Gallego goes MIA, NC Dem exodus continues, Supreme Court redistricting ruling | Hour 3

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, I daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Want to welcome back to the program. Stacy Matthews from RedState dot com. She writes under the nom dip hume of sister told you, Hey, Stacy, how are you? Pete? I'm doing good. I don't know how much more NC news that can take. Please, We're all over the place, I know that. Well, this is one of the this is one of the burdens of being a pivotal state. I guess we've grown in population and in stature, so now it's like every single national news story seems to have some sort of connection to North Carolina as well. So it's just like drinking from a fire hose. Right, Well, let me start over on the on the west coast. Actually, do you remember a guy. I think you're old enough to remember this guy. His name was Eric Swalwell. Do you remember this guy? Of course? Yeah? So, uh, I guess like he's now gone. I haven't seen anything else about him, which is kind of nice for Democrats, like when they get scandals like this, they're allowed to just kind of, you know, go away and then nobody ever. Does any follow up on it. Right, But this might be more of a problem for another guy out west named Ruben Diego. I believe this is the US Senator from Arizona, and if memory SERMs, he was the guy that left his wife for another woman while his wife was nine months pregnant. And the Swalwell story has has become a bit of a problem for mister Gego and he now may be a little m I a as well. You wrote about it at Red State. What's the update, right. Well, Ruben Diego, for those who don't know, he is one of the things he's known for as being Eric Swalwell's bestie. They roomed together uh in d C when they were both serving in the house together. Gayego used to serve in the house with Swalwell, and they're you know that they have a bromance that you know, they're they're about as close as to guys can be without having a different kind of relationship. That's probably changed over the last couple of weeks after the Swalwell scandal, you know, where Swalwell was accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault and there are actually investigations going on into those allegations. Well, it was interesting Pete uh with the ink had barely dried on Swalwell's resignation before people were turning their focus to gayego because Diego and then and and Swallow are so close that people like surely reubin Diego you know saw some of this, you know, because you know, a lot of people were coming out of the wars. Hey, yeah, we sawt Swallow was a jerk. He was really you know, he was a misogynist. Blah blah blah. Yeah, there were people that were like, oh, everybody knew this. This was the worst kept secret. And reporters even were saying things like, yeah, we had heard all these rumors, but we could never get it, you know, nailed down or something. It's like for years, for like a decade. They knew this, right of course, and of course because of the Democrat, we didn't know about it until you know it hit code red level because they all protect their own there. But Gayego, you know, his response to all of it is like, oh, beyond rumors of flirting, I never knew about any of this. And now he's saying that after twenty twenty one, he and swalwel weren't you know, super close because he Gego had gotten remarried after serving as wife pregnant wife divorce papers at nine months pregnant, He had gotten remarried, had his Senate campaign going on, so they weren't as close. So he's trying to run away from Swalwell's fas he can, but he the more he tries, the more he can't because not only is it not believable that he didn't see any of this behavior, but now he's all been accused of behavior. Oh my goodness, who could have seen it coming? By goodness? Right right? And so this is just kind of blown up for Democrats, and on the House and Senate side. One of our people, Anna Pauline and Luna, who is in the House, she referred the allegations to John Thune in the Senate. He's referred the allegations about Diego to the Senate Ethics Committee, who are going to do their thing. But Anna, Pauline and Luna said something a couple of days ago that there are even more allegations coming in about Diego, that there's allegedly a reporter who has sexually explicit texts that he sent to the reporter where he was, you know, being a demeaning behavior and so forth. So it's just snowballing. And you know, Democrats already have enough scandals on the House side. I don't think they want any on the Senate side, especially in a critical election year like this one. Do you know if Diego is up for election, I guess he wouldn't be if he was running for reelection in in twenty one. He's a first term senator. He was elected in twenty twenty four. Okay, so he won't be up. For reelection for a while. But you know, these scandals can have kind of a snowball effect, Like you know, even if you know he's you know, still around and he's not for reelection, these these you know, could taint the Democrat reputation considering what happened with Swallowell and some others. So It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. It's just really amusing to see him continue to try to run away. He has his deer and headlights look in his face whenever he's asked about the scandal. But you know, and and and consider this too, how it would impact the rest of us, not just Arizona. But he's infloated as a twenty twenty eight presidential contender, Pete, so this could hurt those chances as well. Hmmm, maybe not. He is a Democrat, so now that's true. He has Democrat privilege. We need to keep that in. Mind, exactly. Yeah. So all right, so there's that. Then let's let's move here to North Carolina where you wrote about the exodus occurring in the North Carolina Democrat Party. First it was Carla Cunningham, and then yesterday, i think or day before, it was Nacife Majee. Both of them were targeted for primary defeat by their own party leadership, by the governor and the