Speaker 1: Ending the filibuster. Willingness to end the filibuster is maybe
Speaker 1: the biggest single issue in the presidential election that nobody's
Speaker 1: talking about. It is the thing, maybe the single greatest
Speaker 1: instance of the imbalanced will between Democrats and their willingness
Speaker 1: to get stuff done versus Republicans and their willingness to
Speaker 1: get stuff done. Consequences be darned. Let's talk about what
Speaker 1: this means. Just a few days ago, Kamala Harris said
Speaker 1: in an interview to Wisconsin Public Radio that she supports
Speaker 1: ending the Senate filibuster in order to pass nationwide abortion legislation.
Speaker 1: So we used to have basically a nationwide rule for
Speaker 1: abortion that was laid down in Roe versus. Wade and
Speaker 1: then subsequently planned Parent versus Casey, that basically said abortion
Speaker 1: is legal throughout pregnancy. Since Roe was overturned, individual states
Speaker 1: can pass their own laws restricting abortion however they want.
Speaker 1: Harris wants to pass a nationwide law, a normal statute
Speaker 1: passed by Congress, majority of the House, majority in the Senate.
Speaker 1: President signs it, reinstituting basically a federal standard for all
Speaker 1: abortion regulation to permit abortion very broadly. It'll override all
Speaker 1: of the current state laws that are on the books
Speaker 1: limiting abortion. So in Texas abortion is illegal. This would
Speaker 1: purportedly override Texas's law. Now to do it, Harris realizes
Speaker 1: she would need to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate,
Speaker 1: and that's what she's going to do. So let me
Speaker 1: explain what the filibuster is and what its function is. Now,
Speaker 1: we know kind of the basic rule for how you
Speaker 1: pass laws in Congress, majority of the House, majority of
Speaker 1: the Senate, President signs it. But over time, over the centuries,
Speaker 1: then this isn't part of the Constitution itself, but it's
Speaker 1: a tradition. It's a standard for how business in Washington
Speaker 1: gets conducted that sort of grew over time. It's a
Speaker 1: Norman or a convention that has some importance to it
Speaker 1: and that people have for decades thought had value until
Speaker 1: Democrats of last four or five years started to really
Speaker 1: want to pursue their short term goals, which is the
Speaker 1: filibuster rule. So the House and the Senate are two
Speaker 1: different kinds of things. They're two different kinds of entities,
Speaker 1: they reflect different kinds of values. The House is supposed
Speaker 1: to be reflective of the immediate will of the majority
Speaker 1: of the Democrat the majority of the American people in
Speaker 1: a more democratic way, a more genuinely democratic fashion. It's
Speaker 1: a democratic institution, meaning it's supposed to be kind of
Speaker 1: like a microcosm of the country as a whole. All
Speaker 1: of the hundreds of members of the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: get put to re election every two years, so within
Speaker 1: a two year stretch, the makeup of the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives can wildly change. There are so many members of
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives that debate gets limited. Everyone only
Speaker 1: has a certain amount of time that that's sort of
Speaker 1: internally how the House of Representatives is governed. House of
Speaker 1: Representatives is a bit more ruckus, a bit more wild
Speaker 1: and crazy, subject to the wins of day to day
Speaker 1: political turbulence. The Senate, though, is something different. Even though
Speaker 1: senators today are directly elected by the people of the
Speaker 1: states they represent, that wasn't in the original design of
Speaker 1: the Constitution as it was ratified in seventeen ninety. As
Speaker 1: it was ratified in the seventeen eighties, the original idea
Speaker 1: for senators was that they would be elected by the
Speaker 1: state legislatures, so there was a kind of a distance
Speaker 1: between US senators and the states they represented. Senators were
Speaker 1: thought to represent the states more so than individual people.
Speaker 1: In a sense, they were responsive to the state legislators
Speaker 1: who put them in office. Now, over time that changed.
