone calls, Internet surveys, and even automated data transfers, businesses and agencies are asked about their monthly employment levels. So, number of employees, hours worked by employees, earnings data, things like that. Essentially, this data is designed to reflect the state of employment across the country. Over a one month period, July's monthly data showed that US employers had only added about 73,000 jobs, which is much less than the 115,000 that were expected by economists. And not only were job numbers much lower than expected, but the report also included revisions to the last two monthly reports, which reduced about 258,000 thousand jobs from the May and June reports combined. Now, when the data shows less employment or a job, a drop in job growth like we're seeing here, it's generally interpreted as a bad sign for the economy because a decrease in jobs means a slower economy. This is, of course, something a President wants to avoid, because a president wants to see his policies stimulating the economy, not dragging the economy down. Naturally, though, many economists have interpreted this new report as evidence that Trump's policies are starting to take a toll on the economy. Because as we just talked about, the data reflects a decrease in employment and job opportunities, which is an indication of a slower economy. Trump doesn't like that. So on Friday, Trump made the decision to fire the commissioner. In his Truth Social post, he accuses the commissioner of rigging the numbers for political reasons, writing, quote, in my opinion, today's job numbers were rigged in order to make the Republicans and me look bad, just like when they had three great days around the 2024 presidential election, and then those numbers were taken away on November 15, 2024, right after the election, when the job numbers were massively revised downward, making a Correction of over 818,000 jobs, a total scam. Jerome, Too late. Powell is no better. But the good news is our country is doing great. End quote. Now, many of you wanted to know whether downward revisions like this are standard. And the answer is yes, but not to this degree. So revisions are typical, but this revision was actually the biggest two month downward revision since 2020. To give you some context, the average monthly revision for the past 46 years has been around 50 to 60,000. This revision that was just issued, 258,000 over two months and is obviously much higher than the average. The thing with revisions, though, is this revisions don't typically represent mistakes or miscalculations. Instead, they often reflect new data that's become available for previous months. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects the data for their reports through those surveys we talked about. But in some cases, employers won't respond to the surveys right away. So maybe they don't get around to sending in their May employment numbers until mid July. Well, this leads to revisions after the May monthly jobs report has already been released. And we've seen this trend with businesses taking longer to respond ever since the pandemic. So in the last five years or so, we've seen the scale of these revisions get bigger and more common. That being said, though, again, the revisions that we saw in this most recent report were especially high and have therefore received more attention than usual. The final question I want to get to is, does Trump have the authority to fire the commissioner? Yes. And that's because the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner is a presidential appointee. Presidential appointees are appointed at the discretion of the President. They can be fired at the discretion of the President. The commissioner's position does not have protections against at will removal. So individuals that hold the position can be fired without cause. Now, before we jump off to the next story, I did have quite a few of you ask me if these revisions were politically motivated. That is not something I can answer. I just don't have facts surrounding that. I can tell you what happened, which is what I did, but I can't, I can't give you an answer as to whether this was politically motivated. President Trump seems to think so. I don't have the answer there. Moving on to another story from Friday. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced that it is shutting down operations following the loss of federal funding. This is a story we've been covering for months. So we started with the threats of funding cuts, then the rescissions package, and then the Senate passing the rescissions package and now here we are. So first, what is the cpb? What does it do? What did it do? The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, was created by Congress in 1967 through the public Broadcasting Act. It was created with the goal of ensuring that everyone could access educational ad free programming and to help local stations get their content out to their communities. Since then, the CPB has remained a private nonprofit corporation the that receives 100% of its funding from Congress. CPB is the biggest source of funding for public radio, TV and related online and mobile services. It receives just over $530 million from Congress annually during Trump's first term is when he first threatened to cut CBP's funding. Since then, and especially in the last few months, we've seen increased efforts from Trump to do so. In May, Trump signed that executive order calling on the CPB to stop providing direct and indirect funding to both NPR and PBS because of their alleged media bias. And around that same time, the president submitted a $9 billion rescissions