Election Lessons Unheeded?

Will Hurd:

So the 2022 election was about candidates. Candidates matter and the, the American people stood up and said, we want serious people to solve serious challenges. That’s the lesson we should take away from 2022. 

Robert Pease (Host):

Former Congressman Will B. Hurd is our featured guest this episode. A three-term GOP pragmatist from South Texas, and author of one of the best recent books on U.S. politics, American Reboot. Will Hurd is going to suggest what we should and should not expect from the next U.S. House session.  

Will Hurd:

Unfortunately, I don’t think that lesson is going to be learned and implemented going into this new Congress. Just like nobody listened from the lessons or accepted the lessons of the 2020 election, which was don’t be a jerk and don’t be a socialist. Right? 

Robert Pease (Host):

An honor and a privilege to have Will Hurd back on the show, as he was during our Texas mini-series earlier this year. I’m Robert Pease–

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

–I’m Dylan Nicholls–

Robert Pease (Host):

–and this is The Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of polarization. We’re tying up our third season with a discussion centered on the U.S. House, having discussed the U.S. Senate in our last episode with former centrist Senators Doug Jones and Bob Corker. 

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

Which was a really candid discussion. Bob Corker proposed that the Trumpian fever in the GOP, his own party, may finally have broken. And Senator Jones predicted that the Senate next session would be steady as she goes. But he said the House would likely be a source of gridlock, unending investigations, and worse. 

Robert Pease (Host):

Yeah Senator Jones’ expression of concern for the upcoming House was, and I quote, “who the hell knows?” We’ll see if Will Hurd knows. He was one of the most bipartisan members of Congress during his three terms and one of the most prolific legislators as well. 

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

We started off with a question about GOP factionalism. That’s rearing up even before the new session begins. As we record this, there are continuing challenges to GOP party leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid to take up the role of house speaker. That’s normally a straightforward election…  But when did we last have normal?

[Enter Will Hurd Interview Part 1]

Will Hurd:

Sure. And for your listeners, uh, Republicans are gonna have 222 seats out of the 435 in Congress. And the way the speaker gets elected, the Republicans and the Democrats, they meet, they nominate someone to be their leader. That’s just a plain majority of the people present. But when it comes to speaker, on the floor of the House on January 4th, every member is gonna have to stand up and say a name. But right now there are five Republicans that have said that they are not gonna vote for Kevin McCarthy, uh, for speaker. Now the fact that we’re having these debates even before the new Congress comes in is an indication of the kind of debates, the kind of problems that whoever the speaker of the house is, is going to have. And I also think that any Republican speaker is gonna have a difficult time getting Democrats to work with him or her in order to pass legislation. So despite the American people overwhelmingly saying, “Hey, split ticket voters really exist, we want y’all to get something done,” we’re gonna still see some of the hyper-partisanship that has influenced the House over the last couple years. And that’s unfortunate.

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

Yeah. Well, with the dynamics you just described there, razor-thin margins for Kevin McCarthy, um, you know, a real need for this next speaker to be able to work across the aisle. Is there any chance for a centrist compromise on the speakership with Democrats? Um, GOP moderate Fred Upton is a name that I think I’ve heard in the media before.

Will Hurd:

So, look, I think one of the reasons that Nancy Pelosi is sticking around is to see if she can, uh, upend things in the next Congress. Part of the conversation that’s happening now in Washington D.C. is, is Steve Scalise a compromise candidate? And would it be easier for one of those five that said that they’re gonna be a no to vote for Steve Scalise because they get a scalp? But you can bet that the Democrats are kind of coming up with a plan on can they pull, uh, five Republicans to vote for a conservative speaker? Now, that person would have a whole ‘nother set of challenges because for the Democratic Congress to deliver all their votes, there are gonna have to be some compromises, like probably a few committee chairs being Democrat, even though Republicans have the majority. So that scenario opens up a whole number of challenges, right? But here’s what the American public needs, the American public needs, whoever the next speaker to be, to push power back to the chairs of the committees so that the chairs of the committees can work with their committee to pass legislation. When this happened 20 years ago, what you would see is more bipartisan legislation. What happens now is that whoever the speaker of the house is, they basically write all the bills. And so they’re more interested in only talking to people within their own party rather than getting a coalition of the people that are willing to solve problems. That’s where we need to get to. And so this notion that Republicans and Democrats working together is a bad thing. It’s just, it’s nonsense, it’s absolute nonsense. 

