Speaker 1: Is court packing every bit as bad as January sixth.
Speaker 1: Let's really examine this. I was sort of reading a
Speaker 1: discussion or listening to a discussion about this from some
Speaker 1: writers from National Review, and I want to lay out
Speaker 1: the case here that the court packing schemes I've talked
Speaker 1: about a little bit on the show, but President Biden
Speaker 1: rolled out and Harris is endorsing.
Speaker 2: This proposal.
Speaker 1: To change the structure of the Supreme Court, basically to
Speaker 1: impose eighteen year term limits on all Supreme Court justices
Speaker 1: and to stagger things so that basically every two years
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court justice will retire. After that that justice
Speaker 1: will be able to go down and be a.
Speaker 2: Circuit Court judge.
Speaker 1: But basically every two years a president will have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to appoint new people, a new person to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. So nine justices each serving eighteen year terms.
Speaker 1: Every two years one of the justices will be leaving,
Speaker 1: and so every president will get to nominate two Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices. But the main thing is the eighteen year
Speaker 1: term limit, which it would seem the idea of this
Speaker 1: is that it would apply retroactively, meaning guess who's off
Speaker 1: the court? Means that John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Sam
Speaker 1: Alito probably all get it kicked off the court right away.
Speaker 2: Hah.
Speaker 1: How convenient that the three most senior justices are all
Speaker 1: Republican appointees that then Democrats would get to replace. Now
Speaker 1: Biden proposed this. I think this was a last ditch
Speaker 1: effort on Biden's part to hold on to power within
Speaker 1: the Democrat coalition, to hold on to power and still
Speaker 1: continue to be the nominee. But alas, unfortunately for him,
Speaker 1: stuff happened. He's been pushed out. Kamala Harris has come in,
Speaker 1: but Biden already had announced he was going to propose
Speaker 1: this court packing scheme, and Biden has so, even though
Speaker 1: Biden's not running anymore, they've still rolled out this proposal
Speaker 1: and Harris has adopted it. Harris has said, all right, yep,
Speaker 1: I'm carrying this torch. And this is the the awkward
Speaker 1: thing that's going to hinder Harris throughout the campaign is
Speaker 1: that she is still Joe Biden's vice president and they
Speaker 1: have to show some sort of united front, so she
Speaker 1: has to kind of keep carrying the torch for this
Speaker 1: lame brain stuff that Biden's doing. So Harris is Harris
Speaker 1: is all for this. So that's what Biden's proposing. He's
Speaker 1: proposing eighteen year term limits for Supreme Court justices. Every
Speaker 1: two years a Supreme Court justice retires, which again, this
Speaker 1: would probably be retro applying to the older justices, so
Speaker 1: that would mean Clarence Thomas is out, John Roberts's out,
Speaker 1: Sam Alito is out. I want to make the case
Speaker 1: that this proposal by President Biden and Vice President Harris
Speaker 1: is about as bad as the careization of January sixth.
Speaker 1: This so to understand this, let's go back to what
Speaker 1: is the chief actual core argument against Trump regarding January sixth.
