# Redistricting Wars & Abortion Pill Access

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 4 May 2026, 35 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/8af440fd-0f2a-40ed-bf6d-b44001745268/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Jonathan Diaz, Director, Voting Advocacy and Partnerships at Campaign Legal Center, discusses the redistricting arms race set off by the Supreme Court’s decision eviscerating the landmark Voting Rights Act. Then Bloomberg Supreme Court Reporter Greg Stohr, discusses the Supreme Court temporarily pausing a lower court decision that would require patients to visit a healthcare provider in person to get a widely used abortion pill. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grosseol from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:09] Speaker 2: The Supreme Court's conservative majority handed Republicans their biggest victory
[0:15] Speaker 2: yet in the battle to control the House by gutting
[0:18] Speaker 2: the Voting Rights Act last Wednesday. The consequences are already
[0:23] Speaker 2: playing out as Republican led states try to pass new
[0:27] Speaker 2: maps to eliminate democratic health seats for the midterms. The
[0:31] Speaker 2: challenge is the timing, well after filing deadlines for this
[0:35] Speaker 2: year's primary elections, and in some cases, after those primary
[0:40] Speaker 2: elections have been held. In Louisiana, where the state's map
[0:44] Speaker 2: was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and the Calais Decision,
[0:49] Speaker 2: primary elections had already started and the governor's suspended House races,
[0:55] Speaker 2: so the legislature could draw a new map, But voters,
[0:58] Speaker 2: voting groups, and cares have filed multiple lawsuits in state
[1:02] Speaker 2: and federal courts to try to stop that process. Here's
[1:06] Speaker 2: Democratic Louisiana Congressman Cleo Fields.
[1:10] Speaker 1: But a governor and a Secretary of State to halt
[1:14] Speaker 1: the election in the middle of voting disenfranchised thousands of
[1:19] Speaker 1: voters in Louisiana, and to me is Unamerican and unconstitutional
[1:23] Speaker 1: in my view.
[1:24] Speaker 2: My guest is Jonathan Diaz, director of voting Advocacy in
[1:28] Speaker 2: Partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center. Jonathan, It's only been
[1:32] Speaker 2: five days since the Supreme Court's decision eviscerating the Voting
[1:37] Speaker 2: Rights Act, but are we already seeing the early results
[1:42] Speaker 2: of that decision.
[1:43] Speaker 3: So the Supreme Court's decision in Calais versus Louisiana has
[1:48] Speaker 3: really fundamentally altered the scope of federal legal protections for
[1:54] Speaker 3: voting rights. It is the latest in what has been
[1:58] Speaker 3: a long series of decisions the Roberts Court over the
[2:01] Speaker 3: last fifteen years, slowly chipping away at the Voting Rights Act,
[2:05] Speaker 3: the crown jewel of the civil rights movement. And with
[2:08] Speaker 3: this sort of final blow, it has really rendered the
[2:11] Speaker 3: Voting Rights Act, as Justice Kagan said and her dissent,
[2:14] Speaker 3: a dead letter in this decision. In Bernovich another decision
[2:18] Speaker 3: from twenty twenty one, even in Shelby County back in
[2:21] Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, the majority is very careful to say that
[2:25] Speaker 3: they are not overturning the Voting Rights Act, they are
[2:28] Speaker 3: not declaring the whole Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. It's still there,
[2:32] Speaker 3: but they have functionally made it unenforceable. And what that
[2:35] Speaker 3: has done now in May of an election year, is
[2:39] Speaker 3: turbocharged the already aggressive redistricting battles that we've been seeing
[2:44] Speaker 3: play out over the last several months, leading states across
[2:48] Speaker 3: the country but primarily in the South, to aggressively try
[2:52] Speaker 3: to redraw their congressional maps before this year's midterm elections
[2:56] Speaker 3: to eliminate majority minority districts functionally erase meaningful representation for
[3:03] Speaker 3: primarily black and Latino voters across the American South, including
[3:07] Speaker 3: in states that have already held primary elections or that
[3:10] Speaker 3: are in the middle of primary elections right now. So
[3:12] Speaker 3: it's really a sort of craven and opportunistic attempt to
[3:19] Speaker 3: redraw these maps for partisan gain at the expense of
[3:23] Speaker 3: minority voters.
[3:24] Speaker 2: So where does the map stand right now?
[3:27] Speaker 3: So, the only state that has entirely enacted a new
[3:29] Speaker 3: maps since the Calae decision is Florida. They were ready,
[3:33] Speaker 3: they passed their map within hours of that decision coming down,
[3:36] Speaker 3: and since then, a number of other states either governors
[3:39] Speaker 3: have called special sessions of their legislatures to draw new
[3:42] Speaker 3: maps or they've begun the process of redoing their maps,
[3:46] Speaker 3: and that is complicated in a place like Alabama that
[3:50] Speaker 3: already has had a primary, In a place like Louisiana,
[3:53] Speaker 3: where their primary is in just a little over a
[3:56] Speaker 3: week and voting has already.
[3:58] Speaker 4: Begun, ballots have already been asked.
[4:00] Speaker 3: But it's you know, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina have
[4:06] Speaker 3: all you know, announced plans to target the majority minority
[4:10] Speaker 3: districts that were created as a result of successful litigation
[4:13] Speaker 3: under the Voting Rights Act in their states, and specifically
[4:16] Speaker 3: targeting primarily black lawmakers elected in majority black districts.
