Speaker 1: Welcome to The Oath and the Office podcast. I'm John
Fiegel saying we've got a packed one this week. Redistricting,
the mass comes off and there's a hood underneath. John
Roberts and the Dirty six on Leach, a wave of
rapidly racist jerry mandering, an attack on democracy like we've
never seen. Not to be outdone, the DOJ has a
new push to start stripping citizenship, and Trump's attacking his
own judges. Plus to special guest Cecilia one legal director
at the ACLU who argued the birthright citizenship case before
the court. So let's bring in the star of our podcast,
the author of The Oath and the Office, Professor Corey Bretschneider.
It's good to see you, sir.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, John.
Speaker 3: I look forward to this every week, and you know,
this is really an amazing episode, one that speaks to
the core of why we started this show in the
first place. Trump's assault on birthright citizenship is attempted to
reverse the Fourteenth Amendment first section guaranteeing birthright citizenship. You're
born in the United States, You're a citizen, one of
his most blatant attacks on the Constitution, and so to
have an episode in which we're going to be joined
by the person who argued the case. And it wasn't
just any argument. It really was a superb argument. You'll hear,
really how brilliant this person is, Cecilia Wang, this amazing lawyer.
Speaker 2: So we have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3: Of course, the attack on our voting rights, and you
know what's at stake in birthright citizenship is not just
about non citizens being denied citizenship, but also the wider
issue we'll speak to about this idea that the Trump
administration is actually trying to take away citizenship from those
who already have it.
Speaker 1: That is correct, that is part of the goal, and
we have a lot to unpack, so let's dive into it.
Speaker 2: Corey.
Speaker 1: Of course, to nobody surprise, as soon as the Supreme
Court told the states that they can go ahead and
jerrymander their districts anyway they want, as long as it's
not based you know, on color, as long as it's
not to redress historic and yeah, as long as it's
not to address historic injustices but just perpetuate new ones
have at it, and we have seen a feeding frenzy,
particularly among the former Confederate States, Republican Party is ninety
percent white. African Americans vote for Democrats about eighty five
percent minimum, and it seems like Republican in this case
is really a euphemism for white, so they can hide
behind partisanship, but the impact is going to be the same.
Tennessee is a state with a forty percent black population
and majority black. Memphis hasn't lost the vote, They've just
lost the power of the vote and any kind of
representation as that city has been carved into thirds by
a white supermajority that's now made those votes diluted and
be minority members of all white districts. So it's tricky
Cory they you know, some of our liberal friends say, oh,
they're going back to Jim Crow. This is something more
insidious and new ones. They haven't stripped them of their votes,
but they have stripped them of their votes in Congress.
We're going to see no black congress people from the
South in either party by the time this is done.
Are we really still watching isolated voting rights disputes or
are we witnessing the beginning of a long term minority
rule system that uses courts and maps and election law
to dominate.
Speaker 3: Wow you know, we talked last week about the Louisiana case,
and we've talked before.
Speaker 2: About the assault on voting rights.
Speaker 3: But what we're really seeing this week, really within a
few days, is why the Supreme Court, when it gives
a green light to discrimination, people are going to take
them up on that. And that's really the story of
this week. So the Supreme Court read the nineteen sixty
five Voting Rights Act essentially require kind of color blindness.
Anytime race is taken into account, you have to show
that it's intentional discrimination that you are fighting against, if
you're trying to preserve black votes, if you're trying to
preserve black voting power. And what the Supreme Court is
really saying is an attempt to preserve black voting power
and to create districts in which actually black.
Speaker 2: Representatives will be elected. That that's no good anymore.
Speaker 3: Even though, now let me just let this sink in.
In nineteen sixty five, there was a movement, the civil
rights movement. We know these images. We learned about them.
Some of us grew up with them, others learned about
it in school. But people being beaten, in many cases
near death to try to get enact a very specific law,
the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act, and in fact,
even radical politics Malcolm X's speech The Ballot or the
bullet is about how important this law was. People from
all political vantage points, Moderates, some conservatives who were worried
about the problem of race, liberals, progressives, and even radicals
all joined together to push for this legislation. And what
happened last week was nothing less than really eviscerating it.
It was about legislation to protect black voting power, that
recognize that attempts to dilute the black vote in particular
wouldn't be allowed, and opening ways both through legislation but
also for legislators who wanted to make good on the
demands of this law to draw districts in a way
that would preserve black voting power and that would elect
black representatives. And the court just ripped into that. It
left in place restrictions on things like literacy tests, but
it did a lot to really say no more, we
really to evsterate this nineteen sixty five Civil Rights Act,
and in particular Section two.
Speaker 2: And what's happened as a follow up is that.
Speaker 3: You know, basically, lawyers used to tell those who wanted
to draw lines in a way that would dilute black votes.
You can't do that. There's a law that prevents it.
And now I think Republican legislators are hearing the opposite.
Go for it, you're no longer restricted. Just pretend it's
about party, not about race, and you can do it.
Speaker 1: That's it. And they are perpetuating an even more racist system,
possibly the largest rollback of minority representation since reconstruction. And
they're perpetuating this race through a really diabolically smart way
by saying racism doesn't exist, it's not racist, we have
nothing against them. We're just doing this for politics. We're
not stealing the black vote because we hate black people.
We're stealing the black vote because we are historically unpopular.
Gas is so expensive, the Epstein files are not going away,
and we need to cheat to win an election. So
we're not rac we're not racist. We're just going to
put a racist system in place to help us hold
power at a time that we are historically unpopular. And again,
we touched on this briefly last week, but look at
look at this mentality race conscious college admissions to address
centuries of discrimination. Well, that's illegal. Race conscious voting maps
to remedy centuries of voter dilution that's illegal, but race
conscious immigration crackdowns, race conscious policing, race conscious travel bands.
This court really only seems to think, Professor, that we've
got to be color blind only at the times when
race is used to help minorities. And what we've witnessed
with the Virginia Supreme Court is downright diabolical. These Republican
governors who have just imposed these just imperially imposed these redistrictings.
Whereas California and Virginia went to the voters and said,
Republicans are doing this, we don't want to do it,
should we do it to save democracy and counter their
attempts to steal the House? The voters decided, and then
three white people undid the votes of the majority of
Virginians and now they're going to try to redistrict and
rob people of their vote. I mean, how significant was
the Virginia Supreme Court decision striking down the voter approved
redistricting system. This isn't really just a legal dispute at
this point. It's representing courts just overriding democratic self government.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, one hope was Okay, we've
eviscerated the nineteen sixty five Voting Right Tact.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll leave things to the states.
Speaker 3: This example shows is no state supreme courts, just like
the United States Supreme Court can undo decisions of local
majorities the same way the Supreme Court really.
