Speaker 1: Hi guys, Liz Wheeler here. So after we finish recording
Speaker 1: Verdict every week, Senator Cruise and I sit down and
Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty of it all on our
Speaker 1: Verdict Plus series called The Cloakroom, where we look at
Speaker 1: political issues through a specifically legal lens. And what I
Speaker 1: want to do today is offer you a sneak preview
Speaker 1: of the latest episode of The Cloakroom on Verdict Plus.
Speaker 1: You can also join us on a weekly basis by
Speaker 1: going to Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash Plus.
Speaker 1: If you use my promo code Cloakroom, then you can
Speaker 1: watch for free for the first month of your annual
Speaker 1: subscription that is Verdict with Ted Cruise dot Com slash
Speaker 1: Plus promo code Cloakroom and without further ado. Here's a
Speaker 1: sneak preview of The Cloakroom on Verdict Plus. Hi guys,
Speaker 1: welcome back to another episode of The Cloakroom. I'm Liz Wheeler.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with Senator Ted Cruz and Senator I
Speaker 1: want to start today just by saying congratulations, we did
Speaker 1: it again. The left, the mainstream media is up in
Speaker 1: arms over something we talked about right here on The
Speaker 1: Cloakroom last week the cancelation of student loan debt. So
Speaker 1: I think we should start the show just by welcoming
Speaker 1: the Washington Post and Business Insider, who wrote an article
Speaker 1: about your comments, your legal analysis of whether what Biden
Speaker 1: did with his executive order canceling student loan debt whether
Speaker 1: it's legal. They joined the ranks of CNN and MSNBC,
Speaker 1: who came to Verdict plus last month when we were
Speaker 1: talking about Obergefell because of what Clarence Thomas wrote in
Speaker 1: the Dabbs in his concurrence. So before we get started
Speaker 1: on the rank choice voting, which is a fascinating topic
Speaker 1: that Verdict Verdict plus fans have been asking about, I
Speaker 1: want to ask you, why do you think that the
Speaker 1: mainstream media is so up in arms about the legal analysis,
Speaker 1: because that's what we were talking about, right, not even
Speaker 1: the politics, the legality of the thing. Do they know
Speaker 1: that it's illegal, Well, they seem to. You look at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post story they wrote about cloak room, and
Speaker 1: they basically acknowledge that it's contrary to the law. But
Speaker 1: we had an honest and candid discussion about the legal
Speaker 1: impediments there would be to getting a court to reach
Speaker 1: the merits of the dispute and in particular the problem
Speaker 1: of establishing standing. And look, the press likes it when
Speaker 1: any Republican discusses any impediment to principled arguments prevailing that
Speaker 1: that they like that. Gosh, wait that that this illegal
Speaker 1: student loan giveaway. Maybe it survives. I will say, since
Speaker 1: we did the last cloak Room, we talked about different
Speaker 1: scenarios of who might have standing, and I actually reached
Speaker 1: out to a one of the top Supreme Court litigators
Speaker 1: in the country, was a dear friend of mine, and
Speaker 1: he and I were brainstorming a little bit more on
Speaker 1: standing after we did the cloak Room last week, and
Speaker 1: he came up with one more scenario. One one other
Speaker 1: group of people that that that would have standing, and
Speaker 1: I think it's probably the strongest case for standing, and
Speaker 1: that is a student loan processor, so so a company
Speaker 1: that is processing student loans. And the reason they would
Speaker 1: have standing is the consequence of forgiving these loans, and
Speaker 1: particularly the loans that are forgiven down to zero, is
Speaker 1: that those companies would face, as I understand it, a
Speaker 1: very significant drop in revenue. That it is real money
Speaker 1: out of their pocket because of the illegal forgiveness of
Speaker 1: the debts. That would almost surely clear the hurdle for standing.
