Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds and truckers are now threatening Rod DeSantis with a Florida boycott over his migrant crackdown. We have such a fascinating show today. Congressman Colin Alred, who is running to unseat the fish Mike Weaver of the Senate Ted Cruz, tells us why he thinks he can make
that happen. Then we'll talk to law professor and historian Mary Ziegler about the latest in reproductive rights.
But first we have former New York.
City mayoral candidate and president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Mayle Wiley.
Welcome to Fast Politics. Maya Wiley.
Thank you, Molly. I'm so excited to be with you.
I am so excited to be with you. Okay, So first I want to.
Talk about civil rights and what you're doing in the civil rights space. I want you to tell us about this project that you lead. Because we both come from families with law history is of working and civil rights. I mean, my grandfather, your father, So talk to us.
Let's just start with the fact that we live in a country that democracy only became a full and true democracy because of the struggle for civil and human rights. And that's everything obviously from the right to vote for women, for people of color, but also all the things that were always intended to flow from that. And we know we're in a context. I don't have to tell anyone what happened on January sixth. I don't have to tell
anyone that we've become a post fact society. I don't have to tell anyone that we live in a politics of division and with rising hate at levels I just have not seen in my lifetime. And we even just put out a report at the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, which is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights coalition, about how every single election cycle that rises so we all know this democracy is not a promise. Democracy is something that we all have to work for,
fight for, and protect. And that was always the core of the civil rights movement. It's always the core of my parents' work. It was always something that was both about getting America to live up to its ideals and make sure that everyone had everything they needed and that we had a country where we were able to identify problems and solve them and do it together. And that means a cross race, across class, a cross gender, but also allowing people to be who they are, and we
know that's under threat. Whether you're LGPTQ, that's under threat. If you're a woman who doesn't want to be forced to bear children, that's under threat. If you just want to show up at the polls and vote lawfully, that's true. If you've paid your debt to society and want to vote as a citizen while you have a passport, but yet there are too many places that say you can't
vote or make it difficult for you. So you know, a big part of you know what I'm just so privileged to be a part of is as president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, is essentially over two hundred and thirty national organizations. That is everything that this country is and must be. And it looks like this country across religion, across race, across
gender identity, across sector. We've got many of the large unions, including our educators, including our public servants, so many of our workers. So I'm just saying that to say, this is America, this is who we are, and this is what we're fighting for.
I want to ask you about that sort of historical movement of civil rights for a minute, and if you could just talk us through a little bit of how that happened, because I think you know, not of all of our listeners know this.
No, it's true, and certainly some of our biggest and largest victories came in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, with everything from the litigation that brought us Brown versus Board of Education in nineteen fifty four that said we couldn't have segregated schools anymore, to the Montgomery bus boycott in fifty eight where Martin Luther King and other leaders fought to make sure that black people were treated like full citizens when they were using public services like city buses.
But you know what we miss is the civil rights struggle in this country started over slavery, and to end it, the civil rights history in this country was black women who were participating the suffragette movement.
Who ended up getting really screwed.
Correct, and it has been a centuries long fight. The reason so important to say that is because it was really hundreds of years of fights that led to what we accomplished in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties when we finally had a Supreme co Court that said, Okay, we're actually going to pay attention to the principles and
values of the US Constitution. We're actually going to look at the Civil War amendments that said every citizen has a right to vote, that we have to have equal protection under the laws which were passed to protect newly freed people who had been enslaved and protect the rights of free black people, because not everybody wasn't slaved, most were, but all of that is to say it was never enforced.
So we finally had a Supreme Court that was going to force those civil rights amendments, and we finally also we had a movement where black and particularly blacks with Jewish allies really came together. The Leadership Conference founded in nineteen fifty was founded by Roy Wilkins, who headed the NAACP, A, Philip Randolph incredibly important union leader as head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping car Porters, largest black union, and Arnie Aronson was one of the most important civic leaders in
the Jewish community. That was such an important history and since then fought for the Civil Rights Act in nineteen sixty four, Voting Rights Act with nineteen sixty five, but also the Americans with Disabilities Act. We're the disabilities community. Were people with disabilities getting treated as we should, everyone having a right to participate in society, everyone having something to offer, and that we've also you know, immigration rights.
If it weren't for civil rights movement, there was a time when you had to be white to gain legal access to enter the country. So all of these things are what the Coalition represents. Because the Coalition represents women's rights groups. Where abortion is a civil right, we need to remember that right.
And we had it for fifty years.
I mean, we watched it being eroded over those fifty years, and it was largely we as we see the fight for the abortion pill, which is such a critical fight because that's a fight about science and access to decision making science, proven medical treatments right.
Right open the door to overturning all sorts of FDA approvals for drugs that have been approved for years and years.
Absolutely, so it's always been about everyone. But we've also recognized that you know, at the end of the day, the people harmed the most when we refuse to protect our rights are people of color, and it harms everyone. But ground zero always becomes communities of color.
You and I have a very similar background in the fact that we come from this world of Jews and Blacks working together to achieve civil.
Rights, freedom, satyrs, yep.
And so I wonder, like, one of the things that's really upset me recently, but it was one of the tenets of trump Ism was to try to get Jews to fight with blacks. And you see that when they get into Israel and they want to say, you know, Rashida to leab is against Israel. I mean, one of my proudest moments was sitting at a table with Ilhan Omar and her saying to me, like, you have my back, and I'm like, because we want the same things, right,
we want freedom for oppressed people. There is no world in which the Nazis come for the Jews and not the Blocks.
