Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-13-26_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

The common narrative is illegal immigrants commit less crime than native citizens. Is this true? Dr. John Lott Jr weighs in on this. Former Sen. Baertschiger discusses the very effective Dem playbook in Jo County.

This hour of the Bill Myers Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klauserdrilling.com. We're told, at least many people that are on the side of favoring illegal immigration into the United States, we're told that illegal aliens tend to commit crimes at a much lower rate than Native-born Americans. and is that true? Because there's been a lot of talk about, well, we'll look at what happened in Portland the other day. The Portland with, you know, the Trend de Araguan gang member, two of them actually,

getting involved in a dust up with ice, trying to smash into the vehicles, they both get shot. They have survived. They're now charged, of course, in jail at the moment awaiting trial. It's an interesting time, but we're always told that illegal aliens, we're speaking illegal aliens commit crime at a lower rate than native-born Americans. And is this true? Dr. John Lott joins me.

He's a worldwide expert on guns and crime and he founded the Crime Prevention Research Center. It was founded by Dr. Lott. He's an economist and world-recognized expert on guns. Crimresearch.org, by the way, is the website. Dr. Lott, pleasure having you back on. Morning. Good morning. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you, too. New York Post have a great article with you on it, and it has to do with what I was just mentioning, this preface of what do the crime statistics actually say about illegal immigrants? Because we're told by people favoring this, is that, hey, they actually do a lot less crime than regular American citizen types.

And I don't know, maybe that sounds appealing to some, but what do the statistics actually say because this is your wheelhouse buddy? You've been doing this for years. Right. Yeah, well, unfortunately, illegal aliens commit crime at much, much higher rates than Native-born Americans do. There are problems with the data that people point to when they claim the opposite. Usually they're mixing legal and illegal aliens together. Legal aliens actually commit crimes at very low rate, people who have gone through the legal process to come into the country.

And I would imagine that would be due to, well, the fact you have something to lose. You're actually following the rules and you've gone through the process. And any crimes that you commit as a lawful alien, you could be sent back, couldn't you? Exactly. And what you find, there's some new data that's come out for New York State, where ICE has put detainers on 7,133. illegals who are currently incarcerated in the state prison population and jails. What you find is that there are about 50,800 people incarcerated in the state of New York.

So that 7,113 represents about 14% of all those who are incarcerated. Yeah, easy way of looking at that, maybe about one out of seven. One out of seven in the prison system there, right? Right. And so, but that's clearly an underestimate of the rate that they're committing crimes for multiple reasons. One reason is that New York is a sanctuary state, they are not assisting or helping ICE in any way to identify whether people that they have incarcerated are illegal. So they're probably underestimating that. Secondly, as I'm sure many know, ICE will pick up individuals when they're being arraigned at courthouses or when they're finally convicted. So before they get into the state jail or prison population, they will be removed by ICE.

Just last year, there was some data that CBS News had put together showing that over three months. period of time, just in New York City, 460 illegals who were being arraigned in courthouses in New York City were being apprehended by ICE. So that's just, you know, New York City over just three months. You know, 460 by itself is a non-trivial increase in the 7,000. It's there. But you could imagine what the numbers would be for the whole year. for the entire state, it would be a big increase.

Now, if you compare that 14% to the estimated shares of illegals in the general population in New York, the highest estimate is about 4%. That's about three and a half times more illegals in the incarcerated in the state there than their share of the general population. So you have illegal immigrants in, at least in New York in this study that you were going through then. They're punching way above their weight in the population. That's the way of looking at it, right? That's correct.

That's correct. Is there a way to put a dollar cost on this? Because one of the reasons that President Trump has been very big about sending illegal aliens back. We're not talking about lawful legal aliens, but the illegals is that there's a big cost on society. Is there a way to put a dollar cost on this? I know some groups have tried to do this, but I would imagine it, well, I mean, there are social costs and then also the criminal justice system cost, too. But how do you see it? Right.

