the left-leaning progress iowa nonprofit organization, our questioning begins right now. captioning provided by caption associates, llc www.captionassociates.com >> announcer: now from kwwl, this is the steele report. >> ron: and welcome to this week's edition of the steele report. very interesting topic today. eye like on -- i'd like to introduce my guest right now, matt sinovic, he's the executive director of progress iowa and also the organization known as why courts matter. together. matt is going to explain that. they caused a little bit of controversy this week when they attended some of senator charles grassley's town hall meetings talking about the judicial process and that's what we're going to talk about extensively here on the program today. first of all, before we go any further, matt, i want to get some background on now and kind of understand, get a perspective about why you think the way you do. you told me earlier, you grew up in the kansas city area, so tell me a little bit about your background. >> matt: i grew up in kansas,

>> ron: you're not in kansas anymore. >> matt: that's exactly right. and have been the executive director of progress iowa since it started in spring of 2012, and what we do is we work to advocate for progressive issues all across the board, whether that's in the state legislature, whether that's in congress, but really our focus is on pushing for progressive solutions to public policy problems and getting iowans involved in the process. so a lot of what we deuce taking -- is helping people take action, signing online petitions which then send an email or contact their local elected official or in this case, this week, their federal elected official. we really want to get people involved and engaged in the process. >> ron: now, one article described progress iowa that i read as being powered by a community of more than 30,000 progressives, focused on research, education, and advocacy and i think that article came out of an appearance that you made just

the bright bart news sunday program on xm 25 right before the caucus. and that described iowa why courts matter as a coalition of iowa organizations dedicated to ending the judiciary vacancy crisis, which is quite a crisis as far as open vacancies out there, sloorg that the federal judiciary reflects america's diverse population. >> matt: absolutely. for progress iowa, we have a large network of membership across the state. i think it's beyond 30,000 now, but that's definitely accurate and as far as why courts matter iowa coalition, it's a group of about 20 or so organizations that work to do exactly what you said, which is try and encourage, educate and encourage people to contact -- in iowa it's senator grassley, but across the country, trying to

judicial nominations that have gone -- some of them, some of the potential judges, the nominees have been waiting years and years, and they get nominated by the president and then they get held up in the u.s. senate for a variety of reasons. but we think that those nominees should take their place on the bench, whether it's the supreme court or the federal courts, the appellate courts below the supreme court. >> ron: bruce bradley mentioned the fact during the last race that a republican, charles grassley, would become the chair of the senate judiciary committee and that's essential one of the most powerful positions in the country right now. you attended some of at least -- i think you were there for a story we did earlier this week and some other members of your organization who asked him about the nomination with justice scalia's death and will that be held up, do you believe, by charles grassley or others? you want to move this forward as quickly as possible and why is

>> matt: i certainly hope not. i hope that senator grassley and the entire u.s. senate will consider whoever president obama nominates in a timely fashion. that's their constitutional responsibility. but a week ago, justice scalia passed away and there were, you know, offers of condolences as is very appropriate when a supreme court justice dies, and but unfortunately, less than 24 hours had gone by after the death of justice scalia, less than 24 hours had gone by before senator grassley put out a public statement stating that the president shouldn't nominate anyone and this should wait until after the presidential election. basically saying that the president shouldn't fulfill his constitutional duties to fill a seat on the supreme court. in less than a day, senator grassley injected politics into the supreme court nominating process, less than a day after

we think that that is completely irresponsible on his part. it's his role to give advice and consent to the nomination of the president. that's directly from article ii of the constitution. so we hope that senator grassley does his job and considers the nomination that the president makes and moves it forward in an appropriate fashion. >> ron: so the senate judiciary committee, of course, will have the final say. the nomination process, i will suspect that president obama will come up with a nominee fairly quickly, but then it's unlikely, i will think, as a casual observer, that the judiciary committee would approve that nomination before the election. what's your viewpoint on that? >> matt: i mean, if the current political climate is any indication, that's definitely a worst case scenario. we hope that that -- the nominee moves forward. historically, supreme court nominations, they have not

