Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / Day 1 of the 53rd ALEC Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL

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Day 1 of the 53rd ALEC Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

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Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College All Things
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Speaker 1: hillsdalet Hillsdale dot ed or. I encourage you to take
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Speaker 1: advantage of the many free online courses there, and of
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Speaker 1: course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them
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Speaker 1: at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or any great America.
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Speaker 1: Hewitt in Orlando today at the annual meeting of the
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Speaker 1: American Legislative Exchange Council, which I've been doing now for
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Speaker 1: three years, and I am back and I'm very happy.
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Speaker 1: I call it my easiest two days of broadcasts all
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Speaker 1: year long, because all the smart people here talking about
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Speaker 1: what's going on in the laboratories of the state, including
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Speaker 1: the leader of ALEC, Lisa Nelson, who is the CEO
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Speaker 1: and chairman. Lisa, good to see you again. I guess
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Speaker 1: you're not the chairman. You're the CEO.
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Speaker 2: I am the CEO, and our chairman is Demi Boussada.
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Speaker 1: And so Demi's going to be on sometimes the next
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Speaker 1: two days. Tell people who don't know what the American
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Speaker 1: Legislative Exchange Council is.
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Speaker 3: Okay, the American Legislative Exchange Council is a fifty three
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Speaker 3: year old organization that develops model policy for state legislators
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Speaker 3: across the spectrum from education to tax reform, to healthcare
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Speaker 3: to election integrity. We find the consensus between the private
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Speaker 3: sector and the public sector and drive that model policy.
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Speaker 3: If you go on our website at ALEC dot org,
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Speaker 3: you'll find over one thousand model policies that give legislators
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Speaker 3: across the country of roadmap for how to be competitive
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Speaker 3: in their states.
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Speaker 1: Fifty three years ago, who thought this shot?
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Speaker 3: It was a product of kind of a lot of
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Speaker 3: the Reagan kitchen cabinet, if you remember, Henry Hyde and
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Speaker 3: Ed Fulner at Fulner and a guy named Mark Rhodes,
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Speaker 3: a guy named Alan Smith. They all got together in Chicago,
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Speaker 3: believe it or not, because it was the easiest place
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Speaker 3: for everybody across the country to fly to. They met
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Speaker 3: in a hotel right by the airport and cooked up ALEC.
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Speaker 3: And they wanted to be sure that it was this
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Speaker 3: kind of magic blend of.
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Speaker 2: Private sector public sector getting together.
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Speaker 3: To create what hopefully would be job creation, you know,
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Speaker 3: legislation and policy around the country, economic development policy and
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Speaker 3: everything in it that would work and be competitive for
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Speaker 3: the states.
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Speaker 1: Every week people hear me talk about with Jonathan Williams,
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Speaker 1: who is your president chief economist. The rich State's poor state.
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Speaker 1: The best metric I've seen in American politics and American
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Speaker 1: public policy in twenty seven years doing the show, because
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Speaker 1: it actually measures who's doing good and is doing bad
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Speaker 1: by income, by education, by employment, by mostly population. Now
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Speaker 1: that's a big tell. And over that period of time,
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Speaker 1: I would bet the red state count has increased. There
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Speaker 1: were probably more purple states fifty three years ago, sort
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Speaker 1: of mixed up. Yeah, but the self selection has advanced out.
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Speaker 1: Now this is a non part of an organization. Now,
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Speaker 1: I was saying, but you have eighteen hundred people expected
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Speaker 1: at this game.
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Speaker 3: We have about eighteen hundred people expected in Orlando this week.
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Speaker 3: And what you're talking about is the Laffer the ALEC
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Speaker 3: Laffer Economic Index which rank states. Utah has ranked number
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Speaker 3: one for nineteen years, all nineteen years. And it's because
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Speaker 3: every year they sit down and they say, how can
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Speaker 3: we keep this number one ranking? What do we need
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Speaker 3: to do from a policy perspective to either fix our
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Speaker 3: property rights taxes, do budget reform across the board. The
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Speaker 3: other states are seeing this, taking note and want to
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Speaker 3: compete with Utah. And we've had a lot of states
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Speaker 3: come in and move up the rankings.
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Speaker 2: You talked about.
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Speaker 3: More and more red states in the top twenty five
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Speaker 3: twenty eight. I would say Arkansas has done very very well.
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Speaker 3: Arizona a few years ago past that income tax bill
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Speaker 3: to lower their tax rate to two percent. So under
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Speaker 3: Doug Doocey when he was governor, they did really well.
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Speaker 2: Florida does well.
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Speaker 3: Our laugher is now a replant from California to Tennessee,
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Speaker 3: and he has put Tennessee in that top ranking as well.
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Speaker 1: Now, the interesting thing, John has told me that school
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Speaker 1: choice is not yet a factor in those rankings. But
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Speaker 1: we talk about and I will talk throughout the day
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Speaker 1: to day about parental control and the future First Lady
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Speaker 1: of Florida. Today I was talking about every dollar that's
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Speaker 1: spent on a child should be directed by a parent.
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Speaker 1: Now that's the Goalsolutely, it's a very good boy. She dynamic.
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Speaker 1: She's with Donald's.
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Speaker 3: Erica Donald's is a fabulous woman who saw that education
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Speaker 3: freedom kind of movement come on during COVID and started
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Speaker 3: thinking about, okay, if we passed these bills, and you know,
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Speaker 3: there's eighteen states that have passed education freedom bills that
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Speaker 3: align with that thinking of the dollars following the students
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Speaker 3: and the parents have in control. But if we pass that,
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Speaker 3: then what are we going to do to make sure
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Speaker 3: that there's a supply on the other end. So she
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Speaker 3: started her own charter school companies, and there was a
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Speaker 3: lot of people looking at this thinking if there's a
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Speaker 3: waiting list in Iowa. When Kim Reynolds passed her bill
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Speaker 3: in when they flipped the switch and said you can
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Speaker 3: start applying for these schools, they flipped that switch. They
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Speaker 3: had a waiting list within I think it was six hours.
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Speaker 3: So you have to make sure that you've got the supply.
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Speaker 3: And she started, I think it was Optima Foundation, which
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Speaker 3: is creating schools around Florida. We just had a meeting
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Speaker 3: with a company that's looking at moving to Florida with
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Speaker 3: Erica since the lunch and she was talking about if
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Speaker 3: the company's going to move to Florida, would they consider
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Speaker 3: having a school in there on their business campus, a
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Speaker 3: charter school. Would they consider giving some space to the
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Speaker 3: parents because it's a hybrid workforce that they're looking at,
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Speaker 3: And she thought would they be able to bring students
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Speaker 3: in so that then you make that job a little
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Speaker 3: more attractive.
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Speaker 1: To when they elect Byron Donald's I think they will.
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Speaker 1: They're going to have a superstar first Lady for school choice,
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Speaker 1: which I think is a wonderful thing for the entire country,
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Speaker 1: not just Florida. She'll be a cheerleader for that. Let's
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Speaker 1: talk about the other end. I don't know that you
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Speaker 1: metric in yet to rich states, poor stage, voter registration
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Speaker 1: voter security issue, but I mentioned at lunch date it's
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Speaker 1: the number one storing the United States except for the
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Speaker 1: Warren Iran. Is the new Jersey meltdown? Does the model
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Speaker 1: policy that ALEC has proposed deal with that at the
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Speaker 1: time of registration or voter or license issuance.
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Speaker 3: Well, so we're talking about a couple of different things there.
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Speaker 3: I should say that ALEC has many publications. So when
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Speaker 3: you talk about rich states, poor states, and whether we're
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Speaker 3: integrating in education freedom or election integrity, all of those
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Speaker 3: are economic indicators and they all are going to factor in.
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Speaker 3: But what we've done is really drill down in the
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Speaker 3: education space. So we have a separate publication that is
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Speaker 3: an education freedom ranking, which is interesting. Florida, of course,
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Speaker 3: no doubt, is number one it's the one place where
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Speaker 3: some of the states are beating.
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Speaker 1: Because everybody gets it.
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Speaker 4: That's right.
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Speaker 3: On the election integrity front, we just started our last
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Speaker 3: meeting a year ago. I guess it's the anniversary the
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Speaker 3: Process and Procedures Task Force to speak exactly to your point,
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Speaker 3: to make sure that we've got the right policies in place.
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Speaker 3: And you've seen a plethora of policies and legislation for
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Speaker 3: ever since the twenty twenty election going through to make
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Speaker 3: sure that in the red states we've got protections on
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Speaker 3: voter ID, protections on how are you counting the people,
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Speaker 3: protections on the voter rolls and checking you know, are
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Speaker 3: there like in New Jersey six eight hundred people that
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Speaker 3: are either dead or you know, not supposed to be
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Speaker 3: on this, or just immigrants who shouldn't be voting. So
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Speaker 3: we're going to be looking at that this week absolutely
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Speaker 3: to make sure that we've got the policies in place.
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Speaker 1: Now. I want to assure people there are ninety nine
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Speaker 1: legislative chambers in the United States by state. Nebraska is
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Speaker 1: the only in a cameral state out there. A little
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Speaker 1: fun fact to know and tell, do you have representatives
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Speaker 1: from everywhere just didn't show up from everywhere, even California.
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Speaker 2: Even California.
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Speaker 3: I'm a native Californian, so make it a point to
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Speaker 3: not forget California. And the other thing that we do
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Speaker 3: at ALEC is really think about We are in a
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Speaker 3: fifty state organization. We try to get to all fifty
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Speaker 3: states every year. It's usually around thirty eight thirty nine,
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Speaker 3: but we really try to do our policy briefings, get
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Speaker 3: to know legislators, bring them in to be members of ALEC.
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Speaker 3: The legislators themselves join ALEC. We have about a quarter
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Speaker 3: of those seven three hundred legislators from across the country.
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Speaker 3: So it's a wonderful organization to join if you are
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Speaker 3: interested in policy.
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Speaker 1: ALEC eye Test hughes ALEC eye Test. It's younger, gets
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Speaker 1: younger every year. Yeah, but there are some stallwarts. There's
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Speaker 1: some people who've been doing this for the twenty seven
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Speaker 1: years I've been on the air, but I am in.
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Speaker 1: It's a very young group of people. So do you
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Speaker 1: think just guessing the demographic is falling in the state legislatures.
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Speaker 3: I think that's happening, But I will say that we've
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Speaker 3: been intentional about that. We are working with an organization
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Speaker 3: called Next Generation, and that is an organization that's really
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Speaker 3: looking to It's not a campaign organization, but it is
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Speaker 3: identifying young young people and saying, hey, if you're interested
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Speaker 3: in running, can we teach you the policy of it.
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Speaker 3: There's other organizations that can help you through the campaign
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Speaker 3: and things like that. But if you really are thinking
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Speaker 3: of going into public service, can we use the policy
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Speaker 3: chops of ALEC, which you talk about all the time,
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Speaker 3: and bring those young people kind of give them their
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Speaker 3: college education that they maybe didn't get about the Constitution,
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Speaker 3: about the Declaration, about the issues of the day, so
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Speaker 3: that they can at least run or serve and be
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Speaker 3: well edged.
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Speaker 1: A row commercial for ALEC. If you're a state legislator
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Speaker 1: and you know someone out there, I met Matt Commons day,
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Speaker 1: a young man from Indiana serving a second term. There's
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Speaker 1: our time legislature veteran, wonderful guy. You have veteran task force.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know that today. Uh, generally speaking, this is
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Speaker 1: I don't want to give your your idea anyway, but
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Speaker 1: you're a new person. You're from the newt coaching tree.
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Speaker 2: I'm from newworld. New world, as we call it.
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Speaker 1: A new world is ideas driven and always has been.
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Speaker 1: Does he show up here ever? Does he do ALEX stuff.
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Speaker 3: Newton has I've been CEO for eleven years. He's probably
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Speaker 3: been here eight or nine times.
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Speaker 2: So he's coming in December.
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Speaker 1: This is the kind of stuff.
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Speaker 2: He will be here in December.
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Speaker 3: And we were talking earlier about you know, the thing
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Speaker 3: that Newton always wants to look at its binary choices
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Speaker 3: and giving politicians and or educators.
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Speaker 2: That's a vat binary choice.
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Speaker 1: Lisa Elsa Lisa Nelson, CEO of aleclc dot org. Thank you,
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Speaker 1: don't go anywhere America. I'll be right back from Orlando
10:46
Speaker 1: and the ALEX Convention on the New Human Show walking
10:51
Speaker 1: back America. You do it in Orlando, the American Legislative
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Speaker 1: Exchange Council Annual meeting. I do this every year. I
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Speaker 1: get to talk to people like the President, protest one
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Speaker 1: of the Senate in Arizona, TJ Show, TJ. Good to
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Speaker 1: see you again, Thank you, congratulations you've been renominated. I
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Speaker 1: have tricked them again.
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Speaker 5: It was a tough race. It was it was a
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Speaker 5: ballot line of one person.
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Speaker 1: That's what I incumbent's like. You're the president protend of
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Speaker 1: the Senate first, tell people in America what the breakdown
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Speaker 1: the two chambers are?
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Speaker 6: So great question.
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Speaker 5: In Arizona, we have a seventeen Republican thirteen Democrat breakdown
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Speaker 5: in the House. The other chamber it's a thirty three
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Speaker 5: to twenty seven Republican. Both are increases from the previous
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Speaker 5: election cycle process. The House was thirty one to twenty
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Speaker 5: nine and had been for three consecutive election cycles, and
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Speaker 5: the Senate had been sixteen fourteen for two election cycles.
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Speaker 1: You got one of the least impressive governors. Now there's
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Speaker 1: non part of that. I'm just judging by the fact
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Speaker 1: that she's one of the least impressive governors in the
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Speaker 1: United States. So how does that look? That like?
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Speaker 4: Interesting?
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Speaker 5: So about two months ago she was pulling it in
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Speaker 5: a head to head against a hypothetical r at forty
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Speaker 5: one percent after seventy or seven point five million dollars
12:02
Speaker 5: that she spent on TV and nothing but glowing ads.
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Speaker 5: Pole just released about four or five days ago had
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Speaker 5: her at forty one percent. So she is now cash
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Speaker 5: on hand as opposed to being seven millions ahead. She's
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Speaker 5: now cash on hand even with the challenger, Congressman Andy Biggs.