Well, I mean, a lot of these 7,113 have committed horrible crimes. You have 148 who were convicted of murder. You have 717 who were convicted of aggravated assault. you have several hundred that have been convicted of rape. All those, you know, have serious crime costs that are there. Well, one measure of the legal cost is just what's the cost of imprisoning these individuals. We don't know how many of the 7,000 are in prison versus how many are in jail. the cost of keeping people in prisons in New York is significantly less than the cost of housing people in the jail systems in the state.

Now, the jail would be before, is that before trial, you know, while you're waiting for a trial? Often, right. Often that's the case or in some cases for misdemeanors, people will be in the jail system as opposed to the prison system, but that's correct. But if you assume that all of the illegals are in the prison system, so that's the lowest cost, which is obviously not true, but just to get a bottom estimate of the cost, it's costing the state of New York and the county about $1 billion a year at least to incarcerate those individuals. Now, this is just the incarceration costs. We're not talking about the social costs or the loss of economic output. Now, so you're economists by trade, right? There's a lot of unseen stuff that goes with this, right?

You know, the unseen costs. And I would imagine that there's the cost of educating families. They were brought here illegally, too. That would have to be huge, wouldn't it? Sure, no, they're a huge cost. There's costs of just policing, you know, to catch the individuals and the court costs that are there. You know, there's so many costs from crime. It's just not the fact that somebody's murdered or raped or robbed or whatever.

You have the fact that, you know, business is closed in areas that loses jobs, that housing values go down as you have more crime in an area. And, you know, so there are lots and lots of costs that are there. I haven't figured out all the costs. The National Institute Justice has gone through and put estimates of the cost, social costs of different types of crimes, I suppose. I need to go through and kind of estimate that, but I haven't done that yet. Dr. John Lott, Jr., once again,

Crime Prevention Research Center. Dr. Lott, now this is a study using New York crime statistics and the incarceration statistics that you went through and combed through for this report you were talking about in New York Post. Could you extrapolate that to other cities, especially those that are sanctuary cities and states? We have a lot of that going on in Portland. The entire state is a sanctuary state, and not much is to be done by local law enforcement. And we have other states.

I mean, can you compare it to other states? Or is this strictly just, hey, this is New York's experience, and we don't know about the other states yet? Well, sure, it's possible to go and do it. I haven't done the data yet for other places, but particularly for the sanctuary states. One of the problems with non-sanctuary states, which is most of the country, the vast majority of the country, is that you're going to have these illegals when they're arraigned in courts, you know, brought into the courthouse and charged with the crime, I will be there. to go and pick them up. So you're going to, you know, if you rely on the percentage that are incarcerated in those parts of the country where they're not sanctuary areas, you're not going to find that

many in the prison system because they're already would have been removed. Oh, so it would show an unnaturally low level of crime? Is that kind of what you're getting at? That's exactly the point. Oh, okay, because once ice picks them up and it's like they didn't exist. That's exactly right. Okay. I hadn't considered that.

All right. And I would imagine the states probably don't track their actual ice hold calls or release that kind of information. I don't know. Maybe they do. They don't have that type of information. All right. Now, you know, one thing just to point out, this last year, we had the biggest, looks like, the biggest percentage drop in murder rate that we've ever

recorded in U.S. history, at least up through October, it looks like we're on track for the lowest murder rate ever recorded in U.S. history. What would you attribute that, too, because overall crime went out, went up dramatically. When was it 50, 60 percent during the Biden years? Right. Yeah. The Bureau of Justice. statistics estimates of serious violent crime increased by 59% during the Biden administration. That's the largest percentage increase over any four-year period of time that we've ever recorded. You know, and it's not a coincidence to me that when we had this record influx of illegal aliens,

we have this record increase in violent crime. And now that Trump is working to deport criminal illegal aliens, and 70% of the ones that have been detained by ICE have criminal records. What you find is that we are seeing this huge drop in violent crime. You know, and it's not just the ones that they've detained and deported. The other illegal aliens who are criminals want to keep their heads down because they don't want to get deported. and how do you keep your head down? How do you keep off the police radar? I imagine you behave yourself, right?