Democrat party leadership, they wanted both of these two black Democrats out, along with another black Democrat, Shelley Willingham. And now after all three of them lost in their primaries, they're in Raleigh for the short session, and two of the three have now left the Democrat Party. So what does all of that mean? Yeah, Pete, Well, you know the thing about this is, and when I thought about this at RedState dot Com, some people were like, well, why didn't they just go to the Republican Party, elec. Tricia Cossam did, Well, you know, the thing about it is is that my opinion is, if they are going to vote more with Democrats than Republicans, I would prefer that they be independent. I don't want them to be you know, on the Republican side. But the thing about it is is that they have felt abandoned. They have felt, like Tricia Coffam, that the party has abandoned them, and this is their way of of of you know, going out in a blaze of glory and saying, hey, you know, f you, this is how I'm going to do it. And it might make them, as an independent feel more comfortable voting more with Republicans than they have you know previously, not just on on current legislation, but on veto overrides and the like. So it's been kind of interesting to see the tea spilled and I pointed out and obviously you have as well that the three Democrats that were that were targeted by Governor Josh Stein, who is an ally of Roy Cooper, were all black Democrats or Democrats of color, and Trisia Coffam was a woman and they wanted her out as well. So you know, if you're a woman, or if you're a black Democrat voter in this state, you know, take a look at what's going on. If the black Democrats are getting out of line, democrats are going to target you. And I think that says a lot in then of it good and well. I thought you also made a very good connection to a blast from the past, Senator Joel Ford former state Senator Joel Ford from Charlotte, also black Democrat, who also got primaried because he crossed his party on voter I d And I remember I ran into him at a restaurant after all of that and you were waiting on tables, and he said, like, you know, where where's somebody like me supposed to go? Like what party do I belong in? And I like I really as like, dude, I'm unaffiliated, you know, and like I get it. And I don't know if he's if he's unaffiliated or if he's still a Democrat, I don't know, but they did the same to him years ago. Well, you know, it'd be something that I tell people. You know, a lot of what you and I do and other conservative Republican unaffiliated writers who lean conservative is to try to convince people that, you know, the our way is the better way. And you know, sometimes we're successful, sometimes we're not. But one thing I do with people is I stress I'm not trying to get you to become a Republican, but I would like for you to see that the Democrat Party is bad news. If you want to be an unaffiliated voter, more power to you. But if you stay with the Democrat Party, it's bad news. And they're just getting worse, you know. And so that's my thing. You know, people think, well they if they don't go Republican, then then you know that that's not great. But you know, if I'm not mistaken, the unaffiliated ranks in North Carolina have risen more so than the Republican Democrat ranks over the last in terms of the voter registration and so forth. That's number one. It's the largest voter registration block. Yep, Yeah, It tells me that there are people out there who aren't satisfied with either party. But I feel like, you know, it's probably more people who might have been Democrats who maybe not necessarily want to be a Republican, but they're they're just so fed up with Democrats now that they're just kind of changing their tune and switching too. I'm affiliated. Read more of Stacy's work at RedState dot com. Stacy, thank you. Pete's great to catch up with you. You too, all right, take care, keep up the good work at Stacy Matthews Akasistertoldja on RedState dot Com. Follow her on Twitter too. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slideshows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are, visit creative video dot com. Alrighty, so before the show began today, we had a bit of the breaking news, and to be fair, it happened, you know, when I was here, So this fell squarely within the parameters of not breaking anything while I'm gone. Okay, So I was sitting in the studio when this came down. The US Supreme Court has issued a ruling. And if you thought the redistricting wars were going hot and heavy, you ain't seen nothing yet, because they came down with their ruling on this case out of Louisiana called Cala Case I think is how it's pronounced c A l l ai ses. So this dispute centered on a twenty twenty four redistricting map that created a second majority black congressional district in Louisiana. So they had won, and then when they did redistricting in twenty four, they added a second majority black district that map. According to this is Independent Journal Review, that map was put in place after lower courts had ruled that the state needed to comply with protections that were outlined in the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five under section two. Okay, so whenever I say section two, that's what that's a reference to. State officials backed by the Trump administration challenged the changes, and they argued that the map relied too heavily on race and therefore violated the Fourteenth Amendment and day. In a six to three decision written by Sam Alito, the Court sided with the challengers, the conservative majority, voting to discard the revised district lines. Writing for the majority, Alito said the lower court ruling had gone too far in forcing Louisiana to redraw its map, but the opinion stopped short of declaring section two unconstitutional, which is what a lot of Democrats thought was a real possibility. They thought the Supreme Court was going to throw out the whole section. They did not. The principal Deputy Solicitor General, Hashim Moupan framed