package to Congress. In part, that rescissions package called for the cutting of $1.1 billion from the CPB over the next two years. If we do the math, $1.1 billion divided by two years is $550 million annually, which is a little more than what the CPB currently receives. And that leaves the CPB with $0 in congressional funding. So the CPB's announcement that it's shutting down operations comes in response to that total loss of funding. The CBB says it will be cutting the majority of their staff positions, which is roughly 100 by the end of September, and that it will keep a small transition team through January to ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations. So now, of course, we have to talk about the impact of the CPB shutting down. What does it mean? In order to understand the effects, I want to look at how the CPB worked and how their federal funds were used. So, as I said, the CPB received about $535 million from Congress each year. Roughly 70% of those funds were used to provide grants to thousands of local stations nationwide. The other 30% of the funds were spent on operational costs for the organization and as well as helping local stations with various services like licensing. So Congress would appropriate funds to the cpb, and then the CPB would distribute those funds to more than 1500 local rural and urban public media stations in the form of community service grants. Those stations would then use those grants to either produce their own programming or to purchase programming from services like NPR and PBS that that it could then broadcast to local audiences. Now, npr, just so we're clear, as a national organization, barely uses any direct federal funds. Less than 1% of its annual operating budget is from federal funds. So NPR as a national organization, will not be affected by the CPB shutting down. Those that will see an impact are those local stations that purchase programming from NPR and PBS and and rely on CPB for funding. Without federal funding, those small public media stations, especially those in rural areas, are at risk of shutting down. And it really varies by station. Some stations don't receive a ton in grant money. Others do. It really just depends. Like I said, the more rural stations typically receive more in funding, so those are the ones that will take a bigger hit. To put it into perspective, a CPB analysis found that almost half of the rural stations that it supported were relied on them for at least 25% of their total budget. So without those community service grants, these rural stations will have to find other funding to make up for that 25% they'll now lose. Or if they can't possibly, they'll have to shut down. So just to be clear, the cpp, the CPB shutting down will have a direct impact on those smaller local stations that rely heavily on community service grants from the cpb, but not on larger national organizations like NPR and pbs. Let's take our first break here. When we come back, we'll go over what we know about the new White House ballroom, the probe into former special counsel Jack Smith, and then we'll do a little listener Q and A where I'll answer some recently asked questions from all of you. If you run an e commerce business, you know the best way to be successful is to keep your customers happy. 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Jenny Moness
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Emily Johnson
Welcome back. The White House announced plans to build a new 200 million dollar ballroom on the White House property. So let's talk about it first. Why? Well, currently the biggest hosting space on the White House property is the East Room. It has a 200 person seated capacity, so Whenever the White House hosts events with more than 200 people, they install a big tent on the property to accommodate everyone. Per the administration. This new ballroom is meant to be a room that can host more people under one roof. With, with a seated capacity of 650 people, as far as we know, the ballroom will be built where the East Wing of the White House currently sits. Basically, the White House complex consists of various buildings, right? But the White House we think of when we envision the White House or the, the white building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that sits, you know, on that green lawn. It consists of three core buildings. The East Wing, the Executive Residence, and then the West Wing. The, the Executive Residence is that big white building we're all very familiar with in front of the Green Lawn. And then the east and West Wings are separate buildings that connect to the Executive Residence with hallways. So the West Wing is actually where the President works. That's where the Oval Office is, the Situation Room, and then offices for senior staff. That's actually where I was when I attended the press briefing earlier this year. The Executive Residence is where the President actually lives. No one's really allowed in there. And then the East Wing is where the First Lady's offices are. That's where the visitor's entrance is. And then there's also some other office spaces in the East Wing as well. So when they say the ballroom is taking the place of the East Wing, it won't actually be attached to the main Executive Residence, but rather connected to it via a corridor like the east and West Wings currently are. As far as what will happen to the offices in the existing East Wing, we don't know. We. When asked if the entire East Wing, or only parts would be torn down, the Press Secretary said, quote, the necessary construction will take place. And for those who are housed in the East Wing, including