This is such an important point, Molly, and I'm so glad you're raising it badly true. Is that the common enemy of any group, any of us, whether it's a Chinese immigrant or an Orthodox Jew, or a black person walking down the street or a Mexican citizen in al Pepiso is white supremacist, Neo nazis, white Ethno extremists. Right, we have all kinds of names that cross these categories.
But at the center of so much of this ideology is white masculine Christian identity that says everyone else shouldn't be here, doesn't belong and is a threat, and that weaponizes that as division that divides us against the very things we all want, which is to be able to feed our families, which is to be able to afford housing, which will be treated decently on a job, and be able to get a job, to know we have a voice in this country and can decide who leads us collectively,
Like these are all things we share as values. It is the politicians, and I do think it's important to call this out because there are politicians actively intentionally driving hate and wedges between us. Frankly, the organized hate groups are taking full advantage. We just put out a report I hope everyone will look at and it's called Cause for Concern. It's at www dot civil Rights dot org and we're just looking at FBI data. But what it shows us is what we've all seen, which is we
have an unprecedented rise in hate crimes. It is unprecedently anti semitic. It remains true that the largest number of hate crimes are against black people. The incredible rise against LGBTQ communities, it's just insane. It's all of us. Obviously, we've had a long concern, especially through COVID about anti Asian violence. So I sail that, and of course anti immigrant violence. I sail that because it's also true it rises in election cycles, right, and the disinformation.
When you have someone whose whole thing is is the hatred of the other.
Right.
Right now, we're in an interesting point in collective bargaining. We have the Writers Guild, which is one of the very few successful unions for now for creative people get pensions, people get healthcare. I mean, it really is a good union versus like I mean, I come from, like, you know, the Author's Guild, which was like not, I mean, I've heard, you know people saying that they may keep this going until January.
One of the things that's under attack this country, that's in this country that's fundamental to democracy is the right to come together as workers, collectivize the voice and demand fair employment conditions and the ability to care for one's self and one's family. That's what unionism is. It's people coming together against otherwise. What can be a very powerful employer who can set all the rules if people workers can't come together. So I see this as an incredibly
important fight. As I said, we have been founded by union, we are pro union. In fact, our own staff is unionizing and we're excited about it. We think it's a great thing that our staff is unionizing. We welcome it. We see it as something that's going to benefit our ability to be better. And so I say all that to say I think this is an incredibly important fight. I think it's painful for all of us who want our show you right, and we want those creatives because
they bring so much to our lives. And I am personally sad about some of the shows I may not be able to see for a while. But the important thing is we can't have any of those wonderful things in our lives if people can't take care of themselves while they're doing it for us. So, you know, I think it's important for all of us to stay union strong, to stand with workers and recognize that it benefits all
of us when we raise the standard of living. And that's what unions have always done, is made sure people get healthcare. It's made sure people have a rational work week. We wouldn't have weekends if it weren't for unions, y'all. So thank unions even if you don't have one, and demand one if you don't.
One of the narratives we're seeing in the city that you should be mayor of iss and crime is like this thing that people now say as a way to get money for the police. Police have a very strong union. They probably have the best union of any of us.
Right, Yeah, they certainly weren't it.
I mean, there's certainly crime in New York as or there are everywhere. You know. It doesn't get worse during Republican election cycles. It's just that we hear about it more because in your post is actually a very powerful paper in a weird way.
Yeah, I think we have to know and understand we can walk and chew gum. We're actually quite good at that as New Yorkers, as Americans, we can walk in chew gum. And the walking thoughing gum here is both understanding that there's a very real experience that some people are experiencing around crime and safety. And it's important to say that because we know we have people who are mentally ill who need support and help, need supportive housing.
Some of that fear that it is coming from the fact that there are people need help who are not getting it. It's also true that if you're you know, in certain communities, gun violence is very high and murder rates are too high. The thing is they're highly highly concentrated. But you're right that the perception is both one. If you're in one of those communities, it's not perception, it's a reality, and we have to say that and acknowledge that. And you know, we have black folks who own homes
in the city. We've Latinos who owned fomes. People are Asian with people or white own homes, have experiences, and we need to say, yes, we know. So it's not to negate the fact that these are experiences that can be real for people and are it's to say that one, we're still in the best shape we've been in for
a very long time. This is your point. I think about driving perception that things are out of control, when in fact, if you look over thirty years, we're so crime is still down seventy percent from what it was thirty years ago, And in fact, it depends on what crime categories we're looking at. But you know, as I said, you know, the real question is we all want to be safe. Everybody wants to be safe, and that means doing everything we can to ensure they never had a
problem in the first place. And one of the things I think that we have to be willing to say to one another is, you know, how do we recognize that if we get a kid a job, that kid
is much less likely to ever get in trouble. How do we recognize if we have you know, if we think about Jordan Neely, the black man killed in a choke hold by three people on a subway, three white men and one in particular, putting him the choke hold held there for fifteen minutes because he was yelling that he was hungry, that he was thirsty, and he was
tired and ready to die. He was homeless. All those things have solutions, And some of the insecurities that people are feeling is because we're not putting our resources, our energy, and our time in things we know work. There was a man on that subway car, formerly homeless in fact, describing himself as second generation homeless, lived on the streets, he was in supportive housing, and he understood exactly what was happening. He's traumatized now he's talked about it publicly.