Speaker 1: What was the chief ill Note that Trump was never
Speaker 1: actually charged with anything having to do with the riot
Speaker 1: that occurred on January sixth. He was not charged with
Speaker 1: inciting the riot because he said during a speech right beforehand,
Speaker 1: go and peacefully make your case. And the fact that
Speaker 1: he said that means that it can't be incitement. So
Speaker 1: it's not incitement in a legal sense. But I think
Speaker 1: there let's take this from the liberal perspective, liberal characterization
Speaker 1: of January sixth. Trump whipped these people up to resist
Speaker 1: the peaceful transition of power from one president to another,
Speaker 1: and Trump was trying to basically violate the Twelfth Amendment,
Speaker 1: which includes the process for the certification of the Electoral
Speaker 1: College results, by pressuring Mike Pence against doing the normal
Speaker 1: certification of votes on the basis of Trump's suspicions that
Speaker 1: the results were fraudulent. Trump wanting to disrupt that ordinary,
Speaker 1: peaceful transition of power, many argue, disrupts the normal constitutional
Speaker 1: order and thus puts him out of bounds, puts him
Speaker 1: in almost like this own suiurus category of unacceptability. That
Speaker 1: Trump is uniquely unacceptable because what he tried to do
Speaker 1: after the election violated this very basic foundational mechanism that
Speaker 1: we have to have if this American Republic experiment is
Speaker 1: going to work. That people who lose elections, even if
Speaker 1: they're in a position of power, have to be able
Speaker 1: to give that up. He tried to have his vice
Speaker 1: president manipulate the system in order to keep him in
Speaker 1: power even though he had lost. That's the interpretation of
Speaker 1: the events of January sixth. Now, I think the question
Speaker 1: gets more complicated if you say, well, what if some
Speaker 1: of the election results really were fraudulent? What if there
Speaker 1: was some evidence but not conclusive evidence, what if you know,
Speaker 1: we can have those, We can go on and on
Speaker 1: and on with those discussions. But that's the interpretation of
Speaker 1: why Trump's conduct on January sixth was so bad. That basically,
Speaker 1: we have this very critically important norm that relies on
Speaker 1: people doing the right thing. That if people don't do
Speaker 1: the right thing within this structure, basically the whole structure
Speaker 1: of American governance is going to fall apart.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I think President Biden's court packing system, and this is
Speaker 1: court packing. This is court packing by another name. Even
Speaker 1: if you go back and look at President Roosevelt, the
Speaker 1: classic case of court packing was when President Roosevelt, having
Speaker 1: just won a massive electoral victory in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: He had overwhelmingly been re elected president. His Democrats had
Speaker 1: been elected to astonishing majorities in both houses of Congress,
Speaker 1: over two thirds majorities both houses of Congress. They could
Speaker 1: do whatever they wanted. Roosevelt was getting stymied time and
Speaker 1: again by the Supreme Court, who was resistant to some
Speaker 1: of his New Deal policies and kept ruling them unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: So Roosevelt proposed this idea that once justices got over
Speaker 1: a certain age, I think the age was seventy, that
Speaker 1: they could stay on in a kind of senior status,
Speaker 1: but that the president would have the opportunity to appoint
Speaker 1: additional justices. And there were six members of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court at that time who were over the age of seventy,
Speaker 1: and it would have if the law had passed, Roosevelt
Speaker 1: would have been able to nominate six Supreme Court justices. Now,
Speaker 1: it would have been really hilarious if Joe Biden tried
Speaker 1: to impose an upper range age limit for Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justices now. But the critical thing is what changing the
Speaker 1: rules for Supreme Court membership in order to change the
Speaker 1: ideological makeup of the court and thereby the outcomes. It's
Speaker 1: precisely what Roosevelt was doing. Biden's doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: He's proposing doing the same thing, and Harris in turn
Speaker 1: is supporting it, and all the Democrats, the whole Democrat Party,
Speaker 1: completely on board with this, which is a critical difference
Speaker 1: between that and January sixth. By the way, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any agreement among Republicans about the events of
Speaker 1: January sixth. I think there are some Trump people who
Speaker 1: one hundred percent believe Mike Pence should have stopped it,
Speaker 1: and I think there are a ton of people who think, no,
Speaker 1: Mike Pence wasn't doing anything wrong by not certifying those
Speaker 1: election results. Frankly, there's a bigger discussion about whether the
Speaker 1: vice president really has anything other than a ceremonial role
Speaker 1: with regards to that, and even if the vice president
Speaker 1: didn't certify those election results, blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Anyway, total unanimity on the Democrats side for
Speaker 1: creating term limits for the Court. Now, there are so
Speaker 1: many things wrong with this. One is the idea of
Speaker 1: you can't do this with normal legislation. Okay, you can
Speaker 1: create additional seats on the court. You can change the
Speaker 1: number of Supreme Court justices if you wanted by a
Speaker 1: simple law. The number of justices on the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is not defined in the Constitution itself. The Constitution doesn't
Speaker 1: say there will be nine justices on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Congress has over the course of centuries changed the number
Speaker 1: of justices who serve on the Supreme Court, and we've
Speaker 1: been stuck at nine since I think since a little
Speaker 1: after the Civil War. I think it was around eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy that they said it at nine. But the terms
Speaker 1: of service of Supreme Court justices are set by the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justices serve during good behavior. Is the exact
Speaker 1: quote good behavior, which means there's no term limit. They
Speaker 1: serve for life, for life, or until they resign. So
Speaker 1: there's no term limit on Supreme Court justices. And that's
Speaker 1: in the Constitution itself. So you can't all of a
Speaker 1: sudden give them an eighteen year term limit just by
Speaker 1: a statute passed by the House. It passed by the
Speaker 1: House and passed by the Senate and signed by the President.
