The NPR Politics Podcast - Scramble To Redraw Congressional Maps In PA, Avert Another Shutdown In DC

Episode Date: February 6, 2018

The stock market had another volatile day Tuesday, but recovered some after its record 1,175 point drop on Monday. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania have until the end of the week to completely redraw the state's congressional districts, after the state Supreme Court ruled that the current map violates the state's Constitution. And there are just two days left before the federal government runs out of money - again. This episode, host/congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith and congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Chris calling from beautiful and cold Minneapolis, where my Philadelphia Eagles just won the Super Bowl. This podcast was recorded at Tuesday, February 6th at 1235 p.m. Things might have changed since then, but one thing that didn't change was that the Eagles are world champions. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage on the NPR One app or on your local NPR station. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the show. President Trump had touted the stock market as it rose, so what happens now? And here's something you've heard before and will probably hear again.

There are just two days left before the federal government runs out of money. Also, the Supreme Court is staying out of a Pennsylvania court opinion that could affect the midterms. Now, state lawmakers there have until the end of the week to completely redraw Pennsylvania's congressional districts. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress as well. Sue, thank you for coming down from the Criscode pole on Broad Street in Philadelphia where you've been the last few days. And thank you for not punching a police horse while you were at it.

I did tip a Prius and I won't apologize for it. Fair. But Scott, are you excited, too? You have a lot of Pennsylvania connections. I think Sue's more excited. She grew up in Philly, right? Yeah. I sent these to Scott, but my brothers, who are just, like, maniac football fans, after

they won the Super Bowl, they sent videos to the family of them, like, losing their minds. And then my favorite one is my other brother, who is is just like, he's a big burly cop, right? Like he's like a big tough guy. And he sent a video and he was like, every time I think I'm done crying, I just start tearing up again, like a total emotional mess. So their reactions to the Super Bowl win have been like, have brought me a lot of joy this week. All right. So I guess we could talk about the Super Bowl for a while. but we have some other news to talk about. And I will just say that yesterday afternoon, around 3.30 or so, I was sitting at my computer in the newsroom, very focused on trying to finish a story and kind of realizing people were hour, and I realized that around me, the stock market had been dropping more than 1,000 points.

At one point, almost 1,600 points, and the newsroom was reacting as a newsroom does. But this was a pretty wild day yesterday. And, Tam, as the stock market was really tanking yesterday afternoon, President Trump happened to be giving a speech. So some awkward split screening. Yes, and completely unrelated events. However. However, split screens exist on cable news. Yes. And and for a long time, President Trump's speech was there with this box in the corner showing the Dow going down, down, down, down, down. And then eventually all three of the cable

networks, including Fox News, cut away from his speech entirely and just went wall to wall on the markets. So I mentioned that this was, in terms of the raw numbers, the biggest single day drop ever. Of course, the stock market had been at record highs. So as an overall percentage, this does not make the top tier of market meltdown days. Before we get into the politics of it, what's the big picture view of what we should make of a couple of days in a row of big drops in the stock market and another volatile day? Today, we're not sure how it's going to end out, but that coming after just records set month after month after month. Here's the thing. If you were born a year ago, you would think that the stock market only goes up.

However, what goes up comes down and goes up again and comes down again. And over the long arc of our history, the markets have risen. And in the last year, they've risen at an incredible pace. But markets are volatile. That is a thing. So the saying is the markets are not the economy. Repeat it again. The markets are not the economy. And sometimes the markets do totally crazy things that are completely unrelated to anything. And sometimes the markets go way down because the economy, the fundamentals are not good. But right now, the fundamentals actually are pretty good with the U.S. economy. But for President Trump, he has repeatedly touted the stock market like it was the entire economy over and over again, pointing to the fact stocks were setting record levels. I think we have a couple of different times of him saying that even in the last few weeks. Yeah. So I was looking around for examples of it

because he does it all the time. He also tweets about it all the time. And going back to January 18th, he was speaking at the H&K Equipment Company in Pennsylvania. And he said this. Pensions and retirement accounts are surging in value

as the stock market smashes one record high after another. How many people have 401 s here? You're brilliant investors. I've had people come up, sir. My wife thinks I'm the most brilliant investor, because I made 42 percent in the last 10 months, and that's pretty good. But people are happy. Anybody unhappy with

the 401k? I don't think so. Right. Well, we can keep it like this. We're going to win a lot of elections that I can tell you. It's something. No, it's something. It's the economy, stupid. Did you ever hear that one? It's the economy. well and making the argument that the big tax bill passed in December played a big role in that, saying the economy is doing well, you have more money in your paycheck, and the Republican Congress is the reason why. So this feels a little off script for that argument. Yeah. I mean, the stock market volatility we've seen this week has almost nothing to do with the president, right? Like it's they're not related. The reason why is because the president and even before he was president, when he was a critic of

