Behind The Curtains (at Mar-A-Lago)

Jill (00:00)
Welcome to this episode of Sisters Sidebar with Kimberly Atkins-Stor and me, Jill Wine-Banks. If you have a question for us, please email us at sistersinlawatpoliticon.com or tag us on social media using hashtag Sisters In Law. But don’t just type them. Your voices are so important, which is why we want to hear them. So do us by a voice note. That’s how we will hear your voice and we’ll play your voice on the show.

Email us, voicemail, memo, using one of your notes apps, and we might play it on the show. Before we get started, we are delighted to share that we will be doing a live show in Denver, Colorado at the Cervantes Masterpiece. Yeah. On April 23rd, please join us. We look forward to seeing each and every one of you. Tickets are available at politicon.com slash tour. We can’t wait to see you there.

Let’s get started with your questions.

And Kim, I want you to answer this question from Mary in Maine. ⁓

Jill (01:19)
containing immigrants and they clogged the system. What is contempt power? Would it be possible for charged orator that they must stop arresting immigrants who have not committed a felony until they comply with all the quarters?

Kim (01:23)

Mary, that’s a really good question. Would it be nice if we could just get a blanket order ⁓ that the administration has to stop taking the actions such as mass arrests of immigrants who have not committed a felony? But they can’t do that for a couple of reasons. I don’t think that there is a statute that provides that broad of action, even at the preliminary stages. So I just don’t think that there is a law that prefaces complying with all court orders with the ability to continue enforcement in that way. If there were, then maybe that’s something that could be asked for, but they’re not. But I think even more fundamentally, the Supreme Court, ⁓ this term, issued an opinion. It was a shadow docket order, and it was based on the Birthright Citizenship case, but it wasn’t answering the birthright citizenship question, the question that presented is whether judges can issue nationwide injunctions stopping a Trump policy. And the Supreme Court said pretty clearly, unless it is a very, very exceptional situation, no, they cannot do that. So that really has hamstrung the ability of judges to even issue injunctions in cases where their power to do so would otherwise be clear. ⁓

The Supreme Court certainly is not going to back up a judge doing that in a case like this where the request doesn’t seem to be grounded in any current law that we have. So good idea, but that’s not the way it’s going to work.

Jill (03:08)
Kim, our next question comes from Rochelle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and it has your name on it. Does the Save Act ID requirement violate the law that voters cannot be subject to a poll tax in order to vote?

Kim (03:24)
That is a great question. So the SAVE Act is not with us. ⁓ It’s not. Luckily, we don’t have to find this out in real time because the SAVE Act did not have the support to pass. But yes, this ID requirement requiring proof of citizenship, which requires you to go and secure the kind of documents you need, particularly if you’ve been married or something else and you have to get some other document that proves that, or if you or someone like…

the story I’ve told about my dad needed to get a passport and he didn’t have a birth certificate and you’re going through all of this in order to get the piece of ID you need. Can that be considered a poll tax? costs you time and money to get it. I am of the opinion that it is a poll tax on top of just something that is onerous enough that may prevent some people from exercising their constitutional right to vote. And it is also targeted mostly to communities.

of color in other places that other folks who were purposely trying to be disenfranchised. Here’s the problem though, Rochelle. While the 15th Amendment of the Constitution was a Reconstruction Era Amendment that specifically was supposed to protect the right of black people to vote as citizens, knowing the history of our nation and the efforts that would be made to stop them, even though we also

the voting rights act in the 60s, which codified and gave the ability to enforce that promise in the 15th Amendment. The Supreme Court has all but gutted ⁓ the voting rights act and with the pending case on the Louisiana redistricting, I think the ability even to bring a challenge claiming that such a claim is a unconstitutional poll tax or otherwise discriminatory won’t be possible. So

While in theory, I think you’re right, Rachelle, in law, ⁓ I don’t think it is at all. Our next question comes from Crockerboy from Twitter. Is it possible that everything happening in the non-secure war room at Mar-a-Lago is being intercepted by foreign intelligence? I’ll let you answer this, Jill, although I think I can answer it in one word.

Jill (05:35)
think let’s say it simultaneously. One, two, three. Yeah. Wait, that wasn’t simultaneous. One, two, three.

Kim (05:39)
Yes!

Yes! I’m in a different time zone, Jill.

Jill (05:47)
Yes, yes, Crockerboy. I think it’s quite likely it looked to me from the pictures like you could see in and that there was a curtain, curtain. This wasn’t a wall. I mean, I remember back in Trump one when Secretary of the EPA Pruitt spent $43,000 to build a skiff in his office. He built a phone booth because he didn’t want to walk

down the hall and be inconvenienced by having to go to a actual skiff to have confidential classified conversations. So he had this $43,000 thing built in his office, which led to one of my favorite all-time pins of a phone booth. So yeah, this is a serious danger. This is a public place. This is not even his private residence.

Kim (06:42)
People were like breezing in and out through that curtain. You could see people going in and out. So… Russia knows everything. China knows everything.

Jill (06:48)
I said-

Exactly,

for sure. So I think this is a really bad idea and I can’t believe that someone hasn’t stopped him and said, you’re going to have to go to a Skiff Sir.

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Kim (08:07)
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Kim (10:25)
Our next question comes from Maureen in Chicago, Jill, your hometown.

