Latest / The People's News / Cruel and Corrupt Trump Admin Demand SNAP Users Re-Apply; LGBTQ Wins at SCOTUS; Trib Fest - TPN 11/16/25

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Cruel and Corrupt Trump Admin Demand SNAP Users Re-Apply; LGBTQ Wins at SCOTUS; Trib Fest - TPN 11/16/25 · The People's News

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Speaker 1: It's the week of November sixteenth, twenty twenty five, and
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Speaker 1: this is what's on the People's News. On food stamps reapply,
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Speaker 1: says corrupt and cruel US Agriculture chief. Gay marriage is
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Speaker 1: saved for now. The Texas Tribune Festival brought out grassroots
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Speaker 1: organizations as well as discussion. Venezuela brings diplomacy in the
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Speaker 1: name of football to Houston. A history of Canadian baseball.
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Speaker 1: All that and more on the People's News. I'm Steve Gallington.
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Speaker 1: This is the People's News, and the People's News starts now.
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Speaker 1: The corrupt, cruel and criminal Trump administration, whose main focus
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Speaker 1: is to protect Trump from being exposed as a pedophile,
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Speaker 1: will require millions of low income people to reapply for
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Speaker 1: food stamps as part of an effort to crack down
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Speaker 1: on fraud. Agriculture Secretary Brook Rawlins said this is not
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Speaker 1: the first time that Republicans have called for cutting SNAP.
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Speaker 1: With the government reopening, funding for SNAP is required to
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Speaker 1: be paid out. A new report on SNAP benefits that
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Speaker 1: was just released from the University of Houston Center for
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Speaker 1: Public Policy in the Hobby School of Public Affairs shows
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Speaker 1: how local areas are affected by cuts to SNAP. Some
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Speaker 1: points from the report, almost one in four Houston area
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Speaker 1: households rely on food assistance from the SNAP program. Black
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Speaker 1: households are disproportionately more affected by SNAP cuts than other races.
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Speaker 1: Seventy five point six percent of SNAP recipients are saying
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Speaker 1: that rising inflation has affected their spending decisions related to
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Speaker 1: food and energy. We talked to Maria P. Perez Agalz,
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Speaker 1: a research assistant professor at the Hobby School.
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Speaker 2: Now report is that those that have access to SNAP
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Speaker 2: are especially vulnerable. So nearly one in five halfhols around
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Speaker 2: say fifteen or eighteen percent, almost twenty percent of the
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Speaker 2: respondence in system received SNAP benefits. We found that from
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Speaker 2: this population that receives benefits, many are vulnerable, are have
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Speaker 2: other types of concerns for their their daily spending.
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Speaker 3: What they got.
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Speaker 4: What they are found is that a lot of people
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Speaker 4: on Snap, they do have they are working, They're not
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Speaker 4: they're not unemployed in port so to speak.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so even those that are working so in not
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Speaker 2: in the report. In one of our recent reports from
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Speaker 2: our Space City panel, we also found that even for
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Speaker 2: those that are working, one concert concerns are low salaries
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Speaker 2: and so people in Houston in general, are struggling to
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Speaker 2: pay for their basic necessities, are struggling because because income
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Speaker 2: is not being enough, the wages are not being enough
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Speaker 2: to cover the How much.
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Speaker 4: How much does the federal government pitch in to Texas
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Speaker 4: as far as as far as as far as the benefits?
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Speaker 2: M I don't have that right here, but I can
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Speaker 2: get back to.
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Speaker 5: You with that.
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Speaker 4: H But how but how is it affecting? They say
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Speaker 4: it's going to be Uh, SNAP is going to be
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Speaker 4: funded fully? How long will that take? And all those
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Speaker 4: benefits are going to be affected for the people that
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Speaker 4: in November, because we're in the middle of November right now.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so God does SNAP are going to have to
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Speaker 2: use a media consequences? These households that rely on snaps
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Speaker 2: already cast high poverty rates, high and insurance rates, and
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Speaker 2: are financially able according to our survey resources, So reducing
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Speaker 2: these benefits would mean more for insecurity, more debt, more
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Speaker 2: health province in the long run, and especially for her
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Speaker 2: houses that are for example, black and Hispanic and low
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Speaker 2: income families. Those are some of the findings from our survey.
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Speaker 4: Did your survey include the rural communities outside of outside
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Speaker 4: of the outside in Harris County.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we so our survey results are from the greater
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Speaker 2: Houston Area, so it includes the nine counties that are
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Speaker 2: in these Houston MSA, So we have resources from Harris
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Speaker 2: County and the neighboring counties.
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Speaker 1: That was Marie pe Perez Agles, Research Assistant professor at
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Speaker 1: the Hobby School. The research can be found at the
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Speaker 1: University of Houston website. The LGBTQ community was given a
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Speaker 1: victory last week as the United States Supreme Court declined
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Speaker 1: to hear a case that would have ended gay marriage
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Speaker 1: in the United States. The challenge to this case came
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Speaker 1: from the Court's twenty fifteen ruling about Kim Davis, the
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Speaker 1: former Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same sex licenses
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Speaker 1: after the court's Burgerfell versus Hodges' decision, which recognized a
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Speaker 1: constitutional right to same sex marriage. We talked to Kathy
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Speaker 1: Renna with the LGBTQ Task Force about the decision.
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Speaker 5: So when the Scrimti decision came down, the trans writes
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Speaker 5: Supreme Court takes that came down recently around training the
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Speaker 5: froming care in Tennessee. Thomas alluded to the fact that
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Speaker 5: they should review or look at other cases like a
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Speaker 5: burgerfel So that's what I think prompted a tremendous amount
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Speaker 5: of concern, and I would almost say a little bit
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Speaker 5: of panic. And so as Kim Davis's case kept going
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Speaker 5: up and up, as it was getting refused for all
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Speaker 5: the other lower courts, people were paying attention and worried.
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Speaker 5: I think the reality is that her case had very
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Speaker 5: very little chance, and experts in lawyers and advocates in
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Speaker 5: the community yew that, but that doesn't you know, that
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Speaker 5: doesn't negate concern for folks who have gotten legally married
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Speaker 5: and we're worried about their status. So when it was
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Speaker 5: denied a hearing, I think people were relieved, but I
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Speaker 5: think we need to be smart about this. We need
6:15
Speaker 5: to be on the alert that you know, anti LGBTQ
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Speaker 5: forces are going to continue to push to dismantle not
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Speaker 5: just the things were demanding as rice, but also what
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Speaker 5: we've already achieved, like marriage quality. So, like I said,
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Speaker 5: advocates are not panicking. Lawyers are giving us, you know,
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Speaker 5: good context and advice for what this really means, and
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Speaker 5: we just need to continue to be vigilant in watching
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Speaker 5: what the anti LGBTQ groups might be up to next
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Speaker 5: to try and take away some of the progress we've made.
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Speaker 4: And you're saying that, and while you say that they
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Speaker 4: have just two or three other cases that's coming up
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Speaker 4: that they didn't want to look at as far as
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Speaker 4: that's a lot stronger than a David's case.
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Speaker 5: Well, I'm not.
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Speaker 3: I'm not a lawyer.
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Speaker 5: So I listened to my colleagues of a CLU and
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Speaker 5: LAMBDA and uh in c l R and other organizations.
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Speaker 5: But yeah, I will continue to fight that. I think
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Speaker 5: that's the reality of the climate that we're living in today,
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Speaker 5: is that we are unfortunately on the defensive, and so
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Speaker 5: we need to make sure that anybody within the sound
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Speaker 5: of my voice here is supporting the organizations that are
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Speaker 5: fighting for to hold the line essentially on.
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Speaker 6: The rights that the LGBT.
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Speaker 5: Community has already been able to UH to win, and
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Speaker 5: then also be fighting for trans folks who are really
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Speaker 5: the most under attack in our in our communities.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I was gonna say that because the sense sensive
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Speaker 4: sense of victories on the right on trans rights and
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Speaker 4: them attacking and.
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Speaker 3: Winning in the court, and the Prince attacking and winning
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Speaker 3: in the courts.
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Speaker 4: It was a it was a thought that since we
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Speaker 4: were since we were attacking trans, we can also go
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Speaker 4: after after.
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Speaker 3: They blatantly just go after the whole community.
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Speaker 5: Well, I mean, when if they ever stopped going after
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Speaker 5: the whole community, they've just accelerated and focused a lot
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Speaker 5: more attention on trans issues, in part, I think because
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Speaker 5: we have made so much progress for lgb people, and
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Speaker 5: so you know, trans folks are frankly an easy target.