Speaker 1: The downside is if that you have someone that that
Speaker 1: that is processing student loans and administering student loans. They're
Speaker 1: doing business with the federal government. So they may not
Speaker 1: be willing to sue because they don't want to piss
Speaker 1: off the Feds. But legally they would have quite a
Speaker 1: strong argument for standing to be able to make the
Speaker 1: legal argument. And if it gets to the merits, I
Speaker 1: think the executive order gets struck down. I think it
Speaker 1: goes to the Supreme Court and is probably struck down
Speaker 1: six three, the same margins we saw on other lawless
Speaker 1: assertions of power by the Biden White House. So there
Speaker 1: is one group of plaintiffs that likely has standing, but
Speaker 1: time will tell whether they will will have the courage
Speaker 1: to be willing to bring lawsuit to press the claim. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe it'll be courage paired with how hard their business
Speaker 1: is hit if they actually are decimated and they don't
Speaker 1: really have a business left to risk. Yeah, if they
Speaker 1: challenge the FATS, that's very interesting. Maybe we should just
Speaker 1: pause right here and send this little update to the
Speaker 1: Washington Posts, and this little update to Business Insider, so
Speaker 1: they can update their articles to make sure that it's
Speaker 1: fully accurate exactly how we Republicans are going to challenge them. So,
Speaker 1: but can we make sure that the Washington Post are
Speaker 1: paying subscribers? I mean, I mean that they do need
Speaker 1: to pay to keep the lights on here? Of course,
Speaker 1: of course they will. I mean they're here right now.
Speaker 1: They watched last week, So there you go. Okay, this
Speaker 1: week I have a really interesting topic. So Republicans unfortunately
Speaker 1: lost a seat in the House of Representatives in Alaska,
Speaker 1: of all places, there was a special election in Alaska
Speaker 1: and the Democrat ended up winning, defeating Sarah Palin, former governor,
Speaker 1: former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. And this was a
Speaker 1: little bit of an anomaly in Alaska because of the
Speaker 1: structure of their voting system. They have ranked choice voting. Actually,
Speaker 1: let me back up. In their primary systems, they have
Speaker 1: jungle primaries, which means it's not sorted by party. Republicans
Speaker 1: don't go vote for a Republican, Democrats vote for a Democrat.
Speaker 1: Everyone's in this primary together, and then the top four
Speaker 1: people compete in the general election and it's ranked choice voting,
Speaker 1: meaning you have to have over fifty percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: It's not just the person with the most. You have
Speaker 1: to cross that threshold. And if someone doesn't cross the threshold,
Speaker 1: which no one does when you have four people, then
Speaker 1: you go to the ranked choice, You pick a second
Speaker 1: and a third choice. It's very messy, it's very weird,
Speaker 1: and it resulted in even though the two Republican candidates
Speaker 1: combined had sixty percent of the vote and the Democrats
Speaker 1: combined had forty per son of votes, the Democrat is
Speaker 1: going to Washington, DC. Give me your top down zoomed
Speaker 1: out analysis of I guess ranked choice of voting, Like,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Well, ranked choice voting, I think
Speaker 1: is a terrible design and it is intentionally anti democratic.
Speaker 1: So you can understand where these so called reforms came from.
Speaker 1: They come from enlightened good government folks that want one
Speaker 1: of two things to happen. They either a want Democrats
Speaker 1: to win or b, at the very minimum, they want
Speaker 1: moderates to win. What they don't want to win our conservatives.
Speaker 1: All of this is designed to stop conservatives from winning.
Speaker 1: And the reason you see these lefties pushing these reforms
Speaker 1: is that when you actually have free and fair elections,
Speaker 1: and the voters vote with some regularity, they vote to
Speaker 1: elect conservatives, and so this is all designed to rig
Speaker 1: the election, to make it incredibly difficult to an elect
Speaker 1: a conservative. This is designed to change the rules. It
Speaker 1: is in the same general family as ballot harvesting, as
Speaker 1: universal mail in voting. All of these things are designed
Speaker 1: to make it harder for a Republican to win, harder
Speaker 1: for a conservative to win, and it the reason they're
Speaker 1: implemented is the so called reformers don't like what the
Speaker 1: voters do when they're actually giving a straight up choice.