Yeah, you don't commit as much crime right now. Exactly right. And so, you know, I think both the fact that they're deporting, you know, particularly focusing on criminal illegal aliens and making it riskier for even the criminal illegals that they haven't caught to commit crime help explain. I mean, there are other things like the fact that the FBI. has doubled the number of arrests this last year compared to 2024, that you have U.S. attorneys across the country that are seriously getting involved with prosecuting criminals,

which is quite a change from the Biden administration. That's interesting news. Hey, I appreciate that, Dr. Lott, the point that I wanted to reiterate is that legal immigrants, lawful immigrants, people with green cards, people that have followed the rules, very low crimes. So the supporters of legal immigration can point to that. The issue that we're talking about is that the illegal immigrants way, way, way incarcerated and charged with serious crimes above their percentage in the population. That's our takeaway from your study, right?

That's correct. All right. Very good. And is that study available on crimeresearch.org, your main website? Yeah, yeah. All the information that we're talking about as well as links to the underlying data are, are available there. And a great article in New York Post that I'll also link to on KMADE.com.

New data revealing the horrific truth about illegal immigrant crime. Remember, we're focusing on the illegal immigrant crime. At the same time that our elected leaders in much of the state of Oregon are saying, there's nothing to see here, move along. But I would imagine here, Dr. Lott, if you were talking to Governor Kotech, you'd say, there's something to look at if you're just willing to look at it, right? Or something to see. Yeah, well, you know, the amazing thing to me,

is New York this last year released about 7,000 illegal aliens who had been incarcerated, who had been convicted of crimes like murder, rape, robbery, egg-vade assault, without letting ICE know that they were releasing those individuals. So they weren't able to get picked up by ICE. They were just put back into the general population. There were a couple hundred, for example, who had been convicted in New York court, the murder. who were released back into the general population. And the question you ask is, why do they do that?

Why won't they even deport violent criminals? These are arguably the bad people you don't want in your civil society if you could help it. It's almost like it's a plan to break it all down. But that's outside of your wheelhouse here right now, Dr. Lott. I appreciate your share of the data, and we'll have you back on. Thanks so much for being on the show. Be well. Thanks for being there, Bill.

Dr. John Lott, crimeresearch.org. Great site. Keep up on these kind of stories. This is the Bill Myers Show. It's 724. The new year means new resolutions, not just for your body, but for your finances as well. Did you know that financial health is directly related to your identity protection? This is why you need LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock's restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed, or your subscription money back.

Resolve to make your identity health and wealth part of your New Year's goals with LifeLock. Visit LifeLock.com and save up to 40% off your first year with a promo code back. Terms apply. Hi, it's Jeff with Quality Tree Service, your local tree whisper. Wherever you download your favorite podcasts. This is News Talk 1063, KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Former State Senator Herman Berrick is going to join the show here in just a little bit. Then we got more open phone time for you on Pebble in Your Shoes. Tuesday. We'll also have some emails

of the day. I think we're going to squeeze in another Diner 62 quiz while you're at it too. Portland Police Chief Bob Day. Bob Day. Wow. You know, we were talking about the two Trende-R-Waguin gang members that were arrested. They've been

charged now. They appeared in court yesterday from what I understand. At least one of them did. I don't know if the female trafficker or alleged female trafficker and a prostitution ring member of the gang was part of this. But, you know, the shooting on Friday continues to just, well, I'll just play his press conference from the other day. And it's, it's telling. I'll speak for just a moment specifically to my Latino community. The Latino community. It's saddens me that we even have to qualify these remarks.

because I understand, or at least have attempted to understand through your voices, your concern, your fear, your anger. This information in no way is meant to disparage or to be dull or support or agree with any of the actions that occurred yesterday. but it is important that we stay committed to the rule of law, that we stay committed to the facts, that we stay a trustworthy and legitimate police department for all of Portlanders. They do have some nexus to involvement with TDA. We can confirm that. By the way, that's a trendy Aragua. We had a shooting in Northeast.