But imagine the difference if we had done for Jordan Neely what we fortunately were able to do for the witness to that killing, we wouldn't have the situation to begin with. And we need to make sure that we're being honest with ourselves about where we can put our resources. That means no one feels the fear in the first.
Place, right, And I think that's a really good point. So one of the things that Adams is doing, I actually think that he sort of wants to have it both ways, right. He wants these Republicans to like him because they liked him early on for whatever reason, and he wants them to think of him as a sort of cop democrat, whatever that looks like. And so some of the stuff he's doing is like bussing immigrants.
I mean, what's your take on that.
I'm repeating something I said during the primary, but was just pointing to it as a matter of fact. Is you know Eric Adams once said that the best mayor of New York City as crime fighter was Rudy Giuliani. That should have been in tow not David Dinkin. So I say that, and the day after the primary, Eric Adams had dinner with Bo Diedel. Eric Adams has always been someone who both has has both these things are true. Again, who's been He has been active in calling for police reform.
He has also been active in protecting the prerogatives of law enforcement. And I think both those things are true. And that's a complicated thing. I think for a lot of people in New York is to know that both those things are true. And the contradiction for me in this has nothing to do with whether you're a Democrat or a Republican conservative or a liberal. It's that we allow teachers to do whatever the heck they want a classroom. In fact, some teachers are complaining that they're not able
to teach because we've so over regulated them. Whenever our school system is not producing the testing outcomes we want, then the talks immediately go to cutting the budget of the Department of Education. The talk immediately goes to wasting money. We never have that conversation about the police department, despite the fact that we have many fewer accountability mechanisms over the police department, very little transparency about what they're doing
other than crime rates. Crime rates don't tell us what they're doing with their budget. Crime rates don't tell us how they're handling internal police discipline. They have a risk management system inside the police department that's totally opaque to black box. I can say that having done civilian oversight, we couldn't get them to share data with the Civilian
Oversite Board. I shared the Civilian Complaint Review Board to say, let's go bear notes and let's see if we can improve the risk assessment system so we can catch the folks who need to be course corrected before they hurt somebody or to somebody. And this we got refusal. So I'm saying that's to say the double standard here where other public servants who are supposed to serve the public get scrutiny and if they don't perform, they get budget cuts.
I'm not supporting budget cuts for schools. I'm just saying the inconsistency, the contradiction means you're not actually focused on public safety and crime prevention. You're focused on prerogatives for police officers because you think we're safer if they can do what they want. And that has never been a democratic value or principle. I mean that by small democratic, the small d that should be a nonpartisan position.
It's sort of a brilliant thing the police have done, which is they've said, any criticism means you love crime.
Right, That's exactly the problem it means. And this is the other thing that's important to say, because I've talked to a lot of rank and file police officers in my day. A lot of them agree with prevention and reform, but they don't have a voice to express it, and it's dangerous for them to express it.
Right. Well, that's a fundamental thing. My Wiley. Thank you, thank you, thank.
You, thank you, thank you, Molly, I love you.
Congressman Colin alright represents Texas's thirty second district.
Welcome to fast Politics, Colin.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
You are in the.
Great state of Texas and you are running for United States Senate against the worst person in the entire world.
Again. Well, I'm running inst Ted Cruz, and you know, I think the Texans can't afford six more years of this guy, it's personal for me. I'm a fourth generation Texan. My boys are fifth generation Texans. Yeah, I don't think we have to be embarrassed virus Senator, and I think it's time for us to get a new one.
So tell me a little bit about why you are the right candidate for this.
You know, my story is one of relying on my community, Molly. You know, I was born and raised in Dallas by a single mother and was a public school teacher. Then you know, I think sometimes when you grow up having to rely on community organizations like the YMCA, where I spent a ton of time, you know, public schools, people's generosity at times, and I think you get a different
and maybe deeper appreciation sometimes for community. For us here in Texas, we know that it's going to be a tough fight to beat ted Cruz and to give us I think, more accurate representation closer to who we are. But you know, my life has been a story taken
on those kinds of fights. I mean, just from basically making it to the point that I have in the NFL law school now, but also I mean who I got into Congress is by winning a really tough fight you know, beating a twenty two year incumbent who was the chairman of the Rules Committee, who had been unopposed the election before. And so I think we know how to do it. I think we have the experience to
do it. And what we've done in our campaigns in the past has been able to bring together kind of diverse coalitions that I think really reflect who we are in my community. And I think we can spread that out to the entire state.
So I want to go back in twenty eighteen and better. O'Rourke really did Lewis to Ted Cruz by three percentage points, which is not very much. So this is not even though we think of Texas a very red stay, it's not necessarily really.
True, is it.
No, it's not. And I think that I've been a little bit frustrated at times when people are not using actual data and they're basing kind of their thoughts on where Texas is politically. You were a state that Joe Biden lost by five points, as you said, Ted Cruz
was narrowly re elected. I think it was two point six or something like that in twenty eighteen, and we're save with the enormous room for growth in terms of, you know, getting folks out to vote, because we've had one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country every election, you know, for some time now, so we have high potential, you know, a ton of folks who we need to give it engaged in our democracy. We've also already had a series of close elections, and so you know, I
think that all plays into it. But it's also just true that tech Cruise is uniquely unpopular, and that he has made himself more unpopular by going to ken Kun during our state wide freeze, by being sort of one of the architects of the insurrection on January sixth. Those things we know have not helped him. And so this is not a I've seen, you know, the kind of references a long shot. It's a tough race. It's not a long shot.
