Midterms: What's on the line/?

I know you've probably heard and seen when it comes to our election coverage over the many years. Let's go ahead and say a good morning to Dr. Michelle Goodwin. You're a professor of law at Georgetown, and you're kind enough to join us here on Fox Local. Thanks so much for being with us, doctor. It's a pleasure to be with you. Tell me what you're watching for on this election day. Well this is a very important election day for our country. There's the potential that there will be a swing in the House of Representatives and it's also possible that the Democrats have a possibility of taking over the Senate. That's a longer shot but many think that that is within reach. These elections are critically important, looking at what's taking shape with elections in Texas, elections taking place in Michigan, which has gotten a lot of attention, particularly after Vivek Ramaswamy's ad very recently featuring Amy Acton's estranged mother. But all across the country, these elections are critically important. And they're important not just up at the top, who's running for Senate and who's running for the House, but also local elections are playing a very important role in terms of culture dynamics in the United States, who's running for school board. Very important issue in the United States, especially as matters of reproductive health and rights have come to the American fore within the last few years with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade just a few years ago. So across the ballot, this is a very important election. The overturn of Roe v. Wade, I think you and I talked about that not long after it happened a handful of years ago. That was an incredible... driver to the polls, an incredible motivator for people who either felt very strongly in favor of or against the decision. Is there a driver like that for this election day, 2026? I think it still is. In the space between, and you're right, we spoke right after that, that was June of 2022. And this remains a very important issue. What we saw is that in states that are considered red states, Republican-dominated legislatures, women in those states pushed for referenda and were successful with those. Overwhelmingly, the efforts to To essentially either constitutionalize Roe and states or make sure that. Um, Access to abortion and contraception remains for women, has been an overwhelming favorite in states, whether that's democratically led or Republican led states. And in those states where it's not been successful, have been with the backdrop of rules changing shortly before or needing a super majority in order to get it over the line, such as in Florida, still remains a very important issue. I'm right here in Texas right now. Where there are women who've come forward that have said they're Republican, they had historically been anti-abortion, but they nearly lost their lives when their doctors could not perform the needed emergency care that should have been available to them. So it's still a critically important issue. And folks are going to the ballot on that too. How strong of a driver is the economy? I mean, people would say it's the only driver. That's right. It's an absolutely huge driver. I mean, let's remember in 2024, there were folks that were talking about, well, I'm a bit skeptical of the Biden-Harris team or skeptical about Harris. And what they were calling for was the reduction of prices at the grocery store. Eggs became a really important issue. Well, now it's not just eggs, it's bread, it's cheese, it's milk, it's meats, it's all of those things. Those prices have risen dramatically over the last year and a half. But it's not just that, it's also the price of gas. I was recently speaking to another journalist who covers the White House matters and was in Alaska. And he asked me, Professor Goodwin, can you guess how much the price of gas is in the outlying areas of Alaska? I was guessing around 8, 10, a gallon, 27. Dollars a gallon, so the war in Iran, the prices in the grocery stores and so much more have Americans really nervous about the economy and about their economic bottom line. Wow. So when you have someone here in California, such as Steve Hilton, a gubernatorial hopeful promising three dollar a gallon gas, but he still looks like he's not going to win at the end of this day. That's right. And it's even if. Right now, there are candidates that are making those kinds of promises. It's really hard to land that plane. The war in Iran is still going on. Americans are concerned about that war. They don't understand why the United States is involved there. And that has certainly been one of the contributing factors. In fact, the leading contributing factor to these high The cost of gasoline, unless that war comes to an end, unless the Strait of Hormuz is operating as it had been two, three, four years ago, then the price of gas is going to continue to be where it is. And so promises of $3 a gallon, that is more illusory than real. I don't know if you were able to hear our previous guest. He was the former head of the Republican Party here in California. And he thanked Steve Hilton for bringing to the forefront a number of issues that Democrats have essentially had to respond to who which party has responded better to the underlying frustration many, if not most families feel when it comes to the economy. Here's the thing, which is that the Republicans are in a bit of a deadlock because they've been pretty much in step with the president behind closed doors. There's. Considerable concern with regard to this presidency. It's been one that's been mired and now more than 1,000 lawsuits challenging its executive orders, which quite frankly, in private, a number of Republican lawmakers really do not support. A number of them have been in quite dramatic birthright citizenship challenges and so much more. The United States is now deporting people to countries where they did not come from. The price of gas is absolutely But this concern about pushing Democrats a bit more is actually a very valid observation. Now, there will be Democrats that have said, we've been concerned about these issues for a very long time, and it's been very difficult to try to bring issues forward that Americans care about because. Here's a president who has acted, at least according to district court judges, outside of his authority. The Supreme Court has said that too with regards to tariffs and other matters. So yes, there's been some pushing, but I think the pushback from Democrats would be that they see their hands as being tied. But here's what the American people want, is that they don't wanna hear hands being tied. They want lawmakers, they want a Congress that is fighting for their interests They want a Congress that is assuming its role and responsibility. They want to see a Congress that is articulating in ways that matter to them and that are protecting the issues that are important to their lives, to their health, to their safety, you know I'll tell you, right after this election, one big issue that's going to be is Americans' health care. After the big, beautiful bill, there are going to be a number of people who are going to face not having health care. And that is actually something that Republicans aren't talking much about. And that