Episode 176: Born to be Dialed
4/7/21-- This week, Steve, Jennifer, and Stephanie discuss the #bospoli news that Acting Mayor of Boston Kim Janey is in fact running for full-term mayor. She made the announcement Tuesday morning, alongside the release of a campaign ad that speaks to Boston's long history of white male leaders as well as her promises to address issues such as housing and income inequality. She will have been mayor for eight months by the time the election rolls around, giving her a significant incumbency advantage over her peers also running for the office.
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And speaking of running for office, former state senator and once-co-host of The Horse Race Ben Downing stopped by the virtual bunker to discuss his officially campaign for Governor. The Democrat also recently released his climate plan that he says goes further than the recently passed legislation under the Baker administration.
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Finally, Stephanie asks pollster Steve and law scholar Jennifer about the recent Supreme Court decision that allows the use of auto-dialers to cell phones. The move significantly shifts the polling landscape and is a resolution that has come after a decade of litigation and millions of dollars spent.
Full transcript here:
Jennifer Smith: [00:00:03] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policies and elections in Massachusetts. I am Jennifer Smith here with Steve Koczela and Stephanie Murray. And as we all thought would happen, Acting Mayor Kim Janey has announced that she is running for mayor of Boston for a full term. She announced this in a video released Tuesday morning. Here's a little bit of that. [00:00:24][21.1]
Kim Janey campaign ad audio: [00:00:26] "I'm ready to lead our city, to listen, to collaborate, to fight this pandemic and the racial and economic inequities that COVID only worsened. This recovery is our chance to build a more equitable city for every resident. We can't go back. We can only go better. And I'll never give up on doing just that." [00:00:47][21.3]
Jennifer Smith: [00:00:48] So, Stephanie, I know you've been watching this very carefully. She's finally in the race. What does that mean? [00:00:55][6.7]
Stephanie Murray: [00:00:56] This totally changes the dynamic of the race. Like you said, it's something that we've been expecting from the fundraising to, you know, kind of movements on social media to hiring a campaign manager. I don't think any of the candidates in the race were surprised that this happened, but it totally changes the way things are going to go, because Kim Jany, the acting mayor, is essentially the incumbent and the other five major candidates are not. So she's got the power of city hall behind her now that she can flex. And she's already done that a little bit, giving out free passes to some residents in the city, something that City Councilor Michelle Wu has pushed for in a couple of other things. So it's going to be interesting to me to see how you're acting. Mayor Janey does is sort of the incumbent in the race. [00:01:42][46.0]
Steve Koczela: [00:01:43] And now, of course, up to six candidates running for mayor of Boston. Stephanie, walk us through the rest of the field. [00:01:47][4.3]
Stephanie Murray: [00:01:48] Sure. So, as I mentioned, Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu got into the race in September. So did City Councilor Andrea Campbell. So those were the two candidates who were running for quite a bit of time before the field started to shape up after the secretary of labor, Marty Walsh, left City Hall to go to Washington, D.C.. We also have a city councilor and he says of Georgia State Representative Jon Santiago, John Barros, the former economic development chief in the city, and then, of course, acting Mayor Janey. [00:02:17][28.7]
Jennifer Smith: [00:02:18] And one thing that I think is kind of important to keep in mind here that Stephanie sort of gestured at, is that Kim Janey has has a wild run up basically up until this preliminary election in the fall. A lot of people kind of mentioned that Thomas Menino obviously was acting mayor before being elected mayor for a full term, and he was only acting mayor for like a month and a half before the preliminary election started. Kim Janey will have been, quote unquote, in office as mayor for the entirety of the start of the year through budget season and then into kind of the prime hours and the prime months of the actual campaign. So one person recently joked to me that the incentive here is for none of the other candidates to propose anything near her because she has the power to enact it, which is sort of what we saw with the Michelle Wu free T program, because the incumbency advantage is always really, really strong in any race, not just in Boston, but wow, what a ramp being mayor for absolute months is when you're finally running to be mayor as a full time thing. [00:03:30][71.6]
Stephanie Murray: [00:03:31] You make a great point, Jenn, because instead of just telling voters what she would do as mayor, which is what you've got to do when you're a candidate, as the acting mayor, she can basically just show up and do it. But it is a double edged sword. We're living through a pandemic. And, you know, Mayor Acting Mayor Janey might have to make some unpopular decisions, especially if cases rise again in Boston. Vaccinations are ramping up, but the pandemic is very much still with us and the city budgets coming up. So lots to watch, lots, I'm sure we will discuss at length on this podcast. [00:04:03][32.5]