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Speaker 1: So Andy Biggs, member of the Freedom KACA, is well known
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Speaker 1: throughout the United States. What do you want to get
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Speaker 1: done if Governor Biggs? If represented Biggs becomes governor?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, so, Andy and I've been talking quite a bit
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Speaker 5: over this period of time, and he's a former Senate
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Speaker 5: president and area. Oh that's right, and was instrumental and
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Speaker 5: dry helping drive the income tax down. We share a
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Speaker 5: goal of getting to zero income tax in Arizona, and
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Speaker 5: we think it's very doable. We have different ideas of
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Speaker 5: how to do it, and I think we can meld
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Speaker 5: those together in a way that will be very positive
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Speaker 5: for the state. We, of course, right now have a
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Speaker 5: very low flat tax a Governor Doocy and I and
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Speaker 5: others worked on for several years to make a reality
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Speaker 5: at two and a half percent, So it's not a
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Speaker 5: far fetched idea that we can drive that down to zero.
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Speaker 1: How long you've been in the state legislature?
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Speaker 6: Just finished up my fourteenth year.
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Speaker 7: Wow, so you really love doing this it is now.
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Speaker 5: My wife says, I get to do it for two
13:16
Speaker 5: more years and I hit my term limit and I
13:18
Speaker 5: have to go make money and do something else.
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Speaker 1: But you're not She's not listening, right, No, you know what,
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Speaker 1: if you have the Senate president.
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Speaker 6: It's it's a great place to be.
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Speaker 5: You have an opportunity to make a positive impact on
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Speaker 5: people's lives, stop bad things from happening on occasion, probably
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Speaker 5: more often than not, especially when we have divide a
13:36
Speaker 5: government like we do right now. So yeah, no, it's
13:39
Speaker 5: an exciting place to be.
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Speaker 1: There is an effort to repeal school chugres. How is
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Speaker 1: that going? Because that would be a disaster.
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Speaker 6: It'd be a complete disaster.
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Speaker 5: I always cited as one of my things that I'm
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Speaker 5: most proud of doing is to have a universal ESA
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Speaker 5: program in Arizona. It took many years to get there,
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Speaker 5: and we were finally able to achieve it. We have
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Speaker 5: a couple of I would say radical left organizations. One
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Speaker 5: organization that got the signatures to put it on about
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Speaker 5: to basically gut the system. Place things like a one
14:12
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty thousand dollars income cap on it, and
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Speaker 5: after four years of Biden inflation, I mean, obviously that
14:18
Speaker 5: is not as high as it seems anymore. Right, So, yeah,
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Speaker 5: there's some definite things that would concern us. They were
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Speaker 5: able to get signatures, like I said, to put it
14:27
Speaker 5: on about to repeal or to gut the system.
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Speaker 6: It's something that we have to fight.
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Speaker 5: We were able to go ahead and put a competing
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Speaker 5: measure and working with an organization, the Goldwater Institute, to
14:40
Speaker 5: have a type of competing measure that would be a
14:42
Speaker 5: constitutional measure that would en trine a lot of the
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Speaker 5: program in the state constitution. Their effort is a statutory
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Speaker 5: change and it would theoretically protect school choice as it
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Speaker 5: stands now in Arizona. Knowing that all go to court
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Speaker 5: and everything like that, but it's going to be a
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Speaker 5: very big fight in the state. I really do think
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Speaker 5: that their effort will likely be successful.
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Speaker 1: They'll get on the ballot.
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Speaker 6: It's on the ballot.
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Speaker 5: Oh, and it very well could be successful in November
15:14
Speaker 5: because they did the right thing.
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Speaker 6: They focus group, they tested some.
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Speaker 5: Of the things that we knew reliabilities of the program,
15:21
Speaker 5: which is why we came up with this competing measure
15:24
Speaker 5: in the final days of session to put on the
15:26
Speaker 5: bout as well. I know Governor d c has been
15:29
Speaker 5: activated kind of in this effort since it's a signature
15:32
Speaker 5: achievement for him, is helping lead an effort to oppose
15:36
Speaker 5: their initiative and to support this other is.
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Speaker 1: The very title for both of those. Now, what do
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Speaker 1: Arizonas want to vote for? What should they vote against?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's a protect Military Families initiative.
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Speaker 6: Is our proposal.
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Speaker 5: That's really the only one people need to remember, because
15:51
Speaker 5: as long as it gets fifty percent plus one, it
15:53
Speaker 5: is the spretation as a constitutional amendment. So the idea
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Speaker 5: in the next it was one of the early expansions
16:03
Speaker 5: of the ESA program in Arizona when we first did
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Speaker 5: it several years ago and I was a young legislator,
16:10
Speaker 5: was the allowance for military families to be able to
16:13
Speaker 5: use that program. And to protect that in the constitution
16:17
Speaker 5: is what we're.
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Speaker 6: Trying to do.
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Speaker 5: And there are other things in there that allow the
16:21
Speaker 5: rest of the program to stay in play.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Tim Sanderfer has had of altigation over Goldwater's the
16:26
Speaker 1: best lobstudent I've had. I've been teaching for thirty years.
16:28
Speaker 1: He's way smart. Of course, he's way up at the
16:31
Speaker 1: lippy with his former professors. But if he is, okay.
16:34
Speaker 6: Many of them are.
16:35
Speaker 1: Yeah they are, but they're good lawyers. They're fabulous lawyers
16:39
Speaker 1: at the gold Barterers too. Tell me about what Arizona.
16:42
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask almost everyone in this because Governor
16:45
Speaker 1: Hocal in New York outlawed data centers, and I thought,
16:48
Speaker 1: that's about the dumbest thing I've seen anyone do. There's
16:50
Speaker 1: got to be a middle ground here.
16:51
Speaker 4: When it works for everybody.
16:52
Speaker 1: What are they doing in Arizona about.
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Speaker 4: So right now?
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Speaker 5: We had a tax incentive, and we had numerous tax
16:58
Speaker 5: incentives to be fair after so in response to the
17:02
Speaker 5: financial crisis in eighth nine of different in sos just
17:06
Speaker 5: lure any type of businesses. In this case, it was
17:08
Speaker 5: the construction jobs that come along with data centers in
17:11
Speaker 5: their earlier incarnations, and we repealed that tax incentive on
17:16
Speaker 5: a three year because it's a moratorium. I guess it
17:19
Speaker 5: would be the right word to use. That's really all
17:22
Speaker 5: that we've done now. I do know that there are conversations.
17:25
Speaker 5: It's kind of the horseshoe theory, I feel like of politics,
17:28
Speaker 5: where we have folks on the far right who want
17:30
Speaker 5: to ban data centers for any number of reasons. I
17:34
Speaker 5: think the most often cited is water use, which is
17:37
Speaker 5: kind of a fallacy, as we all know, because of
17:39
Speaker 5: the advent of closed loop.
17:41
Speaker 6: And you're basically just.
17:43
Speaker 5: Saying that there's never going to be any other innovation
17:45
Speaker 5: in this sphere when we're talking about industry that all
17:48
Speaker 5: they do is innovate news exactly. And then on the
17:53
Speaker 5: far left that really is kind of a lot of
17:58
Speaker 5: it comes from.
17:59
Speaker 6: Environment and things like that.
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Speaker 5: Interestingly enough, if you have this has caused quite a
18:05
Speaker 5: schism on the left. You have the labor unions that
18:08
Speaker 5: are blue collar labor unions who want to bail those
18:10
Speaker 5: who now have begun flocking to Arizona Republicans because we
18:15
Speaker 5: have traditionally been of the opinion that look, if it's
18:18
Speaker 5: private property, you have willing buyer, willing seller, and something
18:23
Speaker 5: can be built, then we're going to be the party
18:24
Speaker 5: that says yes to that. So I think it's still
18:27
Speaker 5: TBD on.
18:28
Speaker 6: Where Arizona goes with this, but there.
18:31
Speaker 5: Is there's probably some tightening up on that that can
18:35
Speaker 5: be done in order to not in my opinion, and
18:38
Speaker 5: I don't want to limit data centers, but I think
18:40
Speaker 5: to maybe grab hold of the argument in a proper way,
18:43
Speaker 5: you know, maybe maybe a definition of what does closed
18:46
Speaker 5: loop really mean or or how much water whenever we
18:49
Speaker 5: do a recharge of a closed loop system, what does
18:52
Speaker 5: that process look like? And I'd rather be taking a
18:55
Speaker 5: proactive approach to make sure we're in front of the
18:58
Speaker 5: argument than just reacting to the the other sides.
19:00
Speaker 8: Do it.
19:01
Speaker 1: President pro time of the Arizona Senate TJ Show. Good
19:03
Speaker 1: to see you again. And I hope the Cardinals don't
19:06
Speaker 1: do well at all.
19:07
Speaker 4: And not that that's never that hard.
19:09
Speaker 1: That's not that I'm the Browns fans. I'm just glad
19:12
Speaker 1: to have you here. Thank you, Senator. Don't go anywhere, America.
19:14
Speaker 1: I'll be right back from the American Legislative Exchange Council
19:17
Speaker 1: Annual Meeting ALEC dot org. In the meantime, ALEC dot
19:20
Speaker 1: org state welcome back to America. A longtime listeners say
19:26
Speaker 1: you give it show you know. I do the American
19:28
Speaker 1: Legislative Exchange Conference Annual Meeting and have been doing it
19:31
Speaker 1: for a number of years. And they will recognize Senator
19:33
Speaker 1: Patricia Rutcker. She has the assistant majority of leader in
19:37
Speaker 1: the West Virginia State Senate. And they just had their
19:40
Speaker 1: electioneering going on. And how did that turn out, Senator Rucker.
19:43
Speaker 9: Yes, we had a very interesting primary in the state
19:45
Speaker 9: of West Virginia where the battles really are in the
19:49
Speaker 9: primary in West Virginia, we are super a Republican supermajority state.
19:54
Speaker 9: So the primary is really who's going to remain in power.
19:58
Speaker 9: And there were a lot of money sp to try
20:00
Speaker 9: to change the power structure, but it failed. The most
20:04
Speaker 9: interesting out of the primary raceis was a couple of
20:07
Speaker 9: Republican legislators who wanted to limit the Hope Scholarship, which
20:11
Speaker 9: you know, you're.
20:12
Speaker 1: The mother of the Hope Scholarship.
20:14
Speaker 9: I first universal education savings account in the nation, and
20:18
Speaker 9: they wanted to limit the choices that families had and
20:22
Speaker 9: they lost their seats.
20:23
Speaker 1: Well, that's because same thing happened in Texas, where parents
20:27
Speaker 1: and voters really believe in school choice. You've saved that.
20:31
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I want people to know what supermajority really means.
20:33
Speaker 1: This is what you want to aim for if you're
20:35
Speaker 1: a Republican. Out of thirty four senators in the state
20:38
Speaker 1: of West Virginia, two our Democrats. Out of one hundred
20:41
Speaker 1: state representatives in West Virginia, eight Demo. What those poor
20:44
Speaker 1: people do They can eat in the phone booth, so
20:46
Speaker 1: they get together.
20:47
Speaker 9: What do they do well, I can assure you they
20:50
Speaker 9: do their best to.
20:53
Speaker 10: Stop slow things down.
20:55
Speaker 9: Intervene anything that they can do.
20:58
Speaker 1: To just sell governor more. A guest on the show
21:00
Speaker 1: a number of times, what's ahead of the legislative agenda
21:04
Speaker 1: for you guys have checked pretty much everything off. What
21:07
Speaker 1: more is there to do or to prevent from being done?
21:10
Speaker 9: Well, we still have a lot of holdover regulations and
21:15
Speaker 9: two big government that had eighty four years of democratic
21:19
Speaker 9: rule and it's just hard to roll that back. So
21:21
Speaker 9: we still have cuts we need to find, and we
21:25
Speaker 9: need to reduce the regulations.
21:26
Speaker 10: I think that's the biggest hurdle.
21:28
Speaker 1: You have a doze in West Virginia, do you do?
21:31
Speaker 4: Oh?
21:31
Speaker 9: Yes, I'm the West Virginia doge, so I get to
21:34
Speaker 9: have the fun. I'm the chair of the Rulemaking Review Committee,
21:37
Speaker 9: which is the body that looks at the regulations, and
21:41
Speaker 9: we really do push back and try to get regulations
21:45
Speaker 9: off the books.
21:46
Speaker 1: What is the most over Well, we were talking about
21:48
Speaker 1: housing before you we got started on there. Let's talk
21:50
Speaker 1: about that. You're under a housing strain because a lot
21:53
Speaker 1: of people from the district of Columbia and Virginia and
21:56
Speaker 1: Maryland want to move to West Virginia because you've got
21:58
Speaker 1: a better tax structure. Anyone helping you bill houses there.
22:01
Speaker 9: I wish we had more help, I'll be honest. So, yes,
22:05
Speaker 9: we are getting an influx of folks.
22:07
Speaker 10: So for the first.
22:08
Speaker 9: Time in many years, West Virginia is increasing population, which
22:12
Speaker 9: is a good issue. But the problem is it's really
22:15
Speaker 9: squeezing housing and it is causing it to become much
22:18
Speaker 9: more expensive and much harder to find houses.
22:21
Speaker 10: So we do need to have that address.
22:23
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy in the World Cup take Me Home
22:25
Speaker 1: Country Road playing? Sure?
22:27
Speaker 3: Did?
22:28
Speaker 1: That is the walk up music for Cleveland Guardians, home Run,
22:31
Speaker 1: hit or Chased the latter because he grew up in
22:33
Speaker 1: West Virginia. So that is that like everybody's song in
22:36
Speaker 1: West Virginia.
22:37
Speaker 9: And not just in West Virginia. But no, that was
22:41
Speaker 9: really awesome to see. I like to remind folks that
22:43
Speaker 9: if you like the song, come see the state.
22:46
Speaker 1: So what is the most pressing problem? Is it rural
22:49
Speaker 1: poverty in Appalachia and what.
22:51
Speaker 10: We still have that?
22:53
Speaker 9: And of course we were the epicenter for the opioid
22:57
Speaker 9: over prescribing and we still have so many So much
23:02
Speaker 9: of our citizens who either lost their lives, are in prisons,
23:07
Speaker 9: lost their children, I mean, the repercussions of being addicted
23:11
Speaker 9: to any substance. But for us in West Virginia, you
23:15
Speaker 9: just it just multiplies when you have poverty too, and
23:18
Speaker 9: lack of resources. So we've been dealing with that for
23:22
Speaker 9: the entire time that Republicans have had a majority and
23:25
Speaker 9: trying to address all of those issues and also, you know,
23:30
Speaker 9: give people hope.
23:31
Speaker 1: And so when we're talking about West Virginia's future, what's
23:35
Speaker 1: its industry. It's got coal, it's got oil, it's got
23:38
Speaker 1: natural gas, But what's its other industry? Are you welcoming
23:41
Speaker 1: the data centers? And other states don't want.
23:43
Speaker 9: So we are, but we're doing it the right way.
23:46
Speaker 9: So we definitely learn from the mistakes of other states.
