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speaker-3: Yeah. Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds. The host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're joined as always in the studio today by Jeremy and Brennan, our fantastic crew. And our first guest up today, we're very excited to talk to Jonathan Butcher. He is the acting director of the Center for Education Policy and Will Skillman, Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. You can follow him on X at JM underscore Butcher. Jonathan Butcher, welcome to the program.
speaker-1: Thank you, great to be with you.
speaker-2: So Pres the Trump administration has scrapped or had given new Title Nine rules. Can you talk about that briefly? What he's done and how it's worked. Restored them restored them originally. Will you talk a little bit to our audience, explain what happened?
speaker-1: Yes, 'cause it it can be a little bit confusing because of what happened during the Biden administration. So if you remember, going back to twenty twenty, the Biden administration tried to change Title IX, which is part of the Civil Rights Act, the education amendments of nineteen seventy-two, and replaced the idea of sex, male and female, with sexual orientation and gender identity. And he issued a rule. And so that's what you do when you can't get enough support in Congress to do something is you try to change it via rule. And so he tried to adjust it that way. And as soon as he issued Biden, that is, that attempted change, it was taken to court. And there were lawsuits filed, there were governors as well as superintendents of education around the country who said, We're we're not gonna apply the law this way. I mean you've you have distorted ⁓ what is a meant to be protections for women. And then he did something else. A couple months later, he introduced another attempted rule that would allow boys to play in girls sports effectively. Also a part of this Title IX adjustment that he was trying to make. So all of those things wound up in court. ⁓ that was not resolved technically in court by the time that the Biden administration was finished and when Trump came back to Washington. And so what the education department did is they said, Well, we're not gonna defend the lawsuits that are ⁓ that the Biden administration was fighting. So they simply let them expire, essentially, or let the ruling stand. And they had to wait for those lawsuits to to finish, run their course. And now what the Trump administration has been able to do is to say we are now going back to Title IX as it was in 2020 with its rules and regulations. We're back to sex. We're not going to deal with this quote gender nonsense. And it has brought us back to where we were, to a time when facts mattered, right? Male, female, that's what ⁓ Title Nine is is is meant to do.
speaker-2: When one plus one meant two.
speaker-3: Yeah. Jonathan, one question I have, 'cause I you're talking about this sort of tug of war of executive orders that is become all too common in the country in place of legislation, is the conclusion of the court cases setting a type of precedent that may limit a swing back to gender as a basis in the future?
speaker-1: Well, I I think there's always the possibility. ⁓ you know, look, one of the things with education ⁓ and federal policy is that administrations will use quote dear colleague letters or ⁓ issues of of ⁓ proposed regulation each time they come into office. And ⁓ the look the Obama administration did this with student discipline. I don't know if you remember way back in twenty fourteen. And that of course led to a ⁓ essentially a watering down of disciplinary standards that ⁓ played no small part in what happened at Parkland in Florida in 2018 and the and the murder, like the killing of of 19 teachers and students down in Florida. So that came from a dear colleague letter. So all of this means that ⁓ we just have to be vigilant ⁓ when it comes to these regulations each time a new administration comes into office.
speaker-3: Well, and I've talked to a lot of teachers in recent years and the the Democrats obviously like to make it about money going to the schools, right? But when you talk to these teachers, their biggest complaint is discipline in the classroom and hallways and the fact they are not allowed to enforce it in any really meaningful way. And in a lot of cases, they're sort of running scared. I mean, it's you've devolved some of the nation's toughest high schools into ⁓ you know, prison gang environments.
speaker-1: Yes, and there have been surveys that have shown teachers are seeing more acts of disruption from students, especially coming out of COVID. ⁓ we've seen, of course, higher rates of student truancy, but also teacher truancy. And I think that some of it could be related to these ⁓ essentially this disorder in ⁓ many public school classrooms. ⁓ so I I think we need to be ⁓ looking for policy makers to support teachers taking each incident as it occurs, using judgment about how to discipline students. Because what was happening before, what was happening under the Obama administration and how this all got watered down is that this concept of restorative justice was inserted into the education system. And, you know, we can talk about the history of restorative justice. It's in my book that I wrote last ⁓ December. ⁓ but the long and short of it is that it doesn't punish students based on what they've done. And it ⁓ essentially has students have a a circle where they sit and talk about the incident instead of students facing consequences. And that w that means that students feel like they're free to you know, to to act out however.
speaker-3: Yeah, if there's no consequences, why change your behavior?
speaker-4: Let's talk about
speaker-2: Precisely. You brought it up. Let's talk about your book. Let's get a plug for it. And explain to our audience what is restorative justice. what is it? And why is this not good for education?
speaker-1: Sure. So ⁓ my book that came out in December of last year was called The Polarization Myth, America's surprising consensus on race, schools, and sex. And I had a company, I I contracted with a company to do a nationally representative survey on a host of hot button questions. And one of the questions that I had ask to the general public as well as to ⁓ my sample of parents was do do you want restorative justice used in the classroom? And ⁓ it turned out that it was kind of split down the middle. And it's that to me said that people don't really understand what restorative justice is. Correct. It was developed as a way to deal with prisoners in the ⁓ incarceration system. Right? It was an effort for those that had been convicted of a crime, that had say either stolen goods or had committed ⁓ arson or destroyed property. they would actually go and repair what they had done. Right. They they would go and either they would repay the money, they would fix what was broken, they would perform some sort of act of service that would, as the title implies, restore, right, ⁓ the damage that was done.
speaker-3: had no idea that was the background. That's fascinating.
speaker-1: Well, it's been twisted in this world of critical race theory and sort of racial preferences so that instead of actually asking students to do anything, alright and again, remember this was designed for the prison system. This is not designed for K twelve's
speaker-4: Well that's nevertheless.
speaker-3: I if I if you don't mind me interrupting you, that's I think what I find most fascinating. I did not know that history of it and and it makes sense. Restorative justice in the context of a prison setting makes sense because they're already being punished, there's already discipline being applied. Right. And you want to try to get them in a position to re enter society as productive people who aren't going to reoffend. So it makes sense in that environment.
speaker-1: Exactly. Exactly. And then, you know, i if you drop it into the K twel system, what it became was instead of disciplining students based on their behavior, you would have students sit across from their accuser or f across from the person who wronged them. And they would sort of have an apology session or a struggle session over what happened, right? They would have a conversation. They call some of these restorative circles. Yeah. Right. And the long and short of it is that you're you are not levying consequences. And so the the original purpose of restorative justice has been perverted, it's been contorted, it's been made misshapen and fit into the K-12 system. And so now you're not disciplining students. And that means that teachers don't have the final say. And that I think is what's most troubling, right? You're ⁓ not allowing teachers to have control over their classroom.
speaker-2: Which which teachers want. You hear teachers here in the Phoenix area quitting because of unruly students. ⁓ we're with Jonathan Butcher. He is at the Heritage Foundation and he has written a book called The Polarization Myth, Splintered. ⁓ he's also at the Goldwater Institute, and you can find him on X at JM underscore Butcher. Jonathan, when you wrote the book, The Polarization Myth, what surprised you? I mean, I we always like to ask authors, you're writing something, what is something you had an aw moment on? Or you learned that you didn't know or just completely surprised you?
speaker-1: Well, so when you write a book about a survey, one of the things you have to explain is that, you know, a survey is a snapshot in time. Right. Right. You're taking a picture at a moment of ⁓ a particular ⁓ set a a a ⁓ gr a consensus, right? Or a a general line of thought. And ⁓ as I kind of researched and read about how you explain what a survey is telling you and what it means, it was interesting to me to realize that surveys are important as we develop policy, right? It is it is important to know you know what the general public feels or or better yet, what they know about a particular circumstance. and if you get a result that you don't like, which you have to and you have to be ready for that, right? If you get a result that didn't think was coming, you've got to be able to s explain, you know, what are some possible reasons for this, right? None of it, of course, maybe conclusive, but it you've got to be able to ⁓ persuade Right, or have evidence for ⁓ that result that you didn't anticipate. So I'll give you an example. ⁓ I I got ⁓ clear results when it came to asking ⁓ my respondents what they thought of racial preferences in higher education. There are a number of surveys over the years, I mean, dating back, we're talking thirty plus years, that have asked people, you know, do you want racial preferences used in college admissions? Commonly known as affirmative action, but I'm gonna call it racial preferences because that's what it is. And ⁓ people didn't like it. They I had a a sizable ⁓ majority that that didn't want racial preferences used. Now, when you s change the question just slightly and say, do you want DEI used in colleges? My numbers were actually pretty close. It was actually a little more divided, closer to not quite fifty-fifty, ⁓ but it was a little not not what I would have expected. And I think the reason is because people don't know what DEI really is. They don't know what it is and they don't know what it does.
speaker-2: I think they believe they think it's supposed to sound good. They probably don't even know what the abbreviation DEI stands for. So I think you've been told this. How can you be against this? Right? That's what you're told, right? Yeah. We got one minute left here, Jonathan. Go ahead.
speaker-1: So that's exactly right. And so I think ⁓ once people are informed of what DEI actually does, then they begin to develop this understanding that no, I I don't support racial preferences. And so we have to be able to connect DEI in the theory with the outcomes that people have opposition.
speaker-3: Fantastic. Jonathan Butcher, we're gonna come back with more from you in just a moment here. We want to get into ⁓ the scorecard, the education ⁓ report card that the Heritage Foundation just put out and definitely get into that a little bit. I I'm always happy to see Arizona do well in any ranking. I'm selfish that way, folks. Breaking battle rounds will come back in just one moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battle Rounds. We're continuing on now with Jonathan Butcher, Acting Director of the Center for Education Policy, and Will Skillman, Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Folks, you can follow him on X at JM underscore Butcher. One of the reasons we brought you on today, Jonathan, was to talk about the Heritage Education Freedom Report card, which just came out. ⁓ tell us a little bit about the basis for that. What makes for educational freedom?
speaker-1: Well, certainly there are rankings that you can find from, you know, any number of outlets that will say, Here's how much a state spends on education and they'll give they'll rate that as success. Or here are the average scores.
speaker-3: They rate that as a success despite the fact that student results are almost no different anywhere in the country. I mean the the deviation is really limited.
speaker-2: Right.
speaker-1: Well, and the trends are the same with with few exceptions. The trends are what's so troubling. those those downward trends in third in fourth grade reading in particular, ⁓ as well as in math, are are pretty consistent. ⁓ but now our report card asks a different question. Our report card says ⁓ where do we want students to be and what policies are gonna t is it gonna take to get us there? And ⁓ we measure that by f the freedom given to parents. ⁓ so Arizona, as you as you mentioned before, does quite well. And I think this may be the fifth year in a row that Arizona has is really nipping at Florida's heels when it comes to ⁓ the number one ranking, both overall on the report card as well as in our school choice category, because we have five categories that we use to come up with our rankings. ⁓ we school choice, which is the most heavily weighted of our report card, because that we believe is is the an essential part of any reform. Transparency, so can parents see what their children are being taught? ⁓ are parent rights protected ⁓ in the school system? We have return on investment. So with every dollar spent, how much does it cost to move, you know, one what are you paying for that additional point on the nation's report card? ⁓ civics ⁓ is ⁓ one of our new additions from last year. And then teacher freedom. ⁓ what what sort of ability do teachers have to move from state to state? But also for professionals to leave the workplace and enter the teaching workforce without having to go through the a teacher college or take a praxis test.
