The Gerrymandering Wars

Joyce (00:11)
Welcome back to Hashtag Sisters-in-Law with Jill Wine-Banks, Barb McQuade, Kimberly Atkins-Stohr and me, Joyce Vance. We have got a news-packed show today. There’s lots going on. Our three topics for today include the Supreme Court, what’s going on there, we’ll do a little roundup for you, the most recent news on gerrymandering and the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision in Calais.

And of course, the Fulton County ballots case where the Justice Department is still trying to relitigate the 2020 election for the audience of one, the President of the United States. ⁓ Lots to dig into, but before we get there, you know, we all need to lighten the mood a little bit these days. And so in my fantasy life, I’ve been trying to think what concert would I like to go to if I could get on a plane and meet anybody I wanted to.

Who would I want to see perform live? So I’m curious what ideas you have. ⁓ Jill, do you want to start?

Jill (01:15)
God, no, but I will. ⁓

Joyce (01:19)
That was quite the reaction. didn’t think it was such an emotionally triggering question.

Jill (01:24)
Well,

is because I, first of all, the music I love is like from the late 50s, early 60s. ⁓ But I think you want somebody who’s still alive. Everybody I think of would have been, know, people I wish they could come back. ⁓ Of course, I’d want to go with my husband because he’s my favorite person. And although we don’t always share the taste of music, his choice would definitely be Bob Dylan, which also was

probably the first live concert I ever saw. ⁓ I would have to say, I want to see Bette Midler again. I love Bette Midler. And she just puts on such a great show. I saw her in concert and I saw her in a one woman show in New York and she’s just fabulous. She’s one of my faves. So I would say her.

Joyce (02:12)
That is such a great choice.

Jill (02:14)
No

one Elvis or the Beach Boys or all the people from that era.

Joyce (02:19)
The Beach Boys absolutely made my list. I would so love to get to see them again. Kim, what about you?

Kim (02:26)
Yeah, so I’ve been to lots and lots of concerts in my life. I’ve seen most of my favorite artists live, because it’s just something I’ve always loved to do. But there is one who I’ve never seen live, and I have been a fan of hers literally since I was old enough to speak and therefore sing, and that is Barbra Streisand. I’ve never seen Barbra Streisand live. remember when I was, ⁓ how, no, I must have been like three or four.

My mom bought me the soundtrack to the movie A Star is Born. best version, sorry Lady Gaga, the best remake of that movie was with Barbra Streisand and Chris Christopherson. And my mom bought me the album and I would play it on my Fisher Price record player.

Barb (03:11)
Picture the album cover. She’s got the big fro, right?

Kim (03:13)
Yes, she’s got the big for one. Yes, she’s got, and it’s like, it’s so, it’s like, it was like magical for me. And I would have loved to see her perform songs from that album with my mom. That would have been my, you know, dream sort of concert. But, you know, I put on many a concert on my own for my mom with that album.

Jill (03:34)
I got him through my very first Broadway show when I was looking for an apartment for law school. I went to see an unknown Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl. It was magical. So yeah, I forgot about that. Maybe it would have to be Barbara Streisand again. Yes.

Joyce (03:44)
And…

Okay, now Barb, I’m just gonna say baseball game does not qualify as a con.

Barb (03:58)
Because

I would travel many places. You see a ballpark I have never been to.

Joyce (04:04)
What about music? Is there anything?

Barb (04:06)
know if I would travel for music, but you know, it’s funny the choices because I too chose more of a diva than a band. ⁓ I think some of our friends went to go see Adele in Las Vegas a few years ago. That strikes me as the kind of thing, intimate, small, fantastic singing voice. I think I would enjoy seeing something like that, like Adele. I took my daughter to see Taylor Swift when she came around during the Big Eros tour. And although, know, my sister, right, my daughter and friend had blast and they’re having a great time.

I can’t tell you how happy I was not to have to go. I almost snitched on our deal. I drove her, I dropped her off, I went to the Tiger game. The Tiger game ended before the concert. I sat at the counter at Buddy’s Pizza with many other parents who were all also drinking water and waiting for their daughters to come out of the concert from ⁓ at Ford Field. And then we drove home and I was happy as a clam.

Kim (05:00)
that is so funny. know, speaking of Adele, I’m with you, Barb, that I’m no longer the fan of big stadium shows. I’m just, I feel like I’ve aged out of those. But the first time I saw Adele, it was right when her very first album came out, and she was still a teenager. And I went to see her, DC people know what I’m talking about. The ⁓ Six and I synagogue, which is this tiny, little, small, like smaller than the places that we’ve done live podcasts.

Barb (05:28)
That’s

the kind of place to see somebody like that.

Kim (05:30)
And

was just her and her guitarist and the acoustics in that place and her voice were absolutely glorious. Must’ve been maybe 600 people tops in that room. am so glad that I got to see her because now never, right? Like she plays the sphere and stuff. Like she’s so big. But I got a chance when she was just a teenager and she was so excited. It was her first time in Washington, DC. And she was just a kid with this gorgeous voice. So I’m glad I saw her then so I don’t have to see her in a stadium.

Joyce (06:01)
You know, I think that those are always the shows that speak to you, right? Seeing somebody just before they get famous in a smaller venue. And I was trying to think who I would like to see. And I remember seeing R.E.M. right after I graduated from law school with one of my best friends ⁓ who he just loves music so much. And he was like, let’s go see this little band called R.E.M. I think that they’re going to be good.

And it was just sort of love at first sight for me. I’ve always been a huge REM fight. And I would love to go back to that minute. I guess we would now have to bring his wife and my husband, but as long as they behave themselves, that would be okay. But there was nothing like that pure raw music. And they played some of the songs acoustic.