Robert Pease (Host):

Yeah. So, well, a couple of general questions. We’re just wondering how is bipartisanship accomplished in the House, when it is accomplished? Granted, it’s very difficult, and it’s rare, but you have many examples in American Reboot, how you’re able to sort of humanize political discussions. So what would you say is a good, effective approach, let’s say for the Democratic leadership reaching out for GOP votes or vice versa, and what’s an ineffective one?

Will Hurd:

Sure. So I got, I think my number, I think I’m at 22. I think I got 22 pieces of legislation, uh, signed into law. That’s a lot in six years. Most people don’t get that number of pieces of legislation signed in three decades. And I did it in, in three terms. And here’s how I always did it. It starts with solving a real problem. Usually most of my legislation started with, I had a constituent that was having a problem. And because that one person was having a problem, you knew, you knew thousands or millions of people were having that problem. So I never started or introduced a legislation, even began crafting legislation unless I had a Democratic partner that cared about the same issue and that we were able to work and craft that legislation, you know, from the very beginning. Then after my first year, I realized, guess what? I need to make sure that I have a bipartisan pair in the Senate to help with that legislation and to work through any of the political issues with their own side of the party. So you start with that. Now, I also would start with, I built legislation through addition, not through subtraction. What do I mean by that? I would say, “Hey, here’s the one thing I want.” And then I’d find a Democratic partner and be like, “well, that one thing, that means I gotta add these two things in order to balance that out.” Okay, well I was like, “well those two things actually mean these other three things.” And then they said, “well that third thing is that, this other thing,” right? And so I started with one idea and then we built a piece of legislation that had seven things in it, right? So it was a win-win because we got more than what we wanted. What usually happens, someone comes out and says I want these one hundred things and then we reduce that by subtraction. And so you feel like man we left everything on the cutting room floor, and so you never feel like you’re able to solve problems. So, unfortunately, Congress uses that subtraction and, and that’s the problem. Also, I think people introduce things or talk about ideas that they know have no chance of getting passed. And so, if you are just introducing something, we call it a messaging bill, and so, so people that are focusing more on a messaging and delivering partisan talking points, that would probably be, unfortunately, probably a majority of members. And so that would be the worst way to propose something, is to propose something that you’re not even gonna try to work to get done. Um, when you look at, we were talking earlier about these debates over the next speaker of the house and the problems that Kevin McCarthy is seeing. One of the reasons is many of these people that are opposing him, they wanna see changes in how the House operates. So they don’t have to work and find partners to bring legislation to the floor. They want to be able to have their messaging bills on the floor that would probably get voted down because they want to be able to go back and beat their chest in their constituencies.

Robert Pease (Host):

Yeah, so Will, let’s talk a little bit about caucuses and how helpful or harmful they can be in this process. I believe you are part of the Problem Solvers caucus, a bipartisan group. Do you see that group gaining any influence in a closely divided House? 

Will Hurd:

Yeah, and I can’t give you any in-depth analysis of how that happened, but if you look at a handful of people, like when I said candidates matter, you look at like an Abigail Spanberger from Virginia. Um, she’s a Democrat from Virginia. She was discussed as someone who was likely to lose in a red wave. Um, she was able to survive. One of the reasons she was able to survive is ‘cause she showed an ability to solve problems and get things done. And, look, so the caucuses, I would say that probably 30 years ago the caucuses had a bigger impact, um, because these caucuses were building and writing legislation. What makes the Problem Solvers unique is that it’s the only caucus that has Repub–uh, that’s not true. They have Republicans and Democrats that are focused on whatever legislation is coming through the House at the time and to have impact. And so in a very divided Congress or House, anybody who has swing votes matters, right? And so if there are going to be 10 or 20 Democrats that are willing to work with Republicans to pass legislation, they could potentially have a huge influence in this Congress. And you saw that in some of the legislation under this current Congress with Speaker Pelosi who had tight margins. But it’s also gonna require, well here’s what you’re gonna see. You’re gonna see Republican leadership of the House criticized for working with Democrats rather than the far right of their party. So this problem of partisanship still works in.

