# Challenge to New York City's Only Republican House Seat

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 29 Oct 2025, 31 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/78dfe8c6-0672-4549-980f-b385017aa2de/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School and director of the New York Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute, discusses a lawsuit challenging New York City’s only Republican house seat. Erik Larson, Bloomberg legal reporter, discusses President Trump’s appeal of his New York hush money conviction. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Donald Trump has unleashed this unprecedented jerry mandering on the country.
[0:14] Speaker 2: We've never seen anything like this.
[0:16] Speaker 3: President Donald Trump's push for Republicans to redraw US House
[0:21] Speaker 3: districts ahead of next year's midterm elections has triggered unprecedented
[0:26] Speaker 3: mid decade gerrymandering, starting with the states of Texas, Missouri,
[0:31] Speaker 3: and North Carolina, where Republicans have already drawn seven new
[0:36] Speaker 3: GOP leaning House seats, but Democratic states, led by California,
[0:41] Speaker 3: are fighting back or trying to because redistricting in many
[0:47] Speaker 3: Blue states is hampered by independent redistricting commissions or state
[0:52] Speaker 3: bans on mid decade redistricting. House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries
[0:58] Speaker 3: went to Illinois this week to try to convince Democrats
[1:01] Speaker 3: there to redraw their maps.
[1:04] Speaker 2: Donald Trump and Republicans have decided that they were going
[1:07] Speaker 2: to try to gerrymander congressional maps all across the country
[1:11] Speaker 2: as part of their effort to rig the midterm elections
[1:15] Speaker 2: and deny the American people the ability to decide who
[1:20] Speaker 2: should hold the gavels. In the aftermath of the elections
[1:25] Speaker 2: that will take place in November of twenty twenty six.
[1:28] Speaker 2: Democrats have made clear that we are going to respond
[1:32] Speaker 2: as is being done in California right now, appropriately, immediately,
[1:39] Speaker 2: and forcefully.
[1:41] Speaker 3: The latest salvo in the national gerrymandering battle comes from
[1:46] Speaker 3: New York City. In a lawsuit by a group of
[1:49] Speaker 3: New York voters against the New York State Board of
[1:51] Speaker 3: Elections and top state officials. It claims that the congressional
[1:56] Speaker 3: district held by New York City's only Republican represent native
[2:01] Speaker 3: is impermissibly drawn to shut out black and Latino voters.
[2:06] Speaker 3: My guest is Jeffrey Weiss, a professor at New York
[2:09] Speaker 3: Law School who directs the school's New York Elections, Census
[2:13] Speaker 3: and Redistricting Institute. Jeff tell us about this lawsuit that's
[2:18] Speaker 3: challenging New York's eleventh congressional district.
[2:22] Speaker 4: Well, we have a new lawsuit filed earlier this week
[2:26] Speaker 4: by a group of New York voters who are arguing
[2:29] Speaker 4: that the current congressional district that includes Staten Island and
[2:35] Speaker 4: parts of Brooklyn di loots a minority voting strength, that
[2:39] Speaker 4: the black and Hispanic voters' power is diminished by the
[2:44] Speaker 4: way the district is drawn now, and that they would
[2:47] Speaker 4: have a much more effective voice in the ability to
[2:50] Speaker 4: elect a preferred candidate if parts of Manhattan were appended
[2:55] Speaker 4: to the district instead of Brooklyn. That, in essence, is
[2:58] Speaker 4: what the lawsuit is is looking for.
[3:01] Speaker 3: Is this an unusual lawsuit.
[3:03] Speaker 4: It's unusual in the sense that's being brought mid decade. Obviously,
[3:08] Speaker 4: it's got political connotations that it would change the dynamic
[3:12] Speaker 4: of who's running for re election in New York, that
[3:15] Speaker 4: current Republican congress Member Nicole Meliotacus would find herself no
[3:20] Speaker 4: longer in conservative white areas in Brooklyn, but rather parts
[3:25] Speaker 4: of Lower Manhattan. That it would be a district where
[3:28] Speaker 4: the Democrats are expected to do a lot better. It's
[3:31] Speaker 4: also a district where Dan Goldman, who is the incumbent
[3:35] Speaker 4: now in a district that includes Manhattan and Brooklyn, we
[3:40] Speaker 4: probably find himself in better territory and also probably stave
[3:45] Speaker 4: off a primary challenge within the Democratic Party from several
[3:49] Speaker 4: Brooklyn elected officials who have indicated their intent to run
[3:54] Speaker 4: against him in a primary.