Speaker 1: You can't do that. You would need a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 1: And let's recall, amending the Constitution is insanely difficult. It
Speaker 1: takes the two thirds majorities in both houses of Congress
Speaker 1: plus three quarters of all the state legislatures, which Democrats
Speaker 1: know they can't get. So I would say this is
Speaker 1: an enormous attack on the integrity of the courts, the
Speaker 1: independence of the courts. Why because it becomes purely, rawly
Speaker 1: something that's part of the political spoils and a raw
Speaker 1: effort to reshape the judiciary, reshape the law. Because you
Speaker 1: are losing elections the terms with which Roosevelt's proposal was
Speaker 1: rejected in nineteen after the nineteen thirty six elections, when
Speaker 1: Roosevelt proposed his court packing scheme, the Democrats in his
Speaker 1: own fellow Democrats in Congress rejected it and said, basically,
Speaker 1: this is a totalitarian act to bring the judiciary, which
Speaker 1: is supposed to be independent, under the control of the
Speaker 1: executive and legislative branches, and purely to turn the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court into the spoils of war. This is the spoils
Speaker 1: of politics. It takes away any sort of sense of
Speaker 1: the judiciary as an independent thing that's out on its own,
Speaker 1: that isn't accountable to the vagaries of politics. Lifetime appointment
Speaker 1: gives you a certain sense of invulnerability because you are invulnerable.
Speaker 2: You have your job. That's it.
Speaker 1: Framewars of the Constitution were very hyper cautious and aware
Speaker 1: about people's jobs and people having their jobs, and when
Speaker 1: a legal change happens such that someone no longer has
Speaker 1: a job, that that's a problem. You're hyper aware of that.
Speaker 1: So that the notion. So, by the way, it renders
Speaker 1: ridiculous that the liberal notion, which apparently Lawrence Tribe and
Speaker 1: Joe Biden cooked this up, when they when Biden was
Speaker 1: trying to workshop this proposal, Lawrence Tribe, the retired law
Speaker 1: professor at Howard Law School, that, oh, well, they can
Speaker 1: serve for eighteen years of Supreme Court justices and then
Speaker 1: and then you know, they get to go down and.
Speaker 2: Be you know, circuit court judges after that.
Speaker 1: So so they still get to serve in good behavior,
Speaker 1: you know, as if being a circuit court job isn't
Speaker 1: a demotion, I mean, which it clearly is. It's a demotion.
Speaker 1: So you you're losing this big job for a lesser job.
Speaker 1: Like the idea that the framers of the Constitution would
Speaker 1: be okay with that is preposterous. This is a fundamental shift.
Speaker 1: If this Biden Harris policy happens, it would be a
Speaker 1: fundamental shift in American governance. And I think it would
Speaker 1: start a constitutional crisis. And when we return, I will
Speaker 1: explain how I think it would start a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 2: That's next on the John Girardy Show.
