Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Was a blockbuster year at the Supreme Court, with major
Speaker 1: decisions on lgbt Q rights, presidential powers, abortion rights, religious liberties,
Speaker 1: and dhaka. But don't expect such epic decisions this year
Speaker 1: that justices are switching from blockbusters social matters to lower
Speaker 1: profile staples when they resume in January. Joining me is
Speaker 1: Neil kin Call, a professor at the Georgia State University
Speaker 1: College of Law. Broadly speaking, Neal, when you look at
Speaker 1: the docket coming up, does it seem as if there
Speaker 1: are fewer blockbusters this year? Yes, it seems like there
Speaker 1: are many fewer blockbusters. Um, in part that's kind of
Speaker 1: an unfair comparison to which had an extraordinary number of blockbusters.
Speaker 1: So comparing almost any year to is going to look boring.
Speaker 1: But I think it's also a conscious decision on the
Speaker 1: part of particular pularly Chief Justice Roberts to pull back
Speaker 1: a bit from controversy. Controversy is not good for the
Speaker 1: Supreme courts public image and it's not great for their standing,
Speaker 1: and so I think Justice Roberts in particular is acutely
Speaker 1: aware of all of that and serves the courts sort
Speaker 1: of public image and its legitimacy to pull back a
Speaker 1: bit from controversy, let things die down a bit before
Speaker 1: they start taking on the real hot button issues again.
Speaker 1: So the conservative wing of the Court must agree with him, right,
Speaker 1: because it only takes four justices, and they certainly have
Speaker 1: four justices there to take a case that's right, at
Speaker 1: least so far. But I think Justice Roberts still has
Speaker 1: some some real influence within within the conservative set of justices,
Speaker 1: even though he can be and I'm sure will be
Speaker 1: outvoted by them and that they will move further right
Speaker 1: and move more quickly than he wants to, But he
Speaker 1: still has real influence, and so I think we see
Speaker 1: that with this. How much does this have to do
Speaker 1: with the change of administrations coming up? Well, it may
Speaker 1: have to do with the change of administrations in that
Speaker 1: a lot of the issues coming out of the Trump
Speaker 1: administration are likely to be mooted with the Biden administration
Speaker 1: coming in. So some of the controversial moves that were
Speaker 1: being challenged in court um will be withdrawn under the
Speaker 1: Biden administration. I'm thinking of things like the legality of
Speaker 1: Trump's decision to build the border wall on the southern
Speaker 1: border to use an emergency designation of military construction funds
Speaker 1: to do that, and the legality of that order is
Speaker 1: really dubious and is pending in the courts, But that's
Speaker 1: certain to become moot once Biden comes in. There are
Speaker 1: a number of other of those sorts of measures that
Speaker 1: Trump has already taken that I think will quickly become moot.
Speaker 1: And there may be others in the waning days of
Speaker 1: the administration that will follow that mole. What is the
Speaker 1: procedure exactly, and let's say the border wall. Does the
Speaker 1: Biden administrations say we're going to retract this case or
Speaker 1: does the court have to say it's moot? Um? Both
Speaker 1: of those will happen. So the court, so the the
Speaker 1: the Abiden administration and the Justice Department can can say, um,
Speaker 1: we're no longer proceeding with this action, so please dismiss
Speaker 1: the cases moot, and the court will have to agree um.
Speaker 1: And in those sorts of cases, the court's agreement is routine.
Speaker 1: There can be situations where the court has a kind
Speaker 1: of oversight role um and so might not agree to
Speaker 1: dismiss the case even though the Justice Department is asking
Speaker 1: for that UM. And here I'm thinking of the Michael
Speaker 1: Flynn prosecution UM. At that point, Michael Flynn had already
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty UM, and so the court had real supervision
Speaker 1: over what kind of sentence to give UM, and was
Speaker 1: continuing to exercise that role until finally Trump issued the
Speaker 1: pardon that rendered the whole thing move UM. So there
Speaker 1: are those kinds of unusual situations where a court can
Speaker 1: decide to keep a case even though the Justice Department
Speaker 1: wants it to go away. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: those are extraordinary circumstances. For the most part, um, if
Speaker 1: the administration decides to stop pursuing a particular course, the
Speaker 1: courts are only too happy to have it dismissed. Cases
Speaker 1: coming up that may prove controversial or probably will prove controversial.