the office of the first lady, the White House military Office, the White House Visitors Offices, those offices will be temporarily relocated while the East Wing is being modernized, end quote. So it sounds based on that response, that once the new structure is built, it will encompass both this new ballroom and the existing offices. We don't know for sure, though we also know that the new structure will be about 90,000 square feet. So to compare, the Executive Residence is about 55,000 square feet. The West Wing is about 40,000 square feet, and the East Wing, we don't actually know the exact square footage, but it's somewhere between 10 and 30,000 square feet. So if this new structure is 90,000 square feet, and that means It'll be about the size of the Executive Residence and the West Wing combined. So sitting next to the Executive Residence, it'll be just under double the size. But again, it won't be directly attached to the Executive Residence. Right. I've seen some AI renderings that show it directly connected to the Executive Residence. That won't be the case. It'll be off to the side, connected via a hallway. Next, how will this project be funded and how long will it take? Well, the project is expected to cost about $200 million per the admin. According to the White House, funding will come entirely from donations, both from Trump himself as well as other unnamed donors. The White House says the project will start next month and that it's expected to be completed long before the end of President Trump's current term. And finally, how can Trump do this? Is this allowed? This is a question that a lot of you had. Historians and government ethics experts say Trump does have the authority to do this. There are no rules against presidents expanding on the White House while in office or renovating the White House. In fact, FDR was the one that tripled the size of the west wing in 1934 and added a second story to the east wing in 1942. So other presidents have made renovations, too. And also keep in mind, this is not the first construction project President Trump has taken on while he's been in office, though it's definitely the biggest. Just in the last few months, Trump replaced the grass in the Rose Garden with a patio. He. He added gold interior to the Oval Office. He installed new flag poles on the north and south lawns. So it does seem that this is within his authority to do so. The White House does have a committee that provides advice for the, quote, preservation and the interpretation of the museum character. But the administration has said that in completing these renovations, they are, quote, fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserve the special history of the White House. End quote. Okay, moving on. The Office of the Special Counsel says it's investigating former Special Counsel Jack Smith for potential violations of the Hatch act during his criminal investigations into President Trump. This announcement comes after Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton sent a letter to Acting Special Counsel Jameson Greer requesting that the OSC investigate Smith. To give you a little bit of background, back in 2022, former special counsel Jack Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to. To lead two federal investigations into Trump. Those are the classified documents case and the federal election interference case. We know that Smith ultimately brought charges against Trump in both of those cases, but Both indictments were dropped once Trump was reelected in November because of the DOJ's long standing policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. In Cotton's recent letter to the osc, he wrote that Smith expedited trial proceedings and deliberately pushed information against Trump with no legitimate purpose. Cotton alleges that Smith used his DOJ role to influence the election, saying that Smith rushed the trial timeline against Trump, bypassed the appellate process, and filed a procedurally irregular and excessive brief. Cotton concluded his letter writing, quote, why? To help Kamala and hurt Trump. There is no other reason. These actions were not standard, necessary or justified. The they were the actions of a political actor masquerading as a public official. That's why I've asked this unprecedented interference in the 2024 election be immediately investigated by OSC, end quote. Now, the Hatch act, which is at the center of this investigation, in part, prohibits federal employees from using their positions to engage in political activities that could interfere with or influence the outcome of an election. Violations of the Hatch act can result in penalties like removal from federal service, reduction in grade, disbarment from federal employment for up to five years, suspension, reprimand, possible civil penalty up to $1,000. The thing is, though, Jack Smith is no longer employed by the federal government, so if he is found to have violated the Hatch act, it's unclear what his penalties would be. Aside from a possible civil penalty of up to $1,000, this is not a criminal investigation, so there's no possibility of jail time or anything like that. All right, for this next segment, I figured because the news cycle is always a little bit slower over the weekend, I could spend some time answering some of the more specific questions that some of you submitted yesterday. When I asked what you wanted to hear about in today's episode, we'll cover what's going on in Texas with the redrawing of the congressional maps. We'll cover whether there's a new law that automatically marries people who have been in a relationship for longer than five years. But