I’m really pleased to have Dan on the show. Thanks for Thanks for being here.

Thanks so much for letting me. Let me join you, Matt, I really appreciate it.

Well, just for the listeners, Dan is a professor at USC. He’s, he’s taught at the School of Communications there for 17 years, taught at Pepperdine, for the last two plus, and he’s been at Berkeley, at the Institute of governments studies, teaching there for 25 years.

So as a background, in politics has ran for office and has been experienced as an operative here in the state for a long time. Maybe you can add to that, Dan, to just let the listeners know where you’re coming from?

Well, boy, I, I had a wonderful time working in politics. For many years, I worked on four presidential campaigns and three for Governor of California. And then, after a while, I realized that politics is a young person’s game. And so I shifted over to academia. And now I do my best to prepare the next generation of leaders, whether it’s in politics, or other fields to go out and make their make their mark.

Well, that’s great. And I appreciate talking to you in the past. And I think there there are, obviously a lot of important issues facing the state and facing the nation. And just kind of want to start off with what the effect of the recall efforts on the governor are going to have on California politics, generally. And then what’s the effect on Governor Newsom? Specifically, what what’s your take on that?

Like, two really, really good questions. So without attempting to predict to predict the outcome of the recall, we can talk if you like about what may happen going forward. Ironically enough, given the time timing of the recall, it might not have an immense effect on California politics going forward. And the reason for that is, you know, Matt, and I I’m sure most of your listeners know, also is that if the recall does qualify, more likely than not it will take place later this year, sometime in the fall of 2021.

And as you and your listeners know, there’s already a regular scheduled governor’s race for 2022. So even if the recall does qualify, which I think it will, and even if I think Newsom is removed, and even if you think that when you sir, may be removed from office, which I think is perhaps a little bit less likely, that new governor would serve for a year before the election took place, quickly, that person that individual would run for re election.

But it’s worth remembering that when Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor back in the recall, in 2003, Gray Davis had just been reelected. There were more than three years left in his term, one of the major differences between this recall election and that one is when it would take place in the governor’s term. So the new governor might in fact, only get a year or so in office.

Yeah, I would say that I agree with you that it’s probably much less likely that Newsom is going to lose this then, then then when I mean, I would think that he’s probably the odds on favorite with the recall effort in place. But I could be wrong. I mean, I don’t know what is. What’s your sense of it right now? I don’t see as a candidate really as strong as Arnold Schwarzenegger on the horizon. And that is the real critical factor in my mind.

Yeah, I think that’s right, Matt. Two questions to consider. One is the likelihood of the recall qualifying for the ballot, will there be a recall election? And number two, if there is, then what will happen will need to be removed from office or not? To the first question, it is looking increasingly likely that the recall will qualify. There’s little question that was once a fairly floundering recall effort has picked up an immense amount of steam in recent months, primarily because so many voters are dissatisfied with the way they feel the governor has handled the COVID pandemic.

And of course, as you know, what really triggered the voter unhappiness was less of a policy decision that Newsom made, although some have come under question, but rather his personal decision to attend a dinner at a very expensive French very expensive restaurant in the Napa Valley late last year to celebrate the birthday of a lobbyist friend of his a dinner in which the governor nor the other guests wore masks are engaged in social distancing.

And, and at that point, even though Newsome his poll numbers are still, you know, doing fairly well. At that point, the recall really began to gain energy. And it looks now that while it’s not definite, it looks very likely that the recall will qualify. And we’ll see the election take place in the in the fall. I don’t want to go on too long. But to move on to that second question. If the recall does qualify, and once the date for it is set, then the question is, is is new, some replaced?

And for those who either don’t have long memories or who weren’t voting back in 2003? It’s worth noting the recall ballot has two questions on it. The first one is a straight up or down. Number Question one, do you think Governor Gavin Newsom should be removed from office? And then the second question will list all the candidates who qualified to replace him?

Back in 2003, there were over 100 candidates, roughly 130, who ran to replace Davis Schwarzenegger obviously being the most successful. And while a few prominent Republicans have gotten in the race, the former mayor of San Diego Kevin Faulkner, the business leader, John Cox, who ran against Newsom back in 2018, and possibly others. At this point, I think he still would have to consider Newsom to be the favorite.

So in terms of that ballot, and it’s been 17-18 years since the last one, would the the answer to that question, Should we recall the governor if that gets over 50%? Newsom is out, correct?