Speaker 1: The constitution got amended such that people, individual voters elect
Speaker 1: their US Senators. But the Senate is still kind of
Speaker 1: a different institution from the House. Its members have very
Speaker 1: long terms of office. They're in office for six years.
Speaker 1: The Senate doesn't have as much turnover year over year
Speaker 1: as the House of Representatives does. It has fewer members,
Speaker 1: and debate in the Senate is allowed to go on
Speaker 1: theoretically forever. There's no limitations on debate. The sent of
Speaker 1: views itself as this great deliberative body, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of its character. Its character is different from the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives. It represents different kinds of values, the importance
Speaker 1: the priorities of the states as individual entities. Every state
Speaker 1: gets two members, doesn't matter if you're California or Wyoming,
Speaker 1: you get two members. And what developed over time in
Speaker 1: the Senate was again this idea that you can theoretically
Speaker 1: debate forever. Well, what happens when you know Robert Bird
Speaker 1: or strom Thurmond come up there and they start filibustering,
Speaker 1: which means talking and talking and talking and talking and
Speaker 1: debating and debating and debating just as a dilatory tactic,
Speaker 1: as a way to delay and prevent a vote on something. Well.
Speaker 1: You Eventually, the Senate came up with this concept of
Speaker 1: invoking cloture cloture c l O t U R, which
Speaker 1: means the closing of debate. So as long as sixty
Speaker 1: of the one hundred senators vote cloture, you can stop
Speaker 1: debate and you can vote on something. Well, that became
Speaker 1: sort of the way to advance legislation effectively. What it
Speaker 1: means is that in the Senate, to advance most pieces
Speaker 1: of legislation in the Senate, you can't just pass it
Speaker 1: with a fifty vote plus a tiebreaker or a fifty
Speaker 1: one vote majority. You need sixty votes. Now, there are
Speaker 1: certain budgetary things for which this isn't true. The budget
Speaker 1: reconciliation process allows you to pass things with just a
Speaker 1: simple majority fifty votes. And that's how, for example, in
Speaker 1: the Trump in the first Trump administration, that's how the
Speaker 1: tax cuts were able to get pass. A lot of
Speaker 1: stuff was able to get passed by getting it shoved
Speaker 1: into the budget reconciliation process. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: especially with like controversial pieces of social legislation, like this
Speaker 1: idea of passing a nationwide abortion law, you need sixty votes,
Speaker 1: not fifty. Now, this could change if the Senate changes
Speaker 1: its own internal rules again, this sixty vote cloture thing,
Speaker 1: this is an internal Senate governance rule. If the Senate
Speaker 1: wants it can change its rules and say, well, to
Speaker 1: invote culture, you actually need fifty five votes, or to
Speaker 1: invote cloture, you just need fifty one votes. To close debate,
Speaker 1: you just need fifty one votes. Kamala Harris announcing that
Speaker 1: she will push for the Senate to get rid of
Speaker 1: the filibuster rule to pass abortion legislation represents that the
Speaker 1: Democrats have this sort of there's this imbalance, there's this
Speaker 1: imbalance between the two parties as relating to how far
Speaker 1: they are willing to go to accomplish their goals. Harris,
Speaker 1: when she was in the Senate and was in the
Speaker 1: minority back in twenty seventeen, talked about how all the
Speaker 1: philibuster rule in the Senate's so important now as she's
Speaker 1: facing the prospect of, well, maybe I could be elected
Speaker 1: president and maybe the Democrats would have a majority in
Speaker 1: the Senate. In the House, maybe we should break the
Speaker 1: philibuster rule and the way the Democrats have done it
Speaker 1: is so dishonest. Basically, this happened during the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: The Democrats had this. They had two pieces of legislation
Speaker 1: I think one was this Voting Standards Act, where basically
Speaker 1: they wanted to export all of California's election law, ballot stuff,
Speaker 1: how you're early voting ballots, ballot harvesting all that. They
Speaker 1: wanted to export all of California's voting laws to the
Speaker 1: whole country, you know, getting rid of voter id et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so oh, this is so important, this is so
Speaker 1: important that we should get rid of the We should
Speaker 1: get rid of the filibuster rule in the Senate. We
Speaker 1: should get rid of the sixty vote threshold in the Senate.