the issue as one of equal treatment. Quote, if these were white Democrats, there's no reason to think they would have a second district. And so what is happening here is their argument talking about the plaintiffs that dude. Their argument here or sorry the defendants is that because these Democrats happened to be black, they get a second district. If they were all white, the courts would agree, you would not. That was the argument against the maps. This from. Ed Morsey at hotair dot com. The decision is published early enough now to impact the midterms because now legislative bodies will have enough time to redraw districts if they can, like legally. Unlike what Virginia did. And going back and reading through what the oral arguments in the Virginia Supreme Court were earlier this week about their unconstitutional process that they ran in order to get the maps through, like, I cannot see how the Supreme Court up there follows or allows the maps to stand. I just I cannot fathom that because the argument is so black and white, it really is. Jo Pete, what I might say, yes, so you frame everything as black or white, like, yeah, that's me. I'm I can never bring nuance to a discussion that you know me so well. But in this case out of Virginia, it's like the process is very clear, and the Democrats tried it, and like they got three main weaknesses in the process because they did not follow the constitution. And one of them, hilariously was that they were supposed to have an election between the two passages of their redistricting map. Right, you pass it once, have to have another election, and then you pass it twice. That's how a constitutional amendment's supposed to work. But they didn't do that because there was early voting already underway. So what do they say? What did the Democrats say? What was their argument? Early voting doesn't count as election? So on the one hand, they go to the US Supreme Court in order to try to protect mail in ballots that arrive after election day, claiming that no, no, no, that counts as election day, right, But at the state level they argue the complete opposite. Why, as I mentioned yesterday, it's relativism. There's not a consistent application of a standard. It's just whatever the standard needs to be for me to win this particular power fight, this battle for power. I just make the argument I need to make right now in this case, and that shall not tether me too any kind of consistent argument across any similar case. So the six to three majority again did not overturn Section two entirely, but they made clear that the use of it had to be limited to intentional racial discrimination and not just referred outcomes. Here's what Alito wrote part of it. Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority minority district, no compelling interest justified the state's use of race in creating that district, And the map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, because again, if they were white Democrats and you drew a district in order to give it to a white Democrat congressman, you would not be allowed to do that. They say, the Constitution almost never permits a state to discriminate on the basis of race, and such discrimination triggers a thing that the Court always talks about called strict scrutiny. The Court's precedents have identified only two compelling interests that can satisfy strict scrutiny. In other words, you cannot use like you cannot racially discriminate. But if you say you have to, then the court looks at these two things. One to avoid imminent and serious risks to human safety in prisons. So that's pretty specific. I don't think that would apply here, or remediating specific identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute. Morrisey goes on to say, Alito sets the bar for strict scrutiny much higher than in the past. In order to pass Muster, the proponents of racial gerrymandering will now have to prove that minorities did not get a meaningful chance to participate in previous redistricting. I'm not sure how they'll do that. In other words, districting by race is only constitutional under Section two when it remediates intentional discrimination by the state, and Alito argued in his opinion that the provision can only be interpreted that way in the context of the Fifteenth Amendment, which bars only state action that's motivated by discriminatory purpose. See if you're drawing based on party. As the North Carolina maps were drawn and went all the way to the US Supreme Court, and the US Supreme Court said, that's not for us to decide. You're allowed to draw by party. There's no rule against it. It's not in the Constitution. And you can try to like as Democrats do, you know, when they put on the judges robes, they interpret things all sorts of ways and they try to find meaning written between the lines and stuff, and so they tried to make equal protection arguments and all of this, and it's like, it doesn't say you can't do that. So if it's not prohibit then you're allowed to do that. And we may not like that, but then that would be something for legislatures to handle, either at the state level or the national level. Right, So that's where it stands, which is now going to open the door for probably another round of redistricting. Back to this landmark ruling came down today, and the reports were that and the rumors around DC were that the liberal justices were once again trying to slow roll this the release of the opinion, Alito wrote the opinion and Alanta Kagan wrote the Descent, and there was a story that was published in Molly Hemingway's book on Sam Alito talking about the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, and how Alanta Kagan was trying to slow roll that dissent in order to guess what was his name? Was it Briar or Kennedy? I think it may have been brought No, it is Kennedy. Was it about to leave the court, and so she didn't want the descent to come out, so she wanted a four to four split or something. Anyway, that was in Molly Hemingway's book and Alena Kagan, the story is