[3:56] Speaker 3: Is the Democratic Party behind this lawsuit?
[3:58] Speaker 4: Well, the case is being brought by two law firms.
[4:02] Speaker 4: The lead firm is the Elias Law Group based in Washington,
[4:05] Speaker 4: d C. And that firm has been in existence for
[4:08] Speaker 4: about a decade or less, but their work is primarily
[4:11] Speaker 4: on behalf of Democrats and the National Democratic Party committees.
[4:16] Speaker 4: There's also a New York law firm involved as Local
[4:19] Speaker 4: Council and they've been involved with political campaign litigation for
[4:24] Speaker 4: quite some time as well.
[4:25] Speaker 3: Is this lawsuit different because it's based on the New
[4:29] Speaker 3: York State Constitution so well test how protective the state
[4:33] Speaker 3: constitution is of minority voting rights rather than the US Constitution.
[4:41] Speaker 4: Well, this claim is based on the state constitutional protections
[4:45] Speaker 4: that redistricting maps have to honor minority voting strain that
[4:50] Speaker 4: you cannot dilute minority voters from their ability to elect
[4:55] Speaker 4: preferred candidates, and the state constitution uses very similar language
[5:00] Speaker 4: to the Federal Voting Rights Act, which happens to be
[5:04] Speaker 4: subject to a challenge now from the Louisiana Congressional redistricting
[5:09] Speaker 4: before the US Supreme Court. The validity the future of
[5:13] Speaker 4: the Federal Voting Rights Act was heard in a case
[5:16] Speaker 4: two weeks ago, and we expect any time from the
[5:19] Speaker 4: end of this year, but more likely by the end
[5:22] Speaker 4: of June, for the Supreme Court to hand down a
[5:25] Speaker 4: decision where most of us think they're going to do
[5:28] Speaker 4: something to change the dynamic of the Voting Rights Act,
[5:31] Speaker 4: but not eliminated entirely. But that's reading the tea leaves
[5:35] Speaker 4: too much.
[5:37] Speaker 3: Well, your prediction there fits in with the predictions of
[5:40] Speaker 3: other election law experts. So let's say the Supreme Court
[5:45] Speaker 3: does change the Voting Rights Act in some way. Will
[5:49] Speaker 3: that affect the New York Constitution?
[5:52] Speaker 4: Well, it could affect the state Constitution to the extent
[5:55] Speaker 4: of what the Supreme Court might limit. Right now. The
[5:59] Speaker 4: gold stand in vote dilution is Section two of the
[6:04] Speaker 4: Voting Rights Act, and the Supreme Court adopted a test
[6:09] Speaker 4: in the mid nineteen eighties in a North Carolina case
[6:12] Speaker 4: called Thornberg versus Jingles, where a challenging minority group has
[6:18] Speaker 4: to demonstrate to a court that, if it claims it
[6:21] Speaker 4: should have an effective minority district, you've got to have
[6:25] Speaker 4: fifty percent or more of a district being comprised of
[6:29] Speaker 4: a minority voters. Second, you have to show that the
[6:32] Speaker 4: minority voters vote cohesively pretty much the same way for
[6:36] Speaker 4: similar candidates. And third, most importantly, you've got to show
[6:41] Speaker 4: that there is a high level of racially polarized voting,
[6:45] Speaker 4: where white voters constantly outvote minority voters' abilities to elect
[6:51] Speaker 4: preferred candidates in primaries or general elections. So if you
[6:54] Speaker 4: meet those three prongs, size, cohesiveness, and polarized votvoting, then
[7:00] Speaker 4: you have a Voting Rights Act violation situation. And the
[7:04] Speaker 4: Supreme Court is now being asked whether that test is
[7:08] Speaker 4: still a cojuent one to use now in the twenty
[7:11] Speaker 4: first century.
[7:13] Speaker 3: So, in this case, the black and Latino voters constitute
[7:17] Speaker 3: nearly a quarter of the voting population in that congressional district.
[7:24] Speaker 3: Is that enough? Then?