Speaker 1: Just for this though, really to for that is that
Speaker 1: so important a thing. It's about the right to vote.
Speaker 1: Everyone has the right to vote. Some states have different
Speaker 1: kind of standards for like how you do these things.
Speaker 1: You're acting like if someone doesn't have the ability to
Speaker 1: do you know, no id early mail in without you know,
Speaker 1: needing absentee ballot like like the idea that all these
Speaker 1: voting conventions that we that nobody used circa twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: that that was the core of the American right to vote,
Speaker 1: and if you don't support it, then you don't support
Speaker 1: the right to vote, which is which is absurd. So
Speaker 1: they were willing to get rid of the filibuster for that.
Speaker 1: Of course, they're willing to get rid of the philibuster
Speaker 1: for the sake of reinstituting Roe v. Wade by different means. Now,
Speaker 1: when this was tried early in the Biden administration, when
Speaker 1: there was Democrat majorities in the House, the Senate and
Speaker 1: Biden in the White House. Now, the problem for the
Speaker 1: Democrats was it was a fifty to fifty Senate with
Speaker 1: Harris as the tiebreaker and Joe Manchin, the Democrat senator
Speaker 1: from West Virginia, and Kirsten Cinema, the Democrat senator from Arizona.
Speaker 1: They both agreed that the philibuster rule was important. They
Speaker 1: both said, listen, we can't get rid of the philibuster
Speaker 1: rule just for this. If we get rid of the
Speaker 1: filibuster rule now for this, then Republicans will get rid
Speaker 1: of the philibuster rule. When they someday come to power
Speaker 1: and they will crush us. We can't. We're not ready
Speaker 1: as a country for the kind of winner take all
Speaker 1: style politics that would then ensue. We would basically become
Speaker 1: We could then wind up becoming almost like a parliamentary system,
Speaker 1: where like, for example, in the UK, the UK is
Speaker 1: basically imagine if the country was just governed by the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives or some kind of weird combo of
Speaker 1: the House or the House in the Senate. In a
Speaker 1: parliamentary system, it's kind of winner take all. Once one
Speaker 1: party or coalition of parties gains power and picks their
Speaker 1: prime minister, they have the votes to get their entire
Speaker 1: agenda passed so they can reshape the whole country, you know,
Speaker 1: like that. And what Cinema and Mansion have been arguing
Speaker 1: from the Democrat side, and they were the only ones
Speaker 1: when Biden was trying to get that voting rights bill passed,
Speaker 1: and then later when he was trying to get this
Speaker 1: same bill that Harris is talking about to basically reinstate
Speaker 1: nationwide legal abortion. They were trying to get those two
Speaker 1: bills passed. Forty eight out of the fifty Democrat senators
Speaker 1: senators were okay with abolishing the filibuster. Oh, just for
Speaker 1: that though, just for that, just for this, because it's
Speaker 1: so important if you get rid of the filibuster, just
Speaker 1: for quote the things that are important, and you can
Speaker 1: talk yourself into everything being that important. I mean, Oh,
Speaker 1: you don't think veterans are important enough to break the
Speaker 1: philibuster for Oh, of course, we love our veterans. Oh
Speaker 1: you don't think healthcare is important enough to break the
Speaker 1: fill Oh, yes, healthcare is so important. I mean once
Speaker 1: you basically, once you take that step, it's over. Once
Speaker 1: you take the step of we have a filibuster rule
Speaker 1: in the Senate except for things that the party in
Speaker 1: power thinks is really really really important, then you don't
Speaker 1: have a filibuster rule anymore, and the minority party will
Speaker 1: never be able to block anything that the majority wants
Speaker 1: to do. So the president. Clear Now, Biden was always
Speaker 1: wishy washy about this because Biden, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: because how mentally with it is Biden. But secondly, Biden's