Jennifer Smith: [00:04:04] Yeah, definitely. But, Steve, I'm told by people in the know that you might have a sense of what we're doing here today. [00:04:10][5.7]
Steve Koczela: [00:04:10] That's right. Speaking of things that we'll speak of at length here on this podcast, we have Democratic candidate for governor Ben Downing here today. He's been a host of The Horse Race. So we'll see how he's fared ever since his big debut here on this podcast. And then after that, we're diving into a Supreme Court case that touches on specific interests of both Jenn and mine. So let's get into it. Say giddy up. [00:04:32][21.4]
Jennifer Smith: [00:04:32] No! [00:04:32][0.0]
Steve Koczela: [00:04:33] Do it. [00:04:33][0.2]
Jennifer Smith: [00:04:33] I won't. You can't make me. [00:04:35][1.3]
Jennifer Smith: [00:04:41] Our first guest today is the only officially announced Democratic candidate for governor, Ben Downing is a Pittsfield native and former state senator who now serves as vice president of Nexamp Inc, a Boston renewable energy company. He is also a many time guest and even a one time co-host of this very podcast. So he joins us now on The Horse Race to discuss his campaign as a whole. Ben, welcome. [00:05:05][23.7]
Ben Downing: [00:05:06] Thanks for having me. It's actually the first line on my resume is one time co-host of the horserace. So as well, it should be that with pride, I carry that with pride. Also given me the name of my of all of my fantasy sports teams since I was the Suffolk Downing label on the first episode. That's just that's been my go to so. So thank you all for that. [00:05:29][22.5]
Jennifer Smith: [00:05:29] All right. Now that he's gassed us up, we we've had you on the horse race before, as noted, but not since you've decided to run for governor. So the traditional first question, why are you running for governor? [00:05:41][11.8]
Ben Downing: [00:05:42] To build a fairer, stronger Massachusetts. I think the potential of Massachusetts is limitless. But what is holding us back from from realizing that potential, from tapping into it is a sense of urgency from our leadership. Too often we look at the aggregate statistics in Massachusetts and say that we're better than many other states. And those aggregate statistics hide a vast inequality and inequity from one community to the next, from one region to the next, between genders and races, widening racial wealth and wage gaps. That's why I'm running for governor, to bring the urgent leadership that we need to to solve climate change, to lead on economic fairness, to lead on racial justice. That's why I'm running. [00:06:32][50.5]
Stephanie Murray: [00:06:33] So you've had experience governing before, but not in a time like this. So, you know, what makes you prepared to lead in a crisis like covid? The pandemic impacts are going to be lasting for a long time. And what would you be doing differently right now? [00:06:49][15.8]
Ben Downing: [00:06:50] So I'm not sure that anyone can be prepared for covid and everything the last year plus has shown us. I think in my own background, I have lived and seen the difference that state leadership makes. Right. Like growing up in Pittsfield. I saw what happened when state leaders didn't step up and invest in a Gateway City and help that community make its transition away from the one major industry that was there and deal with the ramifications of that industry in making decisions with future quarters in mind the next quarter only instead of the next generation. So I've seen that and I see it now in East Boston, where on the one hand, my neighbors are told that they are essential workers and the next month, in the next quarter, they're fighting to not get evicted. So I've lived and seen that in in different ends of the state. I've also been a part of a growing clean energy clean tech company. And that that gives you the experience of having to be nimble, having to respond to changing facts on the ground. And so I bring all of my experience, the experience of having grown up in Pittsfield and lived in East and having been a clean energy leader in the private sector. [00:08:03][73.1]
Ben Downing: [00:08:03] And then, yes, the experience of having represented fifty two communities in western Massachusetts, often communities where their challenges are unique and having to find ways to build coalitions to address those challenges. So I would bring all of that experience together. And I think what we have missed over the last year is that our response to COVID has been fragmented. We've too often said to communities that the school districts and the municipalities, you're on your own, come up with your own plan and then not engage them as partners in trying to come through this pandemic and come out of it in a stronger way. So that's that's some of how I would address it differently if I were in the position. [00:08:46][43.1]