That’s exactly right. Right.

So so we don’t actually have to have a really great candidate on the other side. I mean, of course, that probably would help the recall effort for those who want to recall him, but it’s not a necessary condition. And then would it be the top two vote getters, if nobody gets 50% of the candidates who would go into the recall election?

Know, unlike a lot more conventional election, the candidate who gets the most votes in the recall becomes governor, whereas Schwarzenegger, I’d have to check on a short Snagger I believe that roughly 48% of the vote. But theoretically, if there are dozens and dozens of candidates, someone could be elected governor with 20% of the vote or less, just because public support did not coalesce behind anyone. You mentioned the Republicans in your rights.

Certainly no one starts with the name recognition, or potential grassroots enthusiasm of Schwarzenegger. But Faulkner, who does represent a more traditional conservative approach to republicanism. Cox is more of a of a grassroots Trumpian conservative. Both do have significant followings within the party. And then the other Republican thinking about running.

There’s there’s many others, but the other most prominent Republican thinking about running is Rick Grinnell, who served as Trump’s Ambassador to Germany and as his National Security Adviser. But and we can continue on this topic, if you like, Matt, my own thought is that California is such a deep blue, heavily Democratic state, much more so than in 2003.

I think that nuisance greatest challenge should the recall, qualify would qualify would not come from the right, but rather from his left a more progressive Democrat running against more of a centrist like Newsom, do you see, do you see any progressives coming out and challenging Newsom in the recall?

So far, the most prominent Democrats in the state have all said that they’re not running. And Newsom is working very hard the same way that Gray Davis did back in 2003, to keep any other Democrats out of the race, because that makes it much easier for them to argue that it’s a purely partisan exercise. It’s a harder argument to make if there’s other Democrats running.

And Davis was almost successful, until the Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante got into the race. And even though Bustamante didn’t win or didn’t come close, it made it much harder for Davis, it’s harder for Davis Newsom is working just as hard to keep other Democrats out.

Like I said, most have said they’re not running one Democrat who is very very noncommittal and asked as former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He was asked giving very nonspecific non answer to the question.

So yeah, we could we could see a lot of things happen And as they say, in politics, eight months is a lifetime. So anything is anything is possible, depending on how the events turn in the next few months. So we’ve got a break coming up in just a second. We’re talking about politics in California.

Dan, I wanted to ask you about the effect of independence, or the effect on Independence related to this new call recall effort, and what your thoughts are as to whether the independent movement is going to grow in California now that we have more registered independents than registered Republicans?

Well, it’s a really it’s a really interesting question. In most normal elections, presidential elections in the midterm elections, when governors are elected, we normally see an increase in partisan voting behavior. You normally heading into the November of an even number year, see the number of independents settled down just a little bit. In the number of registered Republicans Democrats grow because of course, those will be the candidates on the on the ballot, but you raise a great point.

And during a recall, because they were all number one be so many candidates, not necessarily running with party ID, that could have the opposite impact of increasing the number of independent voters and no party preference, as we’re known here, in California. But there’s no thing that might drive up the independent vote.

Also, there’s been a lot of research done that tries to distinguish between someone who calls themselves an independent, and a traditional Democrat or traditional registered Republican. And what might be surprising is that there’s not much difference on the left right ideological spectrum between an independent and a traditional Dirar. In other words, most independents are just as liberal as Democrats are just as conservative as most Republicans.

What separates them is not left right ideology, liberal or conservative, or moderate or centrism. What makes someone independent, more than being a centrist or moderate is an unhappiness and anger toward politics and politicians. And so you might be just as far left to just as far right as a Democrat or conservative.

But it’s your unhappiness with politicians that makes you decide to register independent. If a recall election, by definition, is an expression of anger towards an incumbent governor, you might be onto something new that could really that could increase the number of independents participating in a recall election. Really interesting idea.

What I’m wondering whether the independents in California are ever going to kind of coalesce and use their political power because you see them growing as in numbers year after year, but yet there are no independent representatives in California.

Not many, occasionally one breaks through. And in fact, there is actually one single independent no party preference member of the California State Assembly now. It’s happening with Chad Mayes was a Republican legislator who represented a district out in the Inland Empire.