Speaker 1: whole career in the Senate for thirty plus years and
Speaker 1: his entire time as Vice president, he always was upholding
Speaker 1: this kind of Senate conventional Democrat wisdom. The filibuster was always,
Speaker 1: in his eyes important. When George W. Bush had Republican House,
Speaker 1: Republican Senate, and himself in the White House, Senator Biden
Speaker 1: was ranting and raving about how important the filibuster rule
Speaker 1: is and how terrible a thing it would be if
Speaker 1: George W. Bush tried to pack the Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: all these sort of basic governing conventions that we hold
Speaker 1: to in America. The hour, you know, the Romans would
Speaker 1: call this the most majorum the way of the ancestors.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily something that's etched into American law, but
Speaker 1: this is the inherited wisdom we have received for how
Speaker 1: we should govern in a way that provides stability. Biden
Speaker 1: believed in all that stuff, but is now the figurehead
Speaker 1: for a Democrat regime that is so desperate to make
Speaker 1: sure that babies can legally be killed in Texas that
Speaker 1: it's willing to break all convention to make it. So.
Speaker 1: This is the biggest issue I think that nobody's talking about,
Speaker 1: and when we return, I want to talk about why
Speaker 1: aren't Republicans talking about the same thing. Next on the
Speaker 1: John Girardi Show, Kamala Harris announced that she is willing
Speaker 1: to get rid of, or push for the Senate rather
Speaker 1: to get rid of the filibuster rule, which is their
Speaker 1: normal sixty vote threshold to pass big legislation, most kinds
Speaker 1: of legislation in America. In Congress. It's not that you
Speaker 1: need a majority in the Senate, that's the constitutional standard,
Speaker 1: but within the Senate's internal rules, basically you need sixty
Speaker 1: votes to advance it, you need sixty votes to end
Speaker 1: debate on the subject, which effectively means you need sixty
Speaker 1: votes to pass most kinds of legislation. This is kind
Speaker 1: of a damp and moderating tool that basically means, hey,
Speaker 1: unless there's pretty broad consensus, we're not going to pass
Speaker 1: really big time significant national legislation. And Democrats have expressed
Speaker 1: this willingness to get rid of the filibuster rule, at
Speaker 1: least for the sake of passing a nationwide abortion permission,
Speaker 1: basically a nationwide law to shut down all of the
Speaker 1: state laws regulating abortion right now. But that's the thing is,
Speaker 1: the Democrats' standard seems to be, we support the filibuster.
Speaker 1: We always support the philibuster. When we're in the minority,
Speaker 1: we support the filibuster. But unless we want to pass
Speaker 1: something really important that we really want, which effectively means
Speaker 1: they don't support the filibuster. Now, this is real, revealing
Speaker 1: a kind of imbalance in political will. Democrats are willing
Speaker 1: to go to this extreme to get stuff done that
Speaker 1: they want to do. Republicans are only willing to go
Speaker 1: this far though. Republicans are not willing to touch the
Speaker 1: philibuster rule. All these Republicans are on the record now,
Speaker 1: in fairness, all these Democrats were on the record just
Speaker 1: a few years ago. That doesn't stop them from being
Speaker 1: totally inconsistent and hypocritical. But Republicans have been, you know,
Speaker 1: pledging allegiance to the filibuster. I wonder if Republicans should
Speaker 1: start saying, hey, if that's the way they're gonna play,
Speaker 1: maybe we need to play by those rules too, because
Speaker 1: I don't think you want to be the second person
Speaker 1: to try to pass legislation in the Senate without the philibuster.
Speaker 1: You might not get the chance. Here's why, let's suppor
Speaker 1: it's a doomsday scenario for Republicans this upcoming November fifth,
Speaker 1: Harris wins. Democrats take the House, Democrats somehow take the Senate.