Democrats probably should be talking a lot more about. Can I ask you, if so many people are frustrated about the... Oops, let me just click off one image on our screen. That's a lot cleaner now. If people are so worried about their own finances, let's go back to Proposition 40. It's being... Short-handed as the billionaire tax, and if we're all so frustrated that we can barely put gas in the tank and fill the fridge and keep our jobs, you would think Prop 40, the billionaire tax, the one-time 5% tax on the net worth of California residents who have assets over a billion, you'd think that would be a slam dunk, right? You would think, but here's what billionaires have said. They've said that if you tax us, we'll just leave. We'll go someplace else. We'll set up residence elsewhere. And so you won't get what you could have gotten. But Americans all across the country, in California, in New York, in other places, should, in fact, be very concerned about who pays taxes, who pays what they should pay in taxes. Because as it turns out, through brilliant research of scholars at Georgetown, a number of them, NYU and others, what they report is that those people who are most consistent and per capita paying a considerable amount of their income in taxes happen to be lower income Americans and so why It shows us that billionaires aren't actually ponying up and paying their fair share, and yet they benefit considerably, including their businesses. So some of what the tax law scholars say is that, look, you know, billionaires, the roads that get you to your home, that's paid for by the American taxpayers, including those who are low income and working class. The roads to the places where you go to work or where your businesses operate, that's paid for by working class Americans. Americans, those who are subsidizing a lot of times your ingenuity, that's actually coming from grants through the government, which again are paid for by the working class, middle class Americans. And so Americans want what is fair for all. And you are right in thinking that this would be a slam dunk, but here's the thing. There's this saying that the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter until the lioness has its say. So while this is important, the ads that Americans see that separate them from the logic of this can be quite persuasive. I have had more ads for and against 40 pop up. In every screen that I watch, and it's interesting, I have two teenage boys and they're getting ads for and against Prop 40 as well. So we'll have to, we're all kind of waiting to see how that one shakes out. Let's go back one up the ballot, Proposition 39. This is the one that's a Republican-backed measure that would require voters to show a driver's license or other government ID to vote. It was a competitive contest earlier in the year, as you know, Dr. Goodwin, but a UC Berkeley IGS poll just a couple weeks ago found 57% of voters opposed Prop 39. compared to 37 supporting it. Do you think this one will go down in defeat? I think that it will go down in defeat. But here's the thing about these propositions and also these campaigns for voter ID. They come with this backdrop, this kind of claim that there are people that are voting in American elections that are not qualified to do so. And that they're somehow putting a thumb on the scale in American elections. But the truth of it is, We actually do not have high or even meaningful at all fraud in American voting. It just simply is not the case. It just- Hasn't been, but it's been a very powerful and potential rhetoric. And part of that rhetoric has led to certain other kinds of campaigns that distance Americans from something that is critically important, which is that right to vote. And what does that look like? Not just in California, but in other places across the country. That means that Americans who have voted their entire lives and fought very hard to be able to vote. I'm thinking about the communities of people who really needed the night. 1965 Voting Rights Act in order to be able Oops, look like we may have lost her signal. Let me see. I'll go ahead and take her offline. Let's see if she is able. Oh, there we go. I'm sorry, Doctor. Yeah, you're back online. You were saying that if 39 passed, then it would disenfranchise people who have had to work harder and longer to gain the right to vote. You can pick it up from there. Thank you so much. That's absolutely right. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which sadly has been significantly gutted by the Supreme Court, really equaled the playing field for black and brown Americans who had been very much discriminated against in the voting process. Things like having to guess how many bubbles on a bar of soap, guess how many jelly beans in a jar. That might surprise many Americans that that kind of activity was taking place Across our country, denying American citizens from being able to vote. And so in the backdrop of using these voter ID laws, they connect to what is really a shameful history, not a history where in fact, what we needed to do was defeat fraud in voting. We've never really had fraud in voting. What we have had are women being denied the vote, poor men being denied the right to vote, black Americans being denied the vote. We've not really had a history where people People who didn't deserve to vote were actually voting and putting a thumb on the scale of American elections. We know the president is watching today's election very closely. The Department of Justice is sending election monitors to a number of cities, including some here in Alameda County. If you could sort of fast forward to tomorrow, what do you expect the president's messaging to be when it comes to things like voter security? Well, this is a president who has been claiming for some time that voter security is something that is very frail in the United States, that there are people who are voting who are not supposed to be voting. Here's a president who has lost, as he did in 2020, and claimed that he had won that election and pushed forward more than 60 lawsuits, all of which he lost when he claimed that he had won the election. If it doesn't turn out that this is a Republican sweep, probably this is a president who would lean into the kinds of rhetoric that he has in the past, which is that something went wrong, and that it wasn't. Americans want something different. And what they want differently is what Democrats are offering. That may very well be the rhetoric that we hear. And if Republicans are successful in the places where he's been campaigning for them, he'll likely take credit for getting Republicans over the line. And maybe he would be right. It turns out in some cases he's been very helpful. But at the same time, there have been Republicans who've been trying to distance themselves from the president. And the New York Times reported We're in very recently about About some of his rallies and how some of his rally rallies now are a bit less coherent than they were even, you know, 10 years ago, two years ago, six years ago. All right, Dr. Michelle Goodwin there at Georgetown Law. It's always nice to connect with you, especially on a day like today, California's November election day. Thank you again for your time, for your insight and your expertise.