[4:20] Speaker 2: When they eliminate these majority minority black districts, is it
[4:25] Speaker 2: a guarantee? Is it a lock that a Democrat can't
[4:29] Speaker 2: get elected there? Are they able to gerrymander it in
[4:32] Speaker 2: such a way?
[4:34] Speaker 3: Not necessarily. It does depend a little bit on the
[4:37] Speaker 3: state and on the state's particular geography. But the redistricting
[4:40] Speaker 3: process has become so technical and so driven by you know,
[4:45] Speaker 3: computer programs and map drawers have gotten increasingly sophisticated over
[4:50] Speaker 3: recent years, and so it is very plausible to be
[4:54] Speaker 3: able to draw a map where it would be nearly
[4:56] Speaker 3: impossible for you know, a Democrat to get elected because
[4:59] Speaker 3: of just the way that the lines have been drawn,
[5:01] Speaker 3: especially now that the Supreme Court has basically blessed this
[5:06] Speaker 3: practice and has said that you can target voters of
[5:11] Speaker 3: colors so long as you claim that you're doing it
[5:13] Speaker 3: for partisan reasons. So as long as the state says, well,
[5:16] Speaker 3: we're not discriminating against them because they're black or Latino,
[5:19] Speaker 3: we're discriminating against them because they're Democrats, the Supreme Court
[5:22] Speaker 3: majority has said that's okay.
[5:24] Speaker 2: Louisiana's Governor Jeff Landry, in delaying his states House primary
[5:30] Speaker 2: elections in order to redraw the state's map, quoted that
[5:35] Speaker 2: famous quote from the Chief Justice John Roberts. The best
[5:40] Speaker 2: way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is
[5:43] Speaker 2: to stop discriminating on the basis of race. And there
[5:47] Speaker 2: have been lawsuits filed to stop the redistricting, But what
[5:51] Speaker 2: are they based on now that they can no longer
[5:54] Speaker 2: base it on discrimination on the basis of race.
[5:58] Speaker 4: There's a lot to unpack there.
[6:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, I apologize for the double question, or maybe the
[6:03] Speaker 2: triple question, but.
[6:04] Speaker 3: That vote from Chief Justice Roberts is pretty disingenuous because
[6:08] Speaker 3: what the Court has really functionally done is said that
[6:11] Speaker 3: even if you can prove that discrimination has happened, you
[6:14] Speaker 3: cannot consider race when remedying discrimination, and I'm not sure
[6:18] Speaker 3: how you can fashion a legal remedy to address race
[6:21] Speaker 3: discrimination while being blind to race. It just doesn't make sense.
[6:26] Speaker 3: So setting that aside, you know, the governor of Louisiana,
[6:30] Speaker 3: in my view, does not have the authority to just
[6:33] Speaker 3: unilaterally postpone the primary because of a change in law.
[6:37] Speaker 3: There is an emergency statute that does give the governor
[6:41] Speaker 3: and the Secretary of State some limited ability to change
[6:45] Speaker 3: election dates, but that is reserved for actual unforeseen catastrophes,
[6:50] Speaker 3: which in Louisiana usually means a hurricane. And so you
[6:54] Speaker 3: know when it is functionally impossible to hold an election
[6:57] Speaker 3: because you know, a natural disaster has occurred. And what
[7:01] Speaker 3: the governor is doing here is i think, really cynically
[7:04] Speaker 3: and opportunistically abusing that authority to cancel an election already
[7:09] Speaker 3: in progress because he wants to redraw maps to get
[7:14] Speaker 3: his party more congressional seats. And so the claims that
[7:17] Speaker 3: are being brought by litigants in Louisiana are not about
[7:20] Speaker 3: the maps themselves, or not about you know, discriminating against
[7:23] Speaker 3: voters in this particular instance. You know, these are due
[7:26] Speaker 3: process claims, these are ultra viri's claims. They're arguing that
[7:29] Speaker 3: the governor has exceeded his legal authority by you know,
[7:32] Speaker 3: calling it an emergency and rescheduling the election when there
[7:36] Speaker 3: is no actual emergency. That's not what the statute and
[7:39] Speaker 3: the emergency power were designed for. And he's functionally canceling
[7:44] Speaker 3: the votes that have already been cast by you know,
[7:47] Speaker 3: Louisiana's who have voted earlier, voted by mail, because this
[7:50] Speaker 3: election period has been ongoing now for a couple of weeks.
[7:53] Speaker 3: So the legal actions that have been brought are on
[7:57] Speaker 3: behalf of individual voters who've already cast ballots. They want
[8:00] Speaker 3: those ballots counted because you know, there are changes in law,
[8:04] Speaker 3: there are changes in circumstances all the time. But what
[8:06] Speaker 3: we don't do in a democracy is cancel an election midstream.
[8:09] Speaker 3: Can't change the rules halfway through the election just because
[8:12] Speaker 3: you want a different outcome.
[8:14] Speaker 2: The Supreme Court has established the percell principle, the idea
[8:19] Speaker 2: that courts shouldn't change voting or election rules too close
[8:23] Speaker 2: to an election in order to avoid confusion. At this point,
[8:28] Speaker 2: I'm not sure which principles or rules the court will
[8:31] Speaker 2: still follow as precedent, but does that apply here.