former President Barack Obama, would also attack President Obama when the stock market would dip and say it was his fault. And in the course of his first year in office, when the stock market was rising, he always took credit, right, for the stock market going up, even though those two things were also often not related either. So the question is, if he associates his brand and his administration with the health of the stock market, if the stock market starts tanking, how do they respond to this? I don't know if the course corrections of the market come election day, if everything's fine, this week of volatility doesn't really matter. But you're right, Scott, that like the broader Republican argument in the midterm election year is one of economic revival, that the Donald Trump administration is the story of the American

comeback story. It's about jobs. It's about rising wages. And if the realities of the economy don't back that up, that it's going to chip away at the central Republican argument for why they should hold their majorities in Congress this year. Do we have any idea why the market is going down? Because, you know, I've been reading press release after press release of big corporations talking about what they're doing with all the extra revenue they have because of the corporate tax cuts, whether that's bonuses to employees or expansion. I mean, it seems like there has been a ton of good economic news. Right. And just to be clear, again, the markets are not the economy.

And on Friday, the monthly jobs report came out and it was really quite good. There were 200,000 jobs created in the month of January and wages were growing. And that is good news for the economy. However, the analysis on Friday, and I don't like to ever read too much into like what the markets are thinking, because I think some of that is just BS. But the thinking on Friday was, oh, gosh, wages are rising. The tax cut is coming. That's going to, you know, put even more juice into the economy. We could get inflation, rates could go up, the Fed could have to raise interest rates, that could be bad for

corporations. So it's actually this totally crazy thing where the fact that wage growth was happening could have actually prompted some of the sell off. Also, you know, think about what most Americans relationship with the stock market is. Most of us aren't day traders, you know, paying attention to every high and low. What most of us do when they say things like an 1100 point drop, where do you go look? 401k. You go look at your 401k. If you remember your login. in their retirement portfolios. And on that kind of a drop, if you log into your account, and if you're seeing your 401k go down and down and down, which is something a lot of Americans are familiar with, because it happened not that long ago in the financial crisis, that is something that inspires fear in sort of everyday Americans, right? And that

you don't want to have that kind of fear happening going into an election year. Though, again, it's still way higher than it was this time last year. But I think emotionally, we work that way. We freak out more about a thousand point loss than than any thousand point gain. So the last question on this, as we've talked about and as we've heard, President Trump like to tout every good day. What has the White House been saying since things have been not so great? Yeah. So the last time President Trump referenced the amazing stock market and all the wealth that has been created since his election was February 1st.

The stock market has added more than $8 trillion in new wealth. That was Thursday. Friday was a bad day in the markets. Yesterday was a bad day in the markets. And yesterday, the White House put out a statement saying the fundamentals are good. The president is focused on the long-term fundamentals of the economy and not the daily fluctuations of the markets. All right. And again, we are taping with about three hours left in today's trading. So none of us have any idea

what's going to happen. So I guess you tell us when you hear this. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we are going to talk about the fact that Pennsylvania lawmakers are scurrying to completely redraw the state's congressional districts. And are we going to head to another government shutdown? We'll find out yet again. We are on the clock. Hey, this is Ken Jennings from Jeopardy. And this is John Roderick from the band The Long Winters. Twice a week, we're adding a new entry to The Omnibus, a time capsule for the future where we preserve fascinating stories from ouropardy. And this is John Roderick from the BAM The Long Winters. Twice a week, we're adding a new entry to The Omnibus, a time

capsule for the future, where we preserve fascinating stories from our weird world. Don't wait for the apocalypse. Check out Omnibus today. Okay, we are back. Pennsylvania lawmakers have a busy week ahead of them. They have until Friday to draw totally new congressional districts.

The state's governor has until February 15th to okay or veto that map. And this comes after the state Supreme Court ruled the current maps are overly partisan in Republicans' favor and violate the state's constitution. State's constitution is important there. We should say the court is controlled by Democrats, so Republicans are saying that's equally overly partisan. Either way, the U.S. Supreme Court decided yesterday to let that ruling stand, which means the clock is now ticking. And incumbents and challengers are running for Congress right now with a filing deadline in a month or so, having no idea what district they live in or what their district looks like. And Scott, you've been covering this.

I have. And shout out to being a longtime Harrisburg reporter and parachuting back in. How did it feel? Felt great. Good. Good. Yeah. So this seems completely crazy. Like that's not very much time to completely redraw congressional districts. And like what is what is the new goal? Yeah. So the state Supreme Court ruled on this a couple of weeks ago, setting these deadlines. So it wasn't as crazy a deadline as it is now. But Republicans control the state Senate and the state House by pretty wide margins. And they've basically been in a holding pattern saying, we're going to appeal this.