Speaker 1: So you look at this election. Number one, you had
Speaker 1: the jungle primary. You had all of the Republicans and
Speaker 1: Democrats on the ballot together. If you had, like most states,
Speaker 1: had a Republican primary and a Democratic primary, then Republican
Speaker 1: voters could select their choice their preferred candidate. Democrat voters
Speaker 1: could select their choice, and you would have one major
Speaker 1: party nominee from each party. The reason that you see
Speaker 1: places like California do a jungle primary as they recognize
Speaker 1: weight conservative Republicans win primaries and then crap. When they
Speaker 1: win primaries, they turn around and win the general election.
Speaker 1: So let's do the jungle primary to make it harder
Speaker 1: for that conservative to win Alaska, though, did put the
Speaker 1: whole thing on steroids with rank choice voting, because if
Speaker 1: you look at the numbers, and here, let me pull
Speaker 1: up the numbers, so sixty percent of the voters voted
Speaker 1: for Republicans. However, the breakdown this is taking a seconds,
Speaker 1: all right, So the first round of voting, forty point
Speaker 1: two percent voted for the Democrat, thirty one point three
Speaker 1: percent voted for Sarah Palin, and twenty eight point five
Speaker 1: percent voted for Republican Nick Begget. So if you add
Speaker 1: up Palin and Begett's number together, you yet right at
Speaker 1: right at sixty percent. So sixty percent of the voters
Speaker 1: voter Republican. Forty percent of the voters voted Democrat. What's
Speaker 1: the outcome? The Democrat gets elected? Why is that? Well?
Speaker 1: Under ranked choice voting, the third place finisher, who was
Speaker 1: Nick Beggitch, He's third, so he's eliminated, and they look
Speaker 1: to the voters put a second choice. The Beggitch voters
Speaker 1: put a second choice, and they allocate those second choices
Speaker 1: to whomever they put. Well, as it so happens, fifty
Speaker 1: point three percent of the Beggach voters put Sarah palin
Speaker 1: As as their second choice, so that so half of
Speaker 1: Begitch's votes got allocated to Sarah palin Twenty eight point
Speaker 1: eight percent put Peltola, who is the Democrat, as their
Speaker 1: second choice, and then what really had a big impact,
Speaker 1: twenty point nine percent didn't put us choice. They voted
Speaker 1: for Beggage and they left it blank. The consequence of
Speaker 1: this is, even though sixty percent voted Republican, a Democrat
Speaker 1: gets elected. And it's that, as I said, is by design.
Speaker 1: The people who put this in place wanted either Democrats
Speaker 1: to win or at the very worst, moderates to win.
Speaker 1: So you compared this to ballot harvesting or vote harvesting,
Speaker 1: which I find very interesting because ballot harvesting and vote
Speaker 1: harvesting is something that has to be dealt with at
Speaker 1: the state level, and many states have outlawed that practice.
Speaker 1: Is ranked choice voting something that should be outlawed by
Speaker 1: states to protect against. Well, this outcome absolutely. Look it's
Speaker 1: a bad way of doing elections. People. It doesn't present
Speaker 1: an election as a binary choice. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, you're choosing between one person or another, and
Speaker 1: only one person can win. And what happens with ranked
Speaker 1: choice voting is you end up you look at some
Speaker 1: of the game theory at economics, you end up with
Speaker 1: people voting in ways that the outcome is perverse and backwards.
Speaker 1: Elections should be about making choices, and the people who
Speaker 1: push these reforms know that they know that the outcome.
Speaker 1: The reason they want to change the way elections are
Speaker 1: done is they don't like how the voters vote. They're
Speaker 1: trying to prevent the voters from voting the way they
Speaker 1: would vote if they were given the ability to do
Speaker 1: so in an ordinary election. I will say, by the way,
Speaker 1: as an aside, on an infinitely less consequential stage, I
Speaker 1: actually participated in a ranked choice voting election in which
Speaker 1: I lost the election by one vote. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you the story. I said it was infinitesimally less important.
Speaker 1: But as when I was in college, I was at
Speaker 1: Princeton and I was very active in the American Whig
Speaker 1: class Ophic Society, which is the world's oldest debating and
Speaker 1: political society. I was the chairman of the class Opic Party,
Speaker 1: which was the conservative party that was founded by William Patterson.