speaker-2: ⁓ let me go to civics for a minute. So Sam and I work for the Joe Foss Institute, which really kicked off and we put the plan together for these civic require civic civics. We started that and that was the plan. Why is civic education so important for our high school students?
speaker-1: Well, let's take the Mississippi miracle as a case study. We should all be celebrating that fourth graders in Mississippi are doing so well in reading. Correct. We should be celebrating that Mississippi has climbed its way up, right, from the bottom when it comes to fourth grade reading. When you get to about eighth grade, ⁓ you start to see that the scores are about the same as elsewhere in the country. Suddenly the distinction isn't Isn't quite there as much. And why is that? Well, the reason is that K-12 schools spend a lot of time teaching skills how to read or how to do addition. we need to impart knowledge, right? We need to be giving students knowledge with which they can build stacks of information on that will prepare them to be ⁓ prepared for high school. to be successful in college or the workforce and then certainly when they enter, you know, what you would call the real world, right? To be participating members in society. And that's gonna come from a solid basis of knowledge and civics is at the core.
speaker-3: You know, I I said at the time in an interview it it about the importance of civics in terms of this country. our government is not a minivan with an automatic transmission and eight million electronic safeties. Our government was designed for people who are highly engaged, educated, and understand the system. It is a manual transmission sports car with no, you know, with nothing but basic brakes. You gotta know how to run it and teaching people that. I think is absolutely essential to continu the continued success of the American experiment.
speaker-1: Well, I agree I agree completely. I mean, I would go even further. I mean, look, we ha if we're honest with ourselves, our founders were counting on Americans being people of faith who based virtue on their faith. Yes. And they they that's w they believed that a representative government was only gonna work if you had a culture of faith that was ⁓ interested in the being virtuous and they they based the reason for that virtue on their faith. And we have now really departed ⁓ from that. I mean, I I think people might be shocked to know that, you know, if you go back a hundred years, it was very common to find ⁓ Protestant ideas taught in public schools. It was pretty standard, right? And ⁓ you know, obviously there was a a sharp divide over Catholic ⁓ schools and whether or not Catholic you know, Catholic ideas should be taught. Setting that aside, it was it just wasn't the same, I think battle that we have today where there's just a fight to even mention the Bible in school as a as a historical document. And look, I'll let me just go a step, you know, what one more, one more step here and say some of the most important literature that students are going to be exposed to throughout high school and into college has biblical connotations or a basis to them, even if they're secular books. And so if we're not teaching young people Just the basics, right, about the Judeo wist western tradition, ⁓ we are neglecting them.
speaker-3: Yeah. Absolutely. And I I would add something else that you don't I think the left always takes this as okay, you're you're talking about you have to believe in God. I don't think faith in this context is a belief in God of any specific Bible, but it's in a belief in human truths of mor morality and inner foundational interactions between people based on a lot of those traditions, right? You I think we kind of gotta get over the idea that there's one path to morality, but I also think there are core principles we have to embrace as a society.
speaker-2: I agree. Jonathan, ⁓ I wanna go back to the Mississippi Miracle, we'll call it the Alabama Miracle. You know, the South seems to be doing well in these going back to the basics. How much have teachers unions try to push back on this when they first started? Did they do a fit?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's really remarkable to me. ⁓ I mentioned this in my polarization book that ⁓ yeah, there actually was an effort by unions to block the reintroduction of phonics into teaching instruction, especially in places like California. They actually lobbied against the bill. Yeah, it is crazy. Like that that to me i is remarkable. It's remarkable to me what teacher unions decide is important to them because they certainly
speaker-2: That would have
speaker-1: Are not interested in students most of the time, right?
speaker-2: They're interested in this. They're interested in this for them.
speaker-3: Cash.
speaker-1: Yeah. They're I'm not even sure they're interested in their membership very much. They spend very little money on the conditions or the working conditions of teachers. They spend a ton of money on politics, ⁓ very little actually on the working conditions of teachers.
speaker-3: Well, one of the one of the dirty secrets of the teachers' unions is they're basically captive of the the ⁓ administrators union because they all want to get up into those higher paying jobs. I mean, they work as a a as a collective essentially, but the fact is they have exactly polar i in any normal world, those two groups would have very different priorities.
speaker-1: Yeah, certainly when it comes to what the working conditions you know, what the expectations would be, because it's you know, you're gonna have something different from teachers slightly than administrators. But ⁓ like you said, these are special interest groups that are interested in their slice of the pie when it comes to ⁓ somebody else's money ⁓ in K twelve education.
speaker-3: Jonathan Butcher, thank you so much for joining us today. We love having you on the program. Definitely look forward to get you back on here in the near future again. this is obviously a topic Chuck and I care a lot about. ⁓ should everybody should. Yeah, absolutely folks.
speaker-2: Everybody should Now we know what restorative justice is. I feel like I can take on the weekend now.
speaker-3: It's a i that that blew my mind. I had no idea about that background. Jonathan Butcher, thank you so much folks. Breaking Battlegrounds, back in a moment.
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speaker-3: Well the silky tones of murder and mayhem are back, what do we got B?
speaker-0: Welcome. Okay, Kurt Cobain. Now this has been coming up a lot again, and I am just absolutely shocked with the fact they let this case be called a suicide back then. So
speaker-3: Rea wait wait, really?
speaker-2: Yeah, no the revisit.
speaker-0: Researchers reanalyzed it. Hasn't been officially reopened, but researchers reanalyzed it. They had a blood spatter expert, they had multiple forensic scientists researching it and so many things about this story just don't sit right.
speaker-3: Because at the time Courtney Love, his his girlfriend in the the lead singer of the band Hole said that that was not a suicide. The only one saying that.
speaker-0: She was right. And she was Yeah, I th a hundred percent right. They looked at perfect images of the firearm used and it was a long shotgun. He could not have, with the amount of heroin injected in his system, been able to hold that gun up and kill himself. And also the blood spatter was shown inside the gun, inside the barrel of it, but it was not on his hands. And if he killed himself, it would have been all over his hands. He also The syringe that injected him with that dose dose of heroin, that syringe was not located in his little drug box he kept with all of his other needles and those needles didn't match the track. And the track mark was also intermuscular. It wasn't through the vein which she normally did. So there's a lot of proof now, like kind of just connecting the dots of this this could be a murder. Wow. ⁓
speaker-3: Are are they pointing in any direction or like what are they
speaker-0: No direction yet, but just the cold hard facts of this evidence is showing it's this was not a suicide.
speaker-3: So there's an interesting theory I've heard that he and I forget the other singer who also died not too long afterwards were part of a a group that were objecting to like human trafficking type practices or something along those lines, ⁓ you know, with sort of high powered Hollywood types. Is there any I mean what do we know anything else? Yeah.
speaker-0: There are conspiracy theories about him knowing too much. Of course. What he was trying to expose and talking about the dark sides of Hollywood and how there's certain powers in Hollywood that don't like that, but that conspiracy theory is thrown around any time somebody dies in Hollywood. So it's like how much weight does it hold?
speaker-2: They always know too much.
speaker-3: Well I think I think part of that though was like the human trafficking or or child like child sex aspect of those came from partially the cover of their album. Right. Right. Right. Which had the little baby
speaker-0: had a little baby swimming. Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh.
speaker-3: Swimming on natural and like yeah. So that was not I i th I guess that's maybe where some of that comes from, but so they don't have any I like there's no suspects that they were looking towards or anything like that?
speaker-0: No, no. It Courtney for a little bit, but she was the one saying that it was murder. Right. She was the one standing by what she believed. Thirty years.
speaker-3: Yeah, I was gonna say that was what, ninety six? Yeah.
speaker-2: Yeah. I remember that being a very big story.
speaker-3: ⁓ it's huge. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, you were taught college.
speaker-2: high school then? College. Yeah. Yeah, it was a big story. Yeah. I mean we didn't have social media then but I do remember that blowing up.
speaker-3: Well, and and also, I mean, fur first that band came on, you know, like a thunderstorm. I mean it was instant and huge.
speaker-2: Gave Seattle that whole grun is it grunge? The whole grunge music scene.
speaker-0: ⁓ they built that. Yeah. They built that.
speaker-3: In and they had been a a Seattle band and a Northwest band for a number of years before they broke out and I mean it was one of those things where lightning in a bottle type thing, but it opened up vast new avenues in music. I mean it really incredible.
speaker-0: I mean the way he wrote too, it's just it people still look back at it today and it's just su he had such deep
speaker-2: It's amazing about yeah, you know, it's one of those things too. I wonder if he had not been killed. We'll call him killed. I wonder how big his legacy would be today because you know he had five hits in the top one hundred, so it wasn't like a constant top ten guy. ⁓
speaker-3: But they do that on like one hour. ⁓ without the drugs I I actually think it would have been. They were yeah, look, i I know we have a limited time left here, but if you haven't heard their ⁓ T V live ⁓ acoustic set that they did, mm-hmm, it is one of the greatest musical performances I've ever heard in my life. It is amazing.
speaker-2: Let's post that. Let's post that online. All right. Well well keep following up on this and let us know. I'm sure they'll reopen it. It sounds like some prosecutor who wants some fame's gonna reopen this thing.
speaker-3: Yeah.
speaker-0: I'll get that up.
speaker-3: Well it didn't it didn't hurt to reopen the Tupac ⁓ murder, so
speaker-2: See it happening. Hey hey.
speaker-3: They there was there was a lot of great artists falling off at that time. It was it was bad. All right folks. Breaking battlegrounds will be coming back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our last on air guest today, Dr. Lars Powell, serves as the executive director of the Alabama Center for Insurance Information and Research, located in the University of Alabama's Culver House College of Commerce and Business Administration. And he was recently involved in some research that's caught some national attention. A story came out email spam filters cost GOP fundraiser estimated $117 million in donations last year. ⁓ Dr. Lars Powell, welcome to the program.
speaker-4: Well thanks for having me.
speaker-2: So, you did this great story ⁓ about how Google and Microsoft ⁓ more or less are politically biased and their spam filters is preventing a you know, wide reach for these GOP and Trump fundraising emails. Explain to us what was your interest on this and how did you dis how did you discover this and how did you prove it? That's the point. I mean, I think most people hear this like, okay, these big bad guys aren't Republicans, but how do you prove that? Go ahead.
speaker-4: Sure. So th this is this is not something that I typically work on, of course. Right. Like a lot of people in the country, I'm sort of a amateur political scientist and ⁓ mostly work on risk management issues, but we we use a lot of the same math. And this this all started when I was ⁓ ha having beers with my good friend Cameron Ellis and we typically vote ⁓ for for the opposite candidates in in any situation.
speaker-2: And you're still friends. And you're still friends. No, yeah, which is a gold star for that to begin with, Lars. Go ahead.
speaker-3: Well, thank good thank goodness.