Jill (10:29)
Yes, and I love answering questions from Chicagoans. Hi, favorite podcasters. This is Maureen calling from Chicago to ask your confidence level about a future president and Congress making the structural reforms on the Supreme Court that are necessary. This is a good one, but it’s not a ⁓ clearly defined legal answer ⁓ because the problem is that

You cannot predict what a future president in Congress will do. There certainly has been a lot of talk about structural reforms to the Supreme Court and why we need those structural reforms, whether it be imposing a term limit on people or an age limit ⁓ on mandatory retirement or whether it’s increasing the number of members of the court or doing a rotation so that

Every president gets to appoint the same number of justices so that we have a fair representation based on the president. Those are all good ideas, but unfortunately, I don’t think any of us, even the most prescient of fortune tellers, can predict with confidence that a future president in Congress will do what might be needed to make the Supreme Court more responsive to the current

situation. Next question, Kim, is from Brenda. Can governors pardon people convicted of state-level crimes?

Kim (12:07)
Well, Brenda, yes, they absolutely can. And now it depends on the actual language of the state constitution. But I think by and large, ⁓ governors have very, very broad, just as the president on the federal level has very, broad, pardon powers that are granted to him or her by the state’s constitution. And again, I say this every time we talk about pardons, clemency power is immensely important in effectuating.

⁓ criminal justice and social justice. So it is a power that can be used for great good to rectify wrongful convictions or to give ⁓ mercy on someone who has paid significant dues or other things like that. But generally speaking, it’s up to the discretion of the governor. So yeah, that’s the power that governors have. Now there’s one exception is Georgia, which the pardon power does not lie in

the governor, there is a panel that is in place that decides ⁓ pardons in that state. ⁓ beyond that, usually that is a governor’s power. Next is Helen from New York City, New York. Alan Dershowitz has claimed that the Epstein files released is infringing on his Sixth Amendment rights in light of accusations that he received a massage. this is the image I didn’t want. What is the Sixth Amendment and is he correct, Jill?

Jill (13:35)
I love this question. I want to start by reading you the Sixth Amendment, which was ratified in 1791. So I think that law professor Alan Dershowitz probably knows what it says. It was part of the Bill of Rights and it guarantees fundamental protections for individuals accused of crimes in federal prosecutions. Let me reemphasize that. Accused of crimes in federal prosecutions.

It ensures the right to a speedy public and impartial trial by jury in the district where the crime occurred, the right to counsel and the ability to confront and compel witnesses. As far as I know, Alan Dershowitz is named in the Epstein files, but he has not been indicted. He is not on trial. And so the Sixth Amendment has nothing to do with his rights.

may or may not have had a massage. Looks like maybe he did, but the Sixth Amendment does not protect the release of the information about him.

Kim (14:40)
I need protection from the imprint of that information into my brain.

Jill (14:44)
Kim, the last question we have time for today, and we had so many good ones that I’m sorry we don’t have unlimited time. Thank you all for having sent in great questions. Here’s one from Rick in Las Vegas. The Bill of Rights doesn’t appear to fully apply to minors. What is the deciding factor in what does and doesn’t apply and when? I love this question because I didn’t even know that. So Kim, please enlighten us.

Kim (15:11)
Yes, this is a great question. So in fact, minors do have rights under the Bill of Rights, the same rights that apply to all Americans, the right to free speech, the right to due process, all of that stuff applies to minors as well as adults. The only difference is there are greater restrictions on those general rights when it comes to minors than when it’s

done for adults because when these rights come into play, what courts have to do is a balancing test about the interests of the minor compared to some other important interests, such as the interests of the state to educate that child, the interests of parents to make decisions about the welfare of that child, the interest of the state in keeping that child and other people safe, for example, with laws that say you cannot

possess a firearm unless you’re 18 years old or 17 or whatever the law is. Yes, that’s infringing the minor second amendment ⁓ rights, but the balance of interest weighs in favor of that restriction. So yes, they do have rights, but in these balancing tests, often those rights are restricted by courts based on an interest that is balanced with them. Now, sometimes I don’t think the courts always get it right. I wrote this week about ⁓

a shadow docket ruling by the Supreme Court that basically stripped trans students of their privacy rights without even doing a balancing test about the competing interests, just waving those away and giving parents a blanket right to control their child’s sexual identity, essentially, which I thought was wrongly decided. So I should say the balancing of interests is what’s supposed to happen, but it doesn’t always.

Well, thank you for listening to Sister Sidebar with Jill Winebags and me, Kimberly Atkins-Stor. Keep sending in those questions, they’re so good. And if you want to send a voice memo, do that and you could get your questions laid on the next episode. And we hope to see you live in Denver, Colorado at the Cervantes Masterpiece on April 23rd. I’m so excited to go to the home of the Colby’s and the Carrington’s. I may even like, I may even base my…

it on Dominique Devereux. What you think, Jo? I’m gonna come, you know, I’m gonna come with a big old hat and some fake diamonds.

Jill (17:40)
some big shoulders. That’s what I remember.

Kim (17:42)
I’m a shoulder pad girl. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it. So make sure you get your tickets before they sell out because you are not going to want to miss my outfit. Follow Sisters in Law and hashtag Sisters in Law wherever you return and wherever you listen and do return to us week after week and give us a five-star review. It really helps other people find the show. And show some love for our sponsor this week, Flamingo. The link is in the show notes. And please support Flamingo because

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Jill (18:30)
I will tell you that when we moved to Florida for the year, I got rid of a lot of files because we were renting the house out. And guess what I got rid of? My Watergate files. My Watergate files because, well, what would they ever be useful for? ⁓ my God. am, I could kill myself, but anyway. So I want some to help me make better choices than getting rid of the Watergate files that libraries would like to own.

Kim (18:58)
Yes, they would.