Speaker 1: It was one of the signers the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 1: The American Whig Party was founded by James Madison, the
Speaker 1: father of the Constitution. I ran for president of the
Speaker 1: American Whig Class offic Society, which is the entire debating society. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Whig Clio used ranked choice voting, so at the end
Speaker 1: of the first round of voting, I was leading. I
Speaker 1: had fifty two votes. The second place candidate had forty
Speaker 1: four votes, so I had won by a sizable margin.
Speaker 1: On the first round, the third place candidate had nineteen votes.
Speaker 1: Because the third place candidate was eliminated, those nineteen votes
Speaker 1: were reallocated. Of those nineteen votes, five had me in seconds,
Speaker 1: so my fifty two went to fifty seven, and fourteen
Speaker 1: had the second place finisher as their second choice, and
Speaker 1: so his forty four went to fifty eight and I
Speaker 1: lost fifty eight to fifty seven. And I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: at twenty years old, it sucked then, and I gotta
Speaker 1: say it sucks for Sarah Palin. Sarah as a friend
Speaker 1: of mine, I like Sarah. I am sorry for the
Speaker 1: outcome that happened that and it sucks even worse for
Speaker 1: the people of Alaska. That's funny that you phrase it
Speaker 1: like that, because when you're telling this story about losing
Speaker 1: by one point, that's the only thing that came into
Speaker 1: my head. Just Wow, that really sucks to lose by
Speaker 1: one point, even if it's a college debate society, that
Speaker 1: really sucks to lose it in this way. How did
Speaker 1: Alaska specifically end up with a system like this? Who
Speaker 1: is the they that are behind these reforms? So there's
Speaker 1: some dispute about that, But there was a referendum effort
Speaker 1: to put it on the ballot and the voters voted
Speaker 1: for it. Now you could say, well, gosh, isn't that
Speaker 1: consistent with democracy? Yes, in a sense, the voters put
Speaker 1: it in place, But I am not at all convinced
Speaker 1: the voters understood what the consequences would be. I'd be
Speaker 1: willing to bet people are astonished today. That's sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the voters in Alaska voter for a Republican and
Speaker 1: the result is the Democrat wins. This is designed to
Speaker 1: deceive voters, and and I think election mechanisms that are
Speaker 1: designed to deceive voters are not good mechanisms. They they
Speaker 1: frustrate the operation of democracy. It seems like this is
Speaker 1: one of those things that conservatives and states across the country,
Speaker 1: not just Alaska, should check and make sure that this
Speaker 1: is not an effort that's being exerted in their localities
Speaker 1: in their states, to make sure to protect against this,
Speaker 1: because that's that's the thing. That's what we saw with
Speaker 1: Mark Elias right in in the summer of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: before the presidential election, when all of these all of
Speaker 1: these changes to election laws in different states, especially the
Speaker 1: swing states like Pennsylvania and Arizona and Georgia and Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: people didn't really see it coming until it was too late.
Speaker 1: This might be signaled to people to make sure your
Speaker 1: state's not doing this so that it doesn't become too well.
Speaker 1: And these kinds are reformed jungle primaries and rank chase
Speaker 1: choice voting, or in Alaska's case, both combine together. They
Speaker 1: are often supported by self described moderate Republicans because those
Speaker 1: moderates are frustrated that when they run in primaries against conservatives,
Speaker 1: more often than not, they lose. So like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's change the rules so that we don't lose. So
Speaker 1: moderate Republicans sometimes support these reforms to prevent conservatives from winning.
Speaker 1: But when the moderates are doing so, they're also rolling
Speaker 1: the dice because they're increasing the chances that the Democrat
Speaker 1: wins also, and they're willing to say, all right, in
Speaker 1: order to stop the voters from electing a dam I'm conservative.
Speaker 1: I'm willing to hand it over to the Democrats and
Speaker 1: the nuts that. I don't think the voters want that outcome,
Speaker 1: but I do think there's some politicians who are okay
Speaker 1: with that outcome. Well, that's what happens when you're when
Speaker 1: politicians don't have principles, then they're willing to hand it
Speaker 1: over if they lose power themselves, they're they're willing to
Speaker 1: hand it over to people with even fewer principles. Let's
Speaker 1: do a question from Verdict plus because this is a
Speaker 1: great question and I'm interested in your answer as well.