speaker-4: ⁓ yeah, he'll come around eventually to understand who he should vote for. ⁓ and and then then the con conversation will be probably less fun. But but as it is, we we were having this conversation one day and and we saw that that there was a spam interference. I think it was ⁓ someone reporting on the first New York Post article. And his his comment was something like, Do people really donate because they get an email? From someone they don't know. And then go on and I said, Well, I don't think they would continue to send all those emails. Yeah. If if it didn't work sometimes. And he said, Well, but but how much could it really be? And I said, Well, if if we can get the data on this, maybe we should write the paper. And so, you know, it's not something that we spend months and months on like we would for ⁓ something that our our universities encourage us to do. But this was kind of a fun little hobby project. And We were able to find the data. We we saw the video of of the guy at what was it called? Targeted victory, ⁓ sending the two emails, one with ⁓ win red link and one with ⁓ at blue link, and the win red link went to spam and the other one didn't, or or it had an alert on it. And so we just reached out to them and said, Do you have any more data on this? And they had this data set on which which emails went to spam and which ones didn't from a large set that they had that they had sent. So that was sort of the secret sauce to being able to look at how this all the other data is publicly available and ⁓ about how much people give on average and things like that. So so then we put this into a framework. ⁓ the the the only thing that that makes statistical work difficult is controlling for everything else that could Confound your result because there's a lot of ways you could find something. ⁓ you've got to narrow it down to being one reason. And that's always hard to do. And if if you read what some of the folks online ⁓ that have started to read the latest New York Post article have have been critical of us, but they don't have any better suggestions on on how we could have done it better. And they also don't say that we're wrong, they just say that we, you know, we used ⁓ I think Google or Gmail said that we used a deeply flawed measure. And I guess if I were them I'd try to say something like that too. I'm I'm not gonna say that they're they're lying in public because then they'll they'll look at my entire w web traffic history and emails and and I I don't want them to do that. But ⁓ what what ⁓ I would say if if someone else said they were just making that up, I wouldn't disagree with them.
speaker-3: I would say it, but yeah. ⁓
speaker-4: Yeah. Yeah, so so what we do is we look at ⁓ a it's called a triple difference, and that sounds like a a tricky thing to do, but all it's saying is we've got three different things that we qualify the results on in terms of how many first time donations are made. So it's before and after the filtering episode, which was what like June thirtieth for one of them and ⁓ sometime like a February. twenty fifth for the other episode. So it's before and after that happened is the first difference. The second difference is if it was a win red email or an act blue email. And the third difference is whether it was a new donor or a repeat donor. Because you would think that if someone's already given they have some trust in the ⁓ platform in the sender, yeah, the platform that send them the email. So once we difference all that out, we also take a number of other steps. To make sure that we're not picking up noise from somewhere else. And at the end of the day, we we calculate that there's less than a one in a hundred, about an eight and one thousand percent chance that our results are just random as opposed to something we find because there's a pattern in the data that doesn't otherwise it it's not something that's naturally occurring without ⁓ something happening in the background.
speaker-3: Now you're a data guy, not necessarily a tech guy, so you may not know the answer to this, but do you know if these are individually created algorithms by each of these email service providers, or are these is there another like one, two, three companies out there that provide the algorithm that all of them use?
speaker-4: So at one point we were told, and this was from conversations with the people we we reached out to for the data. And ⁓ that that that more than one, maybe all of the providers were using a company called Spam House, ⁓ is spelled H A U S the German spelling of house. It was a European company that was providing like a as a third party the spam filtering. And I guess that's pretty convenient if Yeah, I I I don't suppose that Spam House was doing anything they weren't asked to do or no weren't tacitly approved of doing, but is hey, we didn't do it, it was a third party. But it
speaker-3: It's also a a good legal protection for Google and those others because it's a German company. Yeah, in in a country that supports this kind of censorship.
speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓
speaker-4: Sure. And nobody uses them anymore. Coincidence. Yeah. Big big surprise there. Th there was another one, ⁓ S-U-R-B-L that that ⁓ Gmail used at one point. ⁓ I read in an article, and you know, that they say we didn't do anything wrong, but we're changing everything that we're doing. You tell me what that means. I I think that ⁓ w we're just kind of doing what I think is a a good empirical job of isolating the effect of some sort of shenanigans in the background on on the number of gifts given. Then we do a back of the envelope calculation of how much that cost. And we get $117 million over eight months, which is which is not chicken change when you've got some some pretty close races going on. And ⁓ I'll I'll leave it to readers and viewers to determine if what what what they want to believe about this, but ⁓ I would just say this is some evidence that shouldn't be ignored.
speaker-3: No, a hundred percent.
speaker-2: So have the party committees reached out to you and asked you to explain more of the research you've done? Have campaigns reached out? I mean, who what's been the follow up since this has come out and you've been quoted?
speaker-4: Nothing. I mean so the you you guys called and and here I am. I I had a little bit of time. I've I've got to run to the airport in a few minutes, but ⁓ we we got a a follow-up call from the the New York Post reporter. ⁓ obviously he he did a a piece on again, this this isn't something I do that this isn't my job. It was it was a fun little beer bet with a friend and and then we put it on SSRN for fun and
speaker-3: Well no.
speaker-4: We get this ⁓ we we get a little bit of a response. It's it's kinda neat, right? It's ⁓ yeah. It's not the fifteen minutes I want. I'd I'd rather be be getting a Nobel Prize in Economics, but if ⁓ if if if if you're gonna get some attention for something, this one's at least kinda funny.
speaker-2: Well, I I think what's interesting about it, years ago I worked in a venture capital firm and they put me on a project I knew nothing about and the managing partner said, Ignorance is bliss. I just need fresh eyes on this. D do you feel like because you do you know, you're a data person. Were you able to look at this different because you had f fresh eyes that you weren't ingrained one way or another. Did you find do you find that type of ability to walk into something, sort of the ignorance is bliss, helpful when you're doing research, but you're just trying to find what the answer is?
speaker-4: Well, I I think that we use the same set of tools that a political scientist would use if they do empirical work. Mm-hmm. So it might be that that we take a slightly nuanced approach, but ⁓ I I believe that we're probably using the same tools and that our approach is very similar to what one of your ⁓ top academics in political science would have done if they had chosen to do this. ⁓ and my my co author is is the ⁓ is the better statistician between us and and actually did all this ⁓ did most of this data work and and didn't want to find this outcome on it. So I I think that ⁓ to call what we're doing I y you can say that we're wrong and then try to prove it, but you can't say that we're biased. Right. That again this was ⁓
speaker-2: Right, right.
speaker-3: Two friends having some fun. I love it. Yeah. Before we let you go, would you mind? I I I want to ask a couple of questions related to your your actual ⁓ your day job here. as the executive director for the Alabama Center for Insurance Information and Research, I are there policies because obviously insurance kind of has been coming in and out of the news as a major concern for a lot of folks, costs rising, all these things. Are is there are there a couple of policies that you've identified in your research that you think would make a statistically measurable difference to reduce insurance rates for consumers?
speaker-4: ⁓ yes. ⁓ yeah. Ask ask me this question. This is this is like ⁓ yeah, ⁓ I'm ⁓ now now we're getting somewhere. And and you're in you're in California. Is Arizona, okay. Well then you don't have quite as as much of a football bat as of a regulatory system as no as ⁓ some of your neighbors. But yeah, so ⁓ don't build flimsy houses in dangerous places and then be surprised when they burn down or blow over.
speaker-2: Arizona Phoenix. Yeah.
speaker-4: we've got building codes and they're not very well written because they're political and they're not very well enforced because they're a repeated game with no incentives for success. But what we found, we've done something in Alabama where we build fortified homes that are verified by independent third parties for the construction using a lot of technology. And and what we've found in some very rigorous studies is that they resist hurricane wind, they resist hail. They reduce losses by like 75% in a strong category two hurricane and they make insurance affordable and available for people. And if if we had started doing this in if if everywhere had started doing this in the nineteen eighties, as the housing stock turns over, we really wouldn't have problems today. And so we've got the technology now. And people say that's not a solution for right now. But it's a solution for ⁓ w we're ten years into this in Alabama and we've got a quarter of the roofs and the of the ⁓ of the single family housing roofs in our two coastal counties are now at this fortified standard. And if you've got a fortified house, you can live right on the coast, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach. You can buy your insurance from ⁓ the the same insurance companies that that advertise during football on the weekends instead of some ⁓ numbered account at at Woods of London that you've never heard of and and don't really know ⁓ necessarily what you're getting. So we think it's a really smart thing to do. We I am you know this this is what I do day in and day out and I can tell you that it's very inexpensive difference to build to a slightly stronger standard. We're talking about spending maybe five percent more on the construction or re-roofing of homes or on where you ⁓ choosing where you place a home so that it's not directly in the path of of what's obviously going to be a fire in a valley and you can save lots of money. You can get rid of a lot of these problems, but no one's wanted to to accept that. That's always been a fight that people been fighting. And now finally the cost of insurance is catching up. and it's not like insurance companies are making a bunch of money, but they've got to charge that they're not it's not their job to lose money either. Right. So right yeah.
speaker-2: It's it sounds a little like the three little pigs, the house made of straw, the house made of sticks, and then the house made of brick, right? And you're saying if you want to lower your insurance rates, get a brick house. Don't do straw and sticks.
speaker-3: And we're doing these like eight and twelve story stick built things that are a nightmare.
speaker-2: You know, ⁓ Jonathan, we want to get you back on for a segment here soon, talk about insurance. I I I that's the one complaint I hear all the time from people. My insurance has gone up thirty percent. What can I do? Why is it expensive? And if you would be willing to do that, we'd love to have you on and just say, This is why.
speaker-4: All day long. ⁓
speaker-2: We'll get you on.
speaker-3: Awesome. Thank you so much, ⁓ Dr. Lars Powell. We really appreciate having you on. I we found a great conversation at the end of this one. We weren't planning, and I really enjoyed that one. And absolutely right, Chuck. We're gonna continue on with that. Folks, if you're not downloading the podcast, you need to be doing that. We have a fantastic interview coming up with Cena Kerr. She is the ⁓ lieutenant governor candidate in Arizona. The first time Arizona's had a lieutenant governor ⁓ coming into office. So it's gonna be fascinating. Breaking battlegrounds back.