Interestingly enough, Mays was the Republican caucus leader in the State Assembly, and he was thrown out, because the most conservative members of the caucus felt that Maze was not conservative enough and voted for a series of issues that they did not feel as in line with Republican orthodoxy.

So Mays left the republican party last November, ran for reelection, as an independent against a Republican opponent. Indeed, when but, Matt, you’re not that far off, because one out of 120 is not a particularly high percentage.

No, it’s not when you consider that the no party preference independents outnumber the Republicans, you would think that they’d have as many or more seats in the legislature than and they don’t. So having just, even even with the top two primary effect in California, the two parties maintain a pretty strong structural advantage.

And more importantly, it maintain a tremendous advantage in terms of name identification. And this is something that I learned when I ran for office as a no party preference candidate. Because if you register as what’s commonly thought of as independent in California, you’re not an independent. There’s an American Independent Party, which is actually an ultra conservative party.

It’s the one that George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, used to run for president many, many years ago. And so an independent of the type that we’re talking arcing is known as a no party preference voter. And so when the average voter looks at the ballot, they see a D and you know, that’s for Democrat. They see an irony.

No, that’s for Republican, but they have no idea what NPP stands for. And there’s been an effort to try to change that, to let the no party preference designation be reclassified as independent. But as you might suspect in checkmate, you’re not going to be surprised at all. The Republicans and Democrats in Sacramento don’t want to make it easier for independents to get elected. So they keep that NPP thing instead. And it does create a very, very large additional challenge.

Well, it kind of leads us into why Governor Newsom vetoed the the rank choice voting, that proposal that had been passed by the legislature, both houses of the legislature in California, and he vetoed it. What? What was the thinking by behind that? Do you think that was a power play to to just shut? more moderate voices out of the dialogue?

I yeah, it’s a great question. And I don’t have a good answer for it. The best I could offer is that Newsom. While he portrays himself in many ways, as a futurist, someone who is very invested in technology, technology advances, and so on, when it comes to politics in a lot of ways.

He’s very much a traditionalist, he came up the old fashioned way, then Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco appointed him to commission then he ran for county supervisor, then for mayor, then for lieutenant governor, then for governor. And so I don’t know that there was as purposeful an effort to exclude new voices in the process, is him just liking politics the way it is?

Well, I find it a little bit hypocritical, given the fact that San Francisco has rank choice voting, and yet he says that somehow the rest of the state won’t be able to interpret the ballots because it’ll be too complicated, not the strongest argument I’ve ever heard either. And I’ll admit, I looked at this year, when rank choice voting first became the law of the land at first in Oakland, even before San Francisco, I’ll admit that I was somewhat skeptical of it.

But as I see it being experimented with in different parts of the country, I’ve become increasingly intrigued with it. And I think just as redistricting reform and the top two primary, and term limits are form, we’re all looked at as very long shot ideological outliers. At some point in the past, I really do believe that rank choice voting, because it promotes a greater diversity of voices in the political process. I think it may have a future, not just in California and elsewhere.

And my suspicion is that while Newsom opposes it, it’s not something he feels all that strongly about. And if he were to look at a poll showing the voters supported it, I don’t think he’d be all that strenuous in his opposition.
Right. So just to give the listeners a little taste of what rank choice voting is, maybe you could walk them through how that works and, and also talk about how it has worked or not worked in Oakland and San Francisco, where it’s been in use for a number of years.
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Of course, when we go to vote, now we vote for a single individual. And what that often means is that if your first preference is someone who you don’t think has much of a chance of winning, you’ll often decide not to vote that person. So the vote can make a difference, let’s say for the sake of argument, that you’re a very, very progressive Green Party member, you don’t think the Green Party candidate can win.

They think if I vote for the green, not only am I wasting my vote, but it might be hurting the Democrat, because that’s one less progressive vote for the Democratic candidate. So by voting my heart for the Green Party candidate and helping the Republican and so they vote, they don’t vote for the Green Party candidate, both the Democrat instead, the same thing could exist on the right side of the aisle.

A very, very conservative libertarian says I’m not going to vote for the Libertarian candidate who’s in 5% of the polls, because if I do, it’s just going to help the Democrats get elected. So under the current system, you end up compromise, a lot of people end up compromising the votes before they cast the ballot. rank choice, on the other hand, allows you to rank the candidates on the ballot, depending on the rules, either the top 312 and three or even the top 51234 and five.