Speaker 2: Undid Let's just call it what it is, the decision.
Speaker 3: Of a national majority to enact that law, the nineteen
sixty five Voting Rights Act. I do want to, in
the big picture, come back to something that you said,
because I want to make sure listeners are following it.
I mean, it really is the case that now, if
you want to be involved in diluting black votes and
making sure there are no black representatives in your state, the.
Speaker 2: Supreme Court has given you a roadmap.
Speaker 3: It said, even though that's prevented by the nineteen sixty
five Civil Rights Act. You can't say it explicitly, but
just pretend that you're doing partisanship, that you're trying to
maximize Republican votes and Republican seats, and then we won't
say anything about it. Now here's the pernicious part. Just
to expand on your point, if you're trying to rectify
a current and pass system of discrimination against black voters
and draw districts in a way to comply with the
nineteen sixty five Civil Rights Act demand that really non
discrimination in the vote means respecting black voting power. If
you're trying to enable black voting power, that's highly suspicious
and almost certainly unless you can show that you're rectifying
intentional discrimination, that you have the goods, the kind of
smoking gun that's very, very hard to get, then I
don't think so you can't do it. You mentioned the
travel band. I mean, what a horrible instance. You know,
Donald Trump in the travel band case said I want
to complete in total shutdown of Muslim immigration.
Speaker 2: Into the United States.
Speaker 3: And then he did a little bit. His lawyers did
a little bit to try to cover that up. That
was an example of intentional discrimination. This is just going
to illustrate how hard it is to show the lawyers
covered it up.
Speaker 2: How did they do it?
Speaker 3: They added North Korea and Venezuela, which are not Muslim
majority countries. They got rid of the preference for Christian
over Muslim refugees that was in the first travel ban.
They took out any marker of intentional discrimination.
Speaker 2: And unbelievably.
Speaker 3: The court was like, oh, that's not intentional discrimination, it's
just by coincidence, relates to that other travel band that
they're talking about before the election. And one last sentence,
Trump Trump told us repeatedly, I prefer the first travel band.
He let us know that the whole thing was a subterfusion,
and the court still didn't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In the Virginia case, you know, democracy, we tried to
resolve the problem through democracy.
Speaker 2: The people voted, and here came the.
Speaker 3: Virginia Supreme Court and overrode a process that took millions
of dollars. Many people were involved in the voters of
Virginia spoke, and they just undid it. Now, that's a
different set of issues legally from what's happening at the
national level, but it's certainly part of the wider story
of undoing Yeah, guarantees some civil rights and non discrimination
to vote.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, they seem to think that this
isn't racist because they don't have hate in their hearts.
This is what systemic racism looks like because they've rigged
it that there's not going to be any black Republicans
in Congress either, they have rigged it so black people
will still get to go vote, and maybe those votes
will count for state and local elections in some areas,
but in other areas.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: They have found a way to make sure that majority
black neighborhoods are now minorities in a wider white neighborhood.
And this is how the system works. They're arguing that
they're defending constitutional originalism Corey, they're defending judicial restraint. But
when courts overturn voter approved reforms only after voters approved them,
that's an important point. They didn't come out and say
before the referendum, you can't do this. They waited to
see how the referendum went, and then they came out
and said, oh, that's what you want. Uh, well, that's wrong.
I mean, when courts are overturning the will of the
voters after the voters approved them, how should Americans interpret that? Louisiana,
they're throwing out votes that have already been cast so
they can cheat.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Their argument is that this legislation came too late, The
process took too long, and some of the people who
voted thought they were voting under the old scheme, not
the one that had been voted into Virginia's law, and
so the Supreme Court struck it down on the grounds
that you know, this was not There wasn't fairness, there
wasn't kind of notice that it was retroactive. But the
bottom line is, you know, in the big picture that
we have the Supreme Court undoing democracy by really rewriting
the nineteen sixty five civil rights sacks. So it wouldn't
be recognizable to anybody at the time. The idea that
this is somehow based in the text is beyond foolish.
Speaker 2: You know, people fought not.
Speaker 3: For white rights, not for worries about discrimination against white
people in drawing maps, which is essentially what the Supreme
Court has done, has rewritten it to mean that. And
then you know, one common thing that you hear from
conservatives too is well, states rights, states rights.
Speaker 2: States rights, and used to say that, yeah.
Speaker 3: The moment that a state engages in a democratic process
to preserve the vote, the Supreme Court of Virginia steps in,
and you know, I don't see it used to be
maybe there would have been recourse under the nineteen sixty
five civil rightsack that we could have brought this to
the Supreme Court. I would have said federal law, you know,
is play here. But what I'm hearing from experts is
no that Virginia's spoken. The nineteen sixty five Voting Rights
Act has largely been a viscerated, and this might be
the end of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, they only care about states rights
when they want to be racist in some way. If
the state of New York wants to have gun safety laws,
they don't believe in states rights, then medical cannabis. I mean,
we've seen so many areas where they don't really care
about states rights. They care about their own power, and
they'll believe whatever they have to believe to push that over.
So everyone's saying, all right, how are these Democrats going
to fight back? How are we going to save this democracy?
How hard are they going to play hardball? I mean,
I heard that Chuck Schumer was so angry he tore
one of the tassels off of one of his loafers.
Like that level of rage. We need more than that.
And there's a lot of ideas floating around, And I
want to ask you about a very interesting legal theory,
which is that, okay, if they're going to do this,
if they're going to throw out the will of the voters. Well,
under Virginia's constitution, they let the General Assembly set mandatory
retirement rules for judges. So if Democrats wanted to approach
this and play it the way Republicans do, you know,
dirty but legal, they could constitutionally lower the judicial retirement age,
force these judges out of work, and then appoint all
new judges and reopen the entire redistricting fight. Again, it's
dirty as sin, but legally it could work, and the
amount of rage on Fox News over this idea almost
makes it worth it. This reminds me of how Fdr
when three Supreme Court judges were trying to undo the
new Deal. He didn't really try to pack the court.
He just threatened to pack the court, and those judges
back down. I'm all in favor cory of Democrats going
for this as hard as they can. Whether they do
it or not, I think people just want to see
them on the offense and say, all right, if you're
going to use procedure as a weapon against democracy, we're
going to try that out too.
Speaker 3: Well, go back to that, durppoint, it's worth going into
a bit of history with this. That exactly as you say,
He never carried it out, but the idea was during
the New Deal, conservative justices on the Supreme Court, this
is going to resemble many ways what we're facing now.
We're looking at democratically passed legislation and not rewriting it
in the way the Court did with the nineteen sixty
five Voting Rights Act. They didn't strike it down or
say it was unconstitutional. They essentially reinterpreted it until it
meant nothing. But at the time they were more aggressive.