Portland in July of this year, and the victim in that shooting was self-identified as a Venezuelan immigrant who informed us that the suspects in that shooting were associated with TDA. Based upon that, we've been working that case. It's an ongoing investigation, but we have been working that case, and there's also been involvement with the two people who were shot yesterday by the federal officers through some criminal cases out in Washington County. So this is a regional effort as we look at this group affiliation and the potential for violence that has occurred. And it's still ongoing. So I don't have details. And what I can say is there is an association with the two folks yesterday and

TDA. Okay. Then why would he sit there and cry and be talking? I apologize. I think about the greater Hispanic community. It's like, you know, every time a white dude, you know, ends up committing some crime here in Southern Oregon. You know, I'm not sitting around here thinking that the police chief has to make apologies for some white dude who either hurt, raped, or murdered someone, right? But yet the police chief of Portland, Bob Day, feels the need to make that. We're very, oh, gosh.

Yeah, there's rumors here. We have to be about rule of law except for immigration law. I guess you're supposed to be all for rule of law in Portland, Chief Day, except for immigration law. That's the only explanation I would have for this. And I don't know. Would you feel confident having that kind of guy being your police chief here? 732 at KMED. News brought to you by Millette Construction.

Shiger and I end up kicking around some political news and kind of the opinions of the day. Boy, there's a lot of opinions to go with what's happened to the state lately here. And, of course, he's also a former ORP chair, former state senator, like we had mentioned, former Josephine County Commissioner. A lot of farmers in there, but a lot of institutional knowledge going in there. Welcome back, Herman. Always good to hear from you. Oh, hey, good morning.

It's another wood stove and hot coffee day. Boy, you got that right. Now, I don't have a wood stove at my house, but what happens is that when I turn on the lights, of course, both of our cats end up showing up, the indoor cats wanting some feeding. And now we have the outdoor cat, Punky, our feral, I kind of nicknamed him Farrell Daryl. He pokes his head up in the window. And it's like, okay, got to go in there too. And you know, I was talking, Herman, this is kind of another side, folks. But, uh, Last week I was talking about this fat possum that was been coming by and eating the cat food. And I was going to try to get rid of the cat of the possum, which we've nicknamed Larry now. And everybody's telling us, Herman, that Larry the possum actually does great things, eats snakes and rats and slugs and all that other sort of stuff. So I guess we're now feeding Larry the possum too on top of everybody else in the back. Yeah, let me tag on to that.

When I was, oh gosh, probably in my late teens, I remember taking my grandmother home from some kind of dinner or whatever. And as I was walking her to a back porch who were going up the steps, there was a posset eating her cat food for her cat. And my grandmother said to me, there's that neighbor's cat. Isn't that the ugliest cat you ever seen? They do have an ugly face. ugliest face. I don't even know how mothers love those faces, but God bless them, I guess. And I never realized that possums, though, even though they're kind of ugly and ungainly and such, they actually do a lot to keep the nasty stuff in check. So, okay. Well, they're hard on our, you know, we used to have a pretty good peasant population.

And, you know, we never had possums here. They were kind of imported in. Oh, they were? When they kind of took over our pheasant population left. and probably most likely from eating the eggs in the nest. Oh, yeah, I guess so. That would make sense. I didn't think about the pheasants, but I know that we used to have pheasants back behind the house in Jacksonville,

and they went away. It could have been the possums. I don't know. Yeah. Interesting. Hey, I wanted to touch in on what's happening with the Josephine County Commission thing. You're a former county commissioner. You talked about this in the past here.

And what happens next as far as the appointings? So we're now at the point where all the other elected officials are going to weigh in and decide who fills those two upcoming vacancies. You know, I don't know. I guess we're in uncharted waters. When you're in uncharted waters, that gives people the latitude to kind of do what they want to do, if you know what I mean. So I guess we'll just see what goes on. You know, Bill, I've talked numerous times on your show about the Democrat. push here in southern Oregon.