[Exit Will Hurd Interview Part One]

Robert Pease (Host):

We’ve been speaking with former three-term moderate GOP Congressman Will Hurd from the 23rd District of Texas. He’s predicting hyper-partisanship will be on full display in this next session of a closely divided House leading into a presidential election year. 

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

And that reminds me of our season 1 interview with Jason Altmire as well, a former three-term Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania and author of a great book called Dead Center. Altimire was rated the most bipartisan member of the House during his tenure from 2007 to 2013. He came to Washington to legislate and expressed frustrations really similar to Will Hurd’s:

[TPP Archival, Jason Altmire S1Ep7]

Jason Altmire:

Well, who has the upper hand is the partisans. You almost never see the aggregate voting record of a member cross over into the territory of the other side. And it used to be 30 years ago, about a third or more of both Republicans and Democrats would frequently cross over and vote with the other party. And there was this very strong centrist mix in both the House and the Senate. Today that’s gone. It’s not there at all.

Robert Pease (Host):

And when you have divided government, such as the GOP controlled House and Democratic controlled Senate & White House that we’ll have these next two years, makes progress on the most complex and important issues really difficult. We talked to former Congressman Hurd about several of those issues, such as funding for Ukraine and climate change.

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

And also immigration. I asked the former Congressman about that massively polarizing issue. It’s one that hits close to home in his former District 23, with 800 miles of border along Mexico, and huge influxes of migrants streaming across into South Texas.  

[Enter Will Hurd Interview Part 2]

Will Hurd:

Well, Dylan, thanks for getting my blood pressure up early in the morning. <laugh>. Um, this is one of those issues that is near and dear to me and, and, I’m super frustrated with because, like he–here’s the root problem. Both Republicans and Democrats would rather use the issue of immigration as a political bludgeon against each other than solving the problem. So there have been a number of pieces of bipartisan legislation. I was involved in one, I helped craft a thing called the USA Act. Uh, the USA Act addressed DACA, addressed border security, addressed immigration judges, and addressed the root causes in places like the Northern Triangle where we were historically, we have seen most of the illegal immigration coming from. So, we had north of 230 votes. All you need is 218. And we, we had a sense, I think we were at about 58 in the Senate and we think we could have pulled off the other two if the legislation would have passed the House. A Republican speaker prevented that from happening. But guess what, when a Democratic speaker came in, she didn’t pick up the legislation and move it either. And because it goes back to my first point, people would rather use this as a political bludgeon. The likelihood that we see any kind of immigration reform happen in this new Congress, I think is low. And that’s primarily because we have to get this current crisis under, under control. And that starts with not treating everybody as an asylum seeker. And look, I’m for, like we should solve the DACA problem. These young men and women have been contributing to the United States of America for their entire lives. They should have a permanent legislative fix to their situation. We should be streamlining legal immigration. Even now with the economy as bad as it is, um, the number of industries that are needing people is still fairly significant. And we should be addressing some of these problems overseas because it’s a fraction of the cost to solve the problem overseas then before the problem gets to our borders. And so we know what those solutions are. Again, it goes back to we need leaders that are willing to explain these solutions, uh, not just fear monger, but also solve problems. And, and look, we need voters to vote in primaries, right? Only 23 percent of the country, of the eligible voters in the country vote in primaries. Even though, you know, we see around 60, 65, 67, 68 percent of Americans vote in general elections. We need more people voting in primaries so that we get good candidates that are willing to actually solve problems.

Robert Pease (Host):

Yeah, and it makes, uh, tackling really big issues so difficult. One of those issues is, is climate change. Uh, we’d like to play a clip from Senator Jones, again a centrist Democrat in the Senate, about some of the problems he had with far left rhetoric from his own party and how it made things more difficult for him.