They said, this is all the New Deal essentially is
all illegal. It's violating the federal Constitution. There's no power
in particular of the federal government to enact a new deal. Now,
America was in the Great Depression and FDR realized that
this couldn't stand. They couldn't be passing his signature agenda
with the support of Congress, and here come these unelected
Supreme Court coming in and striking it down on pretty
dubious legal theories I think, I mean longstanding, but ones
that certainly since the New Deal have been abandoned. One
thing that he did, in addition to arguing in court
for the constitutionality of his own agenda, was to say, well,
what if we add justices until the existing justices votes
are so diluted, and there's nothing illegal in that nothing.
We've had different numbers of Supreme Court justices at different
points in time, and so through legislation, you could up
the number, say to thirty, and keep getting through the
again the legal process of nomination and confirmation new justices.
So now, as we're facing this plethora of attacks on
our democracy, it's looking more and more like the crisis
of the New Deal.
Speaker 2: And I'm not underplaying that crisis. It was a real crisis.
Speaker 3: How FDR didn't have to actually carry it out. Scholars
disagree about the reasons, but I think one reason why
the Supreme Court magically changes its mind. In fact, there's
something called the switch in time that saves nine, where
all of a sudden, the New Deal goes from being
struck down to being upheld. Go figure. Partly it was
about this threat. Partly it was about the power of Congress.
The justices just couldn't see themselves opposing a democracy in
this massive sense. So now the question is should we
do this now too? Should we threaten to if Democrats,
of course, would have to retake both Congress and.
Speaker 2: The presidency we add justices. Should we play constitutional hardball?
This is certainly an example, and I'm affirmed yes.
Speaker 3: I mean how that's going to play out, whether the
number is thirty, whether it's doing it, you know, in
a variety of different ways, using impeachment.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of legal tools to do this
that also we.
Speaker 3: Can talk about it. I've talked about packing the court,
my colleague. This is the phrase court reform. So I'm okay,
I'll call it court.
Speaker 1: Reform whatever I'm need it.
Speaker 2: And that is a very good analogy of that point
in history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't wait to interview and support and donate
to candidates who are going to really bring the fight
because they care more about democracy than power. Of course,
Republican friend.
Speaker 3: John, you know, during Biden's administration, there were so many opportunities,
including a moment where this was at least looked into,
I know, and much to my disappointment, Biden, you know,
in so many ways, really failed to make the structural
reforms that we needed to our constants.
Speaker 1: Because he worshiped norms.
Speaker 2: Can't be we can't allow it to escape again.
Speaker 1: He worshiped norms and wanted to be the good guy
and didn't want to do this sort of thing, which
is understandable, but you know, I'm old enough to remember,
because amnesia is the most deadly airborne virus in this country.
These Republicans decided one time to change the Supreme Court
from nine to eight for an entire year, just to
deny a black president an up or down vote on
his duly appointed Supreme Court nominee. I mean, I remember
how right after doing that, they rushed Amy Cony Barrett
through an election, after votes were already cast, before Ruth
Bader Ginsberg was even cold. Yet, all we're talking about
is doing the same kind of things that Republicans keep
doing over and over again, because Republicans don't respect norms
and they don't respect doing the right thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and for those you know, there are a lot
of objections, of course to what we're saying, And of.
Speaker 1: Course there are some of them, but they're not coming
from but I'm sorry, but those subjections came from people
who had dick to say when Mitch McConnell decided we
could have an eight person Supreme Court in a whole
and that it's.
Speaker 3: Going to be my point that look, what the objection
normally says, is this the objection says, Look, if we
engage in court packing or court reform, whatever you want
to call it, but constitutional hardball of these different kinds,
then what's going to happen is that now once Republicans
are in power, they're going to do the same, and
there's going to be you know, one hundred members of
the Supreme Court, or it'll just be a back and forth.
We're already there, and that moment that you're talking about
with Merrick Garland's nomination and the refusal to act on
it was the destruction of the norm And so if
one group is just destroying the norms and the other
group is pretending that the norms are still there.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing with redistricting too that California and
New York.
Speaker 2: California has already moved on this. New York needs to
move really need to yes to reshape votes. I don't
even want to call it, Jerrymann. It's a way of
protecting against the destruction of dem Dockers, thank you.
Speaker 3: What's happened on the other side, it's democratic defense.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jim Cliburn's seat in South Carolina will disappear.
They are not going to try to get rid of him.
He's too popular, so they're just going to make sure
that the folks who vote for him have votes that
don't count for anything. Then the Court just allowed Alabama
to pick a different map for this year's congressional elections,
totally last minute. Again, Louisiana is throwing out thousands and
thousands of votes because they don't care and Corey. Tennessee
forty percent non white, and yet they're trying to dilute
their representation. How should Americans understand what's happening in Tennessee historically.
Speaker 3: Well, I think Tennessee, Alabama, where you know, there's an
attempt to get the Supreme Court to intervene here on
the basis of the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act.
What we're going to see in a lot of these
cases is, as there's an attempt to dilute black votes,
black voting power, there'll be lower courts that intervene in
the right way based on the old interpretation of the
nineteen sixty five Civil Rights Act. And I shouldn't say old,
they should say the right interpretation.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: They will push back on a lot of these attempts
to destroy districts that ensure black voting power.
Speaker 2: But here's the problem.
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court, I'm almost certain, is going to come
in and say that in almost all these cases you
failed to show intentional discrimination. The breakup of these districts
is about partisanship.
Speaker 2: And that's okay.
Speaker 3: And that's why this decision matters so much because we're
seeing on the ground already you mentioned Tennessee and Alabama
attempts to destroy black voting power. We'll see lower courts
push back, and then the Supreme Court's going to say,
did you not read what we did?
Speaker 2: You know a few days ago? And U that's where
we are. Okay.
Speaker 1: We got to take a quick break back in just
a moment. This is the Oath in the Office. Welcome
back to the Oath in the Office podcast. I'm John Feugelsang, Corey,
let's talk about citizenship for just a minute. The DOJ
is reportedly expanding their efforts to take citizens away from
some American citizens because they feel like it historically, Corey,
how rare is de naturalization as a political tool in
this country.
Speaker 3: Wow, it really is a tool of authoritarianism to say,
if we don't like you, we're going to take not
only you know, potentially violate your rights, but violate what
the Supreme Court is called the right to have rights,
the right of citizenship in the first place. And not
only did the Court in the past rebuke these kind
of efforts in many cases, there's one where they really
use that phrase, the right to have rights, which is
also made famous by the political philosopher Hannah or Rent,
and it was a case called Trump versus Dulles, where
the Supreme Court said that it was a violation of
cruel and unusual punishment the Eighth Amendment to strip away
as punishment for a crime, the rights of a citizen. Now,
over time they made an exception for that, which is
that if you committed fraud in your application.