They've created quite a machine. I mean, they really have. I mean, if you look at, you know, John West, he was elected in 2022. He was elected, he got, oh, what do you got, 21,298 votes. And they recalled him with 13,617 votes. So. I guess you're intimating that. the Democrats may not be able to get elected, but there are enough to recall?

Exactly. And Chris Barnett, the numbers are really, really close. He was elected in 2024 by 23,748 votes, and he was recalled by 13,350. Now, what's really interesting is John West was recalled by 13,617. Barnett was recalled by 13,350, very similar, only a difference of 267 votes. Pretty interesting. Interesting that the same margins, relatively speaking, or strangely similar. And this would strike me then as, is it really that John West and Chris Barnett were that disliked by the general electorate or a certain percentage of the. the electorate that is not happy with that side of the Republican Party, or is it just Republicans

in general? That's my takeaway, because if you look at the no votes, this is really interesting, too. And John West recall election, the no votes were 8,165. And Chris Barnett's recall election, the no votes were 8,230, only a difference of 65 votes. So I think what the Democrats has figured out, we can energize our folks do an off-calendar election and the Republicans simply won't show up. Yeah. That's what they have figured out.

Okay. And, of course, that's also sad. That's a sad statement about your typical Josephine County Republican voter, isn't it? That's sad. What's also sad is the hatred. And I just don't know how to, you know, to put this in bold or underline or whatever, but the hatred by the left for the right is unprecedented. I mean, look what they did. As soon as Barnett and Smith were elected, I immediately, they said, we're going to wait six months and recall them.

So this is just a political strategy. It's not you haven't even done anything in the office. I haven't been done anything. Right. Right. And so you had some, you know, I think you had some former county employees that had an axe to grind. And then they said, hey, we'll just get the Democrat Party involved. And of course, the Democrat Party's been using all kinds of strategies. It's been getting their people to denounce their Democrat Party and registers Republicans because they know there's no power in elections here with a D after your name. So you're already saying that a whole bunch of the Republicans then that we're thinking of as Republicans are more than fake Republicans, essentially, right? Right. You know, I mean, Rush Limbaugh, what did he call it, Operation Chaos? Yeah.

Yeah, so this is in the reverse. But the sad part is, is not really, what is happening is not a representation of the, voters in Josephine County. But the problem is the voters. They're not showing up. If they don't show up, they're going to get the crumbs. And that's what's happening. Well, to me, the biggest crime. The Democrat Party, as of now, has control over Josephine County. Boy, that's a heck of a note. Yeah. Now, I don't think, I think you get into the November election, and I

They don't think they'll get their people reelected or elected. I think we'll go right back. And then what are they going to do? Say, oh, we're going to wait six months and recall you. This reminds me very much of, wasn't it when President Trump was first elected and wasn't there someone in Congress that said, well, we're immediately going to start impeachment procedures or, you know, start drawing up the papers? Absolutely.

Kind of the same thing. The country is so divided. And it's, and, but now, I mean, you see it. It started with, you know, the Black Lives Matter and all that stuff. And look what we're going through right now, you know, what you're seeing. But overwhelmingly, John West and Chris Barnett were elected by the people. Now, there was, if we go back to 2022, there was 69,714 eligible voters, 44,059 voted at 63%.

And Chris Barnett, he got some more. He got 23,748. He had 55% of the vote. And 71, 72% turned out. Well, it was a Trump election. So you can see, now we're going to go into this, you know, this next election cycle. And I don't think the Democrats will prevail in that. I think we'll be back. But so now you have people internally in Josephine County that's going to take advantage of this period of time

to do things that they want to do. So watch. I predict them asking for more money from citizens of Josephine County. When you say they, you're talking about those that would then help getting the new county commissioners put in place, whoever they may be? Sure. We're kind of getting back to the tail wagging the dog. So that's my prediction. They're going to be asking for more money. They'll make some good arguments why they need it.