that she was yelling at Kennedy so loudly that the walls were shaking, and so the rumor around DC was that she was once again the Liberals were once again slow walking their descent, trying to run out the clock so states couldn't redistrict after the ruling came down. And the fact that she is the author of this opinion, hmmm, kind of confirms that rumor. Ed Morrissey again at hotair dot Com. He says this decision keeps Section two of the Civil Rights Act alive, but only in a break glass emergency situation. In practical terms, Alito's ruling will prevent a resort to the VRA for absurd jerrymanders explicitly based on race. From now on, there's no possible way to argue that the minorities these districts reward have been locked out of redistricting decisions, not recently and not for a long time. And he says that the approach that Alito took is very similar to the approach on the Affirmative Action ruling, where Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that majority opinion, and he had said basically that the only way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Justice Clarence Thomas, he wrote a brief concurrence, so he sided with the conservative majority six to three. But he wrote that this didn't go far enough for him. He would have gone farther or further. Sorry, it basically amounts to one big I told you so, He said. He would have ruled that Section two has no application to redistricting at all. He said, I joined the Court's opinion in full. This Court should never have interpreted Section two of the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five to effectively give racial groups an entitlement to roughly proportional representation. Which is what it did. That's the way the lower courts and the Supreme Court in the past, that's the way they have kind of dealt with these questions on redistricting. It's like, well, what's the population of your state? All right, we're gonna look at proportional representation, and so you need that many. You know, if you've got say twenty five percent black population in a state, you've got four congressional districts, you should get one seat. If you have fifty percent, you should get two seats. Right, Well, what are you doing, Like, you're using race in order to draw lines to ensure that one race doesn't win. And that's discriminatory. I mean, yes, you're drawing it to make sure one race does win, but you're also drawing them to make sure one race does not. So part of the problem here for Democrats is that in districts where you've got white Democrats running against black Democrats, because black Democrats black voters in Democrat primaries, they will tend to vote for the black candidate. And the fact that black voters vote like ninety percent four Democrats in general elections, right, you're going to see what we have seen here in Charlotte Mecklenburg as well, which is basically, you know, no more white Democrats. And that's really what they're concerned is because like you can draw the lines to try to make it you know, quote fairer, depending on whatever your state standard is there, but you're going to be putting black democrats up against white democrats, and they're not then going to be able to win the white ones. Thomas continued, the court led legen and courts to systematically divide the country into electoral districts along racial lines. Blacks were drawn into Black districts and given Black representatives, Hispanic's drawn into Hispanic districts and given Hispanic representatives, and so on. That interpretation rendered Section two quote repugnant to any nation that strives for the ideal of a colorblind constitution. Today's decision should largely put an end to this disastrous misadventure in voting rights jurisprudence. As I explained more than thirty years ago, I would go further and hold that Section two of the VRA does not regulate districting at all. The relevant text prohibits states from imposing or applying a voting qualification prerequisite to voting like a poll tax, or standard practice or procedure in a manner that results in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote based on race. How states draw district lines does not fall within any of those three categories. It never has. It's just talking about barriers to voting, not whether or not a candidate that looks like you racially is going to win. And to this point, by the way, Representative Josh Williams from Ohio, Yeah, he's a candidate for Congress in Ohio's ninth district. I believe he is a Yeah, he's an incumbent, he says. I am a black Republican who currently represents a majority white district in the Ohio State House and is running to represent a majority white district in Congress. The idea that black Americans need special districts carved out just for them is complete nonsense. It's a violation of the law and blatantly unconstitutional. I am glad the Supreme Court made the right decision. Once again. If black voters were to split their vote like every other racial demographic, I'm not even saying fifty to fifty, just you know, sixty forty or something. Democrats' chances of winning like the presidency, winning legislative seats are greatly diminished, and Democrats know this. They know this, and so that's why they have to try to keep ninety percent of black voters voting for Democrats, like, oh, We're the only ones that can represent you, and that is just not true. Harmeiat Dylan, who is the Assistant Attorney General, she called this a big day in constitutional law. The Voting Rights Act remains intact, but to protect Americans against discrimination rather than requiring it to engineer racial outcomes. She said she was proud to co author the brief for the US in this important case. And Benjamin Winegarden, he's senior contributor at the Federalist as well as Real Clear Investigates. He has a pull quote from the opinion by Alito that says, in short, Section two imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the state intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race. In other words, did state