WEBVTT - Judges Appear Ready to Uphold Florida Abortion Ban 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:13.440 We've had a lot of stuff going on lately. But 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.799 obviously I signed the fifteen week I believe it. I 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.800 believe it's constitutional, both under the federal and under the 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:20.680 state constitution. 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.280 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may not have listened to the 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.000 oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court over the state's 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.120 fifteen week abortion ban, but after reshaping the court into 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.080 what many consider to be one of the most conservative 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.800 courts in the country, he probably can predict the outcome. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.080 The case brought by Planned Parenthood, centers on a provision 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.960 in the Florida Constitution that protects the right to privacy, 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.280 a provision that has long been interpreted by the state's 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.680 courts as a safeguard against restrictions on abortion. But the 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:59.760 seven justices, which included five conservatives appointed by DeSantis and 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.720 a few other Republican appointees, appeared open to the idea 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.160 of upholding the abortion ban despite precedent. In fact, the 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.960 chief Justice, Carlos Munez, seemed to suggest several times that 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.760 he considers fetuses to be human beings. 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:21.920 You're asking us to essentially take a whole class of 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.959 human beings and put them outside of the protection of 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.120 the law, essentially in the sense that if the legislature 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.400 wants to protect those human beings, they are precluded by 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.920 the Constitution of Florida from doing that. And at the 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.240 end of the day, the argument as to why that 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.920 would be right would be based on a sort of 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.360 legal meaning, kind of understanding of right of privacy. 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.240 My guest is Elizabeth Zepper, a professor at the University 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.960 of Texas at Austin School of Law. Since Roe v. 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:58.240 Wade was overturned, Florida has allowed abortion up to fifteen weeks. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.560 Governor DeSantis signed a new law that would ban abortion 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.200 after six weeks. So do these Florida Supreme Court arguments 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.359 affect the fifteen week ban or the six week ban 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:11.080 or both. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.600 The argument affects the six week law because the sixth 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.600 week law is a trigger ban. It will go into 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.959 effect thirty days after the fifteen week ban is upheld 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.240 if it is upheld, so they're closely related. The Florida 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.280 Supreme Court knows that whatever it decides with regards the 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.600 fifteen week ban will affect whether the six week ban exists. 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.600 So explain the issue how it centers on a provision 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.000 in the Florida Constitution that protects the right to privacy. 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.120 So, the Florida Constitution has an explicit protection for a 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.280 right of privacy, and in nineteen eighty nine, the Florida 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.520 Supreme Court interpreted that text in the state Constitution to 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.920 include a right to abortion and to protect, in that 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:00.760 specific case, a minor's right to abortion. The question that 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.480 the State of Florida has put before this Florida Supreme 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:09.519 Court is whether they should overrule their previous precedents protecting 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.640 a right to privacy under the explicit text of the 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.799 state Constitution. So, unlike the Federal Constitution, we actually have 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.040 a textual protection for the right to privacy. 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.680 What's at stake here as precedent, then if they're going 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.040 to reverse precedent or not. 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:31.240 This case squarely presents the question presented in Dobbs. At 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.880 the end of the day, whether to overrule existing precedent 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.600 that is many decades old in the state of Florida 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.960 under a state constitutional provision that expressly protects the rights privacy. 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.240 As in Dabbs, what's at stake is whether Floridians can 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.480 access abortion really at all. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:53.760 Several of the justices were drilling the lawyers on both 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.080 sides about how they could know what was in the 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.920 minds of Florida voters when they passed the privacy amend them. 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.560 Do you see that as a problem for the plaintiff 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:05.160 planned parenthood here. 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.680 So a lot of the argument focused on what's called 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:12.080 original public meaning what would a Florida voter have understood 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.839 when they cast their vote in favor of a right 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.440 of privacy in the constitution they amended the constitution to 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.960 create a right of privacy. Some of this is a 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.960 little bit baffling. Right Roe v. Wade was decided in 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:29.159 nineteen seventy three, it's pretty common sensical to think the 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.800 right of privacy as a constitutional matter for voters would 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.520 have brought to mind abortion as well as contraception during 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.719 the relevant time period, and the Florida Supreme Court in 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.520 nineteen eighty nine concluded just that right. We just voted 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.000 on this, it's quite clear that the voters meant to 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.360 protect abortion through a right of privacy. Apparently, the historical 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:55.440 record isn't super robust in terms of legislative debate, but 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.640 what courts are supposed to do here is engage in 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:02.680 textual interpretation. Look at the t of the Florida Constitution. 