But that is my prediction. Let me ask you. Well, I'm just going to give you my opinion. I think it was a mistake when Josephine. County went to nonpartisan county commissioners. Absolutely. I've told you before there's no such thing as nonpartisan. That's a goofyest thing.

Name one democracy on this planet that's nonpartisan. I can't think of any. None come to mind. And you know, if nonpartisan to Democrats, they're the first ones to squeal about, oh, it's nonpartisan, it's nonpartisan. It's nonpartisan. Well, nonpartisan in Oregon usually means Democrat run. It's kind of like judges, you know, judges appointed by the governors, Governor Kotech and Governor Brown, people like that.

Yeah, if nonpartisan is so good, how come the legislature's partisan? Well, I guess it helps them raise money there, Herman. You got the Democrat caucus, you got the Republican caucus. Whoever is elected is going to govern through whatever lens they look through. If you look through a conservative lens, you're going to govern as conservative. and the liberals are going to beat you up. And if you look through the lens of a liberal, the conservatives are going to beat you up.

So that's just how it works. Now, is there a possibility here, Herman, that had John West and Chris Barnett been facing a recall and that they were listed as Republicans on the ballot that that might have driven more out, more of a turnout or not? What do you think? No, because people simply, don't understand.

Okay, so John and Lucy Smith get their ballots. They're Republicans. They go, oh, recall Commissioner Joe. No, we're not going to recall Commissioner Joe. And so then they

place their ballots in the trash can because they're thinking that if they don't vote, yes, that will help. They don't understand you have to cast a no vote to help save them. What do you think could be done to de-weaponize the recall process in Josephine County? Is there a way with statutes or a changing of charter?

Because, like I said, this is not endorsing John or Chris. I've made this very clear because I have been against all the recalls that have been going through Josephine County. To me, you take care of recalls. Recall should be done only for really, really bad conflicts of interest, criminal, almost like bordering on criminal kind of stuff. Not the fact that you don't like the person or you disagree with policy, okay? That's what I'm getting at. Well, that's not going to happen because who's going to be the kingmaker to say, this is really bad or this is not? What I think would solve a lot of it is that recall elections can only happen in May or November.

I would agree. Okay. Yeah. They can't happen over Christmas. Or like John West, over Thanksgiving, you know? I mean, they pick, I call them off calendar. And so that's another thing. Somebody gets a ballot.

There's one thing on there. Oh, the recall, Chris, recall a commissioner one or commissioner two. I don't care. I'm not going to vote to recall and throws it in the trash. You know, the other thing that I would do instead of calling it a recall, I would just say, should we fire this politician? I think it should call it a firing rather than a recall. What do you think?

Yeah. You know, words have meanings. Yeah. That's essentially what the voters are doing. But, you know, you hear recalls, I don't want any part of this stuff. You know, blah, blah, blah, just toss it away. All right. Let me shift here to the...

I mean, you've got to ask yourself. You had 22,000 people hire this individual, but 13,000 can fire them. That's the issue that I have with it also. I think that's just an immoral situation the way it is set up right now. So let me switch it right now then to the upcoming state session. It's going to be a short session apparently. Legislative days kicked off. I talked with Dwayne about this a little bit yesterday.

And one of the aspects that I guess they're going to be asked to look at, this is a big push from Governor Kotech to get rid of the ODOT big tax thing, The ones that we spent, you know, a quarter of a million signatures, rather, to get on the ballot. And why should the Republicans be there and help her do it? I mean, explain that if you could. Well, the whole thing of denial of quorum is over. It is, huh? Yeah, it's over because they pass that law.

And there's just too many legislators think that their position is. is worth more than losing it. And that's my opinion. Okay. But what is their position worth if all you're doing is maybe getting a crumb of some grant stream funding for your local project or whatever it is by cooperating with the people who hate you, the Democrats in the state legislature? Yeah.