Speaker 1: It's from Date Date go Forth, who says, what are
Speaker 1: the chances that the new assault Rifle Band bill passes
Speaker 1: the Senate? If it passes, would it be constitutional? What
Speaker 1: would it mean for everyday Americans trying to buy guns
Speaker 1: in the future. He says, I've been listening since day
Speaker 1: one and love the podcast. Keep up the good work,
Speaker 1: thank you. So the chances that the assault the so
Speaker 1: called assault weapons band passes the Senate at least right now,
Speaker 1: are essentially zero. It's not going to pass. The reason
Speaker 1: it's not going to pass is as long as we
Speaker 1: have the filibuster, it would take sixty votes to pass.
Speaker 1: It's not going to get sixty votes. The last time
Speaker 1: we voted on it was twenty thirteen. Dianne Feinstein was
Speaker 1: carrying it at the time. It was her bill. It
Speaker 1: was a Democratic Senate. There were a majority of Democrats
Speaker 1: in the Senate. We voted on it and it only
Speaker 1: got forty four votes on the floor of the Senate.
Speaker 1: So even though Democrats had a majority on the floor,
Speaker 1: it got zero Republicans and it didn't get all the Democrats.
Speaker 1: There were several Democrats who voted against it. It does
Speaker 1: speak volumes that in the wake of the horrific school
Speaker 1: shooting in Vivaldi, the Democrats didn't even try to push it.
Speaker 1: I think they recognize they don't have the votes. They
Speaker 1: may they may not even have the votes in their
Speaker 1: own conference, but there's no way they have the votes
Speaker 1: on the floor of the Senate. It's why they they
Speaker 1: pursued other gun control strategies instead of a so called
Speaker 1: assault weapons ban. One of the reasons why it can
Speaker 1: get a lot of support. So we had one in
Speaker 1: effect for ten years, and it expired, and the Justice
Speaker 1: Department studied it, you know, came out of Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: was in effect ten years, it expired, the Justice Department
Speaker 1: studied it and concluded that it had no statistically significant
Speaker 1: effect on violent crime, that it didn't actually reduce violent
Speaker 1: crime in any measurable impact. And I'll tell you a
Speaker 1: story about that. So twenty thirteen, on the Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 1: we're having hearings and Diane Feinstein is pitching her bill
Speaker 1: and I'm arguing against it. And I'm a brand new
Speaker 1: baby freshman. I mean, I mean, I'm just there. And
Speaker 1: in fact, when she and I are arguing, at one point,
Speaker 1: she loses her mind and says, you know, I am
Speaker 1: not a fifth grader, our sixth grader. I am not
Speaker 1: a sixth grader. She gets very bad because I asked
Speaker 1: her a substantive question about the Second Amendment, and apparently
Speaker 1: in the Judiciary Committee, you're not supposed to do that
Speaker 1: to another senator. And subsequently I was debating with Al
Speaker 1: Frankin truly a charming soul, and and that was tongue
Speaker 1: in cheek. If that did not come across Um, and
Speaker 1: I pointed out that DJ, well, we'll see from the
Speaker 1: Washington Post headlines after this whether or whether the humor
Speaker 1: came across or not. Well. I pointed out that the
Speaker 1: hearing that that DOJ had studied the assault weapons band
Speaker 1: that was an effect for ten years, included it had
Speaker 1: zero statistically significant effect on violent crime. And Al Franken
Speaker 1: came and argued, that's not true, that's not true. It
Speaker 1: had an enormous effect. I remember what he said, but
Speaker 1: he was he was quite worked up, saying that what
Speaker 1: I said was not right, and and I in turn
Speaker 1: responded that you know, given this study, anyone who argues
Speaker 1: that there is a measurable effect on violent crime is
Speaker 1: engaged in sophistry. A couple hours later on the Senate floor,
Speaker 1: I'm standing on the Senate floor and Al frank And
Speaker 1: runs up to me and said, you accused me of
Speaker 1: engaging in sophistry. I didn't know what that meant, but
Speaker 1: I went and looked it up. And now I'm really mad.
