It's a Numbers Game: Ask Me Anything: Filibuster Explained, Gerrymandering Debate, U.S. Oil Reserves & Election Insights
3/20/202633 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Gruduski.
0:08Thank you guys for being here.
0:09This is a Friday episode.
0:10It is an all Ask Me Anything episode.
0:13I want to hear from you guys.
0:15This, you know, Buck Sexton made this idea for the show.
0:17He said, oh, he made the whole idea for the show, but he said, do
0:20an Ask Me Anything segment.
0:21It will be great. And it really has been.
0:23I kind of get to connect with you guys a little bit considering it's just
0:25me talking to my computer every day with a microphone.
0:28And it's just my producer hearing me babble constantly.
0:32So it gives me notice that you guys are listening and also what you guys
0:35want to hear, what you want to talk about.
0:37So if you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me
0:39ryan at numbersgamepodcast .com. Ryan at numbers, plural numbersgamepodcast .com.
0:44I would love to hear from you guys.
0:46Literally anything on the table, as long as it's like PG rated.
0:50Yeah, like slightly higher than G, but anything on PG rated.
0:53It's a family show. I try to keep it easy for everybody.
0:56All right. First question comes from Brian, who's emailed me before.
1:00He says, on behalf of all Bryans listening to the podcast, I'll forgive you for
1:03throwing shit at us during our January 26th episode.
1:07I don't remember that. I do kind of.
1:10I mean, there is a thing in the country called a Ryan party.
1:17It's a party for, you have to show your idea, you have to be named
1:19Ryan. And I went to one of them, and I'm telling you, it was actually
1:22a lot of fun. It was like way more fun than I thought it would
1:25be. But it was, they started chanting like F Brian and the whole thing.
1:29It's really, it was chaotic, but it was great.
1:32Because every Ryan in the country knows that you are called Brian at least 25
1:36,000 times a year. Okay.
1:38He says, in an age where all legislative action seems to be beholden to the
1:42great and powerful filibuster, can you provide historical context on how the power has evolved?
1:48Specifically, I like to understand its roots as a Senate agreement.
1:51Rather than explicit part of the Constitution, how is its mechanics have changed over time
1:55and the underlying fear of evoking the nuclear option?
1:58And please highlight major legislation or nominations that have fallen victim or saved because of
2:03the filibuster. Okay. So I'm not an expert on Senate rules.
2:07There's a woman named Rachel Bovard who's brilliant.
2:09She is an expert and you could read more of her stuff if you want
2:12to know a lot about the Senate and the filibuster.
2:15The filibuster actually dates back to very close to the beginning of the country in
2:191806, but it's changed a lot of time since then.
2:23The idea of cloture was created in 1917 and it was to allow the end
2:28of debate when there was a two -thirds vote in the Senate.
2:31And that was first successfully done for actually the Treaty of Versailles back in 1919.
2:35The two -thirds rule was changed in 1975 to a three -fifths rule, so only
2:4160, from 67 to 60 senators because a lot of Southern senators were upholding civil
2:48rights legislation. In 2013, Democrats created the nuclear option for lower court appointments.
2:55And then in 2017, Republicans extended to the Supreme Court, obviously with Gorsuch.
3:02So that's how that cloture has changed.
3:05But another big development happened in the 70s, and I think this is how this
3:10rule change specifically altered the entire filibuster.
3:15A major practical change occurred between 1970 and 1972.
3:19It's called the introduction of the two -track system.
3:23Previously, a filibuster halted all Senate business.
3:26You can't do anything in the Senate until the filibuster's taken care of, and you
3:30had to speak openly, and you had to have the debate for as long as
3:34possible. Now the Senate can place a filibuster on a separate track and continue to
3:41work on other things. This led to the modern, silent, or virtual filibuster where senators
3:47don't have to hold the floor endlessly in speeches.
3:50They don't have to continue onward, you know, forever.
3:53They can just simply signal the intent to filibuster, force a cloture of 60 votes,
3:58or the bill dies, and then just do other work.
4:01That really changed the relationship with the filibuster and the Senate more than just the
4:07existence of the filibuster. Because it's existed before, but you had to be there.