And it was just really wonderful. So, you know, I think right now we all need to relax a little bit and make sure we’re doing things we love. ⁓ If you guys take a trip down memory lane and have a fantasy concert that you want to attend, let us know about it. We’d love to see what you’re thinking about too.

Kim (07:10)
And I’m gonna have it stay under the world as we know it in my head for the rest of the-

Barb (07:14)
could be our outro. This could be our outro. Can we play that as our outro?

Jill (07:16)
It’s.

Joyce (07:16)
die. Yeah,

that’d be really good. I constant part of the little internal soundtrack in my head that song.

Barb (07:27)
Yeah, that’d

be a good outro. Reward the careful listener.

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Jill (10:15)
Chief Justice Roberts gave the equivalent of Nixon’s I am not a crook speech this week. ⁓ It’s been reported that he was defending the Supreme Court against charges of partisan rulings. And it was interesting to read a comparison of CNN’s headline to Fox’s headline that read, Supreme Court Chief Justice Pinpoints What Americans Misunderstand About Him and His Colleagues. No, we don’t misunderstand. But Kim.

Let’s get to the facts. What did Chief Justice Roberts say? Where did he say it and why did he say it?

Kim (10:53)
Yeah, so the Chief Justice was speaking at the ⁓ third US Circuit ⁓ conference, which is where every now and again, ⁓ judges ⁓ from appellate courts and trial courts in a certain circuit, ⁓ attorneys who practice before them and others get together ⁓ just to talk about the state of the law. It’s very usual. I went to one ⁓ last year where ⁓

⁓ Justice Kataji Brown Jackson spoke. It was the First Circuit. It’s pretty common that Supreme Court justices speak to groups like this, but this one, ⁓ he spoke and I admit I’m not sure if he was asked a question or if he made the comments extemporaneously, but he was talking about the public view of the court and he said, quote, I think at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions. We’re saying we think this is how things should be.

as opposed to what the law provides. I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do. This is one of many recent comments that the Chief Justice has made, where he seems to be decrying criticism of the court while ignoring what the court is actually doing. He’s made comments like this before.

⁓ after, for example, the ethics kerfuffle that the court found itself in when ProPublica reported that certain justices like Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito had accepted really lavish gifts without reporting them in their financial disclosure laws. The Chief Justice did not seem to, at least in any public way, chastise the justices for literally breaking the law. He chastised the public.

for daring to say that it was a bad look for these justices. And so I find it really gobsmacking that in just days after gutting a vital civil rights law that this country has depended on for six decades and in the midst of the fallout from that decision where we’re seeing all the gerrymandering that’s going on that we’ll talk about later in the show, that the Chief Justice himself

would decide, that’s a good time to chastise people for criticizing this court. Listen, I, as a columnist at a newspaper who writes about this court, will continue to criticize this court as long as the justices do things worthy of criticism. I am not the problem, okay? Americans who don’t like what this court is doing are not the problem. The calls are coming from inside the House Chief.

The calls are coming from inside the house. If you’re going to criticize somebody and if you’re worried about the standing of this court, put the blame where it belongs.

Jill (13:44)
I thought it was so demeaning because he was basically saying, you don’t understand our role and what we do. And yes, I think we all understand the role and that he is misperceiving what they’re doing. ⁓

Joyce (14:00)
Can we just dump on him a little bit more? When the court is deciding Milligan, which is the Alabama gerrymandering case, he talks about how well the 15th Amendment, was just a parchment promise until the Voting Rights Act was passed, right? Many years later in the 1960s during the civil rights era. He actually acknowledges that. And then he has the temerity to come up with this criticism of us

for criticizing him when the court reverses precedent that has protected the right to vote like it’s just doing nothing and we’re supposed to just sit here and smile and be happy about it. And sorry, John Roberts, I ain’t happy about it.

Barb (14:43)
Yeah,

it’s his more polite version of accusing people of having Trump derangement syndrome. problem is it moves you.

Jill (14:50)
So true, Barb. In fairness, he did say, know, criticism is legitimate, but you’re wrong on this one. And we aren’t wrong. Facts are facts, and we’re not wrong. And to make the decision in Calais even worse, the court then said, and it’s going to go into immediate effect. Normally, it’s 32 days from the date of decision before it takes effect. It gives time for people to ask for a re-hearing. So Barb, explain why we normally have 32 days and

why it’s so important that they did this and made it effective immediately.

Barb (15:24)
Yeah, so this to me is a tell because the normal process is to have this period of time. It gives the parties an opportunity to ask for rehearing. ⁓ It gets a chance for the matter to become settled before it becomes effective. Instead, they waive that requirement and say effective immediately. And why that’s consequential here is there’s a little bit of a race against time to be able to change.

the districts in time for the 2026 midterms. And so I think that additional fact really makes it feel like this is all about giving Republicans the upper hand in the 2026 midterms and not just the normal course of business. We move at a slow and deliberate pace and we will fix this in due course. Instead, they’re kind of breaking all the rules to make sure that this can be effectuated.

immediately in this upcoming election. And so I think that makes the criticism of the Roberts Court all the more justified because it feels like they are putting a thumb on the scale for the Republican Party.

Jill (16:35)
And it’s especially true because they don’t do this in cases where the verdict was in favor of their not point of view. So when Biden won, for example, they would hold off implementation and delay it. it really does, you’re right, make it look really, really bad. And it has led to a sort of a spat between two justices, Jackson and Alito. And Joyce, can you talk about that a little bit, please?