Speaker 1: And I got to admit I was genuinely speechless. I'd like, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Um and and Al later wrote a book entitled Giant
Speaker 1: of the Senate. Um. I joked at the time that
Speaker 1: it was a perfect title. It was only missing one
Speaker 1: word um. But he had an entire chapter in his
Speaker 1: book devoted to me that was called sophistry. So so
Speaker 1: it uh. I found it quite amusing that for lefties,
Speaker 1: they seemed to to to believe that if they his
Speaker 1: whole book tour, he basically just did a stand up
Speaker 1: routine insulting me, which apparently works to sell books to
Speaker 1: liberal Democrats like like like it is. I think he
Speaker 1: thought it was a good way to sell books. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, in a sense, you almost have to respect
Speaker 1: him for admitting that he didn't know what the word meant.
Speaker 1: That's really hilarious. But it's also hilarious to see liberal
Speaker 1: democrats who are anti free market taking advantage of capitalism
Speaker 1: to sell books based on their insults against you. You
Speaker 1: gotta love the whole thing. One last question. So you
Speaker 1: say that the assault rifle band has very little chance
Speaker 1: of passing in the time, What about the gay marriage bill?
Speaker 1: What are its chances? I don't know. That is actually
Speaker 1: a good question. We I think the odds are good.
Speaker 1: We're going to vote on the next month. Schumer said
Speaker 1: he's going to bring it up for a vote. He
Speaker 1: hasn't done it yet. It could be as soon as
Speaker 1: next week. He hasn't told us what we're voting on
Speaker 1: next then Schumer controls the floor. For it to pass,
Speaker 1: they've got to hold all the Democrats, and they've got
Speaker 1: to get ten Republicans. Several Republicans have publicly said that
Speaker 1: they would vote for the bill to get to ten.
Speaker 1: I can tell you we are having vigorous arguments in
Speaker 1: the conference about it. I and several others are pushing
Speaker 1: for an amendment to the bill that would be a
Speaker 1: strong protection of religious liberty because the bill has written
Speaker 1: would have enormously harmful consequences for religious liberty. It would
Speaker 1: result in five oh one C three tech status being
Speaker 1: denied to universities that embrace a biblical definition of marriage,
Speaker 1: to churches that teach a biblical definition of marriage, to
Speaker 1: charities that follow a biblical definition of marriage. This bill
Speaker 1: without a religious liberty protection would have massive consequences across
Speaker 1: our country, weaponizing the Biden administration to go and target
Speaker 1: universities K through twelve schools, social service organizations, churches and
Speaker 1: strip them all of their taxics. A status that is
Speaker 1: enormously consequential. I don't know if we'll succeed in getting
Speaker 1: the vote on that amendment, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: the vote will shake out. But I'm a no regardless,
Speaker 1: But this what its prospects of success are on the
Speaker 1: Senate floor. I hope it doesn't pass, but I don't
Speaker 1: know what will happen. And shame on any Republican who
Speaker 1: claims to be for limited government but would support a
Speaker 1: bill that targets people of faith. I can tell you
Speaker 1: I'm arguing vociferously to my colleagues. Look, I get some
Speaker 1: of you, you know or in purple states, and you
Speaker 1: want to show how you know touchy feely, and you
Speaker 1: are okay, great, put out a statement, but don't vote
Speaker 1: for a bill that will be used as a weapon
Speaker 1: to target and persecute churches and universities and religious schools
Speaker 1: and Catholic charities. The harm from this bill would be massive.
Speaker 1: It's it's a shame to see it. It really is
Speaker 1: sad to see it. And the fact that Schumer's not
Speaker 1: telling you when you're going to vote on it, I
Speaker 1: think tells us what we need to know to the
Speaker 1: verdict plus community. This is the second cloak room in
Speaker 1: a row that we've used or that I've chosen to
Speaker 1: use your topics. We did the Convention of the States
Speaker 1: and then we did ranked choice voting, so keep those
Speaker 1: ideas coming. I love to hear what you guys care about,
Speaker 1: what you're thinking about, what questions you have. I'm Louise Wheeler.
Speaker 1: This is the cloakroom on Verdict plus.