23:48
Speaker 9: So we pass a bill that under Governor Morrissey's leadership
23:52
Speaker 9: that made it clear they're not getting tax breaks, they're
23:56
Speaker 9: not getting any kind of abatement. They have to find
24:00
Speaker 9: all the regulations, are paid for their own infrastructure. We
24:05
Speaker 9: are encouraging them to develop their own microgrids so they're
24:08
Speaker 9: not putting a strain on the existing electrical grid and
24:12
Speaker 9: actually can help us improve it. So we're doing it
24:15
Speaker 9: the right way. Having said that, we do give them
24:18
Speaker 9: a you know, kind of a promise that this is
24:22
Speaker 9: all the regulations we have to follow. We're not going
24:24
Speaker 9: to change those. They're not going to be local lives
24:27
Speaker 9: where you have to be worried that every county in
24:30
Speaker 9: every city is going to have different rules.
24:31
Speaker 10: It's one rule for the whole state.
24:34
Speaker 9: So that just makes it easier for them to know
24:36
Speaker 9: what the rules of the game are. We do have
24:38
Speaker 9: some that are coming to the state of West Virginia,
24:41
Speaker 9: but in terms of what else do we have, I mean,
24:43
Speaker 9: that is one of the issues we need to address.
24:45
Speaker 9: We have a lot of health jobs.
24:48
Speaker 10: But we definitely want to have more diversity in our economy.
24:51
Speaker 1: You know. Secondary Bergham has said on this show that
24:54
Speaker 1: wherever there is stranded natural gas, meaning pockets of natural
24:58
Speaker 1: gas that is otherwise not available to direct fracking, you
25:02
Speaker 1: can put a plan on top of that. Has that
25:04
Speaker 1: happened in West Virginia.
25:06
Speaker 9: Well, we'll definitely have areas that it's a perfect location
25:10
Speaker 9: because of that that we have the energy sources that.
25:13
Speaker 10: Are already there.
25:15
Speaker 9: Having said that, the things that folks are concerned about
25:19
Speaker 9: everywhere in the country, they're also concerned about in West Virginia.
25:23
Speaker 9: Making certain that there isn't a strain on their electrical grid,
25:26
Speaker 9: on their water, on their environment, things like that. But
25:30
Speaker 9: we have space, we have water, we have energy, we
25:32
Speaker 9: have everything that you could.
25:33
Speaker 1: Possibly I want to finish on hope scholarships. Because we
25:36
Speaker 1: were talking for what going on the air. People wrongly
25:39
Speaker 1: think that rural schools suffer under school choice. Why is
25:43
Speaker 1: that not true?
25:44
Speaker 10: So just think about it.
25:46
Speaker 9: Okay, So rural schools are worried about they don't have
25:50
Speaker 9: a lot of students, so they're so afraid that they're
25:52
Speaker 9: going to lose more students. But rural schools, because they're small,
25:57
Speaker 9: that's not where most of the problems are with public education.
26:00
Speaker 9: We don't see that many rural families being unhappy with
26:04
Speaker 9: the rural schools.
26:06
Speaker 10: But what is it the rural school struggle with.
26:08
Speaker 9: Because of the smaller population, they don't have a whole
26:11
Speaker 9: lot of extra funding. So the students that need a
26:15
Speaker 9: lot of extra attention, the ones at the very top,
26:18
Speaker 9: very gifted and talented, want to take Mandarin.
26:22
Speaker 10: The ones at.
26:23
Speaker 9: The bottom who have a lot of special needs, those
26:26
Speaker 9: are the ones that need to escape some something different.
26:30
Speaker 9: By giving them an opportunity to seek that, it actually
26:32
Speaker 9: helps those thoral schools focus on the students that they
26:34
Speaker 9: can't serve best.
26:36
Speaker 1: You're like the best goodwill ambassador for school choice and
26:38
Speaker 1: prontal control over their kids education. Keep coming every year,
26:41
Speaker 1: Sena of your record. It's good to see you again.
26:44
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere America. I'll be right back, except maybe
26:46
Speaker 1: over to ALEC alc dot org. And if you're in
26:49
Speaker 1: West Virginia year state legus later doesn't belong. I know
26:52
Speaker 1: you're attempted just to say, oh, we'll let sen of
26:54
Speaker 1: your records do it now. You should join ALEC as well.
26:57
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere America. I'll be right back on the
26:58
Speaker 1: to U show. My next gup the House majority leader
27:02
Speaker 1: in Kansas, Chris Kroft. Leader Kroft, Welcome, good to Abby. Here.
27:05
Speaker 1: Are you the speaker in Kansas or you're the leader,
27:08
Speaker 1: I'm the majority of Okay, what's the breakdown in the
27:10
Speaker 1: two houses in Kansas?
27:12
Speaker 11: So for the House you're talking about from Republican Democrats.
27:16
Speaker 11: So we have a super majority in both and we
27:19
Speaker 11: have in the House we have eighty eight Republicans and
27:22
Speaker 11: thirty seven Democrats.
27:24
Speaker 1: That's a good number.
27:25
Speaker 6: Like that is a good number.
27:26
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about Everyone is
27:28
Speaker 1: talking about data centers and AI at the ALEC this year.
27:32
Speaker 1: There's always a new issue school choices. Of the constant
27:35
Speaker 1: taxes are the constant bringing business state is constant, But
27:39
Speaker 1: the new issue is AI and data centers. How do
27:42
Speaker 1: you frame that for your voters and for your state citizens.
27:45
Speaker 11: Well, yeah, I mean there's a lot of discussion about it,
27:47
Speaker 11: and I think it's fair that they're having discussions at
27:49
Speaker 11: the local level. And that's kind of the way we
27:50
Speaker 11: set this up is so that the local folks that
27:54
Speaker 11: have a say in what's going in their community, rather
27:57
Speaker 11: than the state just arbitrarily blocking it. One of the
28:01
Speaker 11: things is we've gone through this thing. Many of them
28:02
Speaker 11: have different aspects. And one of the things that's different
28:06
Speaker 11: for Kansas that no other state has done is that
28:09
Speaker 11: we actually have a national security component to ours, and
28:12
Speaker 11: that is, before you can build a data center, you
28:16
Speaker 11: have to list all of your equipment that you're going
28:19
Speaker 11: to have inside of it and give it to our
28:21
Speaker 11: fusion center, which works for the Attorney General, and the
28:23
Speaker 11: Attorney General then reviews all the stuff that's going to
28:27
Speaker 11: be in there and make sure through his his network,
28:29
Speaker 11: and these fusion centers have so many connections of things
28:32
Speaker 11: that we don't normally have, and they look for foreign
28:35
Speaker 11: adversary chips, products or anything else that's in there to
28:40
Speaker 11: make sure we're clean of.
28:41
Speaker 1: All of that. I haven't heard that in any other state.
28:43
Speaker 11: That is not in any other state. We're the only
28:45
Speaker 11: state that's done that. Who came up with that idea? Well,
28:48
Speaker 11: my chief and we kind of worked that out with
28:50
Speaker 11: the Speaker's chief and the Speaker himself and kind of
28:53
Speaker 11: worked our way through that. But that's how it all started,
28:55
Speaker 11: and he approved it and we went through it for me.
28:58
Speaker 1: Kroc is the former un Sectary of State for Clean
29:01
Speaker 1: Technology and Trump one, and that's what he spent all
29:04
Speaker 1: of his time trying to do. It is a clean technology.
29:07
Speaker 1: Hy Way was a very familiar name right seven or
29:10
Speaker 1: eight years ago, and we had to get y Way
29:11
Speaker 1: out of everything that's right. We had to go abroad
29:13
Speaker 1: and until everyone don't put y Way on your stuff
29:15
Speaker 1: at dirty CGPIE stuff. So has anyone complied yet? Is
29:20
Speaker 1: that a pilot prot We've actually had three that are
29:22
Speaker 1: submitted right now. One that's already gone through and complied
29:26
Speaker 1: with that process. And of course my chief is so
29:29
Speaker 1: you know, my chief has also worked at the national level.
29:32
Speaker 1: He worked in the Pentagon on nine to eleven. He
29:34
Speaker 1: was in there, so very well.
29:36
Speaker 11: Familiar actually in under secretary, and so we have a
29:39
Speaker 11: lot of great conversations and we talk about a lot
29:42
Speaker 11: of these things in a lot of areas, so not
29:44
Speaker 11: just are we talking about it on the data centers.
29:46
Speaker 11: We've also excluded the drones like many others have done.
29:50
Speaker 11: All of our contracts are restricted from having any kind
29:53
Speaker 11: of involvement with foreign advisary equipment, and so we continue
29:57
Speaker 11: to go down that path and will continue. We have
29:59
Speaker 11: all bill also though restricted businesses from establishing in ours,
30:03
Speaker 11: not just land products.
30:05
Speaker 1: We are.
30:05
Speaker 11: Our legislature in the mid eighties did a great job
30:09
Speaker 11: of setting the conditions so that foreign avstars wouldn't come
30:13
Speaker 11: in and buy land in Kansas.
30:14
Speaker 4: So at very little of that.
30:15
Speaker 11: We do have a couple of businesses that do have
30:17
Speaker 11: that though, with Smithfield and Sgenta and some others, so
30:22
Speaker 11: they're there. But what we did in our bill, instead
30:24
Speaker 11: of removing them like they did in Arkansas, we said,
30:27
Speaker 11: you know, you have to register. You have three years
30:29
Speaker 11: to register your business, so we know you're there, and
30:32
Speaker 11: now we can watch so let's see.
30:34
Speaker 1: I've got a kind of as a company. We ever
30:36
Speaker 1: got a friend there. How long have you been in
30:37
Speaker 1: the legislature. I've been there eight years now, Okay, So
30:39
Speaker 1: what did you come out of that? You have this
30:41
Speaker 1: national security focus? Because I appot it and I really
30:43
Speaker 1: think it's great.
30:44
Speaker 11: Yeah, so it is an interest of mine.
30:45
Speaker 12: It's been thirty years in the army.
30:47
Speaker 1: Oh that that tells me everything I needed to know.
30:49
Speaker 1: What was your MLS? What were you doing?
30:51
Speaker 11: I'm a logistics guy, however, my specialty is strategic strategic maneuver,
30:56
Speaker 11: strategic mobility transportation at the you know, from projecting from
31:01
Speaker 11: the United States anywhere in theater or anywhere we general No, no,
31:05
Speaker 11: I was a colonel, retired colonel. Okay, well my chief
31:11
Speaker 11: was a Navy sub commander, and so we have some.
31:14
Speaker 1: No wonder you guys are serious.
31:15
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're very.
31:16
Speaker 11: Serious about this from every aspect of national security.
31:19
Speaker 1: Why did you end up in Kansas after your military career?
31:22
Speaker 11: So, yeah, well that was my last assignment. I actually
31:26
Speaker 11: grew up in Orlando, just down the road from here.
31:28
Speaker 11: I went to school at West Orange High School just
31:30
Speaker 11: from here, and then I left from the Army, and
31:34
Speaker 11: I've actually never been back other than to visit my
31:37
Speaker 11: in laws who live here. And so as we were
31:40
Speaker 11: looking to retire, we said, where are the places we've
31:42
Speaker 11: loved the most, and it was Kansas and we love
31:45
Speaker 11: the people there. The transportation infrastructure there is great. There's
31:48
Speaker 11: hardly any traffic, and people are just so nice. It's
31:52
Speaker 11: a great place to be.
31:53
Speaker 1: Where's your district?
31:54
Speaker 11: So mine's Overland Park and a little bit of a
31:56
Speaker 11: Oleitha and so it's southwest of the center part of
31:59
Speaker 11: Kana City.
32:00
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're one of the guys who stood up
32:02
Speaker 1: today or gals is up today when I said, hey,
32:04
Speaker 1: with the veterans, stand up to the met one of
32:05
Speaker 1: your younger soldiers who got wounded in the Indiana legislature.
32:10
Speaker 1: Do you guys have a specific veterans package in Kansas?
32:13
Speaker 1: Do you like disabled or disabled veterans from property tax
32:16
Speaker 1: that sort of thing.
32:17
Speaker 11: Well, we have that, we just did. We haven't gotten
32:19
Speaker 11: it all the way through, right, So there's a there's
32:22
Speaker 11: the discussion.
32:22
Speaker 1: Right.
32:22
Speaker 11: So what we're trying to do and the speakers give
32:25
Speaker 11: me the guidance on this is one hundred percent disabled.
32:29
Speaker 11: Doesn't mean your remobility disabled, so of course not. So
32:31
Speaker 11: we're trying to do is take and go after and
32:34
Speaker 11: help the ones that are truly disabled that can't work
32:36
Speaker 11: and do the things. And that's the package we've we've
32:38
Speaker 11: been put trying to push through and get things done
32:41
Speaker 11: again because we're trying to be fiscally responsible in where
32:43
Speaker 11: we go through.
32:44
Speaker 6: So we've done some.
32:44
Speaker 11: Tax relief programs, but we also have to make sure
32:49
Speaker 11: that we're reducing the spend too.
32:51
Speaker 1: That is a Kansas got upside down.
32:54
Speaker 11: We did, and that's why we're trying to be very
32:56
Speaker 11: very conservative about what we're doing and be very smart about.
32:59
Speaker 1: Have you dug out of that?
33:00
Speaker 11: Yoh yeah, we dug out it and any I mean
33:02
Speaker 11: we didn't do it all by ourselves. I mean, there's
33:05
Speaker 11: a lot of people that will take credit for it,
33:07
Speaker 11: but a lot of this did have to do with
33:08
Speaker 11: COVID money. But what we did smartly was we took
33:11
Speaker 11: the money and didn't put them in one time spends
33:13
Speaker 11: that created further spends. We did it and maneuvered it
33:17
Speaker 11: in a way that at one point we only had
33:18
Speaker 11: eight hundred dollars in the savings account, if you will,
33:21
Speaker 11: Now we have one point nine billion dollars. We've said
33:24
Speaker 11: it at about a twenty percent rate, which is what
33:26
Speaker 11: we would expect any family to have, and we're doing
33:29
Speaker 11: it that way and maintaining it that limit.
33:31
Speaker 1: So I got to ask you, Admiral mccraven's been on
33:34
Speaker 1: the I guess no, oh wow, yeah. Admiral's most recent
33:37
Speaker 1: book had in that the need for committee of colonel's.
33:40
Speaker 1: He said, whenever you have a criticism incoming and you
33:43
Speaker 1: don't know if it's legit convenient, committee of colonels and
33:46
Speaker 1: they will tell you exactly what the truth is. And
33:49
Speaker 1: that's fair. He got blistered by his committee of curls.