I mean, we can go on and on about that. But I think what we need to go on and on about, Bill, is Tina Coachie. is going against the will of the people. The biggest I've ever seen it in my lifetime, and I paid a lot of attention to politics before I actually got into it. Okay, now how is she going against the will of the people? Because what people are asking is for the ODOT tax, those gas taxes, the funding package to be repealed, and she'd like it to be repealed by the state legislature. So how is she going against the will? Well, because she's not let, the people went to all that work so they could get it on the

to vote for it, and she's ripping the carpet right out from under them. And she's doing it with a simple majority vote. She only needs 31 votes in the House and 16 in the Senate. So she'll get it. She'll get it. She'll get it. Yeah. And now the people did all that work. And the reason she doesn't want it on the ballot, this is the midterms. They do not want to take a chance on losing any Republicans in Congress. And so she knows this thing is. so unpopular. I almost said popular. It is kind of popular. I mean, to vote on it is popular, but the measure is unpopular, that you're going to see a record turnout of people because this is on the ballot. And as they go down the ballot, they're going to look at these Democrats who

promotes all this crap and maybe not vote so nicely for them. All right. So, yeah, so she don't want that. And then what she's going to do, she's going to get an awesome. So what they're doing is they're repealing the law, okay? So if they repeal the law, the law goes away, so there's no reason for this to be on the ballot. And then after November, probably in the next long session, here it comes again. See, that's just it.

That's kind of what I suspected. The moment that the midterm election is over in November, then they're going to bring it right back and shove it down your throat again. It's what they're going to do. And that's it. and they have to go through all that work again to get the signatures. How do you fight that?

How do you fight that? Well, the only you can't. The individual you can. It takes masses of people in public opinion. And so until people wake up, wake up people, one day they are going to wake up and go, what the hell happened? Well, I know that this has been a Republican strategy for a long time is that they'll think it's gotten so bad that we're going to vote for something different.

I haven't seen that happen yet, but I hope you're right about that, Herman. My dad and I had kind of a debate yesterday, and he keeps saying, oh, people in Portland, they've got to wake up. They're not going to. I'm not convinced of that. Okay, so we agree on that much. Hey, Herman, let's grab a few calls. So I think people want to comment or ask you a question or two about this.

We're with former state Senator Herman Barrettiger. Good morning. Hi, who's this? Welcome. Yeah, this is Richard with the Oregon Eagle. Good morning. Hey, Richard. Welcome. Morning. Yeah, yep. Great to hear this discussion. And I was hoping that Herman could comment on yesterday's announcement by Secretary of State Tobias Reed that they're going to clean up Oregon's voter rolls. And they say that there's as many as 800,000, you know, inactive voter records that haven't been updated since 2017.

The other thing I was going to add, Richard, is that that article also mentioned that there's really going to be no practical effect from it. Do you recall that? Remember that? Seeing that story? That's what they're claiming. That's what they're claiming, but the fact that they haven't cleaned up the rules for inactive voters since 2017, and they think there's 160,000 registrations fall into a category that the election mail is returned as undeliverable. I mean, they're mailing ballots out. So whether somebody's selling them out, you know, it's going to change something because we've heard from others that we have more registered voters in Josephine County than we have adults.

So it's going to change who gets ballots at a minimum. Any thought on that, Herman? Well, I think the devil's in the details. what registered voters are getting kicked out. Are they Republican registered voters that are getting kicked out because they moved out of the state? I mean, I'm being cynical, but I'm just giving an example. So the devil's going to be in the details. All right.

Richard, always good hearing from you from the Eagle, okay? Be well. Yep. Let me grab another one here. Hi, good morning. You're on with former Senator Berritsiger. Who's this? Welcome. Oh, yeah.

David, of course, I'm out of state, so I try not to intercede in local politics. But as you were talking about the voting, purging the voting list, I mean, that's technically something that should have happened every year. And I keep hearing, 2017 is nine years ago. And I find it hard to believe that nothing has been done in nine years in all of the counties. It sounds like some of these fear-mongering headlines. You know, I think what's going on here, David, I appreciate your call. Herman, did not the state legislature pass a law that made it harder to do the cleaning? It was like a secretary of state rule or some legislation.