Steve Koczela: [00:08:47] And you grew up in one of the state's Gateway cities, of course, in Pittsfield and the Gateway cities, just for those who are perhaps less familiar, share many of the challenges that you describe that Pittsfield has gone through in terms of having once had a great deal of industrial sort of power and wealth focused in them and a lot of social problems that have happened as that sort of faded and evaporated over the years. So what do you see as your approach? How would your approach be different and why would it be better for the gateway cities going forward? [00:09:15][28.0]
Ben Downing: [00:09:16] So I think the approach that would be different, Steve, is that for the better part of the last 30 years, the last 40 years, economic development and economic development policy in Massachusetts has just said getting a job anywhere in Massachusetts is valuable. And what we've seen is that economic opportunity in the state has effectively come together around greater Boston. Consolidated in Greater Boston, and while there are inequities within the region, right, and significant inequities within the region, we've seen opportunity consolidate there. What would be different in a Downing administration, right, is that we would re prioritize our economic development incentives and have a more focused approach in trying to leverage the opportunities in our Gateway cities. Right. [00:10:03][47.0]
Ben Downing: [00:10:04] Some of those transformative development initiatives beyond the planning and the community based work that's been done to date, but really making those significant investments in the infrastructure and in the capacity in our Gateway cities to leverage the opportunities that-- right, you look at the housing market in greater Boston versus the housing market in our Gateway cities are two radically different places. Right? That is an opportunity. If we're able to create more opportunities in our Gateway cities, then workers are going to be able to afford to stay in Massachusetts. They're going to be in a more walkable, more livable community. So I think it's the knowledge of those opportunities. Right. And then the the the leadership that's willing to re prioritize where our economic development efforts go and to change that mindset that just getting a job anywhere is is worthy of the incentive. The incentive has to be to to change the trajectory of economic development and opportunity in Massachusetts. [00:10:57][52.9]
Jennifer Smith: [00:10:58] And getting back to something that you'd mentioned about how the covid response was fragmented, I'd love to get into a little bit about how exactly you feel this particular rollout, this reopening plan, the vaccine prioritization actually worked in practice. And was there any point at which you were saying this could use a rethink, this could use an adjustment? And did you have something in mind? [00:11:26][27.5]
Ben Downing: [00:11:27] Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, the unfortunate thing when it comes to the vaccine rollout was this was the one that we had the time to plan for. And the different steps that I would have taken right. First would have been to have a preregistration website at the beginning, centralized preregistration. It would have taken out much of the confusion, much of the anxiety, much of the frustration that so many of us, of our friends, our family members, our neighbors dealt with, like my my brother, my sister and I had hundreds of texts between the three of us trying to chase appointments for my mom, who ultimately gets an appointment because her neighbor says to go to Berkshire Community College. They've always got a couple of extra. Just get in line at the end and you'll be fine. Right now, we're happy for my mom. She gets to see her grandkids a little bit sooner. That's great. But that's no way to set up an equitable system. And if we had centralized preregistration from the beginning, then the prioritization would have been smoother, would have been easier, and it would have allowed greater partnership up front with community based organizations, both on sort of the public health side and then on the provider side, hospitals, community health centers, local boards of health who have the highest level of trust so that we could get at vaccine hesitancy right from the beginning. Right. [00:12:42][75.1]
Ben Downing: [00:12:42] So centralized preregistration would have allowed for greater campaigns and upfront work on the equity side of things so that communities that had the highest rates of covid infection would have been those that we were getting the vaccine to at the front end. We've started to see some of that now. Right. And it's good that we're seeing it now. What we should have had it on the front end. The administration shouldn't have been in a position where it had the legislature have to pull them to that. And we've seen local leaders take the take the reins on this. Mayor Rego in Revere, Representative Vargas in Haverhill, doing some really great work, reaching out into the community. That should have been the model that we supported and tapped into. [00:13:21][38.5]