33:51
Speaker 12: They did not.
33:52
Speaker 1: Actually, the ambassador is right and you are wrong, Admiral.
33:54
Speaker 1: So this most recent book very interesting to me. How
33:56
Speaker 1: does a colonel do in the legislature because that's not
33:59
Speaker 1: really the middle of the world. I'm a civilian, but
34:01
Speaker 1: I yeah.
34:02
Speaker 11: So actually it's kind of interesting because I was asked
34:04
Speaker 11: that question when I started to run for the majority leader.
34:06
Speaker 11: You know, what experience do I actually have for this?
34:09
Speaker 11: And I was like, well, here's the one thing you
34:11
Speaker 11: don't know. So as the I ran the Army's Leadership Center.
34:14
Speaker 11: Oh and So in that role, we had a council
34:18
Speaker 11: of colonels, if you will. It was about one hundred
34:20
Speaker 11: and twenty colonels from all around the country that worked
34:23
Speaker 11: for various organizations that had to hire a boss. And
34:27
Speaker 11: those folks were a part of a ad hoc group
34:31
Speaker 11: that met every quarter to talk about how do we
34:33
Speaker 11: continue to develop leaders better within the military training programs,
34:36
Speaker 11: all kinds of stuff. And it was my job to
34:39
Speaker 11: lead them to then put together packages that then went
34:42
Speaker 11: forward to the generals and the Chief of Staff of
34:44
Speaker 11: the Army to make the decisions on how we were
34:46
Speaker 11: going to train our leaders. So I actually think the
34:49
Speaker 11: military completely prepared me for this process. It taught us
34:53
Speaker 11: how to identify the problems first before we come up
34:56
Speaker 11: with solutions. So is it Carlisle is the leadership So
34:59
Speaker 11: the Leadership Center is the center for Army leadership.
35:01
Speaker 6: And it's set Fort Leavenworth.
35:02
Speaker 1: Okay.
35:03
Speaker 11: It had an element that was actually a west point
35:05
Speaker 11: for a while, which was the ethics portion of it,
35:08
Speaker 11: and it has now combined and moved into Fort Leavenworth altogether,
35:11
Speaker 11: and it has done there. They used to have the
35:14
Speaker 11: Army's lead the Army University there, but that's now moved
35:17
Speaker 11: to Parlisle, which is where the War College is.
35:19
Speaker 1: Are you are you we got a minute left? Yeah,
35:21
Speaker 1: no worries. And so I'm just curious. Are you happy?
35:24
Speaker 1: Are you surprised that we've hit our recruitment goals? Girl,
35:27
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised at all.
35:28
Speaker 11: I mean, I think I think the focus refocused back
35:30
Speaker 11: on the blocking and tackling. It's what everybody really wanted.
35:33
Speaker 11: That's what people go in there for. And and I'm
35:36
Speaker 11: very I think they're doing the right things from a
35:38
Speaker 11: recruiting perspective and having a focus.
35:41
Speaker 1: Well, I want to thank you House Majority leader in Kansas,
35:44
Speaker 1: quiz Croft, keep coming back. I'm glad you heard, Alec,
35:47
Speaker 1: and thank you for the thirty years as well. I
35:50
Speaker 1: did marry. I'm a civilian, but I'm married into a
35:52
Speaker 1: Navy family, so I won't give you that.
35:54
Speaker 11: Well, you know, I got to say this, you know
35:55
Speaker 11: at the end, going army h don't go anywhere where?
35:59
Speaker 1: I got me right. Fact them to the US show,
36:03
Speaker 1: Welcome back in America. You know, if it's a uge show,
36:05
Speaker 1: we're going to have someone from Ohio on. I happen
36:07
Speaker 1: to have the next Lieutenant Governor of the Ohio Rob
36:10
Speaker 1: McCauley Senator Rob McCauley, State cenaer Ro McCauley. He's also
36:13
Speaker 1: the candidate for Lieutenant governor, running with the vike Ramaswami.
36:16
Speaker 1: Welcome back. You just reminded me. I asked you about
36:18
Speaker 1: this last year and you ended up you got thrown
36:21
Speaker 1: into the briar patch.
36:22
Speaker 12: So you did you had some foresight, Hugh.
36:24
Speaker 1: How are you liking being a statewide candidate, because that's different.
36:27
Speaker 1: It's just so different.
36:28
Speaker 12: It's different. You know, in my role as Senate President,
36:30
Speaker 12: I've had the opportunity to get across Ohio, but we're
36:33
Speaker 12: certainly getting across Ohio an awful lot more right now
36:36
Speaker 12: than we were before. And it's great. Ohio, as you know,
36:38
Speaker 12: is such a diverse state. It's got so many great
36:41
Speaker 12: things in all different regions and it's great to be
36:43
Speaker 12: out there meeting people and learning what their issues are.
36:46
Speaker 1: So you and the vike Ramaswami are running against the
36:49
Speaker 1: face of COVID. I'm just curious how often do you
36:52
Speaker 1: bring it up and how often does she bring that up?
36:53
Speaker 1: Because I really wouldn't want to be the face of COVID.
36:56
Speaker 1: It was great during COVID, but I really wouldn't want
36:58
Speaker 1: to be defending it now.
36:59
Speaker 12: Well, we're bringing it up pretty regularly that she was
37:02
Speaker 12: at the helm of the Ohio Department of Health during COVID,
37:05
Speaker 12: one of the first health directors to shut down schools,
37:08
Speaker 12: shut down an awful lot of businesses, sometimes multi generation businesses, etc.
37:12
Speaker 12: A lot of bad things came from that. But what
37:13
Speaker 12: we're bringing up more often recently is the thought and
37:18
Speaker 12: the concept of her competence and the fact that she
37:21
Speaker 12: has not held a job for longer than eighteen months.
37:24
Speaker 12: I believe, since twenty seventeen. Can you believe that? And
37:27
Speaker 12: now she wants to be governor for four years.
37:30
Speaker 1: And you have to be the head of Ohile Public Health.
37:33
Speaker 12: Well that's a good question, probably one you have to
37:36
Speaker 12: ask somebody else. But when she was there, she quit
37:39
Speaker 12: within eighteen months of taking the post, and she did
37:42
Speaker 12: so at a time when the pressure was the highest.
37:45
Speaker 12: So you have to ask the question, can she handle
37:47
Speaker 12: the pressure of making decisions that impact the daily lives
37:51
Speaker 12: of ohioans. Our position is she's already shown that she cannot,
37:54
Speaker 12: and that alone should be disqualifying.
37:56
Speaker 1: Well, I'm very happy about this. Ron McCauley because Ohio
38:00
Speaker 1: has turned a corner in the last ten yure. I
38:02
Speaker 1: had Chris brose on two weeks ago, president and head
38:06
Speaker 1: strategy officer of ANDERIL, and that andrel is building in
38:10
Speaker 1: Ohio is astonishing to me. Is that the first step
38:14
Speaker 1: in of all the defense industries that are moving, is
38:16
Speaker 1: that the leading edge or is that last thing we'll see?
38:19
Speaker 1: Oh No.
38:20
Speaker 12: I think it's a sign of things to come. ANDROIL
38:22
Speaker 12: coming in is a reflection not only of our established
38:26
Speaker 12: reputation in the aerospace and national defense industry. It's in
38:30
Speaker 12: our DNA from the Right Brothers all the way through
38:33
Speaker 12: what we have at right Patterson Air Force Space. But
38:36
Speaker 12: also I think it's a reflection of the fact that
38:38
Speaker 12: from our tax and regulatory environment in the state, under
38:41
Speaker 12: Republican leadership, we've done an awful lot of good things.
38:44
Speaker 12: You and I were talking off air about how Ohio
38:46
Speaker 12: was the biggest jump in rich states port states, that
38:49
Speaker 12: how it puts out measuring pro business climate.
38:52
Speaker 1: We've got over Michigan.
38:53
Speaker 12: We did, we did, and that's always important, that's always important.
38:56
Speaker 12: You got to beat that state up north, but we
38:59
Speaker 12: did it through incremental good conservative leadership. Incremental wins. Right now,
39:03
Speaker 12: in Ohio, we have the lowest tax rate in the Midwest,
39:07
Speaker 12: a single flat income tax of two point seventy five percent.
39:11
Speaker 1: That's remarkable.
39:11
Speaker 12: When I joined the legislature, it was seven brackets in
39:14
Speaker 12: the highest was seven and a half percent, and you
39:16
Speaker 12: had any fifteen tax. We did, we did.
39:19
Speaker 1: My dad died and I went back to take care
39:21
Speaker 1: of the state because I'm the lawyer. In the fact,
39:22
Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe it is that gone.
39:24
Speaker 12: Now, that's gone, That's been gone for a while. Actually,
39:26
Speaker 12: John Case, it got rid of that. So, especially in
39:29
Speaker 12: a state that has an awful lot of agriculture and
39:31
Speaker 12: a lot of people who owned a lot of land
39:33
Speaker 12: but maybe don't have the bank account balance that a
39:36
Speaker 12: lot of other people do, that was important.
39:37
Speaker 1: How is the backpack bill working out? I've long been
39:41
Speaker 1: an advocate of that. I go down there and I say,
39:43
Speaker 1: the Center for Christian Virtue all the time. Is it working?
39:47
Speaker 12: It's working. So our boucher program has been a wild success.
39:50
Speaker 12: It's been even more successful than we anticipated. And frankly,
39:54
Speaker 12: that's important more now than ever to give parents the
39:58
Speaker 12: opportunity to make a decision on what best opportunities are
40:01
Speaker 12: out there for their children, and we believe in that fullheartedly.
40:05
Speaker 12: I know Vivek believes in that fullheartedly. We're going to
40:07
Speaker 12: empower parents to make the decisions on behalf of their family,
40:10
Speaker 12: plain and simple.
40:11
Speaker 1: Pretty interesting that the Vice President Augustunen is from Ohio,
40:14
Speaker 1: a vake, of course, a national figure. You're surrounded by
40:17
Speaker 1: some national media on this campaign. Is that the case?
40:20
Speaker 1: They just all over the Ohio campaign forgether and Senate
40:24
Speaker 1: we have on Houston running it.
40:25
Speaker 12: Yeah, we have a decent amount of national media attention.
40:27
Speaker 12: Part of that is because it's Ohio. Part of that
40:30
Speaker 12: is because of a Vake's profile on a national stage.
40:33
Speaker 12: And also, as you mentioned, we have a Senate race
40:35
Speaker 12: that's going to be one of the most hotly contested
40:37
Speaker 12: here here in the country this year, just as it
40:40
Speaker 12: was two years ago. But we're confident that we're going
40:42
Speaker 12: to be on the winning side of all of those.
40:44
Speaker 1: I'm curious, for Amacall, how much do you have to
40:46
Speaker 1: raise now for a governor's race and for senate's.
40:48
Speaker 12: Race to the extent you know, yeah, Well, I think
40:50
Speaker 12: it's a moving target. In this governor's race, more money
40:53
Speaker 12: has been raised and more money has already been spent
40:55
Speaker 12: than any other governor's race in history, and part of
40:58
Speaker 12: that is just because things have changed. On the political side.
41:03
Speaker 12: We've raised in excess, I believe of probably forty to
41:07
Speaker 12: fifty million dollars on the hard dollar side. There are
41:11
Speaker 12: outside groups that have also helped in the race v
41:14
Speaker 12: Pack for example. But on the Senate side, we were
41:18
Speaker 12: the most expensive Senate race in the United States history
41:21
Speaker 12: two years ago, half a billion dollars. It's going to
41:25
Speaker 12: be at least several hundred million dollars this time, potentially
41:29
Speaker 12: half a billion.
41:29
Speaker 13: Again.
41:30
Speaker 12: We anticipate the governor's race might already be over one
41:33
Speaker 12: hundred million dollars.
41:34
Speaker 1: In the state of Ohio, no one must be able
41:37
Speaker 1: to turn on a television or a radio set without
41:40
Speaker 1: running into campaign ads. That's both good and bad, but
41:43
Speaker 1: it's either way. Where do you spend most of your
41:46
Speaker 1: campaign time? I assume in Cuyhoga County, but.
41:48
Speaker 12: Tell me if that's the case, it's everywhere. It's everywhere.
41:51
Speaker 12: We're spending time in Cuyahoga County. I've been down to
41:54
Speaker 12: Marietta probably four or five times this year. For those
41:57
Speaker 12: of you who don't know that's down in Appalacho on
41:59
Speaker 12: the Ohio River. We've been over to the Mahoning Valley
42:02
Speaker 12: already on several occasions. Dayton, Cincinnati, Northwest Ohio where I'm
42:07
Speaker 12: from everywhere.
42:08
Speaker 1: The election will be over by the time I get there.
42:10
Speaker 1: I'm going to the game this year's Saturday after Thanks Jimmy,
42:15
Speaker 1: taking my boys because they've never been to the Shoe
42:17
Speaker 1: and never seen Michigan get beat byle Houstin. Are you
42:19
Speaker 1: a bucket?
42:20
Speaker 12: I'm a third generation osu Alum.
42:23
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, So are you feeling good about this year?
42:25
Speaker 12: I'm feeling good about this year. I think we got
42:27
Speaker 12: the monkey off our back with the win over that
42:30
Speaker 12: team up north last year. We're bringing a lot of
42:33
Speaker 12: talent back. We've been able to manage this transfer portal
42:36
Speaker 12: thing pretty well.
42:37
Speaker 1: So the iday I got delegation, just John at me
42:40
Speaker 1: after I brought up a whiow at lunch there Johnny
42:42
Speaker 1: about Kurt Signetti and we got the five star receiver
42:45
Speaker 1: and all that kind.
42:45
Speaker 12: Well, well, they've never been here before. You got to
42:48
Speaker 12: give him a little bit of grace.
42:50
Speaker 1: You know, what do you think about nil? Are you
42:52
Speaker 1: guys doing anything about nil? If you want Congress to
42:54
Speaker 1: do something about.
42:55
Speaker 12: We were one of the first states to actually enact
42:57
Speaker 12: nil legislation to try to put some guardrails around while
43:00
Speaker 12: also making sure that all of our universities could participate
43:04
Speaker 12: on a level playing field. I personally believe with the
43:08
Speaker 12: way this has gone, Congress is going to need to
43:10
Speaker 12: step in at some point and put some guardrails around
43:13
Speaker 12: this for no other reason than to do what's in
43:16
Speaker 12: the best interest of the student athletes, who I think
43:19
Speaker 12: in many cases we're seeing are running into some roadblocks
43:22
Speaker 12: along the way the transfer portal. We're seeing an awful
43:26
Speaker 12: lot of people who are entering the transfer portal and
43:28
Speaker 12: then they never get another opportunity. More kids wind up
43:31
Speaker 12: remaining in the transfer portal, I believe, than actually end
43:36
Speaker 12: up exiting the transfer portal to wind up at a school.