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speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-2: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host Chuck Warren and we are here with former state senator Sena Kerr, who is running for lieutenant governor with Andy Biggs. Yes. So how is it on the big stage?
speaker-5: ⁓ my goodness. It is very exciting. Yeah. It's great to be out all around the state. The incredible support and enthusiasm is is just phenomenal.
speaker-2: Are you a person that likes to go out and meet people? Does it energize you or do you go home at night and say, Husb honey, rub my feet? What are you what
speaker-5: It completely energizes me. And and Andy as well. Like we might be dragging a little bit after our third or fourth event and we get out there and it's it is so energizing and exciting and we just yeah, keep crushing it out there.
speaker-2: So you have a bunch of kids and grandkids, how are they liking the experience?
speaker-5: It i they're used to it now since I you ran for the Senate. So ⁓ the adult well and the grandkids they were little. The oldest is now fifteen. He was six when I started running in the state Senate. And so they're used to it and they're used they call me Lala. There's twelve twelve of ⁓ seven boys and five girls. And so they're used to it and and they they understand, you know, what my mission is, why I'm doing this and Just as I was leaving this morning the little three year old she says, Bye Lala, I'll see you when you get back
speaker-2: So I have two grandkids and I tell people the only reason you have kids is to have grandkids.
speaker-5: Well, I I ⁓ I wouldn't argue with that.
speaker-2: Well we're so glad you began. Now you have a debate Monday night which Mesa former Mesa Mayor Giles is not showing up at, which is seems to be the Democrat standard this year.
speaker-5: Unfortunately, I mean what a what a disgrace ⁓ to them and what disrespect and disdain to the voters. They deserve to hear from them. Well yeah.
speaker-2: And it's really surpr what I am convinced if you and Andy had decided to not do a debate, all hell would have broke loose.
speaker-5: Absolutely. It absolutely is. And then you know you see the media stepping in to be, you know, ⁓ her her voice and her surrogate. It's just awful. And ⁓ people don't like it across the aisle and across the board. They don't like it, they don't appreciate it and and they keep saying we've got to mandate that there is ⁓ especially at this at the you know, we're talking to the about the state executive. Exactly. Chief executive that absolutely the people need to know What they stand for, defend their record, ⁓ and no, it's indefensible.
speaker-2: She can't defend it. Let's use let's use an example. So she has a commercial which is so dishonest about Andy and increasing your taxes twenty three percent and that she was the champion for all these tax cuts, these Trump tax cuts. Tell her audience how she's misleading them.
speaker-5: It's terrible. So she took a federal so a bill that was in Congress and it was the the ⁓ I can't remember what the tax act ⁓ that it was called. And so that would have eliminated the RRS, it would have elimin eliminated capital gains, inheritance tax, your federal payroll taxes. They they don't mention that. ⁓ which the all those taxes would be close to forty percent on the average American and drop it down to twenty three percent. And so let's not let's not tell the whole truth, let's just be deceptive and that seems to be her her operating Yep. Yep. And and people ask me all the time, can't can't we sue, can't we stop that? And it is ⁓ really horrible that that's your campaign strategy to buy and lie through a governorship to ⁓ get into the reelected. So it's it's really terrible for
speaker-2: So she's claiming all these tax cuts that she was a leader on and trying to take credit for. I I find it interesting I live in L D four and I would not know there's any Democrats in that race. They are running purely as chamber republicans. And she seems to be trying to do the same thing. And as I tell donors all the time who they ask about Andy and you, and they said, What do you think their chances are? I said, If people know what Katie Hobbs actually represents
speaker-5: Yes, absolutely.
speaker-2: what she actually believes and they understand her vetoes. There's no way the state of Arizona would vote for her. But the press is covering for her. So let's talk about has she been successful on water? ⁓ Tell us what she's done. She tries to claim she is, but tell our audience how has she filled the state of Arizona with water?
speaker-5: No. you know, in so many different ways. I was chair of our natural resource energy and water committee in the state Senate and trying to work with her people i i it was just horrible. ⁓ they do not work in good faith. They don't understand I don't know I mean they would have radical environmentalist at their meetings and and they had one on the governor's water policy council that was just a sham. They're not even water users and yet they want to dictate what water users actually do. And so, you know, and then she doesn't show up when it's crunch time on the Colorado River negotiations. That takes executive ⁓ engagement at that level. T it's so critical. And she knew from day one. And no, I don't either. It's very
speaker-2: I don't think she understands it. In fairness to her, I don't think she understands it. I'm not sure she has the capacity to understand it. What would your your term in office, how would the Biggs ticket handle water? What would we do to prepare for the future?
speaker-5: Yes, no, we we would show up. We would be actively engaged right from the get-go, and that's critical. ⁓ we also, you know, understand that water policy in Arizona it is complex, so you have to look at it from a variety of ⁓ yes, absolutely. It it will take moving forward, ⁓ creative solutions, getting, you know, augmenting water from outside the state, working on infrastructure. We have millions of acre feet of stored water. We need to be able to pull it up, treat it, and get it distributed where it needs to go. We will look at the great bills that she vetoed. ⁓ and ⁓ there was a package of water bills that went forward this session and she's well they're not a silver bullet. There isn't. It takes all of it. All of it to make our water ⁓ our whole portfolio and our water future secure. That's why we we are in as good a shape as we are, because for years we've been great on water management. And ⁓ and we need to continue to do that utilizing the technologies and and everything that's ⁓ available to us. And Andy Biggs introduced a bill about a month ago, nineteen billion dollars for t to strengthen ⁓ the Colorado River basin, so the entire basin, not just Arizona. There's there's plenty there for Arizona, but that's visionary. That is the type of leadership that we need to have that foresight to say, you know what, we need to shore up the whole basin. And it will benefit, absolutely benefit Arizona and ⁓ and have ⁓ targeted projects that can be ⁓ improved here and worked on and and so that's the kind of leadership that we need on WA.
speaker-2: Does desolanization have a role in all this?
speaker-5: Absolutely. Fantastic.
speaker-2: So you and your husband started a dairy farm, is that right? Fifteen cows? So how many cows do you need to start a dairy farm? You had fifteen. I was I read that and I was like, fifteen's a dairy farm now. So how many how many does it take?
speaker-5: Fifteen cows, just a couple teen. Well, it you know, in today it depends on how you know, you are able to get in, but his ⁓ dad said, Hey look, I'll give you the opportunity, but it's up to you to make it work. So we at first we couldn't even rent a whole corral from him because you know, you have about depends on the size of the corral, you need maybe forty, eighty hundred cows. So we he let us use ⁓ one of his corrals and we just started building our herd from there. And it took about ten years and we were able to buy some land ⁓ further west of Buckeye and you know, just continue to grow our dairy herd. And ⁓ we retired three years ago ⁓ but we had over two thousand cattle by then and just were so blessed to be able ⁓ to be in the business that long.
speaker-2: So you started with fifteen, end of two thousand, you sell it to join all the grandkids. What did you learn starting a business? Because there's ups and downs, and I think you have a perspective that no one else has running for office. What did you learn about starting a business, the struggle, doing it with your best friend? Tell me about it.
speaker-5: No, it was it was great because we of course we, you know, had his his dad ⁓ and and Bill grew up, he was third generation, so you know, his dad's strategy, we'd pick his brain, you know, talk to our lenders and and so we learned little by little to to grow, ⁓ to ⁓ be fiscally responsible, to make those important decisions as we started then hiring ⁓ people and knowing knowing where we were at. I was always the one, you know, looking at the books. I still am. We still farm even though we don't have the dairy cows. And ⁓ I said, I'm I'm always the signal. I said if we're sitting in the office and I start whistling when I open a bill, ⁓ that's not good. So ⁓ but you learn so much and that it's ⁓ for us in farming it's not just about ⁓ you know the the business size certainly ⁓ vital because for us sustainability means we have we can operate next year and continue to farm. But it's you know it's the way of life. It's it's the heritage, it's the legacy that i is so incredible. And that's what where my heart was in advocating for agriculture because we need to preserve it. It's so fragile. We are so highly regulated that we could be regulated out of business so easily. And that's what led me down the road to serve in the Senate and because our lawmakers need to understand the effect of the policy they implement. It really affects real businesses, real people, real livelihoods.
speaker-2: Give some examples. What are policies when you went up to the hill that they don't seem to understand about are farmers or ranchers?
speaker-5: Yes. ⁓ a lot of ⁓ a lot of it would even ⁓ be like taxing. I mean there was a time it was like, you know, taxing carbon tax on the cattle. I mean, ridiculous things that you really had to go and go that this is crazy. This is crazy talk. ⁓ you know, water policy, ⁓ tax policy, ⁓ you know, there's just so much to it, ⁓ on the financial side too. ⁓ your ⁓ you know, the inheritance tax, all all of these things that really make a difference to us.
speaker-2: What do farmers or ranchers right now want from what what would help them that the state of Arizona could take back or implement to help our farmers to continue to thrive and feed feed us and the nation?
speaker-5: You know, ⁓ I think of good policy again, it's always about the policy. ⁓ some of the things that that I worked on were like irrigation efficiencies, helping, you know, with with that kind of policy, providing an opportunity where it would be a public private partnership where ⁓ the farmers can work with the state and invest their money as well and there's like a match to be able to afford to put in those ⁓ te technologically advanced systems that would help us with using less water, say for irrigation. And ⁓ and overall general business policy is very important that ⁓ that we, you know, have that in the state and and that we are generally business friendly, that goes a long way.
speaker-2: What's less we come to November and the Biggs team is elected to be governor and lieutenant governor. What are you what are your big priorities when you're in office? What are two or three things that you say these are our big priorities we want to get done our first term?
speaker-5: Yes, well ⁓ first of all, y you know, Andy's gonna take a look at the five hundred and forty one vetoes that the governor did. We're gonna have those ready to go, the ones that we're gonna bring back. And also, you know, ⁓ the affordability issue is very important. And looking at what ⁓ we will start to implement there, there will be a lot of different ⁓ I say levers you that the governor ⁓ governor future governor Biggs will have at his disposal. to be able to help with that. One of his main ⁓ visions and platforms is to incrementally reduce the personal income tax. So start to work on that, go after the fraud that we have in our state. ⁓ just in Medicaid alone, ⁓ nearly three billion dollars in fraud that we need to go back, you know, we need to f find that, stop that, and ⁓ and get that money, you know, back to the taxpayers. ⁓ working on our fuel as far as bringing it we'll prioritize and expedite as much as we can, you know, the fuel line coming from Texas rather than California.
speaker-2: We need to build a refinery here in Arizona, do you feel?
speaker-5: I do, personally. I too. I would love one.
speaker-2: Yeah. I mean, is does Americopa get most of their gas from California refineries? Yeah.
speaker-5: Yes, yes. And of course we know, you know, they've been shut down, they're gonna continue to shut those down. We also Maricopa County is the only county in the nation that has to ⁓ utilize this boutique fuel in the summertime. And that adds about fifty cents ⁓ to the price. And so we need to be getting it from Texas and ⁓ of course I w I would love a refinery here. ⁓ and ⁓ that'd be awesome if that Yes.
speaker-2: It would be great. what is one conversation you've had as you've met all these people that has really stuck with you? As you meet voters and someone has conversation, they share a story. Is there one that has stuck out to you? That you thought about?
speaker-5: There there have been several. ⁓ sometimes I'll go into a group and especially in the business community and I just see fear. Yes. Very heavy. That's a a great way to put it. And they they don't know. It's like they they need to see hope. They need to see that light at the end of the tunnel. After we present and tell ⁓ our plan, we have a solid plan. And
speaker-2: People seem heavy right now.
speaker-5: then you see relief. And and so that's what I see a lot when I'm going and and people just really hurting and not feeling like that they have ⁓ you know a governor and and the agencies that are there for them. And and so they want to change. And and that again is across the aisle as well.
speaker-2: One hundred percent. Yes. Well, ⁓ I'm looking forward to you to be your lieutenant governor.
speaker-5: Well, I am too. Thank you. We're we're ready to get working. Andy says it all the time. Our first day isn't, you know, the second Monday in January. It's November fourth and we're excited to do it. We're ready to go.
speaker-2: Well Senior Kerr, thank you so much for joining us today. She is the running mate for Andy Biggs and folks the election is what day? You can vote early on Oc October seventh.
speaker-5: November third. The they get put in the mail October seventh and so start looking in in your mail boxes after
speaker-2: Folks, don't be lazy, you get a ballot in the mailbox, just go do it when you're watching T V. It's not that hard. It is. It really is about a turnout and people not being lazy. So well thank you so much for joining us and hope you have a great thirty one days.
speaker-5: It's all about the turnout. Thank you so much, really appreciate it.
speaker-2: This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can always follow us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or wherever you get your podcasts on behalf of myself. Brendan, Sam Stone, and Jeremy, have a great weekend.
speaker-2: Sam and I are always talking about being prepared, whether it's hurricanes in Florida, earthquakes in California, flooding in Arizona, or supply chains disruptions.
