Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and truckers are now threatening Rod DeSantis
Speaker 1: with a Florida boycott over his migrant crackdown. We have
Speaker 1: such a fascinating show today. Congressman Colin Alred, who is
Speaker 1: running to unseat the fish Mike Weaver of the Senate
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, tells us why he thinks he can make
Speaker 1: that happen. Then we'll talk to law professor and historian
Speaker 1: Mary Ziegler about the latest in reproductive rights.
Speaker 2: But first we have former New York.
Speaker 1: City mayoral candidate and president of the Leadership Conference on
Speaker 1: Civil and Human Rights, Mayle Wiley.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics. Maya Wiley.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Molly. I'm so excited to be with you.
Speaker 2: I am so excited to be with you. Okay, So
Speaker 2: first I want to.
Speaker 1: Talk about civil rights and what you're doing in the
Speaker 1: civil rights space. I want you to tell us about
Speaker 1: this project that you lead. Because we both come from
Speaker 1: families with law history is of working and civil rights.
Speaker 1: I mean, my grandfather, your father, So talk to us.
Speaker 3: Let's just start with the fact that we live in
Speaker 3: a country that democracy only became a full and true
Speaker 3: democracy because of the struggle for civil and human rights.
Speaker 3: And that's everything obviously from the right to vote for women,
Speaker 3: for people of color, but also all the things that
Speaker 3: were always intended to flow from that. And we know
Speaker 3: we're in a context. I don't have to tell anyone
Speaker 3: what happened on January sixth. I don't have to tell
Speaker 3: anyone that we've become a post fact society. I don't
Speaker 3: have to tell anyone that we live in a politics
Speaker 3: of division and with rising hate at levels I just
Speaker 3: have not seen in my lifetime. And we even just
Speaker 3: put out a report at the Leadership Conference for Civil
Speaker 3: and Human Rights, which is the nation's oldest and largest
Speaker 3: civil rights coalition, about how every single election cycle that
Speaker 3: rises so we all know this democracy is not a promise.
Speaker 3: Democracy is something that we all have to work for,
Speaker 3: fight for, and protect. And that was always the core
Speaker 3: of the civil rights movement. It's always the core of
Speaker 3: my parents' work. It was always something that was both
Speaker 3: about getting America to live up to its ideals and
Speaker 3: make sure that everyone had everything they needed and that
Speaker 3: we had a country where we were able to identify
Speaker 3: problems and solve them and do it together. And that
Speaker 3: means a cross race, across class, a cross gender, but
Speaker 3: also allowing people to be who they are, and we
Speaker 3: know that's under threat. Whether you're LGPTQ, that's under threat.
Speaker 3: If you're a woman who doesn't want to be forced
Speaker 3: to bear children, that's under threat. If you just want
Speaker 3: to show up at the polls and vote lawfully, that's true.
Speaker 3: If you've paid your debt to society and want to
Speaker 3: vote as a citizen while you have a passport, but
Speaker 3: yet there are too many places that say you can't
Speaker 3: vote or make it difficult for you. So you know,
Speaker 3: a big part of you know what I'm just so
Speaker 3: privileged to be a part of is as president and
Speaker 3: CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights,
Speaker 3: is essentially over two hundred and thirty national organizations. That
Speaker 3: is everything that this country is and must be. And
Speaker 3: it looks like this country across religion, across race, across
Speaker 3: gender identity, across sector. We've got many of the large unions,
Speaker 3: including our educators, including our public servants, so many of
Speaker 3: our workers. So I'm just saying that to say, this
Speaker 3: is America, this is who we are, and this is
Speaker 3: what we're fighting for.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about that sort of historical
Speaker 1: movement of civil rights for a minute, and if you
Speaker 1: could just talk us through a little bit of how
Speaker 1: that happened, because I think you know, not of all
Speaker 1: of our listeners know this.
Speaker 3: No, it's true, and certainly some of our biggest and
Speaker 3: largest victories came in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties,
Speaker 3: with everything from the litigation that brought us Brown versus
Speaker 3: Board of Education in nineteen fifty four that said we
Speaker 3: couldn't have segregated schools anymore, to the Montgomery bus boycott
Speaker 3: in fifty eight where Martin Luther King and other leaders
Speaker 3: fought to make sure that black people were treated like
Speaker 3: full citizens when they were using public services like city buses.
Speaker 3: But you know what we miss is the civil rights
Speaker 3: struggle in this country started over slavery, and to end it,
Speaker 3: the civil rights history in this country was black women
Speaker 3: who were participating the suffragette movement.
Speaker 2: Who ended up getting really screwed.
Speaker 3: Correct, and it has been a centuries long fight. The
Speaker 3: reason so important to say that is because it was
Speaker 3: really hundreds of years of fights that led to what
Speaker 3: we accomplished in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties when
Speaker 3: we finally had a Supreme co Court that said, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're actually going to pay attention to the principles and
Speaker 3: values of the US Constitution. We're actually going to look
Speaker 3: at the Civil War amendments that said every citizen has
Speaker 3: a right to vote, that we have to have equal
Speaker 3: protection under the laws which were passed to protect newly
Speaker 3: freed people who had been enslaved and protect the rights
Speaker 3: of free black people, because not everybody wasn't slaved, most were,
Speaker 3: but all of that is to say it was never enforced.
Speaker 3: So we finally had a Supreme Court that was going
Speaker 3: to force those civil rights amendments, and we finally also
Speaker 3: we had a movement where black and particularly blacks with
Speaker 3: Jewish allies really came together. The Leadership Conference founded in
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty was founded by Roy Wilkins, who headed the NAACP, A,
Speaker 3: Philip Randolph incredibly important union leader as head of the
Speaker 3: Brotherhood of Sleeping car Porters, largest black union, and Arnie
Speaker 3: Aronson was one of the most important civic leaders in
Speaker 3: the Jewish community. That was such an important history and
Speaker 3: since then fought for the Civil Rights Act in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty four, Voting Rights Act with nineteen sixty five, but
Speaker 3: also the Americans with Disabilities Act. We're the disabilities community.
Speaker 3: Were people with disabilities getting treated as we should, everyone
Speaker 3: having a right to participate in society, everyone having something
Speaker 3: to offer, and that we've also you know, immigration rights.
Speaker 3: If it weren't for civil rights movement, there was a
Speaker 3: time when you had to be white to gain legal
Speaker 3: access to enter the country. So all of these things
Speaker 3: are what the Coalition represents. Because the Coalition represents women's
Speaker 3: rights groups. Where abortion is a civil right, we need
Speaker 3: to remember that right.
Speaker 2: And we had it for fifty years.
Speaker 3: I mean, we watched it being eroded over those fifty years,
Speaker 3: and it was largely we as we see the fight
Speaker 3: for the abortion pill, which is such a critical fight
Speaker 3: because that's a fight about science and access to decision
Speaker 3: making science, proven medical treatments right.
Speaker 1: Right open the door to overturning all sorts of FDA
Speaker 1: approvals for drugs that have been approved for years and years.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so it's always been about everyone. But we've also
Speaker 3: recognized that you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: the people harmed the most when we refuse to protect
Speaker 3: our rights are people of color, and it harms everyone.
Speaker 3: But ground zero always becomes communities of color.
Speaker 1: You and I have a very similar background in the
Speaker 1: fact that we come from this world of Jews and
Speaker 1: Blacks working together to achieve civil.