43:38
Speaker 1: How is state higher education doing? Some places are struggling
43:42
Speaker 1: badly because of politics and left wing sort of indoctrination
43:48
Speaker 1: on campus. What's the state system like?
43:50
Speaker 12: So earlier in this General Assembly term, we passed Senate
43:53
Speaker 12: Bill one that actually enacted a law that would eliminate
43:58
Speaker 12: the dei in our colleges, but also tried to crack
44:02
Speaker 12: down on an awful lot of the other things that
44:04
Speaker 12: we saw as inefficiencies in higher ed, including saying, look,
44:08
Speaker 12: if you have a program that only has five people
44:13
Speaker 12: who are in the major, you really shouldn't be offering
44:16
Speaker 12: that major anymore.
44:18
Speaker 1: Good for you.
44:18
Speaker 12: Common sense there, and so I would suspect more of
44:22
Speaker 12: that thought process. MVAK has talked about this, He's been
44:24
Speaker 12: a leader on this. More of that thought process is
44:26
Speaker 12: going to enter so we can make sure our higher
44:28
Speaker 12: ed institutions are focusing on their core competencies and improving
44:32
Speaker 12: in those and already the Arts.
44:36
Speaker 1: Of University or Miami, but they can by Aramacaullaye Net,
44:39
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor of Oisle. Keep talking to me during the campaign.
44:42
Speaker 1: Very good to see you back, Jilgoing to America. I'm
44:45
Speaker 1: coming back with Julie Daniels from Oklahoma next on the
44:48
Speaker 1: New Hewitt Show. More Going back in America. I'mhugh Hewitt. Senator.
44:52
Speaker 1: Julie Daniels is the John Thunn Oklahoma. She is the
44:55
Speaker 1: Senate majority leader in Oklahoma. Good to have you back, Senator,
44:59
Speaker 1: and congratulations, you defeated a ridiculous minimum wage bill. Tell
45:03
Speaker 1: us about that.
45:03
Speaker 14: We did, and it was sort of unexpected we were
45:07
Speaker 14: organized this time. I have to commend our state Chamber
45:10
Speaker 14: for being fully on board with us and working with
45:12
Speaker 14: our Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs, we managed to raise
45:16
Speaker 14: more money and spend more money than those who were
45:18
Speaker 14: opposed to the question. Of course, we knew the fundamentals
45:22
Speaker 14: were in our favor because it's a very bad thing
45:25
Speaker 14: to do for our economy. But the people were listening
45:27
Speaker 14: and they did understand that we are on a role
45:30
Speaker 14: in Oklahoma. Our economy is improving, we are cheaper to
45:35
Speaker 14: live in than most states, and to tie an automatic
45:38
Speaker 14: minimum wage increase every three years in our constitution to
45:42
Speaker 14: the federal consumer price index would undo all the good
45:45
Speaker 14: that we have worked on in.
45:46
Speaker 15: The last at least ten years.
45:49
Speaker 14: So it was very important that we not hamstring ourselves
45:52
Speaker 14: with this, and the voters did understand that.
45:54
Speaker 1: Now. I think California a couple of weeks ago and
45:56
Speaker 1: just in time to see that a dozen of Carl
45:59
Speaker 1: Juniors franchises they're closing because they have a minimum wage
46:02
Speaker 1: that is mandated for restaurant workers. A little bit lower
46:05
Speaker 1: than the statement in wage doesn't matter. They still can't
46:07
Speaker 1: afford to pay it. And so is that what carried
46:09
Speaker 1: the day businesses said, we just there won't be any
46:12
Speaker 1: job for a minimum wage.
46:13
Speaker 14: You'll get nothing, certainly, and certainly you won't get those
46:16
Speaker 14: entry level jobs that people do need to get on
46:19
Speaker 14: that first rung of the ladder up to economic prosperity.
46:22
Speaker 14: Real killer for small business people. And you know, rural Oklahoma,
46:25
Speaker 14: Main street America relies on small businesses and if you
46:29
Speaker 14: hamstring them and make it impossible for them to have
46:32
Speaker 14: a going enterprise in your small rural communities, then you've
46:35
Speaker 14: also further damaged the ability of people to live and
46:38
Speaker 14: make a living and have a good quality of life
46:40
Speaker 14: in rural towns and cities in Oklahoma. So that also
46:44
Speaker 14: spoke volumes. I think to folks is that at the
46:46
Speaker 14: end of the day, they're just going to shutter those
46:48
Speaker 14: doors and they'll never come back.
46:50
Speaker 15: So that was another thing that people did listen to.
46:53
Speaker 1: Are you in your tenth year, yes, sir, and you
46:55
Speaker 1: have term moments after twelve?
46:57
Speaker 15: Correct?
46:57
Speaker 1: What do you want to do in the final sprint?
46:59
Speaker 14: It's a very long list. I've been fortunate to be
47:01
Speaker 14: involved in several reform measures. I've talked to several people
47:05
Speaker 14: here at ALC already that I've worked with over the years,
47:07
Speaker 14: education choice being a big one. Cementing the tax reforms
47:11
Speaker 14: and the tax reductions that we've passed, maybe taking our
47:15
Speaker 14: path to zero legislation and giving it even more teeth,
47:19
Speaker 14: just working on some more loss that reform. We kind
47:21
Speaker 14: of got a list we're working through that. We have
47:23
Speaker 14: a much friendlier state Supreme Court than we did ten
47:26
Speaker 14: years ago, so it's easier for us to pass conservative
47:29
Speaker 14: legislation and make sure that it stands up in court.
47:31
Speaker 1: What is Oklahoma's view of the data center controversy, which
47:34
Speaker 1: is this year's topic, Djure?
47:37
Speaker 14: Certainly it is an issue in some places. It was
47:41
Speaker 14: interesting to me to hear Scott rascusin today say that
47:44
Speaker 14: when that is polled, only one percent of people responded
47:47
Speaker 14: that was an issue for them.
47:49
Speaker 15: That spot volumes to me.
47:50
Speaker 14: For those of us, that's vote volumes to me, because
47:55
Speaker 14: again in rural Oklahoma, this could be your ticket to
47:59
Speaker 14: better schools, better roads, more jobs, increasing your population so
48:05
Speaker 14: you have better access to healthcare because more providers are there.
48:08
Speaker 14: All these things are connected together, and I believe the
48:11
Speaker 14: issues about using water and electricity, those things can be
48:15
Speaker 14: resolved in Oklahoma. We have passed behind the meter bill
48:18
Speaker 14: so that you can produce your own power.
48:21
Speaker 15: If you want to. We know they're already looking at
48:23
Speaker 15: these closed loop water systems.
48:25
Speaker 1: So it does behind the meter. If that means strated
48:27
Speaker 1: natural gas, you go in and get your own gas, and.
48:29
Speaker 12: That's right now.
48:29
Speaker 14: You can generate yourself and if you generate more than
48:32
Speaker 14: you need, you can put it on the grid. Oh
48:34
Speaker 14: but that then takes away that obligation of residential consumers
48:38
Speaker 14: to pick up any of that increased cost. So I
48:41
Speaker 14: think a lot of the issues people are bringing up
48:43
Speaker 14: the industry is already resolving, and we just need to
48:47
Speaker 14: take a step back and let them show us how
48:49
Speaker 14: they're going to accomplish this, because we all make use
48:52
Speaker 14: of what the data centers produce. We have a very
48:55
Speaker 14: successful Google data center in Prior, Oklahoma. It's been there
48:59
Speaker 14: for a long time and it has expanded more than
49:01
Speaker 14: once and nobody in Prior has complained about data centers yet.
49:05
Speaker 14: Now in the rest of Oklahoma, people are raising these
49:08
Speaker 14: questions that really have already been resolved in one of
49:11
Speaker 14: our rural community.
49:12
Speaker 1: Well, a little bit of the issued as you are.
49:15
Speaker 1: And every year I come to Alec and there's something
49:17
Speaker 1: new out there and usually gets resolved because of model
49:21
Speaker 1: policies that are developed here and then go out to
49:23
Speaker 1: the states that are wrestling with it. Sounds like it's
49:25
Speaker 1: not an issue for centers.
49:28
Speaker 14: Well, I think it will be short lived, because again,
49:31
Speaker 14: the industry is listening now. Some of these folks didn't
49:34
Speaker 14: get out ahead of the problem, and messaging is very important,
49:38
Speaker 14: and perhaps they assumed that maybe because there was a
49:41
Speaker 14: data center already in Oklahoma, that everybody already understood that
49:44
Speaker 14: and they would all be on board. And it also
49:46
Speaker 14: surprised a lot of municipal governments. They're not used to
49:49
Speaker 14: the cameras and the media wanting to know about what
49:52
Speaker 14: they're doing, and they're out there trying to recruit businesses,
49:55
Speaker 14: trying to grow jobs, and suddenly they face a groundswell
49:59
Speaker 14: of opposition because perhaps they should have presented it earlier
50:02
Speaker 14: and the company should have done more community outreach. So
50:06
Speaker 14: it's not that anybody did anything wrong, it's just that
50:08
Speaker 14: this this issue sort of surprised them.
50:10
Speaker 1: There's a playbook in Oklahoma, America. Go and study up
50:14
Speaker 1: on it. Senator Julie Daniels, thank you. I hope I
50:16
Speaker 1: see you at least a couple more times. Make sure
50:17
Speaker 1: you decide you're right off into the sunset. Don't go
50:20
Speaker 1: anywhere America. I'm Hugh Hewett from ALEC dot org slash
50:23
Speaker 1: U stay with us, Welcome back. I'm Alicia. You're Ewitt
50:28
Speaker 1: from Orlando, joined now by the Speaker of the Michigan House. Yes,
50:32
Speaker 1: I'm allowing a wolverine onto the program. Matt Hall. Welcome back, Matt.
50:37
Speaker 1: I want to go. I played Mike rodrisly in the
50:39
Speaker 1: program because you know, I markle Evin talking about your
50:41
Speaker 1: crazy Senate race. Now we're non part of sit at ALEC.
50:44
Speaker 1: But what is going on in Michigan, that's just, mister Syed,
50:48
Speaker 1: is not anything I'm used to in Michigan history.
50:51
Speaker 16: Yeah, and I'm the Republican House Speaker in Michigan, and
50:56
Speaker 16: you know, I work very closely with Mike Rodgers, you know,
50:59
Speaker 16: and I'm really interested to watch this.
51:02
Speaker 4: Obdual l said.
51:04
Speaker 16: You know, he over the weekend, Bernie Sanders and AOC
51:08
Speaker 16: came in into three rallies, and so you can really
51:11
Speaker 16: see that momentum. And the Democrat establishment is spending upwards
51:16
Speaker 16: of fifty million dollars to try to prop up a
51:19
Speaker 16: candidate in Haley Stevens that no one is excited about,
51:23
Speaker 16: but they see the threat of l Sied really toppling
51:29
Speaker 16: the Democrat Party establishment and furthering what you're seeing with
51:34
Speaker 16: AOC Bernie Mamdanie, this kind of far left democrat socialist
51:39
Speaker 16: takeover of the Democrat Party. And as that's happening, you're
51:43
Speaker 16: seeing Republicans.
51:45
Speaker 4: Make more and more in roads.
51:46
Speaker 16: You know, we flipped the Michigan House last cycle. It
51:49
Speaker 16: was the only chamber in the country that flipped. And
51:52
Speaker 16: it's because of these far left Democrats that are really
51:57
Speaker 16: people like to criticize Trump. But what we're seeing in
52:00
Speaker 16: this new Democrat Party with leaders like l said, and
52:05
Speaker 16: they're actually much more unpopular because of their radical positions.
52:09
Speaker 1: They're not the traditional Michigan Democrat. I mean, I've followed
52:11
Speaker 1: Michigan politics for a long time. It's usually been a
52:14
Speaker 1: light blue state. That's how I describe it. It's not
52:17
Speaker 1: a red state. Usually it's been purple in the past,
52:19
Speaker 1: but it's been more like they're not the UAW, they're
52:23
Speaker 1: not the steel workers. So who exactly is backing him?
52:27
Speaker 16: Yeah, and you see like this is like common sense,
52:30
Speaker 16: Mike Rodgers, you know versus just crazy.
52:33
Speaker 4: And l sied is.
52:36
Speaker 16: I mean, he wants to give away everything to everybody.
52:39
Speaker 16: He you know, he's anti Israel and he's brought in
52:44
Speaker 16: people that are very extreme and controversial to campaign for him.
52:48
Speaker 1: Well, I will watch that very closely because Mike is
52:51
Speaker 1: a great he'd be a great senator. Absolutely. What is
52:54
Speaker 1: the agenda if John James wins and I think he
52:57
Speaker 1: probably will win your primary happen held yet, but if
53:00
Speaker 1: he is your primary, canon, who are they putting out
53:02
Speaker 1: for the Michigan State House.
53:04
Speaker 16: Yeah, so I'm a supporter of John James for governor.
53:07
Speaker 16: You know, President Trump endorsed him recently, coming into Michigan
53:11
Speaker 16: on Monday to do a big rally for him. So
53:15
Speaker 16: I'm happy, you know, I'll be there and supporting John James.
53:18
Speaker 16: We want to get him over the finish line in
53:20
Speaker 16: the Michigan primary, which is in a couple of weeks.
53:22
Speaker 16: And really, you know, what we're trying to do is
53:26
Speaker 16: turn Michigan into a state that models some of the
53:29
Speaker 16: states like we're here Florida with you know, lower income tax,
53:34
Speaker 16: more economic growth. You know, Michigan is one of the
53:37
Speaker 16: states that's losing wealth. The fastest in the country because
53:41
Speaker 16: of our high taxes, high regulations under Gretchen Whitmer.
53:45
Speaker 4: And so you come down here to Florida and.
53:48
Speaker 16: Say, look, if we lower our taxes, if we improve
53:50
Speaker 16: our regulatory environment, we can help people earn more money
53:55
Speaker 16: and continue to grow our state.
53:57
Speaker 1: No. I went to the two point seventy five percent.
53:59
Speaker 1: I love you bring up Ohio. Michigan, they went me
54:01
Speaker 1: flat tax and they got androll to come there and
54:04
Speaker 1: build drones in the next generation of war fighter equipment.
54:07
Speaker 1: Anything like that happened in Michigan the last couple of years,
54:10
Speaker 1: or just job leaving.
54:11
Speaker 10: No.