[7:25] Speaker 4: Well, what the plaintiffs are doing here. They're challenging the
[7:29] Speaker 4: map based on the state constitution, but they're trying to
[7:31] Speaker 4: incorperate the New York State Voting Rights Act, which was
[7:35] Speaker 4: enacted by the legislature in twenty twenty two. The State
[7:39] Speaker 4: Voting Rights Act does not apply to congressional districts, but
[7:43] Speaker 4: it does lay out different kinds of criteria and standards
[7:47] Speaker 4: that courts should look to when looking at vote dilution
[7:52] Speaker 4: claims in counties, towns, cities, and villages. So they're saying
[7:56] Speaker 4: that there is similar preamble language in vote the state
[8:00] Speaker 4: constitution and the state Voting Rights Ack, that it makes
[8:04] Speaker 4: a lot of sense to also incorporate the state statue
[8:09] Speaker 4: standards into the state constitutional situation. And that will probably
[8:15] Speaker 4: be one of the first arguments that I think intervening
[8:18] Speaker 4: Republicans will make to dismiss this case is that the
[8:21] Speaker 4: state voting rightsack doesn't apply. What the plaintiffs are doing
[8:25] Speaker 4: here is using these state voting rights SACK criteria that
[8:28] Speaker 4: unlike federal law, where you need to have a district
[8:31] Speaker 4: of at least fifty percent plus minority voter population that
[8:37] Speaker 4: you can combine let's say fifteen or twenty percent of
[8:42] Speaker 4: combined voters let's say black and Hispanic, the federal voting
[8:46] Speaker 4: right sack requires the fifty percent pretty much of one
[8:49] Speaker 4: racial group, be the black or Hispanic oraasion. But the
[8:53] Speaker 4: state law permits you to aggregate or put together smaller
[8:57] Speaker 4: communities of let's say Black populations, And that, in essence
[9:02] Speaker 4: is what they're looking to do by adding a part
[9:06] Speaker 4: of Manhattan to the Staten Island based district. And I'll
[9:11] Speaker 4: just mention also that the Hispanic population in Lower Manhattan
[9:16] Speaker 4: is not adjacent to South ferry right at the foot
[9:19] Speaker 4: of Manhattan Island by the New York Harbor. It's considerably
[9:23] Speaker 4: north there, so you'd have to take Staten Island, take
[9:27] Speaker 4: the Staten Island ferry over to Manhattan and drive up
[9:31] Speaker 4: aways basically up to the Brooklyn Bridge, where you have
[9:34] Speaker 4: an Hispanic population in the lower east side up to
[9:38] Speaker 4: about fourteenth Street. And that raises the question of whether
[9:41] Speaker 4: race is the predominant factor in creating this district, because
[9:46] Speaker 4: that runs against what the Supreme Court has said about
[9:49] Speaker 4: racial garry mandering, which is subject to strict scrutiny and
[9:54] Speaker 4: has to be narrowly tailored to remedy specific problems. So
[9:58] Speaker 4: the plaintiffstrict have to demonstrate to the court why a
[10:02] Speaker 4: district that constitutes Staten Island and parts of over Manhattan
[10:07] Speaker 4: makes sense, as if a lot.
[10:09] Speaker 3: Of these new districts make sense. So Melia Takis said,
[10:14] Speaker 3: it's a frivolous lawsuit trying to upend our congressional district.
[10:18] Speaker 3: And she noted that the current map was approved by
[10:21] Speaker 3: New York's Democratic controlled state legislature and democratic governor. Does
[10:27] Speaker 3: she have the advantage here? In other words, is this
[10:30] Speaker 3: an uphill battle for the Democrats.
[10:33] Speaker 4: Yeah, the clock is ticking. The State Supreme Court only
[10:36] Speaker 4: has two months to render a decision, which would take
[10:40] Speaker 4: us to mid to late December. Petitioning for the twenty
[10:44] Speaker 4: twenty sixth election cycle right now gets underway in late February,
[10:48] Speaker 4: so that leaves very little time for New York's midle
[10:52] Speaker 4: level appeals court, the Appellate Division, and then finally the
[10:56] Speaker 4: State Court of Appeals and already to hear this case.
[10:59] Speaker 4: And you can pretty much be sure that whoever objects
[11:02] Speaker 4: to this case, and I'm anticipating Republican interveners will strenuously
[11:07] Speaker 4: try to slow this case down and prevented from impacting
[11:10] Speaker 4: the twenty twenty six elections.
[11:13] Speaker 3: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
[11:15] Speaker 3: this conversation with New York law professor Jeffrey Weiss. We'll
[11:20] Speaker 3: take a look at the national redistricting picture. I'm June Grosso,
[11:24] Speaker 3: and you're listening to Bloomberg.
[11:28] Speaker 2: Democrats have made claire that we are going to respond
[11:32] Speaker 2: as is being done in California right now, appropriately, immediately
[11:39] Speaker 2: and forcefully to ensure that the national congressional map is
[11:46] Speaker 2: as fair as it can possibly be.