It's actually Democrats' best pick up opportunity this cycle.
That's what cool.
I think about the candidate who ran against Lauren Beaupert, Adam Fresh, who we had on this podcast, and everyone said I was crazy, and he lost by seven hundred votes. So imagine what he could have done had there not been such headwinds. So I want to talk to you about what it looks like. I mean, first I wanted you to tell us a little bit about your background, like, you know, how you can energize Texans. You've been in Congress three terms. You also played football, right, Yeah, that's right.
I like to joke that I'd taken the normal rite to Congress. So I was raised by sing a mother, play in the NFL, and went to law school and became a civil rights lawyer. But yeah, you know my story is, I said, starts in Dallas. My mom taught in Dallas public schools, and I went to Dallas pub with schools and was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to Baylor. Didn't think I was going to get a
chance to play in the NFL. Was all ready to go to law school and take them asset all that kind of stuff, and was basically convinced that was going to have a chance to play by agents who kept bothering me. Decided to sort of detour from law school and just see what the whole NFL thing was about. Five years later, was still playing and had it not been for a neck injury in my fifth game of my fifth year in Dallas against the Cowboys as fake
kind of turned out. I probably would have kept playing for a number of years more, but that led me to go to law school. I got into voting rights work. I worked in the Obama administration as a come home and run for Congress in twenty eighteen because I thought that the community that I was born and raised in was not being reflected by the congressman that we had at the time. He wasn't receptive to who we were. They didn't represent who we were. And I feel similarly about Ted Kruz.
Yeah, with the state like Texas, and we see this with these approval numbers for Biden. You don't need to convince these Republicans, these maga Republicans, to vote for you. You need to do what Donald Trump did, which is get people who don't vote to mat to vote right.
I mean, that's ultimately how you win.
Well, the way we've done it, Molly, in my congressional races is we've tried to do both. We've tried to, you know, get folks who maybe have voted for George W. Bush in the past or at Romney to feel comfortable that they could support me. And we've also tried to expand the electorate. You know, by targeting folks and spending time honestly talking to voters who don't always get talked to.
And there we've had a in Texas, we've that's relatively easy to do because we've not had a tradition in recent years of really on the ground campaigning, of getting communities engaged through constant interaction, door to door work of course, but also you know, organizations in those communities when you when you reach the level of kind of bottoming out of turnout that we are in. Uh, it's it's it's a number of things all at once. It's our voting
laws that you make it very difficult to vote. I know that as a voting its attorney, but it's also you know, sort of almost apathy that creeps in. And then there's also at times a lack of campaigns who've tried to counter that. We need to do both because I think that's what's best for our state. We need to get more people involved voting.
We just do.
I mean, what's happening right now for us politically, it's not reflective no matter what we are, whether it's purple state, whatever, it's not reflective of taxes itself. So we need to have it be more reflective of that. But there are a lot of folks out there in my experience, particularly in recent years, who were Republicans or maybe still consider themselves Republicans, who are looking for a political home, and I've often been able to appeal to them as well.
Yeah, and that's a really good point. And you'll also register voters.
Well, we have to, and we're growing so rapidly. We have folks moving into state and we need to get you know, plugged in. We have every day an eighteen year old turns eligible in Texas up. We need to get plugged in. So we have to grow that. But we have a large number of registered voters are currently not voting as well. I mean I think it was around nine and a half million in the last election. That's more than many states have voters period.
So yeah, I mean, it's such a humongous state and it's so interesting.
I want to ask you.
One of the other things that I've been struck by with Ted Cruz is that he is quite busy with the podcast. Is one of your competitors, So yeah, we don't have the same audience, let me tell you, But but I do, you know, I do a podcast three days a week.
He does a podcast three days a week. It's quite a lot of work.
I mean, I write a column, but I don't also pretend to be United States senator.
Yeah, he represents thirty million Texans, you know in my district. Of course, with my family commitments that everything is well, my schedule is so backed.
Mind.
I'm not trying, you know, it just is. I can't imagine carving out time to prep, record and be a part of a podcast three times a week. It's funny, but it's also right. Like it's the same rationale that leads you to go to Cancun when your state is frozen and there are people dying of carbon monoxide poisoning in their apartments because they're bringing generators inside when they're breaking up their fence posts and burning their fence or warmth.
If you're able to do that to say, well, this is a good time to go on vacation, then you also have the attitude, kind of the callousness and the arrogance that I've got some free time with I'll do a podcast instead of oh, I don't know, maybe I could meet with some constituents, Maybe I could get to work on trying to figure something out. I mean, I think the reason why I've talked about it some is that I think it's indicative of his lack of seriousness about this job.
One of the things I think is pretty interesting about Texas, and this is true about Florida too, is that these are states where you really are seeing the effects.
Of climate change in a really scary way. Can you talk about that a little bit.