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Speaker 5: So one doesn't negate the other. It's not pie right.
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Speaker 5: I mean, we all need to be concerned, and I
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Speaker 5: feel like one of the most important messages to get
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Speaker 5: out there is that our entire community needs to be
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Speaker 5: supporting the trans community, and unfortunately there is a real
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Speaker 5: issue within LGBTQ communities that the support for transfolks is
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Speaker 5: not there. I mean, I saw some really interesting memes
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Speaker 5: and posts on social media after this decision to not
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Speaker 5: hear the datas case came down, which essentially said, you know,
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Speaker 5: let's put some energy that I'm seeing around something we've
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Speaker 5: already won, that we're trying to maintain towards the trans community,
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Speaker 5: which is literally fighting for their lives and their healthcare
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Speaker 5: right now.
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Speaker 4: And that's that I've seen organizations like the log Cabin.
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Speaker 4: Republicans have also said the same kind of the same thing.
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Speaker 5: It's really it's really sad and disappointing to see that
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Speaker 5: because you know, unfortunately, our community is not immune to
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Speaker 5: sexism and transphobia and classism and racism and all the
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Speaker 5: other isms, and so you know, it's it's it's disappointing
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Speaker 5: to see folks within our own community do that. But
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Speaker 5: you know, that's part of what we're fighting too. We've
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Speaker 5: got to educate from within.
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Speaker 4: Were speaking of education now, and I talked to you
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Speaker 4: about it before, the young uh, making young people aware
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Speaker 4: of where they're where they stand, because I think it
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Speaker 4: was lack of maybe a lack of interest or a
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Speaker 4: lack of knowledge about this case that came up and
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Speaker 4: how important it was and how how how it could
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Speaker 4: have been treated. And so is it is it something
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Speaker 4: that's not that that that that people in the community
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Speaker 4: aren't really focusing on.
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Speaker 5: Are you talking about marriage equalities right?
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Speaker 4: And I'm talking about then?
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Speaker 5: I get it. I get it. I mean, look, isn't
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Speaker 5: that what we're fighting for for younger people to grow
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Speaker 5: up in a world where they feel safer, you know,
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Speaker 5: and and and unfortunately, what can happen, the pendulum swings
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Speaker 5: back the other way against us, and people take maybe
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Speaker 5: take it a little bit for granted. So I think,
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Speaker 5: you know, the question is and the answer to that
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Speaker 5: question is education, like you said, and that's I teach
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Speaker 5: at Montclos State University, and you know, my students say
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Speaker 5: this all the time, like they were never taught any
10:38
Speaker 5: of these things when they were in high school. You know,
10:40
Speaker 5: they were in high school when marriage equality happened, and
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Speaker 5: there wasn't They might have seen it on the news,
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Speaker 5: but there was no formal conversation about you know, LGBTQ
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Speaker 5: civil rights and our movement when they were in high school.
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Speaker 5: And so it's not I don't blame young people for
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Speaker 5: feeling safer because of the work that my generation did.
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Speaker 5: And I also don't I think we can't hold it
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Speaker 5: against them that you know, we fail them sometimes in
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Speaker 5: our educational system. But there are also young people that
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Speaker 5: are super motivated and super engaged. In fact, you know,
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Speaker 5: if you look at the numbers, you are seeing more
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Speaker 5: and more and more young people coming out, and they're
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Speaker 5: coming out as buy in, trans, and non binary. They've
11:17
Speaker 5: grown up in a culture where they've seen they've seen
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Speaker 5: role models, they've seen representation, and so they are more
11:24
Speaker 5: comfortable being themselves. And that process is something that had
11:29
Speaker 5: the pleasure and honor of being part of with so
11:31
Speaker 5: many other thousands and thousands of queer activists. And so
11:35
Speaker 5: what we need to do is talk to each other,
11:36
Speaker 5: I think right now, given everything that's happening, intergenerational conversations
11:41
Speaker 5: are key, you know, in some ways because it offers context,
11:44
Speaker 5: but also because I think it offers hope. So when
11:46
Speaker 5: I talk to young people, they feel very discouraged, they
11:49
Speaker 5: feel very scared, they feel very anxious about what's happening,
11:53
Speaker 5: in part because many of them are actually the targets, right,
11:56
Speaker 5: they're really going after gender priming care for young people, right,
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Speaker 5: So you know, talking to them and helping them understand
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Speaker 5: that we're a community that also got through the early
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Speaker 5: days of the age epidemic with no support from the government,
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Speaker 5: with people constantly attacking us and defaming and misrepresenting especially
12:14
Speaker 5: gay and bisexual men, but all people affected by HIV,
12:17
Speaker 5: and we we protested, we lobbied, we advocated, we supported
12:22
Speaker 5: each other, we took care of each other, and that
12:24
Speaker 5: same thing needs to happen now.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm saying that also because it seems like
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Speaker 4: what we had here were able a pride event, and
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Speaker 4: the suburbs here and the.
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Speaker 3: Facility that was going to host it, all.
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Speaker 4: Of a sudden, counselor because of people within the school
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Speaker 4: board and within happening.
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Speaker 6: I mean, that's happening.
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Speaker 5: That's happening all with Era Texas, right, but that's happening
12:50
Speaker 5: all over It's happening, you know, in citiestowns, suburbs across
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Speaker 5: the country. And I think that is that's what's prompting
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Speaker 5: the fear and the anxiety, which is legitimate, is that
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Speaker 5: we need to fight back against those things.
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Speaker 6: And we're seeing we're seeing that.
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Speaker 5: I mean, look at what happened at the election a
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Speaker 5: couple weeks ago. Look at the millions and millions of
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Speaker 5: people who stood up and came out in the streets
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Speaker 5: for No King's Day. We were the task Force, was
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Speaker 5: part of that. We had several groups in uh in
13:16
Speaker 5: Washington and Los Angeles, in San Diego and New York
13:20
Speaker 5: City and other places in South Florida, you know, places
13:23
Speaker 5: where our community is a very visible part of this
13:26
Speaker 5: larger movement.
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Speaker 6: Because it's not just us.
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Speaker 5: These are progressive rights and and uh uh ability to
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Speaker 5: organize that that's being attacked on several different levels. I mean,
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Speaker 5: look at what's happening with what happened with the snap benefits.
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Speaker 5: I mean LGBTQ people are deeply affected by those issues
13:45
Speaker 5: as well. Look at the ice grades and attacks on immigrants. Uh,
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Speaker 5: you know, trans immigrants of color are are are disproportionately
13:54
Speaker 5: affected by those things too. So it's it's about much
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Speaker 5: larger issues as well.
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Speaker 1: That was Kathy Runner. Would the LGBTQ task Force. You
14:02
Speaker 1: can reach them at taskforce dot org for more information. Hi,
14:08
Speaker 1: this is Steve Gallington, producer and host of the People's News.
14:12
Speaker 1: If you have a story that needs to be told,
14:14
Speaker 1: come to us. We accept fully produced audio, written material,
14:19
Speaker 1: or just give us the idea and we will run
14:21
Speaker 1: with it. Shiny new one hour episodes of The People's
14:25
Speaker 1: News drop each Sunday on The People's News podcast, hosted
14:29
Speaker 1: by Sprinker dot com and linked to my website Gallington
14:33
Speaker 1: dot com. Over three hundred leaders of organizations and businesses
14:39
Speaker 1: converged on Austin, Texas this past weekend for the fifteenth
14:42
Speaker 1: annual Texas Tribune Festival, from major political leaders to grassroots organizations.
14:49
Speaker 1: People came and heard discussions, asked questions, herd debate and dialogue.
14:54
Speaker 7: Hi, my name is William He I'm the founder and
14:56
Speaker 7: SEO at Dream for America. Yeah, so we are a
14:58
Speaker 7: gen Z organization. Started it actually when I was sixteen
15:01
Speaker 7: years old. I'm eighteen now, so we're actually the youngest
15:04
Speaker 7: organization on this street probably. We're responsors of the conference,
15:08
Speaker 7: and we're essentially building a turning Point USA for the left,
15:11
Speaker 7: and we want to educate more young people about liberal
15:13
Speaker 7: values and inspire a whole new generation of young leaders
15:16
Speaker 7: to step up and rise up online on campus and
15:18
Speaker 7: all around the country. We've raised half a million dollars
15:21
Speaker 7: all grassroots. We've we're about to pass a billion views
15:23
Speaker 7: on social media. We've got twelve hundred kids signed up
15:26
Speaker 7: in all fifty states to start chapters.