[11:49] Speaker 3: House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries was in Illinois this week
[11:54] Speaker 3: to try to convince Democratic lawmakers there to redraw the
[11:58] Speaker 3: state's maps. Comes as Democratic states, led by California, are
[12:03] Speaker 3: fighting against President Trump's push for Republicans to redraw US
[12:08] Speaker 3: House districts ahead of next year's midterm elections. But the
[12:13] Speaker 3: latest salvo in the national gerrymanderin battle comes from New
[12:17] Speaker 3: York City, in a lawsuit by a group of voters
[12:20] Speaker 3: claiming that the congressional district held by New York City's
[12:24] Speaker 3: only Republican representative is impermissibly drawn to shut out black
[12:29] Speaker 3: and Latino voters. I've been talking to Jeffrey Weiss, a
[12:33] Speaker 3: professor at New York Law School. Jeff, there was litigation
[12:37] Speaker 3: around the New York map for years. Tell us how
[12:41] Speaker 3: we got to this point.
[12:43] Speaker 4: Well, I think by twenty twenty four you know, after
[12:45] Speaker 4: a failed process in twenty twenty two where a state
[12:48] Speaker 4: commission that was approved by the voters twenty fourteen basically
[12:53] Speaker 4: imploded and subject to a court order, went back to
[12:56] Speaker 4: work and finished the job by January twenty twenty five.
[13:00] Speaker 4: For the legislature wanted to end this process, have a
[13:03] Speaker 4: new map for twenty twenty four actually a bipartisan map
[13:07] Speaker 4: with Republican support. So the map that was agreed to took
[13:12] Speaker 4: some strenuous effort early last year, and the case that's
[13:16] Speaker 4: been brought now you can consider somewhat Democrats challenging democrats.
[13:21] Speaker 3: I mean, is there any other effort underway in New
[13:24] Speaker 3: York State to redistrict.
[13:27] Speaker 4: Well, there is another approach. Earlier in the summer, the
[13:31] Speaker 4: Senate Deputy majority Leader and a member of the Assembly
[13:34] Speaker 4: introduced a resolution in the legislature that would permit New
[13:39] Speaker 4: York to rejow the district lines mid decade if and
[13:44] Speaker 4: only after any other state does the same thing in
[13:48] Speaker 4: mid decades. So since Texas already went ahead and mid
[13:52] Speaker 4: decade redistricted, this amendment would let New York also redistrict
[13:57] Speaker 4: mid decade. The state constitution right now prohibit that. But
[14:01] Speaker 4: the barrier to that is that, since the state constitution
[14:04] Speaker 4: now currently does bar mid decade redistricting, you have to
[14:08] Speaker 4: change the constitution, and to do that you need to
[14:11] Speaker 4: have an amendment go through two separately elected legislatures. So
[14:16] Speaker 4: the plan now is to pass something, whether it's the
[14:20] Speaker 4: amendment that was introduced earlier this summer or possibly a
[14:24] Speaker 4: more expansive amendment, but to do that next year and
[14:28] Speaker 4: then pass it again with the new legislature in twenty
[14:31] Speaker 4: twenty seven, so that the voters can then approve the
[14:34] Speaker 4: question and then enable the legislature to redraw a new
[14:38] Speaker 4: map for twenty twenty eight. This is similar to the
[14:41] Speaker 4: process that's getting underway this week in Virginia. The New
[14:44] Speaker 4: York situation is complicated in that we've got politics, personalities,
[14:50] Speaker 4: competing lawsuits, and the calendar all running against each other
[14:54] Speaker 4: at the same time.
[14:56] Speaker 3: How many seats has Trump already gotten through.
[14:59] Speaker 4: The rediscd well, I mean, the ballpark claims are that
[15:03] Speaker 4: there are five Democrats who were targeted in Texas, that
[15:07] Speaker 4: there was one Democrat targeted in Missouri, that there are
[15:11] Speaker 4: up to two Democrats targeted in Indiana, there is one
[15:15] Speaker 4: Democrat in Kansas, so that you know, they're really fighting
[15:19] Speaker 4: a state by state trench warfare, picking off one district
[15:23] Speaker 4: here or one district there. So it's really getting down
[15:27] Speaker 4: to a micro targeting that when you have a two
[15:30] Speaker 4: three four seat Republican majority that you're trying to overcome,
[15:35] Speaker 4: every single seat matters. In California, you've got another situation
[15:40] Speaker 4: where Democrats can possibly pick up five districts by weakening
[15:45] Speaker 4: or eliminating districts of five current Republicans, but that has
[15:49] Speaker 4: to go through two votes by the republic this year.
