tonight california lawmakers propose new laws at repeat of the college admissions scanrol that hasts in the golden state. and new polls reveal widespread discontent among bay area residents arod housing and traffic and what they're willing to do about it. zbliechlt also, the emotional a new book by a renowned ychologist says theirmotions are just as rich and complex as humans.e o. yesterday several california lawmakers propose measures aimed at reforming how college admissions are done. they include requiring that three administrators sign off on admissions. meanwhile, in a surprise move

this week the trump administration decided to back a judge's decision to lidate phe entire act. it hasked criticism and concern from democrats and house republicans, including. >> they are leading to new legislation over vaccinations. here now with this week's politics roundup are kqed senior editor of politics and government scot schaffer. hooveron institu fellow and joining us via skype from sacramento is alexeye, reporter from "the san fclncisco chro" welcome you, to you all. let's talk about the new college admissions legislation. aside from reforms, what are some of the other changes lawmakers want? >> well, the biggest one would be tying pell grants, which is the state financial aid program

to admission standards where any college, public or private, that wants to get pell grant couldn't use legacy admissions, students who are tied to donors or alumni. that'scuoing to be dif to enforce, but it's really laying down a clear marker saying that don't agree that there should be a preference to students who have a connection, theli fa have a connection to the university. there are some others,di incg trying to register private college admissions counsellors and probably in the most direct so of poke at t individuals who participate in this scandal. they would not be able to write off t fake charitable done ags that they gave toilliam singer's fak charity as bribes. >> so a lot of ripple effects from this.

hey also went to public university admissions. phase out college aission tests. is there a risk here, though, of going too far? >> i mea look, this is difficult to enforce, i think, as alexeye was saying. the challenge is a thumni preference is something that the time and notion that particularly alumni who invest in a university. the universities are not going to want the source of income to be cut off, and so there are a whole host of questions about whether it does go too far, but fundamentally the idea of having toegister people who advise on college admissions, that seems like a reasonable step, and there are others that are reasonable steps, but i think -- this really a marker that's being laid down in terms of trying to get the process under control. >> and there's always unintended consequences of any legislation, no matter ho well intended it is. i think there's a concern that the standards could become to own russ. they may be deserving students, even though they also have parents who are alumni, andco get screened out. those sorts of things. this is really in some ways a politician's driem.

>> i think the people that have -- that havege more privi to get their kids into these kooids schools, and so i think you're going to see similar investigations. my guess is there may be other investigations underway already by the department of justice based on things that they've heard just in his first round. >> i do want to move to health care as well because there's a lot to discuss there. a lot is at stake to dismantle the affordable care act. millions of americans could lose health care if that happens. why is e president doing this now when he had signalled earlier that he would be okay with just chipping away parts of the aca. atw the administration is taking the position he entirety of the law ought to be

invalidated. it's abielatively dus legal argument. i think if you talk to people who follow this closely, whyts administration doing it? best as i can tell, it provides them with an opportunity to signal their continpod ition to the affordable care act. this is something that plays well with the president's base oing into an election year, thinking about ways of continuing to signal to that basepo ng the aca is something that is a winner with his base. >> although, you k last midterm elections, democrats were successful in picking up 40 seats largely because they focused on health care time goes by, more and more people are affected by it. when the law w passed, i maybe the benefits of it weren't as apparent as they are now. also in terms of the potential polical ripples, which is why kevin mccarthy, you know, was really advising the president

not to get into this. they lost seveats in california. not just because of health care, but partly. >> not onlyut that, kevin mccarthlso. >> he has done that time and time again where comes out.ews jobs reports. he goes off in some other direction and makes this other re controversial partisan thing the news and the story. >>what are democrats doing at this point in responseo this. >> it allows them to shut the the mueller report which has turned on the not to be a beener fwor thej. pelosi is going to try to keep the caucusos focused on things, and the difficulty of saying we're going to get rid of the aca is always, okay, what ree you going toace it with, and what are you going to replace it with that can get through congress? >> the democrats havetheir own