[8:36] Speaker 3: It's interesting that Purcell does not appear anywhere in the
[8:39] Speaker 3: Supreme Court's decision in Calais. And the Court has been
[8:43] Speaker 3: very aggressive in citing Percell to prevent district courts from
[8:47] Speaker 3: issuing rulings about elections that might be disruptive to the
[8:51] Speaker 3: election administration process or cause voter confusion. And I can't
[8:55] Speaker 3: think of a more disruptive decision than you know, gutting
[9:00] Speaker 3: the Voting Rights Act in the middle of an interim
[9:02] Speaker 3: year while primaries are ongoing, and you know, the Court
[9:05] Speaker 3: could have done all sorts of things to delay, you know,
[9:07] Speaker 3: this decision taking effect, to make clear to the states
[9:10] Speaker 3: that you know, this election cycle shouldn't be affected by it.
[9:13] Speaker 4: They didn't do that.
[9:14] Speaker 3: And so, you know, the Court's use of Purcel, I
[9:17] Speaker 3: think has been quite cynical and pretty pretty opportunistic. They
[9:22] Speaker 3: use it when they want to block a lower court ruling,
[9:24] Speaker 3: but they don't themselves seem very bound by it. And
[9:27] Speaker 3: so the guidance that they've given to the district court's about,
[9:30] Speaker 3: you know, being careful about not to disrupt elections with
[9:33] Speaker 3: judicial decisions about how courts shouldn't change things midstream. It
[9:36] Speaker 3: does not seem to be guidance that they themselves have
[9:38] Speaker 3: followed here.
[9:39] Speaker 2: Going through some of the states. Tennessee, well, Trump said
[9:43] Speaker 2: on truth Social that the Tennessee Republican governor would work
[9:47] Speaker 2: hard to redraw the state's map, although Tennessee code prohibits
[9:52] Speaker 2: congressional mid decade redistricting. I mean, will anything happen in
[9:57] Speaker 2: Tennessee or Alabama where the governor had said that, you know,
[10:01] Speaker 2: the state's map couldn't be altered, and now she's apparently
[10:06] Speaker 2: announcing plans to call a special session. Do you think
[10:08] Speaker 2: that anything would happen in either of those two states.
[10:11] Speaker 3: It's certainly possible. I mean, in Tennessee, they would have
[10:14] Speaker 3: to change the code, which you know, the legislature could
[10:17] Speaker 3: do that, but you know we've seen already. I mean,
[10:20] Speaker 3: in Florida, the Florida constitution prohibits partisan gerrymandering, and Florida
[10:25] Speaker 3: has passed a map redrawing the districts for partisan advantage.
[10:29] Speaker 3: So you know, many of these governors and legislatures don't
[10:32] Speaker 3: seem to be too concerned about what limits the law
[10:34] Speaker 3: puts on them. At this point, maybe in part because
[10:37] Speaker 3: of the pressure that they're getting from the White House.
[10:39] Speaker 3: But I think it's important to remember that all of
[10:41] Speaker 3: these states were already pretty aggressively gerrymandered after the twenty
[10:45] Speaker 3: twenty census. Tennessee has one Democratic district in Memphis, which
[10:50] Speaker 3: is a majority of black district because they split Nashville,
[10:54] Speaker 3: they cracked it into four separate districts to eliminate a
[10:56] Speaker 3: Democratic seat in Nashville.
[10:58] Speaker 4: Alabama had a.
[10:59] Speaker 3: Case go up to the Supreme Court just a couple
[11:01] Speaker 3: of years ago where the district Court found that Alabama
[11:05] Speaker 3: had intentionally discriminated on the basis of race in drawing
[11:08] Speaker 3: its congressional map, and they were forced because of a
[11:11] Speaker 3: violation of the Voting Rights Act, to draw a second
[11:13] Speaker 3: majority of black district. And so it's hard to say whether
[11:16] Speaker 3: the Court is turning a blind eye or was intentionally
[11:19] Speaker 3: just like unleashing this wave of extreme jerrymandering. But it
[11:25] Speaker 3: seems to me at least that these governors and these
[11:26] Speaker 3: state legislatures are not holding anything back in their quest
[11:31] Speaker 3: to eliminate minority representation in their states.
[11:34] Speaker 2: Let's talk about twenty twenty eight, because some of the
[11:37] Speaker 2: states that are saying no, we can't do it now,
[11:40] Speaker 2: like Georgia. The Georgia Governor Brian Kempson. It's clear that
[11:44] Speaker 2: KELA requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the
[11:48] Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight election cycle. Let's talk about Republican states first.
[11:52] Speaker 2: Which Republican states do you think still have maps they're
[11:55] Speaker 2: able to jerrymander to get rid of Democrats.
[12:00] Speaker 4: There are plenty.
[12:00] Speaker 3: I think it's states all across the South. But looking
[12:03] Speaker 3: ahead to twenty twenty eight, I don't think it's just
[12:05] Speaker 3: Republican states that we have to think about. I think
[12:08] Speaker 3: the same way that we saw Texas and California and
[12:11] Speaker 3: Virginia and Ohio all going kind of tit for tat
[12:14] Speaker 3: in the last year, the race to the bottom is
[12:16] Speaker 3: only going to accelerate because if Florida and Georgia, at
[12:21] Speaker 3: Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and all of these states
[12:23] Speaker 3: in the Deep South are successful in redrawing their maps
[12:27] Speaker 3: to eliminate democrats, I expect places like you know, Maryland
[12:32] Speaker 3: and Illinois and Colorado to retaliate, and nobody wins when
[12:38] Speaker 3: the parties are engaged in this race to the bottom
[12:43] Speaker 3: of just trying to manipulate the electorate for their own
[12:48] Speaker 3: part is in gain. The loser here is not going
[12:51] Speaker 3: to be the Republicans or the Democrats. It's going to
[12:53] Speaker 3: be the American people who are going to be denied
[12:56] Speaker 3: a meaningful opportunity to select representatives who actually represent them.