And then what happens instead of having a runoff election with the top two candidates like you normally would, the candidates at the bottom of the pack after those first ballots are tabulated get eliminated. So Matt, let’s say you vote for me, and I finished ninth. Well, if your second choice, yeah, your vote then switches for me once I get eliminated your second choice.

And then gradually, your vote will vote will continually be recalibrated in the order of your preference. So that means if you wanted to vote for the Green Party or the Libertarian candidate, you could, if that person didn’t make it into the top few, your vote would then be recast for your second favorite candidate.

So it really does give voters license to vote for candidates, even if they don’t think they’re going to get a win, which, oddly enough, could increase your chances of winning?

Right, that’s the part I like about it is that it gives people who are kind of maybe at the fringes a little bit more of a shot in the game. And that that’s good for our democracy so that more people feel like their their voice is being heard, and, and has a should have a positive effect on on the elections.

The other point and this will make real quick and I know we need to break is it also encourages the candidates themselves from the big parties to take the outline voices more seriously. If you’re a mainstream Democrat or mainstream Republican, you can ignore the voters who don’t you know, who don’t necessarily favor you.

But if you know that there’s a rank choice vote, you want to be their second choice? Because that’s going to help you come election day. Right? Maybe spend more time talking to them?

Yeah, it’s I think that we should probably have a proposition on the ballot one of these days if the Governor vetoes this again, and I don’t even know if it’ll be presented it again. But if he does, then, certainly we clear the path towards probably somebody’s trying to put a proposition on the ballot to get it passed over, over his veto.

Well, we’re gonna go to break for a minute here. I wanted to ask you, Dan, about the Republicans, cultish devotion to Trump, and whether or not you see any signs of it beginning to ebb, and how long that might, how long that process might take.

When it comes to Donald Trump, I stopped making predictions in November of 2016. Because I was so wrong then. So forgive me for being careful. But I’ll offer you this I didn’t notice is you may have also, President Trump spoke last weekend to the Conservative Political Action Conference. And this is a group of his strongest, most loyal supporters. And at the end of the conference, they had a straw poll to ask the attendees who they thought should be the Republican nominee for president in 2024.

It was a secret ballot. So people didn’t raise their hands, they filled out the ballot the way they would if they were voted in Trump won. But he won with only about 55% of the vote. The rest of the vote, candidates were well behind him. But it was instructive to me that not among the Republican Party overall. But among the gathering of his strongest supporters, to Trump’s support, it wasn’t much higher than that.

And in fact, only rough only about two thirds of the attendees felt that he should run in 25. For it a good third plus, he thought that he should not run again. So these are voters who still are very, very loyal to Donald Trump. But it does seem it does seem that there’s some questions arising in their minds as to whether he should run for president again, three years or not.

Yeah, I saw that too. And I thought that that was a good sign for the country, quite frankly, because I’m not a Trump fan at all. And I, I thought that it was showing a break. But it seems like it’s going to take some time to kind of do it more publicly, and that’s the side and a secret ballot.

But whether you’re going to see the leaders of the Republican Party, or does it take the rank and file to start moving away from him, and I did see like his poll numbers are down a little bit from where they were, say three or four months ago in terms of Republican rank and file support. So that may be an indicator to do you see that happening? Which do you think breaks first, the leaders or the followers,

I quibble a little bit with the terms that you’ve chosen. Most elected officials are not necessary. leaders they follow public opinion. Yeah. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Leader, talked about this, shortly after he gave his speech immediately after Trump was acquitted by the Senate, some weeks back.

And what McConnell seems to believe and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll defer to his judgment until proven otherwise, is he believes that while the party’s grassroots are still strongly loyal to Trump, he McConnell believes that that loyalty will dissipate as time passes.

He’s alluded a few times to the numerous legal challenges that Trump faces. And so it seems that we’ll be able McConnell hasn’t quite said it out loud. But he does believe that as time passes Trump’s problems in court, and the legal challenges he faces in New York and Washington, Georgia and elsewhere, he believes will loosen the grassroots the Trump’s hold on the party’s grassroots. And that that will allow the parties quote unquote, leaders to move away from him more purposefully also.

So what kind of deprogramming of cult followers? Does this look like on a national scale or on an individual level? Because that’s kind of what the following are really some of the following of Donald Trump is so devoted it, it kind of mirrors that cultish type feel.