54:12
Speaker 16: You know, I was happy to see today we finally
54:15
Speaker 16: killed Gretchen Whitmer's big job development program, which was paying
54:20
Speaker 16: billions of dollars to big some of the most connected
54:23
Speaker 16: corporations in Michigan to build electric battery plans. And we
54:27
Speaker 16: finally defunded that today that came out in the press.
54:31
Speaker 16: And you know, rather than use government to try to
54:34
Speaker 16: pay companies to come to Michigan, we could just be
54:37
Speaker 16: more competitive with our tax structure and our regulations and
54:42
Speaker 16: to provide good customer service. And you know, when John
54:45
Speaker 16: James wins, he's going to be facing Jocelyn Benson, and
54:48
Speaker 16: she came out last week and said she wants to
54:52
Speaker 16: transform the Michigan tax policy away.
54:56
Speaker 4: From a flat tax. We have a flat tax.
54:59
Speaker 16: Now she wants to create a massive tax increase in
55:03
Speaker 16: Michigan that'll make us even more further away from states
55:06
Speaker 16: like Ohio and Florida.
55:07
Speaker 1: If she's the nominee at AlSi AIDA's the nominee. That's
55:10
Speaker 1: a nice world to be running in. Let me ask
55:13
Speaker 1: you about the U and the fact that it got
55:16
Speaker 1: such terrible publicity or less. I'm ashamed of my alma
55:19
Speaker 1: mater because it went radical. Does the state legislature have
55:22
Speaker 1: anything to say about that.
55:24
Speaker 16: Well, we've in the House, we tried to cut funding
55:29
Speaker 16: for some of the more radical universities, like University of Michigan.
55:35
Speaker 16: We're trying to change the way that their board of
55:38
Speaker 16: trustees are selected. We'd like to see John James appoint
55:43
Speaker 16: those trustees as opposed to what's happening now where the
55:47
Speaker 16: voters don't know who these people are, and they elect
55:50
Speaker 16: people that are selected by party activists, and these party
55:54
Speaker 16: activists are picking the very extreme people that are moving
55:57
Speaker 16: these universities so far to the left.
56:00
Speaker 1: You know, so any Democrat help you on that because
56:03
Speaker 1: you don't want it's a great university system, the equal
56:06
Speaker 1: of any university system in the country. You don't want
56:08
Speaker 1: to lose it to politics. Yeah.
56:10
Speaker 16: And and like Michigan State, I mean their president almost
56:13
Speaker 16: left over over crazy boards. You saw the Michigan State
56:17
Speaker 16: Athletic director leave. I know, University Michigan just lost one
56:22
Speaker 16: of their top health officials over their crazy boards.
56:25
Speaker 4: So we had one Democrat.
56:27
Speaker 16: Vote with us on that because the others are afraid
56:30
Speaker 16: of the union. The union doesn't want to change because
56:33
Speaker 16: the unions kind of control these trustees that make all
56:37
Speaker 16: the decisions for these universities.
56:40
Speaker 1: Last question, I don't want Michigan to do well in NIL.
56:43
Speaker 1: But have you guys passed a statute on NL or
56:46
Speaker 1: are you waiting for Congress to come along and make name,
56:48
Speaker 1: image and likeness the same for everybody?
56:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did.
56:51
Speaker 16: We did pass the statute on this a couple of
56:55
Speaker 16: years ago. And so you're starting to see NIL in
56:59
Speaker 16: the state. But we're not spending state dollars, We're not
57:03
Speaker 16: giving Some states are actually spending state dollars and giving
57:07
Speaker 16: them to universities for NIL.
57:08
Speaker 4: We're not doing that.
57:09
Speaker 1: Oh I was not doing that, is it?
57:11
Speaker 4: I don't know, but some states are.
57:13
Speaker 1: And in terms of the general economic client, I don't.
57:17
Speaker 1: I know. You fell below Ohio on the rich states
57:19
Speaker 1: Port states. Right? Can that turn around quickly? We got
57:22
Speaker 1: a minute, speaker.
57:23
Speaker 16: Hopefully again. I think we need a new governor and
57:26
Speaker 16: John James. You know, the Michigan House. We've done a
57:29
Speaker 16: great job in cutting waste, fraud and abuse. This is
57:32
Speaker 16: the second year in a row where even with Gretchen Whitmer,
57:34
Speaker 16: we made the government smaller by eight hundred million. We
57:39
Speaker 16: were being recognized nationally for the work we're doing to
57:43
Speaker 16: put guardrails on our medicaid system, our food stamp system,
57:47
Speaker 16: our childcare system, and our autism system to reduce fraud,
57:51
Speaker 16: cut waste, fraud and abuse. And so we're trying to
57:54
Speaker 16: get better value for the tax dollars. But we need
57:57
Speaker 16: a new governor in John James to really accelerate that
58:00
Speaker 16: with good tax and fiscal policy.
58:01
Speaker 1: John James and Mike Rogers and Matt Hall. Thank you,
58:04
Speaker 1: mister speaker. I'll be right back in America. Stay tuned
58:06
Speaker 1: to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Thank you, Welcome back in America.
58:15
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewett. I am in Orlando with the American
58:17
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1:02:05
Speaker 1: Becoming National Chair of ALEC is my guest right now,
1:02:09
Speaker 1: State Senator from Arkansas, Jim Dotson, Senator, welcome. I want
1:02:14
Speaker 1: to cut to the chase. Why do you belong to
1:02:15
Speaker 1: ALEC and why do you want to be the chairman.
1:02:16
Speaker 18: Of the well.
1:02:18
Speaker 8: ALEC is a great organization that believes in free market principles,
1:02:23
Speaker 8: principles of limited government, and shoot, I'm blanking the federalism,
1:02:30
Speaker 8: free markets and limited government.
1:02:32
Speaker 18: Those are the three pillars. That was a fastball that
1:02:35
Speaker 18: was off the top of the head.
1:02:38
Speaker 8: But so those principles align with all the ALEC policies
1:02:41
Speaker 8: that they promote throughout the states, and those are principles
1:02:45
Speaker 8: that I align with. So you know, it's a natural,
1:02:49
Speaker 8: a natural pathway together. And so since I've been in
1:02:53
Speaker 8: the legislature over the last thirteen and a half years,
1:02:57
Speaker 8: I have been part of ALEC, and you know, over
1:03:01
Speaker 8: the last half a dozen years, been part of the
1:03:02
Speaker 8: board and will now be the incoming chair next year in.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: The Amerkansas House.
1:03:08
Speaker 17: Four.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: You're in American saw Senate. You've had two governors.
1:03:11
Speaker 18: Right, I've actually served under three.
1:03:13
Speaker 1: Three. Yeah. So Sarah Alkaby standards an acquaintance of mine,
1:03:16
Speaker 1: friend Brian's and fan. How she doing.
1:03:18
Speaker 8: She's doing great, Yeah, she's she should win reelection easily
1:03:23
Speaker 8: in November and start her second term next year. Arkansas
1:03:27
Speaker 8: has had a advancement in a number of areas under
1:03:33
Speaker 8: her governorship, so it's it's been from a conservative perspective,
1:03:37
Speaker 8: it's been great. We had eight years of a trifecta
1:03:41
Speaker 8: before her, and then my first two years we had
1:03:44
Speaker 8: a Democrat governor, and prior to joining the legislature, we'd
1:03:48
Speaker 8: been a Democrat controlled state for one hundred and thirty
1:03:50
Speaker 8: eight years.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: That's kind of amazing.
1:03:52
Speaker 18: Yeah, actually it's a sea change.
1:03:54
Speaker 1: So school choice passed at Arkansas. How's it working and
1:03:58
Speaker 1: how does it work? Everyone's got a little differ.
1:04:00
Speaker 8: We do have universal school choice. This last year was
1:04:03
Speaker 8: the first year we had a three year phase in.
1:04:06
Speaker 8: It was Governor Sanders' top priority when she came in
1:04:10
Speaker 8: was education reform, so we reformed education across the board
1:04:14
Speaker 8: with her Arkansas Learns Act. I've been an advocate for
1:04:17
Speaker 8: school choice throughout my entire time in the legislature. I
1:04:21
Speaker 8: think I ran the first universal school choice bill in
1:04:24
Speaker 8: Arkansas in twenty seventeen, and so you know, fast forward
1:04:30
Speaker 8: a few years later, we get a governor there that's
1:04:31
Speaker 8: pushing it as well as legislative leadership on both ends,
1:04:35
Speaker 8: and we got it over the finish line. Third year
1:04:37
Speaker 8: of implementation. We are now universal school choice. We've got
1:04:40
Speaker 8: forty four thousand students last year on the program. It
1:04:44
Speaker 8: was about a three hundred and nine million dollar program.
1:04:46
Speaker 8: Last year, we've put another seventy million aside for growth.
1:04:50
Speaker 18: This year, We've got over.
1:04:51
Speaker 8: Fifty thousand applications for the school Education Freedom accounts ninety
1:04:58
Speaker 8: percent of the state foundation funding for for traditional public
1:05:01
Speaker 8: schools follow the student to this education freedom account that
1:05:05
Speaker 8: they can allocate the resources for curriculum, they can allocate
1:05:09
Speaker 8: it toward tuition, tutors, various educational expenses.
1:05:14
Speaker 18: Kind of like a health savings account.
1:05:15
Speaker 1: So when people come up to m the straight and
1:05:18
Speaker 1: do they bring up that, do they like that?
1:05:22
Speaker 8: It's not the first thing that everybody brings up. If
1:05:25
Speaker 8: you have a student, it is definitely something that you
1:05:28
Speaker 8: really like.
1:05:28
Speaker 18: If you're a parent. We have a lot of parent.
1:05:32
Speaker 8: Or a lot of teachers, and a lot of educators
1:05:34
Speaker 8: that participate in the program themselves as well. There's mixed
1:05:39
Speaker 8: reviews within the education community because changes change, and if
1:05:46
Speaker 8: that's part of your livelihood, you don't necessarily care for change.
1:05:49
Speaker 8: So there's some resistance at first, but I think now
1:05:52
Speaker 8: that we've got you know, close to ten percent of
1:05:54
Speaker 8: the state population of students participating in the program, you have.
1:06:01
Speaker 18: A lot more buy in.
1:06:02
Speaker 1: That's across three years.
1:06:03
Speaker 8: So yeah, this last year was the first year of universal,
1:06:06
Speaker 8: So we went from I think about five thousand the
1:06:09
Speaker 8: first year to around I want to say thirteen fourteen
1:06:12
Speaker 8: thousand the second year, to about forty four thousand this
1:06:15
Speaker 8: last year, and we should be getting close to fifty.
1:06:18
Speaker 8: I think we've had over fifty close to fifty five
1:06:20
Speaker 8: applicants this year for the upcoming school year. Not all
1:06:24
Speaker 8: of them will will, of course, stay with the program,
1:06:27
Speaker 8: so I'm going to guess somewhere around fifty thousand maybe
1:06:30
Speaker 8: for the upcoming school year.
1:06:31
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations on that. That's a big standing start to
1:06:35
Speaker 1: go that far that fast. Let's turn to voter integrity
1:06:37
Speaker 1: because that's also the subject is your this year as
1:06:40
Speaker 1: data centers, and we talk about that if you want to.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: But you're number one, and they heard it drinking for
1:06:44
Speaker 1: voter integrity, what does.
1:06:45
Speaker 8: Arkansas do Well, we have done a number of things
1:06:49
Speaker 8: over the since since Republicans took over the legislature in
1:06:52
Speaker 8: twenty thirteen, we have done a number of things from
1:06:56
Speaker 8: voter ID to you know, ensuring that no voting machine
1:07:01
Speaker 8: is connected to the internet, to oh, I'm blinking. In
1:07:06
Speaker 8: all the things, We've probably had close to twenty five
1:07:09
Speaker 8: bills a session ever since I've been in the legislature
1:07:11
Speaker 8: dealing in some way with voter integrity. So there's been
1:07:14
Speaker 8: a number of things that have happened throughout the years.
1:07:16
Speaker 8: But we do have the safest, most secure elections in
1:07:19
Speaker 8: the country according to When.
1:07:23
Speaker 1: You look at California, which you've no longer my home,
1:07:25
Speaker 1: but was from, yeah, for twenty seven twenty eight years,
1:07:28
Speaker 1: and you see that they can't finish counting for two weeks.
1:07:31
Speaker 1: What do you think.
1:07:34
Speaker 18: It's intentional?
1:07:35
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I think probably stories that I've heard
1:07:40
Speaker 8: from legislators and in various politicians before I was in
1:07:43
Speaker 8: the in it was back in the day when they
1:07:46
Speaker 8: had the you know, paper ballots with the.
1:07:50
Speaker 18: Remember hanging chads, Oh some people.
1:07:53
Speaker 4: Some people don't.
1:07:54
Speaker 18: Remember hanging chads.
1:07:55
Speaker 8: When I talked to them about I'm like, okay, you're
1:07:57
Speaker 8: you're under the age.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: Of thirty five or yeah.
1:08:01
Speaker 8: But you know, back in those days, the Democrat politicians
1:08:06
Speaker 8: would laugh at the Republicans out in the state knocking
1:08:09
Speaker 8: on doors trying to get votes, because they said to
1:08:11
Speaker 8: all the balants are in the trunk over here. We
1:08:13
Speaker 8: just got to know how many boxes to pull out
1:08:15
Speaker 8: on election night. And so they controlled the state elections
1:08:19
Speaker 8: at the time. And so I think that's probably what
1:08:23
Speaker 8: people are concerned about when they talk about elections in
1:08:27
Speaker 8: various states. Of course, we don't have any type of
1:08:30
Speaker 8: vote harvesting like some states have it in their laws.
1:08:34
Speaker 8: We've banned any of that.
1:08:36
Speaker 12: You have to.
1:08:38
Speaker 8: I believe it's I think we have a six voter limit,
1:08:42
Speaker 8: So if you take care of some folks, you can't
1:08:46
Speaker 8: take more care of more than six people and help
1:08:48
Speaker 8: them assist them in. So if someone is you know,
1:08:52
Speaker 8: works with elderly or something like that, and they're taking
1:08:54
Speaker 8: them to the polls, their limit as six.
1:08:57
Speaker 18: I believe if I recall correctly.
1:08:59
Speaker 1: Now to check out the data set of question. Is
1:09:01
Speaker 1: that an issue in Arkansas?
1:09:04
Speaker 8: You know, there's there's been talk about it over the
1:09:07
Speaker 8: last several years.
1:09:08
Speaker 18: We've we've passed some laws and uh uh.
1:09:11
Speaker 8: You know, Fortunately, Arkansas is one of those states that
1:09:14
Speaker 8: were only in session to deal with substantive issues every
1:09:17
Speaker 8: other year, and so it has not blown up in
1:09:20
Speaker 8: our face in the last year like it has in
1:09:24
Speaker 8: other areas because of course, we weren't in session this
1:09:27
Speaker 8: year for it to happen.