Speaker 3: Rights, freedom, satyrs, yep.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder, like, one of the things that's
Speaker 1: really upset me recently, but it was one of the
Speaker 1: tenets of trump Ism was to try to get Jews
Speaker 1: to fight with blacks. And you see that when they
Speaker 1: get into Israel and they want to say, you know,
Speaker 1: Rashida to leab is against Israel. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: my proudest moments was sitting at a table with Ilhan
Speaker 1: Omar and her saying to me, like, you have my back,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, because we want the same things, right,
Speaker 1: we want freedom for oppressed people. There is no world
Speaker 1: in which the Nazis come for the Jews and not
Speaker 1: the Blocks.
Speaker 3: This is such an important point, Molly, and I'm so
Speaker 3: glad you're raising it badly true. Is that the common
Speaker 3: enemy of any group, any of us, whether it's a
Speaker 3: Chinese immigrant or an Orthodox Jew, or a black person
Speaker 3: walking down the street or a Mexican citizen in al
Speaker 3: Pepiso is white supremacist, Neo nazis, white Ethno extremists. Right,
Speaker 3: we have all kinds of names that cross these categories.
Speaker 3: But at the center of so much of this ideology
Speaker 3: is white masculine Christian identity that says everyone else shouldn't
Speaker 3: be here, doesn't belong and is a threat, and that
Speaker 3: weaponizes that as division that divides us against the very
Speaker 3: things we all want, which is to be able to
Speaker 3: feed our families, which is to be able to afford housing,
Speaker 3: which will be treated decently on a job, and be
Speaker 3: able to get a job, to know we have a
Speaker 3: voice in this country and can decide who leads us collectively,
Speaker 3: Like these are all things we share as values. It
Speaker 3: is the politicians, and I do think it's important to
Speaker 3: call this out because there are politicians actively intentionally driving
Speaker 3: hate and wedges between us. Frankly, the organized hate groups
Speaker 3: are taking full advantage. We just put out a report
Speaker 3: I hope everyone will look at and it's called Cause
Speaker 3: for Concern. It's at www dot civil Rights dot org
Speaker 3: and we're just looking at FBI data. But what it
Speaker 3: shows us is what we've all seen, which is we
Speaker 3: have an unprecedented rise in hate crimes. It is unprecedently
Speaker 3: anti semitic. It remains true that the largest number of
Speaker 3: hate crimes are against black people. The incredible rise against
Speaker 3: LGBTQ communities, it's just insane. It's all of us. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we've had a long concern, especially through COVID about anti
Speaker 3: Asian violence. So I sail that, and of course anti
Speaker 3: immigrant violence. I sail that because it's also true it
Speaker 3: rises in election cycles, right, and the disinformation.
Speaker 1: When you have someone whose whole thing is is the
Speaker 1: hatred of the other.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Right now, we're in an interesting point in collective bargaining.
Speaker 1: We have the Writers Guild, which is one of the
Speaker 1: very few successful unions for now for creative people get pensions,
Speaker 1: people get healthcare. I mean, it really is a good
Speaker 1: union versus like I mean, I come from, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the Author's Guild, which was like not, I mean, I've heard,
Speaker 1: you know people saying that they may keep this going
Speaker 1: until January.
Speaker 3: One of the things that's under attack this country, that's
Speaker 3: in this country that's fundamental to democracy is the right
Speaker 3: to come together as workers, collectivize the voice and demand
Speaker 3: fair employment conditions and the ability to care for one's
Speaker 3: self and one's family. That's what unionism is. It's people
Speaker 3: coming together against otherwise. What can be a very powerful
Speaker 3: employer who can set all the rules if people workers
Speaker 3: can't come together. So I see this as an incredibly
Speaker 3: important fight. As I said, we have been founded by union,
Speaker 3: we are pro union. In fact, our own staff is
Speaker 3: unionizing and we're excited about it. We think it's a
Speaker 3: great thing that our staff is unionizing. We welcome it.
Speaker 3: We see it as something that's going to benefit our
Speaker 3: ability to be better. And so I say all that
Speaker 3: to say I think this is an incredibly important fight.
Speaker 3: I think it's painful for all of us who want
Speaker 3: our show you right, and we want those creatives because
Speaker 3: they bring so much to our lives. And I am
Speaker 3: personally sad about some of the shows I may not
Speaker 3: be able to see for a while. But the important
Speaker 3: thing is we can't have any of those wonderful things
Speaker 3: in our lives if people can't take care of themselves
Speaker 3: while they're doing it for us. So, you know, I
Speaker 3: think it's important for all of us to stay union strong,
Speaker 3: to stand with workers and recognize that it benefits all
Speaker 3: of us when we raise the standard of living. And
Speaker 3: that's what unions have always done, is made sure people
Speaker 3: get healthcare. It's made sure people have a rational work week.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't have weekends if it weren't for unions, y'all.
Speaker 3: So thank unions even if you don't have one, and
Speaker 3: demand one if you don't.
Speaker 1: One of the narratives we're seeing in the city that
Speaker 1: you should be mayor of iss and crime is like
Speaker 1: this thing that people now say as a way to
Speaker 1: get money for the police. Police have a very strong union.
Speaker 1: They probably have the best union of any of us.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, they certainly weren't it.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's certainly crime in New York as or
Speaker 1: there are everywhere. You know. It doesn't get worse during
Speaker 1: Republican election cycles. It's just that we hear about it
Speaker 1: more because in your post is actually a very powerful
Speaker 1: paper in a weird way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we have to know and understand we
Speaker 3: can walk and chew gum. We're actually quite good at
Speaker 3: that as New Yorkers, as Americans, we can walk in
Speaker 3: chew gum. And the walking thoughing gum here is both
Speaker 3: understanding that there's a very real experience that some people
Speaker 3: are experiencing around crime and safety. And it's important to
Speaker 3: say that because we know we have people who are
Speaker 3: mentally ill who need support and help, need supportive housing.
Speaker 3: Some of that fear that it is coming from the
Speaker 3: fact that there are people need help who are not
Speaker 3: getting it. It's also true that if you're you know,
Speaker 3: in certain communities, gun violence is very high and murder
Speaker 3: rates are too high. The thing is they're highly highly concentrated.
Speaker 3: But you're right that the perception is both one. If
Speaker 3: you're in one of those communities, it's not perception, it's
Speaker 3: a reality, and we have to say that and acknowledge that.
Speaker 3: And you know, we have black folks who own homes
Speaker 3: in the city. We've Latinos who owned fomes. People are
Speaker 3: Asian with people or white own homes, have experiences, and
Speaker 3: we need to say, yes, we know. So it's not
Speaker 3: to negate the fact that these are experiences that can
Speaker 3: be real for people and are it's to say that one,
Speaker 3: we're still in the best shape we've been in for
Speaker 3: a very long time. This is your point. I think
Speaker 3: about driving perception that things are out of control, when
Speaker 3: in fact, if you look over thirty years, we're so
Speaker 3: crime is still down seventy percent from what it was
Speaker 3: thirty years ago, And in fact, it depends on what
Speaker 3: crime categories we're looking at. But you know, as I said,
Speaker 3: you know, the real question is we all want to
Speaker 3: be safe. Everybody wants to be safe, and that means
Speaker 3: doing everything we can to ensure they never had a
Speaker 3: problem in the first place. And one of the things
Speaker 3: I think that we have to be willing to say
Speaker 3: to one another is, you know, how do we recognize
Speaker 3: that if we get a kid a job, that kid
Speaker 3: is much less likely to ever get in trouble. How
Speaker 3: do we recognize if we have you know, if we
Speaker 3: think about Jordan Neely, the black man killed in a
Speaker 3: choke hold by three people on a subway, three white
Speaker 3: men and one in particular, putting him the choke hold
Speaker 3: held there for fifteen minutes because he was yelling that
Speaker 3: he was hungry, that he was thirsty, and he was
Speaker 3: tired and ready to die. He was homeless. All those
Speaker 3: things have solutions, And some of the insecurities that people
Speaker 3: are feeling is because we're not putting our resources, our energy,
Speaker 3: and our time in things we know work. There was
Speaker 3: a man on that subway car, formerly homeless in fact,
Speaker 3: describing himself as second generation homeless, lived on the streets,
Speaker 3: he was in supportive housing, and he understood exactly what
Speaker 3: was happening. He's traumatized now he's talked about it publicly.
