Up First from NPR - U.S. Politics, Oregon Drug Law, Iran Elections

Episode Date: March 2, 2024

The latest in U.S. politics, from presidential border visits to an averted government shutdown. Oregon's state legislature votes to recriminalize drug possession, overhauling what may be the U.S.'s most progressive drug policy yet. Thousands vied for a seat in Iran's parliament on Friday, but voter turnout was low.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Dropping aid in Gaza, border visits, the Supreme Court and the Senate minority leader. It's been a busy week in U.S. politics. So don't go away. We've got all the important updates. I'm Scott Simon. I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News. From hoping for a ceasefire in Gaza to dropping aid there instead. What's America's influence in the Middle East like now? At home, a U.S. state may end its decriminalization of many drugs.

Oregon's state legislature just voted to recriminalize possession there. And it was Election Day in Iran. Thousands competed to fill the country's parliament yesterday. Including the powerful so-called Assembly of Experts. So, who looks victorious? Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend. Now Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future.

Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. Border visits by President Biden and Donald Trump, the Senate Minority Leader, and the Supreme Court. And Peer Senior Washington Correspondent and Editor Ron Elving joins us to review the week in politics and preview the one coming up. Ron, thanks for being with us. Good to be with you, Scott. President Biden began the week by saying he hoped for a ceasefire in Gaza. By Monday, he has ended the week without that prospect and says the U.S. is going to drop aid to hungry people there. What does it say about U.S. influence in the current conflict? It says our power to bring even a temporary pause in this war is quite limited.

We can try to bring the warring parties together, and we have, but both sides still seem determined to achieve something they want by force of arms. Talks are expected to resume on Monday in Cairo when Ramadan begins a week after that. There's hope, but we also have the fallout from what happened this week when a crowd came to meet an aid convoy. Accounts differ, but at some point, Israeli soldiers started shooting. There are reports of more than 100 dead and hundreds wounded or injured. The U.N. Secretary General is calling for an independent investigation. U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in April about Donald Trump's claims that as former president, he's immune from prosecution. What are the implications?

Enormous. With this added delay, the case may not be resolved before November, and that would leave an unprecedented question hanging over the election. That's why Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the high court to take the case last year, assuming that the justices would want to have the last word sooner or later. But the court said, no, then the Circuit Court of Appeals should rule first, they said. Now the appeals court has ruled unanimously and resoundingly rejecting Trump's claim of immunity. The Supremes could just let that ruling stand, but instead they're going to hear the case themselves seven weeks from now and rule on it sometime after that, maybe by June.

Both President Biden and Donald Trump visited the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday. Ron, what do you make of the fact that according to Gallup, the number one campaign issue for 2024 is not the economy, inflation, crime, racism, the war in Ukraine, abortion rights, or the budget deficit, it's immigration? The percentage saying immigration went up from 20% to 28% in one month. That's a lot. That suggests the economy must be doing better. Inflation must be coming down. And all those other issues are just a little less salient at the moment because immigration seems to be a worsening problem or certainly a more prominent one in the news.

It's also the issue generating the most visual sense of crisis. So we are all seeing lots of video depicting a difficult situation as out of control. How naive does it sound for me to ask you, Ron, what are the prospects for a bipartisan deal on immigration enforcement? In one sense, it's not naive at all, Scott. The Senate has, in fact, reached just such a deal thanks to a 50-50 bipartisan group of senators who worked on it for weeks, months, really, this winter. It embodies compromise, and yet it could create the toughest border regime in generations. But of course, actually doing something about the border would take the edge off the issue politically this year. So Trump has made it clear he's against it,

and Republicans in both the House and Senate have now blocked further consideration. Mitch McConnell stepping down as Senate Republican leader in November. What do you think he'll be remembered for? He'll be known as the longest-serving leader in either party in Senate history. But he himself says his greatest accomplishment was keeping President Obama from filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court in 2016. McConnell would not even allow hearings on that nominee. That not only allowed Trump to fill that seat, it also allowed him to campaign on filling that seat, and it gave religious conservatives a reason to vote for him.

The three justices he was able to appoint, as a result, have since overturned Roe v. Wade and half a century of abortion rights. Super Tuesday, Tuesday. What are you watching? Just the delegate totals. These 15 states voting on Tuesday will do what the early voting states did, pile up delegates for Biden and for Trump. The only real suspense concerns what Trump's last challenger, Nikki Haley, will do next. And Piers Ron Elvin, thanks so much for being with us on a busy week. Thank you, Scott.

Oregon State Legislature has voted to recriminalize drug possession. And the governor has indicated she's open to signing the bill. Dirk Vander Hart with Oregon Public Broadcasting joins us. Dirk, thanks for being with us. Hey, Scott. Begin by telling us, please, what's in this the bill. Dirk Vander Hart with Oregon Public Broadcasting joins us. Dirk, thanks for being with us. Hey, Scott. Begin by telling us, please, what's in this new bill. Yeah, well, there's a lot in the bill. I mean, the reason you and I are talking about it is because of one specific piece that would make possessing small amounts of drugs

a crime punishable by up to six months in jail. That is a stark difference from the law Oregon has operated under since 2021 when drug possession became a violation similar to a traffic ticket. But, you know, this is not merely Oregon reverting back to the old days. The Democrats who wrote this bill insist they're putting forward a sort of kinder, gentler approach to criminal justice. The bill offers drug users the option of avoiding a conviction if they agree to seek treatment. And even when people are put in jail under the bill,