Speaker 2: The theory was, well, you never really became a citizen
in the first place, so if you could.
Speaker 3: Show fraud in the application process, it was a narrow win,
but it was not one that was widely used, and
it was one that the Court made very clear too.
You can't just use that as your excuse for really
engaging and stripping the citizenship of your enemies or people
that you don't like.
Speaker 2: Yet here we are revisiting this.
Speaker 3: They're going to try to use this narrow exception, the
supposed fraud, in order to go after I think a
lot of naturalized citizens who they consider enemies. They've already
said in the Khalil case that non citizens have no
First Amendment rights.
Speaker 2: Just insane. Yeah, and now they're trying to say you
don't have a right to citizenship if you were naturalized. Amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I don't know how to be
scared about this. Do we need to start viewing citizenship
not as a constitutional guarantee but something conditional, something revocable.
I mean, have we crossed that authoritarian line?
Speaker 3: We should view it as anything, but we should view
it as irrevocable. And one of the amazing things and
it's just coming up in a few minutes that Cecilia Wang,
the legal director of the ACLU, has done, is present
a beautiful argument for the Constitution as clear as day
says if you're born in the United States, you're a citizen.
So that's step one is pushing back there. Now we
have to recognize there are multiple fronts. This is the
second front that they've opened up against the right to
be a citizen. And here we've got to say too,
using this really important case Trout versus Dulles, one of
the most important I think when it comes to our
rights as citizens, the.
Speaker 2: Idea that we have a right to have rights, that.
Speaker 3: Citizenship can't be stripped away as punishment for.
Speaker 2: A crime, and we've got to insist on that.
Speaker 3: We've got to do it through litigation, and we've got
to do it I think through legislation. These are among
the laws that need to be passed if Democrats ever
retake the Congress and the presidency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty terrifying. I thought we had safeguards against
this sort of thing. Do you think they'll be successful, Corey,
I mean, do you think they'll just tell people you're
not one of us anymore?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the first test is, and we're about
to talk about it, the birthright citizenship case.
Speaker 2: And I was really hardened to listen to that case.
Speaker 3: Here the justices defend the Constitution, and I think this
is as clear here too, that you can't just take
away somebody's citizenship because.
Speaker 2: You don't agree with them.
Speaker 3: Now, they're going to look for cases in the beginning
in which there might really be fraud, and in those
cases I think the administration, even though their motive is not,
you know, just to combat fraud, they might get away
with them. But as they go deeper, that's where the
pushback will have to happen. And as with birthright citizenship,
they're going to try, certainly to take away all of
our rights. They're trying to destroy democracy. The administration Trump
is and that's what it's about, and we'll fight back
as hard as we can.
Speaker 1: God we live in the only country on earth to
produce white trash oligarchs. We're also seeing Trump publicly attack
his own hires, Amy Cony Barrett and Neil Gorsich after
rulings he disliked. When I say his hires, I mean,
you know, the Federal of Society handing him a piece
of paper saying this is who you like. But Corey,
how unusual is it for a president to pressure justices
from his own ideological cult in such per terms, so
nakedly and publicly. I mean, I think I maybe heard
George Bush Senior complain about suitor once.
Speaker 3: Maybe Well, it shows you how little he understands about
how the Constitution is supposed to work. He thinks that
he appointed his judges and they're supposed to say this
guy is great, the same way that the sick advance
like Stephen Miller around him say every.
Speaker 2: Day, and they're not saying that.
Speaker 3: They are I think approving too much of his agenda
through the shadow docket, which we've talked about.
Speaker 2: And will continue to talk about.
Speaker 3: But what he just saw at the Supreme Court and
he walked out mid argument, was these justices essentially saying
you can't do that.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: The fourteenth Amendment says if you're born in the United States,
you're a citizen, full stop.
Speaker 2: And I think that really he can't quite understand it.
Speaker 3: If you're an authoritarian, the idea that you were people,
you were judges, and you know, even the way he
talks about them, Neil and Amy, you know, these are
supposed to be my people, that they're pushing back. It
shows you how little he understands about this system. When
you and I met I wrote a piece for Politico
called Trump Versus the Constitution of guys right, and this
is the latest iteration of Trump versus the Constitution.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much do you think about all these struggles,
all these constitutional conflicts, How much is it really ultimately
about pluralistic democracy itself. Who gets representation, who gets citizenship,
whose votes count equally? Because these guys seem to despise
the concepts of democracy while pretending to love it, and
much the way they despise the teachings of the New
Testament while pretending they love it.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that really is when we talk about
defending democracy, what you and I mean, we should use
the phrase explicitly is multi racial democracy, multi ethnic democracy,
pluralistic democracy. When Trump talks about democracy means a democracy
where the white people are in charge. And you see
that in so many of his animous, hatred based policies.
The travel band we mentioned earlier, and the clearest example
is trying to revoke one of the places where the
Congress couldn't have been clearer in its fourteenth Amendment that
if you were born in the United States, you are
a citizen. It wasn't just a reversal of the dread
Scott case that said black Americans are not citizens in
our constitution, They're not even legal persons. It was meant
to create a much broader multiracial democracy, and one that
means what it says when it says, if you're born
in the United States, full stop, you're a citizen. We're
going to apply a test of parentage of race, and
this president's trying to destroy it. That's why we're going
to focus on this case in such depth today.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited for this guest. Let's take a quick break.
We'll be back in a moment on the Oath in
the Office.
Speaker 4: Hey all, Clang Kershner here. Friends, I hope you'll join
me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters. We talk about
not only the legal issues of the day, but we
also talk about the need to reform ethics in our government.
Here's one example. The Oath of Office, you know, the
one I do solemnly swear to support and defend the
Constantute US against all enemies foreign end domestic. Let's add
twenty two words to that oath quote, and I will
promptly report any instances of crime and or corruption by
government officials and employees of which I've become aware. Friends,
our democracy is worth fighting for. Join us in this
fight because justice matters. Look for Justice Matters wherever you
ordinarily find your podcasts.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. It really
is an honor today to introduce to you Cecilia Wang,
who is the ACLU's National Legal Director most recently, and
this is what we're going to talk to her about.