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.480 They can do things like look at the ballot summary, 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.000 what did people think they were voting on? But all 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.200 of those factors seem to lead, given our common sense 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.240 understanding of what the right to privacy means, toward a 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.520 conclusion in favor of the plaintifs that is planned parenthood here. 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.560 But it seemed like the justices here were leaning in 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.719 the opposite direction. We should mention that there are seven 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:29.080 justices hearing this case, with five conservatives appointed by DeSantis 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.719 and two other Republican appointees, including one who refused to 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.240 recuse himself despite the fact that he's married to a 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.599 Republican state representative who co sponsored the sixth week ban. 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.320 So did it seem like the composition of this panel 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.560 did not augur well for planned parenthood? 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.760 Absolutely, we didn't need to listen to the argument to 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.640 conclude what was going to happen here. We're going to 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.760 have seven votes, seven justices who are a Republican, five 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.800 of are put there for this very specific task. We 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.760 will see them over rule a number of state court 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.200 decisions in favor of abortion rights, and that's state court. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.360 The question is what do they say, how do they 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.599 go about overturning their own precedent. 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.920 So what would be the broadest thing they could say, 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.160 and what would be the narrowest thing they could say. 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.680 I suspect they will say the broadest thing they can say, 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.400 which is that there is no right to abortion protected 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.640 under the right of privacy in the Florida Constitution. To 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:33.880 get there, I think they have to follow the past 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.800 that the state lays down for them, which is to 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.720 argue that the Florida Constitution protects only informational privacy. That 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.640 is that the state can't get information you hold private, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.600 but may not protect decisional privacy at all. That is 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.520 what you do in your private life, whether that's how 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.640 you parent your children, whether that's how you make medical decisions, 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.320 or whether you decide to carry a pregnancy to term. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.919 Some of the justices seem worried about this because decisional 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.440 privacy applies beyond abortion to a number of other rights 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.440 that we exercise, and that it seems any viable right 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:10.160 of privacy should include. 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.600 The Chief Justice, Carlos Munez said, you're asking us to 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.680 essentially take a whole class of human beings and put 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.800 them outside the protection of the law. So appeared to 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:26.520 be suggesting that he considers fetuses to be human beings. 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.760 Yes, I suppose the broadest reading and the broadest decision 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:35.760 would go and say that fetuses have constitutional rights under 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.560 the state constitution. Now, Chief Justice Munias didn't seem to 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.000 have any other buyers to this theory. The state is 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.480 not asking the court to do that, and it would 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.440 in fact throw lord of law into chaos. Things like 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.520 inheritance and taxation, property, the status of frozen embryos would 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.520 all be thrown into question if the court determined that 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.800 fetuses have constitutional right. But Mounia's suggested a number of 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:07.360 times that the fetus was a person with constitutional rights. 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:13.239 If, as you suspect, the court rules against planned parenthood here, 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.520 what will that do to abortion access in Florida and 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.880 in the South over ruling. 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.040 The right to abortion in Florida will be devastating to 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.600 abortion access. Florida is a very populous state. It is 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.840 a very long state geographically, which means those who live 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.360 in the south of Florida have very long distances to 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.320 travel to access abortion. So it will be quite devastating 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.640 and of course, at the moment abortion is banned post 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.440 fifteen weeks, this presents lots of difficulties, in particular for 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:51.120 those facing pregnancy complications or fetal anomalies. But the vast majority, 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.640 around the ninetieth percent style of abortions are taking place 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.640 in the first trimester, and so those abortions have not 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.280 been impacted by the fifteen week ban. A six week 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.480 ban basically does away with abortion, and we saw that 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.880 in Texas when FB eight went into effect before Dobbs 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.000 was overruled and banned abortion at six weeks. 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.840 An abortion rights group, Floridians Protecting Freedom, is working to 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.880 get an abortion rights referendum on the state's twenty twenty 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.840 four ballot, and apparently they hit the threshold of signatures 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.760 needed to trigger state Supreme Court review of the ballot 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:34.440 questions language. According to a recent study by the Public 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.880 Religion Research Institute, sixty four percent of Floridians believe abortion 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.280 should be legal in all or most cases. I mean, 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.320 is this ballot referendum the only sort of hope that 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.920 Floridians have for keeping abortion legal in their state? 