Speaker 1: So here's the scenario I haven't heard anyone talk about
Speaker 1: if this Harris Biden court packing scheme actually comes to pass.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is a proposed law that
Speaker 1: Biden has rolled out, and that Harris is embracing to
Speaker 1: put eighteen year term limits on Supreme Court justices. Every
Speaker 1: two years, a Supreme Court justice would roll off. Every
Speaker 1: president would get to Supreme Court picks. But presumably it
Speaker 1: would retro effect. Most likely the three longest serving justices
Speaker 1: on the Court. Clarence Thomas has been on the court
Speaker 1: for like thirty years, John Robert, who long and then
Speaker 1: John Roberts and Sam Alito, both of whom joined the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court at least eighteen years ago. This year is
Speaker 1: sam Alito's eighteenth year. So presumably this isn't getting passed.
Speaker 1: If this bill passes, it's not going to be passed
Speaker 1: in this Congress. It would be passed assuming Harris wins
Speaker 1: and assuming Democrats take control of the House. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the three people who would be impacted by this immediately
Speaker 1: are Thomas, Roberts, Alito. Let's say this law passes majority
Speaker 1: in the House, Democrats break the fill of uster, and
Speaker 1: the Senate pass it in the Senate, and President Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: the very idea makes one's skin crawl, signs it into law.
Speaker 1: So by the terms of that laws out, Roberts is out,
Speaker 1: Alito is out, and Harris would get to nominate their
Speaker 1: replacements right away. What if Roberts and Thomas and Alito,
Speaker 1: and I could one hundred percent see all three of
Speaker 1: them doing this, including Roberts. By the way, Like I know,
Speaker 1: Roberts is kind of squishy on a lot of things,
Speaker 1: But if there's one thing Roberts is, he's an institutionalist.
Speaker 1: And I think if there's been anything that has been
Speaker 1: causing Roberts to moderate his positions over the last several years,
Speaker 1: I think the two things have been. One, that fact
Speaker 1: that he despises Donald Trump, or the very reasonable suspicion
Speaker 1: anyway that he despises Donald Trump. But two, I think
Speaker 1: Roberts has been terrified precisely of this. I think Roberts
Speaker 1: has been terrified of the idea that the Court's institutional
Speaker 1: standing in the eyes of political partisans is so badly
Speaker 1: impacted that they might try something radical to attack the
Speaker 1: integrity of the Court itself, like court packing. So I
Speaker 1: think for Roberts, this is the absolute worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: What if Democrats pass this law and Roberts, Alito, and
Speaker 1: Thomas refuse to vacate their offices. What if all three
Speaker 1: of them say absolutely not you can't impose term limits
Speaker 1: on Supreme Court justices by a normal statute. This is
Speaker 1: our job that we hold according to Article three of
Speaker 1: the Constitution, quote in good behavior. That means until we're
Speaker 1: either impeached and removed, or we die or we resign.
Speaker 1: Until then, we're here and we're not going anywhere. President
Speaker 1: Harris sends the FBI to arrest them for trespass. I
Speaker 1: could see Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, certainly, and maybe
Speaker 1: even Roberts taking it that far and saying, you go
Speaker 1: ahead and arrest us. We're not going anywhere. And I
Speaker 1: could see them filing a lawsuit to say this law
Speaker 1: passed by Congress violates the US Constitution and violates our rights.
Speaker 1: At our rights, US three Supreme Court justices, we have
Speaker 1: a right to lifetime tenure. This law is unconstitutional and
Speaker 1: violates our right. And then that's gonna get adjudicated through
Speaker 1: the court system. So what happens who Obviously that'll have
Speaker 1: to get adjudicated all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So who rules on it? Do those three have to
Speaker 1: recuse themselves? What if Kamala Harris has appointed new Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices, do they get to take office space, do
Speaker 1: they get to serve Do they get to be on
Speaker 1: the court hearing that case? Do they get to be
Speaker 1: on the court hearing any cases? What if they don't
Speaker 1: recuse themselves? Guess what, that's the thing with Supreme Court justices.