4:11You'd be present to debate.
4:13And as far as legislation has died because of the filibuster, it's hard to say
4:17which legislation it didn't say, but legislation has died.
4:19There's been a number of immigration legislations that didn't even get to a vote because
4:23they knew they couldn't pass the filibuster threshold that happened actually quite a bit.
4:28There was as well a gun control measure recently back when Biden was president.
4:33They wanted to pass gun control.
4:34They couldn't get it past the filibuster.
4:36They wanted to make a law to allow workers across the country to unionize.
4:41That didn't pass the filibuster.
4:43And then it was the For the People Act, which would have done many things
4:47for voting, the ability to vote, but not namely, it would have banned voter ID,
4:51picture ID to go vote nationwide.
4:54All those things did not get passed because there was a filibuster.
4:57I know a lot of people are skeptical of a filibuster because Trump can't get
5:01a lot of his agenda done.
5:02What I always emphasize to people is with the Senate being what it is, even
5:08if it's 53 members, Republican.
5:11Think of all the senators who would not be on board with the most base
5:17part of Trump's agenda. You have Murkowski.
5:21You have Curtis from Utah.
5:23You have McConnell from Kentucky.
5:24and it's not thewealthy. Dank you.
5:24Thank you. You have Collins from South Carolina depending on the issue.
5:29And I believe there's other people that they don't have to take hard positions because
5:35it's not going to come up for a vote because of filibuster.
5:38In other words, Murkowski and Curtis and McConnell save them from having to take on
5:43positions that the people will be revolting over.
5:48And that could be, you know, that's both a hit or a miss.
5:51I mean, I don't know.
5:52So that's kind of how I think of it is, is that we're not going
5:55to, even if we abolish the filibuster, we're not going to get a lot of
5:57the things we really want.
5:59And Democrats will 100 % get all the things that they want because they're in
6:03lockstep with a lot of those issues as Republicans aren't.
6:06Okay, well, that was that question.
6:08Thank you so much for asking, Brian.
6:10Now, next one comes from Holly.
6:12Holly, I think, has written me before.
6:13She has said, yes, she says, thank you for answering the questions I've said in.
6:17I appreciate it. Living in Texas, it seems like every day there's a story about
6:20another generational ranch farmer being sold for development at the risk of sounding like an
6:24environmentalist wacko, as Rush Limbaugh would say.
6:27What does this mean for food production where millions of acres are being turned into
6:30subdivisions? And where there, well, will the effects start to be felt?
6:34Or maybe they already are.
6:36Also, if you have time, how on earth did you end up working at Victoria's
6:39Secret? Victoria's Secret, first, I was 18, I needed a job.
6:47My cousin was the store manager, and she hired me.
6:50I mean, it was nepotism of the smallest form.
6:53I had no experience. I needed some kind of a job.
6:55And I think I was paid $5 and I want to say $0 .25 an
7:00hour, and it bumped up to $5 .75 while I worked there.
7:04So really making a lot of money.
7:06But it was a good job.
7:07I learned a lot of different things.
7:09The thing that I, well, the funny story is, is that because I worked at
7:12the Queen's Center Mall in Queens, New York, which is a very hub of diversity,
7:16a lot of foreign language speakers, I had to deal with people who didn't speak
7:22English. So you, like, would point them to the dressing room.
7:24They walked to the corner and started taking their shirts off.
7:26Like, things like that would happen constantly.
7:28Also, the fact that people believed that they would look like the Victoria's Secret model
7:33if they wore the clothes, despite being significantly larger in non -flattering places or being
7:41people of a particular age where you did not look like Gisele Bundchen, even if
7:46in your prime you may have.
7:47So that was, it was, it was, it was, that was funny.
7:50The interesting thing was, I would be, I grew up very much working class, but
7:56very, like, Italian working class, very Catholic.
8:00Like, I did not know there were churches.
8:02This is how, like, insularly Catholic I grew up.
8:05I did not know that there were churches that were not Catholic until I was,
8:09like, 20. Because every church around us was Catholic.