[13:01] Speaker 3: There's a kind of common saying that.
[13:02] Speaker 4: We use a lot.
[13:04] Speaker 3: Voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around.
[13:07] Speaker 3: And what this decision from the Supreme Court has done
[13:11] Speaker 3: is functionally given state legislatures the ability to decide for
[13:16] Speaker 3: themselves what party is going to represent their states in Congress,
[13:21] Speaker 3: and taking the power to make that choice away from
[13:24] Speaker 3: the voters just by manipulating the district lines on the map.
[13:27] Speaker 2: Coming up next, will independent commissions be a barrier for
[13:31] Speaker 2: Democratic states trying to redistrict This is bloomberg. Republican lawmakers
[13:39] Speaker 2: in several Southern states our meeting this week to consider
[13:43] Speaker 2: plans that could upend their congressional primaries and redraw US
[13:48] Speaker 2: House districts ahead of the November elections, as the GOP
[13:53] Speaker 2: moves to quickly capitalize on the Supreme Court ruling last
[13:57] Speaker 2: week that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, a special legislative
[14:01] Speaker 2: session responding to the court ruling began today in Alabama
[14:05] Speaker 2: and is set to start Tuesday in Tennessee. Louisiana. Lawmakers
[14:10] Speaker 2: who are already in session also are looking at how
[14:13] Speaker 2: to redraw their congressional districts. Civil rights activists have countered
[14:18] Speaker 2: with rallies, protests, and lawsuits challenging the new redistricting efforts.
[14:23] Speaker 2: I've been talking to Jonathan Diaz, director of voting Advocacy
[14:28] Speaker 2: and Partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center. So some of
[14:32] Speaker 2: the Democratic states have an additional problem in that they
[14:36] Speaker 2: passed laws allowing independent commissions to draw the maps. So,
[14:41] Speaker 2: for example, Colorado has already started trying to undo its
[14:45] Speaker 2: independent commission before twenty twenty eight, and New York Governor
[14:48] Speaker 2: Kathy Hochel called on lawmakers to begin the process of
[14:52] Speaker 2: a constitutional amendment. So do you think those independent commissions
[14:55] Speaker 2: will be a real hurdle for Democrats who want a
[14:58] Speaker 2: redistrict or they can.
[15:00] Speaker 4: It does make things a little more complicated.
[15:02] Speaker 3: Many of those independent commissions are written into the state constitutions,
[15:07] Speaker 3: and so it's a little more difficult to amend a
[15:09] Speaker 3: state constitution than to just pass a new bill, which
[15:11] Speaker 3: is why I think you're seeing the Democratic response in
[15:15] Speaker 3: a lot of the states, in Colorado and New York
[15:17] Speaker 3: aiming for twenty twenty eight, because it does take a
[15:20] Speaker 3: little bit longer. But you know, Virginia just amended its
[15:22] Speaker 3: constitution to do its mid decade redistricting this year. California
[15:26] Speaker 3: has a redistricting commission, and the ballot measure that they
[15:29] Speaker 3: put on the ballot suspends it for as long as
[15:31] Speaker 3: they are in this fight with Texas, and so yeah,
[15:34] Speaker 3: I think it is a little bit more complicated for
[15:36] Speaker 3: the democratic controlled states that want to respond to what's happening.
[15:41] Speaker 3: And that's because you know, in at least some of
[15:44] Speaker 3: those places, either democratic governments, but more often voters themselves
[15:49] Speaker 3: have amended their constitutions to take the power to draw
[15:53] Speaker 3: maps away from legislators. When Democrats controlled Congress, they attempted
[15:59] Speaker 3: to pass and passed through the House a bill that
[16:02] Speaker 3: would have in part, banned partisan jerrymattering and mandated independent
[16:07] Speaker 3: citizen commissions to draw congressional maps for every state. And
[16:11] Speaker 3: that was uniformly opposed to down party lines by Republicans.
[16:14] Speaker 3: And so there has been some at least movement on
[16:17] Speaker 3: the Democratic side of the Isle to address gerrymandering and
[16:21] Speaker 3: to make redistricting more fair. But it has been a
[16:25] Speaker 3: pretty one sided fight, and I think that, you know, unfortunately,
[16:30] Speaker 3: because the Republicans are going at the districting process so aggressively,
[16:35] Speaker 3: the Democrats are now responding in kind, and there is,
[16:39] Speaker 3: it seems to me right now at this moment, very
[16:41] Speaker 3: little appetite for districting reform on either side of the isle.
[16:45] Speaker 3: I'm hopeful that I think that both sides will see
[16:48] Speaker 3: just how terrible this is once they both go scorched earth,
[16:51] Speaker 3: and might, you know, out of self preservation, find some
[16:55] Speaker 3: middle ground to address this, because you know, there's more
[16:59] Speaker 3: Democrats into Exis than in any other state other than California,
[17:03] Speaker 3: and there are more Republicans in California than in any
[17:06] Speaker 3: other state other than Texas, because of just how many
[17:08] Speaker 3: people are in both of those states. And Republicans in
[17:12] Speaker 3: California deserve meaningful representation in Congress just as much as
[17:15] Speaker 3: Democrats in Texas do. But once we give the power
[17:19] Speaker 3: to draw these lines to self interested legislators who have
[17:23] Speaker 3: their own part as any goals and ambitions and objectives, again,
[17:27] Speaker 3: the people who really suffer.