Speaker 1: They kind of decide for themselves win. And if they
Speaker 1: recuse themselves. What if President Harris's new Supreme Court justices
Speaker 1: refuse to recuse themselves, they probably will. There are gonna
Speaker 1: be a bunch of liberals. They're going to be holding
Speaker 1: this job on the premise that President Harris's conduct was constitutional,
Speaker 1: that this law was constitutional. So you're gonna have six
Speaker 1: liberals deciding whether or not Chief Justice Roberts, I mean,
Speaker 1: you are setting the country up for a constitutional crisis
Speaker 1: where there's going to be a new majority on the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court that conservatives will rightly believe is unconstitutional, where
Speaker 1: you're going to have to take Clarence Thomas kicking and
Speaker 1: screaming out of his legitimately kicking and legitimately screaming because
Speaker 1: he would be one hundred percent right from office. So
Speaker 1: let me just ask, if you're going to fundamental if
Speaker 1: you're going to create a constitutional crisis like this, How
Speaker 1: are you respecting norms? How are you any better than
Speaker 1: your worst interpretation of what Donald Trump did? You think
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is wrecking? Look, if you want to take
Speaker 1: the approach that Donald Trump's actions on January sixth were
Speaker 1: a massive attack on the integrity of the executive branch,
Speaker 1: the peaceful transition of power in American politics, something that's
Speaker 1: very core to our republican system. Okay, I'll allow you
Speaker 1: to have that position, but you can't in the same
Speaker 1: breath say that you support this court packing system and
Speaker 1: doing it via a statute. It would create a fundamental
Speaker 1: constitutional crisis where people would not be sure who's actually
Speaker 1: legitimately on the Supreme Court and who's not it and
Speaker 1: fundamentally turning the Supreme Court purely into the spoils of politics.
Speaker 1: It is such a disastrous norm destroying an idea to
Speaker 1: do it via a statute. Look, if you want to
Speaker 1: do this, you've got to do it via a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 1: If you did it via constitutional amendment, I'm sure Thomas
Speaker 1: and Alito and Robert would think that it's a bad idea,
Speaker 1: but that's what the Constitution says now, and they would
Speaker 1: step aside. But they're not stepping aside for a statute.
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you that when we return, the naked
Speaker 1: political effort to reshift Fresno County elections and win those
Speaker 1: Fresne County elections happened. That is next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show. DeLaura is where To has been mad about
Speaker 1: Presne County elections. She's been mad about Presne County elections,
Speaker 1: She's been mad about Fresne County redistricting.
Speaker 2: De Laura's where To the.
Speaker 1: Person who kind of tries to act like she is
Speaker 1: a great civil rights leader because she was, I guess
Speaker 1: around at the same time as Caesar Chavez, but today
Speaker 1: is just a very run of the mill, milk toast
Speaker 1: liberal activist for just basic Democrat causes.
Speaker 2: That's all she is.
Speaker 1: And I think it's no surprise given her advocacy within
Speaker 1: Fresno County, specifically in her anger at like Fresno County
Speaker 1: supervisors being structured the way that they are. It seems
Speaker 1: like there are a number of state efforts looking particularly
Speaker 1: at Fresno County and Kerrent County. I think is maybe
Speaker 1: a little part of this, but mostly Fresno County because
Speaker 1: I think Fresno County is the largest county in California
Speaker 1: that has pretty conservative county government. Maybe Orange County is
Speaker 1: more so, but Fresno is certainly up there that it
Speaker 1: has pretty conservative county government. In spite of the fact
Speaker 1: that Fresno County broke for Joe Biden in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and broke for Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen. Fresno County
Speaker 1: is getting more and more liberal, but Fresno County government
Speaker 1: is not. The County Board of Supervisors is. Even though
Speaker 1: I don't think they run with partisan you know, labels
Speaker 1: on them, everyone kind of knows the deal. Actually, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about that, whether I need to look that up.