Speaker 1: Cases involving voting rights. Two cases from Arizona tell us
Speaker 1: what they're about. So the Arizona cases involve fundamentally questions
Speaker 1: about the application of Section two of the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 1: which is a section that protects voting rights and particularly
Speaker 1: protects against the delusion voting rights. And so the Arizona
Speaker 1: cases involved fairly technical questions of voting procedures. And these
Speaker 1: are important because the Supreme Court some years ago struck
Speaker 1: down Section five of the Voting Rights Act. Section five
Speaker 1: was the preclearance provision, so certain jurisdictions, particularly here in
Speaker 1: the South, time in Atlanta, were required to pre clear
Speaker 1: any changes in their voting procedures because of the long
Speaker 1: history of discrimination and particularly race based discrimination in the
Speaker 1: covered jurisdictions. The Supreme Court struck that section down, and
Speaker 1: so all that's left is Section two. And Section two
Speaker 1: doesn't require preclearance. It allows jurisdictions to adopt their rule
Speaker 1: changes and then have them litigated. And so now we're
Speaker 1: going to see what kind of role the courts are
Speaker 1: going to play in terms of oversight. Will they be
Speaker 1: protective of people's fundamental right to vote or will they
Speaker 1: be deferential to the states and the state's decisions to
Speaker 1: change procedures and those very technical changes in voting procedures
Speaker 1: I think we've seen through the recent national elections can
Speaker 1: have dramatic consequences for the outcome, particularly in states like
Speaker 1: Arizona where it seems to be closely divided Republicans and Democrats,
Speaker 1: where the states are very purple, very much in play,
Speaker 1: and so Arizona is at to be a battleground for
Speaker 1: voting rights and for manipulation of voting procedures moving forward. Georgia,
Speaker 1: my state is, is another of those. And so I
Speaker 1: think that case will be a real sort of tip
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court's hand about which way they're going
Speaker 1: to come down, states rights or individual voting rights. I
Speaker 1: remember Justice Robert's opinion in the case you refer to
Speaker 1: the Shelby County case with the racial injustice marches this
Speaker 1: past year. Do you think that his reasoning in that
Speaker 1: case false flat? Well? Yes, um, I think the reasoning
Speaker 1: in that case fell flat the day it was issued.
Speaker 1: It was a remarkable act of judicial invention. Um. He
Speaker 1: made up this doctrine, called the equal footing doctrine UM,
Speaker 1: out of whole cloth, saying that federal rules have to
Speaker 1: treat the states equally. That is a doctrine that had
Speaker 1: been completely unknown in constitutional law until Justice Roberts invented
Speaker 1: it for purposes of Shelby County. There was a different
Speaker 1: equal footing doctrine that applied before that that had to
Speaker 1: do with admitting new states. Shelby County had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with that, and Justice Roberts just made up this
Speaker 1: doctrine and gave it the same name as if it
Speaker 1: had anything to do with the previous cases. So that
Speaker 1: opinion has always been one of really questionable principle. But
Speaker 1: you're you're quite right to say the events of the
Speaker 1: last year show in a very practical way just how
Speaker 1: bankrupt the reasoning of that of that opinion was, and
Speaker 1: now just how consequential that bankrupt opinion has always been.
Speaker 1: Wasn't the Shelby County case the case where Justice Ruth
Speaker 1: Bader Ginsburg sort of earned the notorious RBG reputation for
Speaker 1: her dissent there, It was a classic, So that that's
Speaker 1: certainly one of them where she earned that reputation um
Speaker 1: where she helped make famous her descent dicky. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a classic moment in the RBG canon.
Speaker 1: There are also some cases involving separation of powers, involving
Speaker 1: administrative patenter DGEs and social security administration judges, not cases
Speaker 1: that you normally think we're going to draw a lot
Speaker 1: of attention, but in this term it may draw attention.
Speaker 1: Tell us why those cases will draw attention in this term,
Speaker 1: because there aren't the blockbusters of last term to sort
Speaker 1: of draw the attention away from them. These are the
Speaker 1: kinds of seemingly technical and inconsequential cases that really are
Speaker 1: extremely consequential um and really important, And so they're being
Speaker 1: a sort of spotlight on these cases I think is good.