8:12Like, I think we had one evangelical Korean church that I never saw people walk
8:15in. I only ever saw a Catholic church.
8:19And when I was, like, 20, I went to, I was living in Albany working
8:23for the state legislature. I was 21.
8:25And I worked, and I went to, I went to church, the corner church.
8:29I assumed it was just a Catholic church.
8:31It was an all -black church.
8:32I said, oh, it must be an all -black Catholic church.
8:34And, like, after hour two of the singing, I was like, when is the Eucharist?
8:37And the lady goes, what's a Eucharist?
8:39And I was like, I have to get out of here.
8:40So I did not have much experience.
8:42I did not have much exposure to people who weren't a lot like me.
8:46And the thing is, is that when I worked at Victoria's Secret, a lot of
8:51the people were minorities, almost all women.
8:56And from a different, not just, like, economic background, because I was not wealthy.
9:00I didn't grow up wealthy at all.
9:01But from a, like, different position on values and morals.
9:07Like, there was a lot of, like, 20 -year -old women who were, like, my
9:09age, but they were all single moms.
9:11A couple of them had husbands or boyfriends in prison.
9:13A couple of them were, like, you know, talking about wanting to have another baby
9:18with a different baby daddy.
9:19And I would just, I came at it from the approach that my parents were
9:23pushing me, which was like, can you afford that?
9:25And I'm like, you're making as much as me.
9:27What do you mean? And that really just was an interesting cultural clash where I
9:33think I learned a lot about people in that time frame.
9:36And what, like, you know, they would tell me what they were looking for in,
9:39like, a boyfriend or partner.
9:41And it was like, you know, must be.
9:44I'm one woman. I'll never forget it.
9:45She's like, he's got to be a thug.
9:47I was like, that's, like, not like you have a credit score.
9:49That's, yeah, your number was a thug.
9:51That was Victoria's Secret. Okay, on to farmers, which is what you asked about.
9:57We have seen the decline in farmers happen for decades, like, before I was born,
10:03before my grandparents were born.
10:04In 1935, there were 6 .8 million farms in America.
10:08That number hit 2 .2 million in 1997.
10:11And it was consistently 2 .2 million for about two decades.
10:15And now it's at 1 .865 million.
10:20And it's just declining. And a big part of it is the farmer population is
10:24aging significantly. A lot of people do not want to go into the agricultural industry.
10:27It is a tough industry.
10:28It's an expensive industry. It is one where you can make a lot of money.
10:31At the same time, you could have bad seasons and you could lose a lot
10:34of money. And it's an issue.
10:36And it's a lifestyle. It's a certain lifestyle that, you know, you're not going to
10:39Disney every couple of, you know, like twice a year.
10:43Like, you're not, there's no opportunity for that.
10:46And I think that fact that it's an aging population don't want to do the
10:49industry is what is affecting it.
10:52The other thing that I would say is that as far as the diversity of
10:57our food go, it will likely increase our dependency on foreign agriculture, which we're already
11:03seeing. Go to the grocery stores, look at blueberries.
11:05I mean, it's not natural in nature to be able to buy blueberries in certain
11:10times of seasons in the Northeast, but we have it because of their trade opportunities
11:14with other countries. And I think that those will probably increase as we deplete our
11:19own agricultural ability. And we'll just have the super, super farms, the super gigantic farms
11:26produce our main agricultural products and some other things might be outsourced.
11:30Where I think it really affects it is the most expensive part of food is
11:36transportation. Having an agricultural industry that is close to locations would reduce prices, but that's
11:43obviously not feasible everywhere. Like Hawaii can't just build farms everywhere and we can't grow
11:47bananas. We grow in Hawaii everywhere.
11:49But that would absolutely take a lot of the cost.
11:53I remember, forget, I was in California last summer and I saw avocados for like
11:58a dollar, which like like like like 10 for like five dollars or something like
12:02that. It was like ridiculously cheap because they're produced there.
12:05So it's better than just, I guess, going bad in the fields is getting some
12:08money out of it. But that's what I think about that stuff.
12:10So it is sad. But if you don't like that, I mean, part of that
12:14is because of mass population growth because of immigration.