Stephanie Murray: [00:13:22] So you just put out a climate plan on the heels of Governor Charlie Baker signing a big climate law a week or two ago, and I think, you know, the way I'd characterize that is that it goes further. You want to achieve 100 percent clean electricity by 2030, 100 percent clean energy by 2040. And this got me thinking about how you view the role of the governor in Massachusetts. You know, for quite a while we've had a Republican governor who kind of reins in the legislature, kind of tamps down what they're passing, you know, by changing things in the bill and sending it back. Do you think it's the role of the governor to to kind of rein in the Democratic supermajority legislature? Or do you think it's you know, the role is more about pushing further on policy? [00:14:07][44.5]
Ben Downing: [00:14:08] I think the governor's role is to put forward an agenda that addresses the challenges facing Massachusetts. Right. And, you know, Charlie Baker has had unlimited political capital over the last six years and has rarely use that, in my mind to to address those major challenges. So I certainly believe that we can be doing much more on climate in a variety of other areas. And we're going to be rolling out that policy as well over the next few months. But I think the climate bill that was signed was necessary, but it wasn't sufficient and it took too long to get there in the first place. Right. We've rehashed the same debates of the last 15 to 20 years. That presumes that there is no cost to the current status quo and that there is no benefit to action on climate change when we know there's significant benefit to action on climate change. And that's why we rolled out a plan that would have 100 percent clean electricity by 2030, 100 percent clean energy by 2040 with a significant commitment, 50 percent of that benefit directly to environmental justice communities. And that's going to require a governor that is. Yes, pushing the legislature to do more. But I think there are many partners in the legislature. We're ready to do that. I think our communities are ready to do that. The answers are there. What's been missing is that sense of urgency from the corner office to help us build a fairer, stronger Massachusetts today and for years to come. [00:15:29][81.3]
Steve Koczela: [00:15:30] And speaking of a sense of urgency, in 2018, Democrats kind of phoned it in when it came to the governor's race. You know, not a lot of support from elected officials and elected leaders and so forth. And even voters at this point, you know, Democratic voters, by and large, have very positive views of Governor Baker. So how does a Democrat and the next cycle do what Democrats have mostly been unable to do for decades? Of course, with the major exception of Deval Patrick, how do Democrats take back the corner office, in your view? [00:15:58][27.6]
Ben Downing: [00:15:58] I think first we have to realize that the governor's race is different than a legislative race. Legislative races are largely tests about does a candidate share my values when it comes to the governor's office? It's not just does this candidate share my values, but it's can I trust this candidate? Can I trust this candidate to stand up for me even when that requires them standing up against other individuals from their own party? I think that's the dynamic that is unique for Democratic candidates for governor. And what we will be building over the course of this campaign is an independent, progressive campaign. That's why we're not taking donations from lobbyists or PACs. That's why when we put forward policy, there will be policies where members of the legislature will disagree with me on those proposals. I think that's a good, healthy thing. I don't think it's a bad thing to have a good, healthy debate about how we build a fairer, stronger Massachusetts. So I think that's part of this. I also think part of it, Steve, is that's why we got in this race this early. That's why I got in this race as early as today to have that debate, to have it be an ongoing discussion and debate with folks about how we achieve those broadly shared goals around climate and economic fairness and racial justice. [00:17:13][75.0]
Ben Downing: [00:17:14] That doesn't happen in one meeting in a community. It doesn't even happen in two. It's three and four and five conversations building trust over time. And I think that's also how we get it. If Governor Baker were to run for reelection, right, it's how we ultimately win is by focusing on his record. I think Governor Baker is a good man and a dedicated public servant, but he's someone who I disagree with on the issues. And we ought to be able to have that debate in a respectful manner. And I think the best way to do that is by focusing on the governor's record. And I think there are few instances over the last six years where you can point to Governor Baker using that significant political capital or the legislature pushing him to use that capital to build a fairer, stronger Massachusetts to take on those big challenges that we know stand in the way of our state, tapping into its unlimited potential. [00:18:05][51.4]
Steve Koczela: [00:18:07] You waded into a controversy about whether public employees in Massachusetts should be required to be vaccinated. This is, of course, something which has a national element as well. There's lots of discussion about how you should be able to prove that you're vaccinated, what you should be required to be vaccine. He did in order to do so, tell us what was on your mind here, you said, "no vaccine, no job. When you sign up to protect and serve, you need to keep the commitment to protect in every way." Would you require vaccines of all state employees or just state police? [00:18:34][27.0]