they could be released in order to participate in drug treatment. The other major thing the bill would do is expand access to addiction services for drug users in Oregon, which I think many people see as the most important piece. Oregonians voted to decriminalize drug possession in 2020. Already, right now, there's an overhaul. What happened? Yeah, I mean, I think a couple things. You know, the first is that the system envisioned under that ballot measure you mentioned has been very slow to emerge. This was based on the idea that addiction should be addressed with health care rather than police and jails. But Oregon stumbled when it came to creating the treatment

services that were necessary for that to happen. The second thing is that decriminalization really coincided with a growing fentanyl crisis. That's led to a surge of overdose deaths here. It's created public disorder, things like open drug use on the streets of Portland. That has convinced, I think, many people that things aren't working. And some of the state's richest people have begun backing a ballot measure to end decriminalization. That, I think, put a lot

of pressure on lawmakers to act, since many of them thought that measure would be harmful. Was there opposition? There was. You know, this has been a very hard-fought debate here, and I think an extremely tough call for many Democrats in particular. One senator said yesterday there are hard votes, harder votes, and then there was this vote. But lawmakers wound up supporting it anyway. Republicans have wanted to end decriminalization for years now. They argue criminal consequences are necessary to fight addiction. Democrats have been far more wary, as I say, but in the end, I think they were moved by the threat of that ballot measure. And meanwhile, advocacy groups and some drug treatment providers have been very adamant

that this decision is a mistake for Oregon. They believe the state is retreating back to a failed war on drugs, and they can credibly point to numbers that suggest it will be felt disproportionately by people of color. What happens next? Well, the bill moves on to Oregon's Democratic governor, Tina Kotek. She doesn't like to show her cards when it comes to bills. She hasn't done that entirely at this point, but she has, as you said, she's open to signing it. I think she's widely expected to sign it. Assuming that happens, there are big questions

about how this new law will mean going forward, what it means. You know, criminal consequences would kick in in September. The state estimates show that they are likely to funnel more than a thousand people into the criminal justice system every year. That is certain to create issues in Oregon, which has a pretty severe public defender shortage. And I don't think it will just be the courts. You know, this is a brand new system that would be implemented here. I think everyone expects it could get a little rocky. Dirk Vander Hart with OPB, thanks so much for being with us. Yeah, it's my pleasure, Scott. Thousands vied to fill Iran's parliament during Election Day Friday. But voters seemed to ignore calls to turn out.

And here's Peter Kenyon is following the story of her missed on bull. Peter, thanks for being with us. Hi, Scott. How'd the voting go? Well, the official statement is everything went fine, no problems. Turnout, however, seems quite low. Iran has long argued that its regular staging of elections is itself a sign that it is in fact a democracy, an argument long dismissed by Western officials and other critics.

Here's how Iran's English-language press TV channel framed the election before polls opened. Top Iranian officials say huge turnout in the elections will give the country great advantages in the international arena. The leader of Iran's Islamic revolution has also emphasized that people's participation in the voting will make friends of the nation happy and will disappoint the ill-wishers. But voters showed no inclination to make the government happy. Calls to boycott the vote, they began to surface well before election day, and many Iranians apparently decided to heed those calls. And the results being described as possibly a record low turnout were waiting for the final figures. And this continues a trend of declining voter participation in past few years. Even as recently as 2017, President Hassan Rouhani was

on the ballot then. Some 70 percent of eligible voters reportedly turned out. That's how most Iranian elections used to be staged. High turnout was normal. Not so much these days. Rouhani, by the way, was among those candidates blocked from running for the Assembly of Experts this time. Peter, what's being said about the low turnout? Well, critics, of course, say it's a public repudiation of the cleric-led government. And this vote was held after a rocky period. This was the first election since the death in 2022 of a young Kurdish Iranian woman, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Iran's morality police. She'd been picked up for

allegedly wearing her Islamic headscarf improperly. Her death sparked massive anti-government protests in what was deemed the biggest public challenge to the government since the Islamic Revolution back in 1979. Now, this time, ahead of this election, top officials, including the Supreme Leader, including the President, tried to exhort the electorate to turn out in large numbers, apparently with liberal effect. Now, the parliament's really not that big a deal. It's not a heavyweight player in politics in Iran. But the vote is a sign that the country's leaders want to do what it takes to keep the country on a hardline conservative course. And how is that conservative course likely to play out in the

days ahead? Well, it will likely maintain Iran's general hostility to the West. That was probably never in doubt. But it could also have an impact on future leadership of the Islamic Republic. And that is coming back to this assembly of experts, one of those uniquely Iranian bodies. Ayatollah Khamenei's term as supreme Leader runs until 2032, at which point he will be 92 years old. So it's entirely possible that these clerics being elected to the Assembly now, they will be the ones who select Khamenei's successor or Iran's next Supreme Leader. And here's Peter Kenyon in Istanbul. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, Scott. And that's up first for Saturday, March 2nd, 2024. I'm Aisha Roscoe.

And I'm Scott Syme. Danny Hensel produced today's podcast. Our editors are Hadil Al-Chalshi, Shannon Rhodes, Ed McNulty, Ravenna Koenig, and Don Clyde. Andrew Craig directed the show. Our technical director is Carly Strange. And we've also had engineering support from Misha Hynas and Phil Edfors. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Sarah Lucy Oliver is our executive producer. And Jim Cain is our deputy managing editor. Tomorrow on Up First, climate change is causing irreversible damage to the Everglades. Is it too late to save it? For more news, analysis, interviews about books, music, and entertainment, and just plain fun on these weekends, you can always tune to the show we call Weekend Edition.

You'll find it on NPR, of course. And you'll find both me and Scott, so you want to hear that? Find your stations at stations.npr.org. Well, they want to hear you. They put up with me. No, no. They want to hear both of us, Scott. Both of us.