Speaker 1: The reason these cases are important is that they have
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the status of administrative law judges,
Speaker 1: which you know, just me saying those words probably puts
Speaker 1: your listeners to sleep, but I would hope, but I
Speaker 1: would hope they'll stay awake and pay attention to these
Speaker 1: cases because so much of the work of the government
Speaker 1: is done through these kinds of EFFICI shoals, And what
Speaker 1: these cases ultimately are part of is a really important
Speaker 1: question about just how much power the president has over
Speaker 1: these functionaries. Right, So people who, for example, determine whether
Speaker 1: or not you have eligibility to receive social security benefits,
Speaker 1: or whether a particular immigrant who's applying for asylum or
Speaker 1: for refugee status actually has that status recognized. Right, These
Speaker 1: are important decisions, and under current law, they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be made according to legal principles and through a judicial
Speaker 1: process that's independent of political inputs. But Throughout the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: there was a concerted effort to corrupt the decision making
Speaker 1: process and to introduce um policy values and political values
Speaker 1: into how these administrative figures did their jobs. Determined whether
Speaker 1: or not individuals are eligible for benefits, determine whether or
Speaker 1: not individuals are eligible for asylum, that that should be
Speaker 1: determined not according to the principles of law, but rather
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump's own political preferences. UM. And so these
Speaker 1: cases very fundamentally deal with that question of just how
Speaker 1: far into um the administrative state the president can impose
Speaker 1: his political preferences. Right, So these are very fundamentally important questions,
Speaker 1: even though they arise in a context that sounds deeply
Speaker 1: inside baseball and boring. So, looking at the way the
Speaker 1: Court has ruled in priar cases and taken into account
Speaker 1: the fact that you have an even more conservative court
Speaker 1: now and there's been a lot of talk about the
Speaker 1: administrative state, any idea how they might rule. Yes, So
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court's current majority is strongly in favor of
Speaker 1: the unitary executive theory. And if that theory is put
Speaker 1: into play in these cases, and I suspect it will
Speaker 1: be UM, they are going to expand the ability of
Speaker 1: the president two essentially politicize the administration of laws and
Speaker 1: the enforcement of laws. Um. The the countervailing consideration, I
Speaker 1: would say, Um, the thing that would make me hesitate
Speaker 1: in making that prediction is that these cases will be
Speaker 1: decided under abiden administration, and the conservative majority of the
Speaker 1: Court is going to be a little reluctant to unleash
Speaker 1: its theories of executive power when there is a democratic
Speaker 1: president and offer us right. So I think those are
Speaker 1: the two forces at play in principle. Um, the six
Speaker 1: conservatives on the Supreme Court are strongly in favor of
Speaker 1: executive power, but they're not strongly in favor of Biden
Speaker 1: exercising executive power. Right, So those will be the two
Speaker 1: things competing against each other when those justices beside these cases,
Speaker 1: if they don't follow what you expect, Won't that be
Speaker 1: a declaration that politics is at work here at the court? Yes,
Speaker 1: if people see it. Right. So, because these issues come
Speaker 1: up in obscure cases dealing with administrative law judges and
Speaker 1: patent law judges, Um, it's apt to evade public notice.
Speaker 1: But sure that that would be the declaration, But it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the first time the Court has made it UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I can think there are plenty of cases
Speaker 1: from the Commy years when you know, Justice Roberts in
Speaker 1: spite of his commitment to the unitary executive theory and
Speaker 1: found that the president didn't have certain powers um. And
Speaker 1: so you know, there would be nothing new about that,
Speaker 1: that move to apply political values instead of um legal principles.