Speaker 3: But imagine the difference if we had done for Jordan
Speaker 3: Neely what we fortunately were able to do for the
Speaker 3: witness to that killing, we wouldn't have the situation to
Speaker 3: begin with. And we need to make sure that we're
Speaker 3: being honest with ourselves about where we can put our resources.
Speaker 3: That means no one feels the fear in the first.
Speaker 1: Place, right, And I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that Adams is doing, I
Speaker 1: actually think that he sort of wants to have it
Speaker 1: both ways, right. He wants these Republicans to like him
Speaker 1: because they liked him early on for whatever reason, and
Speaker 1: he wants them to think of him as a sort
Speaker 1: of cop democrat, whatever that looks like. And so some
Speaker 1: of the stuff he's doing is like bussing immigrants.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's your take on that.
Speaker 3: I'm repeating something I said during the primary, but was
Speaker 3: just pointing to it as a matter of fact. Is
Speaker 3: you know Eric Adams once said that the best mayor
Speaker 3: of New York City as crime fighter was Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 3: That should have been in tow not David Dinkin. So
Speaker 3: I say that, and the day after the primary, Eric
Speaker 3: Adams had dinner with Bo Diedel. Eric Adams has always
Speaker 3: been someone who both has has both these things are true. Again,
Speaker 3: who's been He has been active in calling for police reform.
Speaker 3: He has also been active in protecting the prerogatives of
Speaker 3: law enforcement. And I think both those things are true.
Speaker 3: And that's a complicated thing. I think for a lot
Speaker 3: of people in New York is to know that both
Speaker 3: those things are true. And the contradiction for me in
Speaker 3: this has nothing to do with whether you're a Democrat
Speaker 3: or a Republican conservative or a liberal. It's that we
Speaker 3: allow teachers to do whatever the heck they want a classroom.
Speaker 3: In fact, some teachers are complaining that they're not able
Speaker 3: to teach because we've so over regulated them. Whenever our
Speaker 3: school system is not producing the testing outcomes we want,
Speaker 3: then the talks immediately go to cutting the budget of
Speaker 3: the Department of Education. The talk immediately goes to wasting money.
Speaker 3: We never have that conversation about the police department, despite
Speaker 3: the fact that we have many fewer accountability mechanisms over
Speaker 3: the police department, very little transparency about what they're doing
Speaker 3: other than crime rates. Crime rates don't tell us what
Speaker 3: they're doing with their budget. Crime rates don't tell us
Speaker 3: how they're handling internal police discipline. They have a risk
Speaker 3: management system inside the police department that's totally opaque to
Speaker 3: black box. I can say that having done civilian oversight,
Speaker 3: we couldn't get them to share data with the Civilian
Speaker 3: Oversite Board. I shared the Civilian Complaint Review Board to say,
Speaker 3: let's go bear notes and let's see if we can
Speaker 3: improve the risk assessment system so we can catch the
Speaker 3: folks who need to be course corrected before they hurt
Speaker 3: somebody or to somebody. And this we got refusal. So
Speaker 3: I'm saying that's to say the double standard here where
Speaker 3: other public servants who are supposed to serve the public
Speaker 3: get scrutiny and if they don't perform, they get budget cuts.
Speaker 3: I'm not supporting budget cuts for schools. I'm just saying
Speaker 3: the inconsistency, the contradiction means you're not actually focused on
Speaker 3: public safety and crime prevention. You're focused on prerogatives for
Speaker 3: police officers because you think we're safer if they can
Speaker 3: do what they want. And that has never been a
Speaker 3: democratic value or principle. I mean that by small democratic,
Speaker 3: the small d that should be a nonpartisan position.
Speaker 1: It's sort of a brilliant thing the police have done,
Speaker 1: which is they've said, any criticism means you love crime.
Speaker 3: Right, That's exactly the problem it means. And this is
Speaker 3: the other thing that's important to say, because I've talked
Speaker 3: to a lot of rank and file police officers in
Speaker 3: my day. A lot of them agree with prevention and reform,
Speaker 3: but they don't have a voice to express it, and
Speaker 3: it's dangerous for them to express it.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, that's a fundamental thing. My Wiley. Thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank.
Speaker 3: You, thank you, thank you, Molly, I love you.
Speaker 1: Congressman Colin alright represents Texas's thirty second district.
Speaker 2: Welcome to fast Politics, Colin.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: You are in the.
Speaker 1: Great state of Texas and you are running for United
Speaker 1: States Senate against the worst person in the entire world.
Speaker 4: Again. Well, I'm running inst Ted Cruz, and you know,
Speaker 4: I think the Texans can't afford six more years of
Speaker 4: this guy, it's personal for me. I'm a fourth generation Texan.
Speaker 4: My boys are fifth generation Texans. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 4: we have to be embarrassed virus Senator, and I think
Speaker 4: it's time for us to get a new one.
Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit about why you are
Speaker 1: the right candidate for this.
Speaker 4: You know, my story is one of relying on my community, Molly.
Speaker 4: You know, I was born and raised in Dallas by
Speaker 4: a single mother and was a public school teacher. Then
Speaker 4: you know, I think sometimes when you grow up having
Speaker 4: to rely on community organizations like the YMCA, where I
Speaker 4: spent a ton of time, you know, public schools, people's
Speaker 4: generosity at times, and I think you get a different
Speaker 4: and maybe deeper appreciation sometimes for community. For us here
Speaker 4: in Texas, we know that it's going to be a
Speaker 4: tough fight to beat ted Cruz and to give us
Speaker 4: I think, more accurate representation closer to who we are.
Speaker 4: But you know, my life has been a story taken
Speaker 4: on those kinds of fights. I mean, just from basically
Speaker 4: making it to the point that I have in the
Speaker 4: NFL law school now, but also I mean who I
Speaker 4: got into Congress is by winning a really tough fight
Speaker 4: you know, beating a twenty two year incumbent who was
Speaker 4: the chairman of the Rules Committee, who had been unopposed
Speaker 4: the election before. And so I think we know how
Speaker 4: to do it. I think we have the experience to
Speaker 4: do it. And what we've done in our campaigns in
Speaker 4: the past has been able to bring together kind of
Speaker 4: diverse coalitions that I think really reflect who we are
Speaker 4: in my community. And I think we can spread that
Speaker 4: out to the entire state.
Speaker 1: So I want to go back in twenty eighteen and better.
Speaker 1: O'Rourke really did Lewis to Ted Cruz by three percentage points,
Speaker 1: which is not very much. So this is not even
Speaker 1: though we think of Texas a very red stay, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily really.
Speaker 2: True, is it.