12:17OK, Scott writes, Ryan, I think I've listened to every episode of your show.
12:20Scott, you are a patriot and I've learned a lot.
12:22Thank you so much for what you do.
12:23Hopefully Democrats aren't listening, but Republicans are.
12:25It is likely that no one's listening.
12:27I'm just joking. People do listen.
12:29But in my life, I feel like no one's ever listening.
12:32If you have two questions for you.
12:34First, can you please listen to Reluctant Radio Show and tell me if it's as
12:38awful as the Christian rock you've been listening to for Lent?
12:41I will give it a shot.
12:43Here's the thing. I like I play music 24 hours a day.
12:48Like there is never a time where music is not playing around.
12:51So I knew it would be a big sacrifice for Lent to give up music.
12:55And I was like, I really like gospel.
12:57I have to be in the mood to listen to like traditional like Latin mass
13:01music or like I have to be in a really contemplative place or just have
13:05it on the background and not even know what it's on.
13:08But like when you're doing things, when you're going to the gym, you want something
13:11a little bit more upbeat.
13:11I also love gospel music.
13:13I really, really love gospel music.
13:14But you want something upbeat.
13:16So Christian rock, I was like, maybe I'll find a few things.
13:19There were a couple singers.
13:20There's a song called Counting My Blessings.
13:21That was really nice. But it was it's very most of it's pretty awful.
13:26It's really, really, really bad.
13:28But I will check that out.
13:29Second, if John Cornyn is replaced by Ken Paxton, do you think we'll get a
13:32nationwide concealed weapon? And I think Cornyn may be a major.
13:38OK, so will Cornyn change on gun rights?
13:42I don't think so. I don't think Cornyn wants to.
13:46I think Cornyn, if he has an issue, he'll betray voters on would be immigration.
13:50And also, if Cornyn loses to Ken Paxton, there is no way under the sun,
13:57I think, that John Thune brings up a gun control bill in either a lame
14:02duck or for the end of the year.
14:03Because there's not that many days the Senate's even working.
14:06So I have a hard, hard time thinking that Cornyn is going to back a
14:10gun control bill in his remaining days.
14:12And it's not going to do much.
14:13Anyway, more Ask Me Anything is coming up next.
14:19OK, next up is a question from Jason.
14:22He says, hey, Ryan, love your show.
14:23Spent 70 hours a week running truck through the Intermountain West in Graves Yard Shifts.
14:30Have a question for your Ask Me Anything segment.
14:32That sounds like a hard job.
14:34I'm an adult. I've only known two vice presidents to run for president after a
14:38successful term, the elder Bush and Gore.
14:40Didn't pay much attention, but did they go through a normal primary process or was
14:44it like an installation? Like Harris, I didn't include her because that was BS.
14:48Also, another note you mentioned on previous pods, testing about a podcast on true crime.
14:53I would recommend the Hi -Fi Murders in Utah.
14:56Wasn't around for it, but it haunts the people of Utah to this day.
15:00I will check that out.
15:03And in closing, I do not know all the Supreme Court justices' names.
15:08Yeah, I mean, they change every once in a while, but it's a pretty easy
15:12list. There's a couple that have been there for some time.
15:14I mean, you could kind of know Alito, Clarence, Thomas, and Roberts, but whatever.
15:19I mean, to each their own.
15:20OK, so for the primary process for the past vice presidents who run for president,
15:26yes, they did have a normal primary.
15:28In 1988, George H .W.
15:30Bush had a primary, and he actually lost several states to Bob Dole and to
15:33Pat Robertson, the pastor who was running who didn't think that George H .W.
15:37Bush was sufficiently Christian enough or part of the Christian right.
15:41And then the second one was in 2000.
15:44Al Gore did have a primary against Bill Bradley, but Gore was really liked in
15:48the party, and so it was Clinton towards the end of his second term.
15:51He won 75 % of the vote.
15:53So it wasn't an installation.
15:54There was a primary, but Bradley didn't win any states.
15:57Gore did. OK, next question comes from Dan.
16:00Dan, hey, Ryan, love the show.