15:28
Speaker 6: And we actually did a.
15:29
Speaker 7: Conference last month with Vice President Harrison, Governor Andy Bsher,
15:32
Speaker 7: and so many other great people. So I'm a big
15:34
Speaker 7: fan of what you guys do.
15:35
Speaker 8: Power to the people, and that's what we're all about.
15:38
Speaker 3: What about the I mentioned turning point.
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Speaker 9: Turn Port gets huge amounts of money, you know, going
15:44
Speaker 9: into the millions from these big corporate ratings.
15:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, how are you guys doing on Well.
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Speaker 7: We're all grassroots so far, you know. And if there's
15:50
Speaker 7: any liberal billionaires out there, you know, you can write
15:53
Speaker 7: a check to to toe us, I guess. But you know,
15:57
Speaker 7: but as much money as they have, right, they can
15:58
Speaker 7: never beat people power. They do have a lot of people.
16:01
Speaker 7: But I think we have the energy on our side,
16:03
Speaker 7: and I think at the end of the day, we
16:05
Speaker 7: are presenting a vision for the country that is not
16:07
Speaker 7: only hopeful and positive, but it's also the right.
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Speaker 3: Vision for the country. What made you get involved?
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Speaker 7: Yeah, well, I mean I was always interested in politics.
16:14
Speaker 7: I was reading political at nine years old. Other kids
16:17
Speaker 7: were reading Harry Potter. But you know, I always was
16:20
Speaker 7: plugged in, and so I saw a need for this,
16:22
Speaker 7: and I thought, you know, there wasn't really anyone else
16:24
Speaker 7: up doing it. So I was like, all right, when
16:26
Speaker 7: I was sixteen, I had no money, no resources, no connection,
16:29
Speaker 7: no experience. I'm not I'm still not qualified to do
16:31
Speaker 7: any of this. But I did have a MacBook, I
16:33
Speaker 7: had an Instagram account, I had a plan. Two years later,
16:36
Speaker 7: we're we're here. We've turned something. We've turned nothing into something,
16:39
Speaker 7: and hopefully we can make it into a big thing
16:41
Speaker 7: the next couple of years.
16:42
Speaker 9: Are you expanding to some of the schools and university
16:45
Speaker 9: especially HPCU schools have some diversity in your organization.
16:48
Speaker 7: Yeah, we actually have a lot of kids from HBCU
16:50
Speaker 7: signed up. We've got chapters spring up at Howard and
16:52
Speaker 7: so many other great, great places. But I think it's
16:56
Speaker 7: really just organic interest, grassroots interest from all around the country.
16:59
Speaker 7: We people ent through social media. We reach about ten
17:02
Speaker 7: million kids on average every single week. We bring them
17:04
Speaker 7: in through social media. They start chapters, they get involved,
17:06
Speaker 7: they do debates, host events on campus, right for people
17:08
Speaker 7: to vote, educate their peers, build community, and then we
17:12
Speaker 7: you know, bring them to conferences. Right. It's and it's
17:14
Speaker 7: not just any sort of political conference. We want to
17:15
Speaker 7: try to build kind of a brand of liberal Coachella
17:18
Speaker 7: for young people. And so we want to make politics
17:20
Speaker 7: something hopeful and fun and really communal. I think that's
17:24
Speaker 7: what's sorely missing in this country.
17:25
Speaker 3: What's your political aspiration as of right now?
17:29
Speaker 7: I want to get through college, go to law school,
17:31
Speaker 7: and try to start a family and aford a house.
17:34
Speaker 3: And if the world is still.
17:36
Speaker 7: Terrible at that point, then I will I'll be involved
17:40
Speaker 7: for sure, but if everything is great in Kumbaya, then
17:43
Speaker 7: I will be sitting in my house, drinking my coffee
17:46
Speaker 7: and enjoying my time with my family.
17:49
Speaker 9: What tell people how to get involved and how do
17:52
Speaker 9: we how do they find you and how do they
17:53
Speaker 9: get involved?
17:54
Speaker 6: Yeah?
17:54
Speaker 7: So best way to get involved go to dreamfro America
17:56
Speaker 7: dot org, follow us on social media, dream dot for
17:58
Speaker 7: America on Instagram, and same handle everywhere else. You can
18:01
Speaker 7: find me at william he t X on every single platform.
18:05
Speaker 7: And if you're an adult, I hope you can get involved, donate,
18:08
Speaker 7: do whatever you can top rather word of your kids, grandchildren.
18:10
Speaker 7: If you're a student, get involved, sign up, whatever you do,
18:13
Speaker 7: even just go to vote right. Every single thing you
18:15
Speaker 7: do is a great thing for this democracy. And I
18:18
Speaker 7: think whatever help you can give, you're already doing your part.
18:21
Speaker 7: So hope you get involved, that anything that you can
18:23
Speaker 7: do is already one step forward getting us out of fascism.
18:27
Speaker 5: My name is.
18:27
Speaker 10: Andrea Hotlock, and I am here with the Association of
18:30
Speaker 10: Texas Professional Educators and the reason we are here is
18:35
Speaker 10: because we are supporting educators in receiving professional education credit
18:41
Speaker 10: for the event and also wanting to share with them
18:43
Speaker 10: a lot of the resources to sustain them in the
18:46
Speaker 10: profession and help them advocate for public education as the
18:50
Speaker 10: subject matter experts.
18:52
Speaker 3: What's some of the problems in right now is facing educators.
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Speaker 10: I think top of mind comes the lack of autonomy
19:01
Speaker 10: for teachers as professionals. I mean, they have gone to
19:05
Speaker 10: school to get four year degrees, some have gone on
19:07
Speaker 10: to masters and beyond that. However, the state is incentivizing
19:12
Speaker 10: districts to purchase curriculums that are very scripted, and as such,
19:16
Speaker 10: the district implementation requires them to be very scripted and
19:21
Speaker 10: teach with fidelity in a way that restricts them from
19:25
Speaker 10: doing what they believe is best for their students.
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Speaker 3: A lot of teachers are leaving them profession because of that.
19:33
Speaker 10: Yes, I think we've seen definitely in Houston, because of
19:37
Speaker 10: the THA takeover which is now happening in Fort Worth,
19:42
Speaker 10: and it's very difficult to think of further restrictions being
19:47
Speaker 10: placed and basically teachers within the profession being villainized that
19:53
Speaker 10: we don't have the best interest of students that we're
19:56
Speaker 10: out there because we're trying to indoctrinate them rather than
20:01
Speaker 10: just help them grow and become good citizens and lifelong
20:05
Speaker 10: learners who are interested in investing in the pursuit of knowledge.
20:10
Speaker 9: That's the future of education right now. As far as
20:13
Speaker 9: getting people are going through the theater.
20:14
Speaker 10: Profession, I think right now, we know we're at a
20:18
Speaker 10: teacher shortage. We are also at a point in time
20:22
Speaker 10: where research has shown that here within the state of Texas,
20:25
Speaker 10: for the first time ever, we have more teachers coming
20:29
Speaker 10: through that are alternatively certified or not certified as opposed
20:33
Speaker 10: to true certified professionals coming from a four year program.
20:37
Speaker 10: I think education as a whole has to really provide
20:41
Speaker 10: a system of support that helps sustain teachers in the
20:44
Speaker 10: profession and doesn't expect them to go into a classroom
20:49
Speaker 10: and suddenly have the knowledge and experience that a five, seven,
20:52
Speaker 10: ten year veteran teacher is going to have, especially if
20:55
Speaker 10: they're coming from a profession outside of education as well,
20:59
Speaker 10: where they all are a subject matter expert and they're
21:01
Speaker 10: bringing knowledge and expertise from the professional world into teaching.
21:05
Speaker 10: How do we help them transition.
21:07
Speaker 3: So my name is Joshua Kuomler.
21:09
Speaker 11: I am the communications director for the Commit Partnership, and
21:12
Speaker 11: the Commit Partnership is a collective Impact organization based in
21:16
Speaker 11: Dallas County that is trying to increase the amount of
21:20
Speaker 11: young people earning a living wage by making systemic reforms
21:24
Speaker 11: in our public education stuff.
21:26
Speaker 6: How do you do that?