Speaker 4: No, it's not. And I think that I've been a
Speaker 4: little bit frustrated at times when people are not using
Speaker 4: actual data and they're basing kind of their thoughts on
Speaker 4: where Texas is politically. You were a state that Joe
Speaker 4: Biden lost by five points, as you said, Ted Cruz
Speaker 4: was narrowly re elected. I think it was two point
Speaker 4: six or something like that in twenty eighteen, and we're
Speaker 4: save with the enormous room for growth in terms of,
Speaker 4: you know, getting folks out to vote, because we've had
Speaker 4: one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country every election,
Speaker 4: you know, for some time now, so we have high potential,
Speaker 4: you know, a ton of folks who we need to
Speaker 4: give it engaged in our democracy. We've also already had
Speaker 4: a series of close elections, and so you know, I
Speaker 4: think that all plays into it. But it's also just
Speaker 4: true that tech Cruise is uniquely unpopular, and that he
Speaker 4: has made himself more unpopular by going to ken Kun
Speaker 4: during our state wide freeze, by being sort of one
Speaker 4: of the architects of the insurrection on January sixth. Those
Speaker 4: things we know have not helped him. And so this
Speaker 4: is not a I've seen, you know, the kind of
Speaker 4: references a long shot. It's a tough race. It's not
Speaker 4: a long shot.
Speaker 1: It's actually Democrats' best pick up opportunity this cycle.
Speaker 4: That's what cool.
Speaker 1: I think about the candidate who ran against Lauren Beaupert,
Speaker 1: Adam Fresh, who we had on this podcast, and everyone
Speaker 1: said I was crazy, and he lost by seven hundred votes.
Speaker 1: So imagine what he could have done had there not
Speaker 1: been such headwinds. So I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about what it looks like. I mean, first I wanted
Speaker 1: you to tell us a little bit about your background, like,
Speaker 1: you know, how you can energize Texans. You've been in
Speaker 1: Congress three terms. You also played football, right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4: I like to joke that I'd taken the normal rite
Speaker 4: to Congress. So I was raised by sing a mother,
Speaker 4: play in the NFL, and went to law school and
Speaker 4: became a civil rights lawyer. But yeah, you know my
Speaker 4: story is, I said, starts in Dallas. My mom taught
Speaker 4: in Dallas public schools, and I went to Dallas pub
Speaker 4: with schools and was fortunate enough to get a scholarship
Speaker 4: to Baylor. Didn't think I was going to get a
Speaker 4: chance to play in the NFL. Was all ready to
Speaker 4: go to law school and take them asset all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff, and was basically convinced that was going
Speaker 4: to have a chance to play by agents who kept
Speaker 4: bothering me. Decided to sort of detour from law school
Speaker 4: and just see what the whole NFL thing was about.
Speaker 4: Five years later, was still playing and had it not
Speaker 4: been for a neck injury in my fifth game of
Speaker 4: my fifth year in Dallas against the Cowboys as fake
Speaker 4: kind of turned out. I probably would have kept playing
Speaker 4: for a number of years more, but that led me
Speaker 4: to go to law school. I got into voting rights work.
Speaker 4: I worked in the Obama administration as a come home
Speaker 4: and run for Congress in twenty eighteen because I thought
Speaker 4: that the community that I was born and raised in
Speaker 4: was not being reflected by the congressman that we had
Speaker 4: at the time. He wasn't receptive to who we were.
Speaker 4: They didn't represent who we were. And I feel similarly
Speaker 4: about Ted Kruz.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with the state like Texas, and we see this
Speaker 1: with these approval numbers for Biden. You don't need to
Speaker 1: convince these Republicans, these maga Republicans, to vote for you.
Speaker 1: You need to do what Donald Trump did, which is
Speaker 1: get people who don't vote to mat to vote right.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's ultimately how you win.
Speaker 4: Well, the way we've done it, Molly, in my congressional
Speaker 4: races is we've tried to do both. We've tried to,
Speaker 4: you know, get folks who maybe have voted for George W.
Speaker 4: Bush in the past or at Romney to feel comfortable
Speaker 4: that they could support me. And we've also tried to
Speaker 4: expand the electorate. You know, by targeting folks and spending
Speaker 4: time honestly talking to voters who don't always get talked to.
Speaker 4: And there we've had a in Texas, we've that's relatively
Speaker 4: easy to do because we've not had a tradition in
Speaker 4: recent years of really on the ground campaigning, of getting
Speaker 4: communities engaged through constant interaction, door to door work of course,
Speaker 4: but also you know, organizations in those communities when you
Speaker 4: when you reach the level of kind of bottoming out
Speaker 4: of turnout that we are in. Uh, it's it's it's
Speaker 4: a number of things all at once. It's our voting
Speaker 4: laws that you make it very difficult to vote. I
Speaker 4: know that as a voting its attorney, but it's also
Speaker 4: you know, sort of almost apathy that creeps in. And
Speaker 4: then there's also at times a lack of campaigns who've
Speaker 4: tried to counter that. We need to do both because
Speaker 4: I think that's what's best for our state. We need
Speaker 4: to get more people involved voting.
Speaker 5: We just do.
Speaker 4: I mean, what's happening right now for us politically, it's
Speaker 4: not reflective no matter what we are, whether it's purple state, whatever,
Speaker 4: it's not reflective of taxes itself. So we need to
Speaker 4: have it be more reflective of that. But there are
Speaker 4: a lot of folks out there in my experience, particularly
Speaker 4: in recent years, who were Republicans or maybe still consider
Speaker 4: themselves Republicans, who are looking for a political home, and
Speaker 4: I've often been able to appeal to them as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a really good point. And you'll also
Speaker 1: register voters.
Speaker 4: Well, we have to, and we're growing so rapidly. We
Speaker 4: have folks moving into state and we need to get
Speaker 4: you know, plugged in. We have every day an eighteen
Speaker 4: year old turns eligible in Texas up. We need to
Speaker 4: get plugged in. So we have to grow that. But
Speaker 4: we have a large number of registered voters are currently
Speaker 4: not voting as well. I mean I think it was
Speaker 4: around nine and a half million in the last election.
Speaker 4: That's more than many states have voters period.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, it's such a humongous state and
Speaker 1: it's so interesting.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you.
Speaker 1: One of the other things that I've been struck by
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz is that he is quite busy with
Speaker 1: the podcast. Is one of your competitors, So yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't have the same audience, let me tell you, But
Speaker 1: but I do, you know, I do a podcast three
Speaker 1: days a week.
Speaker 2: He does a podcast three days a week. It's quite
Speaker 2: a lot of work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I write a column, but I don't also
Speaker 1: pretend to be United States senator.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he represents thirty million Texans, you know in my district.
Speaker 4: Of course, with my family commitments that everything is well,
Speaker 4: my schedule is so backed.
Speaker 1: Mind.
Speaker 4: I'm not trying, you know, it just is. I can't
Speaker 4: imagine carving out time to prep, record and be a
Speaker 4: part of a podcast three times a week. It's funny,
Speaker 4: but it's also right. Like it's the same rationale that
Speaker 4: leads you to go to Cancun when your state is
Speaker 4: frozen and there are people dying of carbon monoxide poisoning
Speaker 4: in their apartments because they're bringing generators inside when they're
Speaker 4: breaking up their fence posts and burning their fence or warmth.
Speaker 4: If you're able to do that to say, well, this
Speaker 4: is a good time to go on vacation, then you
Speaker 4: also have the attitude, kind of the callousness and the
Speaker 4: arrogance that I've got some free time with I'll do
Speaker 4: a podcast instead of oh, I don't know, maybe I
Speaker 4: could meet with some constituents, Maybe I could get to
Speaker 4: work on trying to figure something out. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think the reason why I've talked about it some is
Speaker 4: that I think it's indicative of his lack of seriousness
Speaker 4: about this job.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think is pretty interesting about Texas,
Speaker 1: and this is true about Florida too, is that these
Speaker 1: are states where you really are seeing the effects.