16:02First heard of you in the Jesse Kelly show.
16:03Jesse's the man. He's so great.
16:05It irritates me that Trump is using the strategic oil supply to relieve pain of
16:09the pump right now, especially after Biden deleted a bunch of it during his time
16:13in office. Do you have any insight to how much oil reserves we have and
16:16how much we're supposed to have?
16:17Dan, great question, Dan. Dan, great question, Dan.
16:19Dan, great question. This is something that I actually think about from time to time,
16:22and it's one of those questions that you put in the back of your head
16:24saying, I'm going to look this up later, and then you don't.
16:27I was able to look this up because it was brought to me for this
16:29question, so yes. At the end of 2023, right before Trump took office, we have
16:3446 .4 billion barrels of oil.
16:38That is down from 48 billion in 2022.
16:41As you said, Dan, Joe Biden did release a lot of oil during the inflationary
16:49period to relieve dollars of the pump.
16:51It didn't really do much, but he did release a lot of oil.
16:54Actually, I did not know this, but 2022 was the high watermark of the amount
16:58of oil in our reserves, and 46 .4 billion is near the high watermark.
17:03We normally don't have that much as we have right now.
17:06From the 1970s to the early 2010s, we only have about 25 billion barrels of
17:13oil on reserve, and it was really Obama and Trump, Obama in the second term,
17:18and Trump in his first term that rapidly increased the number, that almost doubled, basically,
17:23the amount of oil we have in reserve.
17:25So we are near the high mark.
17:26We're not near any low mark, and we have a couple billion barrels to go.
17:31I know it's a concern.
17:32It's a concern of mine, too.
17:33I did not know that we were near historic highs as far as oil goes
17:37and that the norm is about 20 to 25 billion, and now we are closer
17:41to 50 billion than we are to 25 billion.
17:44Okay, the next question comes from Bobby.
17:46He writes, hey, Ryan, second -time emailer.
17:48I love learning about the mechanics of elections, the polling, the voter registration, the turnout,
17:52the messaging. It's a party apparatus, the campaign.
17:56Instead of a podcast with all the gritty details of a murder, how about one
18:00of the gritty details of a campaign?
18:02I'm probably one of the small number of people who will be interested and would
18:05probably be a lot of work, so feel free to ignore me.
18:10Yeah, that would be a hard work because a lot of campaigns are not super
18:14exciting. There's a lot of tense moments in a campaign that you feel the intensity
18:21and you feel the gravitas of it all.
18:24I remember, like when I worked for J .D.
18:27Vance's campaign or for the Super Packers campaign back in 2022, I remember, you know,
18:33we were getting close to the primary day and we were waiting for a Trump
18:36endorsement. We were hearing back and forth, Trump might endorse, Trump might endorse, Trump might
18:39endorse, and it was Good Friday.
18:41I remember I just came out of Mass, the Stations of the Cross, and I
18:44was eating fish, and I look at my phone and like, just like it's the
18:48end of the day, I'm like, it's not going to happen.
18:50We're not going to get the Trump endorsement.
18:51We're going to go on this primary and just, it'll be like a nail -biter.
18:54But, you know, it is what it is.
18:56I completely, completely, you know, said that that's what was going to happen.
19:01And like seconds later, he and Trump endorsed.
19:04And it was like, your phone blows up.
19:06And I called my boss at the time and he screamed, let's effing go.
19:09And it was great. It was like high highs.
19:11And that's the whole thing about campaigns.
19:13There is no higher moment than an election day with a candidate because you're just
19:18like, the intensity is almost unspeakable.
19:23Everything you've worked towards for months is just, it could end in a second.
19:28And I said campaigns go from like, you don't have enough work to do in
19:33a week to having enough work every week to do in a month.
19:37And then a feeling of intensity, like another moment I remember is Brandon Gill.
19:42I was working on his campaign.
19:43I was a GC and we're in the, we're in the room and, you know,
19:45his wife's there and the campaign manager, Dinesh D'Souza's there.
19:49And we're all just like, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting.
19:51And everyone had the Texas, like, Board of Elections website open.