She in the Supreme Court argued that Trump's executive order
essentially revoking birthright citizenship was unconstitutional, and she's going to
walk us through some of that argument, what it was
like to participate in it. And as of course listeners
know listening to this show since the beginning, since we've
started it, we've regarded this promise to revoke birthright citizenship
as really a symbol not just any ordinary case, but
a symbol of Trump's attack on the Constitution. So this
isn't any ordinary case. It's a historic one that was
I listened to it. It was an amazing argument, a
historic argument, one that will be taught in constitutional law,
I think for forever. As long as we have a country,
we have constitutional law. So Cecilia Wang, welcome to the
oath in the office.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Corey, it's a pleasure to be
with you.
Speaker 2: Can we just start with the big picture.
Speaker 3: We have, of course, the first section of the Fourteenth
Amendment that until this executive order many people thought was
pretty plain. This day, it says if you're born in
the United States that you are a.
Speaker 2: Citizen full stop.
Speaker 3: And there is this phrase, of course that we'll get
into subject to the jurisdiction. But let's start with a
big picture. What's really at stake with this case.
Speaker 6: So the immediate stakes in the birthright citizenship case, of course,
is whether President Trump's executive order regarding the Fourteenth Amendment
citizenship clause can go into effect. So he contrary to
the plain words of the Fourteenth Amendment and its historical context,
as well as statute passed by Congress, who's trying to
exclude the children of undocumented immigrants and people who are
here in the United States lawfully but on a temporary
visa temporary sometimes meaning yours from being covered by the
Fourteenth Amendments guarantee of birthright citizenship. So those are the
immediate stakes. Can President Trump carry out his revisionist view
of the Fourteenth Amendment citizenship clause through an executive order
that purports to reinterpret the Fourteenth Amendment in a way
that's contrary to what both the Congress and the Supreme
and all.
Speaker 5: Of us ordinary Americans thought.
Speaker 6: You know, it's been almost one hundred and sixty years
since the fourteenth Amendment was ratified.
Speaker 5: So those are the immediate stakes. But to take a
step back.
Speaker 6: And look at an even bigger picture, what's really at
stake is whether the President of the United States can
redefine and narrow our national tradition of birthright citizenship. Can
the president decide that the people that he disfavors should
be excluded, should not have a sense of belonging in
our national community. And those are kind of the larger stakes.
And if we take even another step back to look
at the really bigger picture that you know, President Trump
came into a second term really on day one trying
to undo the work of reconstruction, which includes the citizenship
clause of the fourteenth Amendment, but also so many aspects
and progressive laws that were enacted and implemented as part
of the second Reconstruction with the Civil Rights movement.
Speaker 5: And Jim Crow.
Speaker 6: And so those are all the stakes, from the narrowest.
Speaker 5: View to the broader view.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that you laid it out that way, because,
of course, the immediate question is about whether this specific
executive order is constitutional or not. But the wider question,
of course, is what's going on with the president that
wants to revoke a symbol of the idea of equality
under law and the very symbol of multi racial and
multi ethnic democracy. Well, it's because it's part of a
wider assault on democracy. He doesn't believe. And I think
the idea of multi racial democracy not only that you
and I believe him, but that the crafters of this
Fourteenth Amendment, with its birthright citizenship clause it's guaranteed and
also of equal protection of the law, fought so hard
for I want to get into a lot of the
doctrine here and see how this argument played out and
ask you about some of the questions. But I have
to ask you, since we've been talking about Trump is,
of course at the center of this.
Speaker 2: It's an executive order.
Speaker 3: What was it like to argue his case with the
President of the United States, with Donald Trump sitting right there.
I think it was historically the only time that a
president showed up, and he showed up to hear what
you had to say.
Speaker 2: So what was that like?
Speaker 6: Well, candidly, Corey, I didn't know whether he was in
the courtroom or not. I'd gotten notice the night before,
of course, when he posted I guess on social media
that he was planning to attend. We got advanced notice
because we needed to arrive at the court earlier than
usual because of the increased security around the President being
in the house, and so.
Speaker 5: I knew that he might be there.
Speaker 6: But even as I was walking into the courtroom, the
information I was getting from the clerk's office was that
they weren't sure one hundred percent or that the President
would be there. So I didn't notice one way or
the other. I was very focused on the nine justices.
I was focused on my opposing council and what he
was saying, and so it didn't occur to me. It
didn't affect me one way or the other that he
was in the room. I didn't find out until later
that he was in fact in the room at least
for the first few minutes.
Speaker 2: Amazing moment.
Speaker 3: I mean, one of the signs of your effectiveness is
that he evidently walked out mid argument, and also has recently,
as I think you know, been talking about why in
his words, Neil and Amy have not really been loyal
enough then, which I think might have something to do
with watching them respond to your arguments in a sympathetic way.
Speaker 2: I do want to ask you about the dynamics in
the courtroom, but I also want.
Speaker 3: To ask about the specifics, because of course the Trump
administration had to come up with a reason why he
could essentially undo this guarantee of birthright citizenship and the
court and Trump himself claims to care about the constitutional taxes,
so they turned to this idea of subject to the jurisdiction.
So tell us about how that argument works and how
it relates, in particular, the related idea that the Fourteenth
Amendment birthright citizenship clause was really only about black Americans
and a reversal of the dread Scott case and not
the broader guarantee that you and I have been talking about.
Speaker 2: And they offer this idea of also related of allegiance.
Speaker 3: So tell us about what their argument is and how
you respond to it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, you know, as a lawyer, you always want
to start the words in the case of the fourteenth Amendment.
So the fourteenth Amendment says, all persons born in the
United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens
of the United States. And so the only leeway in
that text that the president, you know, tried to explore
or take advantage of was, of course, that phrase subject
to the jurisdiction, which you just referred to.
Speaker 5: So you start with.
Speaker 6: Ax and then you look to two sources to figure
out what those words meant to the framers, to the
Republican drafting committee that wrote the words of the fourteenth Amendment.
And we know two things. The first is that the
framers of the Fourteenth Amendment wanted to have broad birthright
citizenship for almost everyone in the United States, but they
wanted to encompass these pre existing historical exceptions to birthright citizenship,
and that was what they meant by those words subject
to the jurisdiction. Who are we talking about. Most people
know that ambassadors, right, you know, foreign ministers, you know,
representatives of foreign government when they're in the United States
have immunity. And that's a matter of comedy between the two.
Not comedy like haha, but com I t y that
you know, these two countries, as a matter of mutual respect,
and in order to be able to do diplomacy, give
each other this immunity from prosecution. The ambassador in the
United States is treated as if they're physically still in
their home country. And so the children of ambassadors were
excluded from birthright citizenship under that phrase subject to the
jurisdiction there There were a number of other exceptions that
originated in the English common law, including the ambassador exception,
which the Framers wanted to carry over. The only exception
to birthright citizenship that didn't come from the English common
law that the Framers were trying to carry over after
the fourteenth Amendment was ratified was an exception for members
of Native American tribes known as Indian tribes in the
technical legal term, and so that was it to the
jurisdiction thereof in the citizenship clause simply meant that everyone
born in the United States who is subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States, meaning they have to obey
the laws and they have a protection of the laws
of the United States, is a citizen. And the only
exceptions were these narrow categories like ambassadors and under the Constitution,
members of tribal nations.