21:27
Speaker 11: Well, everything that we do is based out of the data,
21:31
Speaker 11: and we know from year's worth of research and data
21:34
Speaker 11: that you are much more likely to be able to
21:37
Speaker 11: meet that living wage threshold if you have some kind
21:40
Speaker 11: of post secondary credential, be that a four year degree,
21:44
Speaker 11: two year degree, or industry based certification. We know earning
21:48
Speaker 11: that post secondary credential is much more likely if you
21:51
Speaker 11: had access to some kind of advanced math pathway in
21:54
Speaker 11: middle and high school, specifically the ability to take Algebra
21:57
Speaker 11: one in eighth grade so then be on that college
22:00
Speaker 11: ready math track. We know success in later grades is
22:04
Speaker 11: a lot more likely if you can read on grade
22:06
Speaker 11: level in third grade, because that's kind of a transition
22:09
Speaker 11: from learning to read to reading to learn. And we
22:13
Speaker 11: know that all of that is supported by being able
22:16
Speaker 11: to access some kind of high quality early childcare, like
22:20
Speaker 11: a public pre K three and four option through our
22:23
Speaker 11: public school system. So we are very proud and fortunate
22:27
Speaker 11: to be able to partner with pretty much all of
22:29
Speaker 11: the public school systems within the boundaries of Dallas County
22:33
Speaker 11: is save a handful to come alongside them with folks
22:38
Speaker 11: who are former educators and subject matter experts in each
22:42
Speaker 11: of those points of that educational trajectory and try and
22:46
Speaker 11: help them to implement some of the best practices that
22:48
Speaker 11: we see as our best bets for really growing and
22:53
Speaker 11: continuing to maximize those outcomes. And then also what we
22:56
Speaker 11: do from that process is take what we've learned from
23:00
Speaker 11: those school systems that we're honored to work alongside and
23:03
Speaker 11: hear from them about what's working, what's not, what are
23:06
Speaker 11: potential barriers or roadblocks that are potentially in the way,
23:10
Speaker 11: and then use those insights to craft student centered policy
23:13
Speaker 11: that we then advocate for at the state legislature here
23:16
Speaker 11: in Austin.
23:17
Speaker 9: So, now you mentioned you mentioned public schools, but about
23:20
Speaker 9: kids now are going to charter schools and private schools.
23:23
Speaker 3: How does that kind of effect measures at all?
23:26
Speaker 11: So as it relates as it relates to charter schools,
23:30
Speaker 11: charter schools are public schools, and you know when we
23:35
Speaker 11: well and to the extent that they are publicly funded
23:38
Speaker 11: and they are administered, they are administering the star and
23:41
Speaker 11: they are subjecting themselves to the states A through uf
23:44
Speaker 11: accountability system. Then we collect and track and analyze that
23:49
Speaker 11: data just as we do with any of the traditional isds.
23:53
Speaker 11: Private schools obviously a completely different story. We do not
23:56
Speaker 11: have that same level of transparency, So there's not a
23:59
Speaker 11: lot that we can say about what is or isn't
24:02
Speaker 11: working in those environments because we simply don't have that
24:05
Speaker 11: level of visibility. So we are very proud to work
24:08
Speaker 11: with public school systems of all types, be that traditional
24:12
Speaker 11: ISD or charter.
24:15
Speaker 3: We do not have any particular role on private school campuses.
24:19
Speaker 9: I see, I see where you can go to say
24:22
Speaker 9: you seem to be in the school district, and you
24:24
Speaker 9: can put in your school and you.
24:27
Speaker 3: Can see what their accountability is.
24:30
Speaker 6: Yes.
24:30
Speaker 11: Yeah, So we have a number of data tools on
24:34
Speaker 11: our website, Commit Partnership dot org. You can also put
24:37
Speaker 11: in commit Data dot org and that'll shortcut you straight
24:41
Speaker 11: to the page with all of our different dashboards. Those
24:45
Speaker 11: deal with all sorts of educational outcomes, kind of along
24:48
Speaker 11: that same trajectory I described earlier, from pre K enrollment
24:53
Speaker 11: in early childhood education all the way through to are
24:56
Speaker 11: you earning a living wage? And of course One of
24:59
Speaker 11: the things that we do see as an important component
25:03
Speaker 11: of that is our state's accountability system. So one of
25:06
Speaker 11: the things that you can look at to your point
25:08
Speaker 11: is those a threa F scores. Both you know, what
25:13
Speaker 11: is the rating of a particular campus, but also what's
25:16
Speaker 11: the distribution of different campus ratings within a particular school
25:20
Speaker 11: district or even a particular legislative district or county. You
25:23
Speaker 11: can cut the data visuals along all of those measures.
25:27
Speaker 11: The other one that I would point folks towards relating
25:29
Speaker 11: to the accountability data is what we refer to as
25:33
Speaker 11: a hope chart. It plots that accountability score on the
25:38
Speaker 11: Y axis the vertical axis, and on the X axis,
25:41
Speaker 11: the horizontal it's the rate of economic disadvantage that students
25:45
Speaker 11: are facing on those campuses. And so when you then
25:49
Speaker 11: look at that scatterplot and you look in that top
25:52
Speaker 11: right corner, you can see quite a lot of schools
25:56
Speaker 11: from all over the state, really reflecting the diversity of
25:59
Speaker 11: the state that are able to get these incredible high
26:03
Speaker 11: ratings while also serving a population of students that is
26:08
Speaker 11: overwhelmingly experiencing economic disadvantage. And so that to us is
26:12
Speaker 11: really you know, exhibit a in terms of like demographics
26:15
Speaker 11: are not destiny, and we do have the means to
26:20
Speaker 11: support all students to meeting those grade level standards, and
26:23
Speaker 11: that really makes it that much more incumbent on us
26:26
Speaker 11: to learn from those schools to see what is working
26:30
Speaker 11: there and hopefully try and scale that.
26:33
Speaker 3: To everywhere else. How can people find that more?
26:36
Speaker 11: You can visit us at our website commit Partnership dot org.
26:40
Speaker 11: You can reach out to me Joshua Kumler k U,
26:43
Speaker 11: M L E. R. We are so thrilled to be
26:47
Speaker 11: able to partner again with so many local school systems,
26:49
Speaker 11: but also other like minded organizations across the state. So
26:54
Speaker 11: you based in Houston, we also work with Good Reason
26:57
Speaker 11: Houston over there E three a lot here in Austin.
27:01
Speaker 11: So there's a lot of folks who are alongside us
27:05
Speaker 11: in this work. And even if you're maybe not based
27:08
Speaker 11: in Dallas County, I bet we can connect you with
27:10
Speaker 11: somebody who's working in your negative ones.
27:13
Speaker 1: This was put on by the Texas Tribune newspaper, which
27:16
Speaker 1: you have heard in the past on this show and
27:18
Speaker 1: who puts out great political information. You can find them
27:22
Speaker 1: at Texastribune dot org. While the Corrupt, criminal and cruel.
27:27
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, addled with dementia, besieged by his involvement with
27:31
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein and Gallaine Maxwell, continues to distract by committing
27:36
Speaker 1: war crimes against Venezuela. The Venezuelan football team still brings
27:41
Speaker 1: joy to those Venezuelans living here in the US. Friday night,
27:45
Speaker 1: at Shell Dynamo Stadium, the Venezuelan national team played Australia
27:50
Speaker 1: in a friendly match during the international break. Venezuela won
27:54
Speaker 1: one to zero with a goal by Aesus Andres Ramirez Diaz,
27:58
Speaker 1: which brought joy to those here and back home. As
28:02
Speaker 1: Trump Breton's war on the country, it.
28:05
Speaker 4: Has gotten better.
28:06
Speaker 8: We still have to go to the World Cup. That's
28:08
Speaker 8: the main goal though, but uh, it has gotten better.
28:11
Speaker 8: I think we're now today and the last game. We're
28:14
Speaker 8: looking at a new generation for Venezuela and football soccer.
28:17
Speaker 8: So I believe we're gonna be in the World Cup
28:20
Speaker 8: very soon. We were very close this time around, and
28:23
Speaker 8: I mean ideally with Disney development of the team, new
28:27
Speaker 8: coaching staff and everything coming in together, I think it's
28:29
Speaker 8: going to be a very nice couple of years coming
28:32
Speaker 8: up for us with football.
28:33
Speaker 3: Football is very propular in Venezuela.
28:36
Speaker 9: Yes, along with baseball, but with the politics involved with
28:40
Speaker 9: with with with the football, how's that going, how's that going?
28:43
Speaker 9: In check and Howard is playing football in the United
28:45
Speaker 9: States today? You know, we don't with the climate right now.
28:50
Speaker 6: We're talking about that.
28:51
Speaker 8: So the first part, I believe this politics shouldn't really
28:54
Speaker 8: be involved into sports. Unfortunately, politics will have a huge
28:58
Speaker 8: impact on federation teams.