[17:28] Speaker 4: Are the voters.
[17:29] Speaker 2: A progressive group Fair Fight Action identified nineteen possible seats
[17:35] Speaker 2: that Republicans could target if Section two was not in place,
[17:39] Speaker 2: and they released another report laying out as many as
[17:42] Speaker 2: twenty two seats where Democrats could respond in kind. Could
[17:47] Speaker 2: this end up with Republicans being in a worse position
[17:51] Speaker 2: than before Trump started this redistricting war.
[17:55] Speaker 4: It's possible.
[17:57] Speaker 3: And I think that the range that the foe at
[18:00] Speaker 3: Fair Fight identified was a little uncertain because we just
[18:03] Speaker 3: weren't sure exactly how KLA was going to come down
[18:07] Speaker 3: and how aggressive Republican states would be in redrawing their
[18:11] Speaker 3: maps once it did. And I think the other open
[18:14] Speaker 3: question was what would Democrats do in response? And so,
[18:17] Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to read the tea leaves to
[18:18] Speaker 3: say who in the part is an horse race who's
[18:21] Speaker 3: going to come out on top on this particular round
[18:23] Speaker 3: of redistricting. But you know, I think what has been
[18:26] Speaker 3: made very clear in the last couple of days since
[18:28] Speaker 3: the Cali decision is that, you know, both parties are
[18:32] Speaker 3: going all out to redraw the maps. I'm not sure,
[18:36] Speaker 3: you know, just because of demographics and geography. You know,
[18:39] Speaker 3: it's clear that the Republican controlled states are targeting majority
[18:43] Speaker 3: black and Latino districts. I haven't taken a close look
[18:46] Speaker 3: at whether we would see the same kind of reduction
[18:48] Speaker 3: in majority minority districts in blue states if they responded
[18:50] Speaker 3: in kind, But yeah, I think it's it's clear based
[18:53] Speaker 3: on the actions of governors and legislatures just over the
[18:56] Speaker 3: last week, that we're going to see a massive reduction
[19:00] Speaker 3: in majority minority districts across the South as a result
[19:04] Speaker 3: of this wave of districting spurred by KELA.
[19:07] Speaker 2: So we always focus on Congress for obvious reasons, but
[19:13] Speaker 2: this decision also affects state legislatures, county commissions, city councils,
[19:19] Speaker 2: and even local school boards.
[19:21] Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly right.
[19:23] Speaker 3: I think most people don't realize just how transformative the
[19:27] Speaker 3: Voting Rights Act was to American democracy, because it's not
[19:31] Speaker 3: just Congress. You're right, it's state legislatures, it's local governments,
[19:35] Speaker 3: it's county commissions, it's school boards, it's utility districts, it's
[19:40] Speaker 3: city councils. Almost the more profound effect of the Voting
[19:44] Speaker 3: Rights Act was, I think, to transform local governments, hitting
[19:47] Speaker 3: people at home, right, the parts of government that touch
[19:50] Speaker 3: people's lives most directly.
[19:52] Speaker 4: And most closely.
[19:53] Speaker 3: And you know, the congressional seats get a lot of
[19:56] Speaker 3: attention and that's where a lot of litigation happens. But
[19:59] Speaker 3: SECON two as a backstop to make sure that states
[20:03] Speaker 3: and localities didn't go too far in diluting minority votes
[20:07] Speaker 3: was a really powerful tool that you know, we can't
[20:10] Speaker 3: enforce the way that we used to because of this decision.
[20:13] Speaker 3: And it's really you know, for as much as we
[20:16] Speaker 3: are going to see minority representation decline in Congress, I
[20:21] Speaker 3: think that the effect in state and local governments is
[20:24] Speaker 3: going to be even more dramatic.
[20:26] Speaker 2: And changing the congressional maps and the primary dates months
[20:31] Speaker 2: before the elections in November creates so many other problems
[20:37] Speaker 2: as well for candidates and confusion for voters, and it's
[20:44] Speaker 2: going to be costly for the.
[20:45] Speaker 3: States and for election officials themselves. The people who run elections.
[20:49] Speaker 3: Administrators are you know, in a state like Louisiana where
[20:54] Speaker 3: you know, the finish line was in sight, they were
[20:56] Speaker 3: right there, they were so close to being done with
[20:58] Speaker 3: this primary, and now the governor's going to have to
[21:02] Speaker 3: start from scratch. Candidates are going to have to refile
[21:05] Speaker 3: their candidacy petitions in new districts, they might have to
[21:07] Speaker 3: collect signatures again. All the money that they've spent on
[21:10] Speaker 3: these campaigns, on ads, on volunteers, on staff, on you know,
[21:15] Speaker 3: T shirts, mailers, you name it, they're going to have
[21:17] Speaker 3: to do all over again. It's going to be incredibly
[21:20] Speaker 3: confusing for voters who have you know, already participated in
[21:23] Speaker 3: a primary, or who you know, decided not to and
[21:26] Speaker 3: now have to figure it all out again. People may
[21:29] Speaker 3: have taken time off of work to go to the polls.
[21:32] Speaker 3: It's it's going to be incredibly disruptive and confusing for voters.