1:09:28
Speaker 1: Are you a razorback? Yes, Malik Thomas is coming to Cleveland.
1:09:33
Speaker 1: Cavaliers drafted him. He was your off ball guard. Did
1:09:36
Speaker 1: you go watch him play ball at all? This year?
1:09:38
Speaker 1: This kid lit up the Summer League in Las Vegas.
1:09:40
Speaker 1: He got the MVP in the Summer League. Okay, so
1:09:43
Speaker 1: go Razorbacks.
1:09:44
Speaker 18: Oh yeah, go Razorback.
1:09:45
Speaker 1: I just checked how they had the crazy stuff that's
1:09:47
Speaker 1: happened like it. I was just talking with the speaker
1:09:50
Speaker 1: of Michigan. University of Michigan's off the rails in a
1:09:54
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Does that happen at NHL? Well not ani,
1:09:57
Speaker 1: I mean politics, student march, student demonstration, crazy professor Clinch stuff.
1:10:04
Speaker 8: You know, I think overall the University of Arkansas has
1:10:07
Speaker 8: done a fairly decent job in holding a lot of
1:10:10
Speaker 8: that type of stuff in check. You know, there's there's
1:10:13
Speaker 8: always going to be certain elements and student organizations.
1:10:16
Speaker 18: That do some things.
1:10:18
Speaker 8: But we've I have a very good relationship with the
1:10:20
Speaker 8: chancellor and with very various leadership within the u of A,
1:10:24
Speaker 8: and they have they have always been very proactive in
1:10:28
Speaker 8: addressing situations as they arise.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: And so, since you brought up nil, Arkansas is the
1:10:33
Speaker 1: step job of the SEC right, Yeah?
1:10:36
Speaker 18: Yes, yeah, so not number one in that.
1:10:39
Speaker 1: Indiana turned it around in one year. They went and
1:10:42
Speaker 1: iron Kurt Signette and all of a sudden their national
1:10:44
Speaker 1: champions is Arkansas look up and say, why can't we
1:10:46
Speaker 1: do that? Well?
1:10:47
Speaker 8: I mean, I think basketball is going to be our
1:10:50
Speaker 8: Are our leagues pretty good?
1:10:51
Speaker 18: I mean, uh uh, football, I mean we're we're hopeful.
1:10:55
Speaker 8: We got a new coach this year, and and you
1:10:57
Speaker 8: know Arkansas Razorbacks were all hopeful.
1:11:00
Speaker 1: So in terms of flat taxes, where's Arkansas on that?
1:11:04
Speaker 1: You guys have flat tax yet?
1:11:06
Speaker 8: So it's an interesting question in that our highest rate
1:11:11
Speaker 8: has been cut almost in a half since I've been
1:11:13
Speaker 8: in office. We went from a seven percent income tax
1:11:16
Speaker 8: down to right now three point seven percent, which we
1:11:19
Speaker 8: enacted just the last couple of months, and so we've
1:11:23
Speaker 8: come down significantly. But we're not going to be ranked
1:11:26
Speaker 8: in the flat taxes because we have rates that are
1:11:28
Speaker 8: below that's our top income tax rate and our lowest
1:11:31
Speaker 8: to zero.
1:11:32
Speaker 18: So until we get to zero.
1:11:33
Speaker 8: We won't be flat tax right because we have to
1:11:35
Speaker 8: raise taxes on somebody else.
1:11:36
Speaker 1: And see, does everyone go to Tennessee and Arkansas as
1:11:39
Speaker 1: a result, Does anyone make their decision dation on it?
1:11:42
Speaker 18: I think there are probably some that do.
1:11:44
Speaker 8: We have a lot of other factors that go into
1:11:47
Speaker 8: so we have been one of the top states for
1:11:50
Speaker 8: in migration domestic migration. In the last several years, I
1:11:54
Speaker 8: think two or three of the last years, last two
1:11:57
Speaker 8: or three of the last years, we've been one or
1:12:00
Speaker 8: two in in migration states.
1:12:02
Speaker 1: Well, so I hear about that from Senator Cotton a lot,
1:12:05
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get down there again at some point.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: I've only been a little rock once, but I want
1:12:09
Speaker 1: to thank you.
1:12:10
Speaker 8: Come to Northwest Arkansas, the home of the Razorbacks. Mintonville's
1:12:13
Speaker 8: where I'm from. You got to come to the northwest
1:12:16
Speaker 8: portion of the state.
1:12:17
Speaker 1: I can't make a promise, but at touching Missus Hewetts
1:12:20
Speaker 1: open the almost anything. Jim Dotson, good to see you.
1:12:23
Speaker 1: Senator's Perry for joining me. Don't go anywhere America. I'll
1:12:25
Speaker 1: be right back on the too, Hewett shift. Welcome back America.
1:12:30
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewett. I have a roady guy with Rhode Island. Now.
1:12:33
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure they're allowed to celebrate the two
1:12:35
Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth because they didn't sign the Constitution. They
1:12:37
Speaker 1: didn't sign. I mean, they're always a little roady. I
1:12:40
Speaker 1: tell my com law student John Brien that they were
1:12:42
Speaker 1: always like the last people that come and the last
1:12:45
Speaker 1: people to sign So I'm glad you hear you're first
1:12:47
Speaker 1: in the line of election integrity.
1:12:49
Speaker 19: We held out, you know, as we always do. We
1:12:52
Speaker 19: were the last signatories. But listen, we did it because
1:12:55
Speaker 19: we just wanted to make sure we got it right.
1:12:56
Speaker 1: That's all.
1:12:58
Speaker 6: Did you have a two fifty of a celebration for
1:13:00
Speaker 6: two fifty?
1:13:01
Speaker 1: Did you wait? Say no, we'll do it next year,
1:13:02
Speaker 1: because that's what you did with the Constitution.
1:13:05
Speaker 12: No.
1:13:05
Speaker 19: But as you can expect from the blue states, which
1:13:08
Speaker 19: are ridiculous such as mine, we didn't send anyone to
1:13:11
Speaker 19: the Great American State Fair.
1:13:13
Speaker 7: We Rhode Island, we had nobody there.
1:13:16
Speaker 4: They wouldn't do it.
1:13:18
Speaker 1: You know, your state is not a lost cause I
1:13:20
Speaker 1: have a good friend who lives down there. And it's
1:13:23
Speaker 1: not a lot of cause I liked buddy when he
1:13:25
Speaker 1: was alive, and so let's talk about happy stuff. How
1:13:28
Speaker 1: many Republicans are there in Rhode Island, by the way,
1:13:30
Speaker 1: how many in the legislature.
1:13:31
Speaker 19: So in the House there are ten Republicans and in
1:13:34
Speaker 19: the Senate there are four.
1:13:36
Speaker 1: Ooh, that's what you can get together in a diner.
1:13:39
Speaker 7: Yeah, but of course you know I'm an independent.
1:13:42
Speaker 19: Oh I didn't know that yeah, I'm an independent, so
1:13:44
Speaker 19: I'm the leader of the Independent Caucus in the House.
1:13:46
Speaker 19: So there were sixty four Dems, ten Republicans and one Independence. Okay, good,
1:13:50
Speaker 19: so I've achieved the lofty title of leader of the
1:13:52
Speaker 19: independent causes.
1:13:53
Speaker 1: So you did, however, get voter id or what did
1:13:56
Speaker 1: you do to clean up the voter role.
1:13:58
Speaker 19: So this is my second time legislature. The first time
1:14:01
Speaker 19: I was a Conservative Democrat. There was a great purge
1:14:04
Speaker 19: of Conservative Democrats back in twenty eleven, twenty ten, and
1:14:08
Speaker 19: twenty twelve. I survived ten, didn't survive twelve. But back
1:14:14
Speaker 19: then in twenty eleven, we passed.
1:14:15
Speaker 6: Voter id in Rhode Island, and which is remarkable because
1:14:18
Speaker 6: at the time.
1:14:19
Speaker 19: It is it goes to show the difference in the
1:14:22
Speaker 19: political climate in the US, especially with the Democrat Party.
1:14:25
Speaker 19: Because our Secretary of State at the time, Ralph Mallis,
1:14:29
Speaker 19: when he was running for a Secretary of State, he
1:14:31
Speaker 19: was running on voter ID and I was running for
1:14:34
Speaker 19: the General Assembly, and I approached him. I said, let's
1:14:37
Speaker 19: do this together, and we did, and it took about
1:14:39
Speaker 19: five years to get it through, but.
1:14:41
Speaker 4: We got voter I D in Rhode Island.
1:14:43
Speaker 1: The only state in New England Noink attempting to repeal
1:14:46
Speaker 1: it because it really is a big, easy, seventy percent
1:14:51
Speaker 1: issue with the public. Everybody said, yeah, you need ID
1:14:54
Speaker 1: to again on an airplane. You got to be able
1:14:56
Speaker 1: to show ID for a vote. Do they want to
1:14:58
Speaker 1: repeal it.
1:14:59
Speaker 19: There's a move by the Progressives to do it every year,
1:15:01
Speaker 19: and you know it's ridiculous and I call them out
1:15:04
Speaker 19: and so that's my job now though as an independent.
1:15:07
Speaker 19: I you know, people were saying, well, what's it like
1:15:08
Speaker 19: to be an independent in Rhode Island, And I just say, look, I.
1:15:11
Speaker 7: Just called balls and strikes. If Hugh puts in a.
1:15:14
Speaker 19: Good bill, I'm going to stand up and I'm going
1:15:17
Speaker 19: to be all for it. And if Hugh puts in
1:15:18
Speaker 19: a bad bill, I'm going to stand up and decimate it.
1:15:20
Speaker 6: And that's my thing.
1:15:21
Speaker 7: And it doesn't matter.
1:15:22
Speaker 19: But you might put in a good bill tomorrow or
1:15:25
Speaker 19: a bad bill tomorrow. It doesn't matter where's your district.
1:15:28
Speaker 19: I am in the north part of Rhode Island. I
1:15:32
Speaker 19: represent my hometown city of Windsocket, Rhode Island, and a small.
1:15:37
Speaker 6: Piece of North Midfield.
1:15:38
Speaker 1: Don't they have a Red Sox minor league franchise there that.
1:15:43
Speaker 19: Was in Pawtucket, Okay, And by terrible political decisions, Patucket
1:15:50
Speaker 19: picked up stakes and moved to Wister. So now they're there,
1:15:52
Speaker 19: they're the Wister Red Sox. Right, How could that happen?
1:15:58
Speaker 19: Because the Speaker of the House of the time was
1:16:01
Speaker 19: facing a tough reelection and he did not want to
1:16:05
Speaker 19: be the speaker that was basically gave into the team
1:16:08
Speaker 19: with tax dollars.
1:16:09
Speaker 1: So we said we're.
1:16:10
Speaker 19: Going to keep you know, We're gonna keep putting them
1:16:13
Speaker 19: through the ring or putting them through the ringer. And
1:16:14
Speaker 19: finally at the time GM Larry Lukino said I'm out
1:16:17
Speaker 19: of here, and they just pulled up sticks and they left.
1:16:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:16:19
Speaker 1: John, the one thing I've been doing this a long time.
1:16:23
Speaker 1: Public policy in electionals hate spending money on stadiums that
1:16:27
Speaker 1: people love it. It just give us our sports clubs.
1:16:30
Speaker 1: Whether it's a double A Triple A or a big
1:16:32
Speaker 1: league team. You're a Red Sox market. So I so.
1:16:35
Speaker 19: I can tell you that the Wister Red Sox stadium,
1:16:39
Speaker 19: it's called Polar Park, and it is gorgeous. It's fun
1:16:42
Speaker 19: to go to, it's inexpensive, every seat is great, and
1:16:46
Speaker 19: every time I go there, I say, well, I lament,
1:16:49
Speaker 19: this is what we could have had, a beautiful stadium
1:16:51
Speaker 19: right off the highway in Patucket.
1:16:53
Speaker 1: Well, I spend some time every summer in May and
1:16:55
Speaker 1: the Sea Dogs up there, and they're the Double A
1:16:58
Speaker 1: franchise for the Red Sox. Whenever I go to a
1:17:00
Speaker 1: game with my brother, it's always I wouldn't say full,
1:17:03
Speaker 1: but it's three quarters of the way fall. So it's
1:17:05
Speaker 1: good for the local economy. I've never understood that. Does
1:17:07
Speaker 1: that like ever do a committee on sports and the
1:17:11
Speaker 1: local economy. I think it'd be great.
1:17:13
Speaker 7: Nobody they should.
1:17:14
Speaker 19: In fact, when I was in law school, I read
1:17:19
Speaker 19: I wrote a rather long paper for a real estate
1:17:23
Speaker 19: development course that I had taken, and it was called
1:17:26
Speaker 19: the It was called if they build it, If you
1:17:29
Speaker 19: build it, they will come, and it was about NFL
1:17:32
Speaker 19: franchises and publicly financed stadiums, and at the time that
1:17:35
Speaker 19: was the thing. There were so many teams and it
1:17:38
Speaker 19: was a lot like I was in law school a
1:17:39
Speaker 19: long time ago, but there were so many teams moving
1:17:41
Speaker 19: around and relocating, and whether people want to accept it
1:17:45
Speaker 19: or not, sports teams are a draw and if you
1:17:48
Speaker 19: build something, you're going to benefit off of that.
1:17:51
Speaker 1: Man, you're about to build a new stadium. I about
1:17:52
Speaker 1: seat licenses in nineteen ninety nine and they'll run out
1:17:55
Speaker 1: in twenty eight when they moved to the new stadium
1:17:57
Speaker 1: in twenty nine. I don't care. I want them to
1:17:59
Speaker 1: keep the franchise and they can go anywhere. That's like
1:18:02
Speaker 1: there's another Worcester for every Pawtucket. There's a there's a
1:18:05
Speaker 1: competitor out there.
1:18:06
Speaker 19: You know, it's funny you say that Petucket then built
1:18:10
Speaker 19: a soccer stadium right on the river and it has
1:18:13
Speaker 19: been nothing but highly successful.
1:18:15
Speaker 7: Really, it hosts our I f C.
1:18:18
Speaker 19: And they've they've done great then and it has been
1:18:21
Speaker 19: so popular with the state and they've they're making money there.
1:18:24
Speaker 4: So you're right.
1:18:25
Speaker 1: You are the public sector chair of the Process and
1:18:28
Speaker 1: Procedures Committee. What does that do for ALEC?
1:18:31
Speaker 19: So we have concentrated on election integrity issues. And I
1:18:35
Speaker 19: was blessed Lisa Nelson, the CEO of ALEC.