Ben Downing: [00:18:35] So I think the thinking generally was if the public is trying to lead and trying to encourage as broad adoption of vaccination as possible, then the we cannot accept what we had in the initial reports around of the limited uptake of the vaccine, in particular the state police, but also at the DOC, which the reaction from those two organizations was effectively to shrug their shoulders and say, hey, what are you going to do? And by the way, we're not even really sure if those numbers are spot on, because there may well be that people got them at mass vaccination sites or in their local community, didn't get them at the barracks, didn't get them at the at the jail. Right. So first and foremost, we just need to have good data around where we actually are when it comes to those respective organizations. And then, yes, I do believe it should be mandatory in particular for those frontline workers who were prioritized for a good reason. It was right to prioritize them, to make sure that we not only slowed the spread, but that the public had confidence in their public safety officials and knew that they they didn't have to worry, right, about calling the state police and that that somehow was going to put them at a public health risk in some way. [00:19:51][76.2]
Ben Downing: [00:19:52] I know, like, a lot of these issues will come down to constitutionality, comes down to collective bargaining. Right. But I think when it comes to public safety officials in particular, it ought to be clear. It should be mandatory. Right. And how I understand is tricky, but we've got to have the data as well and the lack of data and quite frankly, the lack of of sort of seriousness and attention to those initial reports was frustrating to no end. That was coming at a time where all of us are desperately trying to get these appointments for our loved ones. And people who are prioritized just said, no, not for me not going to do it right. Like, that's that's just not good enough. [00:20:29][36.9]
Stephanie Murray: [00:20:30] So, you know, unfortunately, we're running out of time, but before we let you go, we want to ask you the most controversial question that we've got on our list for you today. And that's about a bitter dispute last week over an issue that I think is near and dear to your heart, which is how to pronounce your home county the further the furthest west county in Massachusetts. I'm trying not to say it because I want to hear how you say it and then I'll just copy you from now on. So can you please give us your official pronunciation of of the county, please? [00:21:03][32.7]
Ben Downing: [00:21:05] The left coast of Massachusetts is Berkshire County. If you grew up in one of the thirty two communities in Berkshire County, you can say you're from the Berkshires, you're not from the Berk-SHIRES, you're not from the Berk-SHEERS, you're from the Berkshires. That is the only acceptable response. Full stop. [00:21:22][17.9]
Steve Koczela: [00:21:23] There was a pretty substantial share of people on Twitter who voted for Berkshire. So you disavow their support? [00:21:28][5.3]
Ben Downing: [00:21:29] I will--This is a big tent coalition, Steve, and I am happy to bring people in and have that conversation and win over some converts along the way. [00:21:40][11.0]
Stephanie Murray: [00:21:41] Well, there you have it. Our dispute is settled. Ben Downing, candidate for governor, thanks so much for joining us today. [00:21:48][6.5]
Ben Downing: [00:21:48] Thank you guys for having me. Thanks, everyone. [00:21:50][1.3]
Stephanie Murray: [00:21:53] A Supreme Court ruling brought a rare crossover between law polling and politics, a combination that I would say is tailor made for this very podcast. It was a ruling out of the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Act. So let's just get into it. Steve, why are we talking about the law and polling? [00:22:11][18.3]
Steve Koczela: [00:22:12] So we're talking about the TCPA, which is basically the bane of pollsters' existence. It's made polling way more expensive than it needed to be and really contorted the ways that we even do polling. The original law tried to define what an auto dialer was and said that you couldn't use one of those things to call a cell phone. So then you can imagine basically what you're left with is you're sitting in a call center doing a phone poll. And if you're calling landline phones, you have a giant computer that's calling dozens or hundreds of numbers at a time. And when somebody answers that person's that respondent pops up on a interviewer's screen and they begin the interviewer for a cell phone. You can't do that. And the reason basically is because of this ambiguity about what an auto dialer is that just left pollsters kind of facing potential litigation, you know, going through all kinds of different contortions, trying to avoid accidentally doing what the what the TCPA ended up banning. Even though I think, Jenn, as you can explain, it wasn't really what they originally tried to ban. You know, this was a legal process that came from, I think, what was basically an ambiguity. And it just changed how polling was done for decades. [00:23:20][67.8]