first, let's start with did Trump request that the Smithsonian remove information about his impeachments? So the Washington Post was the first to report this, but we've actually heard directly from the Smithsonian since then. So I'll tell you first what the Washington Post reported, and then I'll read you the Smithsonian's statement. According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration was pressuring the museum to remove a museum director. And amid that pressure, the museum allegedly agreed to a content review of the contents within the museum. And because of that content review, the museum removed references to Trump's two impeachments from one particular part of the museum. In reporting that, the Washington Post cited an anonymous source. However, the Smithsonian released a statement over the weekend that gave us a little bit more clarity. And that statement reads, quote, as the keeper of memory for the nation, it is our privilege and responsibility to tell accurate and complete histories. As has been recently reported, in July a placard was removed from the National Museum of American History's exhib exhibit, the American Presidency. A Glorious Burden. The intent of the impeachment section of the exhibit is to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation's history. The placard, which was meant to be a temporary addition to a 25 year old exhibition, did not meet the museum's standards in appearance, location, timeline and overall presentation. It was not consistent with other sections in the exhibit and moreover, blocked the view of the objects inside the case. For these reasons, we removed the placard. We were not asked by any administration or other government official to remove content from the exhibit. The section in question, impeachment, will be updated in the coming weeks to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation's history. End quote. So just that that placard that they're talking about that they said was temporary, that was put there in September 2021. It was a temporary label regarding the impeachments of Trump and it was reportedly intended to just be a short term measure to address the events at the time. But the label remained in place until it was taken down last month. So that's what we know about what's going on at the Smithsonian. Next question. What is this new law that makes you and your significant other legally married after five years of dating? Unfortunately, I received this question just as much as the other two questions I'm answering in this Q and A. And the reason I say unfortunately is because there is absolutely no truth to this. This is a rumor that started last month and went very viral on just about every social media platform. The video originated from a user on TikTok that seemingly just posts misleading claims. Okay, some some of his other videos include Donald Trump just announced no more child support. Donald Trump just announced parents must co sign their children's first car. Donald Trump announced he'll be stepping down and passing the torch to Kamala Harris. Just totally fake news. But these are the videos that go viral, right? I believe the original video talking about this fake marriage law has five and a half million views. At this point. I can't even think about the amount of people that actually believe it because it makes me a bit sick. This is what people give their time to, though, and then, and then they believe that the crazy headlines. And anyway, in this one particular video, which was posted July 5, the guy says in part quote, breaking news, Donald Trump just announced if you've been in a relationship for at least five years, that's legally considered marriage. It's all over the news. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, World News, CNN, TMZ. Go check it out. It says starting August 1st, anybody that's on papers being in a relationship will be receiving a marriage license in the mail. End quote. To be very clear, as if I haven't already made this clear enough, this is completely false. There is no truth to this. There is no law that even comes close to saying anything like this except common law marriage. But that's a state level issue, not a federal issue. Not relevant here. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Don't believe everything you hear or read on the Internet. Let's take our second and final break here. When I come back, we'll answer one more listener question. We'll do some quick hitters, and then we'll finish with critical thinking. As summer winds down, I'm all about refreshing my wardrobe with staple pieces for the season ahead. And Quint nails it with their luxe essentials that feel effortless and look polished. The key is, is these pieces are perfect for layering and mixing. So my favorite thing to do when I shop with Quint is get the basics like basic tees, basic jeans, basic sweaters. And then I accessorize those outfits with jewelry and a belt to make the outfit look more refined. Quint has all of that, too. 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Emily Johnson