We're going to try to get the U.S. Supreme Court to hear our case and stay this. And we're not going to do much until we hear back from them. They were also waiting because the state Supreme Court issued this ruling saying the maps are unconstitutional, but never actually put out a full statement explaining their arguments. So they were waiting for that, too. And then yesterday, Samuel Alito is the justice who decides whether or not to take up these appeals. He rejected it, mostly because the ruling is based in the state Supreme Court. So the U.S. Supreme Court didn't really have too much to say in that area. So, yeah, the lawmakers have until Friday to do this. The governor has

about another week to accept it or reject it. And even if they're all on the same page, the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by Democrats, may just write its own map in the end. So, Scott, is it Republican lawmakers redrawing maps that a Democratic governor and a Democratic court need to OK? Yes. So it's kind of a 50-50 state, but the districts are not 50-50? Yeah. And that's what Democrats complain about a lot. And I think what's interesting here is that Democrats have been complaining about gerrymandering all over the country, saying that this is

something that Republicans have done to give themselves an advantage. The fact is both parties gerrymander when they can. It's just 2011 was a year where a lot of Republicans were in a position to totally write the maps themselves. And Pennsylvania was one of the states where you have a lot of congressional districts that are clearly drawn to pick off Republican voters here or there. But that argument that it's a 50-50 state and the delegation should be more reflective, it also has to jive with the reality that it's a 50-50 state, but the bulk of the Democrats live in two specific areas of the state, and that's Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Is the bottom line, though, that Democrats stand to gain a more favorable map out of this process? Definitely. But the question is, how much more good does it do? I mean,

Democrats were already looking at the Philadelphia suburbs as one of their prime targets in the midterms this year. There's four districts that they think they can really compete in. And Democrats are saying with a new set of maps, they feel like they can pick up as many as five, maybe even six, if things go really, really well, seats in Pennsylvania this year. That's a really high goal. Republicans are really skeptical. But, you know, when a wave year comes, especially if these districts are being tweaked on the margins to make them more Democrat friendly, you could see how it could happen. That would be like a quarter of what Democrats need to pick up nationwide to win back the House. Yeah. Again, this is very over-optimistic Democratic goals being said in January and

February. But the clear national trend is that Democrats feel like the biggest gains are going to come in the suburbs all across the country. You know, you see the polls in the suburbs. You see what's happened in suburban districts and in statehouse races. And they feel like these are the places they want to focus. And you just happen to have a bunch of Pennsylvania Republicans hanging out in these districts that look like they could go well for Democrats. So the other crazy thing going on with all of this, and Sue, I'm curious what you think, is that, so this is an 18-seat delegation.

A full one-third of it is already leaving for one reason or another this year, which is a pretty remarkably high number, even in a year that's seeing a lot of retirements. It is. And something also that is helpful to Democrats, although I do believe one of those retirements is Democrat Bob Brady, who represents the city of Philadelphia. But open seats are more competitive. So the less Republican incumbents you have defending their seats, the higher the opportunity goes there to make them competitive. It is worth noting, though, that not all of those people leaving did it by choice. There's a special election right now that, Scott, you've reported on outside of Pittsburgh for the seat of former Republican Rep. Tim Murphy and another open seat, Pat Meehan, who's a Philadelphia area guy who also left over allegations of sexual harassment. And the fact that Meehan's gone might give these map redrawers a little bit of flexibility because they now have a sacrificial lamb district to give them some room to play with because they don't have an incumbent there fighting for his turf.

Right. Actually, the delegation has all of the flavors of not coming back to the House, right? You have resigned in disgrace. You have I'm running for Senate. You have I'm just sick of this and want to leave. You know, check, check all the boxes. I might be under federal investigation. Check. So so that's what's going on there. And I think the bottom line is it's interesting because Democrats have made redistricting such a big messaging focus over the last couple of years and such a point of complaint and saying that this is what's wrong with the political system. And this is probably the only place where they're going to have a

chance to actually do something about it this year. You do have Wisconsin and Maryland cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, but they're probably not going to rule until June, which is most likely far too late to change any maps in the 2018 cycle. And Maryland is a case of Democratic gerrymandering, isn't it? Yep, it is. Yeah. And that's an argument that Pennsylvania's state Senate majority leader was saying when he was making the argument that you can take politics into consideration. He said, look, there's weird shaped districts in Maryland, too. You know, it's not just it's not not just Republicans. It's always more unfair when the other party is doing it. All right. So so one last thing. Here we are yet again, two days or so away from a government funding deadline. Sue, the argument points haven't really changed here,