29:01
Speaker 6: So it is heavily.
29:02
Speaker 8: Controlled by unfortunately the wrong people. And that's why we're
29:06
Speaker 8: trying to you know, trying to get push games and
29:08
Speaker 8: get into results and get into a World Cup, get
29:10
Speaker 8: into a good spot in Copa America. That's kind of
29:12
Speaker 8: like the goal right now. But yeah, and playing in
29:14
Speaker 8: the US I think is growing as well. Now with
29:17
Speaker 8: like more teams in the MLS, you know, more exposure
29:20
Speaker 8: to come into the league with MESSI, with Inter Miami
29:22
Speaker 8: in general. You got Koreans going into LAFC with Song
29:26
Speaker 8: so you have a lot of I already coming into
29:28
Speaker 8: the league, and I believe that's gonna be like a
29:30
Speaker 8: very good like thing for the US in general.
29:33
Speaker 9: The politics between Venezuela and in the United States and
29:35
Speaker 9: statist needles, you talk about that.
29:38
Speaker 8: I mean, yeah, I mean we're here to have fun,
29:41
Speaker 8: We're here to talk about football. So I don't really
29:44
Speaker 8: I believe that conflict is gonna benefit our country in general.
29:49
Speaker 8: But you know, they're sacrifices to be made along the way.
29:52
Speaker 8: We're being suffering for so long now, like anything that
29:55
Speaker 8: helps us really is gonna is gonna be a blessing.
29:57
Speaker 8: But yeah, I believe the US and Venezuela never play
30:02
Speaker 8: against each other in soccer, so I don't think.
30:04
Speaker 3: It's not really a fight the team.
30:05
Speaker 1: Also this last week, Houston activists gathered at the Meekham
30:09
Speaker 1: Fountain on Saturday to demonstrate the US escalation as they
30:13
Speaker 1: marched down Hermann Drive to Caroline and enter the McGovern's
30:16
Speaker 1: centennial gardens at Herman Park. Gathering at the bust of
30:20
Speaker 1: Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia,
30:25
Speaker 1: and Panama, they rally and invoke the anti colonial fighting
30:29
Speaker 1: spirit of Bolivar. In what some are calling the greatest
30:33
Speaker 1: World Series in history, the Los Angeles Dodgers came back
30:37
Speaker 1: to beat the Toronto Blue Jays in Game seven in
30:40
Speaker 1: extra innings. But how did baseball end? Up in Canada,
30:45
Speaker 1: we talked to Canadian baseball historian William Humber from the
30:48
Speaker 1: Center for Canadian Baseball History and author of the book
30:52
Speaker 1: The Old Ontario at Bat Baseball's Unhralded History. We talked
30:56
Speaker 1: about the history of baseball in Canada and how Toronto
30:59
Speaker 1: got to where they are.
31:01
Speaker 12: Absolutely, I would argue that in fact, the game developed
31:05
Speaker 12: towards and in its modern form concurrently in Canada's In
31:09
Speaker 12: the United States. In other words, baseball didn't start as
31:12
Speaker 12: a game invented off the top of someone's head. It
31:15
Speaker 12: had nothing to do with Abner Doubleday. It had nothing
31:17
Speaker 12: to do with Cooper's Down, It had nothing to do
31:19
Speaker 12: with the year eighteen thirty nine. It was an English
31:22
Speaker 12: folk game actually in the eighteenth century, and that's the
31:25
Speaker 12: game that had come into North America in the eighteenth
31:28
Speaker 12: century and more prominently in the nineteenth century. But unlike England,
31:33
Speaker 12: where cricket had become the mature, the adult for one
31:36
Speaker 12: of a better term, bat and ball game, we didn't
31:39
Speaker 12: have that kind of hanging over our heads as much
31:42
Speaker 12: in North America, and so there was kind of a
31:44
Speaker 12: freedom to develop another kind of bat and ball game
31:48
Speaker 12: which met our needs a lot better. And I argued
31:51
Speaker 12: to this date of my English friends that baseball is
31:54
Speaker 12: a better game than cricket for a whole variety of reasons.
31:58
Speaker 12: One in particular is that in the old cricket games,
32:01
Speaker 12: which could last four or five days, if you were
32:04
Speaker 12: retired as a batter early in Europe, that you might
32:07
Speaker 12: not play for a day or two. Who wants to
32:09
Speaker 12: play a game that you know you'd only get on occasionally.
32:12
Speaker 12: And the other thing about cricket is it's basically a
32:14
Speaker 12: two base game, the two wickets between the thrower, the
32:18
Speaker 12: hurler and the batter. And baseball has four bases, and
32:22
Speaker 12: there's so much more that can happen with four bases
32:25
Speaker 12: and three outs in an inning. You have a lot
32:27
Speaker 12: more going back and forth between offense and defense. And
32:31
Speaker 12: that's what argues in my mind for baseball being a
32:34
Speaker 12: better and more stuited game to Canadians and Americans for
32:38
Speaker 12: that matter. And one of the ways you modernize the
32:42
Speaker 12: game is to bring some degree of regularity to its
32:45
Speaker 12: scheduling for want of a better term, and in fact,
32:48
Speaker 12: some of the first schedules we have of games were
32:51
Speaker 12: in Canada eighteen nineteen in Hamilton and then eighteen thirty
32:55
Speaker 12: eight in Beachville, Ontario, both held on military what was
32:59
Speaker 12: called Military Mustterday on the fourth of June, and it
33:02
Speaker 12: was an annual kind of celebration, an annual it was
33:06
Speaker 12: quite frankly, a reason for people to get together march
33:09
Speaker 12: around hope that the Americans decided not to invade the country.
33:15
Speaker 12: But really it was an excuse to get drunk and
33:17
Speaker 12: play baseball. And so perhaps you know, the more things change,
33:21
Speaker 12: the more they change, they stay the same. So by
33:24
Speaker 12: the eighteen fifties when and really it's the eighteen fifties
33:28
Speaker 12: when the game is entering it's kind of modern stages
33:31
Speaker 12: as we know it today. And I argue that the
33:33
Speaker 12: modernization of any sport comes when it becomes part of
33:38
Speaker 12: regular media coverage. And in fact, in the case of baseball,
33:43
Speaker 12: the media in the nineteenth century where either newspapers or magazines,
33:47
Speaker 12: there wasn't any other form that you could broadcast a
33:50
Speaker 12: game in. And it's really around the mid to the
33:53
Speaker 12: latter part of the eighteen fifties that the game is
33:55
Speaker 12: being reported on a regular basis, and it's happening in
33:58
Speaker 12: Canada as well as in the United States. So the
34:01
Speaker 12: first organized teams that we have records of in Canada.
34:04
Speaker 12: In Hamilton, Ontario in eighteen fifty four, a couple of
34:07
Speaker 12: teams the first ever international baseball game. You know, you
34:11
Speaker 12: assumed that this was played somewhere in the United States. No,
34:14
Speaker 12: it was played in Niagara Falls, Canada. And it was
34:16
Speaker 12: a team from Buffalo and a team from Hamilton that
34:18
Speaker 12: agreed to meet kind of at a halfway point to
34:21
Speaker 12: play that international game of baseball. And I'll close this
34:25
Speaker 12: little piece of my epistle, as it were, by noting
34:29
Speaker 12: for our American friend to my American friends, that the
34:33
Speaker 12: first ever international hockey game. You would have thought a
34:36
Speaker 12: game that that must have been played in Canada. Nope,
34:39
Speaker 12: it was played in Vermont. So you know, the first
34:41
Speaker 12: international hockey game was in the United States. The first
34:43
Speaker 12: international baseball game in Canada seems somehow fitting.
34:47
Speaker 3: I have to add, it's another sport, But I have
34:49
Speaker 3: to ask why was it in Vermont.
34:52
Speaker 12: It was a good winter site. And when they played
34:56
Speaker 12: in the eighteen eighties, we didn't have artificial ice, so
34:59
Speaker 12: hockey was really limited to places where you know, the
35:02
Speaker 12: weather got cold and the ice froze. You know, for
35:06
Speaker 12: at least two or three months, and so Vermont was
35:08
Speaker 12: a logical place. They had annual winter festivals there. They
35:14
Speaker 12: were playing hockey at the same time in the United
35:16
Speaker 12: States as in Canada, and so they invited people from
35:19
Speaker 12: Montreal to come down and play a game of hockey
35:22
Speaker 12: in Burlington, Vermont. Who would have thought that it would
35:25
Speaker 12: have been the first ever international game, but there it
35:28
Speaker 12: was in.