19:57I had the New York Times open.
19:58And I don't know how the New York Times got the results before, before like
20:02everyone else did, before the BOE updated it.
20:06And the New York Times came out.
20:07I was like, I think he got like 55 % with 60 % of the
20:11vote in or something like we're going to win.
20:13And like the question is like, maybe we have a runoff, but we probably don't.
20:16And I remember just bursting out and just screaming like 57%, 55%, whatever the number
20:21was, like 60 % and we won.
20:23Like, I don't know, it was just, and like the whole room like loses all
20:27the air for a second and then just explodes in excitement.
20:30Like those kinds of moments are just unimaginable.
20:34Like they are unimaginable. And also there's like moments in campaigns that are just heartbreaking.
20:39I worked for one guy, I don't want to say his name because he's extremely
20:42litigious. It was a New Jersey candidate.
20:44We had a, we had, we had to, he was a very oddball guy.
20:48He was funny. He was very interesting.
20:51We worked so hard for him to get the Republican nomination.
20:55He got it. He won the primary and then the next day fired us.
20:59And that was like devastating.
21:01Like that, that was a sucker punch, like to be fired after we won a
21:06primary that no one thought we were going to win.
21:09So there's a lot of, there's a million moments like that.
21:11I don't think they're all like gritty.
21:13The show Veep is much more accurate towards like what politics is like sometimes than
21:18anything else. Okay. Next question, Karina.
21:22Karina says, hi, I really love your show.
21:24I love your analysis and the hilarious side comments.
21:27I live in Tully, New York, a small town, 20 miles south of Syracuse.
21:31Syracuse is beautiful. I wanted to hear more about why Elise Stefanik dropped out of
21:35the governor's race. I know the rumors that Trump didn't want to endorse her and
21:38she felt betrayed by him.
21:39Do you have any other details?
21:40Does Trump really think a candidate from downstate is a better shot and has name
21:45recognition and a big following on social media?
21:47I don't know. I don't know.
21:47I don't know. don't think many people in New York had ever heard of Bruce
21:50Blakeman. He's the Nassau County County Executive.
21:53What would only happen if hell freeze?
21:55I'm curious to hear your thoughts if only a miracle could put Bruce Blakeman in
22:00the governor's mansion. Okay, so here's what I've heard about Elise Stefanik, and there's going
22:07to be a lot of allegedly thrown around.
22:09So, allegedly, Elise very much was looking at a run for president in 2028, and
22:17she wanted some foreign policy experience, and that's allegedly why she asked for a U
22:21.N. ambassador. Now, side note, I told Tulsi Gabbard that's the job she should have
22:27pursued was U .N. ambassador, but whatever.
22:29But it's a great gig.
22:30You work and you get an apartment in New York.
22:33You get to take votes in basically a delegation that means nothing, and you get
22:38in a New York apartment with an assistant.
22:39How wonderful is that? It's a great gig.
22:41So, she allegedly wanted to do all those things, and what allegedly happened was her
22:48political team did not do an efficient job picking out a replacement.
22:54And in the void of her picking a replacement or getting a replacement pick that
22:59she and the party would get behind, we had special elections where Republicans drastically underperformed,
23:06and her seat was historically very wishy -washy, where she had replaced the Democrat when
23:11she first was elected. And then secondly, as she did not make a decision or
23:16her team did not make a decision, the party became very fragmented where you had
23:21party chairman of the Conservative Party and the Republican Party picking different people, and it
23:25looked like it was going to be a battle for the primary, and it was
23:28going to be a very, very tense and hard -fought general.
23:33And that's when they made the move to pull the plug.
23:37Elise, in my opinion, is a very strong fundraiser.
23:41She's a very strong, very effective and crafty woman.
23:44I've not always been the biggest fan of her, but I give credit where it's
23:48due. She's very effective and very capable.
23:51And her, how do I say this?
23:55Her announcement for governor was, I think, was going to be a disaster.
24:02Stefanik had supported a nationwide abortion ban, and New York is just going to be
24:07like the end of it.