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speaker-3: Yeah. Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds. The host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're joined as always in the studio today by Jeremy and Brennan, our fantastic crew. And our first guest up today, we're very excited to talk to Jonathan Butcher. He is the acting director of the Center for Education Policy and Will Skillman, Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. You can follow him on X at JM underscore Butcher. Jonathan Butcher, welcome to the program.
speaker-1: Thank you, great to be with you.
speaker-2: So Pres the Trump administration has scrapped or had given new Title Nine rules. Can you talk about that briefly? What he's done and how it's worked. Restored them restored them originally. Will you talk a little bit to our audience, explain what happened?
speaker-1: Yes, 'cause it it can be a little bit confusing because of what happened during the Biden administration. So if you remember, going back to twenty twenty, the Biden administration tried to change Title IX, which is part of the Civil Rights Act, the education amendments of nineteen seventy-two, and replaced the idea of sex, male and female, with sexual orientation and gender identity. And he issued a rule. And so that's what you do when you can't get enough support in Congress to do something is you try to change it via rule. And so he tried to adjust it that way. And as soon as he issued Biden, that is, that attempted change, it was taken to court. And there were lawsuits filed, there were governors as well as superintendents of education around the country who said, We're we're not gonna apply the law this way. I mean you've you have distorted ⁓ what is a meant to be protections for women. And then he did something else. A couple months later, he introduced another attempted rule that would allow boys to play in girls sports effectively. Also a part of this Title IX adjustment that he was trying to make. So all of those things wound up in court. ⁓ that was not resolved technically in court by the time that the Biden administration was finished and when Trump came back to Washington. And so what the education department did is they said, Well, we're not gonna defend the lawsuits that are ⁓ that the Biden administration was fighting. So they simply let them expire, essentially, or let the ruling stand. And they had to wait for those lawsuits to to finish, run their course. And now what the Trump administration has been able to do is to say we are now going back to Title IX as it was in 2020 with its rules and regulations. We're back to sex. We're not going to deal with this quote gender nonsense. And it has brought us back to where we were, to a time when facts mattered, right? Male, female, that's what ⁓ Title Nine is is is meant to do.
speaker-2: When one plus one meant two.
speaker-3: Yeah. Jonathan, one question I have, 'cause I you're talking about this sort of tug of war of executive orders that is become all too common in the country in place of legislation, is the conclusion of the court cases setting a type of precedent that may limit a swing back to gender as a basis in the future?
speaker-1: Well, I I think there's always the possibility. ⁓ you know, look, one of the things with education ⁓ and federal policy is that administrations will use quote dear colleague letters or ⁓ issues of of ⁓ proposed regulation each time they come into office. And ⁓ the look the Obama administration did this with student discipline. I don't know if you remember way back in twenty fourteen. And that of course led to a ⁓ essentially a watering down of disciplinary standards that ⁓ played no small part in what happened at Parkland in Florida in 2018 and the and the murder, like the killing of of 19 teachers and students down in Florida. So that came from a dear colleague letter. So all of this means that ⁓ we just have to be vigilant ⁓ when it comes to these regulations each time a new administration comes into office.
speaker-3: Well, and I've talked to a lot of teachers in recent years and the the Democrats obviously like to make it about money going to the schools, right? But when you talk to these teachers, their biggest complaint is discipline in the classroom and hallways and the fact they are not allowed to enforce it in any really meaningful way. And in a lot of cases, they're sort of running scared. I mean, it's you've devolved some of the nation's toughest high schools into ⁓ you know, prison gang environments.
speaker-1: Yes, and there have been surveys that have shown teachers are seeing more acts of disruption from students, especially coming out of COVID. ⁓ we've seen, of course, higher rates of student truancy, but also teacher truancy. And I think that some of it could be related to these ⁓ essentially this disorder in ⁓ many public school classrooms. ⁓ so I I think we need to be ⁓ looking for policy makers to support teachers taking each incident as it occurs, using judgment about how to discipline students. Because what was happening before, what was happening under the Obama administration and how this all got watered down is that this concept of restorative justice was inserted into the education system. And, you know, we can talk about the history of restorative justice. It's in my book that I wrote last ⁓ December. ⁓ but the long and short of it is that it doesn't punish students based on what they've done. And it ⁓ essentially has students have a a circle where they sit and talk about the incident instead of students facing consequences. And that w that means that students feel like they're free to you know, to to act out however.
speaker-3: Yeah, if there's no consequences, why change your behavior?
speaker-4: Let's talk about
speaker-2: Precisely. You brought it up. Let's talk about your book. Let's get a plug for it. And explain to our audience what is restorative justice. what is it? And why is this not good for education?
speaker-1: Sure. So ⁓ my book that came out in December of last year was called The Polarization Myth, America's surprising consensus on race, schools, and sex. And I had a company, I I contracted with a company to do a nationally representative survey on a host of hot button questions. And one of the questions that I had ask to the general public as well as to ⁓ my sample of parents was do do you want restorative justice used in the classroom? And ⁓ it turned out that it was kind of split down the middle. And it's that to me said that people don't really understand what restorative justice is. Correct. It was developed as a way to deal with prisoners in the ⁓ incarceration system. Right? It was an effort for those that had been convicted of a crime, that had say either stolen goods or had committed ⁓ arson or destroyed property. they would actually go and repair what they had done. Right. They they would go and either they would repay the money, they would fix what was broken, they would perform some sort of act of service that would, as the title implies, restore, right, ⁓ the damage that was done.
speaker-3: had no idea that was the background. That's fascinating.
speaker-1: Well, it's been twisted in this world of critical race theory and sort of racial preferences so that instead of actually asking students to do anything, alright and again, remember this was designed for the prison system. This is not designed for K twelve's
speaker-4: Well that's nevertheless.
speaker-3: I if I if you don't mind me interrupting you, that's I think what I find most fascinating. I did not know that history of it and and it makes sense. Restorative justice in the context of a prison setting makes sense because they're already being punished, there's already discipline being applied. Right. And you want to try to get them in a position to re enter society as productive people who aren't going to reoffend. So it makes sense in that environment.
speaker-1: Exactly. Exactly. And then, you know, i if you drop it into the K twel system, what it became was instead of disciplining students based on their behavior, you would have students sit across from their accuser or f across from the person who wronged them. And they would sort of have an apology session or a struggle session over what happened, right? They would have a conversation. They call some of these restorative circles. Yeah. Right. And the long and short of it is that you're you are not levying consequences. And so the the original purpose of restorative justice has been perverted, it's been contorted, it's been made misshapen and fit into the K-12 system. And so now you're not disciplining students. And that means that teachers don't have the final say. And that I think is what's most troubling, right? You're ⁓ not allowing teachers to have control over their classroom.
speaker-2: Which which teachers want. You hear teachers here in the Phoenix area quitting because of unruly students. ⁓ we're with Jonathan Butcher. He is at the Heritage Foundation and he has written a book called The Polarization Myth, Splintered. ⁓ he's also at the Goldwater Institute, and you can find him on X at JM underscore Butcher. Jonathan, when you wrote the book, The Polarization Myth, what surprised you? I mean, I we always like to ask authors, you're writing something, what is something you had an aw moment on? Or you learned that you didn't know or just completely surprised you?
speaker-1: Well, so when you write a book about a survey, one of the things you have to explain is that, you know, a survey is a snapshot in time. Right. Right. You're taking a picture at a moment of ⁓ a particular ⁓ set a a a ⁓ gr a consensus, right? Or a a general line of thought. And ⁓ as I kind of researched and read about how you explain what a survey is telling you and what it means, it was interesting to me to realize that surveys are important as we develop policy, right? It is it is important to know you know what the general public feels or or better yet, what they know about a particular circumstance. and if you get a result that you don't like, which you have to and you have to be ready for that, right? If you get a result that didn't think was coming, you've got to be able to s explain, you know, what are some possible reasons for this, right? None of it, of course, maybe conclusive, but it you've got to be able to ⁓ persuade Right, or have evidence for ⁓ that result that you didn't anticipate. So I'll give you an example. ⁓ I I got ⁓ clear results when it came to asking ⁓ my respondents what they thought of racial preferences in higher education. There are a number of surveys over the years, I mean, dating back, we're talking thirty plus years, that have asked people, you know, do you want racial preferences used in college admissions? Commonly known as affirmative action, but I'm gonna call it racial preferences because that's what it is. And ⁓ people didn't like it. They I had a a sizable ⁓ majority that that didn't want racial preferences used. Now, when you s change the question just slightly and say, do you want DEI used in colleges? My numbers were actually pretty close. It was actually a little more divided, closer to not quite fifty-fifty, ⁓ but it was a little not not what I would have expected. And I think the reason is because people don't know what DEI really is. They don't know what it is and they don't know what it does.
speaker-2: I think they believe they think it's supposed to sound good. They probably don't even know what the abbreviation DEI stands for. So I think you've been told this. How can you be against this? Right? That's what you're told, right? Yeah. We got one minute left here, Jonathan. Go ahead.
speaker-1: So that's exactly right. And so I think ⁓ once people are informed of what DEI actually does, then they begin to develop this understanding that no, I I don't support racial preferences. And so we have to be able to connect DEI in the theory with the outcomes that people have opposition.
speaker-3: Fantastic. Jonathan Butcher, we're gonna come back with more from you in just a moment here. We want to get into ⁓ the scorecard, the education ⁓ report card that the Heritage Foundation just put out and definitely get into that a little bit. I I'm always happy to see Arizona do well in any ranking. I'm selfish that way, folks. Breaking battle rounds will come back in just one moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battle Rounds. We're continuing on now with Jonathan Butcher, Acting Director of the Center for Education Policy, and Will Skillman, Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Folks, you can follow him on X at JM underscore Butcher. One of the reasons we brought you on today, Jonathan, was to talk about the Heritage Education Freedom Report card, which just came out. ⁓ tell us a little bit about the basis for that. What makes for educational freedom?
speaker-1: Well, certainly there are rankings that you can find from, you know, any number of outlets that will say, Here's how much a state spends on education and they'll give they'll rate that as success. Or here are the average scores.
speaker-3: They rate that as a success despite the fact that student results are almost no different anywhere in the country. I mean the the deviation is really limited.
speaker-2: Right.
speaker-1: Well, and the trends are the same with with few exceptions. The trends are what's so troubling. those those downward trends in third in fourth grade reading in particular, ⁓ as well as in math, are are pretty consistent. ⁓ but now our report card asks a different question. Our report card says ⁓ where do we want students to be and what policies are gonna t is it gonna take to get us there? And ⁓ we measure that by f the freedom given to parents. ⁓ so Arizona, as you as you mentioned before, does quite well. And I think this may be the fifth year in a row that Arizona has is really nipping at Florida's heels when it comes to ⁓ the number one ranking, both overall on the report card as well as in our school choice category, because we have five categories that we use to come up with our rankings. ⁓ we school choice, which is the most heavily weighted of our report card, because that we believe is is the an essential part of any reform. Transparency, so can parents see what their children are being taught? ⁓ are parent rights protected ⁓ in the school system? We have return on investment. So with every dollar spent, how much does it cost to move, you know, one what are you paying for that additional point on the nation's report card? ⁓ civics ⁓ is ⁓ one of our new additions from last year. And then teacher freedom. ⁓ what what sort of ability do teachers have to move from state to state? But also for professionals to leave the workplace and enter the teaching workforce without having to go through the a teacher college or take a praxis test.
