Morning Wire - Historic Shift In Education Views | 7.20.22

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

An historic shift is taking place among voters about which party they trust more with education, Texans are asked to conserve energy and water amid energy grid and drought struggles, and LA County takes steps to remove its tough-on-crime sheriff. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who do Americans trust more with education, Democrats or Republicans? A historic shift is taking place among voters about which party they want involved with schools. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, July 20th, and this is Morning Wire. Residents of the state of Texas are being asked to conserve energy and water, as high temperatures and drought hit the Lone Star State. What are the challenges facing the Texas water supply and the energy grid and our energy policies to blame.

And the Los Angeles County government is paving the way to remove Sheriff Alex Villanueva, a tough-on-crime sheriff who has sparred with L.A.'s progressive prosecutor. We discussed the attempt to remove the outspoken sheriff. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. As of this month, we've had a 40-year high inflation at 9.1%. Have you considered what could happen in the stock market

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A new poll commissioned by one of the largest teachers' unions in the country is yet another sign that Democrats may be in trouble come November. The survey found that likely voters now trust Republicans. more when it comes to public education. Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham joins us now to break down the specific findings in this poll. So Megan, give us the biggest headline here. What did the poll find? Hey, Georgia. Well, you know, as John mentioned, the biggest headline here is that Republicans now hold an advantage over Democrats on the issue of education. So this was a survey of about

1,700 likely voters, and it was conducted in May in seven battleground states, and that included Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and it was done on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers. That's the second largest teachers union in the U.S. So in response to the question, in general, do you have more confidence in the Democrats or in the Republicans to deal with education issues? 39% said Republicans compared to 38% who said Democrats. Now, that's key for a couple of reasons. First, because Democrats have typically dominated this issue, both nationally and locally. So to put it in perspective,

a public opinion poll called Winning the Issues has been polling Americans about which party they trust more on education for 20 years. And Democrats have led in every single poll.

Now, historically, Democrats led by an average of 15 points until around 2019, 2020, when that gap closed to single digits. So the fact that this poll is now showing Republicans ahead on education

is really a major shakeup. But then secondly, the poll also finds that not only do likely voters trust Republicans more, they also care a lot about this issue. 68% of respondents said that education is either one of the most important issues to them in the upcoming election or at least a very important issue. So did the poll ask parents what they want when it comes to education? Yeah, it did. And it seemed like parents would like less focus on social issues and more on reading,

math, science. Those three subjects were overwhelmingly voters' top priority, though it was followed closely by practical skills like balancing checkbooks. Meanwhile, less concrete social goals like, and I'll just quote, preparing students to be comfortable and successful in diverse settings, ranked near the bottom, and 60% said they aren't happy with how racial issues are taught in schools. Now, to go along with that, 43% of voters said schools spend too much time focusing on sex sexual preference and gender identity. In contrast, only 21% of respondents said that schools don't spend enough time on it. Randy Weingarten, president of the AFT, seemed to address these results at the Union's convention

last week. She blamed the negative public perception on the politicization of schools. Demagogues playing on fear. Fear built on false narratives. And too many politicians are making it worse. And you know the politicians I'm talking about. the ones who stole grievances rather than solve problems. They should be helping us help kids and communities,

not making it harder with their kosher wars and division. However, on that score two, the poll really wasn't good news for Democrats. 33% of voters said they're more responsible for politicizing education compared with 28% who blamed Republicans. The largest share, though, 36% blamed both parties. So is the survey an outlier or are we seeing similar trends in other polls? Yeah, there are signs that it might not be an outlier. So the AFT poll dovetails with a Harris poll of 5,000 parents from last month that found that

that 83% of parents considered education to be a more important issue than it has been in the past. In fact, for parents who vote in state, local, and national elections, education was the second most important issue to them, behind only taxes. It even outweighed the economy. So to further go along with that, 82% of parents said they'd be willing to vote outside their party affiliation if they liked a candidate's education platform. And that number held steady regardless of party affiliation. To give you even just a little bit more context, a recent Gallup poll found that only 28% of Americans

say they have a great deal of confidence in public schools. So again, the party most identified with public education typically does. Democrats is going to struggle according to these trends. Right. And I mean, a lot of people commented that it was the education issue that put Glenn Yonkin in office in Virginia. But obviously that was before inflation took off. So it'll just be interesting to see if education is still a top issue in November. Megan, thanks for reporting. Yep, anytime. That was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham.

Coming up, Texans are asked to conserve energy and water amid record heat levels. You can get this show and all of the content you love where every you are all on the Daily Wire app. Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be the first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news, and you'll get content from all of your favorite Daily Wire shows. Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you. As Texas suffers a record-shattering heat wave, Texans are being asked to not only conserve energy,

but now water. Here to give us the details is Daily Wire's Charlotte Pence Bond. Charlotte, we've reported on the energy situation in Texas on the show before, but things are really heightened even more now. What's the latest here? Yes, as Georgia said, it's now not just energy supply that's being scrutinized. It's water. The North Texas Municipal Water District last week asked customers to cut down on their use of water immediately, specifically outdoor watering. One of its four water treatment plants and its complex had to be shut down unexpectedly on Saturday in order to work on the plant to get it back to full capacity for purifying.