Jennifer Smith: [00:23:21] Yeah, that that thing that you pointed to here is the very core of what this 1991 law was, which is, as you noted, something that tried to define an automatic telephone dialing system, which was considered a piece of equipment with the capacity to both store or produce telephone numbers to be called during a random or sequential number generator. Now, if that sounds like word salad, that's why most of this Supreme Court opinion is just passing the grammar of that sentence. Are they saying that it's more important that it stores or produces these numbers? Is the core of it the random or sequential number generator is the important thing that you're using the numbers to call things randomly? This is part of the reason that this has come before the court and before the FCC a ton of times over the subsequent decades since it came into existence. And I mean, I'm sure Steve and other pollsters really just kind of were tearing their hair out about this one, because when you don't have a clear definition of what kind of technology this law specifically forbidding some use of technology applies to, you have no idea how to act like. Steve, what kind of impact was this having on what pollsters were doing? [00:24:39][77.9]
Steve Koczela: [00:24:40] So basically what pollsters tried to do is avoid using most machines or any complicated machine to call a cell phone. So instead you would end up just calling more landlines. In most cases, you could call cell phones, but it was a lot more expensive because it required basically humans in the call center to press buttons in order to make each phone call instead of having this big computer that called large numbers of of basically respondents simultaneously. So if you can then imagine just when you're designing a project, you're thinking, OK, well, this is what my budget is. I need to make, say, 500 calls. If I have an unlimited budget, I might say depending on what year it was, maybe 50 percent cell phones or 80 percent cell phones recently. You know, but if you're a smaller firm and or less wealthy client, you don't have that money, you might say, well, I'm going to try to get by with 30 percent cell phones because that cell phone call costs two, three, even four times as much as making a landline call. It's basically the difference between having a computer do your dialing and having a person do your dialing. So then the result is polls have just had way more landline respondents in them for much longer than they otherwise would have. So, you know, back in like 2005, 2008, 2010, that was mostly fine. You know, like people had cell phones, but most people also had landlines. But as time has gone on, it's gotten less and less fine to sort of substitute landlines and for cell phones. Respondents are different that on landlines, that's one thing. You know, they tend to be older. They tend to be more in rural areas, more likely to be white, more likely to be conservative. So you could balance things out, but it was getting harder and harder and more and more expensive. You know, if you wanted to kind of keep your cell phone balance right, it was just getting more and more expensive, which caused all kinds of methodological tradeoffs for pollsters. [00:26:29][109.9]
Stephanie Murray: [00:26:30] So I'm a little bit confused here. Are you saying that when it came to landlines you could use you could use a computer that automatically called those numbers? But for cell phones, the people in call centers basically had to type them in by hand? [00:26:41][11.0]
Steve Koczela: [00:26:42] Yes. [00:26:42][0.0]
[00:26:43] Wow. [00:26:43][0.0]
[00:26:43] That's what I'm saying. It didn't actually have to always be typed in by hand. It could be like you press a button to cause that call to be made or something like if there was some less. Of numbers, but it was there was just a lot of hesitation and people wanted to stay away on the right side of the law to not use a computer for anything that might trigger a lawsuit. And there have been tons of lawsuits, you know, a lot of them kind of, I think, Jenn can explain this better, I think, but have converged sort of waiting for this case to see if, you know, this case was going to resolve the questions that brought the lawsuits about. But it's that ambiguity. It's the ambiguity of like, what exactly can this machine be used for? And based on the law, the way the law is written, what can this machine even be capable of doing, even if that's not what it's used for? You know, that those were the kinds of things that just left call centers making and pollsters making all kinds of weird decisions about, you know, how to who to call call more landlines because it's less expensive and because I can use this big computer instead of employees to make the call. [00:27:42][59.3]