Speaker 1: They're not done filling out their docket for the remainder
Speaker 1: of this year, and there's a case involving Mississippi's fifteen
Speaker 1: week abortion band that's been rescheduled over and over again
Speaker 1: at conference, and I'm wondering what the forces are for
Speaker 1: taking that versus not taking that, because that would certainly
Speaker 1: become the most controversial case of the term. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: you know, there's been a lot of speculation about what
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is going to do on abortion now
Speaker 1: that there's a six justice conservative majority. And so the
Speaker 1: two schools of thought are one that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is going to take a ghost slow approach, an approach
Speaker 1: that doesn't directly confront row versus Way, and instead the
Speaker 1: Court will hollow out row versus Way, sort of cut
Speaker 1: back on it to the point where it exists on paper,
Speaker 1: but as a practical matter, states can regulate abortions out
Speaker 1: of existence. The other school of thought is that the
Speaker 1: sixth Justice conservative majority is going to say, if not now, when,
Speaker 1: and if not Row, what are we doing here? And
Speaker 1: so on that theory, the justices would vote directly to
Speaker 1: overrule Roll versus Weight, And I think that's very much
Speaker 1: a debate that's playing out. I suspect, for what it's
Speaker 1: worth that the Supreme Court is going to directly confront
Speaker 1: Row and overrule it. And if they're going to do that,
Speaker 1: I think they've got to be thinking sooner rather than later,
Speaker 1: because they don't particularly want this to be a big
Speaker 1: issue in a presidential election, and so making that kind
Speaker 1: of decision farther from a presidential election is better. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being on the show, Neil. That's Neil Kincaugh, a
Speaker 1: professor at the Georgia State University College of Law. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden was formally recognized by Congress as the next president
Speaker 1: of the United States early Thursday, and in two months
Speaker 1: of fail legal challenges by Donald Trump that exploded into
Speaker 1: violence at the US capital as lawmakers meant to ratify
Speaker 1: the election result, joining me as elections law expert Derek Muller,
Speaker 1: a professor at the University of Iowa Law School, looking
Speaker 1: at it from the perspective of the law and election law,
Speaker 1: how would you describe this election season? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, in theory, every presidential election is unprecedented, and
Speaker 1: we can use that in different ways. You know, this one,
Speaker 1: you know, was driven extensively over the last couple of
Speaker 1: months by principally some conspiracy theories and things that have
Speaker 1: just never really carried any weight and never should have
Speaker 1: seen the light of day, but continue to get perpetuated.
Speaker 1: And that's not to set aside some people serious grievances
Speaker 1: with things like late breaking changes to certain laws that
Speaker 1: were enacted in things like that, But but the sheer
Speaker 1: volume of misinformation out there and just the inability of
Speaker 1: those closest to the president to rely on sort of
Speaker 1: the objective and careful work of so many election professionals
Speaker 1: around the country, in addition to all of the double
Speaker 1: checks and triple checks in our process. You know, I've
Speaker 1: certainly been the most disheartening thing and certainly came to
Speaker 1: ahead in the in the riot that that happened on
Speaker 1: January six in the Capital are the riots what made
Speaker 1: it fizzle out? Or are there checks in the system
Speaker 1: that would have made it fizzle out? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: so my anticipation based upon all of the politics leading
Speaker 1: up to the moment, and right, a lot of it
Speaker 1: is political, but out of politics leading up to January six,
Speaker 1: I anticipated we would have had a long day, you know,
Speaker 1: probably ten hours, probably three plates of electors formally objected to,
Speaker 1: with two hours debate each and votes on them, but
Speaker 1: all of them would have been counted, So we would
Speaker 1: have had some stress on the system. And that's how
Speaker 1: to say we haven't seen it before. You know, I've
Speaker 1: written about some democratic attempts that ended up now we
Speaker 1: see much smaller in scale over the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: and the ones that Republicans put forth on January six.
Speaker 1: But the system would have played out so that there
Speaker 1: would have been some some really theoretical, um fantastic kinds
Speaker 1: of scenarios. Right if if Vice President Mike Penns had
Speaker 1: done something truly extraordinary, essentially recalcitrant in the face of
Speaker 1: Congress in terms of how to handle electoral votes or
Speaker 1: individuals objecting to every single state and its electors, which
Speaker 1: forces two hours of debate each and every time. Right,
Speaker 1: So there are these sort of theoretical provisions, but again,
Speaker 1: we still are a country of laws. Um, you know.
Speaker 1: I I I'm grateful for the Vice President's decision making
Speaker 1: and deference to the Senate parliamentarians and the legal advisors
Speaker 1: around him. And I think there's also the political pressure
Speaker 1: that that attends members of Congress. And while some of
Speaker 1: them thought raising objections as a wise thing, I think
Speaker 1: a lot realized it was not a wise thing, certainly
Speaker 1: many more so after the riots. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: there have always been some political checks, but there's no
Speaker 1: question now I think we've you've seen this steady escalation
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, um, you know. And yesterday
Speaker 1: was a significant escalate escalation of this county of electoral
Speaker 1: votes as a moment to protest the presidential election. And
Speaker 1: that is, um, that is worrisome, and that's something that
Speaker 1: I you know, several Senators in particular, were concerned about
Speaker 1: the precedent that this sets for the future. UM. So
Speaker 1: I don't know how that's going to be handled in
Speaker 1: the future. I don't know if there will be opportunities
Speaker 1: to amend the Electoral Account Act to reduce the chances
Speaker 1: of such things happening in the future. I just I
Speaker 1: just don't know. You know, the political checks worked, uh
Speaker 1: you know this time. Um, you know they prolonged and stuff,
Speaker 1: but they worked. The question is how how that works
Speaker 1: in the future. What should be done now? I mean
Speaker 1: people are talking about exhibitions and what should be done?