the president has a little over 300 days left in his term. the last 12 nominees to the court have taken -- from the time they were nominated until the time they were confirm, took less than 100 days, so there should be no -- i mean, there should be no delay, there should be no hold-up. that's the recent historical timeline of supreme court nominees, so there's really no reason that they can't move this forward. >> ron: and i don't have the exact figures, but a lot of those nominees actually came during a presidential election year, too. >> matt: sure, several of them did. >> ron: when you look ahead about what's going to happen, would you describe your organization as left-leaning and -- >> matt: sure, we're liberal and progressive. >> ron: i noticed on your website, progress iowa, the first three stories bash governor branstad pretty good. where does your philosophic birth, so to speak, in kansas,

you do, ike asking you to be as honest as you can about who you are and why you are that way? >> matt: sure, i'm progressive. we believe we ought to take care of one another. that's the fundamental principle that we believe should be supported by the government. that's why we want better access to healthcare, access to the ballot, able to vote. we think our tax system should not penalize workers and that the wealthy should pay their fair share, so we think that our society, community, government as a whole should take care of everyone, especially the most vulnerable, instead of stacking the deck toward the wealthiest and the most powerful. >> ron: now, your group, you support senator sanders in this campaign or -- i know you on your sirius xm radio report, the day before the caucuses, you were talking about how his growth had been phenomenal as

is that an endorsement of him? >> matt: no, no, our organization doesn't -- what i also said in that interview, that hillary clinton had a tremendous amount of support, which she did. she ended up winning the iowa caucus, by a very narrow margin, but winning the caucus. i said they both had support, so we don't endorse candidates. our organization is geared toward making sure people get involved in their local, state, federal government and we want to give them -- i think as you put it, we'll provide research, information, and opportunities to take action. so in this case, in the supreme court nomination case, we will provide historical data just like i said that the last 12 nominees have lasted less than 100 days. in fact -- and this would be a historical obstruction. i mean, if we actually wait for the supreme court nomination

the supreme court vacancy couldlast over two supreme court terms. the term we're in and the term next fall. there has never been a vacancy last over two terms in history. this would be a historic obstruction by senator grassley and the rest of the u.s. senate. we arm the -- we inform and arm folks with the best information we have and encourage them to take action on it. >> ron: so describe for me your ideal supreme court nominee, given ven your philosophical -- i guess we can call it a bias. i have a bias, you have a bias, everyone has one. give me me your ideal candidate for the next supreme court nominee. this court has been somewhat conservative with justice roberts and justice scalia, but also has been liberal as well as an article in the "new york times" pointed out. in fact, let's see, in 2005, i believe it said, the "new york

one of the most liberal courts since 1969. that was for the 2014 session. kind of surprised me given the makeup of the current court, but now one of the conservatives is gone, so the roberts court will have a totally different look. what is your ideal nominee? >> matt: well, i'm not an attorney, not a legal expert of any kind, but i would -- >> ron: but you're an american. >> matt: i am. i trust the president will nominate someone who's highly qualified. usually what you see is they're legal scholars or someone already on the federal bench. sometimes u.s. senators have been considered or nominated. i think it will be someone who's highly qualified, whoever the president nominates will be highly qualified. what i found interesting when i was at senator grassley's town hall meetings earlier this week, i asked hill directly whether -- because he's been hedging a little bit on whether he would move the nomination forward.

had voted for in the past, would he at least promise a hearing on that person? or would he support that nominee? that could be any number of federal judges or past attorney general, there's plenty of folks that senator grassley has supported in the past. he wouldn't even commit to that. so that's the level of obstruction that we unfortunately are seeing from senator grassley and we hope that he doesn't obstruct this nomination and instead just does his job according to the constitution. >> ron: you know, senator grassley, one of the most popular senators in the history of iowa, someone who actually i believe has been one who called for a quick nomination in the past. >> matt: he has. >> ron: if i remember correctly and we've had him on the show many times, too, by the way. i believe the words he says is something i'll take it one step at a time. is that what you were getting? >> matt: that's part of what we were getting, but he also said,