So deprogramming is a little bit stronger than I go. But either way, I do think that a former president, even one who has the capacity of being as visible as Trump is can’t maintain as much of a hold on his followers. Visit former president just isn’t as relevant on a day to day basis. As a current president, what I think is a trickier question is whether Trump runs or not, I don’t know how to predict that.

One is I think, the internal fight within the Republican Party, between its two factions. The Trump loyalists and the more traditional conservatives, you think about it pro Trump errs, and pre Trump errs, whether Trump runs or not, that battle is going to continue through the midterms next year and probably elsewhere the way through the 2024 election. And I don’t have any idea which of those two factions ultimately emerges victorious?

Well, can we look to other examples? I don’t I can’t think of one in US politics that has as much of a personality following as, as Trump and whether or not we have to look at foreign political parties to kind of have a reasonable parallel.

Well, I’m not even sure I can find a reasonable parallel in other countries. Silvio Berlusconi and Italy. Once he left off, is he too late Trump faced significant legal challenges and was not really impactful in his country’s politics. After leaving office. I think about the type of strongmen who people often compare Trump to the Hugo Chavez is the Castro’s but of course, these are people who were not elected to begin with. So the parallel is an imprecise one.

But you’re exactly right man in this country, there’s no precedent. We’ve only had one precedent in our president in our history, who served to nonconsecutive his terms, Grover Cleveland. And while I’ve been around for a while, I wasn’t quite a voting age when Grover Cleveland was running for president. So I really not in a position to look for parallels there.

But even Teddy Roosevelt, who was a wildly popular president in the early 20th century, came back and tried to run again, and he could not recreate his magic with his voters. And so that’s not to say that Trump can’t do it. But it seems like the obstacles would be pretty formidable.

Yeah, I think you’re right. And that’s what I think is a good thing is that we will all kind of go through this detox period of just getting less Trump and I think those of us who disliked him probably were just as fascinated and drawn to the phenomena as those who liked him. So we were we were creating it as much as they were by our avid viewing.

I’ll offer one other thought on this, which might be interesting for your listeners, is there’s a there’s a growing school of thought in political science. That talks about a theory called negative partisanship. The theory of negative partisanship posits that through most of modern history, most people joined a political party because they had strong belief You’ve sent strong ties to that party and as leaders, if you believe what the Republican or Democratic Party is doing, you join that party.

But what’s happened over the last several years, is the majority of Americans now join a political party, not because of the shared beliefs of the party they join, but their anger and their hatred for the other party. And so the majority of Democrats don’t become Democrats because they believe in the Democratic Party anymore. That was how much they hate Republicans.

And the majority of Republicans joined because of their disgust for Democrats. So a lot of Trump supporters is, you know, particularly once you secured the nomination, 2016 came from Republicans who didn’t love him, but didn’t even love the Republican Party that much. But were so motivated against Hillary Clinton, they voted for Trump anyway.

And I feel that if Trump were to run again in 2020, for the primary field, his opponents would take them a lot more seriously than they did in 2016. And so again, that’s not to say that he can’t do it again. I just think the path will be a much tougher one.

Yeah, and, and I and I don’t like to go down the road of demonization, though I’m not a Trump follower or supporter in any way. I do think that that’s kind of poisoned our politics. And Trump is really just a symptom of a long term kind of battle that’s been going on for quite a while.

And, yes, you see it in the news all the time that the Republicans are scaring the Democrats gearing their voters that, you know, we’re going to hell if the Democrats get elected, and you see the reverse from the Democrats saying, we’re kind of going to hell if the Republicans get elected. And so then it leads a voter to think that, you know, the other side is absolutely evil. And that’s not helpful for our country. Exactly.

And you’re completely correct. Donald Trump certainly didn’t invent that concept. He pushed it to new levels. But this was a longtime trend in American politics that was around well, before Trump decided to run for office.

Right? Yeah. I’m actually hopeful and that Biden is kind of not that guy. And he he tends to reach towards bipartisanship as as something that he he did for 40 years in the Senate. And so he’s a, he’s a pretty skilled, political operative, and doesn’t have a problem and talking to Republicans. And I think that’s something that we could really use a lot more of?

Well, I would say this, that Biden’s pension for centrism, ironically, probably would have kept him from getting out of a Democratic primary, under most circumstances, right. He’s the most committed progressive, just like the most conservative, progressive, most committed conservatives don’t want to hear someone talking about bipartisanship.

