WEBVTT - Supreme Court Weighs S.C. Redistricting Case, Celebrities and FTX 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:03.800 This is Bloomberg Law. 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.760 What does a prosecutor have to prove in order to 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.959 get a rico conviction? Tell us why the Solicitor General 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:12.280 is sometimes referred to as the tenth Justice. 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.520 Interviews with prominent attorneys in Bloomberg Legal Experts. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.360 That's Jennifer k for Bloomberg Law. Joining me is former 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:20.160 federal prosecutor Robert miss. 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.200 And analysis of important legal issues, cases and headlines. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:27.040 It's the toughest hurdle for prosecutors proving Trump's intent. Alito 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.479 took on Congress, saying Congress has no power to regulate 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:31.520 the Supreme Court. 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.600 Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.320 Welcome to a special best of edition of the Bloomberg 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.559 Law Show. Ahead in this hour, we'll take a closer 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.760 look at a case that could help determine which party 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:52.920 controls the House after next year's election. Plus FTX investors 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.480 are suing celebrities, bankers, accountants, and lawyers. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.360 We have said that the burden that you're assuming of 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:07.840 disentangling race and politics in a situation like this is very, 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:08.759 very difficult. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.839 The Chief Justice aptly described the problem in the case 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.680 before the Supreme Court. The limits of parties in jerrymandering 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.199 when it intersects with race. It's a case that could 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.880 help determine which party controls the House after next year's election. 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.160 A panel of three federal judges, after an eight day trial, 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:34.000 concluded that Republican lawmakers had engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.759 in drawing South Carolina's first congressional district, but at oral arguments. 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.280 The conservative justice has expressed skepticism about that panel's decision. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:45.360 Here's Chief Justice John Roberts. 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.760 We've never had a case where there's been no direct evidence, 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:56.240 no map, no strangely configured districts, a very large amount 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.800 of political evidence, whether the district court chose to credit 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:01.360 it or not. 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.720 While the three liberal justices suggested the lower court had 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:11.160 adequate evidence to conclude that South Carolina lawmakers improperly relied 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.840 on race to get to its established target of seventeen 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:19.079 percent black voters in the district by shifting thirty thousand 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.000 black voters out of the district to hit that goal. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:23.920 Here's Justice Elena Kagan. 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.240 You have two experts here, Reguso and Lou who answered 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.880 the exact question that is supposed to be answered in 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.320 such a case. In other words, is this gerrymander based 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.360 on politics or is it a way to get to 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.480 an ultimate goal? An ultimate political goal, but the gerrymandarin 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:43.400 is based on race. And what the two of them 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.919 do is that they show that black Democrats are excluded 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.639 from District one at a far greater percentage than white 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.400 Democrats are joining. 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.360 Me is elections law expert Richard Breffald, a professor at 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.520 Columbia Law School. So Rich tell us about the case 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:01.720 and the main issue here. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.600 So this case is about a challenge to the redistricting 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.760 of South Carolina's congressional plan in twenty twenty two following 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:14.519 the twenty twenty census. The major development affected District one, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.959 which is basically around Charleston, and it made the district 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:20.560 more Republican by moving out of a significant number of 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.560 black voters into an adjacent black majority district. District one 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.360 had been a Republican district, but in recent years had 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.960 been more closely contested, and in twenty eighteen the Democrats 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.000 actually won it for one term. Twenty twenty, the Republicans 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.440 want it back with very narrowly. So one of the 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.720 things the legislature did in twenty twenty two was changed 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.480 the composition to make it more republican, and in so 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.760 doing it basically moved about thirty thousand black voters from 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.040 Charleston out of the district into an adjacent district. By 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.480 the way, District one is the district that elects Nancy Mace, 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.720 who had been previously considered a moderate that since her 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.480 district was change, seems to become more conservative. She's one 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.800 of the eight who voted to pose Kevin McCarthy. So 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.920 the question before the court, it's a tough question, is 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:09.160 whether the legislature was motivated by race or by party. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.760 You might say that in a state where race and 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.320 party are so intertwined, that's an impossible question answers. It's 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.400 the same thing, but it's crucial because the Supreme Court 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.919 has said that racial gerrymandering, that is to say, the 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.560 intentional movement of voters because of their race from one 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:29.200 district to another is unconstitutional. But partisan jerrymandering, as we 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.359 all know since the RUCO decision in twenty nineteen, is 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.800 non justiciable. So it's okay for the state to engage 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.640 in partisan gerrymandering. It's not okay for the state to 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.240 engage in racial gerrymandering. South Carolina says it was both 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.760 the following traditional district lines but also had a partisan 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.320 political purpose. What the lower court found was that actually 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:54.080 the movement of voters did exhibit racial predominance, that given 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.080 away the voters, reve which voters were targeted, and relying 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.120 on the testimony of experts, they basically said that a 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.960 proportionate number of black Democrats relative to white Democrats were 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.279 the ones who were moved, and therefore the District Court 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.080 was able to conclude that this was a racial gerrymander. 