this town hall meeting, he said i want to wait until after the presidential election, but we should take it one step at a time. i mean, to me, that's about as clear as mud. so it was hard to tell, exactly, and i think we'll -- i hope we have more clarity coming from senator grassley as this develops and i assume we will. i hope we will, but that was a very unclear statement that he made. >> ron: i remember on the news story, i believe he did use clear as mud. we have to take a break right now and before you send me your nasty emails and things like that, such a one-sided program. remember, we always even things out throughout the course of the year. conservatives, republicans, liberal democrats, everything in between, so you can wait on that one. i think it's pretty clear where matt is on this one already. we're going to come back here in

will be online as always on more clearly, sinovic, sinovic. third, take three on this. my fault. welcome back this week's edition of the steele report. my guest this week is matt sinovic, the executive director of progress iowa and we're also talking about an iowa coalition called why courts matter. explain the difference. they're not the same organization by any means. you were telling me during the break how it's broken up a little bit. >> matt: sure, progress iowa is its own organization as you mentioned with more than 30,000 progressive activists around the state and we're part of a coalition of groups that make up why courts matter iowa.

earlier, to encourage the judicial nominees move forward in a timely fashion and fill some of the long-standing vacancies to the federal court or the federal bench. so there's a number of organizations involved in why courts matter iowa. among the leadership are americans for democratic action, which is actually an organization here in waterloo and one iowa and iowa citizen action network, and there's a variety of others as well. >> ron: so your group went across iowa, has been going across iowa and i assume you're still in the election process here even though the caucuses are over, and you're been asking presidential candidates, i believe this question, but as president what would you do to alleviate the federal judicial emergency crisis? so that's one of one area. what were the candidates -- was this even on their radar as an issue or not? >> matt: for some of them it was. some of them, it wasn't.

that some of the candidates thought that president obama shouldn't be allowed to fill these vacancies at all and i think you're seeing that now even more so with the supreme court, with the recent supreme court vacancy. woo so we wanted to make -- so we wanted to make sure that as many presidential candidates that we could talk to knew that this was a crisis. i mean, you have, as of earlier this week, 81 vacancies across the country. i mean, those are courts where people are trying to have access to justice and if you have a lawsuit, if you have a case, if you have anything pending before a court and there's no judge to hear the case, then your access to justice is delayed, delayed, delayed, and the old famous quote is that justice delay is justice denied. >> ron: absolutely. >> matt: that's why we think this is such a critical issue and why we wanted to get it in front of as many presidential candidates as we could. >> ron: there's no question that nominations at judicial levels

politically motivated types of things you can imagine and maybe that's one of the reasons why there are so many vacancies, but the problem is, supreme court hears very few cases. most of the activity judicially in the country happens at the lower levels at the state and local levels. >> matt: that's exactly right and that's why we've been focusing on those appellate courts as lower court nominations. it's something that isn't really -- we're seeing a lot of interest in the public because of the supreme court nomination that is hopefully about to take place, but it's really -- it is extremely important that these lower courts have judges to hear these cases, because that's where the bulk of the activity takes place. >> ron: you know, i have friends who are pretty liberal and i have some that are pretty conservative, and in talking with a lot of people, my friends and people who are viewers and things like that, the consensus or kind of a compilation of what they feel about perhaps an

left-leaning as yours is would be something like this. they say organizations like yours want a society which is dependent upon, beholding to, and controlled by government. and so how do you answer something like that? because that is kind of a view that a lot of people have, particularly on the immigration issue. all those -- most of those immigrants are going to be democrats. >> matt: well, potentially. i mean, there's -- i think that's -- their powers of prediction are probably greater than mine in that case, but i would say that progressives view the government as the place where people should be able to come together and the place where all americans, regardless of whether you were born with not a dollar, you know, your family doesn't have a dollar to their name, to make sure that you have fair shot to its vest this things like public education -- invest in things like public education, higher

regardless of where your zip code is, that you have a chance to succeed in this country. that's where, when -- i mean, it's interesting the way that that was phrased because where the government is relied on for everything, and right now, we have a country where corporate interests and where really anti-worker interest is dominant, and so we think that the government exists as the one place where people can come together and we can stand up for the folks that need it the most and make sure that everybody has a fair shot. >> ron: in talking with senator sanderses, he was on this program here before the caucuses, but we talked about the socialism issue that is with his campaign and he did point out things like public libraries and police departments and fire departments are socialistic entities if you think about it because they're taxpayer-funded. but one person wrote, i read an article and one of the comments