Do you recall that by chance? Yes. Yeah, that happened. And also, you know, the federal government has sued the state, I believe it's sued or requested. I don't know if it's sued. Maybe it's requested. And I think that's why Secretary Reid is cleaning this up because he knows the feds are coming to take a peek. Yeah, and he didn't want to give up any of that information, David.

That's it. So, yeah, I know that the state legislature did make it more difficult to clean. It was like every 10 years, which, of course, whether it's in Oregon or whether it's in Texas, blue or red, there's room for hinky, I think, over time when you leave people on there, no matter what. Bill, the root of the problem is mail-in voting. That is the root. Because, you know, take a county clerk. They send out, people register, they send out ballots.

Well, that person has moved out of the state, but it still goes to this address. Right. And the people, the new people living at the address go, they see the ballot, they throw it in the trash can. How does the county clerk know that person's no longer in a county? They should know. Appreciate the call, David. Thank you for that. I'll take one more call, and then we'll cut Herman loose to the day job.

Hi, who's this? Welcome. Yeah, this is Ranger. Hello, Ranger. People are being a small majority or small group of Democrats. If they ran, if they ran again for re-election the next time, wouldn't it be re-voted in by the majority of Republicans? That's an interesting question. What do you think about that, Herman?

If John or Chris were to run. Yeah, because if you get recalled, doesn't mean you can't run again. They can run again, and they very likely could get voted in again because you'll have, because those elections are in November. So being recalled, being recalled then, you could technically have Chris Barnett run in November, right? Yep. Interesting. Now, the thing is, though, is there going to be an opening because, let's, no, I guess there wouldn't. be one in November because if I recall, yeah, we're only talking about that they're four-year

term, so there's still be like two, three years or so. You'd have to wait before you run again. Andreas Black's seat. I forget which position it is. That will be on the ballot in November. That will be on the ballot. All right. So Chris or Andreas could run for that if they wanted to. Or John West could. Okay. John West. Oh, exactly. Could be interesting time. And then the next recall will happen in June of 2027, right? No, probably, I think they figured out November, December is the best time to have a recall election.

Oh, okay. And I agree. I have to, you know, as a strategy, that's absolutely correct. That's the time to do it. All right. Everybody's busy. They're working. They're trying to do holiday shopping and it's wintertime and it's this and, you know,

there's so much stuff going on. And they, so they're counting on their people to show. up, all they got to do is make 13,000 phone calls. That's all it takes. No, they don't even have to make that many bill because there's probably two people live at most of the houses, so maybe half of that. That's all they got to do. Make sure you take, and they can watch the ballots come in, so they got their list of voters.

They're watching the ballots come in. They're checking off the people, oh, these people didn't, let's go, let's go call them. Let's go to their house and offer to take their ballots in for them. So that's the problem when vote by mail. It's so easy to manipulate, and it's not illegal what they're doing. No, it's perfectly legal. It's a smart strategy, but let me tell you, any time that there is a vote, or anything which is done to change voting rules in the state of Oregon,

it's never to help conservatives or Republicans get elected. That much you can take to the bank, right? And vote by mail is another example of that, and I would go against it. so much, here, Herman. And you come, Bill. Yeah. Let me take one more time. Hang, I need to add.

Sure. Getting the signatures, now they have, they've went through two recall elections. They have all those names that signed, all their addresses, and all their contact information. They have. So there's your fundraising and your activist voters for the next round, right? Yeah. And so it's really easy. You don't have to sit out there in the cold and gather signatures.

start making phone calls or making house appearances. That's all you've got to do. All right, Herman. We'll talk next week, but I always appreciate to delve into local and state politics here, okay? You'd be well. Thanks again. You'll be well, too.

Thanks. Former State Senator Herman Bertsiger on KMED, KMED, H.D-HD-HD-1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants pass. When it comes to buying or selling a house, you don't take advice from...