Welcome back. Let's finish this Q and A segment with the most asked question, which was what is going on with Texas redistricting? Is this typical or legal? So what's happening in Texas is that Texas Republicans are trying to redraw their congressional districts early. So every 10 years, we with every census, state legislatures go through this process of redistricting where they redraw the congressional lines to align with the census results. And just to kind of further elaborate that, the U.S. census Bureau collects this data every 10 years for purposes of assigning the 435 seats in the U.S. house of Representatives. So states that grew relative to others might gain a seat in the House at the expense of states whose populations stayed the same or declined. Now, while the seats in the U.S. house of Representatives are being reapportioned to align with the census, the state legislatures are also using that census data to reconfigure the congressional districts within their own states. Because each state is responsible for drawing its own district boundaries for state legislative and congressional districts. This is a process known as redistricting. Now, you can't talk about redistricting without also talking about gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is when district lines, district boundaries are drawn in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage over the other. There are two main gerrymandering tactics. There's packing, which is cramming as many of your opponent's voters as possible into a single district. That way, your opponent wins that district by a landslide, but their influence doesn't spread elsewhere or cracking, which is spreading your opponent's voters across multiple districts. So so they're always outnumbered and can't win in any of the districts. In both cases, the map is drawn to manipulate the outcome of the election. Right? Gerrymandering is legal so long as it doesn't violate federal law or the Constitution. So districts can't dilute the voting strength of minority communities. Or, you know, districts can't be drawn in a way that that is race based, but they can favor political parties. Partisan gerrymandering is legal under federal law, and as long as it doesn't dilute the voting power of racial or ethnic minorities. So what's happening in Texas is Republican state lawmakers are trying to redraw their maps early, ahead of the 2026 midterms because a new map could help Republicans flip as many as five congressional seats that are currently held by Democrats. So I'll give you some numbers. Currently, Texas has 38 congressional districts. Republicans hold 25 of those districts. If they redraw the lines, though, they could potentially gain five more seats, which would allow Republicans to control 80% of Texas US House seats. Now, also important to mention here is this. Last month, the DOJ sent Texas a letter that said some of its districts, which were drawn after the 2020 census, are unconstitutional. Specifically, the letter said that four of Texas's congressional districts were unconstitutional, that the 9th, 18th and 33rd were unconstitutional Coalition districts where black and Hispanic voters combined to form a majority, and that the 29th district, while majority Hispanic, was created by its two neighbors being coalition districts. So Republican lawmakers in Texas are basically saying, look, the DOJ told us our districts are unconstitutional and, and we need to listen and do something about it. Interestingly, though, Texas's own Republican attorney general disagreed with the DOJ's assessment. He responded to the DOJ writing that the Texas Legislature did not pass race based electoral districts and that three of the districts that the DOJ took issue with had already been challenged in court, but that the evidence at trial was clear and unequivocal. And in recent interviews, Texas's governor, also Republican, similarly said that he thought the current maps would hold up in court, but that he did support looking into redrawing them. In accordance with the DOJ's letter, though, Governor Abbott went ahead and placed redistricting on the special session agenda. And that is where the recent drama really ramped up. Now, are Texas lawmakers allowed to redraw the map early? Yes, because here's the thing. There is no law, There is no rule that says states have to wait 10 years to redraw their maps. It's true that the Constitution requires a census every 10 years and that that data is what states typically use to redraw their districts. But there's no federal law that requires states to only draw their maps once per decade. In fact, the Supreme Court has said that states can redraw their maps whenever they want. So what this means is that mid decade redistricting is legal unless states state law or a state constitution specifically prohibits it. And most states don't. Texas doesn't. Speaking of mid decade redistricting in Texas, though we saw almost this exact situation play out in 2003. In 2003, Texas Republicans pushed through a new congressional map, even though a map had already been drawn after the 2000 census. The new map, similar to what we're seeing now, was a mid decade redistricting aimed at flipping more congressional seats to Republicans. Now, following that redrawing, several, several groups sued the legislature, arguing that the new map violated the Constitution as well as the Voting Rights act of 1965. And while the Supreme Court did strike down one of Texas's new districts, saying it violated the Voting Rights act by diluting Latino voting power, the court also held, quote, unquote, the Constitution does not forbid a state from redrawing its district lines as often as it likes, end quote. Meaning states can redraw their maps whenever they want, as long as it doesn't violate other laws. So the short answer here is yes. Texas lawmakers can redistrict mid decade, but their new map has to comply with federal law and the Constitution. With this in mind, what will likely see happen here if the Democrats come back to work, and we'll talk about that more in a second too, is Texas will draw a new map like it did in 2003. It'll get sued, and then it'll be up to the courts to determine whether Texas's new map can stand. So