Speaker 2: Of climate change in a really scary way. Can you
Speaker 2: talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 4: Well, Yeah, we've had record droughts and record rainfall, and
Speaker 4: we've received more one hundred year floods and just the
Speaker 4: span of a few years than care to count. We've
Speaker 4: of course had, uh, you know, a state wide freeze
Speaker 4: with Hurricane Harvey that was you know, dumped you know,
Speaker 4: basically months worth of rainfall on Houston in the span
Speaker 4: of a couple of days. That was partially made worse
Speaker 4: by the fact that the Gulf of Mexico it was
Speaker 4: you know, a degree or more warmer than it should be. Uh.
Speaker 4: And it's absolutely true. It's impacting our agriculture, it's impacting
Speaker 4: and changing you know, lives in Texas. Oftentimes, as you know,
Speaker 4: some of the most vulnerable, vulnerable folks are the ones
Speaker 4: who then are hit hardest by the effects of it,
Speaker 4: and so when we have record droughts and record heat waves,
Speaker 4: you know, it's our urban cores often that are far
Speaker 4: hotter than anywhere else in the state. Sometimes some of
Speaker 4: the hottest places in the country are in Dallas and
Speaker 4: in Houston, you know, because we have a ton of pavement,
Speaker 4: not much grainary and extremely soaring temperatures and needs to
Speaker 4: be see people suffering under that. So it very much
Speaker 4: is a real issue for us. Texas is an energy state.
Speaker 4: We're going to continue to lead on energy, but we
Speaker 4: also have a chance to lead on clean or noble
Speaker 4: energy in a way that is really exciting that most
Speaker 4: people don't know about Texas, that we're the number one
Speaker 4: win state in the country by far, by far than
Speaker 4: producing the most wind power, got a burgeoning soul or industry,
Speaker 4: and you know, as we kind of move into where
Speaker 4: we're going in a way that's sustainable for the planet,
Speaker 4: Texas is going to continue to be an energy state.
Speaker 4: We are feeling the effects of what's happening right now.
Speaker 1: You have this background as a civil rights attorney focused
Speaker 1: voting rights. We have a real problem in this country
Speaker 1: when it comes to voting rights. We have a Republican
Speaker 1: party that is very interested in making harder to vote.
Speaker 2: We even have a.
Speaker 1: Republican candidate musing about making the voting age twenty five.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you see a world and again, let's
Speaker 1: just I mean, this is not impossible. Right, Democrats went
Speaker 1: back the House, Biden keeps the presidency, Democrats keep the
Speaker 1: Senate or even add to it.
Speaker 2: How do you solve that problem? I mean, we have
Speaker 2: this very.
Speaker 1: Partisan Supreme Court that seems pretty embolden and interested in
Speaker 1: doing whatever they want to do. I mean, how do
Speaker 1: you solve for voting rights? How do you protect?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I think that you're right. We are in a
Speaker 4: real crisis when it comes to the rights to vote
Speaker 4: in this country. Texas unfortunately is at the top of
Speaker 4: the list in terms of the worst actors in terms
Speaker 4: of restricting the right to vote. I'm a student of history, though,
Speaker 4: I like to remind myself that you know, twenty five
Speaker 4: year old John Lewis when he's walking across the Minevette's Bridge,
Speaker 4: Martin Luther King, of course, you know, the foot soldiers
Speaker 4: of the civil rights movement had far fewer tools at
Speaker 4: their disposal when they were fighting for the rights to
Speaker 4: vote than we do now. They certainly didn't have a
Speaker 4: congressional Black caucus that I'm a member of that you know,
Speaker 4: is the largest it's ever been. They certainly didn't have
Speaker 4: president at all times who like Joe Biden, who would
Speaker 4: be wants to use a part of justice to defend
Speaker 4: the right to vote as much as you can, and
Speaker 4: so as bad as it is right now, and to
Speaker 4: be honest with you, in the decade that I've been
Speaker 4: involved with voting rights, we've gone backwards in that decade.
Speaker 4: We're in a worse position now than we were going
Speaker 4: back to Shelby County beholder the case that the Voting
Speaker 4: Rights Act. We're in a much worse place, There's no
Speaker 4: doubt about it. And in my opinion, we are no
Speaker 4: longer able to rely on the courts to be that
Speaker 4: safeguard for the right to vote. So now that it
Speaker 4: has to be legislative, and that's one of the reasons
Speaker 4: why I felt so strongly that if you feel that
Speaker 4: the filibuster is important, I'll accept that, but we have
Speaker 4: to not let the filibusters stand the way a pro
Speaker 4: democracy legislation that ultimately is about the makeup of the Senate.
Speaker 4: So I argued strenuously that we should have a carve
Speaker 4: out for voting rights. Now, I'm not a fan in
Speaker 4: the filibuster period.
Speaker 2: But at the very least we have to secure that.
Speaker 4: At the very least we should we have to be
Speaker 4: able to address democracy issues, the bedrock issues, before we
Speaker 4: get to dealing with having to create a super majority,
Speaker 4: just the way they determine that we need to lower
Speaker 4: the threshold to consider judges or appointments to the cabinet.
Speaker 4: You know, they've done plenty of carve outs to the filibuster.
Speaker 4: We should have one for voting rights. And so I
Speaker 4: think there is a scenario where Democrats are in control
Speaker 4: in the Congress and Joe Biden is in the wa
Speaker 4: White House where we could pass strong, proactive voting rights
Speaker 4: legislation that protects the right to vote and expands it
Speaker 4: in key areas, and that should be constitutionally sound and
Speaker 4: difficult to challenge even by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, democratic ideas are much much more popular.
Speaker 1: But the problem is Republicans are just better at getting elected.
Speaker 4: Well, we have some structural issues, and we rely on
Speaker 4: a broad coalition that often has many elements of it
Speaker 4: that need their kind of first order of needs met
Speaker 4: in order to even consider voting. You know, when you're
Speaker 4: having a difficult time just getting by, you know, being
Speaker 4: involved in your democracy is harder. It just is. And
Speaker 4: of course you know the structure of the Senate, and
Speaker 4: I think the Supreme Court's almost criminal refusal to do
Speaker 4: anything about jerrymandering has left us in a situation where
Speaker 4: we can get more votes in every election, and of
Speaker 4: course you know the electoral college as well, we can
Speaker 4: get more votes in every election, but still be in
Speaker 4: a situation where we're not able to, you know, wield power.
Speaker 4: And I think that that makes particularly young people that
Speaker 4: I come across, and makes them cynical about politics, about
Speaker 4: what they can change. But my message to them, you know,
Speaker 4: is that if you're not at the table, you're gonna
Speaker 4: be on the menu. There's gonna be laws that are
Speaker 4: going to be You're gonna have to deal with the
Speaker 4: laws that are passed a lot longer than you know,
Speaker 4: so some of the older folks in DC and in
Speaker 4: your state capitals. So we need you to be engaged.
Speaker 4: The cavalry is not coming. You are the cavalry. We
Speaker 4: need you, and you know that's that's sort of The
Speaker 4: idea here is that we can't allow those structural difficulties
Speaker 4: to stop us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good point, Colin. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. This is really interesting. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Mollie, I appreciate you having me on and you
Speaker 4: knowing where Texas really is.
Speaker 2: Hi, it's Mollie, and I am.
Speaker 1: Wildly excited that for the first time, Fast Politics, the
Speaker 1: show you're listening to right now, is going to have
Speaker 1: merch for sale over at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com.
Speaker 2: You can now buy shirts.
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Speaker 2: We've heard your cries to spread the word.
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Speaker 1: can grab this merchandise only at shop dot Fast politicspod
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks for your support. Mary Ziegler is a historian,
Speaker 1: a law professor, as well as author of Dollars for Life,
Speaker 1: The Anti Abortion Movement.