Well, Yeah, we've had record droughts and record rainfall, and we've received more one hundred year floods and just the span of a few years than care to count. We've of course had, uh, you know, a state wide freeze with Hurricane Harvey that was you know, dumped you know, basically months worth of rainfall on Houston in the span of a couple of days. That was partially made worse by the fact that the Gulf of Mexico it was you know, a degree or more warmer than it should be. Uh.
And it's absolutely true. It's impacting our agriculture, it's impacting and changing you know, lives in Texas. Oftentimes, as you know, some of the most vulnerable, vulnerable folks are the ones who then are hit hardest by the effects of it, and so when we have record droughts and record heat waves, you know, it's our urban cores often that are far
hotter than anywhere else in the state. Sometimes some of the hottest places in the country are in Dallas and in Houston, you know, because we have a ton of pavement, not much grainary and extremely soaring temperatures and needs to be see people suffering under that. So it very much is a real issue for us. Texas is an energy state.
We're going to continue to lead on energy, but we also have a chance to lead on clean or noble energy in a way that is really exciting that most people don't know about Texas, that we're the number one win state in the country by far, by far than producing the most wind power, got a burgeoning soul or industry, and you know, as we kind of move into where we're going in a way that's sustainable for the planet, Texas is going to continue to be an energy state.
We are feeling the effects of what's happening right now.
You have this background as a civil rights attorney focused voting rights. We have a real problem in this country when it comes to voting rights. We have a Republican party that is very interested in making harder to vote.
We even have a.
Republican candidate musing about making the voting age twenty five. I mean, do you see a world and again, let's just I mean, this is not impossible. Right, Democrats went back the House, Biden keeps the presidency, Democrats keep the Senate or even add to it.
How do you solve that problem? I mean, we have this very.
Partisan Supreme Court that seems pretty embolden and interested in doing whatever they want to do. I mean, how do you solve for voting rights? How do you protect?
Yeah? I think that you're right. We are in a real crisis when it comes to the rights to vote in this country. Texas unfortunately is at the top of the list in terms of the worst actors in terms
of restricting the right to vote. I'm a student of history, though, I like to remind myself that you know, twenty five year old John Lewis when he's walking across the Minevette's Bridge, Martin Luther King, of course, you know, the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement had far fewer tools at their disposal when they were fighting for the rights to vote than we do now. They certainly didn't have a congressional Black caucus that I'm a member of that you know,
is the largest it's ever been. They certainly didn't have president at all times who like Joe Biden, who would be wants to use a part of justice to defend the right to vote as much as you can, and so as bad as it is right now, and to be honest with you, in the decade that I've been involved with voting rights, we've gone backwards in that decade. We're in a worse position now than we were going back to Shelby County beholder the case that the Voting
Rights Act. We're in a much worse place, There's no doubt about it. And in my opinion, we are no longer able to rely on the courts to be that safeguard for the right to vote. So now that it has to be legislative, and that's one of the reasons why I felt so strongly that if you feel that the filibuster is important, I'll accept that, but we have to not let the filibusters stand the way a pro democracy legislation that ultimately is about the makeup of the Senate.
So I argued strenuously that we should have a carve out for voting rights. Now, I'm not a fan in the filibuster period.
But at the very least we have to secure that.
At the very least we should we have to be able to address democracy issues, the bedrock issues, before we get to dealing with having to create a super majority, just the way they determine that we need to lower the threshold to consider judges or appointments to the cabinet. You know, they've done plenty of carve outs to the filibuster.
We should have one for voting rights. And so I think there is a scenario where Democrats are in control in the Congress and Joe Biden is in the wa White House where we could pass strong, proactive voting rights legislation that protects the right to vote and expands it in key areas, and that should be constitutionally sound and difficult to challenge even by the Supreme Court.
Yeah, you know, democratic ideas are much much more popular. But the problem is Republicans are just better at getting elected.
Well, we have some structural issues, and we rely on a broad coalition that often has many elements of it that need their kind of first order of needs met in order to even consider voting. You know, when you're having a difficult time just getting by, you know, being
involved in your democracy is harder. It just is. And of course you know the structure of the Senate, and I think the Supreme Court's almost criminal refusal to do anything about jerrymandering has left us in a situation where we can get more votes in every election, and of course you know the electoral college as well, we can get more votes in every election, but still be in a situation where we're not able to, you know, wield power.
And I think that that makes particularly young people that I come across, and makes them cynical about politics, about what they can change. But my message to them, you know, is that if you're not at the table, you're gonna be on the menu. There's gonna be laws that are going to be You're gonna have to deal with the laws that are passed a lot longer than you know, so some of the older folks in DC and in your state capitals. So we need you to be engaged.
The cavalry is not coming. You are the cavalry. We need you, and you know that's that's sort of The idea here is that we can't allow those structural difficulties to stop us.
Yeah, it's a really good point, Colin. Thank you so much for joining us. This is really interesting. Yeah, I hope you'll come back.
Thanks, Mollie, I appreciate you having me on and you knowing where Texas really is.
Hi, it's Mollie, and I am.
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About our podcast and get a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue Puppy on it. And now you can grab this merchandise only at shop dot Fast politicspod dot com. Thanks for your support. Mary Ziegler is a historian, a law professor, as well as author of Dollars for Life, The Anti Abortion Movement.
And the Fall of the Republican Establishment.
Welcome too Fast Politics, Mary, Thanks for having me. I often think of you when I'm writing about abortion, and I think like, I'm curious what her take on this is. I mean, you're one of the like the legal scholars that I think of as sort of able to capture what's going on right now.