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.080 That's what's being tested in the Supreme Court right now, 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.240 whether this is a racial or a partisan jerrymander. Did 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.839 the district court do it right? To what extent is 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.680 the Supreme Court required to defer to the findings of 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.040 the district court. And the district Court's findings are really 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.920 sort of factual. They basically made a determination, based on 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.239 the testimony of a person who wrote the South Carolina 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.839 Plan and of other experts, that this was racially motivated. 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.560 So one of the big issues before the court is 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.800 what difference the district court finding was supposed to get. Normally, 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.080 the standard applies to something called clearly erroneous, which means 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.640 the district court gets a lot of difference. But you 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.560 saw some of the more conservative justices pushing back on 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.279 that here, saying that given the fact that the district 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.680 Court doesn't appear to have given trusted in the good 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.120 faith of the legislature, and given some of the other 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.559 challenges to the evidence in front of the district court, 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.320 maybe the district court doesn't get the kind of difference 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.279 that the clearly erroneous standard normally would give them. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.920 Okay, so let's take those that's a lot of issues 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.120 one by one. So the three judge federal panel referred 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.640 to the revised map as effective bleaching of African American 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.799 voters out of the Charleston County portion of the district. 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.040 And they came to that conclusion after an extensive eight 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.920 day trial featuring forty two witnesses and six hundred and 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.039 fifty two exhibits. So doesn't the court usually defer to 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.080 the factual findings of lower court judges? 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:40.800 Yes, I mean, indeed, that is the standard they're supposed 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.960 to apply, what's called the clearly erroneous standard. Not just 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.840 but the district court right on balance, But as long 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.440 as the District Court did was plausible long as they 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.440 didn't something which was clearly wrong, as opposed to debatably wrong. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.680 They're supposed to defer. And you definitely heard the liberal 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.440 justices emphasizing the importance of adhering to the clearly erroneous 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.279 standard that it was evidence to support with the District 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.600 Court found. And indeed the United States came in. The 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:07.760 United States had not been a party to the case originally, 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.120 but this listener General's Office came in. If the United 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.680 States had actually emphasized the importance of following the clearly 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:14.640 erroneous standard. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:19.280 Chief Justice John Roberts said that the challengers of the 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:23.440 map had no direct evidence that race had predominated in 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.440 the decision making process, just circumstantial evidence. This would be 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:32.000 breaking new ground in our voting rights jurisprudence. Is that true? 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.679 I mean, isn't circumstantial evidence enough? 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.400 Right? They've often found circumstance relied on circumstantial evidence. But 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.160 his full statement was there was no direct evidence. He 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.960 all said it was not an oddly shaped district, and 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.240 the number of the early other cases in which the 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.880 Court has found racial gerrymandering, the district was oddly shaped 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.400 On this one, there was a big change the district. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.440 People were moved around a lot, but the district itself 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.040 didn't flunk any kind of test of odd shape, which 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.520 is somethings the Court has sometimes used. And the other 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.640 issue that came up before the court was the fact 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:13.560 that the plaintiffs had not presented an alternative map. Basically, 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.080 the question was could the state have gotten its partisan 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.560 goals without moving as many black voters around? And the 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.160 question came up, should the plaintiffs have been required to 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.040 present an alternative map showing that the state could have 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.440 made the district just as Republican without moving as many 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.640 black voters. And there was a debate in the court 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.440 as to whether the plaintiffs had to do that, and 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.480 the President is that they don't have to. Indeed, Justice 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:41.960 Kagan was quite strong on that because she'd actually written 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.040 the case that said that, a case called Cooper about 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.280 five years ago. But nonetheless, the other justices sort of 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.760 came back and said, well, maybe you didn't have to, 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.920 but why didn't you Why wouldn't that have helped your 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.360 case if you could have shown that they could obtain 0:08:56.440 --> 0:09:00.040 their partisan goals without using race quite as much I 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.240 mean it really went into the question, this difficulty of 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.240 separating out race and party. In effect, the conservative justices 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.960 were sort of creating it. Even though the prior case, 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.000 Cooper had said there's no such requirement. You saw some 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.360 of them basically kind of suggested that either that there is, 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:18.640 or that there should be, or that it's a problem 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:19.800 when there isn't. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.760 Justice Kagan argued that the map makers wouldn't just have 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.440 relied on the twenty twenty election results. She said this 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.400 to the lawyer arguing for South Carolina. Your defense was, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.880 we didn't look at the racial data for this purpose. 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.920 And what the lower court said was, I don't believe that. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.000 And she also said they had not only the opportunity 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.800 it was sitting there on their computers, but the clear 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:47.439 incentive to be looking at this race data. So explain 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.720 what she was getting at there and did you find 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:50.480 it persuasive? 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.880 So the couple questions here are one is why would 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.600 they Why would the state bother using race when they 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.280 could just use party? And if their goal was to 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.680 make the district more Republican, why not just use the 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.480 party voting? Why use race as approxy when you actually 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.840 have the party data? One response to that is, actually 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:11.880 they had much more information on race than on party. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.400 They only had because of the way in which kind 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.800 of votes were counted in South Carolina. They only had 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.000 one election in which they had good party data, and 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.840 that was the twenty twenty presidential election, and the least 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.920 the argument was that wasn't a good predictor because there 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.200 had been more kind of a white crossover voting for 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.959 Biden over Trump in that election. So the plaintiffs argued, 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.920 Justice Kagan suggest that she agreed that in this case, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.120 actually the state used the race data because race data 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.839 was more reliable that a predicted value than the more 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.360 limited party data. Her point was that it was on 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.200 their computers, it was in their data, it was in 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.000 their face, and they couldn't have been unaware of it. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.400 And indeed, at one point in the trial, the lead 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.560 witness for South Carolina and the principal map maker basically said, well, 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.280 we weren't doing this race, but yes, of course we 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.920 were aware of the racial data. And this is where 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.240 the lower court basically concluded they really didn't believe him 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:07.600 on that. 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:09.440 Coming up next, we'll take a look at how the 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:11.239 court might rule. This is Bloomberg. 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:25.199 This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.920 You're listening to a special best of edition of the 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.560 Bloomberg Law Show. I've been talking to Columbia Law School 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.640 professor Richard Rfalt about Supreme Court arguments over whether it 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.960 will reinstate a Republican drawn congressional map in South Carolina 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.400 after a lower court concluded that Republican lawmakers engaged in 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:50.320 unconstitutional racial gerrymandering in drawing what is now a Republican 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:55.680 health district. Justice Samuel Alito was the most aggressive questioner 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.679 of the validity of the lower court's decision. He posed 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:03.280 nearly forty questions to the NAACP's attorney. What was the 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.080 thrust of his questions or problems? 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.199 I think he basically said that this is politics and 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.160 that the burden was heavy on the plaintiffs to show 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.040 that it wasn't politics and that it was race. Much 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.000 of this went into some of the details about what 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.360 some of the experts testified to, or their failure to 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.520 address every point that the state raised. Some of the 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.120 experts testified to whether or not the district complied with 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.480 traditional districting criteria, but not whether or not it was 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.360 part of an Others focused on whether it was partisan 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.520 or racial, but not in the district criteria. So he 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:40.160 felt that the expert testimony was inadequate to support the 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.400 trial court's finding. He repeatedly raised the question about the 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.480 alternative map, even as he acknowledged that an alternative map 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.360 was not required. He sort of found that the absence 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.679 of an alternative map undermined the plaintiff's case. And again 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.080 he basically said that in some sense suggests that there 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:00.200 was a heavier burden on the District Court to prove 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.680 that it was race and not party, given the way 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.640 that the two were so tightly intertwined. 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:11.280 Justice Katanji Brown Jackson kept stressing that the court relies 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.560 on the factual findings of lower courts, and she said 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.280 it would be a dramatic shift to precedent if they 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:23.920 overturned the trial court's findings. Is that true or if 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.600 they find clear error, which Justice Clarence Thomas brought up 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.400 right at the beginning, would it not be violentive of precedent? 