[15:52] Speaker 4: One is to amend the state constitution to get around
[15:56] Speaker 4: the state's own ban on mid decade districting and using
[16:00] Speaker 4: a commission to join the maps. Then secondly requesting the
[16:04] Speaker 4: voters actually approve a map that the legislature itself voted
[16:08] Speaker 4: on over the summer.
[16:10] Speaker 3: Is the redistricting done in Texas? Is it being challenged?
[16:15] Speaker 4: There are court cases challenging the Texas maps. There were
[16:19] Speaker 4: challenges filed almost the next day, but they may.
[16:22] Speaker 3: Not settle out before the election.
[16:24] Speaker 4: Texas and North Carolina have been in court over redistricting
[16:28] Speaker 4: for almost thirty years, consistently, always in court over this.
[16:32] Speaker 4: It's not one map, it's another.
[16:34] Speaker 3: Got to be a better way. So you mentioned Virginia.
[16:37] Speaker 3: What's happening in Virginia.
[16:39] Speaker 4: Well, in Virginia the Democrats control of the state legislature
[16:43] Speaker 4: with a Republican governor. But what's happening there is that Virginia,
[16:48] Speaker 4: like New York and like California, have bans on mid
[16:52] Speaker 4: decade redistricting. So Virginia is beginning today to consider a
[16:57] Speaker 4: state constitutional amendment to do the same thing I talked
[17:01] Speaker 4: about in New York, to allow the legislature itself to
[17:04] Speaker 4: draw a new map, subjects to approval by the voters.
[17:08] Speaker 4: That amendment also has to go through two separately elected legislatures,
[17:12] Speaker 4: so that you know, it's going to take at least
[17:14] Speaker 4: two years or three years in Virginia to do the
[17:17] Speaker 4: same thing that Democrats are trying to do in New York.
[17:20] Speaker 3: So that's not going to help the midterms what happens
[17:23] Speaker 3: in Virginia.
[17:24] Speaker 4: That's why the lawsuit that was filed earlier this week,
[17:27] Speaker 4: you know, it was aimed to impact the twenty twenty
[17:30] Speaker 4: six elections, but there's no guarantee if the case survives
[17:34] Speaker 4: through all of the trial levels, that will get resolved
[17:37] Speaker 4: before the twenty twenty six elections, and you know, may
[17:40] Speaker 4: stretch towards twenty twenty eight. But you know, it looks
[17:43] Speaker 4: now as if this battle isn't going to end until
[17:46] Speaker 4: twenty thirty.
[17:47] Speaker 3: Why is it that the Blue states have all these
[17:51] Speaker 3: restrictions like no mid decade redistricting, and the red states
[17:56] Speaker 3: don't seem to have it.
[17:57] Speaker 4: Well, two reasons. First is that there simply are more
[18:01] Speaker 4: states under Republican control than democratic and the second is
[18:06] Speaker 4: that a number of states passed new laws in the
[18:08] Speaker 4: last ten twenty years to create a more independent, transparent,
[18:13] Speaker 4: and open, voter involved redistricting process through commissions New York, California, Michigan, Colorado, Virginia,
[18:24] Speaker 4: just to name a few. The Republican states where we've
[18:27] Speaker 4: seen mid decade district things such as Texas, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas,
[18:33] Speaker 4: they don't have commissions or processes like the Blue states have.
[18:38] Speaker 4: And Democrats are now realizing that some of the reforms
[18:42] Speaker 4: they enacted over the years to make redistricting more transparent
[18:46] Speaker 4: haven't worked the way they should have, especially when you've
[18:49] Speaker 4: got a president who is looking at his victories and
[18:52] Speaker 4: states is a mandate to control their congressional delegations and
[18:55] Speaker 4: demand that the delegations represent his victory last year. This
[19:01] Speaker 4: is unprecedented in American history for presidents to get involved
[19:05] Speaker 4: in this minute power picking grab.
[19:07] Speaker 3: I use the word unprecedented nearly every day in this show.
[19:11] Speaker 3: So you have, you know, Republicans pushing, and then you
[19:15] Speaker 3: have like Democrats. The leader of the Maryland Senate is
[19:18] Speaker 3: rejecting the effort to redistrict there.