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's really possible, given kind of
Speaker 1: the map and the layout, and the certainty that Republicans
Speaker 1: will pick up at least two seats. There are two
Speaker 1: Democrat seats that Republicans are certainly picking up. But okay,
Speaker 1: let's say something crazy happens and Democrats get all three.
Speaker 1: If Democrats get all three House, Senate, White House, they
Speaker 1: could pass a law to make Guam a new American state.
Speaker 1: Guam is very liberal. Gwam would pretty much guarantee two
Speaker 1: additional votes in the US Senate for Democrats. They could
Speaker 1: pass a law to make Puerto Rico and DC into
Speaker 1: new American states. They would be pretty left wing. Each
Speaker 1: one would give the Democrats two more votes in the
Speaker 1: US Senate, probably a couple more votes in the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives too, And those are the easy ones. Why
Speaker 1: couldn't you know, you know, let's get the California legislature involved.
Speaker 1: Let's be creative here. Let's create a state of northern
Speaker 1: California in a state of southern California, and we'll chop
Speaker 1: it up so that Fresno has the least amount of influence.
Speaker 1: The San Luquein Valley rather has the least amount of
Speaker 1: influence humanly possible to ensure that it's two states both
Speaker 1: with massive Democrat majorities give Democrats. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this is also giving Democrats more electoral College votes. If
Speaker 1: you make Puerto Rico a state, Puerto Rico gets to
Speaker 1: vote in presidential elections. Puerto Rico, so you know, gets
Speaker 1: electoral College votes, extra couple of electoral College votes for
Speaker 1: Democrats every time. Every new state you create gives them
Speaker 1: more electoral College votes. They can do that, right. That's
Speaker 1: how you create a new state. Basically, to create a
Speaker 1: new state, all you need is a vote by Congress
Speaker 1: authorizing it, and a vote by whatever existing state might
Speaker 1: be impacted. So if you wanted, like, for example, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to create a new state out of like
Speaker 1: southern Oregon and northern California, you need a vote by
Speaker 1: the California legislature, the Oregon legislature, and you need a
Speaker 1: vote in Congress. But again, if you get rid of
Speaker 1: the sixty vote threshold in the Senate, that's more doable.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm saying is Republicans are all saying,
Speaker 1: oh no, we would never break the philibuster rule. Well,
Speaker 1: if Democrats are willing to break the filibuster rule. Is
Speaker 1: it that crazy to think they would break the filibuster
Speaker 1: rule in such a way as to give themselves permanent
Speaker 1: majorities to vote for themselves a more or less permanent majority.
Speaker 1: The Republicans would then never be able to be in
Speaker 1: the majority. Again, I think Republicans need to really seriously
Speaker 1: consider maybe we should be the ones to break the
Speaker 1: filibuster first, because you don't want to be the second party.
Speaker 1: You might not get the chance to be the second
Speaker 1: party when we return the insane renovation at the California
Speaker 1: State Capitol And how much exactly is it costing us?
Speaker 1: Next on the John Girardi Show. This weird thing has
Speaker 1: developed in Sacramento regarding the use of non disclosure agreements
Speaker 1: by members of the California State Legislature in their negotiations
Speaker 1: regarding pieces of legislation, their interactions with different people lobbying
Speaker 1: with them for legislation. Some of that information has become
Speaker 1: protected by non disclosure agreements. The most significant example of
Speaker 1: this was when it was learned that a lot of
Speaker 1: the negotiations that took place over the fast food minimum
Speaker 1: wage law, which came into effect this past April, that
Speaker 1: a lot of the negotiations that lawmakers had with lobbyists
Speaker 1: lobbying entities about it was covered by non disclosure agreements.
Speaker 1: So when that came out that a lot of these
Speaker 1: negotiations were sort of and there were other allegations about
Speaker 1: shadiness in those negotiations, like the bizarre Panera Bread exception.