Speaker 3: So the way as I understand that the Solicitor General
tried to take this historical fact that they're referring to
and turn it into an argument, I mean, I have
to say from the beginning, I've been wondering how are
they going to create an argument so that the thing
that we've all seen with our own eyes, how can
they turn it into something that makes this an even
plausible executive order. It seems to just clash directly with
the meaning of the Constitution and its tex So they're
relying heavily on this idea of subject to the jurisdiction.
I guess one thing that I don't know if I
want to say it's a full argument resembled an argument,
is that, well, there wasn't this i idea of undocumented
people in the nineteenth century, that the immigration systems were
just so different.
Speaker 2: So if you.
Speaker 3: Think of the principle that applied here, that these exceptions
and the meaning of who the amendment refers to wouldn't
apply to the children of undocumented people. So that raises some,
you know, interesting puzzles about how to think about, you know,
facts that are different in the nineteenth century from now,
how to think about history and texts.
Speaker 2: So tell us how did you handle that and how.
Speaker 3: Did you read the justices who, of course, you know,
I would say a majority or so heavily focused on
the idea that the law is the text.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So you know what you're referring to, is is
kind of you know, there are two broad schools of
thought when it comes to the interpretation of our Constitution,
and the prevailing one for a majority of the Supreme
Court currently is an originalist, a school of thought which says,
when we're interpreting the words of the Constitution, we need
to pay attention only to what the framers of those words,
whether it's in seventeen eighty nine or in eighteen sixty
eight in the case of the Fourteenth Amendment, what they
were thinking, what was the original public meaning that was understood?
And you know, the other school of thought, of course,
is what you know, it might be referred to as
living constitutionalism. So you know, the idea that you know,
the framers weren't thinking about all possible future applications of
their words necessarily, and that we do our best interpret
you know, what the spirit behind those words was. As
I said, the original school of thought is the prevailing
one on the Supreme Court now, and sometimes that creates
some real problems of constitutional interpretation, but not when it
comes to the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We
set out a purely originalist interpretation that I just laid
out for you and your listeners that the Republican committee
that was drafting the fourteenth Amendment, and indeed, all the
members of Congress who debated the words of the citizenship Clause,
we're all in agreement that the only exceptions were ambassadors,
tribal members, and the other very very narrow exceptions that
only applied to a couple people at most under the
English common law, and that would include people born on
foreign ships, you know, that were.
Speaker 5: Docked in a US port, for example.
Speaker 6: And so it was interesting, you know, as I was
preparing the little aside here, as I was preparing for
the argument. You know, lawyers do these practice sessions.
Speaker 5: We call them moots.
Speaker 6: And I had a Supreme Court, a member of the
Supreme Court bar so who's you know, very experienced Supreme
Court practitioner, who said, this is a really weird case
because you have the ACLU making an originalist argument, and
you have the Solicitor General of the United States talking
about policy. And so, you know, I bristle a little
bit at the idea of the ACLA used normally making
policy arguments, that they were making textual list and original
meaning arguments all the time. But in this case, there's
just no question that that is what the framers and
the state legislators who ratified the fourteenth Amendment understood the
words to mean. Now, to get to another part of
your question, you know, what is the Trump administration trying
to do here? And what is their move to try
to go against what everybody has understood about the meaning
of the fourteenth Amendment since eighteen sixty eight and certainly
since eighteen ninety eight. And you know what they did
was they started with a Supreme Court decision from eighteen
ninety eight called Wonkim arc, which was the first case
in which the US government was trying to exclude the
US born child of a foreign national from US citizenship.
And this was a case where the Supreme Court held
in eighteen ninety eight that this man, Wankim Mark, born
in San Francisco to parents who were Chinese nationals, was
a US citizen. And the Trump administration basically used a
move that has been tried out previously by a number
of people on the far right, who are you know,
anti immigrant activists.
Speaker 5: You know, throughout the.
Speaker 6: Last few decades, you know, we have seen efforts on
the far right to take away the citizenship of people
of non citizens, take away citizenship from the children of
non citizens. And the move that they make is that
in the wonkim Arc decision, the Supreme Court just dis gray,
writing majority opinion happens to mention several times by the
government's count, twenty two times in all, in a very
long opinion, that wankim Ark's parents were domiciled in the
United States. And so the Trump administration basically has used
a move that has been tried unsuccessfully in the past
to try to reverse engineer an argument from that happenstance
in the wangkim Ark decision to say, oh, that means
you have to your parents have to have been domiciled
in the United States at the time of your birth
for you to be a citizen under the fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 5: And so that kind.
Speaker 6: Of explains how the President structured his executive order, at
least in part, because the one thing that he can't
explain still is how he can exclude children born in
the US to unauthorized immigrants who are domiciled in the
United States. Right, many people, millions of people in this
country who over state of visa or who entered without
inspection but have lived in the US and have these
strong ties and have no other home in many cases
for decades, in many cases since they were young children themselves.
So that basically is how we got to the president's
theory of the fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that they looked at wankim Mark, which is of
course about the idea of the plain meaning of the
birthright citizenship guarantee that if you're born in the United States,
you're a citizen. It of course applies beyond Black Americans,
and yet they try to use it in a way
to say that No, in that specific case, the facts
were that the person had allegiance. Win kim Mark had
allegiance to the United States because of the fact that
he was domiciled.
Speaker 2: Here, I mean, so let's get into the argument.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's fascinating, I have to say too, just
giving us those notes, and I think people want to
hear more about it. That coming into this, you thought, wow,
I don't always get to argue straight originalism to use
the theory of justice Gorsicch and Justice Barrett and at
least supposedly justice as Alito and Thomas. But here it
just screams out that we have the text and as
you've been telling us, we have this amazing case that says, yes,
this is not just about reversing dread Scott and dread
Scott's evil holding that black Americans don't have citizenship under
the Constitution or even legal personnel.
Speaker 2: That goes way beyond.
Speaker 3: That to mean what it says, you know, born in
the United States, you are a citizen. So tell us
what it was like as you are arguing the case
with this preparation. I mean, did you feel like the
originalist arguments were clear? Did you feel resistance in places
that you were surprised by?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So, you know, I think we went into this argument
very confident in our arguments, not only because you know,
we had written a brief that reflected, as you said,
the plain words of the fourteenth Amendment and also, you know,
the English.
Speaker 5: Common law context.