now let's talk about what Democrats are doing to oppose the effort. More than 50 Democratic lawmakers in Texas have left the state to block a quorum and prevent a vote. A quorum, by the way, is the minimum number of lawmakers that have to be present to conduct business. So if enough lawmakers leave town and and break quorum, the state legislature can't take any action, right? Breaking quorum is something we've seen Texas lawmakers do since the 1800s. In 1870, 13 Texas senators walked out of the Capitol to block a vote giving the governor wartime powers. The senators that left were ultimately arrested. The bill did ultimately pass, but that was the first time we saw the quorum breaking tactic by a minority party. Quorum breaks in Texas happened again after that in 1979, 2003, 2021, and today. Now Democrats can technically prevent the GOP's redistricting effort by breaking quorum, but it would require the entire delegation to stay out of the state until at least November, which is when the new map has to be submitted by the Democrats. Not returning to work until November is highly unlikely. Furthermore, Texas's constitution and Texas House rules allow for penalties of against those who break quorum. So the House can impose daily fines of $500 a day against lawmakers who break quorum. The House sergeant at arms can issue what's called a call of the House to physically bring absent members back, even if it requires law enforcement. And then there's also political retaliation, right? Perhaps Democrats lose committee assignments. Maybe they see budget penalties. Maybe they even see attempts to remove them from office. That would likely require court action and it might not even be constitutional. But Governor Abbott has talked about the possibility. All this to say there are mechanisms that that the House can use to bring these lawmakers back. So time will tell what happens here. But the most likely scenario is that the Democrats return, a new map is voted on and likely passed, Texas gets sued, and then the courts will determine whether the map can stand. Basically a replay of 2003. Okay, so now it's time for some quick hitters. Just a few Today, the Senate Appropriations Committee increased funding to the NIH $400 million in a bipartisan vote. This is despite the Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget cut of $18 billion. The $400 million increase includes $150 million for cancer and another $100 million for Alzheimer's. The committee also kept current funding levels for the CDC at $9.1 billion. Keep in mind these funding levels do still need to be approved by Congress. The Gifford fire, which is currently burning in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obisbo, has burned nearly 70,000 acres and was only 3% contained as of this morning. The number of acres burned as of Monday morning increased 30% from Sunday night. The wildfire first broke out on Friday in the Los Padres National Forest and the cause is still under investigation. And a manhunt remains underway for a 46 year old veteran accused of fatally shooting four people at a bar in Montana. An image released by the Department of Criminal Investigations in Montana shows the suspect flight fleeing the scene moments after the shooting in just his boxers. The suspect lives next door to the bar and one of the victim's daughters said the town knew him for telling in depth seemingly made up stories about his time in the military. Officials have offered a 7, 500 reward for information leading to his arrest. Finally, let's finish with some critical thinking. Remember, this segment is not meant to be too complex. It's not meant to stump you. It's just to get you thinking deeper about a particular issue or story. So let's revisit that redistricting story out of Texas. I'll first pose a general question for everyone, and then I will challenge those of you that support the early redistricting and those that oppose it. For the first question, I do need to provide some context. In most states like Texas, redistricting is handled by the state legislature, which means whichever party is in power gets to draw the maps, right? But in some states like California and Michigan, the process is actually handed over to independent or bipartisan commissions that are supposed to draw more fair, nonpartisan maps. So my question for you is this. Which system better serves voters? A system where elected representatives control the redistricting process, or a system where outside commissions have the control? And why now, for those that support the early redraw, if maps are redrawn multiple times within one decade, do voters lose stability in who represents them, or does it allow for more accurate and responsive representation? And why? And perhaps you think both are true. That's fine too. In that case, which is more important, voter stability or accurate representation? And why, for those that oppose the early redraw, should the timing of a redistricting effort matter more than its legality or fairness? Or should any map that fails to protect equal representation be revisited regardless of when it's drawn and why? That's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to have a new newsletter going out tomorrow morning, which you can subscribe to by clicking the sign up link in the show Notes of this episode. It's quick hitters in politics, pop culture, health, business and international news. Basically everything you could ever want. It goes out Tuesdays and Fridays. Have a great week. I will talk to you again on Thursday.
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David Brown
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