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.320 Well, if they found clear error, it wouldn't be because 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.600 the standard is clearly ironing. Is the District Court's findings 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.320 are not immune from review, but it has to be 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.240 clear error as opposed to whether or not it was 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.480 debatable in some sense. The US government, as I said, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.199 they came in on the side of the plaintiffs, on 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.640 the side of the NAACP, and said, in a fact, 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.240 we think that the three judge court could have gone 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.880 either way. There was evidence to support either position, but 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.000 the position that the district first found was reasonable given 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.760 the evidence they had, and so that's why it's you 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.439 should defer to them. I mean, one question that Justice 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.760 Barrett raised to just maybe whether the standard should be 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.920 higher in a case involving a state legislature. Maybe there 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.760 should be more burden on the district court to show 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.760 that the legislature wasn't acting in good faith. There's a 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.680 kind of presumption that legislators state legislatures act in good faith, 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.800 so maybe there should be a higher legal burden on 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.240 the district court. And you're right. Justice Jackson was very 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.120 heavy on it, sort of sticking to the traditional role 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.840 of the district court in finding the facts and the 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:38.920 duty of appellate courts that the first you had been 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.280 at district court, judge, it was kind of a civil 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:45.200 procedure argument as much as anything else, that the traditional 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:47.440 role of the court is to see whether the lower 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.040 court applied the law properly, but to defer to the 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.400 factual finding. The liberals were the strongest on this about 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:59.040 the importance of following this traditional judicial role of deferring 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.080 to lower courts on the factual findings. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:06.600 Most legal commentators concluded after hearing the arguments, that the 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:11.200 conservative majority is going to uphold the Republican drawn mapp 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:12.320 Do you agree with that? 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.120 There were certainly a lot of negative questioning, even from 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:19.200 some of the so called more moderate conservative justices. Remember 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.920 the most recent case involving race and voting, Allen versus 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.280 Milligan went off five to four, with two of the conservatives, 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.480 Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the liberals. Roberts was clearly pretty 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.720 skeptical about the lower courts finding in this case. He 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.920 seemed less likely. Kavanaugh's questions were a little bit harder 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:38.960 to read. I mean, some of it was again about 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:41.360 the evidence, but some of it also seemed to be 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.200 indicated he was thinking about what's the burden on the 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.040 defendants in this case? Who are the appellants to show 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.920 that the district court was clearly wrong. I think it 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.520 was certainly a tough argument for the NAACP defending the 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.720 lower court's finding. I think if they have any chance, 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:57.680 it's going to be to the extent that the Court 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.960 decides to rally around the idea that unless it's clearly erroneous, 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.720 there should be difference in lower court's finding. On the 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.960 other hand, this is the court's first sort of race 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:12.120 party intertwined case since Rucho four years ago, when the 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:16.680 Court said that partisan gerrymandering is not on constitutional, it's 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.480 notn justiciable. So it's the first time that they will 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.880 speak to the how do you separate out race and party? 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.520 And one could imagine they may want to shut down 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.520 the idea that you could get around Rucho by reframing 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.320 things around race. Now, the Court in the past has said, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.760 even if there's a partisan factor, that the state can't 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.320 use the race as approxy for party when it draws 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.440 lines to favor a party. But one could imagine this 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.400 is a case where the Court might want to address 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.280 the how do you disentangle race and party in a 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:54.360 world in which racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional but partisan jerrymandering 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:54.680 is not. 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:59.160 Explain why this case is different from the case you 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.880 referred to, you know, the Alabama case where it was 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:07.639 surprising that the Chief and Justice Kavanaugh sided with the 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:08.480 liberals there. 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.000 That case was really about whether or not the Alabama 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.800 violated the Voting Rights Act. This one is whether or 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.760 not South Carolina violated the Constitution. Although the result in 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.200 Alabama will have a partisan consequence, there wasn't an argument 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.520 that the state was doing it to help the Republicans. 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.320 It wasn't really an argument about the intent of the 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.280 state at all that case. Under the Voting Rights Act, 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.680 the plaintiffs can win if they show disparate impact, if 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.160 they show that the state drew lines in a way 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.399 that had the effect of minimizing minority voting power. I mean, 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.160 the thing is, in South Carolina, the district that was changed, 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.560 District one, was not going to be a majority minority district. 