Speaker 1: Whether county supervisors run openly as Republican or Democrat, I
Speaker 1: don't think they do, but nonetheless everyone knows the score.
Speaker 1: There are three Republicans and two Democrats on the Fresno
Speaker 1: County Board of Supervisors. Lisa Smith Camp is very Republican
Speaker 1: leaning as the district attorney for Fresno County. It's a
Speaker 1: conservative leaning county government and that has annoyed and even
Speaker 1: I mean the frankly, even the Democrats on the County
Speaker 1: Board of Supervisors are pretty moderate leaning. Brian Pataiko and
Speaker 1: Salcintero are hardly you know, Loraina Gonzalez esque, you know,
Speaker 1: left wing fire breathers. So there is a fight happening now.
Speaker 1: The Attorney General's Office in California, under Rob Bonta, who
Speaker 1: is died in the wool liberal and obviously aware of
Speaker 1: Fresno County, is more conservative government and dislikes it, has
Speaker 1: filed a lawsuit against Fresno County. And this has to
Speaker 1: do with a twenty twenty two ballot initiative that was
Speaker 1: passed that changes a bit the cycle for when Fresno
Speaker 1: County elections happen, so.
Speaker 2: Basically it results.
Speaker 1: It was this Fresno County Measure A, and the idea
Speaker 1: behind Measure A is that it shifts elections for the
Speaker 1: sheriff and the district attorney to non presidential years. I
Speaker 1: think up to this point, elections for the district attorney
Speaker 1: and sheriff's offices have happened during election presidential election years,
Speaker 1: so twenty twenty, twenty twenty four, et cetera, and it's
Speaker 1: going to shift them to non presidential election years.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The way that this is being messaged by the Attorney
Speaker 1: General's Office is that Fresno County is attempting to engage
Speaker 1: in voter suppression, voter suppression by not having these elections
Speaker 1: during presidential year cycles. So they passed Presno County passed
Speaker 1: Measure A, and one of the effects of it is
Speaker 1: that it extended terms of office for the sheriff and
Speaker 1: for the sheriff and the DA by two years. So
Speaker 1: Lisa Smith Camp basically was winding up. She was going
Speaker 1: to serve a six year term basically because the elections
Speaker 1: for sheriff and DA were in presidential cycles. Now we're
Speaker 1: shifting them to non presidential cycles. So twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, twenty thirty, et cetera. The Attorney General's
Speaker 1: Office is saying that's voter suppression because there's less turnout
Speaker 1: in off your elections, and so Fresno County is trying
Speaker 1: to suppress the vote, to manipulate people so they can't
Speaker 1: vote for DA and so that they can't vote for
Speaker 1: DA and they can't vote for sheriff and blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, to which Fresno County responds, well, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about. This isn't voter suppression. No One
Speaker 1: is not allowed to vote. Lots of people voting off
Speaker 1: your elections. The governor's race happens in and off your election.
Speaker 1: Is that a violation of democracy? To have the governor's
Speaker 1: race happen during off year cycles. The governor gets elected.
Speaker 1: We just had a governor's election in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Governor's election. It happens every four years. It's always on
Speaker 1: the off years. It's in you two, twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty, et cetera. Is that violating principles of democracy?
Speaker 1: Is that voter suppression? Why is it voter suppression for
Speaker 1: Fresno County to have their elections in an off year
Speaker 1: rather than during a presidential year? And they talked about
Speaker 1: look some of the issues that impact local government. They
Speaker 1: can wind up getting swallowed into more general discussions about
Speaker 1: what's happening in a presidential cycle. We think it's better
Speaker 1: to have these in an off year. Now, those are
Speaker 1: sort of the policy arguments back and forth where I
Speaker 1: find the liberal policy arguments to be absurd. I think
Speaker 1: liberals sort of suspect and maybe they're absurd on both sides.