24:07There's no chance that she's going to make any ability to win over, you know,
24:14moderate New Yorkers who, you know, support abortion.
24:17And she had just aligned herself too close to Trump for New York.
24:21And allegedly, the rumors that I heard was she was running to raise her national
24:25profile even more for this alleged run for president one day.
24:31It was all about this run for president.
24:33It was kind of crazy.
24:34And this is allegedly what people very close to her were saying over and over
24:37and over again. It was very messy.
24:40And Trump has had a relation with Bruce Blakeman for decades.
24:44He and Bruce really do like each other.
24:47Bruce is moderate on multiple issues from a very important swing county.
24:51I mean, most of the counties in the southern part of the state matter a
24:54lot more. And Trump was playing footsie with both of them saying, I like both.
25:00I like both. I like both.
25:01And then he had that press conference with Mandani where he, you know, said how
25:05much he likes Mandani and said that he didn't think that he believed in what
25:09Elise Stefanik was saying. And at that point, it was just basically over.
25:12I think that her chances of a non -competitive primary where she wouldn't spend a
25:18lot of money to raise her profile all went out the window.
25:22And yeah, would it take a chance?
25:24What's his chances? Blake's got a very weak chances.
25:26I mean, if he can sort of, you know, solidify Long Island, Republicans dominance on
25:31Long Island, if he can compete in Queens and get a 35 to 40 %
25:35in Queens, if he can win, if he can continue to build momentum with the
25:38Asian community in Queens, the Latino community in Queens, the white working class in Queens,
25:42and keep Staten Island super red, he'll have a chance to do and perform well.
25:48The problem is upstate is not like it used to be.
25:50Upstate is much bluer as more Manhattanites have moved up there.
25:54And it is less populated than it used to be.
25:57So the George Pataki route of getting all these votes out of upstate New York
26:00is just not, it's not there anymore.
26:02And that's the problem with it all.
26:04Anyway, but that's, that's the issue.
26:06Okay. One more question coming up and more.
26:09Ask me anything. Stay tuned.
26:14All right. Last question on the ask me anything segment.
26:16This comes from Yosef. Yosef, thank you for writing.
26:19He's the longtime listener, first time caller.
26:21A lot has been said about gerrymandering on the national level and not much been
26:24said on the local level, where it's arguably been much worse.
26:27I'm curious if you think about Republican gerrymanders in several states where the Republicans have
26:31lost popular elections, but still won the state legislatures in the years 2012 through 2022,
26:36notably Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan.
26:39I know that Democrats do as well gerrymander as well, like in Nevada.
26:44I know the popular vote isn't a pure metric of legislative elections.
26:47I try to keep an open mind about this stuff, but it really feels like
26:50Republicans are pushing gerrymandering at least as badly as Democrats.
26:53If not worse, there are certainly not offering any types of solutions.
26:57I guess my question is, what do you think is a long -term solution for
27:01this type of gerrymandering arms race?
27:03That is a wonderful question.
27:06He says, I love the show.
27:07It has some unique and rigorous perspective, and I know that you do a really
27:10great job avoiding political cheerleading.
27:12Thank you, Yosef. That means a lot to me.
27:13I really work hard at this show.
27:15Um, okay. So you have to remember, go back in time, 2010.
27:20Yes. Jerry Manning's existed for decades.
27:22Democrats famously did in California and Texas throughout the 1970s.
27:252010 was the Tea Party year.
27:27So when redistricting happened in 2012, Republicans had majorities and in some places, super majorities,
27:34um, across the country. Go back to 2008 and look at 2008.
27:39Democrats had a majority in North Carolina.
27:42They had a majority throughout most of the deep South.
27:44They were only one seat away from flipping this Texas state house.
27:47Um, and 2010 changed everything.
27:50The Tea Party election changed it all.
27:52Um, and then in 2020, a couple of states started changing the way they do
27:57redistricting. Like Michigan does an independent redistrict now.
27:59It's not purely partisan, which is why, um, the congressional seats are much more, um,
28:04balanced, I guess. Um, Wisconsin is so funny because it's crazy gerrymandered.
28:09All the Democrats live in two cities.