[21:37] Speaker 3: And any any disruption this major, especially in the kind
[21:44] Speaker 3: of election climate that we've been in for the last
[21:46] Speaker 3: several years, it does two things. It reduces public confidence
[21:51] Speaker 3: in our electoral system. If people feel like their vote
[21:55] Speaker 3: doesn't matter, or that the system is rigged to put
[21:59] Speaker 3: out a particular outcome regardless of what they do, that's
[22:03] Speaker 3: really damaging to democracy in the long term. And secondly,
[22:07] Speaker 3: you know, we have seen since twenty twenty a willingness
[22:11] Speaker 3: on the part of candidates and elected officials to subvert
[22:16] Speaker 3: or reject the results of elections because they don't like
[22:20] Speaker 3: the outcome. Whether they do try and do that through
[22:22] Speaker 3: litigation or through you know, other kind of legal challenge,
[22:25] Speaker 3: or just you know, declaring the election stolen and hoping
[22:29] Speaker 3: that the people follow them to you know.
[22:31] Speaker 4: Do whatever.
[22:32] Speaker 3: We all remember, how you know, the aftermath of the
[22:34] Speaker 3: twenty twenty election, and I worry that this kind of
[22:38] Speaker 3: massive disruption is going to lead to similar calls by
[22:43] Speaker 3: the president people in his orbit, you know, like minded
[22:47] Speaker 3: governors and candidates to reject the outcomes of elections if
[22:51] Speaker 3: they don't align with their partners of preference.
[22:54] Speaker 2: And Congress could pass a law to get around this
[22:57] Speaker 2: Supreme Court decision.
[22:59] Speaker 3: Right, Yes, Congress could tomorrow pass a law banning parties
[23:05] Speaker 3: in jerrymandering, saying that part isn't gain parts in advantage
[23:11] Speaker 3: is not a legitimate criterion for states to use in
[23:13] Speaker 3: drawing congressional maps.
[23:15] Speaker 4: They haven't done that.
[23:16] Speaker 3: I do worry what this Court would do if Congress
[23:19] Speaker 3: tried to reenact the Voting Rights Act to change the
[23:23] Speaker 3: language to use their fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power
[23:27] Speaker 3: to try and address discrimination in the districting and voting process.
[23:31] Speaker 3: In this decision and other decisions about the Voting Rights
[23:34] Speaker 3: Act in recent years, the Court has been very willing
[23:37] Speaker 3: to substitute its own judgment for Congresses, even though the
[23:41] Speaker 3: Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate elections and to
[23:45] Speaker 3: enforce the Reconstruction amendments, not before, but certainly when it
[23:48] Speaker 3: comes to the jerrymandering battles and the part is in
[23:52] Speaker 3: jerymenoring in particular, that's something that Congress could easily address
[23:55] Speaker 3: if they were willing to well see.
[23:56] Speaker 2: How the legal battles play out in the southern states
[24:00] Speaker 2: that are trying to redistrict the late Thanks so much
[24:03] Speaker 2: for joining me today. That's Jonathan DIA's director of voting
[24:07] Speaker 2: Advocacy and Partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center. The Supreme
[24:11] Speaker 2: Court has temporarily restored access to the most widely used
[24:16] Speaker 2: abortion pill by mail, blocking a ruling that had threatened
[24:20] Speaker 2: to upend one of the main ways abortions are provided
[24:23] Speaker 2: across the country. The administrative stay, signed by Justice Samuel Alito,
[24:29] Speaker 2: temporarily allows women seeking abortions to obtain the pill at
[24:33] Speaker 2: pharmacies or through the mail without an in person visit
[24:36] Speaker 2: to a doctor, but it will only stay in effect
[24:40] Speaker 2: for a week. The majority of abortions in the US
[24:43] Speaker 2: are obtained through medications, usually a combination of mifepristone and
[24:48] Speaker 2: a second drug, miss a prostel. Joining me is Bloomberg
[24:51] Speaker 2: Supreme Court reporter Greg's store, Greg. This stay is not
[24:56] Speaker 2: going to last very long.
[24:58] Speaker 5: Yeah, It's designed to last for about a And the
[25:01] Speaker 5: key backdrop is that on Friday at last week, a
[25:04] Speaker 5: federal appeals court at the very conservative Fifth Circuit, ruled
[25:07] Speaker 5: that mefi pristone, the abortion drug, could no longer be mailed.
[25:11] Speaker 5: We can talk about the legal reasoning, but that was
[25:13] Speaker 5: the upshot of it. And so unless the Supreme Court intervened,
[25:17] Speaker 5: it would mean that, you know, going forward, that would
[25:20] Speaker 5: be the case that this right that patients have had
[25:24] Speaker 5: for a number of years to get a prescription and
[25:26] Speaker 5: get mefi pristone mailed to them would no longer be
[25:29] Speaker 5: in force. And so what this order is is basically
[25:32] Speaker 5: just a holding pattern. MiFi pristone is still fully available
[25:36] Speaker 5: until we decide what to do with that Fifth Circuit decision.
[25:39] Speaker 2: And would the Fifth Circuit decision only applied to the
[25:42] Speaker 2: states it covers.
[25:44] Speaker 5: By its terms, it seemed to operate nationwide, and that
[25:49] Speaker 5: was one of the issues that the drugs manufacturers were
[25:52] Speaker 5: pointing to at the Supreme Court and still are pointing
[25:55] Speaker 5: to as to why the Supreme Court should stay that
[25:58] Speaker 5: ruling was because they say the Fifth Circuit went beyond
[26:02] Speaker 5: its territorial area and applied it nationwide.