Speaker 1: So for some reason, the twenty dollars per hour fast
Speaker 1: food requirement wasn't going to apply to certain kinds of
Speaker 1: fast casual places that had an oven. And then oh,
Speaker 1: it comes out one of Governor Newsom's very good friends
Speaker 1: who lobbied Governor Newsom's office about this, is this, you know,
Speaker 1: gazillionaire guy who is an owner for a ton of
Speaker 1: Panera Bread franchises. And then Gavin Newsom comes on and says, oh, no,
Speaker 1: this definitely applies to Panera Bread. And even though the
Speaker 1: law clearly doesn't apply to Panera Bread, doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: anyway that people who were trying to investigate this. Reporters
Speaker 1: were trying to investigate this found that a lot of
Speaker 1: these negotiations were people couldn't talk about them because they
Speaker 1: were covered by non disclosure agreements. So non disclosure agreement
Speaker 1: is a contract basically saying, if you need to keep
Speaker 1: silent about this, and if you don't, then this penalty,
Speaker 1: you know, this civil penalty will result. And naturally a
Speaker 1: lot of people retorted to this by saying, hey, this
Speaker 1: is blowney. State lawmakers shouldn't be parties to non disclosure
Speaker 1: agreements about how they came up with legislation. If lobbyists
Speaker 1: are lobbying our lawmakers to pass laws that are governing
Speaker 1: all forty million of us, this is not the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that should be covered that a non disclosure
Speaker 1: agreement should be allowed to govern. You're going to completely
Speaker 1: eliminate any kind of transparency in government if you allow
Speaker 1: such a thing. So Vince Fong, who Vince Pong is
Speaker 1: now a member of the US House of Representatives, but
Speaker 1: back earlier in the year, he was still a member
Speaker 1: of the California State Assembly representing Bakersfield. Vince Fong after
Speaker 1: that story, broke introduced a bill basically to ban NDAs
Speaker 1: between government officials and lobbyists. It was AB two sixty
Speaker 1: five to four. The bill failed on a party line
Speaker 1: vote in the Assembly Elections Committee, and it was basically
Speaker 1: a party line vote. The two Republicans on the committee
Speaker 1: supported it, and none of the Democrats did. Most of
Speaker 1: the Democrats didn't even vote on the thing. Now, which
Speaker 1: is such a gutless thing that happens in the California legislature.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people will just not vote on something in the
Speaker 1: California legislature. But the way the rules work in the
Speaker 1: state legislature, which is different from Congress, I believe, is
Speaker 1: that for something to pass in the California legislature. For
Speaker 1: something to pass in the California legislature, you need a
Speaker 1: genuine majority, not just a majority of everybody who's there voting.
Speaker 1: So if there are let's say seven people on a committee,
Speaker 1: you need four yes votes on something for it to advance.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if if only five members of the
Speaker 1: committee show up and you get three yes votes, that
Speaker 1: thing doesn't pass. So what often happens in the Assembly
Speaker 1: is that a legislator doesn't want to vote yes on something,
Speaker 1: but he also doesn't want to vote no, so he
Speaker 1: just does not vote. But not voting is the exact
Speaker 1: same thing as voting no. So you have these Democrats
Speaker 1: who cly want to keep having non disclosure agreements for
Speaker 1: their negotiations with lobbyists, but they also don't want to
Speaker 1: be on the record saying no, I oppose, no I
Speaker 1: support non disclosure agreements. They don't want to be on
Speaker 1: the record saying that, so they just didn't vote, which
Speaker 1: is it's a real coward move to try to pretend
Speaker 1: that you're not responsible for something in the eyes of
Speaker 1: voters when you genuinely are. So. Vince Fong's bill to
Speaker 1: ban non disclosure agreements between lobbyists and state lawmakers that failed.
Speaker 1: That failed on a party line vote. Now Fong got
Speaker 1: to move on to greener pastures in the halls of Congress.