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.560 It was going to be a white majority district either way, 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.920 although for the larger black share of the voting population 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.840 it might have been a democratic district, probably a white 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.679 democratic district. And that's sort of one of the differences 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.040 here is that the core it is somewhat sensitive to 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.359 state actions that dilute minority voting power, but they don't 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.399 care about state actions that chap from one party over another. 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.080 And so the Alabama case was argued entirely around minority 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.720 voting rights, although it turns out if you increase minority 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.480 voting power in that state, you were likely to get 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.760 at likely to have a partisan consequence. Here wasn't really 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.679 a claim that minority votes were being diluted, just that 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.760 voters are being moved around from one district to another. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.680 This case is the third time in two years that 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.840 the Court has heard arguments about state's congressional lines, and 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.760 two other cases are advancing in the lower courts in 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.640 Georgia and Louisiana that challenge maps under the Voting Rights Act. 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.879 Is it that the Court's precedent is not clear or 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.520 are these kinds of cases always challenged? 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.760 Well, I think anything evolving redistricting is going to be challenged. 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.120 This case is different from the other ones. The other 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.320 two cases, the one you mentioned, our Voting Rights Act 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.240 challenges where the plaintiffs are arguing that the the way 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.919 the lines are drawn reduces the ability of black voters 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.720 to elect the candidates of their choice in districts, which 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:13.520 might generate more minority representation Louisiana clearly, so in this one, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.200 again there wasn't a claim that you would have created 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.920 another black majority district. Interestingly, the court has tend to 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:21.880 look at these things as to whether you know they're 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:23.879 going to be a sort of a majority minority, or 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.520 district where minority voters are likely to prevail at least 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.800 have the opportunity prevail. They've been less sympathetic to arguments about, well, 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.720 maybe minority voters must be more influential if they're a 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.399 bigger share, but not nearly a majority, and so they 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.080 haven't bought that argument. And so the voting rights arguments 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.240 are always difficult because the plaintiffs have to show that 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:48.320 there could have been another minority district, that there is 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:53.000 racially polarized voting, and that under the totality of the circumstances, 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.080 the setup is unfaired minority voters. And that's a tough 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.520 standard to meet. And many people thought that the court 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.760 just didn't seem that interested. The Allen case kind of 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.760 let me not revive that standard, but confirm that that 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.560 is still the standard. And so I think it's what's 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.399 given to wind at the backs of the people bringing 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.560 the challenges. Nonetheless, there's a slow slog through the court. 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:17.440 Thanks so much, rich that's Professor Richard Raffault of Columbia 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:22.560 Law School. Coming up next, we'll discuss lawsuits from FGX investors. 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.000 I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:38.240 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:41.639 You're listening to a special best of edition of the 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:42.760 Bloomberg Law Show. 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:55.679 I call it the Wheel. I don't think so. 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:56.600 What does it do? 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.879 Yeah? So does a bagel? Okay? A bangle? Here, Kenny. 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:03.280 One of the worst ideas I've ever. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.080 Heard, Like I was saying, it's FTX, it's a safe 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:07.199 and easy way to get into crypto. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:10.520 I don't think so. 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:13.000 And I'm never wrong about this stuff. 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.880 Never remember that Larry David commercial for FTX that had 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.600 them laughing at the Super Bowl in twenty twenty two. 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.800 And there was also Tom Brady touting FTX and commercials 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:29.520 Giselle Bunchen, Steph Curry, and Shaquille O'Neil, among others. Well, 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.960 investors who claim they lost billions in the collapse of 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.479 FTX are trying to pin the blame not just on 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.159 Sam bankman freed in his inner circle, but also on 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.360 the celebrities who were paid to endorse it, as well 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:47.040 as bankers, accountants, and lawyers who propped up the crypto 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.479 Exchange's legitimacy. Joining me is Braden Perry, a former federal 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.359 regulatory enforcement attorney and a partner at Kenny Hurtz Perry. 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.560 So this is a class action lawsuit. Tell us about it. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.120 Yeah, So this is a loss. It is brought by 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.040 a number of individuals who where the investors or had 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.720 some sort of financial interest in FTX, and they brought 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:14.080 it against a number of various entities, including celebrity endorsers, accountants, 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.679 the actual members of FTX itself, as well as others. 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:23.359 So it's a wide ranging case that essentially boils down 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:28.640 to FTX was falsely providing information to the public, and 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.679 the public somehow either invested or had some sort of 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:34.280