Joyce (17:04)
Yeah, I mean, it plays into what Barb was talking about. This is actually only the third time that the court has gone ahead and granted an application to issue the judgment forthwith over the objection of a party. you know, three times. I mean, that’s not the usual course of business. And the justices issued an opinion when they granted the motion. And so there’s this back and forth between Justice Alito, who had signed off on the rushed proceeding,

and Justice Jackson, who vociferously dissented, she says the court should have stayed on the sidelines and not gotten into the political fray. And really what she’s arguing about and she touches on it in the final paragraph of her dissent is the so-called Purcell principle that says, don’t make changes too close to an election, right? We’re not gonna sign off on anything that could confuse an election. And instead of using that,

principle here, as they have, might point out, in cases where white voters were challenging decisions and they said, nope, it’s too close to an election. We have to wait to do anything. Here, it’s the court itself granting this very unusual motion so that they can, as Barb said, race to bring Calais online in the states so that the states can go to work redistricting. And you know, it’s really interesting. Justice Alito, in his opinion, granting the motion,

He calls Jackson’s criticism insulting. And that, course, is not the same thing as saying that she was wrong. And I thought I would just read you a couple of the sentences he wrote. He says, the dissent goes on to claim that our decision represents an unprincipled use of power. Yes, it does. Go, Justice Jackson. And he continues, that is a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge. What principle?

Has the court violated? Gee, I don’t know. think Justice Jackson told you in her dissent, but you don’t respond. ⁓ Alito continues. The principle that rule 45.3’s 32-day default period, that’s the time we’ve been talking about that they normally wait before a Supreme Court case is effective. He says the default period should never be shortened.

the principle that should never be shortened even when there is good reason to do so. He’s implying there’s good reason here just three times out of the whole universe of cases. And he says, what other principle are we violating? The principle that we should never take any action that might unjustifiably be criticized as partisan? So he just asks a bunch of questions. He never responds to her criticism.

If I had the chance, maybe if I could go to a concert of my choice with Justice Alito, I would remind him that they decided that a six-month period between their decision and an election was not enough time for them to put into place a decision that they made that said that Alabama’s maps were an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and that in Alabama, we actually elected representatives using maps that the court had said were illegal.

because six months was too close in time. But here, man, they were delighted to see Louisiana shut down after early voting had started. Alabama shut down, I think, under two weeks out from a primary. The hypocrisy is real here.

Kim (20:37)
Chief Justice Roberts, maybe that’s why people criticize this court because they look like they’re doing political stuff, which is exactly what Justice Jackson was saying.

Barb (20:45)
just don’t understand. ⁓

Joyce (20:47)
I

I don’t need to be that ugly.

Kim (20:49)
You’re being an ugly Karen. You’re being an absolutely truthful Joyce. And what really grinds my gears about Alito’s, you know, trying to clap back at Justice Jackson is that he says to her, what do you suppose we do? Force people to have an election on an unconstitutional map. She never says that. He accuses her of advocating for an election on an unconstitutional map. What she was saying, she wasn’t even griping at how this is eventually going to play out.

What she said was, by violating your own 32-day rule, you look like you’re in cahoots with the Republicans in Louisiana. And that is a bad look, and that is terrible for this court. That’s what she was saying, but that’s what really, that’s what hurt. And another thing that surprises me, it did not surprise me at all that Justice Clarence Thomas joined in on Alito’s little rant, but it did surprise me that Justice Neil Gorsuch did, because he’s normally not that nasty, frankly.

And so that just revealed something to me about Justice Gorsuch that I wish I didn’t know.

Joyce (21:52)
And you know, the 32-day rule, it’s there for a reason. It’s so parties can ask for a rehearing after the Supreme Court renders a decision. And no, they don’t change their mind a whole lot of the time, but every once in a while, something comes up, a fact that they’ve overlooked or something. so, Janee Nelson, who argued this case in front of the Supreme Court, had actually let the court know that they would be seeking rehearing. And somehow, they just disregarded that.

put it in like the first paragraph of the book and they ignored it and went ahead and waived the 32 day period. It is some serious technical legal term BS.

Kim (22:23)
Just ignore them.

Robert is mad at us.

Jill (22:35)
I don’t think any of our listeners will question what our opinion is here. I think we’re pretty clear. But before we leave SCOTUS, there is one new thing this week that I think we have to at least briefly mention, that’s Mifa Preston is back at the court. So Kim, what’s the issue this-

Kim (22:52)
You know, I wish we could just go back from our podcast from three years ago when this happened the first time and put in the same answer, but just like sub out for ⁓ Texas doctors, sub out the state of Louisiana because it’s literally the same thing. So now the state of Louisiana, which has been getting on my nerves lately, I got to tell you, Louisiana, y’all need to.

Joyce (23:14)
That’s good.

Barb (23:15)
Louisiana timeout time to stay done in a timeout.

Kim (23:20)
Louisiana,

it’s challenging the FDA approval rules of Mifflopristone, which allows it to be prescribed via telemedicine and ⁓ sent through the mail to patients, challenging that, saying that it’s based on shoddy science. Here’s a spoiler, it’s not. ⁓ And that it harms the state, it potentially harms the state because of the money that it would have to pay caring for patients.

who suffer complications based on its administration. Another side note, the vast majority of abortions in America are carried out medically and the complication rate is very, very low, much lower than surgical procedures. These are all, but anyway, they’re suing to try to stop the drug from being mailed because it often is mailed from places like outside of Louisiana to patients inside Louisiana who need it.