Speaker 1: But we are still left with this bizarre situation of
Speaker 1: in California with our state legislators, people just protect themselves
Speaker 1: with non disclosure agreements in legislative lobbying. Well, here's another
Speaker 1: thing protected by non disclosure agreements, the capital ANX project.
Speaker 1: So when you go to Sacramento, there is the old
Speaker 1: historic California State Capital building. It's beautiful building. It's a
Speaker 1: lot smaller than you'd think. City Hall in San Francisco
Speaker 1: is actually i believe, bigger, bigger, taller. It's a fairly
Speaker 1: modestly sized thing. And attached to the California Capital was
Speaker 1: the Capital was slash is the capital ANX. The ANX
Speaker 1: is where all of the state lawmakers had their individual offices.
Speaker 1: So when I would go to Sacramento to lobby on
Speaker 1: some abortion related bill, I would always stop by either
Speaker 1: Jim Patterson's office, or maybe I'd go by Shannon Grove's
Speaker 1: office or whoever. All eighty members of the California State
Speaker 1: Assembly and all forty members of the California State Senate
Speaker 1: had their offices there, and so they you know, it
Speaker 1: would be a little office space where the member of
Speaker 1: the legislature would have his or her office, their chief
Speaker 1: of staff, and then they'd have cubicles and stuff for oh,
Speaker 1: this is this legislative director in this legislative aid, and
Speaker 1: this the communications person. Here's a scheduler, here's the secretary.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, So the annex was
Speaker 1: where everyone had their offices. It was determined several years
Speaker 1: ago that this part of the building needed to be renovated,
Speaker 1: had to undergo a big, massive renovation and to the
Speaker 1: extent of basically is like almost completely demolishing it and
Speaker 1: restarting restarting it again from the ground up. So all
Speaker 1: of the lawmakers moved to a different state owned building
Speaker 1: a couple of blocks away. They moved their office spaces,
Speaker 1: and they've been working on this massive construction project for years.
Speaker 1: It's taking them a long time, and you will be
Speaker 1: shocked to hear that the price tag has gone up
Speaker 1: from I think it was originally four Yeah, here's a
Speaker 1: report on it from a local Sacramento news outlet. The
Speaker 1: estimated price tag of the project swelled from four hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million dollars to one point two billion dollars.
Speaker 1: What a shock that in California a massive state organized
Speaker 1: infrastructure project took way more to build than was originally
Speaker 1: into diticipated, almost like a high speed rail system or something.
Speaker 1: Now here's the story though, that a lot of these
Speaker 1: cost overruns have been protected by non disclosure agreements the
Speaker 1: California This is a story by Ashley Zavala, who's really
Speaker 1: one of the best reporters covering Sacramento. She works for
Speaker 1: a local Sacramento area TV news outlet. The California legislature,
Speaker 1: she reports, has been using non disclosure agreements to keep
Speaker 1: most information secret about the planning and construction of a
Speaker 1: one point two billion dollar taxpayer funded building that will
Speaker 1: house the offices of state lawmakers, the governor, and the
Speaker 1: Lieutenant governor. Following a three month long investigation in a
Speaker 1: series of legislative Open Records Act requests, her news station
Speaker 1: KCRA Channel three in Sacramento, the NBC affiliate, learned project
Speaker 1: leaders required more than two thousand people to sign the NDAs,
Speaker 1: including several current and former state life lawmakers, government officials,
Speaker 1: dozens of state employees, and hundreds of other consultants, contractors, architects,
Speaker 1: construction and utility workers. For the last six years, the
Speaker 1: NDAs have served as legally binding contracts ordering those involved
Speaker 1: in the Capital Annex project to keep confidential a broad
Speaker 1: range of information, while threatening legal action against those who don't.
Speaker 1: Various legal experts told KCRA three they were alarmed by
Speaker 1: the development, noting taxpayers and voters are entitled to the
Speaker 1: information while it is legal, Some state lawmakers and experts
Speaker 1: said the use of NDAs like this should be banned,
Speaker 1: with the information protected under NDAs. The estimated price tag
Speaker 1: for the project swelled from four hundred and forty million
Speaker 1: dollars to one point two billion dollars. It's been three
Speaker 1: years since the legislature provided an update on the project.
