Sunday School 9/5/21

Today's Sunday School focuses solely on the Texas abortion law. We'll start in the State of the Union classroom, where host Dana Bash talked with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Hot Dish).

Bash wondered if the SCOTUS "is about to overturn" the decision. Klobuchar said she hoped not, but said the decision to let the law stand (for now, anyway) was "unbelievable." In the past, she said,

when they had cases that were so blatantly against Roe v Wade, they would stay those cases when such requests came up. They did it with another Texas law. They did it in 2015. They did it in 2019. And so here you have them, this year, this week, basically telling women in Texas that 85% of them seeking abortion services cannot exercise their constitutional rights... They did at midnight with just less than 72 hours of debate, in Justice Kagan's words, and basically green-lighted a law that is blatantly against Roe v Wade.

Klobuchar believes that a Congressional solution is an answer, and she's glad that the House is going to codify Roe. In the Senate, they can't get to 60 votes, though. So, the senator said,

I believe we should abolish the filibuster. I do not believe an archaic rule should be used to allow us... to use Justice Sotomayor's words, to put our heads in the sand, and not take action on the important issues, the challenges that are facing our country right now.... We just will get nowhere if we keep this filibuster in place.

Klobuchar s in favor of requiring a standing filibuster, so the Rs must at least work to fight things that are unpopular with most Americans. She's also in favor of carveouts for constitutional issues (e.g., abortion and voting). And, 

I think, "what is the best way to get to a result that's the right policy, that's consistent with where the American people are, that will not wreak havoc in this country?" And, to me, the best thing is to get rid of the filibuster. But (expanding the Court) is an option, and President Biden has a commission in place right now that is considering it.

Finally, on the potential retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer, Bash wondered where Klobuchar stood.

I believe, if he is seriously considering retirement -- and he has said he would do it based on not only his own health, but also the future of the court -- if this decision doesn't cry out for that, I don't know what does. 

In the Face the Nation classroom, guest host Weijia Jiang spoke with Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), about the shenanigans. Jiang wondered what the Congresswoman heard from constituents; "shocked, horrified, outraged" were three words she used. She pointed to the two "very awful" consequences of the law: incentivizing "bounty hunters," noting it was "incredible that we live in a state that is willing to incentivize that." The other "real-life" and "deadly consequences" are worse.

...what this law and other laws like it will do is simply make it deadlier, more dangerous. Women are going to take their health into their own hands. It will impact young women, poor women, and women of color. And I am really afraid of the lives that will be lost as a result.

Jiang asked about the outsourcing of enforcement to private citizens. Escobar said she doesn't think we really understand the consequences, and gave an example.

If, for example, I had a young daughter who was the victim of a sexual assault, and I was taking my young daughter to a clinic. Her assault-- the person who perpetrated the assault could take me to court incentivized by that $10,000. And let's say that my young daughter was not pregnant. There was no abortion involved. But I still had to defend myself in court. I can't even recover legal fees. There are layers upon layers upon layers of injustices written into this law, intended to really send the most severe chilling effect on women and women's reproductive rights in the state of Texas.

As to Jiang's question on how she can find common ground with the 41% of Texans who oppose abortion rights. She said it's "very hard to find common ground."  We need to "do more for young women and men" - sex education, access to contraceptives, legal protections for women and the like.

Instead, what we are seeing is an elimination of those things... It's a very backward way of addressing what is a concern. But that's why I say there's no law that you can create that will eliminate abortion. All that's happening is you're eliminating safe, legal abortion, causing women significant harm.

Down the hall, George Stephanopoulos talked with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Not a Fan of Planned Parenthood) in the This Week classroom. Cassidy said he's pro-life, and he made a point that the others did not about the SCOTUS ruling

It had nothing to do with the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade. It was only on if the plaintiffs had standing. People are using it to gin up their base to distract from the disastrous policies in Afghanistan, and maybe for fundraising appeals. I wish we would focus on issues as opposed to -- as opposed to theater. It was about if they had standing, nothing to do with constitutionality. I think we should move on to other issues.

George wanted to stay on topic, particularly the part about how the law "actually tasks private citizens with enforcing this law,", which "conservatives should hate," according to the Wall Street Journal. He asked Cassidy what he thought about that.

I think the Supreme Court will swat it away once it comes to them in an appropriate manner. If it is as terrible as people say it is, it will be destroyed by the Supreme Court. But to act like this is an assault upon Roe v. Wade is, again, something the president is doing I think to distract from his other issues. And it is clearly not an assault upon the -- by the way, I'm pro-life. But just to say, the facts are this is about standing, about nothing else. And the Supreme Court will decide how to affect standing before all these other things play out.

And George then asked, "you don't think it signals the Court is prepared to undo Roe v. Wade now?" 

You know, so, we can always talk about eventualities. We can always talk theoreticals. It makes good fodder. But I’m kind of a guy who’s in the middle of a state in which 700,000 people don't have electricity, in which we’ve got a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the administration is pushing a $3.5 trillion bill which will be to inflation what the withdrawal was to Afghanistan. Now, if you -- you know, in my mind, I don’t think about theoreticals. I think about those things that are before me and that’s what I focused on.

I'm going to give the last word on this to former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) who was on the panel today.

But what this has done is ignited a political debate for the first time because for generations after generations, since Roe v. Wade, women have accepted that this is settled law. For the first time we've seen an earthquake among the activists, among people who were concerned about reproductive rights saying this could happen. Now all of a sudden we are at a spot where this could happen. And I think the reason why you saw Senator Cassidy duck this issue it's politically very dangerous for the Republican Party to have to explain to a suburban mother why her daughter who was raped, you know, three months ago no longer has a choice. And so I think that politically the reason why you don't see the Republicans talking about this as a major pro-life victory is because politically it's extraordinarily dangerous and it has dominated the discussion in a week that should have been pretty good for the Republicans.