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.640 Yeah, So, if the Supreme Court were to determine that 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.520 the right of privacy does an encompass abortion, then enacting 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:03.560 a constitutional amendment to protect abortion explicitly becomes necessary. But 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.959 what we have seen, of course is ron DeSantis engaging 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:12.160 in counter majoritarian tactics, stacking the Florida Supreme Court with 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.280 arch conservatives, and so I think we have cause to 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.240 be worried about what they might do with the ballot 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:20.400 initiative language. 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.920 Are there any parameters for what the Supreme Court can 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:25.520 do with the ballot language? 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.640 We saw some of this in Ohio, where the anti 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.280 choice groups kept going to the Court in an effort 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.640 to change the language, in an effort to challenge the language, 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.559 an effort to make the language misleading to voters in 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.640 hopes that that would lead them to vote in the 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.480 wrong direction on the REFERENDU. So, I think there are 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.240 a number of strategies and court can be allies of 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:50.600 the anti abortion movement. 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.439 Turning to another issue about the abortion pill. The Biden 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:59.240 administration and the abortion pill manufacturer are asking the Supreme 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:04.360 Court to get back into the abortion issues after that 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.679 Fifth Circuit decision. So tell us about that Fifth Circuit decision, 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:10.040 how restricting it was. 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:15.280 The Fifth Circuit essentially takes us back to pre twenty sixteen, 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.280 which means that medication abortion is only available up to 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.800 seven weeks rather than ten weeks where it is currently approved. 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:27.160 That it would require multiple in person visits to a 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.920 provider in place of the telehealth that we now have, 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.840 So medication abortion we'd revert to a different regulatory regime. 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.640 We'd have to revert to new labels, which would mean 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.840 the pharmaceutical company would have to pull all of medication 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.280 abortion from the market and go through a process of 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:48.840 redoing the labeling and the packaging of the medication, and 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.080 it would really restrict access. The Supreme Court knows this 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.280 is coming, because the Supreme Court, of course already saw 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.319 this case at the beginning of the summer and anticipated 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.360 that the Fifth Circuit might in fact do what it did, 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.680 and thus issued a stay until it determines whether to 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.160 grant a petition for CIRT or decides on the petition 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.880 for cert from the government. So currently, medication abortion it's 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.959 still available as it was before, and I think it's 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.120 likely that the Supreme Court will have to take up 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.319 this issue and issue a decision on the merits. 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.960 What sort of astonishing is the way the Fifth Circuit 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.800 is putting itself in the place of experts at the FDA. 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.960 What's the most astonishing to your neighborhood law professors and 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.800 lawyers is that the Fifth Circuit found standing here. I mean, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:43.080 these are doctors who cannot show that the change in 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.800 labeling affected them at all. There's no injury to them 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:51.960 from the move from the pre existing regulation to what 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.680 is existent today. They don't have standing here. This is 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.800 just the basic federal courts one oh one. You have 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.960 to be injured or not. And we see really expansive 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.560 notions of standing that would really allow anti abortion and 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:11.280 other sort of anti HIV AIDS treatment groups to come 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:15.240 into the courts and challenge regulatory approval of drugs changes 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.559 in their labeling second guessing the agency. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.920 I want to also ask you about new anti abortion 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:25.199 ordinances that have been adopted in several Texas counties where 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:31.240 they're dubbed abortion trafficking and it could make driving someone 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.959 to get an abortion punishable by law. 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:39.079 So I believe there's only one municipality that has passed 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:43.120 the law. Lanto, Texas, made headlines for proposing it, but 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.480 has cabled the ordinance. So these new ordinances I think 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.960 present real challenges to the constitutional right to travel, which 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.320 does protect people's movements within the states they live in. 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:58.840 So I think we could expect that if it were 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.080 to be enforced, sort of hard to know what that 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.680 would look like, that we could see claims based around 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.720 the right to travel. But mostly I think it's meant 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.480 to make people afraid. Even the news about it makes 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:14.240 people afraid, makes them think simply traveling in a car 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.280 with a person of reproductive age could be enough to 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.400 subject you to suspicion or surveillance from police. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.800 It seems like abortion rights are a constant fight on 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:27.360 so many levels. 