challenge, which is that they have disagreements about how to handle forward.re going you have some percentage of them who are saying we ought to have medicare for all, a single payer system. pelosi's position is, let's have he aca, and let's improve upon this. how is she going to moderate the effects of those in the paert who want to go to the left, and the presidential campaign now that it's beginning, you have a number of key candidates, ndcluding pamela harris others who say we want medicare for all. that's a discussion worth watching in the democratic party as well. >> are there any proposal prosecutes state lawmakers that would protecta califor if the aca goes away? >> absolutely. there's actuallyuite a bit moving its way through the legislature right now, including probably the biggest thing which would be a state mandate similar to the one that was repealed at the national level, requiring every californian to have health insurance. that's something that gavin nenome actually introduced his first day as governor in january. he said he wants to do it as a

way t use the money from fees on those who decline health insurance to pay forxpanding subsidies to those who can't afford it. he is trying to create his own sort of replacement version here in acaliforni there's tons of other kinds of proposals as well, including expanding health care to undocumented immigrants. california has been all in on the affordable care acts from day one and has really seen the uninsured rates. >> california is taking a big step on the measles controversy. this week new york's rockland county barred children who aren't vaccinated from measlesm fpublic places and then you've got the situation in santa clara county now where there was infected tourists who visited a number of places, and led county -- that health officials to issue a warning about that. so we have new legislation now from richard pan, state senator richard pan on this. what would that law do? what would e bill do?

>> so this is a follow-up topr tty controversial law that alifornia passed about fou years ago that required every private orpublic school student to be vaccinated, and that left in place a medical exemption for students which certain individuals who are opposed to vaccinating their children seem to be taking advantage of as a loophole to that law. richard pan's new bill would put re restrictions on the medical exempti exliption. >> s them for $100 per exeption. providing the oversight by the

state health official >> the bay area is actually one of the areas that has the wiggest issues with medical exemptions,ul partly in the east bay or the north bay and communities like sonoma county and berkeley. you see some schools where mor k than half dergarten gardeners are coming in with medical exemptions. stat lide it'sss than 1%, so some thin really off there. >> what kind of pushback are we likely to see from conservative groups and anti-vaccine groups on this? because the whole anti-vaccine mooumt has really taken off. it's big on social media. >> on social media. that's exactly right. the challenge here is when does the right of an individual to exercise certain preferences run up agains a public health problem? i think we're seeing that in spades with this issue.

the question will become, you know, homuch is the public health standard going to outweigh the needs and desires of these folks. there's no question that more oversight is >necessary. the existing law did increase the vaccination rate to 95%,al which is good. now they just have to kind of shore up this loophole. i think that will help. california is also one of three states that don't have religious emptions, so that's one loophole that's not available. >> all right. thank you all for bwith us. >> thank you. >> thank you. turning now to some of the bay area's toughest challenges. two pollsis released t week found 65% of the voters surveyed feel the quality of life in the region has gotten worse in the last five years. 44% are considering leaving the area in the near future. among their top sources of frustration, homelessness, the high costofliving, and traffic

congestion. but they're also willing to dig into their wallets to help findo tions. joining me now to discuss what this means for the future of the bay area are kqed politics and government reporter guy, and rl bordino, prosecute ez and ceo of the silicon valley leadership group. great to have bohe of you e. >> great to be here. >> carl krks your group conducted the polls. why do so many people nearly two-thirds of those surveyed thnk the bay area's quality of life has gotten worse? >> our silicon valley poll with the leadership group in tws bay area group was actually quite surprised with the findings that 65% of us say that the quality of life has declined, and even more troubling, 44% s over the next several years they are likely to leave the bay area. nearly 30% strongly feeling they'll leave. what was most ccerningwas that 6% said i'm packing. i'm leaving in19 six of every 100 bay area