Speaker 6: For American citizenship right, which the Supreme Court explained in
the Won cam Work decision in eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 5: But we also had confidence.
Speaker 6: Because we had such a broad array a Friend of
the Court briefs that were submitted on our side, including
very conservative legal scholars and lawyers who all joined forces
to say, look, the original public meaning of the fourteenth
Amendment is really clear. The other thing that gave me
a lot of confidence, and really not just confidence, but
I felt, Corey, like I was channeling the voices of
millions of Americans who like me, are Fourteenth Amendment citizens
born when our parents weren't yet naturalized, and our ancestors
all you know, most Americans, unless you were a descended
from someone who was an enslaved person of African origin,
or if you are descended from people, or if you're
an Indigenous American, all of us have some ancestor at
some point in our family's history who's been in this situation.
And I really felt that I was standing there at
the lectern in the Supreme Court channeling all of those
voices of people living and our ancestors to really stand
up for that original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
You know, you've mentioned a few times that the President,
I think, in a really cynical move that's meant to
try to divide people, says look, Fourteenth Amendment citizenship was
only for Black Americans. And there was a really wonderful
Amekus brief front of the Court brief filed by the
historian Martha Jones, who's written the definitive history of Black Americans.
Free Black Americans struggles for birthright citizenship both before and
in the wake of the Dredge Scott decision. And what
her brief made absolutely clear is that free black Americans
who were responding to the Supreme Court's dread Scott decision
that excluded all black people based on race from birthright
citizenship in the United States and responding to that free
black Americans weren't trying to win birthright citizenship only for
Black Americans. They wanted universal birthright citizenship. And those efforts
by Black Americans, you know, fed into the radical Republicans
who framed the fourteenth Amendment. You know, there's nothing in
the words of the fourteenth Amendment that say this is
just to give citizenship to Black Americans and to overturn
dread Scott. If that was what the framers of the
fourteenth Amendment meant, they would have written.
Speaker 5: Very different words.
Speaker 6: And the beauty of the fourteenth Amendment and the first
sentence of it, the citizenship clause, as a reconstruction document,
you know, after a first abolishing slavery thirteenth Amendment, then
you get the fourteenth Amendment. I started out by wanting
to provide for equal rights for all people in the
United States. But then they added this sentence at the
beginning that dealt with citizenship, and it was centrally about
completing the project of free black Americans who were fighting
for universal birthrights citizenship. And there was so much history,
such rich history behind this argument in those Amikas briefs,
not only Professor Jones's historical brief, but a really lovely
brief filed by Professor Tyler Ambinder and Professor Garrett Epps,
which I actually referred to during the argument. When you know,
Justice Alito was asking, you know, well, the framers of
the Fourteenth Amendment in eighteen sixty six, as they were
writing those words, there was no such thing as an
undocumented immigrant at that point, because Congress only enacted restrictions
on immigration a few years later. The first one was
in eighteen seventy five. So you know, it can't be
that the Fourteenth Amendment encompasses the children of undocumented immigrants.
And there are many responses to that based on the history.
First and foremost, there was a debate about the citizenship
clause where senators, you know, were all acknowledging that the
children of immigrants would be citizens under this language.
Speaker 5: And there were those.
Speaker 6: Senators who opposed that and said, we don't want the
children of people they called gypsies, roma or Chinese immigrants.
We don't want their children to become us citizens. And
that's exactly what these words do. And then you saw
other senators, including really movingly Senator John Conness, who was
an Irish immigrant himself, Senator of California, who responded directly
to the views of the opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment, saying, yes,
the children of so called gypsies, the children of Chinese immigrants,
much as they are reviled right now and a disfavored
minority in my home state of California, their children are
all going to be citizens. And that's exactly why I'm
voting for this amendment. And there's all that rich history.
You have the brief that I started to mention. The
Anne Binder Epps brief also talked about the fact that
in right before then, the ten to fifteen years before
the Fourteenth Amendment was framed in eighteen sixty six, there
were millions of Irish immigrants who came to the United
States because of the famine in Ireland, and the No
Nothing Party, which was ascended in the eighteen fifties in Congress,
you know, was just virulently zenobic and anti Irish, anti Catholic,
and they believed that these Irish Catholic impoverished immigrants were unassimilable.
The No Nothing Party members felt that these Irish Catholic immigrants.
Speaker 5: Were less than human.
Speaker 6: And yet even they Know Nothing Party believed that the
US born children.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to go Trump, even the No Nothing
Party didn't want to go as far as Trump.
Speaker 2: That's an amazing detail, exactly.
Speaker 6: And so there was such a rich history about the
movement of free black Americans for universal birthright citizenship and
the experience of Irish Catholic immigrants and the experience that
incredibly moving colloquy between Senator Cowan of Pennsylvania, who opposed
birthright citizenship, and Senator John Conness of California, who spoke
as an immigrant himself, saying, this is the beauty of
birthright citizenship, this is the beauty of these words. We'll
all be Americans. And that's what I' voting for all
of that, you know, I was, I was trying to
channel all of them while I was standing there in
front of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing moment in American history. And you know,
as I listened to it, I was thinking, you know,
teaching the nineteenth century, teaching reconstruction, that this is an
amazing drama because what's happening is you have an administration
trying to essentially destroy the result of a war, what
it took to create the idea of equal protection that
everybody born in the United States as a citizen. Of course,
this one case is part of, as we were talking
about in the beginning, the wider fight for what Frederick
Douglass long called equal protection and the words that make
it into also the Fourteenth Amendment for a section equal
protection under the law. And to hear that you were
channeling thinking about this history, because in a way, you
weren't just championing all of us. You were championing these
long ago heroes fighting for democracy and fighting for multi
racial demandsocracy specifically. And you know, so often the Trump
administration brings up the people who lost that fight, the
virulent races. I love the idea that even the no
not that it's understood that the next generation you couldn't discriminate. There,
come on, people, and Trump has gone too far. So
what an amazing firsthand account of really living history, I guess,
is what I would call it.
Speaker 2: That's what you were doing and channeling these voices.
Speaker 3: And you know, often when we talk about the text,
it can sound very technical, very semantic.
Speaker 2: But what you've brought out I think in.
Speaker 3: This conversation is the text is there for a reason.
And this text, in particularly the Fourteenth Amendment, for as section,
is a realization, not just a symbol, but an encapsulation
of the fight for multi racial democracy and literally on
the heels of the most violent conflict in American history.
So what an amazing thing for our listeners to hear
that that was in your mind as you were doing it.
Many of us would be thinking like, oh, no, are
my notes in the right worder?
Speaker 5: Oh believe me, I was thinking that too.