I think Ironically, it was the Democratic basis, hatred of Trump, that made them decide to swallow the differences and say, Okay, we don’t like centrism, we don’t like bipartisanship. This is the only way we can get rid of Donald Trump, but suck it up and vote for this guy. And you’re right, and now he’s in a position to actually do it, even though the base of his own party might not want it all that much.

Right. Well, I see that there are some things that right now are on his plate, the $1.9 trillion budget. You know, Bill, and I don’t think that that’s probably the best idea. And he’s kind of pushing it through, regardless of the fact that there’s some problems that Well, anyway, we’ll be back in just a minute. This is Matt Matern, with Unite and Heal America. My guest here on KABC 790. We’ll be back in one minute.

We’re talking about politics and some issues patient facing the nation to two bills that are front and center, one the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package. And then we also just had a voting rights bill passed by the Democrats out of the house. These are two big measures, kind of get one to get your take on both of them. Why don’t we start with the budget one first?

I I think that you’re seeing Biden not kind of willing to compromise on it, though. I think it would be great politics, if he did and probably good fiscal policy to because it doesn’t seem like our economy needs quite $1.9 trillion. We could pare that back and still have a hit a valid relief measure. And if that’s not enough, they can always go back to the well.

So that’s why I think that in my mind, he’s kind of making mistake by not cutting a deal that would, you know, kind of get more Republicans on board and really steal the middle from Trump and the Republican Party?

Well, there’s a excellent article I’ll recommend here, listeners in the Thursday, Washington Post that talked about the COVID Relief bill. And this is a news article, not an opinion, not a column. But the central premise of the article is that this bill might have been ideal. In December in January, given the situation we’re faced with COVID, and the related economic challenges, they said, but by March, it might not be the best way of approaching the issue anymore.

It was we’re making progress economically, we need to take the more and more Americans are taking the vaccine. And so they’re suggesting that while a relief bill is still a good idea, that perhaps it doesn’t need to be this large, given the progress we’ve made over the last 60 or 90 days as a country and as an economy.

And they talk in particular about the stimulus checks. They talk in particular about the aid for state and local government, and say that perhaps this money could be spent on longer term projects, since the need for immediate and emergency relief, while still considerable, is not nearly as sweeping as it was.

I think I read that article. And I certainly read another article where they showed that California actually did not have a budget shortfall, which are our coffers increased, or our revenues increased by 1.2%, or something during this COVID period, which is pretty phenomenal, because I thought just for sure that it would have dropped but no, and we still have a $15 billion surplus. So why is California I’m you know, in line to get 40 or $50 billion when we’re in surplus, that seems to me, fiscally a bit irresponsible.

Well, I agree with you. And I certainly would not deprive anybody truly in need of the support that they require, in order to survive through such a devastating pandemic and the effect that it’s had on so many Californians and so many Americans. But the article does make the point fairly persuasively, that could be done in a more targeted way.

The two quick follow up points on this matter if if you’re willing. One is the reason that not only California, but so many states are in such a strong position in terms of their budget, is because of what’s become known as the case shaped recovery, that most people have economic means most white collar workers, most people who’ve been able to work from home or through the pandemic, most people who can do their work on Zoom, are doing just fine, and haven’t suffered any economic loss at all.

And since those upper income taxpayers pay the overwhelming share of income taxes, the states have actually done pretty well. The people who’ve really been harmed who’ve been devastated by COVID, and by the recession, are the essential workers and the others who have to go out to work every day. And because we have a progressive income tax system, they haven’t been paying income taxes very much in the past. And so the state budgets are actually doing really well. Right now. It’s exactly the right one, right?

I’m with you that give the money to the people that are really in need. And to me, giving income checks or giving relief checks to families that are making $175,000 a year or more doesn’t seem to be necessary. So with that, why don’t we pivot over to the voting rights issues? And what’s your take away from the proposal that the house just passed? And how necessary is it? And what’s what’s your takeaway?

Look, I’m I’m a political reformer. And so I think having redistricting done by citizens commissions in every state, as is the case in California is a very good idea. I’ve been a campaign finance reform or ever since my days with John McCain. So I think, you know, making broader reporting requirements for the so called dark money so people can’t make anonymous contributions is a really good thing. I think making it easier to vote with the appropriate oversight all make sense.