What is going on right now?
Oh boy, that's a big question. There's a lot of different things that are going on right now. So I mean the Comstock Act immediately comes to mind. That's the sort of a resurrection of an idea of the Comstock Act that's from the nineteenth century that's been front and center in efforts to i think create a de facto national ban.
So that's going on.
Let's just go into the Comstock Act for a minute. The concept act was from remind me what year it was. I mean it was like around prohibition, right.
Yeah, so that it was even earlier than that.
Actually, so the Comstock Act was passed in eighteen seventy three. To say it was vigorously enforced as kind of a euphemism, I mean, the number of people who were prosecuted for things that just it seems kind of outrageous, Like, for example, there were people who would publish news stories about women who died in illegal abortions, so no one was even having an abortion, but prosecutors would say, look, if women even know abortion exists, albeit when she were dying from it,
they're going to go out there and get abortions. So that's obscene, and this person needs to go to prison for five years. So it was it was extremely broad in its interpretation in the early years, but that interpretation hasn't really been a thing since the nineteen thirties. And when courts in the thirties looked at the law, they
thought the earlier prosecutions had it all wrong. So we're talking about reviving an interpretation of a statute that was probably never right in the first place, but reflected ideas of sexual.
Purity from like a time when women couldn't vote. That's kind of where we're at.
Yes, that's a really good explanation of it. Thank you.
So that is what conservatives want to use to prevent people sending things in the map.
Yeah, basically, So conservatives now are saying, hey, you know what, it turns out, we never appealed the Comstock Act, and the Comstock Act is federal law, so preempts, you know, state laws. So if you live in a state that protects abortion and its state constitution, conservatives are saying, well,
that's too bad. Because Comstock trumps that, and they're interpreting it not just to apply to abortion pills, but really to all abortions, because any abortion, surgical or otherwise uses something that comes.
In the mail.
Right. No, no, doctors are making their own surgical gloves and scalpels and pills, right, They're getting them from elsewhere. But they're trying to use this as a de facto band.
It's so crazy, But they're clever in the way that they're cooking up stuff.
Yeah, for sure. I mean one of the things I think progressives did wrong for a really long time was to sort of underestimate people on the other side of this issue who have been pretty smart at strategy. Even if I mean, I don't think this is a great argument in terms of that's not what I think the Comstock Act actually means. But they know their audience, right. There's a whole bunch of conservative justices on the Supreme Court who describe themselves as textualists, which means they don't
care about precedent or history or whatever. They care only about what they think the text actually says. So this argument is tailor made for the people currently on the Supreme Court. So you know it may work even though there's lots of things wrong with it as an argument, right.
I mean, that's the thing is, like, we have a Supreme Court that is profoundly a product of this conservative court movement.
He yeah.
And I think the other thing that, obviously it signals is a lot of the strategies we're going to talk about today are focused on the federal courts. Right, So even though Justice Alito told us, you know what, the courts are getting out of the abortion business. This is going to be left of voters. Of course, anti worshion
lawyers don't want that to voters. It tends to end badly for them, so they're trying various ways to get questions to federal judges so federal judges can take the issue away from voters.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just it's a kind of amazing bunch of events. So I want to ask you, what else are you seeing besides this Commstock Act.
Well, so we're seeing obviously we're right in the middle of this challenge to the FDA's authority to have even approved MiFi pristone that's continuing. So the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on the most conservative intermediate appellate court in the country. It has a hearing on the next round of this next week. So we're seeing and we're seeing a whole bunch of other efforts to challenge either of the FDA's authority to approve MiFi pristone the way mif
A pristone is sold and manufactured. And we've seen states trying to ban MiFi pristone, either as part of sweeping bans or just specific to medication wortion bands. And we're starting to see issues involving states trying to stop people from traveling, or states trying to apply their laws outside of state lines. In other words, you know, applying a rule that saying California doctors can't prove perforied services to people from Alabama, for example.
Right, And that is again really good proof that the states rights fantasy was never real.
Yeah, And I mean anyone who studied the history of this is not going to be surprised by that, in part because you know, the anti worshing movement has never been a states rights movement. I mean that argument came along later. It was for strategic purposes. I mean, just by its own terms. It doesn't make sense if you believe that a fetus or unborn child is a rights holding person. You clearly don't think it's okay for that rights holding person have no rights in California but have
rights in Alabama. Like, that makes absolutely no sense. So that was never going to be the strategy, and I think it in a way, I think this at was sort of insolving our intelligence by pretending that that's what this was about for anyone involved, because it never has been.
Yeah, I mean that is pretty interesting. But I did see yesterday there was a legislator on a red state who's trying to get a tax deduction to count a fetus as a dependent.
Yeah.
Absolutely, well, so this is part of this broader concern for fetal personhood.
Right.
So the kind of dominant legal argument that a Worsion opponents have made really since the nineteen sixties is that fetus is a rights holding constitutional person. So not just that a fetus is a separate biological entity, right like, not part of the pregnant person, but its own thing. They're also arguing that that person or thing has constitutional rights, and that I think.
Has many ways been the endgame for the.
Movement legally from the beginning and now that dogs has come down, we're starting to see groups make that more forcefully in state legislatures. So in some states like Arizona already has a personhood law that's tied up in court. Georgia has a law that recognizes personhood for various purposes at six weeks, and lots of other states have personhood language in their worshion bands. And I think we should expect to see anti worshing groups pushing this argument as they think it might work.