1:18:37
Speaker 6: I consider her a.
1:18:38
Speaker 4: Friend and also someone who has.
1:18:40
Speaker 7: Done such a spectacular job with ALEC.
1:18:42
Speaker 6: I mean she really has.
1:18:45
Speaker 7: She approached me and said, we have stayed.
1:18:48
Speaker 4: Away now here. You might remember when and I.
1:18:51
Speaker 19: Was a member of ALEC back over a decade ago
1:18:55
Speaker 19: when the Progressive Movement came after ALEC and a lot
1:18:57
Speaker 19: of sponsors, a lot of ivate sector members pulled out,
1:19:02
Speaker 19: so they stayed away from election integrity for the better
1:19:05
Speaker 19: part of a decade. And then she came to me
1:19:08
Speaker 19: and said, you've done this, this is something that you're
1:19:12
Speaker 19: passionate about. We're thinking about starting this new task force.
1:19:16
Speaker 19: Would you like to be the public sector co chair?
1:19:18
Speaker 19: And I didn't even think about it. I just absolutely
1:19:21
Speaker 19: I would tell you what does that mean? What do
1:19:23
Speaker 19: you guys do? So if you're not familiar with task
1:19:27
Speaker 19: forces that here at ALEC, it's essentially the equivalent of
1:19:30
Speaker 19: a legislative committee. So we hear model legislation, we debate it,
1:19:36
Speaker 19: we pass it, you know, or we defeat it. But
1:19:41
Speaker 19: if it's passed, it goes to the board for final approval,
1:19:46
Speaker 19: and then it serves as model policy that any legislator
1:19:49
Speaker 19: can use in any of the fifty states to put
1:19:52
Speaker 19: forward good public policy.
1:19:55
Speaker 7: So all of our task forces operate that way.
1:19:57
Speaker 19: But we focus on election integrity, and now we're starting
1:19:59
Speaker 19: to to focus on redistricting matters as well.
1:20:02
Speaker 7: So yeah, so we're really starting to get sparky.
1:20:05
Speaker 19: Yeah, oh absolutely absolutely, But thank goodness it worked out
1:20:10
Speaker 19: the way that it did in Virginia. That was that
1:20:12
Speaker 19: that didn't make sense from the beginning, and I think that.
1:20:15
Speaker 1: I'm a Virginia voter and we got one minute tell
1:20:18
Speaker 1: people why that's the dumbest thing ever to jerrymander the
1:20:22
Speaker 1: other party out of existence. When you're forty five fifty
1:20:25
Speaker 1: five worst date.
1:20:27
Speaker 19: You say that you're the protectors of democracy, but then
1:20:30
Speaker 19: you totally go against what you're saying that you're defending,
1:20:33
Speaker 19: and you make it such a rig system.
1:20:36
Speaker 7: I think they had it perfect decision by the Supreme Court.
1:20:40
Speaker 7: It should be it should be population based, not race based.
1:20:44
Speaker 7: Isn't that what we all want?
1:20:45
Speaker 6: You?
1:20:45
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean really, isn't that what we should always
1:20:47
Speaker 7: striving for?
1:20:48
Speaker 1: And try and keep cities in the same district. That's
1:20:51
Speaker 1: my one rule. Try and keep Worn Ohio wherever you're from,
1:20:54
Speaker 1: Pawtucket in the same city. John Brien, Independent, Rhode Island, Thank.
1:20:59
Speaker 7: You for being Thank you so much as an honor
1:21:01
Speaker 7: to be here already, good at doctors.
1:21:02
Speaker 1: Don't con you where America. I'll be right back. I'm
1:21:04
Speaker 1: not to be here a show Welcome back in America.
1:21:06
Speaker 1: Texas Center that's busy doing business right up to the
1:21:10
Speaker 1: time we go live. Center. Welcome back.
1:21:12
Speaker 6: It's good that.
1:21:13
Speaker 1: Did you give him a hot tip? I was that
1:21:14
Speaker 1: I got him out of tip.
1:21:15
Speaker 20: But where we're broadcasting out of the secret location.
1:21:18
Speaker 1: Here at Alec, but you get in the lower forty
1:21:22
Speaker 1: or something. I heard that, yeah, right, was like lower decks.
1:21:25
Speaker 1: I want to talk you about data centers because you're
1:21:28
Speaker 1: pretty blunt. What is the deal in Texas about data centers?
1:21:31
Speaker 20: Okay, look real simple, two edged sword. We actually went
1:21:35
Speaker 20: out ten years ago. We wanted data centers. We gave
1:21:39
Speaker 20: him a sales sex exemption.
1:21:40
Speaker 4: We wanted to start an industry.
1:21:42
Speaker 20: Now the industry got started and then it went off
1:21:45
Speaker 20: like hockey stick in COVID because where you slept was
1:21:49
Speaker 20: more important than where you were. And now everything that
1:21:53
Speaker 20: we've got here is in a data cloud.
1:21:56
Speaker 1: People don't realize it.
1:21:57
Speaker 20: We got three hundred and thirty five centers already running
1:22:00
Speaker 20: in Texas. They're trying to what in Texas. In Texas,
1:22:04
Speaker 20: three hundred and thirty five running. See what happens is
1:22:06
Speaker 20: nobody deletes anything off of this. Of course, that would
1:22:09
Speaker 20: require that require would require, so it just goes in
1:22:12
Speaker 20: cloud and stays the same thing for government, for business,
1:22:15
Speaker 20: et cetera. So what happens is Google or somebody knocks
1:22:18
Speaker 20: up your costs by two bucks a month and everybody's happy.
1:22:21
Speaker 20: But these are basically we'll call them traditional data centers. Really,
1:22:27
Speaker 20: what we're talking about is hyper scale data centers to
1:22:31
Speaker 20: do a whole variety of things.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: Including artificial intelligence.
1:22:35
Speaker 20: Artificial intelligence, because the problem people have, I think is
1:22:38
Speaker 20: not the data center side they're scared of the AI side.
1:22:43
Speaker 1: Has it impacted the Texas paragrid is robust, right, still
1:22:47
Speaker 1: gets overwhelmed occasionally, just like California's falls apart every three
1:22:51
Speaker 1: or four years. Has the data center issue been an issue?
1:22:54
Speaker 20: Well, not yet, even though we have seen numbers that
1:22:58
Speaker 20: would overwhelm it, because look, there's like two hundred and
1:23:01
Speaker 20: forty eight of these projected. Okay, now, not every data
1:23:05
Speaker 20: center is going to be built because quite frankly, if
1:23:07
Speaker 20: you're not like in the top tier or the secondary tier,
1:23:11
Speaker 20: if you're just kind of thrown out there, Hey, I
1:23:14
Speaker 20: want to go do a data center, Well, it takes
1:23:16
Speaker 20: five years to get a gas turbine. At this point
1:23:18
Speaker 20: in time, you just can't snap and boom have a
1:23:21
Speaker 20: data center anymore.
1:23:22
Speaker 1: That doesn't exist.
1:23:23
Speaker 20: So, but there's a lot of pushback because it's the
1:23:27
Speaker 20: frothiest thing I've seen you. This thing has gone from
1:23:30
Speaker 20: zero to eighty in about seven months, and it's had
1:23:34
Speaker 20: the rural Republicans unhappy with because they've been told it's noise,
1:23:39
Speaker 20: it's going to suck their wells dry, I mean, you
1:23:42
Speaker 20: know this time, or it's going to kill somebody's job.
1:23:45
Speaker 20: Or on the other side of that, the leftist progressives
1:23:48
Speaker 20: have really gone nuts. As soon as Bernie and Aos
1:23:52
Speaker 20: said they're horrible, they've gone to the point now it's
1:23:56
Speaker 20: net fifty five there against them andern mean, well that
1:24:01
Speaker 20: fifty five that means okay, seventy one to sixteen.
1:24:03
Speaker 1: Oh, I got it all right, I got it right.
1:24:05
Speaker 7: I mean, polls on left is really horrible.
1:24:09
Speaker 20: In Texas on conservative on Republicans, it's about forty two
1:24:14
Speaker 20: percent that like them or they're moderately like and about
1:24:17
Speaker 20: forty four percent.
1:24:18
Speaker 1: That's just bad framing. It's the future, that's it.
1:24:21
Speaker 20: It's the wave of the future, and either you're on it,
1:24:24
Speaker 20: and we've actually been on it in Texas and look
1:24:27
Speaker 20: it got.
1:24:27
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to hear three hundred and thirty five.
1:24:29
Speaker 1: You haven't dissolved into a sea of mush. You haven't.
1:24:32
Speaker 1: The power hasn't gone No, and no aliens have not
1:24:34
Speaker 1: taken over.
1:24:36
Speaker 20: Well, we'll wait to see what the next you know,
1:24:38
Speaker 20: releases on release by from the Feds on the alien pictures.
1:24:44
Speaker 20: But there's a whole bunch of virtue signaling going on.
1:24:47
Speaker 20: It's like our left is progressive cities like San Marcos,
1:24:51
Speaker 20: which is down the road you've familiar, you.
1:24:53
Speaker 1: Know, Austin. Yeah, Austin. They're like saying no data center.
1:24:58
Speaker 20: Well, well there's not one kind I mean, or they
1:25:00
Speaker 20: turned it down in February. But politically, because the left
1:25:04
Speaker 20: is so hostile, they all went a virtual virtue signal.
1:25:08
Speaker 1: Right, okay, I want to do one eighty on you.
1:25:10
Speaker 1: I had a part time producer got offered a job
1:25:13
Speaker 1: in Texas. And what did you do? You told him
1:25:16
Speaker 1: they're fired.
1:25:17
Speaker 4: You said you're fired.
1:25:18
Speaker 1: No, I didn't. I said you should go, but he
1:25:22
Speaker 1: chose not to. He's California again, my production student in California.
1:25:25
Speaker 1: I said you should go because you can buy a
1:25:26
Speaker 1: house in Texas. Can you still buy a house in Texas.
1:25:29
Speaker 20: Yes, you'll be happy to know that the meeting and
1:25:32
Speaker 20: value is roughly about three hundred and fifty thousand on
1:25:36
Speaker 20: taxable value.
1:25:37
Speaker 1: Right now, So how did you did? You just keep building?
1:25:40
Speaker 1: I went to the Woodlands when I got offered my
1:25:42
Speaker 1: first law school job thirty years ago. South Texas School
1:25:45
Speaker 1: of Law wanted me to go down there, and I
1:25:47
Speaker 1: couldn't believe the kind of house you could buy in
1:25:48
Speaker 1: the Woodlands.
1:25:49
Speaker 20: It was huge, right, Okay, now, especially for what you're
1:25:55
Speaker 20: paying in California. All right, here's the Texas economic nexus
1:26:00
Speaker 20: for jobs. Everybody's coming in tremendous amount of job creation.
1:26:05
Speaker 20: And the difference is we were about three hundred thousand
1:26:08
Speaker 20: units behind building new housing units. It seems like a lot, yeah,
1:26:12
Speaker 20: but that's because we got a big influence. Okay, in California.
1:26:16
Speaker 20: You're permanently a million in over your over your skill.
1:26:20
Speaker 1: Over, never catch up and never catch up.
1:26:23
Speaker 20: So last in twenty twenty five, before it became a
1:26:26
Speaker 20: national housing crisis, we actually passed fourteen bills in the
1:26:29
Speaker 20: Texas legislature home set exemptions converting One of my favorites
1:26:35
Speaker 20: was one of mine that converted commercial office buildings to
1:26:37
Speaker 20: residential loss, cut all the zoning away from it, allow
1:26:41
Speaker 20: multifamily actually to go into more commercial areas, you know,
1:26:46
Speaker 20: you know, try to do everything we could.
1:26:48
Speaker 1: Did anyone oppose that? Democrats like the bios too, don't they.
1:26:52
Speaker 20: Yeah, And it's an interesting coalition because on some of
1:26:54
Speaker 20: these bills we would get the Democrats on the bills
1:26:59
Speaker 20: at some time times, like a bill we tried granny flats.
1:27:04
Speaker 20: They're called you know, auxiliary you know.
1:27:07
Speaker 1: A dwell and ruin, a bathroom for grammar.
1:27:09
Speaker 4: Right whatever.
1:27:10
Speaker 20: Now, we could not get that bill out because the
1:27:12
Speaker 20: city of Austin didn't want them. So they put out
1:27:16
Speaker 20: this anti leftist progressives.
1:27:17
Speaker 1: Don't anti grandma host.
1:27:20
Speaker 20: There's no there's no granny flats in Austin because the
1:27:22
Speaker 20: leftist disgresses don't want them. Now in the conservative areas
1:27:26
Speaker 20: they build granny flats.
1:27:27
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have to laugh at some of this.
1:27:30
Speaker 20: But but on a serious point, we really did pass
1:27:35
Speaker 20: a lot of legislation. And I know because the Idaho
1:27:37
Speaker 20: delegation said, hey, they were watching our stuff, and they
1:27:40
Speaker 20: were basically and they were, and they were flying it
1:27:43
Speaker 20: through the Idaho legislature too.
1:27:45
Speaker 1: So a great Senator of political question, what do you
1:27:48
Speaker 1: mean governor? Governor for now? Governor ABBA's been there, governor forever.
1:27:52
Speaker 1: We got one minute. We're going to be the next
1:27:54
Speaker 1: governor and win in Texas.
1:27:56
Speaker 18: Who's going to be the next governor?
1:27:57
Speaker 1: When?
1:27:57
Speaker 20: And when I can tell you of you listen of suspects,
1:28:02
Speaker 20: you know people that May's Middleton, Dona Finds, Brandon Creighton,
1:28:07
Speaker 20: Brian Hughes May.
1:28:10
Speaker 1: There's a line out the door. Yeah, there's a line outdoor.
1:28:12
Speaker 20: Because what's happening now is that this is the last
1:28:15
Speaker 20: year for the for we think Okay, I can't speak
1:28:19
Speaker 20: for him, but the governor, lieutenant governor, other people, and
1:28:22
Speaker 20: then in twenty.
1:28:24
Speaker 1: Thirty is going to be fifty two card pickup. Okay,
1:28:26
Speaker 1: choose wisely, Paul Bencourt, choose, sir, Paul.
1:28:30
Speaker 20: You let me come back to the best talk show
1:28:32
Speaker 20: in the Thank you, sir.
1:28:35
Speaker 1: I gotta have more Texans. I need more Texans on
1:28:38
Speaker 1: this line up. Paul Bettencourt, thank you, don't go in America.
1:28:41
Speaker 1: I'll come back to wrap up today as you hear
1:28:43
Speaker 1: it show