Speaker 2: And the Fall of the Republican Establishment.
Speaker 1: Welcome too Fast Politics, Mary, Thanks for having me. I
Speaker 1: often think of you when I'm writing about abortion, and
Speaker 1: I think like, I'm curious what her take on this is.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're one of the like the legal scholars
Speaker 1: that I think of as sort of able to capture
Speaker 1: what's going on right now.
Speaker 2: What is going on right now?
Speaker 5: Oh boy, that's a big question. There's a lot of
Speaker 5: different things that are going on right now. So I
Speaker 5: mean the Comstock Act immediately comes to mind. That's the
Speaker 5: sort of a resurrection of an idea of the Comstock
Speaker 5: Act that's from the nineteenth century that's been front and
Speaker 5: center in efforts to i think create a de facto
Speaker 5: national ban.
Speaker 3: So that's going on.
Speaker 1: Let's just go into the Comstock Act for a minute.
Speaker 1: The concept act was from remind me what year it was.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like around prohibition, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that it was even earlier than that.
Speaker 5: Actually, so the Comstock Act was passed in eighteen seventy three.
Speaker 5: To say it was vigorously enforced as kind of a euphemism,
Speaker 5: I mean, the number of people who were prosecuted for
Speaker 5: things that just it seems kind of outrageous, Like, for example,
Speaker 5: there were people who would publish news stories about women
Speaker 5: who died in illegal abortions, so no one was even
Speaker 5: having an abortion, but prosecutors would say, look, if women
Speaker 5: even know abortion exists, albeit when she were dying from it,
Speaker 5: they're going to go out there and get abortions. So
Speaker 5: that's obscene, and this person needs to go to prison
Speaker 5: for five years. So it was it was extremely broad
Speaker 5: in its interpretation in the early years, but that interpretation
Speaker 5: hasn't really been a thing since the nineteen thirties. And
Speaker 5: when courts in the thirties looked at the law, they
Speaker 5: thought the earlier prosecutions had it all wrong. So we're
Speaker 5: talking about reviving an interpretation of a statute that was
Speaker 5: probably never right in the first place, but reflected ideas
Speaker 5: of sexual.
Speaker 3: Purity from like a time when women couldn't vote. That's
Speaker 3: kind of where we're at.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a really good explanation of it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So that is what conservatives want to use to prevent
Speaker 1: people sending things in the map.
Speaker 5: Yeah, basically, So conservatives now are saying, hey, you know what,
Speaker 5: it turns out, we never appealed the Comstock Act, and
Speaker 5: the Comstock Act is federal law, so preempts, you know,
Speaker 5: state laws. So if you live in a state that
Speaker 5: protects abortion and its state constitution, conservatives are saying, well,
Speaker 5: that's too bad. Because Comstock trumps that, and they're interpreting
Speaker 5: it not just to apply to abortion pills, but really
Speaker 5: to all abortions, because any abortion, surgical or otherwise uses
Speaker 5: something that comes.
Speaker 3: In the mail.
Speaker 5: Right. No, no, doctors are making their own surgical gloves
Speaker 5: and scalpels and pills, right, They're getting them from elsewhere.
Speaker 5: But they're trying to use this as a de facto band.
Speaker 1: It's so crazy, But they're clever in the way that
Speaker 1: they're cooking up stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure. I mean one of the things I
Speaker 5: think progressives did wrong for a really long time was
Speaker 5: to sort of underestimate people on the other side of
Speaker 5: this issue who have been pretty smart at strategy. Even
Speaker 5: if I mean, I don't think this is a great
Speaker 5: argument in terms of that's not what I think the
Speaker 5: Comstock Act actually means. But they know their audience, right.
Speaker 5: There's a whole bunch of conservative justices on the Supreme
Speaker 5: Court who describe themselves as textualists, which means they don't
Speaker 5: care about precedent or history or whatever. They care only
Speaker 5: about what they think the text actually says. So this
Speaker 5: argument is tailor made for the people currently on the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court. So you know it may work even though
Speaker 5: there's lots of things wrong with it as an argument, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing is, like, we have a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court that is profoundly a product of this conservative
Speaker 1: court movement.
Speaker 3: He yeah.
Speaker 5: And I think the other thing that, obviously it signals
Speaker 5: is a lot of the strategies we're going to talk
Speaker 5: about today are focused on the federal courts. Right, So
Speaker 5: even though Justice Alito told us, you know what, the
Speaker 5: courts are getting out of the abortion business. This is
Speaker 5: going to be left of voters. Of course, anti worshion
Speaker 5: lawyers don't want that to voters. It tends to end
Speaker 5: badly for them, so they're trying various ways to get
Speaker 5: questions to federal judges so federal judges can take the
Speaker 5: issue away from voters.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's a kind of amazing bunch
Speaker 1: of events. So I want to ask you, what else
Speaker 1: are you seeing besides this Commstock Act.
Speaker 5: Well, so we're seeing obviously we're right in the middle
Speaker 5: of this challenge to the FDA's authority to have even
Speaker 5: approved MiFi pristone that's continuing. So the Fifth Circuit Court
Speaker 5: of Appeals on the most conservative intermediate appellate court in
Speaker 5: the country. It has a hearing on the next round
Speaker 5: of this next week. So we're seeing and we're seeing
Speaker 5: a whole bunch of other efforts to challenge either of
Speaker 5: the FDA's authority to approve MiFi pristone the way mif
Speaker 5: A pristone is sold and manufactured. And we've seen states
Speaker 5: trying to ban MiFi pristone, either as part of sweeping
Speaker 5: bans or just specific to medication wortion bands. And we're
Speaker 5: starting to see issues involving states trying to stop people
Speaker 5: from traveling, or states trying to apply their laws outside
Speaker 5: of state lines. In other words, you know, applying a
Speaker 5: rule that saying California doctors can't prove perforied services to
Speaker 5: people from Alabama, for example.
Speaker 1: Right, And that is again really good proof that the
Speaker 1: states rights fantasy was never real.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I mean anyone who studied the history of
Speaker 5: this is not going to be surprised by that, in
Speaker 5: part because you know, the anti worshing movement has never
Speaker 5: been a states rights movement. I mean that argument came
Speaker 5: along later. It was for strategic purposes. I mean, just
Speaker 5: by its own terms. It doesn't make sense if you
Speaker 5: believe that a fetus or unborn child is a rights
Speaker 5: holding person. You clearly don't think it's okay for that
Speaker 5: rights holding person have no rights in California but have
Speaker 5: rights in Alabama. Like, that makes absolutely no sense. So
Speaker 5: that was never going to be the strategy, and I
Speaker 5: think it in a way, I think this at was
Speaker 5: sort of insolving our intelligence by pretending that that's what
Speaker 5: this was about for anyone involved, because it never has been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is pretty interesting. But I did
Speaker 1: see yesterday there was a legislator on a red state
Speaker 1: who's trying to get a tax deduction to count a
Speaker 1: fetus as a dependent.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, well, so this is part of this broader concern
Speaker 5: for fetal personhood.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: So the kind of dominant legal argument that a Worsion
Speaker 5: opponents have made really since the nineteen sixties is that
Speaker 5: fetus is a rights holding constitutional person. So not just
Speaker 5: that a fetus is a separate biological entity, right like,
Speaker 5: not part of the pregnant person, but its own thing.
Speaker 5: They're also arguing that that person or thing has constitutional rights,
Speaker 5: and that I think.
Speaker 3: Has many ways been the endgame for the.