[19:22] Speaker 4: Well, you know, you also have Republicans in the Indiana
[19:25] Speaker 4: Senate pushing back. So in some states you've got Democrats
[19:30] Speaker 4: who are fighting back. In states you've got Republicans who
[19:33] Speaker 4: want to do what Donald Trump tells them to do
[19:37] Speaker 4: and believe this is in his best interest. And then
[19:39] Speaker 4: you have some Democrats and Republicans to are other states
[19:42] Speaker 4: who just say this is going too far, this is
[19:45] Speaker 4: not what we were elected to do, and we're not
[19:47] Speaker 4: going to go along with this.
[19:49] Speaker 3: Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries went to Illinois to try to
[19:54] Speaker 3: convince them there to redistrict.
[19:58] Speaker 4: Well, that's a state where democrats too can all the
[20:00] Speaker 4: governorship in both chambers of the legislature. But the map
[20:03] Speaker 4: that they enacted there after the twenty twenty census arguably
[20:08] Speaker 4: max is out democratic strength that you really can't draw
[20:12] Speaker 4: more democratic districts. But I don't think the ballgame is
[20:16] Speaker 4: over there yet. We have to wait and see, Yeah,
[20:18] Speaker 4: because you.
[20:19] Speaker 3: Think that you can't do it until they find some
[20:22] Speaker 3: strange way of.
[20:23] Speaker 4: Doing it, Like in Texas. In twenty nineteen, the US
[20:26] Speaker 4: Supreme Court held in a case called Route Show versus
[20:29] Speaker 4: common cause, that federal courts are not the place to
[20:33] Speaker 4: bring partisan garry mandering redistricting allegations, that there's no judicially
[20:40] Speaker 4: manageable standard by which to determine how much is too much,
[20:45] Speaker 4: and that it's best left to the states or Congress
[20:47] Speaker 4: to deal with it. So you've got states now. In particular,
[20:51] Speaker 4: we've seen the North Carolina and Pennsylvania state courts reject
[20:55] Speaker 4: partisan gerry manders, and ironically, in North Carolina, the state
[21:00] Speaker 4: Supreme Court went from a Democratic court to a Republican court.
[21:04] Speaker 4: They flipped there and now said that redistricting is perrymandering,
[21:08] Speaker 4: you know, is permissible in that state. So a lot
[21:11] Speaker 4: of this is determined, sadly by politics, not by law
[21:15] Speaker 4: or precedent. The North Carolina Supreme Court just did a
[21:18] Speaker 4: total flip on rejecting a congressional map and now accepting
[21:22] Speaker 4: it all in the last several years.
[21:25] Speaker 3: Is Colorado coming into the picture as well?
[21:28] Speaker 4: Colorado also has a commission in Bars on bid decay districting,
[21:33] Speaker 4: and I just haven't seen any action in Colorado yet,
[21:37] Speaker 4: But I think with national pressure on states one by one,
[21:40] Speaker 4: we just have to wait and see what happens. As
[21:42] Speaker 4: twenty twenty six approaches after.
[21:45] Speaker 3: The midterms, what are these, you know, states going to
[21:48] Speaker 3: look like. It's going to be all Republican states and
[21:50] Speaker 3: all Democratic states.
[21:52] Speaker 4: It seems, and that's why I think this will continue
[21:54] Speaker 4: till twenty thirty. Twenty twenty eight. Then we have twenty
[21:58] Speaker 4: thirty ahead of us, where the White House is already
[22:01] Speaker 4: trying to manipulate the way the census is conducted to
[22:05] Speaker 4: base the numbers on citizens and not on the whole
[22:09] Speaker 4: number of persons as the Constitution requires. So this is
[22:13] Speaker 4: a multifaceted battle.
[22:15] Speaker 3: We'll find out more about the situation in California after
[22:20] Speaker 3: election day. Voting concludes on Proposition fifty, which would create
[22:26] Speaker 3: parties in US House maps outside of normal once a
[22:30] Speaker 3: decade redistricting handled by an independent commission. Jeff thanks so
[22:37] Speaker 3: much for bringing to light all the different concerns and
[22:40] Speaker 3: permutations with redistricting. That's Professor Jeffrey Weiss of New York
[22:46] Speaker 3: Law School. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show,
[22:49] Speaker 3: We'll tell you what's in Donald Trump's appeal of his
[22:52] Speaker 3: New York hush money conviction. I'm June Grosso and you're
[22:56] Speaker 3: listening to Bloomberg. President Donald Trump formally appealed his conviction
[23:04] Speaker 3: in New York state so called hush money case this week,
[23:09] Speaker 3: arguing that the verdict was the result of a flawed
[23:12] Speaker 3: trial and a politically charged prosecution that sought to derail
[23:16] Speaker 3: his twenty twenty four presidential campaign. Trump's attorney said the
[23:21] Speaker 3: felony charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in April
[23:26] Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three were manufactured under a convoluted legal theory.