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.080 So I mean, I actually find great hope in the 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.880 fact that there are people fighting. Looking at Ohio, for instance, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.760 and folks coming out in August to vote on a 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:43.240 referendum that wasn't entirely clearly related to abortion until the 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.520 abortion rights movement made it really clear. Right. They put 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:49.680 in a lot of hours, a lot of shoe leather 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.160 making sure that enough voters got out in a very 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.960 off time for an important vote. 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.680 There's a lot going on in this area. Thanks so much, 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.960 Liz for helping us keep up to date. That's Elizabeth Zepper, 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.320 a professor at the University of Texas at Austin Law School. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.600 The government is offering settlements of up to four hundred 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.680 and fifty thousand dollars to compensate Camp Lejeune veterans and 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.880 others who say they were sickened by the toxic water 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.360 on the North Carolina Marine base. The plan comes as 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.520 more than ninety three thousand claims have been filed and 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.840 as some sick veterans have complained about the slow pace 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.000 of resolving those claims. Government and plaintiffs' attorneys are fighting 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.440 over how to move forward with civil trials. In the 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:38.360 Eastern District of North Carolina. About eleven hundred lawsuits have 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:42.040 already been filed by those whose claims were rejected or 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.880 weren't resolved quickly enough by the Navy and the court system. 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.440 There is bracing for thousands more in what could become 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.760 one of the largest mass tourts in history. Joining me 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.920 is the lead council for the plaintiffs, ed Bell and 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.920 tell us a little about the history of the Camp 0:15:59.040 --> 0:15:59.920 Lejeune litigation. 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.640 Well, we started our Camp Reviunion claims back in two 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:07.960 thousand and seven and immediately learned that the government was 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:13.000 going to request dismissal of the claims due to an 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:17.200 odd law in North Carolina which indicated that if you 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.400 didn't file your claims within ten years of the exposure 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.240 to the water, and your claims were lost. And we 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.400 thought that was kind of a crazy law, and we 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.120 didn't think it'd be a problem, but apparently it turned 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.520 out to be. And so over the last over that 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.920 maybe five or six years, through a lot of appellate 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:43.080 worked in courts, including the US Supreme Court, we were 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:47.040 eventually kicked out of court. But the instructions we got 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:51.040 from the courts were they can't really change the law 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:55.600 in North Carolina. The legislature of North carolinas to change it. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:01.160 So we went back to North Carolina. At that time 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:06.160 now Senator Tom Tillis was Speaker of the House, Tom Tillis, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.119 and he helped us and got a bill passed and 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:16.000 the Senate and the legislature to the House and they 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.399 fixed the problem. And then we went back to the 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.480 appellate courts and said they've fixed the problem. You told 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.760 us to go get it fixed, and they said, well, 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.480 that's good prospectively in the future, but you can't make 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.639 it retroactive. So eventually we realized that we're going to 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.600 need some help from Congress in Washington, and in fact, 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.320 that's what we did. So we started drafting a statute 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.480 and started working it through Congress, and eventually it got 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:47.880 passed in August of last year, twenty twenty two. 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.240 So the Navy still hasn't paid out a claim, but 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.560 the government is offering now settlements of up to four 0:17:55.640 --> 0:18:00.280 hundred and fifty thousand dollars to compensate some veterans ends 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.640 and others. What's your take on. 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:10.160 This offer, Well, my first comment is it's a start, 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.200 but they put the wrong foot forward. If you really 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.600 understand what happens with this offer, then you realize it's 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:25.600 really not It is awful. Give you an example. The 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.200 highest payout is if you live there more than five years. 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.400 This is a training base, so very few people live 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:39.640 to work there over five years. We have two sisters 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.720 who lived there fifteen years whose father was a principal 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.600 at one of the schools, so they of course would 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.280 be in that top tier. But those two sisters both 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.320 have got have had two separate cancers each and have 0:18:55.560 --> 0:19:01.920 four other currently they're currently being die diagnosed with four 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:06.040 additional diagnoses each. So each one of those sisters who 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:10.320 lived on the base fifteen years has had already six 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:16.080 six diagnosable diseases. They came from the water each, and 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:21.760 it's fairly understandable because this is a dose related reaction. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:27.320 The more water you drink, the worse your result. So 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:32.840 under their circumstances, the best they could get would be 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.159 either the four hundred or the four fifty because they 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.520 lived there fifteen years. But they've got six diseases each, 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.200 and so in anybody's fairness doctrine, that just didn't work. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:51.200 The second thing is a lot of these folks who've 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:56.159 had cancer are in the later stages in life. Their 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.160 circumstances as such that they may feel like they have 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.440 to take it. And the overwhelming response I'm getting from 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.359 our clients is that they feel like the government's trying 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.560 to buy them off. And it's it's a very negative 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.320 response from the from the clients. So think about it 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:23.440 this way. If missus Jones decides that she has multi 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.280 my loma, and she's been and she has lived on 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.560 the base a year, and she takes one hundred thousand dollars, 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:34.680 but a year a year and a half from now, 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.679 the multiple my loma ends up paying out, you know, 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:43.080 ten times that amount, then how does that fare to her? 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:48.080 And it's not the government is taking advantage of people's circumstances. 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.320 They're taking advantage of the idea that these people maybe 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:57.440 later on in their years and and the and the 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:01.679 individuals did not they didn't do that to themselves. The 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:03.880 government is the one who made them wait this long. 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:06.879 And so the government made them wait this long, and 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.359 now trying to take advantage of that situation. The thing 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:16.000 is totally unffair. We appreciate, we appreciate the government getting started, 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.320 but this is this is a they didn't put the 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:20.000 best football. 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.359 But do you think still they'll get a lot of 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:24.199 takers on this? 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.560 You know, I think they'll get some. We had a webinar, 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.159 we put out notice to our clients. I think we 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.639 had eighteen hundred and some people on the webinar, which 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.520 I thought was a lot for that short notice. Not 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:45.679 a single person either, that entire eighteen hundred, although this 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:50.399 was very good to offer, not one. So they're going 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.440 to get some people. Again, you may have somebody whose 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:58.560 circumstances whether they say, well, you know, I need the 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.840 hundred or I need the hundred, I better take it. 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:05.760 But how fair is that? And our government should treat 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:10.080 people equally, And so if missus Jones gets a one 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:14.680 hundred thousand today and Missus Smith gets eight hundred thousand 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:19.120 next year, my proposal would be that we pay these 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:22.760 folks who need the money now, but if they end 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:26.120 up paying more on a disease later, then they come 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.840 back and pay people equally. I think that's fair. 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.920 You've been fighting or arguing with the government on how 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.600 to move forward with the civil trials. Tell me how 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:39.560 you want to handle it and how the government wants 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:40.200 to handle it. 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.880 Well, the government wants to take as long as they 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.960 can to handle it. We've been with some of our 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.159 clients have been waiting thirty and forty years to have this, 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.399 to have something done, and they can't wait any longer. 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:03.480 We're having literally people dying every week every week, and 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:09.240 it's not fair. Again, the government knew about these chemicals 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:14.760 in the water since the seventies. They knew about it, 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.679 they stopped, they fixed the water in eighty seven. They 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:21.080 delayed telling people to ninety seven, and they could have 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:27.360 told people earlier so they could get screening an early diagnosis, 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:30.800 which they didn't do. Thousands of people died because of 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:34.359 the government's problems, because of what they did, and they 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:37.600 cover up. But yet the government doesn't want to do 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:41.800 something quickly and didn't want to help people. Well, that's 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:46.440 why people are upset, because there's not the money. That 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:50.000 gets them upset is no one's asking me the question 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:54.439 how could this have happened? Why isn't Congress interested in 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:58.600 finding out why it happened, who's supposed to be responsible 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:00.440 for it? And what can we do to not have 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:04.119 this happen again? Otherwise historys are going to repeat itself. 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:07.560 But we don't figure that out. Most of our clients 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:11.000 don't ask how much is this case worth? They want 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:13.040 to know what happened to them? How did I lose 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:16.920 my wife, my children? Why did I have three miscarriages? 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:21.200 Why were my two children? Why did they die two 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:23.920 days after they were born? They don't give a happy 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:26.879 damn about the money. They need to know. They have 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:29.840 to have answers, and so for the government not one 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:32.080 not to give them the answers and then come up 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:35.560 and try to take advantage of their age and the infirmities. 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:37.400 They think it's unfair. 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:41.200 I want to point out that Justice Department lawyers signal 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:44.119 they need more time to prepare, saying only that a 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.800 start date of some time in twenty twenty four was possible, 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.680 and that the Undersecretary of the Navy, Eric Ravin said 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.639 in a statement, we are committed to ensuring that every 0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:59.199 valid camp lejun claim is resolved fairly and as expeditiously 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:03.160 as possible. Bob so ed, are you looking to have 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:04.639 a Bellweather trial? 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:08.600 Well, our proposal, which is pending before the court, now 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:15.760 asked the court to give us Bellweather trials based on disease. So, 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:19.480