⁓ And again, they found a judge. In fact, they found a couple of courts. Well, a trial court said, well, I’m going to put this decision on hold because the FDA is reconsidering. It’s reviewing its safety protocols for Mifflopristone. That’s the part, the sidebar. That’s what scares me the most is that RF Kennedy Jr. is taking a look at Mifflopristone right now. I think that’s what people should be really scared of more than the court case. But ⁓ the

Court of Appeals said, well, yes, let’s pause the availability of Miffliprstone because the state of Louisiana has a high likelihood of winning this case, which is nonsense. So the Supreme Court, Justice Alito, I will say, this was too much even for Justice Alito, who issued an administrative stay, which allows Miffliprstone to still be available for one week.

while the next steps in this litigation are decided. I believe that at the very least, this administrative stay will be left in place if the parties want to continue to try to appeal to the Supreme Court. I predict the same thing will happen this time as did three years ago where it gets kicked to the curb. But again, I would keep my eye on the federal government because if the FDA tries to muck with these safety protocols, that will be a much bigger deal and that will be a lot harder.

to undo in court.

Jill (25:47)
So yeah, I mean, I feel like this is deja vu all over again, as you said, Kim, and that it’s giving me whiplash going back and forth and back and forth.

Joyce (26:06)
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Barb (29:14)
Well, this week brought elections in many parts of the country, including Indiana, where some Republican state lawmakers paid the price for opposing political gerrymandering. At the time, I cheered, good government at last in Indiana. ⁓ Jill, can you tell us what happened to those GOP lawmakers in Indiana who were up for reelection?

Jill (29:37)
I surely can. My co-author of my YA book is an Indiana native and was a poll watcher and kept me informed all day. Basically what happened, although Indiana is a very red state, the legislature refused to abide by Donald Trump’s orders and did not gerrymander the state. He was outraged. He went on a revenge tour.

and said, I’m going to make sure that you don’t get, you will get primaried and you’re not going to be elected. And in Tuesday’s primary, he pretty much succeeded. About half of the Republican ⁓ legislators who had not gone for a gerrymandered state were defeated. And so I guess he was pretty successful in his efforts. so we’re going to now probably see.

a redrawing of the BAPs, ⁓ not before the midterms, but maybe, I mean, there’s gonna be pressure throughout the South, through all the red states. They’re gonna be afraid that if they don’t do as he’s asking, that they too will get primaried and lose. So we could see a lot more gerrymandering ⁓ from the red states.

Barb (30:58)
You know, this is so whacked out to me. know, regardless of which party you’re on, it strikes me that what is fundamentally important is good government and that voters choose their elected representatives and not vice versa, right? Where we position people in certain little districts so that we can ⁓ entrench people in their roles. And now, of course, as you say, after Calais,

President Trump is pressuring all these other states to put together new districts, to gerrymander so that he can gain more and more seats in Congress. We’re even doing this in a year that is not part of the decennial census. It used to be every 10 years, you look at population shifts and that’s when you redraw these maps. so Joyce, does this result in Indiana seeing defeat for these Republicans who stood up for good government, suggest that crossing Trump and party loyalty

is going to be what matters most for lawmakers going forward.

Joyce (31:59)
I I think that’s the moment we live in, right? That is the status quo ante until the Trump fever dream breaks. And you were talking about these late in the decade redistricting, which is such a key point here. mean, this is not normal. I think everybody understands this by now. We get a new census with new data. State legislatures go to work and draw new maps, and those maps stay in place.

until the next decennial census when new maps are drawn, right? That’s the normal course of business. So when you see these maps being drawn, and you’ll recall this started with Donald Trump making the demand that red states draw new maps so that they could have more safe seats in Congress, because Donald Trump can actually read the polls and he knows he’s deeply underwater going into the midterms. So Texas and other Republican states start to deliver.

And that starts the race to the bottom that ends up here. And of course, as we’ve been telling you here at Hashtag Sisters-in-Law for this whole Supreme Court term, what Trump was having the states ⁓ do might get a big assist when the Supreme Court decided Calais. And so now here we are in this really irregular moment. You some states even make it illegal to do this in Tennessee.

There’s actually a state law that prohibits this sort of late in the decade change in maps, and that’ll certainly be part of the litigation here. I say all that to suggest that there are norms surrounding drawing voting maps. And so for these Republicans in Indiana who were brave enough to part company with Trump and who paid the point of an electoral loss because they did that,

These were folks who, I don’t know, you maybe they were standing up for good government. Maybe they were just being pragmatic and thought that voters would reward them if not in this election down the road for doing what was right. But I think it’s a real moment for Republican lawmakers in states, not just in the deep South, but across the country. Do you do what’s right or do you do what Trump wants you to do? And that’s the fundamental challenge that this party has faced for the last decade and absolutely flunked.

virtually every opportunity. So I have little hope that they’re going to do better.

Barb (34:20)
Yeah, well, and we’re seeing Democrats kind of doing the same thing to say, can’t, with the O.C.O. for I can’t bring a knife to a gunfight or whatever it is. And so now we’re seeing this kind of new normal of gerrymandering. So we get the Rucho decision in 2019 where the Supreme Court says, ⁓ we, the courts are powerless to interfere with political gerrymandering because that is a political question. And if

Legislatures want to draw their maps to favor one party or the other. Who are we to say no? Justice Kagan writes, we’re the Supreme Court.

Kim (34:53)
That descent is one of the best Kagan descents that’s ever been written.