>> what does this mean for the bay area? what are your biggest concernsu rng from the findings? >> well, we dugto deeper ihe why, and what we found was 83% said t t why i high cost of housing here. 81% their ongoing concern about our homelessness crisis kwsh 79 ter terz, the overall cost of living here. that doubes as the high cost of housing. 76% are that frustrated with thu ling conditions of our roads and bridges and the commutes that have grinded to a crawl. >> and, guy, let's dig deeper because if you look at some of the other questions posed, the poll also reveals that 83% of voters view the cost of housing as an extremely or very serious problem that covers everything

from renter protections to dense housing around trance it. why is that. >> when you ask voters about hat, they mightar one specific thing. renter protection, rent caps or maybe an idea to have more dense housing around transit and say, no, i'm against that. realisall realistically, though, casa is not going to go before the ball ballot transit track. casa is a bunch of different ideas that are really going to play out, and i tink the question that really is specific, here's the housing solution on the ballot. >> casa itself is controversial. >> absolutely. jus individual pieces of casa are incredibly controversial. this idea of gettingl rid of r density limits around transit, very controversial. rent control, we saw how w divisive th on the ballot last year. just ptting -- casa is definitely a group of ideas that it will have an uphill climb to

get past. i think comparing it one on one with transit -- >> i think we should be proud of the work. >> o the numb -- tryingre to fiut a way to solve it.nd >> that f boldness is part of what we need to address the housing crisis. >> it's still when ctes down to individual types of proposals, right, it's hard to get everybody to comever and agree on this. let's take, for example, state nator scott weiner's bill. this is getting a lot of attention. it will boost housing.

sarnd major transit hubs and ye emp. it's facing opposition from a number of supervisors inator weiner's own hometown of san francisco. could that type of opposition undercut this bill and what he is trying to do? >> this an incredibly type of legislation. we saw last year it didn't even on the politics, he has gotten a lot of endorsement from labor s, grohe chamber of commerce, the leadership group on board with this bill, and one thing, the housing committee, which on tuesday, will take up this piece of legislation. the chairf the housesing committee is senator scott weiner. a bit of a home court vaeng grere. >> what is yourp? the sill von valley leadership group stand on it?

>> we support what the sno are is trying to do. we support senate bill 50. here's why. we are 3.5 million homes short in california. it calls for within a half mile radius of a fixed rail transit station ideally where we should be building around bart, cal train, sf, smart, ace, and vta's light rail system 250 stations and opportunities. that's where we should be making these investments to get people out o their cars on to railcars, helping with the housing crisis our commute and trafficcrisis.

there are other cities aenainst thee bill, including the mayors of palo alto, loss althoughyoes, and beverly hills. tloofs a second quote that your group did that reveals what voters are willing to do in terms of tryin to support highway improvements and transit. what are they willing to do? >> what's wonderful about this area, and i'll quote the englisu hor samuel johnson. my friend, rid yourself of the word "cannot." in this region we don't just see problems to whine about. we look for winningsolutions. one of those is recognizing we're a regional economy herethn nine-county bay area. we have regional traffic patterns, and we need regional solutions. when we asked about the concept of let's buildas a world c integrated seamless tansit system, would you reach into your own wallet i neighbor's with a 1 cent sales tax. 71% said >> that's a big number. >> yes. >> and, guy, in 2016 los angeles

did something similar. it passed a permanent 1 cent sales tax to fund transit. how hasrkit been g out in l.a., and is that something that could be a model for the bay area? >> well,e think it absol is the model here, and, in fact, 71% of voters in los angeles approved that tax back in 2016. i think here's another room for optism regionally. on that 2016 los angeles ballot, you had an increased sales tax. you aan increased parcel tax and a homeless bond that all passed with more than two-thirds of the vote. i think it showed that regionally there is a template for getting multiple things done on the ballot in a single year. i think that's definitely the mogds that a potential transportation pack in the bay area would build off of. >> okay. there is optimism. people are unhappy about what's going on in the bay area, but they're also willing to step up and tax themselves to do something about it. >> yes. >> all right. w carlh the silicon valley leadership group and guy with kqed, thank you, both. >>. thank y >>. now to the emotional life of animals.

forre than 40 years dutch scientist has been studying primates like chimps, our closest biological relatives. he has tracked and do you meaned their social behavior from acts of cooperation to fierce power struggles between rivals. it was a moving embrace shared between his mentor a an elderly chimp named mama that inspired him to write about emotions in the animal ash he says it's not justhumans who are capable of joy, guilt, and other complex emotions. >> proerch,thank you so much for coming in. >> you center this book around a chimpanzee named mama. specifically, mama's's good-bye with smebody who had studied her for a very long time. can you talk about why you chose mamaan specifically why you use this interaction?