The one part of the bill that really troubles me, Matt, is the public financing. The idea that government money, public dollars, would be used to match on a six to one basis, fundraising done by candidates And while the money would not come from tax dollars, but from fines that have been leveled against corporate interests, I feel like there’s a better use of our government money than to pay for political campaigns.

In other words, I think I would rather increase teacher salaries, increased police officer salaries, invest more in roads and safety and and health care, then spending that money on nasty campaign, negative campaign commercials that you and I run against each other because we qualified for matching funds. Right now, if they were to take that provision out of the bill.

There are still some things in it that are controversial, but unbalanced, I’d support it. But I’m always nervous when I see government money being used to reimburse candidates. Because I think that does not only is that the best use, I think, of government money. But worse, I think it creates a really odd system in which governments are reimbursing candidates for running for office, I just don’t think that’s the right thing to do.

Right. And it doesn’t seem like there’s a lack of money in the system already it because you see some of these newcomer candidates raising six, eight $10 million or more, I mean, the Senate candidate in South Carolina raised what almost $100 million or more so the money’s out there.

That’s such a good point. It’s the perfect solution for a pre internet political system. Because as we’ve seen candidates on both sides not only raised tremendous amounts of money online, but they raised that money from small donors. And that’s really become the strength of political fundraising in both parties now. So maybe it’s a great 9090 answer to 2021 problem.

Right? Well, I guess the the long and short of it is that Bill probably isn’t going anywhere in the Senate. So is it much ado about nothing? Or is it creating an issue for the future? What’s the import of this? What’s the effect of this bill in the long term or in the mid midterm,

but I’ll go back to the same point that you made earlier about the COVID Relief bill, that if Biden did see an opportunity to reach out to Republicans, and maybe not get everything that he’s wanted, but a good amount of it, you could probably pass a good government reform bill that, among other things, didn’t get rid of gerrymandering, and maybe did implement some campaign finance reform.

But as far reaching as this one is, your point is exactly the right one, passing it on a party line basis, isn’t going to do much good at all. It may give them more progressive Democrats and other talking point, and why to get rid of the filibuster. But from a practical standpoint, probably doesn’t make much of a difference. Right.

So pivoting to something local, I’ve been working on a homeless Bill initiative, which read about this would be a stipend to homeowners or sober living or that would take in a homeless person and be roughly $1,000 a month, then, hopefully incentivize people to open up their homes, because we need 3 million new housing units in the state of California, and they’re obviously not being built.

So why don’t we use some of the existing infrastructure, and also get in get money into the hands of maybe some lower income homeowners who could use some relief as well. So I’d love to get your take on that.

So I think it’s a really, really intriguing idea. And I’m really impressed that you and the people who come to help you have invested yourselves in this because I always like to say that you can’t leave politics to the politics is too important to be left to the politicians. And so, really smart, grassroots thinking ultimately is where answers come from.

My own feeling is not as an instead of, but it’s just something else to consider is the largest portion of homelessness of homeless individuals and families in California and elsewhere, are not indigenous are not people who are completely down on their luck, but who simply can no longer afford housing, and as pricey a market as Los Angeles is?

So the question for me is, what can you do to make that existing housing stock more affordable to people? And that way, in addition to the kind of options you’re talking about, the idea of owning their own home becomes a more achievable goal than unfortunately, it is for for many Californians, particularly young Californians these days.

Right. Yeah, it’s certainly a big challenge. And yeah, the hope is that this this program would probably cater to people who have jobs and who are in school and who could, who are just struggling to make ends meet.

And then this would give them a base from which to relaunch from where they’re from where they are. And we’ve seen some pilot programs that have been successful using this model. And so the thought was that, if we expanded it out, it would certainly reach more people and be a good force for good here.

So it’s absolutely fascinating. I haven’t seen it yet. But our daughter recommends a movie to me that many of your listeners may have seen by heard of by now called Nomad land, with Francis de Orman.

And there’s a incredible line in the movie. I saw the preview for it, where she, she says to a young girl, she says, I’m not homeless. I’m just houseless. And so the your point is exactly the right one, Matt, how do you give someone that first step to get back on their feet with that?

We’ve got to wrap it up. But it’s been a delight talking with you, Dan, and love to have you back on the show. You’re listening to KABC 790. I’m Matt Matern, Unite and Heal America.