Barb (34:57)
Isn’t it? She says it subverts democracy to,

Joyce (35:01)
I want to just push back a little bit though. I agree with you in the point that you’re making. Gerrymandering is just a terrible thing. The problem that Democrats have faced is, you just stand back and do nothing because it’s difficult to save a democracy after you’ve lost it? And so what I’ve seen in places like Virginia and California is they’ve tried to do it delicately using their Gerrymandering as a shield, not as a sword, right? They’re trying to def-

against what Republicans have done. They’ve never started or initiating it. It’s a partisan cesspool, right? Everything about gerrymandering is… But I think it is a real problem. If Democrats did nothing, Republicans, and not just Republicans, MAGA, Donald Trump, would take over this country as an absolute dictator. That third term in office he’s been hinting at, that would become a reality. And so I’m sympathetic to why Democrats…

Barb (35:38)
trace.

Kim (35:57)
Both things can be true. I think redistricting wars are bad. think war is bad. Also, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine wasn’t supposed to just roll over, obviously, but that still doesn’t negate the fact that war is bad. don’t think that we can redistricting war our way. We can’t win democracy through redistricting wars. I just don’t think that that is the way forward to democracy. I think, so I think you’re both right.

Joyce (36:26)
No, absolutely, Kim. think redistricting is just a way of holding on to keep fighting for democracy another day, hopefully after the midterm elections.

Barb (36:35)
Yeah, I don’t know. I really think that the way to have good government is to have good government. ⁓ In Michigan, we’ve got this Voters Not Politicians Independent Commission that does the redistricting now. And it has members of the Republican and Democratic Party in independence. And they draw the lines. And they have rules about where they can draw them so that they can’t favor one party over another. But as Joyce said, Kim, we’ve seen California voters vote to create new maps that will favor

Democrats. And recently we saw Virginia create some new maps by voters to favor Democrats in Virginia. And just on Friday, a court in Virginia struck down that vote for redistricting. Do you think that will lead to like a patchwork of states somewhere gerrymandering is permitted and encouraged and sought after and embraced and other places where it’s illegal? mean, what do you make of kind of the

Kim (37:32)
Yeah, that’s the problem. And that’s what I mean about you can’t redistricting wars won’t save us. ⁓ This is a big mess and it’s undemocratic and disenfranchising to voters. So this Virginia decision by the Virginia Supreme Court said that this referendum, this voter referendum that created these new, this new map that would have tilted the state much more democratic than Republican.

was unconstitutional because it didn’t follow the basically because it didn’t follow the rules of the state’s constitution where whereas referendum votes are supposed to be more deliberate and take more time to allow for multiple sessions of the legislature to meet and stuff like that. I won’t bore you with the specifics but they basically said it violated the state’s constitution. ⁓ This isn’t by the way something that the US Supreme Court can take up for a number of reasons. One it presents no federal question to Rucho. This is a

partisan gerrymander, and the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts can’t even review that. So this is the final word in Virginia. But what I want to ⁓ emphasize, especially when it comes to state legislatures, which is who are responsible for ⁓ redistricting, is voters have power, more power with respect to their state government than even when we talk about what’s going on in Washington. What Virginia can do?

is the legislature of Virginia can write a bill and pass a bill and have it signed by the governor, which creates new maps without having to push this through. try to put it, rush it through in a referendum, which frankly, think, well, okay, I was gonna say that should have been what was done in the first place, but Virginia needed a ⁓ democratic governor first, which they only just.

got one who’s brand new. So I get why that didn’t happen before. They did it as this referendum so that it would basically be waiting on ⁓ Governor Spanberger’s desk when she got there to sign it into. But there is a way for state lawmakers to fix their map-making processes in the way that happened in Michigan, like Barb said. And the way to make that happen is for voters to tell them that that is what they want.

then you can’t have the president bullying people because it’s up to the members of the state. don’t just have to rely on him being able to strong arm Republicans in states. You can say to your friends of all ideologies, say, look, we may disagree on policies and who was right and who was wrong. But one thing we can stand together and say that gerrymandering is anti-democratic.

that that is not the way that this is supposed to work and demand that your state lawmakers do the right friggin thing. I mean, I’m so frustrated at a lot of states. do believe that a lot of sense and I hate beating up on Democrats, but I think that there is, there has been a lack of urgency.

in Democrats, in state and federal government to deal with this issue. They all think, well, we’re going to do the right thing and the Constitution is on our side. And that’s all well and good, but you still got to roll up your sleeves and you got to do that fight for the Constitution. You got to do what is right to protect your voters’ rights. And that is what has been lacking. People have just sort of been sitting back and waiting for Republicans just to self-implode or something, which maybe they’ll do, but they’re going to take the Constitution down with it and they’re going to take voting rights down with it.

and they’re going to take other civil rights protections down with it. So, I mean, do what is in your power to do rather than just playing defense and drawing your own gerrymandered maps when the Republicans do theirs. Take affirmative action to protect our democratic processes without getting to a crisis point before doing it and having to play catch up. It’s going to be a lot harder now for Virginia to pass a fair map than it would have been

or if you did that in the first place. that’s why I feel like I’m just griping this episode.

Barb (41:43)
No, you’re great. It was all done at a grassroots level by citizens called Voters Not Politicians. And they got the ballot initiative on the ballot and won. And it’s now working. And it’s really changed the way our districts are created and who they elect. Well, let’s wrap this up by just talking about what we just saw happen in Tennessee.

We’ve talked about a lot of states. Now there’s new district maps signed into law in Tennessee. And remember what happened in ⁓ Calais in Louisiana was ⁓ an effort to describe these new maps as long as they’re political, they’re okay. And if you’re going to prove race, you can’t just show an effect on the voting rights of ⁓ majority minority districts. have to show an intent to discriminate.

And now here we are in Tennessee. Jill, what happened in Tennessee and do you think their maps are going to be constitutional?