35:28
Speaker 6: The eighteen eighties.
35:30
Speaker 4: Now, how did how did we come to have like
35:32
Speaker 4: when Major League baseball started, Well, we still had it,
35:35
Speaker 4: we had it was segregated here in the States, but yep,
35:39
Speaker 4: Canada was open, but it was still segregated there too,
35:42
Speaker 4: And I correct on that.
35:45
Speaker 12: Yes, I think one of the reasons for that is
35:48
Speaker 12: that very early in the development of the base baseball
35:51
Speaker 12: in Canada we had a kind of an independent organization
35:54
Speaker 12: structure for one of a better term of baseball. Well,
35:57
Speaker 12: that pretty well had ended by the eighteen eighties, and
36:01
Speaker 12: at that point Canadians decided that they would become part
36:04
Speaker 12: of what we now know as organized baseball. And so
36:07
Speaker 12: you have a long, long history minor league baseball teams,
36:12
Speaker 12: you know, playing in some cases, you know, I think
36:16
Speaker 12: before the First World War there were over nearly two
36:19
Speaker 12: dozen teams in minor league baseball teams in Canada playing
36:23
Speaker 12: either American based minor leagues or in fact minor leagues
36:27
Speaker 12: that were part of organized baseball, but were in fact
36:30
Speaker 12: entirely the teams were entirely in Canada. So once you
36:33
Speaker 12: kind of get into that system, once you're accepting of it,
36:37
Speaker 12: you kind of have to go along with the ground
36:39
Speaker 12: rules that you find there. But that's not to say
36:41
Speaker 12: that weren't all black teams in Canada. The first that
36:44
Speaker 12: I found a record of was in eighteen sixty nine
36:47
Speaker 12: in London, Ontario, a lot earlier than many people think,
36:50
Speaker 12: and really good black ball players that weren't a lot
36:54
Speaker 12: of them, but those who came out of Canada were
36:56
Speaker 12: able to play on integrated teams in Canada as long
37:00
Speaker 12: as those teams weren't part of what we now know
37:02
Speaker 12: is organized baseball. And so that's why we have that
37:06
Speaker 12: long history, sadly of segregation in baseball, and seemingly appropriately,
37:13
Speaker 12: it was only ended when Jackie Robinson went to play
37:16
Speaker 12: for the Montreal Royals in the International League in nineteen
37:18
Speaker 12: forty six, the season before he went up to play
37:21
Speaker 12: for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League.
37:23
Speaker 4: Now I know about the I was just curious on
37:26
Speaker 4: how that happened because we know about the in Halifax,
37:30
Speaker 4: in Nova Scotia, in the population of blacks in that area,
37:35
Speaker 4: and I was just curious on why it didn't develop
37:39
Speaker 4: more in that area.
37:43
Speaker 12: The black population of Canada, certainly until the nineteen fifties sixties,
37:47
Speaker 12: was very very small after the end of the American
37:52
Speaker 12: Civil War. Up until then, about two percent of the
37:55
Speaker 12: population of Canada was black. After the Civil War, America
38:00
Speaker 12: and blacks who'd come into Canada thought that they might
38:02
Speaker 12: have a better future back in the United States, so
38:04
Speaker 12: they left in very large numbers. So the black population
38:07
Speaker 12: of Canada, as I say, until certainly the nineteen fifties sixties,
38:12
Speaker 12: was one fifth of one percent of the population of Canada.
38:15
Speaker 12: So it was a very small pool that you had
38:18
Speaker 12: to draw athletes from to play hockey. Not to say that,
38:22
Speaker 12: you know, they shouldn't have made a better effort to
38:24
Speaker 12: do so, but the fact is that the first black
38:27
Speaker 12: hockey player in the National Hockey League was Willie O.
38:29
Speaker 12: Reed and that wasn't until nineteen fifty eight in Boston.
38:32
Speaker 12: So it's kind of one of the interesting historical peculiarities
38:37
Speaker 12: that hockey in Boston integrated nineteen fifty eight. The Boston
38:41
Speaker 12: Red Sox baseball team did not integrate until nineteen fifty nine.
38:45
Speaker 12: So in Boston, hockey actually beat baseball out in that account.
38:49
Speaker 4: Oh well, yeah, how did when they came of Major
38:53
Speaker 4: League Baseball?
38:55
Speaker 6: How was it?
38:57
Speaker 4: How was it that that Canada had a team? Those
39:01
Speaker 4: had one or two teams?
39:03
Speaker 12: Yeah, Canada. The interesting thing is that by eighteen seventy
39:07
Speaker 12: seven there were two teams in Canada, one in Guelph,
39:10
Speaker 12: Ontario and one in London, Ontario, that were probably on
39:14
Speaker 12: a par with the best professional baseball teams anywhere in
39:18
Speaker 12: North America. And they formed what was called in eighteen
39:22
Speaker 12: seventy seven the International Association, which is not to be
39:25
Speaker 12: confused with the later International League. It was a professional league,
39:30
Speaker 12: a rival to the National League, and its business practices were,
39:35
Speaker 12: like for many teams those days, rather shoddy, and so
39:39
Speaker 12: if they lost a few dollars, they were pretty prepared
39:41
Speaker 12: to go under. But London London to Compass team lasted
39:45
Speaker 12: through the eighteen seventy eight seasons. So they lasted two
39:48
Speaker 12: seasons and actually won a championship in eighteen seventy seven.
39:52
Speaker 12: And the story is that they were invited to go
39:55
Speaker 12: to a meeting of the National League in the winter
39:57
Speaker 12: between eighteen seventy seven and seventy eight regarding possible membership
40:01
Speaker 12: in the National League. And there's a number of reasons
40:04
Speaker 12: that they may not have accepted that opportunity. The National
40:07
Speaker 12: League may have thought London was too small, and from
40:10
Speaker 12: London's point of view, they would have lost the opportunity
40:12
Speaker 12: to play exhibition games with nearby local teams, which helped
40:16
Speaker 12: them kind of meet their bottom line and their budget.
40:19
Speaker 12: The next great opportunity was in the mid eighteen eighties
40:21
Speaker 12: when Albert Spaulding, the great entrepreneur sporting goods entrepreneur whose
40:27
Speaker 12: name you know still appears today on basketballs and other
40:29
Speaker 12: sporting equipment. He was a big proponent of Toronto joining
40:33
Speaker 12: the National League, and Toronto baseball officials said, well, we're
40:37
Speaker 12: not sure we're ready yet, and you know, we think
40:40
Speaker 12: we'll wait another season or two. Well they did wait
40:43
Speaker 12: another season or two. In fact, they waited almost they
40:46
Speaker 12: waited almost ninety years because baseball course didn't come to
40:49
Speaker 12: Toronto until nineteen seventy seven, with the Blue Jays having
40:53
Speaker 12: come you know, first to Canada and Montreal with the
40:55
Speaker 12: Expos in nineteen sixty nine.
40:58
Speaker 3: Oh so all beat out Toronto as far as baseball.
41:03
Speaker 10: They did.
41:03
Speaker 12: Montreal had had Exposed sixty seven in their favor and
41:07
Speaker 12: it provided kind of the world had kind of become
41:11
Speaker 12: aware of Montreal. But the other story was the National
41:14
Speaker 12: League officials really thought that Toronto and Montreal would show
41:17
Speaker 12: up together for the expansion meetings, and Toronto just didn't
41:20
Speaker 12: send anybody. They'd lost their minor league team in nineteen
41:24
Speaker 12: sixty seven after that season, and baseball was at a
41:27
Speaker 12: pretty low level in Toronto at that point. It's hard
41:32
Speaker 12: to imagine now, but I would have said that next
41:35
Speaker 12: to the Leafs, the biggest team in town were the
41:37
Speaker 12: Toronto Argonauts, the Canadian Football League team. They were drawing
41:41
Speaker 12: upwards of fifty thousand people to the CNE grounds. They
41:44
Speaker 12: were incredibly popular. That league at the time, while not
41:49
Speaker 12: a you know, not on the same level as the NFL,
41:52
Speaker 12: was able to occasionally go after players and recruit them
41:56
Speaker 12: to come to Canada rather than to stay in the
41:58
Speaker 12: United States, had a degree of success which it no
42:02
Speaker 12: longer has to this day. So the Exposed were the
42:04
Speaker 12: first the Jays were the second, but sadly for Canadian
42:08
Speaker 12: baseball terms, the Expose of course left around two thousand
42:11
Speaker 12: and four and they're now the Washington Nationals.