[TPP Archival, Doug Jones S3E24]

Doug Jones:

You know, I would cringe sometimes when I would hear things like defunding the police, when I would hear things about the Green New Deal, which is kind of a made up kind of thing with a whole bunch of aspirational things without any real goals and plans to get there, that I knew people were gonna push back on. Every time I heard the word Democratic Socialist, I would cringe ‘cause I knew how people react to that. And so, yes, I think it did hurt Democrats.

Will Hurd:

When you have kind of these extreme views in the, in the national conversation, it always hurts, because why? Because now people have to address the extreme to say, “Hey, I don’t believe in that really extreme view.” I have to start with, uh, you can’t just start with your own opinion. Just look at what Doug Jones had to do. He had to talk about, you know, defund the police is a bad idea. He has to address that extreme principle. And so when it comes to climate issues, the extreme climate extremists and climate deniers are causing the same problems of getting anything done to address this problem. You know, within my own party, I always remind folks, I’m like, even oil and gas companies talk about climate change is real, right? Like, what, what are y’all, you know, why are you saying that it’s not real and not something, uh, we should address? But then you have the extreme environmentalists that say you can’t use something like nuclear. Like, we’re not gonna be able to solve our energy challenges without nuclear energy being part of the mix. So you’re absolutely right that these extreme positions get in the lexicon. But also, here’s what happens. The media, who plays an important role in, in educating the population and, and being the fourth estate, they focus and deal with those questions. And so those are the only questions you get asked. Right? And so, look, everybody knows that I’m like, listen, we should have, we can address, uh, the issues of climate and keep an economy going at the same time. We can do both. But whenever I got asked questions, it would be like, is climate change real? And this nut said this thing, you know, respond to it. And so you were never able to have a positive conversation and put out ideas because you’re always having to address the crazy stuff that’s out there.

Robert Pease (Host):

Yeah, and likewise Will, another important issue for people in Ukraine obviously, but worldwide in support of Democratic values. That’s going to be debated in the next House and Senate. But we do see extreme voices on both sides questioning continued support. We talked with Bob Corker, former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He thinks despite those voices that support for Ukraine and their resistance effort will continue. We wonder as a former CIA officer, what do you think the prospects are for continued support?

Will Hurd:

So the United States of America should be doing absolutely everything in our power to help the Ukrainians win this war. And when I say win the war, that means push the Russians out of all of Ukraine, period, full stop. Not just get back to February 24th lines, push them out of all of Ukraine. And the Ukrainians are showing the will to fight and to be able to do that. And the sooner we help the Ukrainians do this, the better off it’s going to be for the entire world. I would probably agree with Senator Corker’s opinions. I think when it comes to this issue, um, especially in the House, you’re gonna still see broader support. But the debate is going to be messy and you’re gonna have a lot of people and you’re gonna see, look, you’re gonna see the far left and the far right, probably working together in opposition to something like that. I say that the, you know, a political continuum is no longer a line. It’s a horseshoe, and the edges are closer to each other than they are the middle. And so I think you’re gonna see, and I think President Zelensky and some of our European friends are gonna be concerned with some of the debate and rhetoric that’s happening over the next few months. But in the end, I do believe that America will show its continued support to the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government.

Robert Pease (Host):

Yeah. Well, let’s hope so. We do wanna play one last clip from Senator Corker. Again, as you might remember, he was one of the early targets of President Trump when Trump came into power. Corker had been very vocal in his criticism of Trump’s foreign policy positions and approach early on in 2016, 2017.

[TPP Archival, Bob Corker S3E24]

Bob Corker:

But it appears to me that, that the fever has broken and it appears to me that there’s gonna be an all out debate, a real serious debate in the Republican side of the aisle as to where the party is gonna go in 2024.