Jill (42:47)
I I’ll answer that question, but I didn’t get to weigh in. And I agree with Joyce that we Democrats have to stand up and do something. We cannot keep letting Texas redistrict and do nothing. And I think Virginia can, I don’t know if they can do it before 26, but they certainly can before 28. They can pass within the constitutional standard of the Virginia constitution, ⁓ new maps. And Illinois has been trying, I’m on the board of the Better Government Association.

which has been fighting for fair maps is what we call it here. Independent commission appointed map drawing, which is ultimately the right answer. But in the meantime, if the Republicans are gonna keep doing this in a way that undermines democracy, then we have to at least make it a fair fight if we don’t have a fair map through independent stuff. So Tennessee, you saw that Louisiana immediately took Calais and said, okay, primary’s off.

Even though was already underway, early voting had started, it’s off. And the first state to pass a new map under Calais was Tennessee. What they did was what we’ve talked about before. They cracked Memphis, which was a majority minority district, the ninth district. They cracked it into three separate areas and assigned them to three different white districts so that the black vote is totally diluted and now without any power.

and the governor has signed it, it’s a done deal, that’s what happened. And so you have Memphis no longer as its own district, even though is clearly any fair map would have left it as a district. So they have now made 100 % of the districts in ⁓ Tennessee as Republican. And of course, that isn’t how the state is divided.

Barb (44:31)
That’s absolute.

Jill (44:43)
And it’s threatening the only Democrat in Congress from Tennessee, Cohn will be in. But the NAACP has already filed an emergency petition to undo this. So we’ll have to probably wait a little bit to analyze their motion and go forward. Maybe next week we can talk about what happens with the NAACP.

Barb (45:06)
I think if there’s a case to show that there’s intentional racial discrimination, this might be…

Jill (45:11)
For

sure, this is like your-

Joyce (45:13)
for your unbelievable-

Kim (45:15)
So get our fin diagram, it’s the same. I’m not as optimistic.

Jill (45:20)
Yeah.

Joyce (45:20)
You know, Alabama just wants to say, hold my beer to Tennessee. I saw the speaker of the House in Alabama this afternoon said he hoped that the courts would overrule the 15th Amendment.

Barb (45:34)
⁓ boy.

Kim (45:36)
you

Joyce (45:47)
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Joyce (48:38)
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Barb (48:46)
Come here, my little carnivore.

Joyce (48:48)
Come on! Run for dinner! Eat your smalls!

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Kim (51:19)
Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the FBI does not have to return roughly 600 boxes of documents, which include ballots from the 2020 election, seized from Fulton County, Georgia. Joyce, remind us why the seizure happened and tell us what U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulay ruled. And were you surprised?

Joyce (51:43)
Yeah, so I mean, it’s pretty crazy, right? We’re still re-litigating the 2020 election after a bunch of judges said that Joe Biden was in fact the winner. But here we are. ⁓ So we all know, I think, what happened. Just in brief, the FBI got a search warrant based on facts that absolutely did not amount to probable cause to seize ballots and election records. But they got a federal judge, a magistrate judge, to sign off on it. ⁓

You know, it’s sort of weird because even if there was a crime that had occurred here and there’s no evidence that suggests that there was, it would probably be out of the statute of limitations at this point. The statute is five years. The election occurred in November 2020, even if there’s a little bit of a grace period. Here we are in May of 2026. So the whole thing is sort of sketchy to begin with.

But a judge lets DOJ get the election records. And what happened this week was a judge declined to require that they turn them back over to Fulton County. Fulton County had asked for that. And it’s a little bit, I want to be clear here. Everybody has a copy of the records. The battle is over who gets to keep the originals.

And so that makes it a little bit shocking that Fulton County, which by state law is required to maintain those records, isn’t being permitted to keep them because there’s really no basis for believing DOJ needs the originals. And the judge himself had pointed this out in an earlier order, of intimating that the parties should settle the case because DOJ wasn’t entitled here. But something happened that made him switch sides.

His technical decision was that the county didn’t meet the four factors in what’s called the Ritchie test, the test that courts use here. But you know, I mean, come on, man, the first of those factors involves the legality of the seizure. And sure, technically a judge signed the warrant, but this is the worst search warrant affidavit I have ever seen. And although the judge relies on 11th Circuit case law that says almost always if the government has a warrant, that’s enough.

You know, there’s still a little bit of room in there, right? The 11th Circuit has recognized, I think the language in the case is, that the vast majority of subjects of search warrants have not experienced callous disregard of their constitutional rights. But this case, think, is outside of that vast majority. And so I thought the ruling was…

Kim (54:20)
Yeah,

it was for me too. mean, especially by this logic, like any but, the FBI can go into any elections office basically and do the very same thing so long as they find a judge willing to sign a warrant. So Judge Boulay did save a little bit of room in his ruling to criticize the FBI. What did he say and what did you think about that?

Jill (54:42)
So yes, it was at least not a total victory. I’m going read you part of what he said. He said, the court acknowledges that the events leading up to this case are in a variety of ways unprecedented. And he added that the affidavit and the seizure in this case was certainly not perfect. Although, as we’re talking about, he said that it didn’t meet the high standards that were required to force the return.

The flaws were insufficient, even though they were definitely there. ⁓ Of course, Fulton County is going to appeal this, but it’s clear, as Joyce said, this was a very bad affidavit. It was misleading, it was incomplete, it left off things like innocent explanations for some of the things they alleged were ⁓ irregularities that probably weren’t really irregularities. They knew that these things weren’t ⁓ so evil.