[26:06] Speaker 2: Memphi pristone has been at the Supreme Court before. Why
[26:08] Speaker 2: don't you tell us what happened before?
[26:10] Speaker 5: It has? Yeah, and the underlying issues were sort of similar.
[26:14] Speaker 5: It is a claim that the Food and Drug Administration
[26:17] Speaker 5: is giving short shrift to safety concerns. And what happened
[26:21] Speaker 5: a few years ago, starting in twenty twenty three was
[26:23] Speaker 5: at a federal district judge in Texas agreed with that argument
[26:28] Speaker 5: and ordered MiFi pristone removed from the market. That made
[26:32] Speaker 5: it up to the Supreme Court, which first they temporarily said,
[26:36] Speaker 5: much like they did here, meph pristone can stay on
[26:39] Speaker 5: the market and can continue to be mailed. And then
[26:42] Speaker 5: ultimately they issued a ruling after fully considering the case,
[26:46] Speaker 5: where they said that the folks challenging the rules for
[26:49] Speaker 5: the drug did not have legal standing. That was a
[26:52] Speaker 5: case involving individuals and organizations that opposed abortion, and the
[26:57] Speaker 5: Supreme Court unanimously said they don't have standing to challenge
[27:01] Speaker 5: the FDA's rules.
[27:03] Speaker 2: So they didn't then rule on whether the FDA's authority
[27:09] Speaker 2: was being impinged on by the states.
[27:12] Speaker 5: That is exactly right. The Supreme Court has not ruled
[27:15] Speaker 5: on the merits of the challenge and whether the FDA
[27:20] Speaker 5: did give short shrift to safety concern. You know, the
[27:24] Speaker 5: underlying issues are ones that are kind of pretty familiar
[27:27] Speaker 5: to people who follow litigation at the Supreme Court. It's
[27:30] Speaker 5: questions under the Administrative Procedure Act, which is basically saying
[27:34] Speaker 5: that when agencies do something, they have to do it
[27:37] Speaker 5: in certain ways. And they're an awful lot of lawsuits
[27:40] Speaker 5: saying you need to block what the agency did because
[27:42] Speaker 5: they didn't do those certain things in certain ways. And
[27:45] Speaker 5: that's really what the underlying issues are about here.
[27:48] Speaker 2: Greg, the FDA under Robert F. Kennedy Junior. I mean,
[27:53] Speaker 2: is it changing or trying to change its viewpoint on
[27:57] Speaker 2: mif of pristone.
[27:59] Speaker 5: Yeah, of a tricky situation that the Trump administration and
[28:04] Speaker 5: Secretary Kennedy find themselves in. They have obviously anti abortion
[28:09] Speaker 5: groups and advocates really would like to restrict this pill
[28:12] Speaker 5: because it has basically allowed women in states where medical
[28:18] Speaker 5: abortions are banned to continue to receive pills that will
[28:22] Speaker 5: let them have an abortion, and the administration has said
[28:26] Speaker 5: there are some safety concerns, but we want to study those,
[28:29] Speaker 5: and that study has been taking quite a long time.
[28:33] Speaker 5: And Bloomberg News has some reporting that they're basically trying
[28:36] Speaker 5: to slow walk the issue until after the mid terms.
[28:39] Speaker 5: So in this case, the administration is kind of trying
[28:42] Speaker 5: to walk a fine line. At the Fifth Circuit, they
[28:46] Speaker 5: argued that the appeals court should not block mail methi pristone,
[28:52] Speaker 5: and their argument is basically that Louisiana does not have
[28:55] Speaker 5: standing to challenge it. And you know, when you have
[28:58] Speaker 5: these emergency issues, you do this. It's called balancing the
[29:01] Speaker 5: equities of you know, what size is going to be
[29:03] Speaker 5: hurt more if the ruling goes against them. And essentially
[29:05] Speaker 5: they're saying that the federal government will be hurt more
[29:08] Speaker 5: if it's not allowed to continue to enforce the rules
[29:12] Speaker 5: as they are now.
[29:13] Speaker 2: And how did the Fifth Circuit find that Louisiana had standing?
[29:19] Speaker 5: So a couple things. So Louisiana is one of those
[29:21] Speaker 5: states that bans abortion, and the Fifth Circuit said that
[29:25] Speaker 5: Louisiana has a sovereign interest in that policy, and the
[29:29] Speaker 5: availability of Mifa pristone ship from out of state was
[29:31] Speaker 5: undermining that. So that was one thing. And the second
[29:34] Speaker 5: thing was they said, Louisiana is pointing to instances where
[29:37] Speaker 5: it says MiFi pristone had side effects and people have
[29:41] Speaker 5: had to be treated for that, and the state says,
[29:44] Speaker 5: we're paying under the Medicaid program, we're paying for some
[29:47] Speaker 5: of that health care. And so those are the arms
[29:50] Speaker 5: that Louisiana says it's suffering that would give it standing
[29:53] Speaker 5: to sue here. And if the Supreme Court ends up
[29:56] Speaker 5: taking up this case or even just on the emergency basis,
[29:59] Speaker 5: it's going to have to grapple with those contentions.
[30:03] Speaker 2: And didn't the Supreme Court recently rule against nationwide injunctions
[30:08] Speaker 2: like this?