Jennifer Smith: [00:27:43] And that's a great point, Steve, because the case that just came down that we're talking about now is Facebook, v. Duguid. And it's it's pretty much about and this might sound familiar to some people about like the auto notifications that you can get to your cell phone. If, for instance, someone tries to log into your Facebook account. And the question was, is this basically a breach of the auto dialing feature? And one of the core questions in this case was, well, Facebook isn't randomly generating cell phone numbers. It has your cell phone number. It has the numbers that you give it. So is it basically auto dialing if it's calling numbers that it already has stored? And so one of the things that came in here was not just how it was being used, but does it have the capacity to be used this way, Steve, as you mentioned. So as Justice Sotomayor put it, and I love it when they do this, they put it very simply, he question before the court is whether the definition encompasses equipment that can, quote, store and dial telephone numbers, even if the device doesn't use a random or sequential number generator. And they ruled, no, it doesn't. We have to use something much more narrow here. You have to have the capacity to either store the telephone number using this random or sequential generator or produce a telephone number using a random or sequential generator. So this actually was a much narrower definition than what we'd all kind of been working with throughout the duration of this case, because what we saw here was this fun example of a circuit split in the circuit courts. [00:29:18][95.0]
Steve Koczela: [00:29:20] I almost hesitate to ask, but can you give us a very quick explanation of what that means? [00:29:24][4.2]
Jennifer Smith: [00:29:25] It's super easy. So so when something is a question of federal law, it starts the trial court level and then moves up to the appeals courts level. And there are 12 of those. And they basically determine issues of federal law at the level before the Supreme Court. And now, even though these are determining questions of federal law, and you might think that means that there's only one way these are going to come out. Sometimes these courts disagree with each other, which means that you might have a totally different controlling law in California and Texas. And the only people who can break that tie are the Supreme Court. So in this case, we had a difference of opinion between different courts about what kind of definition we should be using for this 1991 law, and that is ultimately what the Supreme Court decided to weigh in on. [00:30:13][48.5]
Stephanie Murray: [00:30:14] So, Steve, what's your prediction for how this is going to impact polling coming into the 2022 midterms? And dare I say it, the 2024 presidential election? It feels like after every election we see, you know, those national news cycles about polling. Can we trust the polls? Is this going to make things easier for pollsters? [00:30:33][19.0]
Steve Koczela: [00:30:35] It will make things somewhat easier for some pollsters. You know, part of the thing that this very long and protracted back and forth about the CPA has done is it's helped to kill phone polling, frankly, you know, it phone polling was already hard because fewer and fewer people were answering their phones. But then to have to pay two or three times as much for the respondents, you really want more, you know, which is more and more cell phone respondents over the years has just meant that more and more organizations have already migrated away from doing phone polling for most of their polling. Some pollsters still do a lot of it. Most pollsters still do some of it. And for those for those pollsters, it certainly will make it easier and cheaper. It just means that you can do whatever landline and cell combination you want without worrying about this this particular regulation. So, yes, I think it's certainly nice to have it, but really, it's years and decades too late to really undo the damage that it's already done. [00:31:35][59.9]
Stephanie Murray: [00:31:36] So perhaps coming to a cell phone near you, a poll that was was dialed by a computer. Jenn and Steve, thank you so much for explaining this. You know, very much over my head. So great to have a couple of experts here. [00:31:48][11.6]
Jennifer Smith: [00:31:48] Of course. [00:31:48][0.4]
[00:31:51] And that brings us to our favorite segment, and yours, too, which is trivia. This week, though, we have an extra special mailbag. So yesterday I asked Twitter, what's the weirdest thing you remember doing early on in the pandemic before we really knew anything about covid or how it spread? Of course, it wasn't funny at the time, but looking back now, we did some pretty funny stuff, the stuff we did when we were trying to not get covid and all the ways that we thought we might get covid. There were some really funny, really interesting, really heartfelt responses. Jenn, what were some of your favorites? [00:32:19][28.2]
Jennifer Smith: [00:32:21] I'd like to just shout out the bulk genre of wiping everything. I hear one of our co-hosts might have even thought you wipe off the bottom of your shoes. Is is is the rumor unsubstantiated? But I did love just that, that I could not find anywhere in Walgreens for months any amount of Clorox. And then later finding out from this very Twitter thread, Steve, that it's because people were trying to Clorox everything they possibly came into contact with. In your case, apparently a goldfish bag. [00:32:55][34.0]