water. The Water District pointed out that the call for conservation was due to the quantity being produced, not the quality of the water. Did they give any reasons for this? Well, the company issued a press release saying they still can purify enough water for basic needs and safety uses, but the continuing drought in the state, along with the uptick and outdoor watering and irrigation, has put a lot of stress on their systems. This is the Water District's communications director. We're experiencing a stress on our system because of peak demands with peak weather conditions. We are enduring a long, hot, dry summer, and we're trying to manage and meet the rising peak demands of our regional customers. The company services

2 million people and up to 80 communities, so a significant population, especially if they can't get that plant back up, which, of course, we hope they do. That regional drought, they discussed, is definitely an ongoing problem, though. According to the U.S. drought monitor, over 51 percent of Texas is in an extreme drought, and 75% is in a severe drought. Those percentages have shifted over the past few months, but even more concerning, they have gone up as of the first week of July. Now, Texas has already had some serious problems in the past with its electric grid, and some of this involves green energy sources. What's going on there? Right. So last week, Urquot, the organization that runs the grid in Texas, issued an appeal to all

Texans, asking them to conserve energy. The reason the company gave for not being able to keep up with demand was, quote, low wind and forced outages in thermal generation. Erkot added that there are also clouds in certain areas that were restricting solar power. So while the push for renewable or green energy sources continues in many states here, they aren't always reliable. Tesla joined Erkot in asking electric vehicle owners not to charge their vehicles during peak time periods. And in June, the demand for energy reached a record in the state, and Erkot had said that

it wouldn't need to ask people to conserve. But that record was once again broken in July. At this point, the grid is holding up, and Orcott hasn't had to ask for any rolling blackouts yet. Well, let's hope that remains the case. Charlotte, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire's Charlotte Pence Bond.

The Los Angeles County government took another step this week towards removing its tough on crime and famously outspoken sheriff from office. The county's board of supervisors voted on Tuesday to approve a ballot measure that would ask voters to give them the power to oust the sheriff who has clashed with the board on a number of issues. Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraida Lorty is here with more details for us. So Marade, tell us about this move by L.A. County. Sure. So the ballot measure wouldn't remove Sheriff Alex Villanueva directly, but if passed by voters

in November, it would give the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors the power to remove a sheriff for cause, which the board appears poised to do with Villanueva. The board approved the ballot measure in a 4-to-1 vote on Tuesday. Supervisor Catherine Barger was the only dissenting vote, and she asked why the board was only targeting the sheriff specifically. Why is it just the sheriff? We've had indictments in all levels of government, unfortunately, in the county. Has the sheriff responded to this move by the board?

He has. Villanueva has actually been blasting the board of supervisors for days now. The sheriff said the move is a, quote, massive power grab by the board aimed at eliminating the few checks and balances in county government. Board is definitely tone deaf on this. Maybe they're just drunken with power and they just don't really care. Board Chair Holly Mitchell, who co-authored Tuesday's motion, denied that the board is attempting a power grab,

and she said the ballot measure would put the decision about Villanueva in the hands of the voters. This isn't a power grab by the board. This is a board responding to constituents we've heard loud and clear for the past couple of years. Now, as we mentioned, the sheriff has clashed with the board. What do we need to know there? Yes, that's right. Villanueva has found himself at odds with the board over several things. things. The board has accused the sheriff of not being transparent enough and complained that

Villanueva ignored subpoenas to appear before the county's civilian oversight commission. The board has to approve the ballot measure one more time before it actually appears on the ballot in November. If it does appear, we'll get to see whether L.A. voters trust the board and think it's time for Villanueva to go. Another key player here is L.A.'s district attorney, George Gascon, who Villanueva has traded barbs with, correct? Correct. Well, Villanueva has been a frequent critic of Gascon, and has blamed him for allowing violent crime to increase in L.A., calling Gascons approach a, quote, absolute disaster. For his part, Gascon has sniped back and was forced to apologize after he said about the sheriff,

quote, when you wrestle with a pig, you both get muddy and the pig likes it. Their opposition to each other is very public. When San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was recently recalled over his failure to control crime, Villanueva had a warning for him. George Gascon, you're next. Not exactly mincing words there. Now, what is the status of the recall effort against Gascon? Yeah, the ongoing campaign to recall Gascon, who's one of the country's most progressive DAs,

cleared an important hurdle recently. The LA County Registrar recorder announced that it will now check the authenticity of the more than 700,000 signatures that have been collected. All right, thanks for reporting. Thanks, John. That was Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allured. Other stories were tracking this week. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg

dropped the highly controversial second-degree murder charge against Jose Alba, the bodega worker who stabbed and killed a man who attacked him. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic leaders were detained Tuesday by Capitol Police outside of the Supreme Court for civil disobedience during an abortion rights demonstration. The Elon Musk Twitter trial has been set for October.

Earlier than Musk had asked for, but later than Twitter's preferred September date. Around 25 million children around the world missed their routine vaccines last year due to the COVID pandemic. That's according to UNICEF and the WHO. Gas prices hit a two-month low, falling just below 450 a gallon. Temperatures continue to rise throughout Europe as Britain hits another all-time high up 104 degrees Fahrenheit. A Law and Order crew member was shot and killed in New York City Tuesday by a man not affiliated with the show. The shooter is still at large. A pizza delivery man in Lafayette, Indiana is being hailed as a hero after he entered a

burning home and rescued several children. Now retired, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced this week that he will return to teach at Harvard Law School. Nancy Pelosi's office says the speaker had no knowledge of her husband's investment transactions. This after Paul Pelosi came under scrutiny for investing millions into a semiconductor company just before that industry was set to be granted billions of dollars in subsidies. Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and you stand with our mission,

please consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.