Speaker 1: Is there any clear path? Yeah? I mean I think
Speaker 1: a lot of depends on you know, where people think
Speaker 1: the problem is. Um, if people, especially Republicans this time,
Speaker 1: have a lot of distrust in what was happening in state,
Speaker 1: you know that there are two solutions. There's one is
Speaker 1: to go to those states and say, provide greater clarity,
Speaker 1: greater guidance, Um, you know, more robust remedies in your
Speaker 1: judicial system. Uh, you know, more acts anti sort of
Speaker 1: questions that can be answered by the legislature. Um, you
Speaker 1: know things like that. You know that that would be
Speaker 1: one way to go. Another is that the federal government
Speaker 1: wants to look at these questions and say We're going
Speaker 1: to enact some greater uniformities and legislation that provides some
Speaker 1: higher levels of uniformity. That's something that might instill some
Speaker 1: confidence if we can find some bipartisan solutions on that front.
Speaker 1: And the problem is it typically tends to be uh
Speaker 1: partisan solutions, which is the problem, right that that a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, HR One, which is sort of uh,
Speaker 1: the the We the People Act promulgated by Speaker Pelosi
Speaker 1: and others, has been sort of a democratic which list
Speaker 1: of of election of objectives that a lot of Republicans
Speaker 1: are going to oppose. And so trying to find either
Speaker 1: a bargain or some sort of neutral agreement about how
Speaker 1: to proceed forward is going to be it's gonna be difficult,
Speaker 1: I think. Um. So at this point, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of shows about having commissions and integrity projects
Speaker 1: and things like that, but you know, we've done those before. Um,
Speaker 1: A lot of them don't go anywhere. We had to
Speaker 1: help America Vote Act of two thousand two, which was
Speaker 1: designed to help solve some of the problems from two
Speaker 1: thousand UM and punch cards and things like that. And
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll have a little bit of of sort
Speaker 1: of good governance efforts going forward on the optical scan ballots,
Speaker 1: on you know, requiring audits of elections, things like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, with it, with all these things, you
Speaker 1: can what might be a small bill can quickly steamroll
Speaker 1: into a large bill if people want to put a
Speaker 1: little bit of everything election related, and that can be
Speaker 1: harder to get bipartisan consensus on. And the speeches that
Speaker 1: you heard from Republicans who are objecting, was there anything
Speaker 1: of substance? Yeah, I mean again, I think one of
Speaker 1: the one of the harder things that's thinking about the
Speaker 1: role of the legislature and the role of other UM
Speaker 1: wings of the government. Right. And there's no question that
Speaker 1: this election required states to be nimble. UM. COVID put
Speaker 1: a lot of strain on the system. And while there
Speaker 1: were a lot of state legislatures that took some action,
Speaker 1: there were also a lot of things that executive officials did. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, either where the law was silent or potentially,
Speaker 1: depending on the state, I have been a little bit
Speaker 1: contrary to what the legislature had intended. And so that,
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of things about fraud
Speaker 1: that I don't think Harriet the Day or you know,
Speaker 1: had any weight signature checks things like that. UM. But
Speaker 1: you're talking about this sort of allocation of responsibility in
Speaker 1: the states. UM. You know, there's a little there's a
Speaker 1: little smoke there to say, uh, you know, the state
Speaker 1: legislatures were um, you know, getting kind of run over
Speaker 1: by certain kinds of decisions from executive actors or consent
Speaker 1: decrees entered into by uh, you know, executives with plaintiffs
Speaker 1: groups that sued them. UM. But again, you know, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, people look back at the election and a
Speaker 1: lot of people participated, a lot of people were happy
Speaker 1: with the options they had. UM. There were very low
Speaker 1: rejection rates for absentee ballots with campbel opportunity to submit them.