[23:31] Speaker 3: A jury of twelve New Yorkers found Trump guilty of
[23:35] Speaker 3: thirty four counts of falsifying business records to conceal a
[23:39] Speaker 3: hush money payment to a porn star on the eve
[23:42] Speaker 3: of the twenty sixteen election. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal
[23:46] Speaker 3: reporter Eric Larson. Eric, before we get to the appeal,
[23:50] Speaker 3: just remind us about the trial itself, right.
[23:55] Speaker 1: So, this was the so called hush money case that
[23:58] Speaker 1: was brought against Trump in twenty twenty three by the
[24:01] Speaker 1: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bradd. It accused him of falsifying
[24:07] Speaker 1: business records dozens of times to essentially conceal a payment
[24:13] Speaker 1: that was made to a porn star before the twenty
[24:16] Speaker 1: sixteen election in order to keep her quiet and keep
[24:20] Speaker 1: voters in the darkabouts that alleged conduct, and at a trial,
[24:26] Speaker 1: a jury of New Yorkers found Trump guilty on all
[24:30] Speaker 1: thirty four counts last year, that was just about six
[24:34] Speaker 1: months or so before the election.
[24:36] Speaker 3: There are several grounds in the appeal. Let's start with
[24:40] Speaker 3: the claim that the charges were manufactured under a convoluted
[24:45] Speaker 3: legal theory.
[24:46] Speaker 1: Right, So this is one of the arguments that Trump's
[24:49] Speaker 1: lawyers sort of that had been making all along, which
[24:51] Speaker 1: is that they didn't think that the alleged conducts well.
[24:55] Speaker 1: First of all, that they denied any at has been broken,
[24:58] Speaker 1: but they argued that the the business record violations were
[25:04] Speaker 1: just misdemeanors under New York law, and that the district
[25:08] Speaker 1: attorney had gone out of his way to sort of
[25:12] Speaker 1: create a felony by stacking all these these violations in
[25:17] Speaker 1: a way that then tied them to the furtherance of
[25:21] Speaker 1: violating another law, an election law. So they argue that
[25:25] Speaker 1: that sort of, you know, transformation of misdemeanors into a
[25:28] Speaker 1: felony through that legal theory was never done before that
[25:32] Speaker 1: they were really stretching their arguments to try to find
[25:34] Speaker 1: a way to make it a felony, And according to
[25:36] Speaker 1: this appeal brief that they filed this week, you know,
[25:39] Speaker 1: they said that all along the District Attorney's office had
[25:44] Speaker 1: struggled to find a case and initially couldn't build one
[25:48] Speaker 1: that was a felony, and that they really sort of,
[25:50] Speaker 1: you know, worked their way backwards to try to create
[25:54] Speaker 1: a felony case. According to to Trump's lawyers.
[25:57] Speaker 3: Well, another argument, which is about did you we are
[26:00] Speaker 3: hearing improper evidence uses a new term, I think presidential
[26:04] Speaker 3: evidentiary immunity. Right, I've never heard it before.
[26:09] Speaker 1: Well, that's because they're attributing that to the Supreme Court
[26:13] Speaker 1: ruling that had come out regarding presidential immunity. We all
[26:16] Speaker 1: remember this big ruling that said that presidents are immune
[26:21] Speaker 1: from criminal charges are related to conduct in office. So
[26:27] Speaker 1: they pointed to that president and said that because Trump
[26:32] Speaker 1: has immunity from official acts in office, that all of
[26:36] Speaker 1: his conduct around that is evidence that also can't be
[26:40] Speaker 1: used against him in court. So they argue that the
[26:44] Speaker 1: jury improperly heard as evidence in the hush money case
[26:48] Speaker 1: about some things he did while he was in office,
[26:50] Speaker 1: which he argues were official presidential acts related to how
[26:55] Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, he responded to the porn star's
[27:00] Speaker 1: allegations Doormy Daniels and denied those allegations and rather how
[27:05] Speaker 1: he worked with his lawyer at one of his lawyers
[27:07] Speaker 1: at the time, Michael Cohen, who went on to be
[27:08] Speaker 1: one of the witnesses against him. So basically, Trump argues
[27:13] Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff going on while he
[27:15] Speaker 1: was president and that the jury should not have heard
[27:17] Speaker 1: about it.