speaker-2: ⁓ let me go to civics for a minute. So Sam and I work for the Joe Foss Institute, which really kicked off and we put the plan together for these civic require civic civics. We started that and that was the plan. Why is civic education so important for our high school students?
speaker-1: Well, let's take the Mississippi miracle as a case study. We should all be celebrating that fourth graders in Mississippi are doing so well in reading. Correct. We should be celebrating that Mississippi has climbed its way up, right, from the bottom when it comes to fourth grade reading. When you get to about eighth grade, ⁓ you start to see that the scores are about the same as elsewhere in the country. Suddenly the distinction isn't Isn't quite there as much. And why is that? Well, the reason is that K-12 schools spend a lot of time teaching skills how to read or how to do addition. we need to impart knowledge, right? We need to be giving students knowledge with which they can build stacks of information on that will prepare them to be ⁓ prepared for high school. to be successful in college or the workforce and then certainly when they enter, you know, what you would call the real world, right? To be participating members in society. And that's gonna come from a solid basis of knowledge and civics is at the core.
speaker-3: You know, I I said at the time in an interview it it about the importance of civics in terms of this country. our government is not a minivan with an automatic transmission and eight million electronic safeties. Our government was designed for people who are highly engaged, educated, and understand the system. It is a manual transmission sports car with no, you know, with nothing but basic brakes. You gotta know how to run it and teaching people that. I think is absolutely essential to continu the continued success of the American experiment.
speaker-1: Well, I agree I agree completely. I mean, I would go even further. I mean, look, we ha if we're honest with ourselves, our founders were counting on Americans being people of faith who based virtue on their faith. Yes. And they they that's w they believed that a representative government was only gonna work if you had a culture of faith that was ⁓ interested in the being virtuous and they they based the reason for that virtue on their faith. And we have now really departed ⁓ from that. I mean, I I think people might be shocked to know that, you know, if you go back a hundred years, it was very common to find ⁓ Protestant ideas taught in public schools. It was pretty standard, right? And ⁓ you know, obviously there was a a sharp divide over Catholic ⁓ schools and whether or not Catholic you know, Catholic ideas should be taught. Setting that aside, it was it just wasn't the same, I think battle that we have today where there's just a fight to even mention the Bible in school as a as a historical document. And look, I'll let me just go a step, you know, what one more, one more step here and say some of the most important literature that students are going to be exposed to throughout high school and into college has biblical connotations or a basis to them, even if they're secular books. And so if we're not teaching young people Just the basics, right, about the Judeo wist western tradition, ⁓ we are neglecting them.
speaker-3: Yeah. Absolutely. And I I would add something else that you don't I think the left always takes this as okay, you're you're talking about you have to believe in God. I don't think faith in this context is a belief in God of any specific Bible, but it's in a belief in human truths of mor morality and inner foundational interactions between people based on a lot of those traditions, right? You I think we kind of gotta get over the idea that there's one path to morality, but I also think there are core principles we have to embrace as a society.
speaker-2: I agree. Jonathan, ⁓ I wanna go back to the Mississippi Miracle, we'll call it the Alabama Miracle. You know, the South seems to be doing well in these going back to the basics. How much have teachers unions try to push back on this when they first started? Did they do a fit?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's really remarkable to me. ⁓ I mentioned this in my polarization book that ⁓ yeah, there actually was an effort by unions to block the reintroduction of phonics into teaching instruction, especially in places like California. They actually lobbied against the bill. Yeah, it is crazy. Like that that to me i is remarkable. It's remarkable to me what teacher unions decide is important to them because they certainly
speaker-2: That would have
speaker-1: Are not interested in students most of the time, right?
speaker-2: They're interested in this. They're interested in this for them.
speaker-3: Cash.
speaker-1: Yeah. They're I'm not even sure they're interested in their membership very much. They spend very little money on the conditions or the working conditions of teachers. They spend a ton of money on politics, ⁓ very little actually on the working conditions of teachers.
speaker-3: Well, one of the one of the dirty secrets of the teachers' unions is they're basically captive of the the ⁓ administrators union because they all want to get up into those higher paying jobs. I mean, they work as a a as a collective essentially, but the fact is they have exactly polar i in any normal world, those two groups would have very different priorities.
speaker-1: Yeah, certainly when it comes to what the working conditions you know, what the expectations would be, because it's you know, you're gonna have something different from teachers slightly than administrators. But ⁓ like you said, these are special interest groups that are interested in their slice of the pie when it comes to ⁓ somebody else's money ⁓ in K twelve education.
speaker-3: Jonathan Butcher, thank you so much for joining us today. We love having you on the program. Definitely look forward to get you back on here in the near future again. this is obviously a topic Chuck and I care a lot about. ⁓ should everybody should. Yeah, absolutely folks.
speaker-2: Everybody should Now we know what restorative justice is. I feel like I can take on the weekend now.
speaker-3: It's a i that that blew my mind. I had no idea about that background. Jonathan Butcher, thank you so much folks. Breaking Battlegrounds, back in a moment.
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speaker-3: Well the silky tones of murder and mayhem are back, what do we got B?
speaker-0: Welcome. Okay, Kurt Cobain. Now this has been coming up a lot again, and I am just absolutely shocked with the fact they let this case be called a suicide back then. So
speaker-3: Rea wait wait, really?
speaker-2: Yeah, no the revisit.
speaker-0: Researchers reanalyzed it. Hasn't been officially reopened, but researchers reanalyzed it. They had a blood spatter expert, they had multiple forensic scientists researching it and so many things about this story just don't sit right.
speaker-3: Because at the time Courtney Love, his his girlfriend in the the lead singer of the band Hole said that that was not a suicide. The only one saying that.
speaker-0: She was right. And she was Yeah, I th a hundred percent right. They looked at perfect images of the firearm used and it was a long shotgun. He could not have, with the amount of heroin injected in his system, been able to hold that gun up and kill himself. And also the blood spatter was shown inside the gun, inside the barrel of it, but it was not on his hands. And if he killed himself, it would have been all over his hands. He also The syringe that injected him with that dose dose of heroin, that syringe was not located in his little drug box he kept with all of his other needles and those needles didn't match the track. And the track mark was also intermuscular. It wasn't through the vein which she normally did. So there's a lot of proof now, like kind of just connecting the dots of this this could be a murder. Wow. ⁓
speaker-3: Are are they pointing in any direction or like what are they
speaker-0: No direction yet, but just the cold hard facts of this evidence is showing it's this was not a suicide.
speaker-3: So there's an interesting theory I've heard that he and I forget the other singer who also died not too long afterwards were part of a a group that were objecting to like human trafficking type practices or something along those lines, ⁓ you know, with sort of high powered Hollywood types. Is there any I mean what do we know anything else? Yeah.
speaker-0: There are conspiracy theories about him knowing too much. Of course. What he was trying to expose and talking about the dark sides of Hollywood and how there's certain powers in Hollywood that don't like that, but that conspiracy theory is thrown around any time somebody dies in Hollywood. So it's like how much weight does it hold?
speaker-2: They always know too much.
speaker-3: Well I think I think part of that though was like the human trafficking or or child like child sex aspect of those came from partially the cover of their album. Right. Right. Right. Which had the little baby
speaker-0: had a little baby swimming. Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh.
speaker-3: Swimming on natural and like yeah. So that was not I i th I guess that's maybe where some of that comes from, but so they don't have any I like there's no suspects that they were looking towards or anything like that?
speaker-0: No, no. It Courtney for a little bit, but she was the one saying that it was murder. Right. She was the one standing by what she believed. Thirty years.
speaker-3: Yeah, I was gonna say that was what, ninety six? Yeah.
speaker-2: Yeah. I remember that being a very big story.
speaker-3: ⁓ it's huge. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, you were taught college.
speaker-2: high school then? College. Yeah. Yeah, it was a big story. Yeah. I mean we didn't have social media then but I do remember that blowing up.
speaker-3: Well, and and also, I mean, fur first that band came on, you know, like a thunderstorm. I mean it was instant and huge.
speaker-2: Gave Seattle that whole grun is it grunge? The whole grunge music scene.
speaker-0: ⁓ they built that. Yeah. They built that.
speaker-3: In and they had been a a Seattle band and a Northwest band for a number of years before they broke out and I mean it was one of those things where lightning in a bottle type thing, but it opened up vast new avenues in music. I mean it really incredible.
speaker-0: I mean the way he wrote too, it's just it people still look back at it today and it's just su he had such deep
speaker-2: It's amazing about yeah, you know, it's one of those things too. I wonder if he had not been killed. We'll call him killed. I wonder how big his legacy would be today because you know he had five hits in the top one hundred, so it wasn't like a constant top ten guy. ⁓
speaker-3: But they do that on like one hour. ⁓ without the drugs I I actually think it would have been. They were yeah, look, i I know we have a limited time left here, but if you haven't heard their ⁓ T V live ⁓ acoustic set that they did, mm-hmm, it is one of the greatest musical performances I've ever heard in my life. It is amazing.
speaker-2: Let's post that. Let's post that online. All right. Well well keep following up on this and let us know. I'm sure they'll reopen it. It sounds like some prosecutor who wants some fame's gonna reopen this thing.
speaker-3: Yeah.
speaker-0: I'll get that up.
speaker-3: Well it didn't it didn't hurt to reopen the Tupac ⁓ murder, so
speaker-2: See it happening. Hey hey.
speaker-3: They there was there was a lot of great artists falling off at that time. It was it was bad. All right folks. Breaking battlegrounds will be coming back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our last on air guest today, Dr. Lars Powell, serves as the executive director of the Alabama Center for Insurance Information and Research, located in the University of Alabama's Culver House College of Commerce and Business Administration. And he was recently involved in some research that's caught some national attention. A story came out email spam filters cost GOP fundraiser estimated $117 million in donations last year. ⁓ Dr. Lars Powell, welcome to the program.
speaker-4: Well thanks for having me.
speaker-2: So, you did this great story ⁓ about how Google and Microsoft ⁓ more or less are politically biased and their spam filters is preventing a you know, wide reach for these GOP and Trump fundraising emails. Explain to us what was your interest on this and how did you dis how did you discover this and how did you prove it? That's the point. I mean, I think most people hear this like, okay, these big bad guys aren't Republicans, but how do you prove that? Go ahead.
speaker-4: Sure. So th this is this is not something that I typically work on, of course. Right. Like a lot of people in the country, I'm sort of a amateur political scientist and ⁓ mostly work on risk management issues, but we we use a lot of the same math. And this this all started when I was ⁓ ha having beers with my good friend Cameron Ellis and we typically vote ⁓ for for the opposite candidates in in any situation.
speaker-2: And you're still friends. And you're still friends. No, yeah, which is a gold star for that to begin with, Lars. Go ahead.
speaker-3: Well, thank good thank goodness.