>> well, mama has a sense that colony is a very large colony on an island, and she was a sort of central figure who kept the group together, and actually, you're noticing now she has died two years ago under some turmoil in the group as a result of her absence. she was the mediator. she was very powerful. she was not necessarily physically dominant over the males, but she was a very powerful figure. when she died, she was so important to everyone. my professor who was h80 at time, and she was 59, which is also very old for a chimpanzee. he decided to go into her night cage to visit her. it's a dangerous thing to do, but she was so weakened, and he had known her for 40 years. he went , and she had a very emotional exchange with him, and she embraced him and all of that. what struck me because this was shown on dutch national tv and all of this, how surprised

people were. people were moved by it. i can understand everyone was moved by that video clip, but they were surprised how human-like her expression was and her gestures, and i thought, well, we all know that chimps are our closest relatives, so why would you be surprised that they express thei emotions in similar ways, and so that's why i decided to take that as the beginning, basically. >> your thesis is this idea that animals have emotions so similar or the same asours. it's actually very controversiac in thntific community. i'm curious sort of what the reaction has been to this. >>in science we had a taboo on the emotions. you don't talk about emotions in animals.a you about motivations and -- >> i like that one. >> you translate everything. laughing becomes vocalized panting and all of lethat. ned all of that. he neuroscientists, they have broken up to the box to some

degree because they study, for example, fe the rat, and they say it is in -- it's activated. then they put humans in a br scanner in n scanner, says and they show them pictures that induce fear, and your -- is activated. the neuroscientists started to make all these connections between human emotions and animal emotions, and that's where we are now. we are much more open about it, and yes, there will be resistance in the scientific community, but not in the younger skrrgs. the younger skrrgs of scientists is much more open. >> why do you think it maters? what does it tell us about ourselves, and what do you hope to sort of bring to the world by makng this argument? >> we underestimate the amount of emotions we have. we like to present ourselves as rationale beings. especially man -- that we want to be distant from our bodies and our emotions. think one thing i do is making all theseis comps.

it's to show how similar our emotional life actually is to that of other primates. also, i feel we need to look at nature as we are part of it. instead of this attitude we are outside of nature and we canan control it we are the last of nature, that has given us al of trouble. also eco logical trouble in the world, and it's the attitude, and i want to emphasize we are part of it and connected to other ecies. >> one of the really wonderful examples is of another female chimp at the same zoo who couldn'tlactate. couldn't -- you had an interaction and taught her changedg that can you tell us about that? >> -- she would try and not eat. i decided to at some point sincd we baby up for adoption, a baby chimp to teach her how to ttle feed itand for a chimp to hold the bottle and a baby is

ally no big deal for them. it's no big deal for humans. we taught herhighway to do that, and since that time because before she was obnoxious to me. from that time she really loveda me i'm part of the family, and she was grateful for the rest of her life. she also h rais own off string on the bottle because of this. >> it your oaks have run counter >> one of the things people think is that animals are slaves of their emotavns. they to run after their emowings. that's not really true. animals control their emotions. if a cat would go after a chipmunk as soon as it sees it, it will never catch the chipmunk. it has to control the impulses and sneak up on it, and as many examples, i don't know if you know the marshm aallow test where you give them one, and they have to wait, and then they get a second one. that same test has been done

with apes and parrots, and have just the same emotional control that we have. this idea that they are the slaves of emotions doesn't really fit. >> i knowim som we compare apes and primates to toddlers. it sounds like they've developed yond sort of that stage of human emotion. >> i never liked those comparisons because the adult -- an ad interested in power and sex. that's not very child-like, i would say, and the adult females are very interested in the offspring and how to care for them, and so their interests are don't really fit. i think the whole psychology is different from those f theds who play around and fool around. >> so you've sort of built your life around this work. what's n people are taking away from it? >> i think that the next phase is actually we do a lot more research on emotions. it's just started from the animals since we were not allowed to talk about it. in humans also -- human emotions are often studied verbally.

i think human emotions also need to be studied more and more foeked on the face we're doing now. >> professor, thank you so much for coming in. >> you're welcome. >> and that will do it for us. as always, can you find more of our coverage at thank you for joining us.

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