Speaker 5: Movement legally from the beginning and now that dogs has
Speaker 5: come down, we're starting to see groups make that more
Speaker 5: forcefully in state legislatures. So in some states like Arizona
Speaker 5: already has a personhood law that's tied up in court.
Speaker 5: Georgia has a law that recognizes personhood for various purposes
Speaker 5: at six weeks, and lots of other states have personhood
Speaker 5: language in their worshion bands. And I think we should
Speaker 5: expect to see anti worshing groups pushing this argument as
Speaker 5: they think it might work.
Speaker 3: I think it's their ultimate goal.
Speaker 5: So I think the question really is one of timing
Speaker 5: and whether they think they can succeed on this in
Speaker 5: the near term or whether they think they have to wait.
Speaker 1: Ask you about this sort of FDA approval stuff, because
Speaker 1: one of the things that I wrote about, which I
Speaker 1: also want to ask you about is Judge Matthew Kismerick.
Speaker 2: I think I said that right, you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Amarillo, Texas judge who has you know, is
Speaker 1: the go to judge when judge shopping for anti choice justices,
Speaker 1: a Trump appointee. Of course, you know, part of that
Speaker 1: decision to overturn the method pristone approval was this kind
Speaker 1: of decision to sort of reject the FDA as a
Speaker 1: governing body.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that? And you wrote about the
Speaker 2: junk science element of those two.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, so the suit, that suit also involves
Speaker 5: the Constock Act, just because why not you're so personally here.
Speaker 5: There's also this argument essentially that the FDA never had
Speaker 5: the authority to approve MiFi Priystone under what's called Subpart H,
Speaker 5: which is a regulation that the FDA can use.
Speaker 3: To approve drugs.
Speaker 5: And the argument anti Worshion lawyers are making is that
Speaker 5: one that this wasn't justified because pregnancy isn't a disease.
Speaker 5: It's sort of like a normal, healthy thing.
Speaker 1: You see that more and more conservatives love that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is also not a new thing.
Speaker 5: I mean you can find people making that argument like
Speaker 5: in the nineteen sixties. And then secondly they're arguing that
Speaker 5: there was no justification for approving mifh A Priystone because
Speaker 5: it wasn't safer than surgical abortion. And in fact, anti
Speaker 5: Worshion lawyers, then you know, kind of trot out a
Speaker 5: lot of studies that their own research are sent on
Speaker 5: that argue that not only as mithroprostone not safer than
Speaker 5: surgical abortion. It's actually, you know, killing women and girls everywhere,
Speaker 5: which is a claim they make often without any evidence
Speaker 5: or with evidence that essentially was gathered by groups that
Speaker 5: movement aligned. So that had been the claim. I mean
Speaker 5: in Judge Chasmeric's ruling is really it's hard for me
Speaker 5: to convey, like as a historian, how remarkable a document
Speaker 5: that is. Explain Yeah, I mean it was more remarkable
Speaker 5: in some ways than the plaintiffs briefs. Like if you
Speaker 5: had sort of blindfolded someone had said one of these
Speaker 5: was written by the anti Aborsian plaintiffs, and one of
Speaker 5: these was written by a judge. I think you may
Speaker 5: not know which one, or you may actually guess wrong.
Speaker 5: And so far that hasn't worked. Again, not because I
Speaker 5: think the US Supreme Court is unsympathetic to these junk
Speaker 5: science claims, but because there are a lot of procedural
Speaker 5: problems with this case. It's really hard for the plaintiffs
Speaker 5: to explain where there was an injury that even entitled
Speaker 5: them to be in court in the first place. And
Speaker 5: so maybe that the Supreme Court kills this case. Not
Speaker 5: because you know, there are any more sympathetic to abortion
Speaker 5: rights or you know the authority of scientists and the FDN,
Speaker 5: and they were a few days ago. But just because
Speaker 5: you know, this is just such a messed up case
Speaker 5: that even the court's conservative justices may want to see
Speaker 5: these claims again, just from people who actually have standing
Speaker 5: to sue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That is so interesting.
Speaker 1: So one of my obsessions is I just wrote this
Speaker 1: about the no fault divorces. Of course, you'll be shocked
Speaker 1: to now that this incredibly zalidous judge had written.
Speaker 2: Before he had been put on the Federal Court.
Speaker 1: A long diatribe about how what a bad guy Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan was because he signed into law.
Speaker 2: The first no fault divorce.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you talk about how this play is
Speaker 1: into this whole assault on women's rights.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, so there's a lot of anxiety about
Speaker 5: no fault divorce. I mean, this may seem like it's
Speaker 5: coming out of nowhere for people.
Speaker 3: This is not you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: No one has talked about the no fault divorce wars.
Speaker 5: There's no equivalent pland of narrative the way there was
Speaker 5: a round abortion. But what people don't know is that
Speaker 5: this was a source of real anxiety for social conservatives
Speaker 5: going way back to the nineteen sixties and seventies, because
Speaker 5: I think many social conservatives believe that the family, which
Speaker 5: they define, of course as you know, heterosexual and traditional
Speaker 5: in terms of the general rules that people were playing,
Speaker 5: was the kind of foundation of society, and no fault divorce,
Speaker 5: of course, did fundamentally change how people lived their lives,
Speaker 5: and it was incredibly popular. So I think there had
Speaker 5: been a real interest in changing no fault divorce laws
Speaker 5: the people like Jerry Folwell and folks in the majority
Speaker 5: moral majority had going way back to the seventies and
Speaker 5: eight eight, but it just didn't work, in part because
Speaker 5: it turned out people like no fault course, So Louisiana
Speaker 5: actually experimented with this some years ago. They passed a
Speaker 5: law offering an option they called covenant marriage, so essentially
Speaker 5: folks could opt out of they could decide when they
Speaker 5: got married, we're not going to sign up for no
Speaker 5: fault divorce, so we're only going to get divorced if
Speaker 5: there's fault. And while Louisiana lawmakers were sold on this
Speaker 5: being something that would really appeal to people with a
Speaker 5: kind of religious language and appeal to kind of these
Speaker 5: patriarchal ideas. Nobody really does covenant marriagees right and right,
Speaker 5: when the rubber meets the road, people don't want to
Speaker 5: give up on the possibility of no fault divorce. So
Speaker 5: I think this is something again where a lot of
Speaker 5: people recognize not only that we're seeing something that could
Speaker 5: really affect what happens to women and other people with
Speaker 5: different gender identities, but also that this is something that
Speaker 5: would be rejected by voters. So again something where you're
Speaker 5: going to see action in courts, because if you went
Speaker 5: to voters directly and said, do you want to get
Speaker 5: rid of no fault worst so you get a resounding no,
Speaker 5: right of course.
Speaker 1: I mean that is the thread with all of these. Right,
Speaker 1: these are not popular ideas. Right, abortion has some of
Speaker 1: the best pulling it's ever had now, right, I mean
Speaker 1: crazy numbers people want abortion, they don't They want maybe
Speaker 1: some restrictions, but ultimately you know, they don't want women
Speaker 1: bleeding out who are having miscarriacters.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is they've opened the door.
Speaker 1: They don't want laws involved in medicine, and they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want that when it comes to divorce too. And
Speaker 1: what I'm struck by is that like the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: we're seeing and I want to talk to you about this.
Speaker 1: So Thomas, in this concurrent opinion with Dobbs, I'm like
Speaker 1: obsessed with us now, had this line about correcting the error.
Speaker 1: Explain to us why that should be so terrifying to
Speaker 1: all of us.