Speaker 1: I think liberals suspect that they would have a better
Speaker 1: shot at getting a more liberal leaning person elected as
Speaker 1: the DA and elected as the sheriff of Fresnoe County.
Speaker 1: If those elections were held in presidentidential years, why, Well,
Speaker 1: on the theory that you know, again, Fresno County voted
Speaker 1: for Joe Biden in twenty twenty, Joe Biden won Fresno County.
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton won Fresnoe County in twenty sixteen. So I
Speaker 1: think the theory is, well, if you get all those
Speaker 1: presidential election voters to vote for sheriff and to vote
Speaker 1: for DA, then maybe we could get Democrats elected to
Speaker 1: those positions. And maybe Republicans are thinking the opposite. Holy cow,
Speaker 1: well twenty six you know, twenty sixteen and twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton won. If all those same people vote for
Speaker 1: sheriff and you know, vote for DA, maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: liberals elected. So maybe let's have this in the off
Speaker 1: your cycles. I don't know, but that's the political arguments.
Speaker 1: The thing that I'm a little bit more focused on
Speaker 1: is the legal argument. Now Bonta is saying Fresno County
Speaker 1: can't do this. We set a state law that that
Speaker 1: clearly lays out that county governments have to have these
Speaker 1: elections during presidential years president county can't have passed a
Speaker 1: county wide ordinance to accept themselves from that rule. And
Speaker 1: this is kind of a basic principle by the way
Speaker 1: of of state law in California, but it's basically state
Speaker 1: law everywhere else. County governments in most states, county government
Speaker 1: is rarely this free, floating entity of its own that
Speaker 1: has the ability to create law that is distinct and
Speaker 1: different from state law. County governments are all creatures of
Speaker 1: state law. So they only have the ability a county
Speaker 1: board of supervisors or a city government, any local government.
Speaker 1: They only can play within the parameters set for them
Speaker 1: by state law. Okay, so they are creatures of state government.
Speaker 1: The state says, all right, here are the parameters. Within
Speaker 1: these parameters. County, You're allowed to pass laws governing yourselves
Speaker 1: in this way, in this way, in this way, but
Speaker 1: you cannot violate. You cannot. You don't get exceptions from
Speaker 1: ordinary state law. Now the state is saying, we passed
Speaker 1: this law, counties have to abide by it. Fresno County
Speaker 1: is saying, no, that state law as applied to us
Speaker 1: is unconstitutional. I guess apparently, And this is a new
Speaker 1: thing for me, I did not realize this. There are
Speaker 1: two kinds of counties in California. You have charter counties,
Speaker 1: they're about fourteen of them, and you have normal counties, okay,
Speaker 1: And the charter counties had exceptions to this state law
Speaker 1: regarding the timing of sheriff and DA elections. They had
Speaker 1: exceptions for charter counties. If charter counties had different stuff
Speaker 1: on the books for when their elections would be held,
Speaker 1: they could have it. Now the state is saying, no,
Speaker 1: that provision doesn't apply to you. Fresnoe County, you didn't
Speaker 1: have You changed this in twenty twenty two, and that
Speaker 1: state law came into effect in twenty twenty one. Fresno
Speaker 1: County is saying, well, then that law is unconstitutional. If
Speaker 1: you're making exceptions for some you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: You either have to apply for everybody or nobody. So
Speaker 1: this is going to result in a legal fight. But
Speaker 1: I I think this is an interesting phenomenon, and when
Speaker 1: we return, I want to talk about this is something
Speaker 1: I've predicted. Could we see a return are the arrival
Speaker 1: rather of George Soros esque super liberal law enforcement coming
Speaker 1: to the president County DIA's office that is next on
Speaker 1: the John Girardi Show. A lot of times liberals will