right? There's still no deal for immigration, still nowhere close to a deal. There's still no long-term funding agreement. So what's different this time? I think I speak for everyone who's had to invest any amount of their brainpower into covering these stopgaps that it's getting a little tiresome, isn't it? A little bit. A little bit. No, you're right. I mean, we are, again, in a very similar situation in which we do not have either long-term spending agreements or any resolution to what's going to happen with immigration. The thing that's different this time, and this will be the fifth stopgap spending measure that Congress has needed

to pass since September to keep the government running, is that there is less of a mood in the building this time that there's another shutdown threat imminent. I think that there was a feeling that the last shutdown didn't really advance the ball and there isn't a lot of appetite to redo that again. House Republicans are aiming to pass a resolution on their votes alone that'll keep the government funded until March 23rd. It has more money for defense in it and a couple of health care provisions to sort of sweeten the pot. And notably, one thing that's in there is it includes about $90 million for the IRS, which is an agency that Republicans over the past decade or so have dramatically reduced

funding for. But since they passed their tax cut legislation, they need to give the IRS a bunch more money to help with implementation of the law. So they're going to get a $90 million infusion eventually when they resolve this to help people file their taxes this year. Does that mean they've stopped trying to impeach the head of the IRS? For now. For now.

And they're not starving the beast anymore. It's amazing. They're feeding the beast. So yeah, so they're going to do that this week. But again, what the endgame is, I don't know. The Senate is not going to pass that resolution. They're not starving the beast anymore. It's amazing. year. And that will give them a little bit of breathing room to start this debate on immigration. There has been no real progress on immigration. If anything, it feels like it's either stalled or taken a couple steps back. And if Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, makes good on his promise, if they pass this February 8th deadline with no more immigration, you know, no progress on immigration, he has said, hey, the Senate's going to start an open debate and we'll

see what we can get on the floor. And I asked the White House, somebody from the White House today, like, oh, will you guys be involved with that? Would you be trying to craft that or shape it? And the answer was like, yeah, we really have no idea how that's going to work. And neither does anyone that we talk to up here. Kelsey Snell, our other congressional reporter, and I have been asking senators, like, what does that look like? How do you start debate on a bill that none of you can agree on, right? Like, what is a neutral bill in this immigration debate? So it's really unclear how that will go. And I will also say, as someone who's covered Mitch McConnell a long time, he doesn't really just open up the Senate floor without a game plan for how to end it. So I don't know where that goes. But there is a huge push in the Senate to have this fight.

There are at least half a dozen competing immigration ideas out there. The White House obviously would like the Senate to have as a starting line their proposal. We don't know if that can even get the votes to start debate on it. But I think as soon as we get past this stopgap fight, we're going to pivot pretty quickly to yet another round of pretty heated immigration debate in Congress. Because there is a deadline. There's like a real deadline, this March 5th deadline. There is a real March 5th deadline. There has been some question over whether that March 5th deadline, which is arbitrary to the extent that that is what the White House, what President Trump declared would be the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program

when he announced in September he was going to phase it out. A court order has put an injunction on that saying you can't just phase it out. It's being tied up in the courts right now. Senators I've talked to and lawmakers I've talked to said they still believe that March 5th is the operational deadline, that the Department for Homeland Security has told lawmakers that they don't have a lot of wiggle room on that date. And even if there might be, in reality, a little bit of flexibility because they're fighting this in the courts, the at least operating view up here is that March 5th really is a deadline to try and give some certainty to what happens to the DACA program and the people affected by it. So the funding deadline is the end of the day Thursday, but a lot of the House Democrats are leaving town tomorrow morning for their annual retreat.

So they have, in theory, they should be able to resolve this by tomorrow afternoon. No one's been able to explain to us yet how they do that. But, you know, stay tuned. I feel like I'm just sitting here sort of chuckling because, you know, it's always darkest before the light, but it just doesn't seem clear how this all resolves. Right. They always say Congress has two paces, lightning and glacial. All right. So I think that is a wrap for today. At least that is everything we know at this point to talk about for today. We will be back in your feed Thursday. Will we be talking about another government shutdown? Will we be talking about yet another short term deal? Will we miraculously be talking about a long term funding deal? We will find out. In the meantime, you can keep up with all of our coverage on NPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook and your local public radio station. And another reminder, if you are in Cleveland or around Cleveland, we're doing a show on February 23rd at the Ohio Theater at Playhouse Square. You can learn more and get tickets at NPR Presents dot org. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Do you love trivia, puzzles, nerdy games, and humor? What about interviews with actors, musicians, and people from all walks of life? Yeah? Then join me, Ophira Eisenberg, host of NPR's Ask Me Another, every week on the NPR One app and wherever you listen to podcasts.