Steve Koczela: [00:32:56] That's right. There were a lot of responses about basically wiping down groceries. So you bring in the groceries, you wipe them off with Clorox wipes or some other sort of disinfectant, and then you put them away or something. A lot of other people said was you leave your groceries or things that you got while shopping outside or in the garage for a few days. That was another very common thing I did. Clorox wipe all the groceries, not fruit, not vegetables, but everything else, and did discover that if you Clorox wipe a bag of goldfish crackers, it just disintegrates. It cannot be Clorox wiped. So, protip. [00:33:32][36.1]
Jennifer Smith: [00:33:33] In my head, I thought you were talking about a bag with live goldfish. [00:33:36][3.4]
Steve Koczela: [00:33:38] No, the snacks, the snack food. You can't-- [00:33:40][1.7]
Jennifer Smith: [00:33:41] I was worried that you would just massacred some goldfish by trying to sanitize the outside of their bag coming back from Petco. [00:33:47][6.4]
Steve Koczela: [00:33:48] I did not do that, but I did clorox wipe a lot of groceries. Kerry Healey says, I swung into a Costco, found there was no toilet paper left. We all remember those days, so I did some quick math, and instead bought a year's worth of cases of wine. Looking back, I ended up buying two bottles short. So that's a pretty good math, I think. She said she received stares in the parking lot loading my car up, but I guess everybody was probably envious after that. [00:34:13][25.4]
Stephanie Murray: [00:34:14] I would say that wine is an essential product. I have to tell you, Steve, I am envious. I could not find Clorox wipes for the life of me. So I was just wiping down my groceries with baby wipes. I don't think I did anything but made me tired. My favorite one that we got was from Matt from Boston dot com. And here's what he wrote. I shaved off my beard so I could get a good mask seal. And it was the topic of discussion in a work meeting and people thought I was overreacting. [00:34:41][27.2]
Steve Koczela: [00:34:43] That's a good one. [00:34:43][0.4]
Jennifer Smith: [00:34:45] Excuse me. There was very clear CDC guidance on, like, the appropriate facial hair that worked with a mask. So you go, Matt. [00:34:53][7.7]
Stephanie Murray: [00:34:53] There was also CDC guidance not to wear a mask for a time, which I think might have been the strangest part of the pandemic. [00:34:59][5.8]
Steve Koczela: [00:35:00] Yeah. So, Stephanie, it seems like finding the right supplies was also a common theme. So this person says I also I also used homemade hand sanitizer with aloe juice, witch hazel, essential oils and water, which works as well as rubbing alcohol, apparently. But she says it didn't make a big difference, except that my cats didn't like the smell or taste. So I guess that was the problem that the cats were having. This person says buying Everclear one ninety and putting it in little spray bottles to carry around because they couldn't get sanitizer. I mean, that's ingenuity. That is ingenuity. [00:35:34][33.6]
Jennifer Smith: [00:35:36] And I also find this one just really relatable, too, in that moment where you're just not sure how much of a risk anything you've touched or put on is Steph Lockart Franklin says getting home from the supermarket immediately, getting in the shower and putting all the clothes I'd just worn in the wash, but admirably. She was also apparently wearing head to toe in all one color so she could wash all of those clothes together without upsetting consequences. I love that. I think that's so funny. And we should have all just committed to hazmat suits. [00:36:05][29.2]
Stephanie Murray: [00:36:06] Do you guys remember when restaurants were, like, selling the supplies? We couldn't get at the store because nobody could go to restaurants and they had all this extra stuff? Ariel Edwards Levy said she remembered picking up a restaurant takeout order that consisted of a nice bottle of wine, fresh bread, tomato paste and an industrial sized container of sanitizing wipes. [00:36:26][20.3]
Steve Koczela: [00:36:29] Good times. Good times. Well, I am glad that we now know more than we did then. And at least we can stop doing some of those things, all of the kind of I don't know what to call it, like handwashing theater, sanitation theater that we that we all did because we didn't really know what was happening. Those times are thankfully, I think mostly behind us. [00:36:47][18.2]
Stephanie Murray: [00:36:48] Our grandchildren will not want to hear about this. [00:36:50][1.9]
Jennifer Smith: [00:36:52] Gosh, I remember when I kept coming in and out of the house and you'd set up a makeshift car wash for us. I mean, I assume I assume someone's house has a really impressive Rube Goldberg machine. Every time you walk in and out of the house, that just dumps a can of bleach on you... Everyone cringes. Anyway, that's all the time we have for this week. I am Jennifer Smith here with Stephanie Murray and Steve Kozela, our producer is Libby Gormley. Make sure to leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. If you're listening, let us know on social media. Also, of course, sign up for the Politico Massachusets playbook if you're not already somehow and call the massing polling group. If you need polls done. We'll see you next week. [00:36:52][0.0]
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