none of these young sanders supporters was alive during the carter administration. they have no idea what a 20% inflation rate or 15 or 20% mortgage is about. there's no doubt that young college students live in a utopian view right now. they haven't been beaten down by life, so to speak. is there truth to this? >> matt: i don't know that college students live in a utopian world. we have a historic level of college debt right now. >> ron: ideologically, i mean. >> matt: i think what you see from young people today, we don't -- when you graduate from college, that doesn't necessarily mean you're guarantee add job, so there's a lot of economic concern out there. it doesn't necessarily mean you have a job and you probably have a lot of debt. iowa rates the sixth worst state in the country for students graduating with college debt. i mean, that is an incredible

students and it's -- and it's in part because there are folks in state government that don't want to invest in higher education, they want to invest in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest among us instead, and so when you don't invest in your public schools and your higher education, you have student taking out loans to do what they're supposed to do and they're saddled with this incredible amount of debt and so you have -- so i would disagree that they live in this sort of utopian society or mindset. students have some real economic concerns facing them when they graduate in college. i mean, i'm 34 and i just bought my first house last year and i think that timeline, whether it's a first home purchase or a first car purchase, that timeline has shifted back because of student debt that people get into. so -- >> ron: so you're just learning now you can deduct your mortgage

i say deduction, some people would like to take away because you're too wealthy. >> matt: i think that's a deduction that apply for anyone who owns a home, regardless how much you make. >> ron: sure. >> matt: what i'd be more concerned about is corporations like general electric and things like that where they're paying no tax, they're paying zero tax, and we think that corporations -- >> ron: but they do employ tens of thousands of workers, right? >> matt: of course they do. >> ron: just trying to play devil's advocate here. that's my row, you know.

>> ron: we're taking one morreport. >> ron: welcome back to our final segment this week on the steele report. matt sinovic of progress iowa, executive director here, talking about that organization, a nonprofit, and also why courts matter, the iowa coalition. so what whether you be doing -- the caucuses are over and you interviewed and had a chance to ask questions of a lot of candidates, whether they liked it or not. that's what's great about iowa's little grassroots politics and the caucuses. what you're going to do now between now and november, what will your organizations be up to as far as greeting candidating, pinning them down, asking them tough questions? >> matt: in the immediate future, we're focused on making sure senator grassley does his job as on you in the constitution and moves this --

moves this supreme court nomination forward in a timely fashion. earlier this week after he made his announcement that he was not going to move -- that he wanted to wait until after the presidential election to move the nomination forward, we started an online petition to our membership and other groups around the state and in less than 24 hours, we had more than 3500 people signing and saying -- to send a letter to senator grassley saying that he should do his job. so we'll be delivering those signatures to his offices around the state. we're also be, for every petition signature that we have, we'll be delivering a copy of the constitution to remind him of his responsibility, just in case he's forgotten, and then we'll be looking for other opportunities to speak out on this issue and really make sure that there is not any obstruction with this nominating process. >> ron: i'm going back i said i saw your website and obviously it's three of the four stories were against governor branstad,

one about bob vander plot and i think the word was irrelevant. you're not anti-family or anything, are you? >> matt: no, no. >> ron: he is head of family leader and his organization did not support anyone, but he personally supported ted cruz. >> matt: they're an extremely conservative organization. they actually are the state affiliate for a national group that is designated by the southern poverty law center as an anti-gay hate group, so this is -- so they affiliate with a national organization that is an anti-gay hate group. we do a lot of work to provide that type of research and information about them and the family leader to hold him and their organization accountable. with the poll that we did, i believe it was last year sometime, showed that vander platts had an incredibly low approval rating along iowans and actually had a very low approval rating among republicans, so even among republicans who you would think would be more likely to support vander platts and his views, didn't view him all that

so we view him as someone who is trying -- endorses candidates and is out there trying to lead on issues, but is increasingly -- he and his views are becoming more and more irrelevant. >> ron: matt sinovic, executive director of progress iowa. appreciate you very much for coming into the show. best of luck to you and get you back on here sometime down the road. that's it for this week on the steele report.

we will see you next week. captioning provided by caption associates, llc

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