42:14
Speaker 1: That was Canadian baseball historian William Humber from the Center
42:18
Speaker 1: for Canadian Baseball History, an author of the book The
42:22
Speaker 1: Old Ontario at Bat, Baseball's unherlded history. This election, which
42:27
Speaker 1: saw historic voter turnout, is a harbinger for what's going
42:32
Speaker 1: to be happening in twenty twenty six. You cannot emphasize
42:36
Speaker 1: enough how dramatic this was and how much of a
42:41
Speaker 1: blue tsunami is coming in twenty twenty six. Doctor Michael
42:46
Speaker 1: Adams is founding director of the Executive Master of Public
42:49
Speaker 1: Administration Program Barbara Jordan Public Policy and Research Center at
42:54
Speaker 1: Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. He analyzed this election.
43:00
Speaker 6: We know that within a fifteen month period, we saw
43:04
Speaker 6: the untimely death in some instances of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson
43:11
Speaker 6: Lee and also Congressman Sylvester Turner, and that created an
43:18
Speaker 6: environment where Sheila Jackson Lee was on the ballot and
43:24
Speaker 6: therefore the precinct judges had to select a replacement, and
43:29
Speaker 6: that election we saw Sylvester Turner being picked by the
43:34
Speaker 6: precinct judges to be on the ballot for the twenty
43:38
Speaker 6: to twenty four, twenty twenty four elections special election for
43:42
Speaker 6: that and so he won that that seat. But also
43:48
Speaker 6: the term of Sheila Jackson Lee had to be completed
43:53
Speaker 6: by someone, and her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, was chosen
43:58
Speaker 6: by the voters to that. So if you take into
44:01
Speaker 6: account all of these moving pieces, as I would describe them,
44:07
Speaker 6: you get a lot of confusion within the ancient Congressional district,
44:11
Speaker 6: I would surmise to say, amongst the voters and the
44:14
Speaker 6: residents of this district. And then within a fifteen month period,
44:20
Speaker 6: you see the passing of two congressional members in terms
44:25
Speaker 6: of those who occupied the ancient Congressional district name is
44:28
Speaker 6: Sheila Jackson Lee and tevest Attorneys and March. That seat
44:34
Speaker 6: became vacant and the governor chose to schedule a special
44:41
Speaker 6: election on November the fourth of this year. And so
44:46
Speaker 6: that's how we got to this point, and we see
44:49
Speaker 6: a wide field of candidates who wanting to fill in
44:55
Speaker 6: the gap for being the congressperson for the acent congresional district. Specifically,
45:02
Speaker 6: there were sixteen people who signed up. There were more
45:05
Speaker 6: than that that some of them chose not to run.
45:08
Speaker 6: So we had sixteen candidates on the ballots on Tuesday
45:13
Speaker 6: of this week, and out of those two candidates, we
45:16
Speaker 6: knew that with such a wide feel it would it
45:20
Speaker 6: guarantee a runoff. And the polling I think was very clear,
45:26
Speaker 6: and kudos to my friends over at the Hobby School,
45:28
Speaker 6: I think they were spot on and within the margin
45:31
Speaker 6: of era. They predicted that Christian Minifie, who is the
45:37
Speaker 6: current attorney a county attorney, and Amanda edwards Worth were
45:41
Speaker 6: the front runners. And that's what we saw on election
45:46
Speaker 6: night when the results were finally tabulated. All right, And
45:50
Speaker 6: I don't know I hadn't checked the county site this
45:52
Speaker 6: morning whether they are officials, but it looks as though
45:56
Speaker 6: Christian Mensfee gonnered twenty nine percent of the vote, Amanda
46:00
Speaker 6: Edward twenty five, twenty six percent of the vote, and
46:06
Speaker 6: jel Unda Jones, who is currently serving in the Texas
46:09
Speaker 6: State Legislature, she came in and captured nineteen percentage points
46:15
Speaker 6: of the vote. So that's where we are now. If
46:18
Speaker 6: you want to pivot and talk about what the issues
46:21
Speaker 6: were in this campaign. It seems as though the candidates,
46:25
Speaker 6: all of them if you look at their ass and
46:28
Speaker 6: those that had television ads, namely Christian Menafie and Amanda Edwards,
46:34
Speaker 6: because they raised more than one point five million dollars,
46:38
Speaker 6: and I think jeel Unda Jones did fairly well with
46:41
Speaker 6: a budget and campaign finance report revealing that she had
46:45
Speaker 6: about three hundred thousand dollars. All right, So they all
46:49
Speaker 6: talked about fighting or using Donald Trump as a fall
46:53
Speaker 6: so to speak. Because the Higby survey, I'll go back
46:57
Speaker 6: to that, when they talked about the issues that were
47:00
Speaker 6: were important to the residents of the district, to me,
47:04
Speaker 6: it was kind of striking that civil liberties and civil
47:07
Speaker 6: rights was at the top of the list, not affordability,
47:10
Speaker 6: not kitchen table issues such as jobs and and and
47:15
Speaker 6: access to capital and these kinds of things, Uh, civil
47:18
Speaker 6: rights and civiliverties. And what that allowed me to conclude
47:23
Speaker 6: was that the residents of the eighty Congressional District clearly
47:28
Speaker 6: believed that the current presidential administration, namely Donald Trump, is
47:32
Speaker 6: an existential threat to their well being in their future
47:37
Speaker 6: and our Paul to see if you have a follow up, Yeah.
47:40
Speaker 4: It seemed like the money people with with Menafee and Edwards,
47:47
Speaker 4: they were able to get the downtown money, which as
47:50
Speaker 4: Julanda wasn't wasn't able to and Julanda was speaking to
47:53
Speaker 4: issues dealing with the community more than Minifee and and Edwards.
48:00
Speaker 6: Am I looking at that right, well, you can, and
48:02
Speaker 6: I think you would have to just aggregate that and
48:04
Speaker 6: break that down. I would say that because Jeelanda Jones
48:07
Speaker 6: and some local media sources have suggested that even in
48:12
Speaker 6: the last election, there was a campaign in terms of
48:14
Speaker 6: criminal justice reform in terms of the judges, that she
48:17
Speaker 6: had taken money from that and been a member of
48:19
Speaker 6: the Texas State Legislature. I wouldn't necessarily say that all
48:24
Speaker 6: of her funds came from small donations and these kinds
48:28
Speaker 6: of things, just like we saw one candidate Isaiah and
48:32
Speaker 6: Martin and I did some digging on that as well,
48:37
Speaker 6: and it seemed as though that was kind of misleading
48:39
Speaker 6: because it said that he had a million dollars. However,
48:43
Speaker 6: if you look at what was happening there with his
48:47
Speaker 6: fundraising is like he was buying funds. It's where you
48:50
Speaker 6: can use a company where you pay a certain amount
48:53
Speaker 6: of money and then they will do digital blasts for
48:56
Speaker 6: you and then the money will come in. And so
48:59
Speaker 6: I think that was somewhat I don't want to say disingenuous,
49:02
Speaker 6: but it's notwithstanding. So so no, I wouldn't clearly say
49:06
Speaker 6: that hers was community based on what have you? Now,
49:10
Speaker 6: I think Jelnda Jones is going to talk about it.
49:12
Speaker 6: She's she's she's benefighter. She's been out there and in
49:17
Speaker 6: many quarters, she could be described as being a kind
49:19
Speaker 6: of polarizing figure. And I think it's my belief that
49:25
Speaker 6: men Offee Uh certainly sided to the county and some
49:29
Speaker 6: of the things he was better positioned and the people
49:33
Speaker 6: who endorsed him. Now he won the endorsement, right, so
49:37
Speaker 6: I think all of that helped bring more money into him.
49:39
Speaker 6: Now he was endorsed by Jasmine Crockett. And whether you
49:41
Speaker 6: like Jasmine Crockett or not, but Meg Poland suggests that
49:45
Speaker 6: she's a very popular figure in particular in Texas, and
49:49
Speaker 6: I would surmise in the major urban areas and also
49:53
Speaker 6: amongst black people in particular.
49:57
Speaker 4: What do you what about these propositions that that were
50:01
Speaker 4: a matter of fact, actually, before we talk about the
50:03
Speaker 4: props UH, talk about the at large positions that were
50:08
Speaker 4: that were that were.
50:09
Speaker 6: On on on the table. Yeah. Yeah, they had large
50:12
Speaker 6: position for the Houston City Council. We know that Letitia
50:15
Speaker 6: Plumber Uh is leaving city council. She's opting to run
50:20
Speaker 6: for county judge and uh that seat is open. And
50:25
Speaker 6: what we saw was Alexandra uh Halundion. I can't think
50:30
Speaker 6: of her nagative to excuse me now for that, uh,
50:33
Speaker 6: but she is a lawyer with a major law firm.