Speaker 5: I mean, one of the things Thomas is saying, essentially,
Speaker 5: is that the error, for Thomas is not just row,
Speaker 5: it's anything that the Court has tied to what lawyers
Speaker 5: call substantive due process and what the rest of us
Speaker 5: tend to think of as privacy right. So the ability
Speaker 5: for same sex couples to marry, the ability for same
Speaker 5: sex couples even to have sex without going to prison,
Speaker 5: interracial marriage, contraception, and those are the ones Thomas lists.
Speaker 5: I mean, he actually doesn't say anything about interracial marriage,
Speaker 5: which you know, but the idea I think Thomas has,
Speaker 5: which is absolutely I mean, I think he's right. He's saying,
Speaker 5: if you listen to the logic of the Dods' opinion,
Speaker 5: there is no reason why it doesn't mean that all
Speaker 5: these other rights have to go too.
Speaker 3: Because if you.
Speaker 5: Believe that our history and tradition in this country was frozen,
Speaker 5: hundreds of years ago, and that our traditions can't and
Speaker 5: shouldn't change, And the only moment that matters.
Speaker 3: Is eighteen sixty eight.
Speaker 5: You know, it's true, right that sodomy was a crime
Speaker 5: in a lot of places in eighteen sixty eight, And
Speaker 5: it's true that contraception was beginning to be criminalized. Certainly
Speaker 5: by eighteen seventy three with Comstock, it was criminalized, but
Speaker 5: it was already being barred by some states. There's just
Speaker 5: no argument that same sex couples could get married.
Speaker 3: In eighteen sixty eight.
Speaker 5: So if that's where our rights come from, if that's
Speaker 5: how we identify them, Thomas is right that Dobbs is
Speaker 5: the beginning, not the end.
Speaker 3: That he's the only person.
Speaker 5: I think he's consistent among the conservatives in that way,
Speaker 5: which is why we should be scared.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting, and I think it speaks to a
Speaker 1: larger movement. I mean, I think this, this federalist society,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, for lack of a better word, this
Speaker 1: maga judiciary movement is heading towards a Christian country, a
Speaker 1: Catholic country.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's the fear right. I mean, I
Speaker 5: think we're kind of left. I mean, for progressives. Right.
Speaker 5: I think there's sort of two questions here. One is,
Speaker 5: you know, is there any is there any too far
Speaker 5: for this court And we don't really know the answer
Speaker 5: to that yet.
Speaker 3: I mean, there may be it too far.
Speaker 5: In the sense that people who don't have standing hank
Speaker 5: go to court, which may be the lesson of this
Speaker 5: myphipristone case. Right. But the kind of related question is,
Speaker 5: you know, what do you think of the role of
Speaker 5: the judiciary altogether, Because we're in a space where we're
Speaker 5: talking about no fault divorce or abortion, where pretty clearly
Speaker 5: voting majorities are with progressives. And you said not on everything, right,
Speaker 5: not on every abortion restriction, but kind of big picture,
Speaker 5: voters don't want criminal bands on abortion and they never have,
Speaker 5: and they don't want to undo no fault divorce. So
Speaker 5: I think this means there has to again be a
Speaker 5: serious conversation about court reform, which has just sort of died.
Speaker 5: That doesn't have to mean adding more justices to the
Speaker 5: court necessarily. I'm not sure I think that's a good idea,
Speaker 5: but I think there has to be some thinking among
Speaker 5: progressives about what it means if you can win with
Speaker 5: voters on all of these issues, and yet it may not.
Speaker 3: Matter because of where the courts are going.
Speaker 1: You have this historical presidency. You know that this court
Speaker 1: wasn't always this size. I mean, what is your in
Speaker 1: your mind how you address a conservative court that will
Speaker 1: now be conservative? And I mean, I don't think of
Speaker 1: this as like the conservative court that passed Row, which
Speaker 1: was in itself a conservative court.
Speaker 2: I think of this as the conservative court.
Speaker 1: That is embolden in a way that we've never seen
Speaker 1: justices before.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think it's certainly not in my lifetime, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't I think obviously in the past,
Speaker 5: I think justices knew that there were things that could
Speaker 5: be done right, people would have jurisdiction stript or justices.
Speaker 3: Would be added to the court.
Speaker 5: And I don't know how to put it, but people
Speaker 5: are so used to the court having power and no
Speaker 5: accountability that it seems as if almost nothing can change that, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, Clara, it seems like every week we hear
Speaker 5: a new story about something that Clarence Thomas did that
Speaker 5: might have been unethical or potentially illegal, and yet nothing happened.
Speaker 5: And Chief Justice John Roberts doesn't even go to Congress
Speaker 5: to talk about it, right, So I think I think
Speaker 5: that norms have changed in ways that are dangerous, and
Speaker 5: it would there is nothing constitutionally required about the number
Speaker 5: of justices we have. I'm I mean, I understand why
Speaker 5: that's an appealing solution. I'm a little skeptical simply because
Speaker 5: I think then Republicans would add justices to the Court too,
Speaker 5: and the Court would eventually end up looking like the
Speaker 5: Senate and maybe that's, you know, not any worse. So, oh,
Speaker 5: we had no would at least I think the benefit
Speaker 5: of that would be that it would expose the Court
Speaker 5: for being what it is, which is political. But I've
Speaker 5: always thought I've been more attracted to the idea of
Speaker 5: term limits because one of the things that distresses me
Speaker 5: about the Court is that, you know, in theory, people
Speaker 5: will argue, well, you know, voters pick presidents and presidents
Speaker 5: pick justices, so you're kind of you're left with the
Speaker 5: court you vote for. And that argument really falls apart
Speaker 5: when you realize that, you know, Clarence Thomas, if you
Speaker 5: voted for the who picked Clarence Thomas, you did it
Speaker 5: in nineteen eighty eight, right, I was in elementary school,
Speaker 5: So that argument really falls apart. So I think at
Speaker 5: a minimum, if we're going to take seriously the idea
Speaker 5: that the court makes sense in a democracy, I think
Speaker 5: then there has to be more turnover of justices. And
Speaker 5: different term limits have been put out there. Some people
Speaker 5: say it should be ten years, fifteen years, five years.
Speaker 5: You know, you see different ideas circulating. But I think
Speaker 5: that would be that's challenging, more challenging than increasing the
Speaker 5: number of justices. But I think it may be better
Speaker 5: longer term if it's possible to follow that kind of road.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so true, Thank you, Mary. I hope you will
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, I'm down. Let me know when.
Speaker 6: No, no mood, Jesse Cannon, my John Fast. You know,
Speaker 6: I know that the Republicans were really excited to get
Speaker 6: all the subpoena power and all these things to investigate
Speaker 6: the quote unquote Biden crime family, but it seems like
Speaker 6: they're doing the net job they do at most things.
Speaker 1: So again, this is like so incredibly stupid. Four days ago,
Speaker 1: the New York Times ran a piece showing that Republicans
Speaker 1: had found no evidence of Biden wrongdoing. You know, even
Speaker 1: though they've they've been on Benghazi Part two Benghazi U
Speaker 1: Bannghazi the sequel. They've been trying and trying to BEng
Speaker 1: Ghazi Biden, but they were unable. And so today James Comer,
Speaker 1: sort of the Louis Gohmert of this congressional session, went
Speaker 1: on Fox businesses Maria Bartaroma. You may remember her from
Speaker 1: her problems with dominion. He went on and he said
Speaker 1: that there are these whistleblowers who have disappeared. He said,
Speaker 1: there are three things that have happened to these whistleblowers.
Speaker 2: They've ended up in jail, they have disappeared, or they
Speaker 2: are in court. The only problem is there are no whistleblowers.
Speaker 1: And for that, James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, is our
Speaker 1: hearty moment to fuck Gray. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
Speaker 1: to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of
Speaker 1: all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please
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Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.