Speaker 3: Can I ask Cecilia, what an amazing discussion? But I
just as we reached the end of this amazing discussion
wanted to ask you about of course, to me, anyway,
this looks like a great moment, a moment where the
Supreme Court is about to rebuke the President of the
United States with his really racist and anti democratic executive order.
But I just invite you to talk about where you
see the Of course, as the legal director of the
National ACLU, you are thinking strategically about how to stop
all of these attacks on our democracy. So how does
this fight fit in and what are you thinking about
when it comes to the wider assaults on democracy if
you wanted to. We've been talking for instance about the
dj trying to revoke citizenship of naturalized people, the next step,
and the war on democracy, But really, any thoughts about
this wider assault on democracy and what you, as legal director,
are in the midst of doing in this fight.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say, you know, this actually happens to
be a tough moment. You and I are talking the
day after the Supreme Court issued in order that vacated
an injunction that we won through litigation against racially discriminatory
congressional districting map in the state of Alabama. We'd won
the case in the lower federal court and then one
in the Supreme Court three years ago, and then, of
course a couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued
a decision in Louisiana congressional redistricting case. We also were
on with LDF called Louisiana versus cala and really undermined
and gutted Section two of the Voting Rights Act, the
crown jewel of the Civil Rights era, legislation passed by
Congress in nineteen sixty five in order to give voters
a tool to go into court and fight against race
discrimination and voting laws. And you know, immediately over the
next couple of weeks since the Calais decision came down,
including last night, the ACLU and LDF and other partners
around the country, but particularly in the South, have had
to rush into court. I literally have lost count of
how many emergency applications we filed in the last couple
of weeks in some cases, you know, with the Supreme
Court last night issuing this order that changes the rules
when voting is already underway in Alabama in the primary
election that where election day is May nineteenth, and people
are doing early voting right now under the map that
now has been vacated by the Supreme Court, and so
there's a lot coming at us, you know. The Coup also,
of course, is currently considering again the State of Louisiana's
effort to block people's access to mifipristo and medication abortion nationwide.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: So for those of us who are fighting for civil
rights and civil liberties, you know, these are tough times.
We have a lot of challenges, including in the Supreme
Court and in other federal courts. But you know, I
want to just say that those efforts have really borne fruit.
The ACLU has filed I think the count currently is
at one hundred and eighty four lawsuits we have filed
since inauguration day last year, and in cases that have
already been closed, we've got about a sixty two percent
success rate. And in the cases that we're still fighting,
you know, we're winning many of those battles and getting
real relief from federal courts for people who are harmed
by this administration's policies.
Speaker 5: But that's just.
Speaker 6: One piece of the story. People in these states that
are now fighting for democracy after the Supreme Court's decision
in Louisiana versus Calais, you know, are packing the state houses.
Speaker 5: Louisiana voters, you know.
Speaker 6: Packed the state House in Baton Rouge a few days
ago in order to express their views that we want
to be able to vote and have our votes count equally.
With everyone else's, regardless of our race. We want you,
the legislature of Louisiana, to enact a fair map that
gives black Louisiana voters the same weight as white Louisiana voters.
People are marching in Tennessee, where just as we file
a lawsuit and an application for emergency relief in the
federal court, thousands and thousands of Tennesseeans are marching in
the streets to say, we are fighting for the life
of our democracy in the United States right now.
Speaker 5: And you know, in addition.
Speaker 6: To filing all those lawsuits, the ACLU has trained eighty
seven thousand people in zoom meetings about their rights to protest.
You know, what we can do to sustain in our
democracy and the rule of law and equality under the Constitution.
And there's so many places where Americans are making a difference,
whether it's lobbying your city government to enact pro civil
rights and pro civil liberties legislation, or taking into the
streets to protest what the president is doing. There's so
many things that we're all doing in this moment of
real challenges, of real struggles, where it feels like the
federal government of the executive branch is trying to push
us backwards and undo Reconstruction and undo the civil rights we've.
Speaker 3: Been Yeah, so well said, and you know, I think
it's also a sobering but importantly honest place to end,
which is as great a moment as this was before
the Supreme Court, to have the Presidents sitting there as
essentially the justices, through their questions and through their analysis
and through your arguments, we're rebuking him and his white
supremacy and his attack on our democracy.
Speaker 2: As great a moment as that is. In the end, right, it.
Speaker 3: Has to be a multifaceted strategy that we're using to
stop this, because when it comes to the Court's decision
in the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act and interpretation
the Louisiana cases, you say it's doing the opposite of
respecting the text. It's really undoing what was also a
monumental second Reconstruction, a fight for our democracy, and taking
a law that took a mass.
Speaker 2: Movement to create and ondoing it.
Speaker 3: And we've been covering that on the Oath in the Office,
alongside your important argument in the birthright citizenship case. And
I guess as we wrap up what I'm hearing you say.
And I know, of course the ACLU has a multifaceted
way of defending democracy, but that litigation is part of it,
and that can inspire what is also a fundamental part,
which is citizens rising up, defending our own rights and
in various strategies, using politics and democracy to defend democracy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and using stories, using history, using the arts, using comedy,
comady this time to tell a story about not just
what the constitution says, but you know, the country that
we are hoping to build towards and always trying to
do better and to you know, ensure that freedom inequality
are lived reality for everyone.
Speaker 3: What a great place to end, Cecilia Wang, Thank you
for your efforts, thank you for your amazing argument before
the Supreme Court, and thank you for your words about
history the way that our historic fight for democracy inspires
our current fight. It's really been a pleasure to have
you on the oath in the office.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 5: Thank you Corey, thank you for all your work.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Cecilia Wang for coming in and
being so brilliant and professor. I want to thank you
for talking me off a ledge. What is the best
way for our listeners to follow you, Corey and keep
up with your work.
Speaker 3: Well, we have the oath in the office substack, we
have all over you can review us. Be sure to
subscribe wherever you're listening to us right now. You can
watch us on YouTube. And I've got to just add
a note of thanks. The ACLU, of course, has been
a sponsor of this podcast repeatedly, and to have this
amazing litigator, Cecilia Wang join us and talk about what
it was like to be in the courtroom with Donald
Trump watching her and pushing back and arguing on behalf
of our rights, on behalf of the text of the
fourteenth Amendment, it's first section guaranteeing that anyone born in
this country is a citizen.
Speaker 2: It really was a special.
Speaker 1: Episode, Amen, And I want to thank everyone who puts
the show together, especially Beowulf and Wendy. And I want
to thank you Professor as always. You guys can hear
me every night on Sirius XM Progress or in the
mornings on the John Fiegelsang podcast and my book's called
Separation of Church and Hate. Professor, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I'm being a pleasure John.
Speaker 1: We will see you guys next time. Bubby Oath and
the Office