Will Hurd:

Look, so for me, I’m part of a, you know, I help a, a political organization called Future Leaders Fund. At Future Leaders Fund, the goal is to find and help reasonable, rational, thoughtful Republicans win in primaries. And can Donald Trump be beat in a primary? Absolutely. And, and part of that is, you know, has the fever broke? Yes. Can he still win? Sure. But I think people recognize he’s had a string of losses. Donald Trump lost the house, he lost the Senate, and he lost the White House. It wasn’t stolen. He lost it. He lost it because he showed an inability to increase the Republican brand or his brand with the largest growing groups of voters. And so nothing, that has not changed, it’s only gotten worse. And so it requires us to, it’s gonna require the party to do some of that soul searching. And unfortunately, too many people still in the party, they fight the war of the past, not the war of the future. 2016’s a long time ago, okay? And so I, I, look, I’m of the opinion that the greatest nation that has ever existed on this planet shouldn’t be run by two octogenarians. That, that shouldn’t be our, our choice. Right? That we should have somebody in their prime. And, and I’m, and I’m not being ageist, but this is, we have serious issues that we’re gonna have to deal with and we need, we need serious people. So, he is not gonna be the force. Um, he’s still gonna have an influence, but he’s not gonna be the force that he has been. And we’ve already seen that force, uh, waning over the years. 

Robert Pease (Host):

Any last observations, uh, that you would like to impart that we didn’t necessarily point to from the election or for the next Congress? Uh, you know, divided government is never pretty.

Will Hurd:

Look, it’s never pretty. But it was designed, our system was designed to be hard. Our system was designed to prevent wild swings from going back and forth. And ultimately the challenges that we’re gonna have to face within the next two years. We have an adversary in the Chinese government that is trying to surpass us as a global superpower. And as an authoritarian government, they can move all factors of production in that direction. And in order to meet that challenge, we’re gonna have to have real debate, real competition of ideas and working together, right? Bipartisanship is not a four letter word and we shouldn’t treat it that way. And so there are opportunities in this upcoming divided government. And if people don’t like what happens, they have a choice and they have a role and they can do something about it. And what they can do about it is vote in March, April, May, June, July, August in those primaries to make sure we have good candidates come outta Republican primaries and Democratic primaries as well.

[Exit Will Hurd Interview Part 2]

Robert Pease (Host):

Former Congressman Will Hurd, there cautioning us not to expect great breakthroughs on major issues in the next legislative session with a divided Congress. And also spreading the gospel that we’ve shared on the Purple Principle many times: congressional polarization is a direct result of our party controlled primary system. 

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

Though, we should say Rob, the great state of Alaska did break that party control this 2022 election with open unified primaries and ranked choice voting in the general. And that ended up re-electing the moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski and the centrist Democratic Congress Member Mary Peltola. So the center may not be holding nationally, but it may be in Alaska. 

Robert Pease (Host):

If you’ve not heard Dylan’s reporting on that topic, please check out our Alaska mini-series:  episode one on Alaskan political culture, and episode two on test driving ranked choice voting.  Alaska was one of the less polarized bright spots in this 2022 election.. 

Dylan Nicholls (Co-host):

And we should also say a major ballot measure passed in Nevada that sets them on a path towards less polarizing elections as early as 2026. That’s also covered in our most recent Ranked Choice Voting episode. 

Robert Pease (Host):

Stay tuned in Season 4 for more on these really difficult but important efforts to fix our nation, starting with that big red vs blue crack that runs all the way through it. Huge thanks to Will B. Hurd for educating us on the U.S. House of Representatives, the recent past, the present, and the not so promising future this next term. Thanks to all our Season three guests as well as our listeners for tuning in this year. We’ll be taking a two month break now to develop Season 4 of the Purple Principle. Which you can help by supporting us on Apple subscriptions, and by sending your suggestions for polarizing or preferably depolarizing topics in your state or district. You can reach us via social media or our website, purpleprinciple.com. Happy Holidays from Dylan and myself and the whole Purple Principle team at Fluent Knowledge. Senior Audio Engineer Kevin Kline, consistently making us sound better than we really sound; Senior Producer for Audience Engagement Alison Byrne and Digital Strategist Emily Holloway, they very likely helped you find us in the first place within the vast sea of media out there. The Purple Principle and also our wellness podcast My Body Odyssey are Fluent Knowledge productions; original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.