And they just didn’t include it. They left it off. And so that was all part of his opinion criticizing the FBI, which well deserves it. And so there is some chance maybe that ⁓ the appeal will be successful and they will get it back. They do have copies, ⁓ but this is another way of Donald Trump demeaning state control, making people unsure about the control the states have and how legitimate.

elections are.

Kim (56:13)
And Barb, I want to get your reaction to the ruling, but also weigh in on how it seems the FBI is increasingly using its power to target election-related agencies and people leading up to the midterms, right? I mean, I think something that happened in Virginia, again, Virginia is getting on my nerves too, ⁓ is a good.

Barb (56:40)
Put them in the timeout with Louisiana. ⁓

Kim (56:43)
⁓ Something that happened in Virginia that really shows the FBI acting in ways that I can’t remember them acting.

Barb (56:51)
Yeah, you know, it really bothers me because certainly there was a time when we would presume regularity with the FBI and the Department of Justice and that if they were executing search warrants and seizures, there must be something we don’t know. And so give them the benefit of the doubt and wait for it to shake out and let’s see what it is. They’ve really lost that benefit of the doubt in my view. I mean, especially because these records relate to the 2020 election that are coming out of Fulton County. I can’t imagine there’s any criminal investigation that is still within

the statute of limitations ⁓ that they could be looking for there. So that really strikes me as simply an effort to regurgitate the false narrative of election fraud. And now we’ve seen in Virginia, again, under ordinary circumstances, I might be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but this week on Wednesday, ⁓ FBI agents executed a search warrant at the offices of a state senator in Virginia.

She is a very powerful, democratic ⁓ senator named Louise Lucas, and she was instrumental in this ⁓ push to get voters to choose new maps in Virginia. So is it just a coincidence that she is the subject of a search? ⁓ You we don’t know a whole bunch of lot about it. ⁓ The reporting is that it’s related to corruption and bribery relating to her marijuana dispensary businesses.

Maybe that is all true, but I can’t help but notice the timing coincides with this effort to ⁓ delegitimize the rewriting of these maps. so attacking her would be a very convenient way to do that. And so in any other time, I might not be so suspicious, and this time I’m very suspicious.

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Joyce (1:00:59)
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If you’ve got a question for us, please email SistersInLaw at politicon.com or tag us on social media using the hashtag SistersInLaw. This is truly our favorite part of the show. We love answering your questions. And if we don’t get to them during the show, we’ll try to answer them during our new show, Sisters Sidebar, which comes out every Wednesday. It’s all answers from us to your questions. So keep them coming.

This week we start with a question from Kathy in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. Seems timely considering the fact that we’ve been talking about Tennessee so much. And Kim, this one is for you since Tennessee is on your list of annoying states. ⁓ The question is a really great one. Kathy asks, why do you suppose the Supreme Court took so long to deliver the Calais decision? You know, I would ask.

Kim, there was so much speculation that this one would come in January. What do you think?

Kim (1:02:06)
Yeah, so first of all, I would like to say, Cathy, I’m sure you and where you live is lovely. I’ve been to Tennessee. I’ve had a great time in Tennessee. I love Nashville, you know, so I criticize with tongue in cheek. And also my family comes from… Yes, and my family comes from Louisiana. you know, it’s not personally all, it’s mostly the people who are in some of your elected officials, I just want to be clear for that. But yeah.

Joyce (1:02:21)
Yeah.

Kim (1:02:35)
Why did Calais take so long? I think that depends on your perspective, Kathy. I do know that there were people speculating that it might come as early as January because we’re in a midterm year. But having covered the Supreme Court for over 20 years, I don’t think that this was actually delayed. think that normally when you have very big contentious constitutional questions that are taken up by this court.

⁓ that are likely to lead to divided opinions, ideologically divided opinions. Those are the cases that usually come the last week of June, right? So we got this decision in April. And if you look at it, ⁓ I would think if the justices had all the time in the world, they would have, there would have been concurrences with people.

you know, from people like Kavanaugh or Barrett, like sort of giving their point of view as to why they joined the majority. You probably would have also had ⁓ Sotomayor and or Justice Jackson filing dissents ⁓ in addition to Justice Kagan’s dissent. This is one opinion. It’s not terribly long for Supreme Court standards when it comes to constitutional cases. There was one like little two paragraph crazy concurrence by Thomas and

corsage who would have been like, well, I would have ruled that the Voting Rights Act doesn’t apply to redistricting at all. And then you had Kagan’s very strong, very strong dissent. And that was it. And that’s why it came out in April, because the way that opinions happen is the court votes the day that they hear oral arguments. The chief justice in this case, since he was in the majority, assigns the opinion. He assigned it to Justice Alito. Alito drafts it, and it has to circulate among all nine members of the court.

before it is finalized. then Kagan, who was chosen to write the dissent, has to write and circulate her dissent to everyone, then give a lido. We saw a lido answering to Kagan’s dissent. That’s because then it gets circulated again so that the majority opinion… I mean, it’s a time-consuming process to actually craft these opinions, which is why they normally take so long and why the most contentious ones come at the end of the term. think, as much as I distrust this court, I think that it is a misconception.

that the court purposely delays it to sort of like drop a decision and get out of town, I think it’s because they spent that much time going back and forth about their views on it. ⁓ And so I actually was surprised that Kalei came out when it did. I thought we were going to get it maybe May, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it came out in June.

Joyce (1:05:16)
You know, I think that’s such a fabulous explanation because sometimes we see demons everywhere where in fact, as you explain, it’s a reasonable process given how the court operates. So I find that to be a super helpful answer to a very interesting question. And we have another one that perhaps hints at the same sort of a process. ⁓ Jill, this is a question for you from Sean. This is just some straight up civics education here. Can the president, Sean asks,

fire or replace the vice president.