I hope that's not too theoretical for Cassidy and the rest of the GOP.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 3/14/21: Extra Credit

As promised, here are some of the other classroom conversations from yesterday. 

Stacey Abrams, of the voting rights group Fair Fight, was in a couple of classrooms, including Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. He asked if HR-1, the House's massive voting-rights-plus-more bill, should be pared down to get past Senate filibuster rules, or if the focus should be on eliminating the filibuster. 

Abrams said the US Constitution gives the House and Senate "the sole responsibility... to regulate the time, place and manner of elections." She'd rather have Republicans join the fight, but if not, "I would say that an exemption to the filibuster for the purposes of protecting our democracy is not only logical, it is fundamental to who we are." 

She said "the whole of our democracy" needs to be defended and protected, and that 

the Senate has to believe it has the responsibility and the ability to act. And that is why my focus is on making certain that the exemption to the filibuster be the necessary front and center conversation, so we can get something done to protect our democracy.

Of the Georgia bills, Abrams said they're not about protecting the right to vote, the bills "are nothing more than a pretext for returning to Jim Crow and stopping voters that they (don't) want to hear from." 

Georgia's Lt. Gov Geoff Duncan was next. He said 

Republicans don't need election reform to win. We need leadership. I think there’s millions of Republicans waking up around the country that are realizing that Donald Trump's divisive tone and strategy is unwinnable in forward-looking elections. We need real leadership. We need new focus, a GOP 2.0 that includes moderates in the middle to get us to the next election cycle.

He's "one of those Republicans that want more people to vote." He believes Republican ideas help people, that "an overwhelming number of Americans" think the Rs are better on the economy, and keeping communities and the country safe, and so he wants more voters, not fewer.

You know, this started shortly after the November elections, when all the misinformation started flying up. And quite honestly, it hurt Republicans in any sort of conversation around election reform. We lost credibility. Those were ten weeks that we can't take back. January 6th was a pivot point for this country and for this party. 

Finally, on the investigation into Trump's "possible" interference (we all heard the call, right?), Duncan said, "I think the best thing we can do is to continue to focus ahead on our jobs at hand. And district attorneys and lawyers and whatnot can do their job."

In the CNN SOTU classroom, Jake Tapper talked with Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) about the nearly 4000 children that are in custody at the southern border, and asked her if what we're seeing now is a "crisis," which is what she called it back in 2019 when there were fewer children in custody.

In a nutshell? No. That was a crisis; what we have today is "an enormous challenge. And it's unacceptable." It's gotten better - she also said pre-COVID, the last time she was there, kids had been in shelters for months, some up to a year, but now it's down to about a month.

Tapper asked her about Mexicans seeing Biden as "the migrant president," according to Mexican President Lopez Obrador, and whether that's helping create the mess at the border. She said focusing on that

... obscures the bigger picture that many of us, myself included, have been talking about for years. The flows -- the flow of humanity ebbs and flows. There - as I mentioned, in April, we began seeing - in April of 2020, under the harshest of conditions, a Trump administration and COVID, we still saw people arriving at our front door.

She believes Biden will "address the root causes of migration," and that we'll keep having the conversation again and again "until we have leaders in this hemisphere who are willing to work together."

George Stephanopoulos talked infrastructure with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on This Week. Pelosi said this has always been bipartisan, "except when they oppose it with a Democratic president, as they did under President Obama, and we had to shrink the package." She's asked her committee chairs to reach across the aisle and find common ground.To 

This is about broadband. It's about water systems. It's about mass transit, it’s about good paying jobs all over the country. It’s also about schools and housing and the rest. Good paying jobs across the country. And not only that, once those jobs of building are done, it's about promoting commerce, creating good -- so it’s -- the goal is to promote good growth creating good paying jobs as we protect our planet and are fiscally sound.

To pay for it, taxes are in the mix, along with several other options, because "we want to be fiscally sound as we go forward."

And this is job creating which creates revenue that comes back to the Treasury, unlike what the Republicans did with their tax scam in 2017 which gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent and indebted our children to the tune of nearly $1.9 trillion -- recognize the figure, in debt, added to the national debt. So they should be the last people to be talking about what is too expensive for the American people as we meet their needs.

Always so helpful, the Speaker, isn't she?

We'll end where we started, with the filibuster. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) also talked with George, and said there's nothing wrong with the 'talking filibuster,' when a Senator had to hold the floor to block a vote. The issue is "how many votes does it take to get moving forward with legislation?" 

You know, we have a 50/50 Senate. That's what the American people sent to Washington with the vice president breaking the tie. You know, George, that ought to be a mandate to move to the middle. So we ought to do things that actually can get broad, bipartisan support like the infrastructure bill that came out of my committee last time. That's the best way to get things done. If you get things that are one vote, and the vice president breaking a tie, harder for America to buy into that thing. The major pieces of legislation for our country historically have been done in a broad, bipartisan way.

Good lord, I'm thinking like Barrasso? Which one of us has lost our way? George Tried to bring him back to the filibuster, and got basically the same answer.

I don't mind talking. I think the people ought to be able to stand and express their views. The question is, is it 50 votes or 51, or is it 60? And the current number is 60. We've had this going on now for over a century. And the idea is to get bipartisan buy-in to bills. If there are parts that are very partisan, they ought to be left out. Focus on the areas on which we can agree. On most items, I think you can agree on 80 percent of the things. So let's leave out the 20 percent which are the hot button issues and move the country forward on issues on which we agree.

What's your takeaway from this week's classroom visits? 

See you around campus - I'll be wearing a mask, still and hope you will be, too.