Speaker 1: You know, we had a lot of worries about post
Speaker 1: office fiascos that never came through. So in terms of
Speaker 1: the administration side, it all came through. UM. But you know,
Speaker 1: when when a side loses and they look back and
Speaker 1: they see those sorts of discrepancies between what what executive
Speaker 1: officials did and what might have been the express legislative scheme,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of pressure. UM. So again I
Speaker 1: think sometimes when courts considered these challenges. There's one from
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania that went to the Supreme Court before election day, UM,
Speaker 1: and the ballots haven't encountered yet. From from those from
Speaker 1: those votes, UM, there's one sort of small challenge that
Speaker 1: I think is the most interesting, and a lot of
Speaker 1: others courts have rejected. Courts have looked at and said, now,
Speaker 1: the executive has this authority. The legislature gave them the authority,
Speaker 1: all these kinds of things. So, um, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of the critiques just didn't didn't carry the day
Speaker 1: in my view, um, despite the smallest kernel of truth
Speaker 1: in some of them. And turning to Georgia, was it
Speaker 1: the turnout? A lot of people are crediting Stacy Abrams
Speaker 1: with the turnout. What's your take on what happened in Georgia? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, so many political questions to think about. There's
Speaker 1: no question vot registration has gone up. Some of that
Speaker 1: is probably attributable Stacey Abrams, but they've also instituted automatic
Speaker 1: voter registration in the state of Georgia. So that's dramatically
Speaker 1: increased vote registration. UM. George is precisely the kind of
Speaker 1: state UM that's been you know over the last four
Speaker 1: years that would be more attractive to Democratic candidates UM
Speaker 1: as upwardly socially mobile, economically mobile, uh sort of state
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, it's precisely the kind of suburban
Speaker 1: voters the Democrats have been winning in droves over the
Speaker 1: last four years. And so you look at the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, President Trump lost, Arizona, lost Georgia, that
Speaker 1: there was an Senate election in Alabama that was lost
Speaker 1: right in toy seventeen, and maybe look at the candidates
Speaker 1: in Georgia, especially uh when where one of them was
Speaker 1: an appointment by the governor. H there was an appointment
Speaker 1: by the governor in Arizona, or the candidate lost in
Speaker 1: an election in the same way, um, and there was
Speaker 1: an appointment by the governor who lost in Alabama and
Speaker 1: toy seventeen. You know, sometimes the candidates matter and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's it's just sort of the politics of the place.
Speaker 1: So you know, we look at Georgia, there were there
Speaker 1: was a Republican who won a statewide state election in
Speaker 1: the same race that two Democratic senators in the United
Speaker 1: States won that race. So it's a state that, you know,
Speaker 1: like a lot of states, is more complicated. May have
Speaker 1: to give it credit for and and we'll just see
Speaker 1: what kinds of recruitment and and interest there is in
Speaker 1: in the politics of that state going forward. Because the
Speaker 1: results for us Off and Warnock were so close, I
Speaker 1: mean they were still alike. Does it seem as if
Speaker 1: people in Georgia were voting Democratic Republican, they weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: voting for the person. Yeah. I mean, you very rarely
Speaker 1: get what's described as a double barrel election, right where
Speaker 1: you get to Senate candidates on the ballot running running
Speaker 1: at the same time. And a lot of people have
Speaker 1: written about the increased nationalization of politics over the last
Speaker 1: forty years and that increasingly, you know, we viewed this
Speaker 1: a sort of Democratic Republican and you know, in this
Speaker 1: race in particular, it was kind of changed and defined
Speaker 1: control of the Senate if it's both Democrats or not.
Speaker 1: So I think that only sort of heightened the kind
Speaker 1: of stakes for a race like this. It's remarkable to
Speaker 1: meet a nationalization of politics. To think about these elections,
Speaker 1: that the most expensive Senate elections in history, that we're
Speaker 1: spending a long time talking about. You think it's it's
Speaker 1: a Georgia Senate election, it's just George general. But but
Speaker 1: you think about the impact that it has, and I
Speaker 1: think that this has driven a lot of the focus
Speaker 1: and the turnout that happens. Thanks Derek, that's Derek Muller,
Speaker 1: Professor at the University of Iowa Law School. And that's
Speaker 1: it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. I'm
Speaker 1: June Grasso. Thanks so much for listening, and please join
Speaker 1: us at ten pm Eastern every night for The Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law Show right here on Bloomberg Radio.