[30:09] Speaker 5: They did, and that, you know, that's one of these
[30:11] Speaker 5: issues that kind of gets into the weeds of exactly
[30:14] Speaker 5: what that ruling did. But yes, the Supreme Court did
[30:19] Speaker 5: try to crack down on nationwide injunctions through one of
[30:23] Speaker 5: the cases involving birthright citizenship and the Trump administrations, the
[30:27] Speaker 5: president's effort to limit birthright citizenship, But that ruling also
[30:33] Speaker 5: left some other avenues for litigans to get effectively a
[30:38] Speaker 5: nationwide injunction. And so you know, a sub question in
[30:41] Speaker 5: here might be whether this is one of those avenues.
[30:46] Speaker 2: As you know, well, the Supreme Court doesn't have to
[30:49] Speaker 2: take this case, but considering the ramifications here and the
[30:54] Speaker 2: fact that it just takes four justices to grant cert
[30:58] Speaker 2: do you think they will take the case?
[31:01] Speaker 5: So first you have the question of whether it will
[31:03] Speaker 5: go beyond this administrative stay and issue a longer term stay,
[31:07] Speaker 5: and that would apply until the litigation is concluded. So
[31:11] Speaker 5: that is one question, and they need to answer that
[31:13] Speaker 5: yes or no. So I expect that they will do that,
[31:15] Speaker 5: if not next week, then soon thereafter. And one might
[31:19] Speaker 5: say one thing about this administrative stay. It's not supposed
[31:22] Speaker 5: to signal what the Court's going to do. But this
[31:25] Speaker 5: is a request that went to a very conservative justice,
[31:28] Speaker 5: sam Alito, and it took him a couple days to
[31:31] Speaker 5: decide what to do with it. And it's at least
[31:32] Speaker 5: possible before he entered this temporary stay that he consulted
[31:36] Speaker 5: with some of his colleagues, and there's a bit of
[31:39] Speaker 5: a sense of what's going to happen here that he
[31:42] Speaker 5: kind of sees the handwriting on the wall and that's
[31:44] Speaker 5: why he issued this. That's just my theory, my speculation,
[31:47] Speaker 5: but it's possible. And then ultimately you would have the
[31:50] Speaker 5: question whether the Court would agree to hear and appeal
[31:54] Speaker 5: in this case. And it seems very very likely that
[31:57] Speaker 5: if we got to that point where somebody was asking
[31:59] Speaker 5: them to, you know, grant serve and review the lower
[32:02] Speaker 5: court decision, that they would do that. At some point.
[32:04] Speaker 5: Whenever the federal government is told you can't do something
[32:07] Speaker 5: you've been trying to do, the Supreme Court will almost
[32:10] Speaker 5: always jump in.
[32:11] Speaker 2: And how many justices have to vote for stay first stay?
[32:14] Speaker 5: It's five?
[32:16] Speaker 1: Now.
[32:16] Speaker 2: I understand that some abortion providers are already getting ready
[32:21] Speaker 2: to send out a different kind of abortion pill.
[32:24] Speaker 5: Yes, so, MiFi pristone is very widely used. It is
[32:29] Speaker 5: usually used in conjunction with a second abortion drug, and
[32:33] Speaker 5: that second drug can also be used just by itself.
[32:37] Speaker 5: There are some questions about whether it's as good of
[32:40] Speaker 5: a choice for patients, and so there are alternatives. This
[32:45] Speaker 5: ruling only applies to the one drug, MiFi pristone, so
[32:49] Speaker 5: there might be other ways that abortion pills can still
[32:52] Speaker 5: be mailed out.
[32:53] Speaker 2: I mean, the Supreme Court could get around this another
[32:56] Speaker 2: time just by going on a standing ruling saying that
[33:01] Speaker 2: Louisiana doesn't have standing to sue.
[33:04] Speaker 5: That is certainly possible, that is an issue in the case,
[33:08] Speaker 5: and there are certainly arguments against Louisiana's assertion of standing,
[33:14] Speaker 5: So they could do that. They could also think to themselves, hey,
[33:18] Speaker 5: this keeps coming back to us, and ultimately we may
[33:21] Speaker 5: just need to decide the underlying issue to put this
[33:24] Speaker 5: to bed.
[33:25] Speaker 2: Since this decision was from the Fifth Circuit, it went
[33:29] Speaker 2: to Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency requests from the
[33:33] Speaker 2: Fifth Circuit. By the way, Alito was the justice who
[33:37] Speaker 2: wrote the Dobbs decision which took away the constitutional right
[33:42] Speaker 2: to abortion. Did it seem like he took a lot
[33:46] Speaker 2: of time before issuing this day.
[33:49] Speaker 5: If this had come up in a circuit where Soda
[33:51] Speaker 5: Mayora Kagan was the circuit justice, I would have expected
[33:54] Speaker 5: an administrative stay like this, you know, twenty minutes after
[33:58] Speaker 5: the request was filed. But the fact that it sat around,
[34:01] Speaker 5: you know, and there was all this uncertainty for forty
[34:04] Speaker 5: eight hours or so definitely had me wondering, well.
[34:06] Speaker 2: This expires on Monday, so we'll see if anything happens.
[34:10] Speaker 2: In the meantime. In the meantime, thanks so much, Greg.
[34:14] Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg Supreme Court Reporter Greg Store And that's it
[34:18] Speaker 2: for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you
[34:21] Speaker 2: can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg
[34:23] Speaker 2: Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
[34:27] Speaker 2: and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast slash Law,
[34:33] Speaker 2: and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
[34:35] Speaker 2: weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso
[34:39] Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg

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