map makers draw districts in order to suppress black voters or white voters based only on their. Race or Hispanic voters? Right? Any racial group. Is there a strong inference that they intentionally drew the maps in order to limit certain voters because of their race. Not only does this interpretation follow from the plain text of Section two of the Voting Rights Act, but it's also consistent with the limited authority that the Fifteenth Amendment offers. And Benjamin Wingarten points out, this is what the left doesn't want to hear from the Supreme Court because it means, ironically enough, you can't racially discriminate in redistricting. You're not allowed to do that, and by drawing majority minority districts you are doing that. It's not quote unquote reverse discrimination. It's just discrimination. It means the same thing no matter who you're discriminating against based on the race, if that's why you're doing it. Now. Mark Elias uh, who has sued North Carolina dozens of times, at this point, I think he's the guy that runs all over the place suing Republican legislatures and then defending Democrat legislatures for doing the exact same thing on redistricting. He called this decision intellectually dishonest and wrong. Excuse me. The conservatives. Basically said black people can vote for their preferred candidates as long as they prefer the right candidates, which will be Republicans, an absolute mockery of the law and staining on the court, to which Kurt Schlichter, who is a retired colonel and an attorney out in California columnist at town Hall, he says, counterpoint, Black people can vote for their preferred candidates. Everybody can. No group gets to engineer districts by race in order to have somebody win because of their race. That's the deal. Now. That may result in fewer white Democrats getting elected, but that'll be up to them to decide, and maybe you get a lot more black Republicans now, right, because if you want to win in a Republican district and you're a black candidate, like spoiler alert, Republicans would really like to have you. See Mark Robinson. Okay. So then there was this This is on CNN. This is amazing, and we just got this statement and from Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry saying this about the ruling. My lawyers are currently analyzing the opinion. We are limited in what we can say at this time as this continues to be active litigation with the case remanded for proceedings. Back to the Western District. I know that's a lot of legal ease, but the bottom line is early voting starts soon in. Louisiana, Joe. And so what can officials do theyre in light of this opinion. Well, they can basically do whatever they want, and that's going to happen in a couple of other states too, that will they're What they can do is they can push back some dates. They first of all, the Supreme Court definitely throughout the map with two black majority districts, so we know that cannot be used. That will not be used for sure. So what they'll probably do once they read the opinion carefully as was just tested, there probably draw a map that provides only one black majority district. But as you know, Pam, like Florida is in the middle of redistricting efforts now too, other places are, and so I really anticipate that other states will do it. But if they don't do it for twenty twenty six, they'll get it in place for twenty twenty eight, and then when we get to twenty thirty, with the next round of a census in redistricting, it really will change all the ground rules for what states considered because basically what the Court did today was to say, if you're going to try to challenge vote dilution, and vote dilution is real. Lower court judges have found it to be real. Lower court judges who have been appointed by Republican presidents have found it to be a real problem, particularly in the South, but other places too. And what's going to happen is find just identifying vote dilution will not be enough to get a map changed. The challenges are going to have to say that there are no race neutral reasons for this, and that's awfully hard, especially because of the partisan alignment between whites generally voting Republican and blacks generally being affiliated with the Democrat of the party. Pam Whites, she says, generally vote Republican. Though this is something that Alana Kagan postulated in her descent. She you know, think of like a square with a circle in the middle, and the circle as the black population. They vote ninety percent Democrat, which is true. Then the white is in the rest of the square, they vote ninety percent Republican. Yeah, but that's the thing they don't they don't white split their votes, Hispanics split their votes. So what is she admitting here? Right? The challengers are going to have to say there are no race neutral reasons for this, and that's awfully hard, especially because of the bipartisan alignment between whites generally voting Republican and blacks generally being affiliated with the Democrat Party. You wonder why your communities have been overrun with massive, unending, unfettered waves of legal and illegal immigrants, says Andrew Covid Because Democrats figured out a long time ago that they can't win the votes of white Americans, right, if that's true, and why the Americans are voting ninety percent Republican but they're not right? So does that help explain what we have seen that's the racket? Maybe? So? Either way, I do agree with her. It is going to completely change the landscape of all of the redistricting going forward, and we're going to see now states that maybe start doing redistricting before this upcoming midterm election. And the thing is, when you look at the different maps, the Republican maps are actually they're like uniform, their square their normal shapes. If Democrats want a jerry mander using this, their's look like children squiggle drawings. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a pay at my Patreon page or go to dpetecalanarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.