Speaker 1: The small group leading the effort, Joint Rules Committee, has
Speaker 1: used environmental litigation as an excuse to keep taxpayers in
Speaker 1: the dark about the project overall. The committee most recently
Speaker 1: refused to provide KCRA Channel three bid information to prove
Speaker 1: that the millions it secretly spent on Italian stone work
Speaker 1: was the most affordable project was the most affordable option
Speaker 1: for taxpayers. The stone work is just one small aspect
Speaker 1: of the project. How exactly project leaders are spending taxpayer
Speaker 1: money overall is mostly unknown. So they've basically so here.
Speaker 1: They've got this massive construction project that I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't know all the issues involved. I
Speaker 1: always thought the Capital Annex looked fine. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was not as pretty as the actual Capital building itself
Speaker 1: that it was attached to, and it was clearly more
Speaker 1: a product of the seventies than when it was made.
Speaker 1: But I thought it was fine as buildings go. It
Speaker 1: seemed to look pretty nice. I always thought the offices
Speaker 1: were fine, the air conditioning was good. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But they demolished this thing. Then you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of people who got angry with how the Capital Annex
Speaker 1: thing was going. They sued using state environmental law, you
Speaker 1: know SIQUA. They sue using SEQUA to stop this, which
Speaker 1: is hilarious when liberals use their own tactics against each other.
Speaker 1: So we've got this billion plus dollar project for our
Speaker 1: state capital. We've had no update on why or how exactly.
Speaker 1: The costs have skyrocketed by almost three x, and we've
Speaker 1: got over two thousand, almost two almost twenty one hundred
Speaker 1: people who've signed an NDA to not let anyone know
Speaker 1: what's going on with the project. That one's allowed to say.
Speaker 1: None of the contractors, none of a bunch of the lawmakers, contractors,
Speaker 1: all these people involved with redesigning the capital annex. Nobody
Speaker 1: is allowed to talk publicly about what's going on for
Speaker 1: this project that the public is funding. No more NDAs
Speaker 1: in state lawmaking. Someone ought to come up with a
Speaker 1: ballot initiative to that effect. This is ridiculous. When we
Speaker 1: return a fortunate turn for Fresno State as NLV, UNLV's
Speaker 1: quarterback quits over nil money, the first of many such disputes,
Speaker 1: I think. Next on the John Girardi Show, Matthew Sluka,
Speaker 1: the starting quarterback for the UNLV football team, which was
Speaker 1: having a very good year. UNLV is undefeated. I believe
Speaker 1: they were ranked number twenty three in the country. So,
Speaker 1: you know, for a mid major team to crack the
Speaker 1: top twenty five, that's pretty significant. Having a great year
Speaker 1: their quarterback, and they're playing Fresno State on Saturday. Their
Speaker 1: quarterback just announced, effective immediately, he's quitting the team. Why, well,
Speaker 1: what's happening right now in college football is we've adopted
Speaker 1: this new thing where players can be paid compensated for
Speaker 1: their use of their name, image, and likeness. And this
Speaker 1: kid was apparently his take on this is that, Hey,
Speaker 1: I was told I was going to get paid one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars to be the quarterback. I haven't been paid.
Speaker 1: That's why I signed up to be quarterback here in
Speaker 1: a UNLV. I'm out anyway now. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: he said. She said, Uh, the offensive coordinator told me
Speaker 1: I'd got one hundred thousand. He never said that terrible contract. Oh,
Speaker 1: no one ever agreed to anything on paper. One, it'll
Speaker 1: make it easier for President State to win. But two,
Speaker 1: this is the first of probably a lot more to
Speaker 1: come as far as contract disputes for college football players.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for John Girardi Show, See you next
Speaker 1: time on Power Talk