speaker-4: ⁓ yeah, he'll come around eventually to understand who he should vote for. ⁓ and and then then the con conversation will be probably less fun. But but as it is, we we were having this conversation one day and and we saw that that there was a spam interference. I think it was ⁓ someone reporting on the first New York Post article. And his his comment was something like, Do people really donate because they get an email? From someone they don't know. And then go on and I said, Well, I don't think they would continue to send all those emails. Yeah. If if it didn't work sometimes. And he said, Well, but but how much could it really be? And I said, Well, if if we can get the data on this, maybe we should write the paper. And so, you know, it's not something that we spend months and months on like we would for ⁓ something that our our universities encourage us to do. But this was kind of a fun little hobby project. And We were able to find the data. We we saw the video of of the guy at what was it called? Targeted victory, ⁓ sending the two emails, one with ⁓ win red link and one with ⁓ at blue link, and the win red link went to spam and the other one didn't, or or it had an alert on it. And so we just reached out to them and said, Do you have any more data on this? And they had this data set on which which emails went to spam and which ones didn't from a large set that they had that they had sent. So that was sort of the secret sauce to being able to look at how this all the other data is publicly available and ⁓ about how much people give on average and things like that. So so then we put this into a framework. ⁓ the the the only thing that that makes statistical work difficult is controlling for everything else that could Confound your result because there's a lot of ways you could find something. ⁓ you've got to narrow it down to being one reason. And that's always hard to do. And if if you read what some of the folks online ⁓ that have started to read the latest New York Post article have have been critical of us, but they don't have any better suggestions on on how we could have done it better. And they also don't say that we're wrong, they just say that we, you know, we used ⁓ I think Google or Gmail said that we used a deeply flawed measure. And I guess if I were them I'd try to say something like that too. I'm I'm not gonna say that they're they're lying in public because then they'll they'll look at my entire w web traffic history and emails and and I I don't want them to do that. But ⁓ what what ⁓ I would say if if someone else said they were just making that up, I wouldn't disagree with them.
speaker-3: I would say it, but yeah. ⁓
speaker-4: Yeah. Yeah, so so what we do is we look at ⁓ a it's called a triple difference, and that sounds like a a tricky thing to do, but all it's saying is we've got three different things that we qualify the results on in terms of how many first time donations are made. So it's before and after the filtering episode, which was what like June thirtieth for one of them and ⁓ sometime like a February. twenty fifth for the other episode. So it's before and after that happened is the first difference. The second difference is if it was a win red email or an act blue email. And the third difference is whether it was a new donor or a repeat donor. Because you would think that if someone's already given they have some trust in the ⁓ platform in the sender, yeah, the platform that send them the email. So once we difference all that out, we also take a number of other steps. To make sure that we're not picking up noise from somewhere else. And at the end of the day, we we calculate that there's less than a one in a hundred, about an eight and one thousand percent chance that our results are just random as opposed to something we find because there's a pattern in the data that doesn't otherwise it it's not something that's naturally occurring without ⁓ something happening in the background.
speaker-3: Now you're a data guy, not necessarily a tech guy, so you may not know the answer to this, but do you know if these are individually created algorithms by each of these email service providers, or are these is there another like one, two, three companies out there that provide the algorithm that all of them use?
speaker-4: So at one point we were told, and this was from conversations with the people we we reached out to for the data. And ⁓ that that that more than one, maybe all of the providers were using a company called Spam House, ⁓ is spelled H A U S the German spelling of house. It was a European company that was providing like a as a third party the spam filtering. And I guess that's pretty convenient if Yeah, I I I don't suppose that Spam House was doing anything they weren't asked to do or no weren't tacitly approved of doing, but is hey, we didn't do it, it was a third party. But it
speaker-3: It's also a a good legal protection for Google and those others because it's a German company. Yeah, in in a country that supports this kind of censorship.
speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓
speaker-4: Sure. And nobody uses them anymore. Coincidence. Yeah. Big big surprise there. Th there was another one, ⁓ S-U-R-B-L that that ⁓ Gmail used at one point. ⁓ I read in an article, and you know, that they say we didn't do anything wrong, but we're changing everything that we're doing. You tell me what that means. I I think that ⁓ w we're just kind of doing what I think is a a good empirical job of isolating the effect of some sort of shenanigans in the background on on the number of gifts given. Then we do a back of the envelope calculation of how much that cost. And we get $117 million over eight months, which is which is not chicken change when you've got some some pretty close races going on. And ⁓ I'll I'll leave it to readers and viewers to determine if what what what they want to believe about this, but ⁓ I would just say this is some evidence that shouldn't be ignored.
speaker-3: No, a hundred percent.
speaker-2: So have the party committees reached out to you and asked you to explain more of the research you've done? Have campaigns reached out? I mean, who what's been the follow up since this has come out and you've been quoted?
speaker-4: Nothing. I mean so the you you guys called and and here I am. I I had a little bit of time. I've I've got to run to the airport in a few minutes, but ⁓ we we got a a follow-up call from the the New York Post reporter. ⁓ obviously he he did a a piece on again, this this isn't something I do that this isn't my job. It was it was a fun little beer bet with a friend and and then we put it on SSRN for fun and
speaker-3: Well no.
speaker-4: We get this ⁓ we we get a little bit of a response. It's it's kinda neat, right? It's ⁓ yeah. It's not the fifteen minutes I want. I'd I'd rather be be getting a Nobel Prize in Economics, but if ⁓ if if if if you're gonna get some attention for something, this one's at least kinda funny.
speaker-2: Well, I I think what's interesting about it, years ago I worked in a venture capital firm and they put me on a project I knew nothing about and the managing partner said, Ignorance is bliss. I just need fresh eyes on this. D do you feel like because you do you know, you're a data person. Were you able to look at this different because you had f fresh eyes that you weren't ingrained one way or another. Did you find do you find that type of ability to walk into something, sort of the ignorance is bliss, helpful when you're doing research, but you're just trying to find what the answer is?
speaker-4: Well, I I think that we use the same set of tools that a political scientist would use if they do empirical work. Mm-hmm. So it might be that that we take a slightly nuanced approach, but ⁓ I I believe that we're probably using the same tools and that our approach is very similar to what one of your ⁓ top academics in political science would have done if they had chosen to do this. ⁓ and my my co author is is the ⁓ is the better statistician between us and and actually did all this ⁓ did most of this data work and and didn't want to find this outcome on it. So I I think that ⁓ to call what we're doing I y you can say that we're wrong and then try to prove it, but you can't say that we're biased. Right. That again this was ⁓
speaker-2: Right, right.
speaker-3: Two friends having some fun. I love it. Yeah. Before we let you go, would you mind? I I I want to ask a couple of questions related to your your actual ⁓ your day job here. as the executive director for the Alabama Center for Insurance Information and Research, I are there policies because obviously insurance kind of has been coming in and out of the news as a major concern for a lot of folks, costs rising, all these things. Are is there are there a couple of policies that you've identified in your research that you think would make a statistically measurable difference to reduce insurance rates for consumers?
speaker-4: ⁓ yes. ⁓ yeah. Ask ask me this question. This is this is like ⁓ yeah, ⁓ I'm ⁓ now now we're getting somewhere. And and you're in you're in California. Is Arizona, okay. Well then you don't have quite as as much of a football bat as of a regulatory system as no as ⁓ some of your neighbors. But yeah, so ⁓ don't build flimsy houses in dangerous places and then be surprised when they burn down or blow over.
speaker-2: Arizona Phoenix. Yeah.
speaker-4: we've got building codes and they're not very well written because they're political and they're not very well enforced because they're a repeated game with no incentives for success. But what we found, we've done something in Alabama where we build fortified homes that are verified by independent third parties for the construction using a lot of technology. And and what we've found in some very rigorous studies is that they resist hurricane wind, they resist hail. They reduce losses by like 75% in a strong category two hurricane and they make insurance affordable and available for people. And if if we had started doing this in if if everywhere had started doing this in the nineteen eighties, as the housing stock turns over, we really wouldn't have problems today. And so we've got the technology now. And people say that's not a solution for right now. But it's a solution for ⁓ w we're ten years into this in Alabama and we've got a quarter of the roofs and the of the ⁓ of the single family housing roofs in our two coastal counties are now at this fortified standard. And if you've got a fortified house, you can live right on the coast, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach. You can buy your insurance from ⁓ the the same insurance companies that that advertise during football on the weekends instead of some ⁓ numbered account at at Woods of London that you've never heard of and and don't really know ⁓ necessarily what you're getting. So we think it's a really smart thing to do. We I am you know this this is what I do day in and day out and I can tell you that it's very inexpensive difference to build to a slightly stronger standard. We're talking about spending maybe five percent more on the construction or re-roofing of homes or on where you ⁓ choosing where you place a home so that it's not directly in the path of of what's obviously going to be a fire in a valley and you can save lots of money. You can get rid of a lot of these problems, but no one's wanted to to accept that. That's always been a fight that people been fighting. And now finally the cost of insurance is catching up. and it's not like insurance companies are making a bunch of money, but they've got to charge that they're not it's not their job to lose money either. Right. So right yeah.
speaker-2: It's it sounds a little like the three little pigs, the house made of straw, the house made of sticks, and then the house made of brick, right? And you're saying if you want to lower your insurance rates, get a brick house. Don't do straw and sticks.
speaker-3: And we're doing these like eight and twelve story stick built things that are a nightmare.
speaker-2: You know, ⁓ Jonathan, we want to get you back on for a segment here soon, talk about insurance. I I I that's the one complaint I hear all the time from people. My insurance has gone up thirty percent. What can I do? Why is it expensive? And if you would be willing to do that, we'd love to have you on and just say, This is why.
speaker-4: All day long. ⁓
speaker-2: We'll get you on.
speaker-3: Awesome. Thank you so much, ⁓ Dr. Lars Powell. We really appreciate having you on. I we found a great conversation at the end of this one. We weren't planning, and I really enjoyed that one. And absolutely right, Chuck. We're gonna continue on with that. Folks, if you're not downloading the podcast, you need to be doing that. We have a fantastic interview coming up with Cena Kerr. She is the ⁓ lieutenant governor candidate in Arizona. The first time Arizona's had a lieutenant governor ⁓ coming into office. So it's gonna be fascinating. Breaking battlegrounds back.