Speaker 1: try to act like this is antisemitic, anti Semitic, conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorizing in spite of the fact that George Soros has
Speaker 1: openly written about this, that this is a thing he
Speaker 1: does and wants to do, and it's very obviously clear
Speaker 1: from just looking at political contributions that this is precisely
Speaker 1: what he does. George Soros wanted to radically reshape American
Speaker 1: criminal law, an American criminal law enforcement, and the way
Speaker 1: he realized he could do that incredibly effectively. You know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to try to reshape a state legislature
Speaker 1: entirely and get all these people elected to enact soft
Speaker 1: on crime policies. What Soros realized was district attorney races
Speaker 1: are even in huge areas like Manhattan. You know, the
Speaker 1: Manhattan District Attorney's race would have a turnout of like
Speaker 1: eighty thousand voters, you know, for a place that had
Speaker 1: how many people live in Manhattan itself, well over a million,
Speaker 1: and that the amount of money spent on DA races,
Speaker 1: even in incredibly populated areas, was relatively small. These were
Speaker 1: elections where people don't really exactly know much about the
Speaker 1: specifics people would run for DA who had kind of
Speaker 1: more technical expertise. It's always lawyers. Usually it's prosecutors. And
Speaker 1: Soros realized, well, if I flood those races with if
Speaker 1: I give a million dollars to a super pack that's
Speaker 1: going to endorse a super left wing prosecutor, I get
Speaker 1: that person installed, and that person can use prosecutorial discretion
Speaker 1: to fundamentally reshape criminal law, enforce Smith by basically just
Speaker 1: deciding not to prosecute whole swaths, whole categories of crimes.
Speaker 1: And that's precisely what happened. A lot of das were
Speaker 1: elected around the country, some with Soros support, many with
Speaker 1: Soross support, who have adopted this sort of Chase Abudin approach.
Speaker 1: George gascon Chase Abudin Alvin Bragg in Manhattan approach to
Speaker 1: criminal law enforcement, where they're basically focused on equity, equity
Speaker 1: of outcomes, that there are a bunch of crimes where
Speaker 1: African Americans are prosecuted disproportionately, and so we're just not
Speaker 1: going to prosecute those crimes very much, or we're gonna
Speaker 1: knock felonies down to misdemeanors or we're just not going
Speaker 1: to charge misdemeanors, et cetera, et cetera. This is how
Speaker 1: you get the phenomenon in San Francisco where people walk
Speaker 1: into you know, cvs with their cell phone calculator out,
Speaker 1: they add up the price of all the things they've stolen,
Speaker 1: they make sure it's under the felony threshold, and then
Speaker 1: they just walk right out the door because they know
Speaker 1: they're not going to get prosecuted for misdemean or shoplifting
Speaker 1: as long as they're one cent under the misdemeanor to
Speaker 1: fell any level. Well, I've long wondered. Fresno is a
Speaker 1: pretty big city in California, and Presno County is a
Speaker 1: pretty big county. At some point, is that kind of
Speaker 1: push for ultra left wing prosecutor, for an ultra left
Speaker 1: wing prosecutor, is that going to come to Presne County?
Speaker 1: I realize Lisa Smithcamp is pretty popular. People don't even
Speaker 1: bother running against her, But is that coming someday that
Speaker 1: someone will all of a sudden be running against Lisa
Speaker 1: Smith Camp and they're going to have a war chest
Speaker 1: of you know, a couple million dollars.
Speaker 2: I could see it.
Speaker 1: It's a big city, it's one of the biggest cities
Speaker 1: in California.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty big county. I think I think that's coming.
Speaker 1: And if Democrats get to move the DA elections back
Speaker 1: into presidential years, I think they that's why they want
Speaker 1: that to happen. That's why they're fighting against the county
Speaker 1: and the county's efforts to have DA.
Speaker 2: Elections in off year cycles. That'll do it for the
Speaker 2: John Gerardy Show. See you next time on Power Talk.