[27:18] Speaker 3: He also, and we heard this over and over during
[27:21] Speaker 3: the case about the judge, him complaining about the judge
[27:25] Speaker 3: that the judge should have recused himself from the case.
[27:29] Speaker 1: Right right. Trump did not hide his feelings about this judge.
[27:34] Speaker 1: He really thought that the judge was biased, made that
[27:37] Speaker 1: allegation plenty of times all along, and of course pointed
[27:40] Speaker 1: to the judge allegedly making donations Democrats and to an
[27:46] Speaker 1: anti GOP pack also that his daughter works for an
[27:52] Speaker 1: advertising firm that did business with Kamala Harris's campaign. So
[27:57] Speaker 1: because of these ties and these nations, Trump argued that
[28:02] Speaker 1: the judge could not be fair. And that argument also,
[28:06] Speaker 1: of course was made before trial and during trial, and
[28:09] Speaker 1: was repeatedly rejected. The judge, pointing to the strength of
[28:13] Speaker 1: the evidence and things like that to illustrate that his
[28:18] Speaker 1: arguments or his decisions and opinions were based on the
[28:21] Speaker 1: facts and not on any of his own opinions. So
[28:24] Speaker 1: again that was rejected repeatedly. But now we'll see what
[28:27] Speaker 1: an appeals court things.
[28:29] Speaker 3: So this is state court. He's also appealing in federal court, right.
[28:35] Speaker 1: So you might recall that there were some appeal filings
[28:39] Speaker 1: in regards to this verdict in federal court because Trump
[28:44] Speaker 1: had tried to move the case to federal court all along,
[28:47] Speaker 1: and tried to do so again after the verdict because
[28:50] Speaker 1: he argues that it never should have been in state
[28:52] Speaker 1: court because of the different federal questions that were raised.
[28:56] Speaker 1: That was repeatedly rejected by a federal judge in Manhattan,
[28:59] Speaker 1: by the way, but he has asked the Second Circuit
[29:03] Speaker 1: Appeals Court in Manhattan to revisit this issue. That was
[29:07] Speaker 1: an appeal track that was started earlier. So that clearly
[29:10] Speaker 1: Trump's defense team is prioritizing that that's appeal route, which
[29:15] Speaker 1: would get him faster to the Supreme Court as well.
[29:18] Speaker 1: So he's he's got a two track appeal going here.
[29:21] Speaker 4: Now.
[29:22] Speaker 3: Trump was successful in appealing the civil fraud conviction in
[29:28] Speaker 3: the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
[29:33] Speaker 1: Right, you know, he he did get a big win
[29:35] Speaker 1: there the president when that that massive nearly half billion
[29:38] Speaker 1: dollar penalty was overturned in then in New York States
[29:42] Speaker 1: civil fraud case. But courts that appeals court decision also
[29:47] Speaker 1: left and taxed the liability finding that Trump and his
[29:51] Speaker 1: company and his two adult sons had engaged in fraud.
[29:55] Speaker 1: So both sides of that case have appealed. We don't
[29:59] Speaker 1: know exactly how long that is going to take to
[30:02] Speaker 1: work its way through the courts. That they've appelled it
[30:05] Speaker 1: to New York State's highest court, so it's already a
[30:07] Speaker 1: little further along than this criminal case.
[30:09] Speaker 3: But now he hasn't been as successful against Egene Carroll.
[30:15] Speaker 4: Right.
[30:15] Speaker 1: He appealed the verdict in two cases that Egen Carroll filed.
[30:21] Speaker 1: She won both. One was the defamation case with an
[30:25] Speaker 1: eighty three million dollar penalty. The other was a defamation
[30:27] Speaker 1: and sexual abuse lawsuits file in her New York state
[30:31] Speaker 1: law with a five million dollar penalty. He appealed both
[30:35] Speaker 1: of those to the federal appeals court, and those verdicts
[30:38] Speaker 1: were both upheld.
[30:40] Speaker 3: These cases all seem like they happened a lifetime ago.
[30:44] Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Eric. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Eric Larson,
[30:49] Speaker 3: and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
[30:52] Speaker 3: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
[30:54] Speaker 3: our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
[30:58] Speaker 3: and at ww dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law,
[31:04] Speaker 3: And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
[31:07] Speaker 3: weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso
[31:11] Speaker 3: and you're listening to Bloomberg

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