50:37
Speaker 6: I think she came in first a percentage point ahead
50:40
Speaker 6: of Dwight Borkins, who is a long time political uh
50:44
Speaker 6: and someone who is well known in the community, the
50:47
Speaker 6: black community. And I also believe that Borkins benefited from
50:53
Speaker 6: the fact of the special election because he lives NBAH
50:59
Speaker 6: and congressional and some of the things that he touted
51:02
Speaker 6: in terms of food deserts and bringing in the ATB
51:05
Speaker 6: that we see right there on the two eighty eight
51:07
Speaker 6: quarter in the McGregor area that he touted himself as that.
51:12
Speaker 6: And we know that Dwight has one run from there
51:15
Speaker 6: before and he's a well known figure in buy so
51:17
Speaker 6: I think that helped him in that particular rate. So
51:20
Speaker 6: that's going into a runoff and so it's going to
51:22
Speaker 6: be interesting to see first of all, and all of
51:25
Speaker 6: these when we talk about a ronoff, you have to
51:27
Speaker 6: talk about getting your supporters back to the polls on
51:32
Speaker 6: runoff day. Now, for the city council, it looks like
51:34
Speaker 6: that runoff will occur December thirteenth, and for the special
51:38
Speaker 6: election for the eighteen Congressional district, that could be pushed
51:42
Speaker 6: back to January or even early February. Because there's a
51:46
Speaker 6: law that most people are not familiar with. It's called
51:48
Speaker 6: the MOVE Act, and it's a law enacted by Congress
51:52
Speaker 6: that stands for the Military Overseas Voter Empowerment Act and Act.
51:56
Speaker 6: That law mandates a forty five day canvas in period,
52:01
Speaker 6: and what I mean by canvas in period is counting
52:03
Speaker 6: the votes and certifying the ballot. And so that's up
52:07
Speaker 6: to the governor to schedule that election. The runoff for
52:10
Speaker 6: the city council position. The mayor will will schedule that
52:14
Speaker 6: and I'm suggesting that he will call that on December thirteenth.
52:19
Speaker 6: So that's what we are.
52:20
Speaker 3: So he's not the mayor.
52:22
Speaker 4: I can understand the mayor getting it out of the
52:24
Speaker 4: way that the governor, I don't know where but.
52:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's going to lead to a lot of confusion.
52:32
Speaker 6: If the maps, the mid decade redistricting maps are upheild
52:35
Speaker 6: to be constitutional out in El Paso by the Federal court,
52:39
Speaker 6: and we know that we will get an immediate appeal
52:42
Speaker 6: from from either side and went inside or the losing
52:45
Speaker 6: side in terms of the losing side in particular, will
52:49
Speaker 6: will appeal directly to the US Supreme Court. And that's
52:52
Speaker 6: they don't have to go through the Thirteenth Circuit Court
52:55
Speaker 6: of Appeal in New Orleans because of this is the
52:58
Speaker 6: voting rights case. It can go direct to the US
53:00
Speaker 6: Supreme Court.
53:02
Speaker 4: But yeah, and we we had one of the lowest
53:05
Speaker 4: turnouts for for voting in years. This seems like he
53:10
Speaker 4: was getting lower and lower, but.
53:13
Speaker 6: Not necessarily in terms of an off cycle kind of
53:16
Speaker 6: election or just a special election. So you're gonna get
53:19
Speaker 6: a lower, lower voter voter turnout all right, Now, do
53:22
Speaker 6: we have a problem with turnout? Yes? How do we
53:25
Speaker 6: energize voters? What do we do? One, you can stay
53:27
Speaker 6: at the top of the list better politicians, better candidates, right,
53:30
Speaker 6: but there are a lot of things driving turnout.
53:32
Speaker 4: Wait, wait, hold on, old man, not better candidates more
53:37
Speaker 4: exciting candidates because you you can you can be you
53:40
Speaker 4: can be a better candidate. But if you if you're
53:42
Speaker 4: not exciting the electors, uh, they're not gonna come out.
53:46
Speaker 4: You know, you can be, you know, the smartest dude
53:50
Speaker 4: in the house and running for office, but if you
53:52
Speaker 4: can't get the people excited to come and vote for you,
53:55
Speaker 4: then you're not you spinning your wheels.
53:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, but better candidates, then you allow me. How you
54:00
Speaker 6: sound like Barbara Walters? He used to ask the question
54:03
Speaker 6: and answer it too. Right now, what I mean about
54:05
Speaker 6: cantis in terms of the messaging what we saw in
54:08
Speaker 6: New York for example, the biggest issue that we've had,
54:11
Speaker 6: and I have a project, a civic engagement project that
54:15
Speaker 6: is designed is designed excuse me, to increase a voter
54:20
Speaker 6: turnout and the biggest challenges that we have as young
54:22
Speaker 6: people or gen Z people in terms of what do
54:25
Speaker 6: we motivate how do we get them there better messaging?
54:29
Speaker 6: As if we look at New York in terms of
54:30
Speaker 6: a progressive campaign, how do you resonate, how do you
54:33
Speaker 6: hone in on issues Bernie Sanders when he ran for
54:37
Speaker 6: president in terms of free, free college and these kinds
54:40
Speaker 6: of things, How do you motivate when you talk about that?
54:43
Speaker 6: And if you look at even as and congressional district election,
54:47
Speaker 6: I was kind of surprised, and I made this comment,
54:49
Speaker 6: why do these people just keep talking about fighting Donald Trump?
54:51
Speaker 6: And what else is on the table? Driving around the
54:53
Speaker 6: district and I know the district, well, I live in
54:55
Speaker 6: the district. You go down in the bottom and going back.
54:58
Speaker 6: And I told told some chap when Barack Obama was elected,
55:02
Speaker 6: I said, well, look we're gonna come back. You can
55:03
Speaker 6: take two thousand and eight. You come back at the
55:07
Speaker 6: end of two terms. If he's successful, the bottom is
55:11
Speaker 6: going to look the same basically, and it has been
55:14
Speaker 6: looking the same, say for gentrification, and so if you
55:18
Speaker 6: don't talk about these kinds of issues where you're impacting
55:22
Speaker 6: human life and the people who live there and there's
55:24
Speaker 6: a lot of suffering, you can say that there's a
55:27
Speaker 6: social element there. If you don't talk about social equity,
55:31
Speaker 6: then you don't have the messaging. And I think the
55:34
Speaker 6: Democratic Party has been in search of that. And this
55:37
Speaker 6: is why we saw in New York and where they
55:40
Speaker 6: didn't say it was about the economy, stupid, but man
55:42
Speaker 6: Johnny was able to javanize people around the affordability issue.
55:47
Speaker 6: And anybody who knows New York, you knows New York
55:51
Speaker 6: is not a cheap place to live in. And he
55:54
Speaker 6: can talk about rent control, you can talk about free transportation.
55:58
Speaker 6: If you have a job, how do you get to work?
56:00
Speaker 6: These kinds of things, because and we know that there's
56:02
Speaker 6: a problem that most of the people, I want to
56:04
Speaker 6: say most of the people a largercentage of the folks
56:07
Speaker 6: that Alan paid a tracity jump jumped the real interest
56:12
Speaker 6: points and what have you. So having seen all of that,
56:15
Speaker 6: he was able to tap into something. And whether or
56:18
Speaker 6: not this was a bill, whether of what can happen
56:20
Speaker 6: in the midterm elections coming up for the Democrats and
56:24
Speaker 6: how they will position themselves and what have you, I
56:29
Speaker 6: don't know, but clearly it was something. I think it
56:32
Speaker 6: was a glaring indictment on the Trump administration and what
56:37
Speaker 6: we've seen in terms of with the shutdown of the
56:39
Speaker 6: American government. Said, I think it was a confluence of
56:43
Speaker 6: these kinds of things, and so you're going to have
56:45
Speaker 6: to talk about that if you're going to try to
56:47
Speaker 6: increase or grow voter voter turnout.
56:50
Speaker 1: That was doctor Michael Adams, founding director of the Executive
56:54
Speaker 1: Master of Public Administration Program Barbara Jordan, Public Policy and
56:58
Speaker 1: Research Center at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. The
57:05
Speaker 1: People's News is a production of Steve Gallington and Richard
57:07
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57:55
Speaker 6: Thank you.