Jill (1:05:48)
Actually, that’s a very easy question to answer. It is not a power that is given to the president. So no, he cannot. The vice president is actually elected to office. He’s chosen to run on the ticket with the president by the presidential nominee, but he’s on the ballot and he is elected. So the only way to remove him would be by resignation, as happened with… ⁓

Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s ⁓ vice president, because he got charged with a felony. There you go. And so he resigned. ⁓ Men, of course, so did Nixon. ⁓ Or it could be through death, or it could be through an impeachment process. But even though the president doesn’t have the power, he does have the power to give him assignments or to fail to give him assignments. So he can make him basically a

ghost or a shadow of a president, a vice president with no duties and could in a way either sort of make him useless or force him to resign because it’s just a horrible situation. But no, he cannot, he can’t remove him in any other way.

Joyce (1:07:03)
Thanks. ⁓ Last question, Barb, for you. Last question, Barb, is for you from Nina. And she asks, I’m concerned about prediction markets. Me too, Nina. I’m glad you asked this question. She says, are the crooked politicians using them to line their pockets? And what?

Barb (1:07:22)
think this is such a great question, Nina. I’m sure our listeners know, but for those who don’t, these prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket allow anybody to place a bet on all kinds of things that may or may not happen in the world. They can be political events, news events, cultural events, sporting events. So you could bet on when will the war in Iran end? Will it end before or after a certain date? You can bet on

Who’s gonna win the bachelorette this season or a bachelor or whatever’s the hot show on the air. ⁓ Whether interest rates will go up or down, whether certain weather events will occur, whether the pitcher’s gonna throw a curve ball or a fastball on his first pitch of tonight’s game. ⁓ And what’s so dangerous about it, of course, is unlike games of chance where you’re just rolling the dice and nobody knows in advance which way it’s gonna come up unless the dice are loaded, and that’s a thing too, here.

There are people who can control these outcomes, right? The date the war will end. There are people on the inside. And in fact, somebody was charged who was a participant in the attack and kidnapping capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. One of the military members who participated in that bet $400,000 that that would happen. guess what? He was right. So that’s the worry about it.

I do think there things we can do right now, even without any changes in the law, there could be fraud charges brought for people who are defrauding the market by making claims ⁓ that they know are fraudulent. But it seems to me the biggest threat is for government officials who know what’s actually happening in advance, as they have to in some situations, to place bets and make money on these things. I think a basic thing we should do is to prohibit

all elected officials in Congress, in the White House, other officials who serve in the executive branch from engaging in any placement on these prediction markets. I guess the judiciary, would add to that. I think the wrinkle is family members, because even if the officials themselves aren’t, if they share information with a friend or a family member, that can be very difficult to prove, but they could still…

⁓ place these bets and share it with their insider. So, it’s kind of like insider trading, the way we see for board members and others, which is to prohibit them from engaging in certain transactions. So I think it’s not foolproof, but that would be a start.

Joyce (1:09:57)
You know, Barb, when you said judicial officer, I sort of gasped a little bit ⁓ at the thought that judges could certainly, you know, ⁓ alter the betting field to make verbal bets if they wanted to. What a horrible thought.

Kim (1:10:12)
Yeah, I would actually advocate for legislation that limits the subject matter of what these bets can be taken on. Like if it’s public policy things where it would only invite public officials or judges to ⁓ be put in that position, I mean, that would seem like it easy that there’s a strong policy ⁓ objective in guarding against that for the same way that you have rules regarding corruption or

conflict of interest for public officials. I would hope that we would get that in a ⁓ perfect world. We would have a legislature that would be responsive to such things.

Joyce (1:10:52)
I am a fan of the Kim Atkins plan. It’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard all this time.

Kim (1:10:56)
The

world is so nice.

Barb (1:10:59)
And there is no Virginia and there’s no Louisiana in it.

Kim (1:11:04)
They just have better leaders.

Barb (1:11:07)
Okay, okay, I’ll go with that. I’ll accept that.

Joyce (1:11:12)
Thank you for listening to Hashtag Sisters-in-Law with Jill Winebanks, Barb McQuade, Kimberly Atkins Stohr, and me, Joyce Vance. Don’t forget to pick up Hashtag Sisters-in-Law merch and other goodies at politicon.com slash merch. We’ve got some cool stuff right now. And you can also check out our new companion podcast, Sisters Sidebar, on Wednesdays. Please show a little bit of love to this week’s sponsors, Wild Alaskan Company.

Thrive Cosmetics, Smalls, Delete Me, and Quints. The links are in our show notes, and please do support them. They make this show possible. We’ll see you next week with another episode. Hashtag sisters and more.

Kim (1:11:55)
you

Barb (1:12:00)
Paul-end. I wanna be Paul-end.

Joyce (1:12:00)
Peter Marshall?

Kim (1:12:04)
do you think I am?

Barb (1:12:06)
Come on, Hollywood Squares, they were all bombed.

Kim (1:12:09)
Hollywood Squares, what was it, ⁓ the dude with the puppet? Wasn’t he on it? With the madam puppet.

Barb (1:12:15)
I’m thinking of Sherry Lewis in Ledge.

Jill (1:12:16)
and lamb. Yeah.

Kim (1:12:18)
No, madam.

Barb (1:12:21)
I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t-

Kim (1:12:22)
know who Lamb Chop is. She was not on Hollywood Squares.

Barb (1:12:28)
This is the kind of content I’m here for.