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speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-2: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host Chuck Warren and we are here with former state senator Sena Kerr, who is running for lieutenant governor with Andy Biggs. Yes. So how is it on the big stage?
speaker-5: ⁓ my goodness. It is very exciting. Yeah. It's great to be out all around the state. The incredible support and enthusiasm is is just phenomenal.
speaker-2: Are you a person that likes to go out and meet people? Does it energize you or do you go home at night and say, Husb honey, rub my feet? What are you what
speaker-5: It completely energizes me. And and Andy as well. Like we might be dragging a little bit after our third or fourth event and we get out there and it's it is so energizing and exciting and we just yeah, keep crushing it out there.
speaker-2: So you have a bunch of kids and grandkids, how are they liking the experience?
speaker-5: It i they're used to it now since I you ran for the Senate. So ⁓ the adult well and the grandkids they were little. The oldest is now fifteen. He was six when I started running in the state Senate. And so they're used to it and they're used they call me Lala. There's twelve twelve of ⁓ seven boys and five girls. And so they're used to it and and they they understand, you know, what my mission is, why I'm doing this and Just as I was leaving this morning the little three year old she says, Bye Lala, I'll see you when you get back
speaker-2: So I have two grandkids and I tell people the only reason you have kids is to have grandkids.
speaker-5: Well, I I ⁓ I wouldn't argue with that.
speaker-2: Well we're so glad you began. Now you have a debate Monday night which Mesa former Mesa Mayor Giles is not showing up at, which is seems to be the Democrat standard this year.
speaker-5: Unfortunately, I mean what a what a disgrace ⁓ to them and what disrespect and disdain to the voters. They deserve to hear from them. Well yeah.
speaker-2: And it's really surpr what I am convinced if you and Andy had decided to not do a debate, all hell would have broke loose.
speaker-5: Absolutely. It absolutely is. And then you know you see the media stepping in to be, you know, ⁓ her her voice and her surrogate. It's just awful. And ⁓ people don't like it across the aisle and across the board. They don't like it, they don't appreciate it and and they keep saying we've got to mandate that there is ⁓ especially at this at the you know, we're talking to the about the state executive. Exactly. Chief executive that absolutely the people need to know What they stand for, defend their record, ⁓ and no, it's indefensible.
speaker-2: She can't defend it. Let's use let's use an example. So she has a commercial which is so dishonest about Andy and increasing your taxes twenty three percent and that she was the champion for all these tax cuts, these Trump tax cuts. Tell her audience how she's misleading them.
speaker-5: It's terrible. So she took a federal so a bill that was in Congress and it was the the ⁓ I can't remember what the tax act ⁓ that it was called. And so that would have eliminated the RRS, it would have elimin eliminated capital gains, inheritance tax, your federal payroll taxes. They they don't mention that. ⁓ which the all those taxes would be close to forty percent on the average American and drop it down to twenty three percent. And so let's not let's not tell the whole truth, let's just be deceptive and that seems to be her her operating Yep. Yep. And and people ask me all the time, can't can't we sue, can't we stop that? And it is ⁓ really horrible that that's your campaign strategy to buy and lie through a governorship to ⁓ get into the reelected. So it's it's really terrible for
speaker-2: So she's claiming all these tax cuts that she was a leader on and trying to take credit for. I I find it interesting I live in L D four and I would not know there's any Democrats in that race. They are running purely as chamber republicans. And she seems to be trying to do the same thing. And as I tell donors all the time who they ask about Andy and you, and they said, What do you think their chances are? I said, If people know what Katie Hobbs actually represents
speaker-5: Yes, absolutely.
speaker-2: what she actually believes and they understand her vetoes. There's no way the state of Arizona would vote for her. But the press is covering for her. So let's talk about has she been successful on water? ⁓ Tell us what she's done. She tries to claim she is, but tell our audience how has she filled the state of Arizona with water?
speaker-5: No. you know, in so many different ways. I was chair of our natural resource energy and water committee in the state Senate and trying to work with her people i i it was just horrible. ⁓ they do not work in good faith. They don't understand I don't know I mean they would have radical environmentalist at their meetings and and they had one on the governor's water policy council that was just a sham. They're not even water users and yet they want to dictate what water users actually do. And so, you know, and then she doesn't show up when it's crunch time on the Colorado River negotiations. That takes executive ⁓ engagement at that level. T it's so critical. And she knew from day one. And no, I don't either. It's very
speaker-2: I don't think she understands it. In fairness to her, I don't think she understands it. I'm not sure she has the capacity to understand it. What would your your term in office, how would the Biggs ticket handle water? What would we do to prepare for the future?
speaker-5: Yes, no, we we would show up. We would be actively engaged right from the get-go, and that's critical. ⁓ we also, you know, understand that water policy in Arizona it is complex, so you have to look at it from a variety of ⁓ yes, absolutely. It it will take moving forward, ⁓ creative solutions, getting, you know, augmenting water from outside the state, working on infrastructure. We have millions of acre feet of stored water. We need to be able to pull it up, treat it, and get it distributed where it needs to go. We will look at the great bills that she vetoed. ⁓ and ⁓ there was a package of water bills that went forward this session and she's well they're not a silver bullet. There isn't. It takes all of it. All of it to make our water ⁓ our whole portfolio and our water future secure. That's why we we are in as good a shape as we are, because for years we've been great on water management. And ⁓ and we need to continue to do that utilizing the technologies and and everything that's ⁓ available to us. And Andy Biggs introduced a bill about a month ago, nineteen billion dollars for t to strengthen ⁓ the Colorado River basin, so the entire basin, not just Arizona. There's there's plenty there for Arizona, but that's visionary. That is the type of leadership that we need to have that foresight to say, you know what, we need to shore up the whole basin. And it will benefit, absolutely benefit Arizona and ⁓ and have ⁓ targeted projects that can be ⁓ improved here and worked on and and so that's the kind of leadership that we need on WA.
speaker-2: Does desolanization have a role in all this?
speaker-5: Absolutely. Fantastic.
speaker-2: So you and your husband started a dairy farm, is that right? Fifteen cows? So how many cows do you need to start a dairy farm? You had fifteen. I was I read that and I was like, fifteen's a dairy farm now. So how many how many does it take?
speaker-5: Fifteen cows, just a couple teen. Well, it you know, in today it depends on how you know, you are able to get in, but his ⁓ dad said, Hey look, I'll give you the opportunity, but it's up to you to make it work. So we at first we couldn't even rent a whole corral from him because you know, you have about depends on the size of the corral, you need maybe forty, eighty hundred cows. So we he let us use ⁓ one of his corrals and we just started building our herd from there. And it took about ten years and we were able to buy some land ⁓ further west of Buckeye and you know, just continue to grow our dairy herd. And ⁓ we retired three years ago ⁓ but we had over two thousand cattle by then and just were so blessed to be able ⁓ to be in the business that long.
speaker-2: So you started with fifteen, end of two thousand, you sell it to join all the grandkids. What did you learn starting a business? Because there's ups and downs, and I think you have a perspective that no one else has running for office. What did you learn about starting a business, the struggle, doing it with your best friend? Tell me about it.
speaker-5: No, it was it was great because we of course we, you know, had his his dad ⁓ and and Bill grew up, he was third generation, so you know, his dad's strategy, we'd pick his brain, you know, talk to our lenders and and so we learned little by little to to grow, ⁓ to ⁓ be fiscally responsible, to make those important decisions as we started then hiring ⁓ people and knowing knowing where we were at. I was always the one, you know, looking at the books. I still am. We still farm even though we don't have the dairy cows. And ⁓ I said, I'm I'm always the signal. I said if we're sitting in the office and I start whistling when I open a bill, ⁓ that's not good. So ⁓ but you learn so much and that it's ⁓ for us in farming it's not just about ⁓ you know the the business size certainly ⁓ vital because for us sustainability means we have we can operate next year and continue to farm. But it's you know it's the way of life. It's it's the heritage, it's the legacy that i is so incredible. And that's what where my heart was in advocating for agriculture because we need to preserve it. It's so fragile. We are so highly regulated that we could be regulated out of business so easily. And that's what led me down the road to serve in the Senate and because our lawmakers need to understand the effect of the policy they implement. It really affects real businesses, real people, real livelihoods.
speaker-2: Give some examples. What are policies when you went up to the hill that they don't seem to understand about are farmers or ranchers?
speaker-5: Yes. ⁓ a lot of ⁓ a lot of it would even ⁓ be like taxing. I mean there was a time it was like, you know, taxing carbon tax on the cattle. I mean, ridiculous things that you really had to go and go that this is crazy. This is crazy talk. ⁓ you know, water policy, ⁓ tax policy, ⁓ you know, there's just so much to it, ⁓ on the financial side too. ⁓ your ⁓ you know, the inheritance tax, all all of these things that really make a difference to us.
speaker-2: What do farmers or ranchers right now want from what what would help them that the state of Arizona could take back or implement to help our farmers to continue to thrive and feed feed us and the nation?
speaker-5: You know, ⁓ I think of good policy again, it's always about the policy. ⁓ some of the things that that I worked on were like irrigation efficiencies, helping, you know, with with that kind of policy, providing an opportunity where it would be a public private partnership where ⁓ the farmers can work with the state and invest their money as well and there's like a match to be able to afford to put in those ⁓ te technologically advanced systems that would help us with using less water, say for irrigation. And ⁓ and overall general business policy is very important that ⁓ that we, you know, have that in the state and and that we are generally business friendly, that goes a long way.
speaker-2: What's less we come to November and the Biggs team is elected to be governor and lieutenant governor. What are you what are your big priorities when you're in office? What are two or three things that you say these are our big priorities we want to get done our first term?
speaker-5: Yes, well ⁓ first of all, y you know, Andy's gonna take a look at the five hundred and forty one vetoes that the governor did. We're gonna have those ready to go, the ones that we're gonna bring back. And also, you know, ⁓ the affordability issue is very important. And looking at what ⁓ we will start to implement there, there will be a lot of different ⁓ I say levers you that the governor ⁓ governor future governor Biggs will have at his disposal. to be able to help with that. One of his main ⁓ visions and platforms is to incrementally reduce the personal income tax. So start to work on that, go after the fraud that we have in our state. ⁓ just in Medicaid alone, ⁓ nearly three billion dollars in fraud that we need to go back, you know, we need to f find that, stop that, and ⁓ and get that money, you know, back to the taxpayers. ⁓ working on our fuel as far as bringing it we'll prioritize and expedite as much as we can, you know, the fuel line coming from Texas rather than California.
speaker-2: We need to build a refinery here in Arizona, do you feel?
speaker-5: I do, personally. I too. I would love one.
speaker-2: Yeah. I mean, is does Americopa get most of their gas from California refineries? Yeah.
speaker-5: Yes, yes. And of course we know, you know, they've been shut down, they're gonna continue to shut those down. We also Maricopa County is the only county in the nation that has to ⁓ utilize this boutique fuel in the summertime. And that adds about fifty cents ⁓ to the price. And so we need to be getting it from Texas and ⁓ of course I w I would love a refinery here. ⁓ and ⁓ that'd be awesome if that Yes.
speaker-2: It would be great. what is one conversation you've had as you've met all these people that has really stuck with you? As you meet voters and someone has conversation, they share a story. Is there one that has stuck out to you? That you thought about?
speaker-5: There there have been several. ⁓ sometimes I'll go into a group and especially in the business community and I just see fear. Yes. Very heavy. That's a a great way to put it. And they they don't know. It's like they they need to see hope. They need to see that light at the end of the tunnel. After we present and tell ⁓ our plan, we have a solid plan. And
speaker-2: People seem heavy right now.
speaker-5: then you see relief. And and so that's what I see a lot when I'm going and and people just really hurting and not feeling like that they have ⁓ you know a governor and and the agencies that are there for them. And and so they want to change. And and that again is across the aisle as well.
speaker-2: One hundred percent. Yes. Well, ⁓ I'm looking forward to you to be your lieutenant governor.
speaker-5: Well, I am too. Thank you. We're we're ready to get working. Andy says it all the time. Our first day isn't, you know, the second Monday in January. It's November fourth and we're excited to do it. We're ready to go.
speaker-2: Well Senior Kerr, thank you so much for joining us today. She is the running mate for Andy Biggs and folks the election is what day? You can vote early on Oc October seventh.
speaker-5: November third. The they get put in the mail October seventh and so start looking in in your mail boxes after
speaker-2: Folks, don't be lazy, you get a ballot in the mailbox, just go do it when you're watching T V. It's not that hard. It is. It really is about a turnout and people not being lazy. So well thank you so much for joining us and hope you have a great thirty one days.
speaker-5: It's all about the turnout. Thank you so much, really appreciate it.
speaker-2: This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can always follow us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or wherever you get your podcasts on behalf of myself. Brendan, Sam Stone, and Jeremy, have a great weekend.