28:11So in order for the Democrats to have more seats, you need to cut up
28:15those two cities and make those cities imbalanced.
28:18It's not, that's a question of geography for the congressional races.
28:21I know you're asking what state legislative, but that always annoys me.
28:24I'm like you, yes, to get this equally balanced, you have to slice cities in
28:27half, which would, that's not the purpose of, of making districts.
28:31Districts should have both representative political alignment from the state, but also have communities of
28:40unique and, and, and common interests align in the same district, right?
28:45You don't want to have a city split in half just because the city is
28:48split in half. Um, what are the Republicans doing in the 2010s, um, and to
28:532020s? It hasn't always worked out.
28:56Remember in Pennsylvania, the judges, which are Democrat, did strike down Republican gerrymandering in the
29:04state legislature, um, and Republicans still won the state Senate.
29:08They lost the state house by just one vote in Michigan.
29:10They lost the state house and state Senate, and then they won them both back.
29:14Um, uh, and then in Wisconsin, they've held on to the legislature both times.
29:19I, I mean, you have to go like, it's so difficult.
29:23I grew up in a neighborhood that was very Republican and my district was split.
29:27My community was split into three different districts for the state house.
29:29So we can never elect a Republican to actually represent us.
29:32And I understand why political parties do it.
29:35Um, and even when there is independent redistricting commissions, like in New Jersey, New Jersey
29:42has districts that are not even connected by landmass.
29:45Like they just shove part of a district into another district in order to give
29:50a political balance in favor of Democrats.
29:53There is very little, I believe very little, um, things you could do to ever
30:02stop gerrymandering. You can make a rule where certain communities have to be paired together
30:09because of commonality. Although if their population booms, it's going to be impossible to do.
30:13Um, what I believe, and I think this is the closest you can get, well,
30:18there's two things. One, this is never going to happen, but you can do it.
30:23One, you could just get rid of districts altogether.
30:25You could just have proportional representation, right?
30:29First 35 candidates on the ballot, whoever wins, whatever.
30:32If the democratic party gets 50, Republican gets 50, green gets 10, whatever the case
30:37is, they get that many seats.
30:38You could do that. That would end gerrymandering altogether and make it just proportional representation.
30:43I don't think anyone's proposing that.
30:45I think Massachusetts tried it at a one time and then Democrats like, wow, we're
30:48electing a lot more Republicans.
30:49Let's get rid of this.
30:50But, um, France did that one time where they were like, before representation, they're like,
30:54absolutely not. We're never doing that again.
30:56So you could try that.
30:57The state could absolutely try that.
30:59And I'm sure there's some states that may be even interested in having that kind
31:02of conversation. The second thing that you could do, which is what I believe, and
31:07this works more in Congress than it does for state legislatures, because they're so much
31:11smaller, is you should have a rule where a county has to be completely encompassed
31:17into one district until the population, you fit the population line.
31:22So if you have four districts or five counties, you know, yada, yada, yada, that
31:27have completely, that make up the 750 ,000 uni for a congressional district or 100
31:32,000 for a state legislature or whatever, they have to be completely encompassed.
31:36And you can obviously cut up a little bit here or there, depending upon if
31:40they're over the population line.
31:42But you have to encompass either cities together or counties together.
31:46And you can't have districts that run through 15 different districts to make it a
31:51certain way politically. I think that that kind of rule, the kind of geography rule
31:56would help. Now, would it always create perfect political balance?
32:00No, it wouldn't. But I think it's the best that we could do because you
32:03can never, as long as people are going to be making these decisions, you know,
32:07they're going to have a political bias and that's it.
32:09I think Iowa does a great job.
32:11Nebraska does a good job.
32:13But there's very, very few.
32:14So anyway, all right, that's the show.
32:16Thank you guys for listening.
32:18I'll be back Monday with great, great episode about the reporting on the Democratic primaries
32:22that are going on right now and how it's affecting the election, how outside money
32:25is affecting this election. Stay tuned on Monday, because if you like this episode, you
32:29should like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever you get this
32:33podcast. I'll talk to you guys Monday.
32:35Have a great weekend.