I think it's their ultimate goal.
So I think the question really is one of timing and whether they think they can succeed on this in the near term or whether they think they have to wait.
Ask you about this sort of FDA approval stuff, because one of the things that I wrote about, which I also want to ask you about is Judge Matthew Kismerick.
I think I said that right, you did.
Yeah, the Amarillo, Texas judge who has you know, is the go to judge when judge shopping for anti choice justices, a Trump appointee. Of course, you know, part of that decision to overturn the method pristone approval was this kind of decision to sort of reject the FDA as a governing body.
Can you talk about that? And you wrote about the junk science element of those two.
Yeah, I mean, so the suit, that suit also involves the Constock Act, just because why not you're so personally here. There's also this argument essentially that the FDA never had the authority to approve MiFi Priystone under what's called Subpart H, which is a regulation that the FDA can use.
To approve drugs.
And the argument anti Worshion lawyers are making is that one that this wasn't justified because pregnancy isn't a disease. It's sort of like a normal, healthy thing.
You see that more and more conservatives love that, right, Yeah, and this is also not a new thing.
I mean you can find people making that argument like in the nineteen sixties. And then secondly they're arguing that there was no justification for approving mifh A Priystone because it wasn't safer than surgical abortion. And in fact, anti Worshion lawyers, then you know, kind of trot out a lot of studies that their own research are sent on that argue that not only as mithroprostone not safer than
surgical abortion. It's actually, you know, killing women and girls everywhere, which is a claim they make often without any evidence or with evidence that essentially was gathered by groups that movement aligned. So that had been the claim. I mean in Judge Chasmeric's ruling is really it's hard for me to convey, like as a historian, how remarkable a document that is. Explain Yeah, I mean it was more remarkable
in some ways than the plaintiffs briefs. Like if you had sort of blindfolded someone had said one of these was written by the anti Aborsian plaintiffs, and one of these was written by a judge. I think you may not know which one, or you may actually guess wrong. And so far that hasn't worked. Again, not because I think the US Supreme Court is unsympathetic to these junk science claims, but because there are a lot of procedural
problems with this case. It's really hard for the plaintiffs to explain where there was an injury that even entitled them to be in court in the first place. And so maybe that the Supreme Court kills this case. Not because you know, there are any more sympathetic to abortion rights or you know the authority of scientists and the FDN,
and they were a few days ago. But just because you know, this is just such a messed up case that even the court's conservative justices may want to see these claims again, just from people who actually have standing to sue.
Yeah, exactly. That is so interesting.
So one of my obsessions is I just wrote this about the no fault divorces. Of course, you'll be shocked to now that this incredibly zalidous judge had written.
Before he had been put on the Federal Court.
A long diatribe about how what a bad guy Ronald Reagan was because he signed into law.
The first no fault divorce.
I mean, can you talk about how this play is into this whole assault on women's rights.
Yeah, I mean, so there's a lot of anxiety about no fault divorce. I mean, this may seem like it's coming out of nowhere for people.
This is not you know what I mean.
No one has talked about the no fault divorce wars. There's no equivalent pland of narrative the way there was
a round abortion. But what people don't know is that this was a source of real anxiety for social conservatives going way back to the nineteen sixties and seventies, because I think many social conservatives believe that the family, which they define, of course as you know, heterosexual and traditional in terms of the general rules that people were playing, was the kind of foundation of society, and no fault divorce, of course, did fundamentally change how people lived their lives,
and it was incredibly popular. So I think there had been a real interest in changing no fault divorce laws the people like Jerry Folwell and folks in the majority moral majority had going way back to the seventies and eight eight, but it just didn't work, in part because it turned out people like no fault course, So Louisiana
actually experimented with this some years ago. They passed a law offering an option they called covenant marriage, so essentially folks could opt out of they could decide when they got married, we're not going to sign up for no fault divorce, so we're only going to get divorced if there's fault. And while Louisiana lawmakers were sold on this being something that would really appeal to people with a kind of religious language and appeal to kind of these
patriarchal ideas. Nobody really does covenant marriagees right and right, when the rubber meets the road, people don't want to give up on the possibility of no fault divorce. So I think this is something again where a lot of people recognize not only that we're seeing something that could really affect what happens to women and other people with different gender identities, but also that this is something that
would be rejected by voters. So again something where you're going to see action in courts, because if you went to voters directly and said, do you want to get rid of no fault worst so you get a resounding no, right of course.
I mean that is the thread with all of these. Right, these are not popular ideas. Right, abortion has some of the best pulling it's ever had now, right, I mean crazy numbers people want abortion, they don't They want maybe some restrictions, but ultimately you know, they don't want women bleeding out who are having miscarriacters.
I mean, this is they've opened the door.
They don't want laws involved in medicine, and they don't necessarily want that when it comes to divorce too. And what I'm struck by is that like the Supreme Court we're seeing and I want to talk to you about this. So Thomas, in this concurrent opinion with Dobbs, I'm like obsessed with us now, had this line about correcting the error. Explain to us why that should be so terrifying to all of us.
I mean, one of the things Thomas is saying, essentially, is that the error, for Thomas is not just row, it's anything that the Court has tied to what lawyers call substantive due process and what the rest of us tend to think of as privacy right. So the ability for same sex couples to marry, the ability for same sex couples even to have sex without going to prison, interracial marriage, contraception, and those are the ones Thomas lists.
I mean, he actually doesn't say anything about interracial marriage, which you know, but the idea I think Thomas has, which is absolutely I mean, I think he's right. He's saying, if you listen to the logic of the Dods' opinion, there is no reason why it doesn't mean that all these other rights have to go too.
Because if you.
Believe that our history and tradition in this country was frozen, hundreds of years ago, and that our traditions can't and shouldn't change, And the only moment that matters.
Is eighteen sixty eight.
You know, it's true, right that sodomy was a crime in a lot of places in eighteen sixty eight, And it's true that contraception was beginning to be criminalized. Certainly by eighteen seventy three with Comstock, it was criminalized, but it was already being barred by some states. There's just no argument that same sex couples could get married.
In eighteen sixty eight.
So if that's where our rights come from, if that's how we identify them, Thomas is right that Dobbs is the beginning, not the end.
That he's the only person.
I think he's consistent among the conservatives in that way, which is why we should be scared.
It's pretty interesting, and I think it speaks to a larger movement. I mean, I think this, this federalist society, I mean, obviously, for lack of a better word, this maga judiciary movement is heading towards a Christian country, a Catholic country.
Yeah, I think that's the fear right. I mean, I think we're kind of left. I mean, for progressives. Right. I think there's sort of two questions here. One is, you know, is there any is there any too far for this court And we don't really know the answer to that yet.
I mean, there may be it too far.
In the sense that people who don't have standing hank go to court, which may be the lesson of this myphipristone case. Right. But the kind of related question is, you know, what do you think of the role of the judiciary altogether, Because we're in a space where we're talking about no fault divorce or abortion, where pretty clearly
voting majorities are with progressives. And you said not on everything, right, not on every abortion restriction, but kind of big picture, voters don't want criminal bands on abortion and they never have, and they don't want to undo no fault divorce. So I think this means there has to again be a serious conversation about court reform, which has just sort of died. That doesn't have to mean adding more justices to the
court necessarily. I'm not sure I think that's a good idea, but I think there has to be some thinking among progressives about what it means if you can win with voters on all of these issues, and yet it may not.
Matter because of where the courts are going.
You have this historical presidency. You know that this court wasn't always this size. I mean, what is your in your mind how you address a conservative court that will now be conservative? And I mean, I don't think of this as like the conservative court that passed Row, which was in itself a conservative court.
I think of this as the conservative court.
That is embolden in a way that we've never seen justices before.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's certainly not in my lifetime, right, I mean, I don't I think obviously in the past, I think justices knew that there were things that could be done right, people would have jurisdiction stript or justices.
Would be added to the court.
And I don't know how to put it, but people are so used to the court having power and no accountability that it seems as if almost nothing can change that, right, I mean, Clara, it seems like every week we hear a new story about something that Clarence Thomas did that might have been unethical or potentially illegal, and yet nothing happened.
And Chief Justice John Roberts doesn't even go to Congress to talk about it, right, So I think I think that norms have changed in ways that are dangerous, and it would there is nothing constitutionally required about the number of justices we have. I'm I mean, I understand why that's an appealing solution. I'm a little skeptical simply because I think then Republicans would add justices to the Court too, and the Court would eventually end up looking like the
Senate and maybe that's, you know, not any worse. So, oh, we had no would at least I think the benefit of that would be that it would expose the Court for being what it is, which is political. But I've always thought I've been more attracted to the idea of term limits because one of the things that distresses me about the Court is that, you know, in theory, people will argue, well, you know, voters pick presidents and presidents pick justices, so you're kind of you're left with the
court you vote for. And that argument really falls apart when you realize that, you know, Clarence Thomas, if you voted for the who picked Clarence Thomas, you did it in nineteen eighty eight, right, I was in elementary school, So that argument really falls apart. So I think at a minimum, if we're going to take seriously the idea that the court makes sense in a democracy, I think then there has to be more turnover of justices. And
different term limits have been put out there. Some people say it should be ten years, fifteen years, five years. You know, you see different ideas circulating. But I think that would be that's challenging, more challenging than increasing the number of justices. But I think it may be better longer term if it's possible to follow that kind of road.
Yeah, so true, Thank you, Mary. I hope you will come back.
Yeah, totally, I'm down. Let me know when.
No, no mood, Jesse Cannon, my John Fast. You know, I know that the Republicans were really excited to get all the subpoena power and all these things to investigate the quote unquote Biden crime family, but it seems like they're doing the net job they do at most things.
So again, this is like so incredibly stupid. Four days ago, the New York Times ran a piece showing that Republicans had found no evidence of Biden wrongdoing. You know, even though they've they've been on Benghazi Part two Benghazi U Bannghazi the sequel. They've been trying and trying to BEng Ghazi Biden, but they were unable. And so today James Comer, sort of the Louis Gohmert of this congressional session, went on Fox businesses Maria Bartaroma. You may remember her from
her problems with dominion. He went on and he said that there are these whistleblowers who have disappeared. He said, there are three things that have happened to these whistleblowers.
They've ended up in jail, they have disappeared, or they are in court. The only problem is there are no whistleblowers.
And for that, James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, is our hearty moment to fuck Gray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.