8-7-25 - 7am - Texas Dems Flee and Gerrymandering to Perfection

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The talk back with all the profanity in it is
a response to that song that you played where we
could not hear basically ninety ninety eight percent of it
because it was just full of profane words. Heck, even

(00:20):
Adam Sandler's Oh to Mark Carr, you can get maybe
eighty percent of the song.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Perhaps, Dragon, I think that was criticism director your choice
of bumber music.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Huh. I don't recall playing any controversial bumping music.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I don't either. All I hear beeps in my head anyway,
so you know, I don't have a clue what's going on.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Excuse me.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Let's go back to Texas for a moment. When those
Democrats in the Texas House not absconded, that's not the
right verb. Bull, when they ran away ran there, you go, yeah,
they when they ran away, they ran away from Austin.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
Earlier, this state that's oh wait, never mind.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
They they went to the closest state that was jerry
mandered to the hilt so they could hide in a
jerrymander district. So that eliminated Oklahoma and Arkansas and New Mexico,
and you know Colorado. You know, even Colorado's not really
I mean, I get a little bit of beef with

(01:32):
Colorado's districts, but not not a whole lot, not like
some other states, which we'll get to in a minute.
The they did so as if they were martyrs. They
did so as if they were you know, this is
this is our way of you know, when Trump stood

(01:52):
up in Butler, Pennsylvania and clenched his fist and said fight, fight, fight. Now,
that's all they can do is you know, they gotta
figure out ways to drop f bombs talk. You know,
we're gonna bring a knife to a knife fight, you know,
just such. They're pathetic. They're really pathetic. They they kind
of put their self imposed exile as some sort of

(02:18):
noble stand against injustice. We're going to the back of
the bus. We're gonna march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge,
We're gonna have a march on Washington, and we're gonna
speak on the steps of the Lincoln Memori. No, they
went to the Hiatt Hotel in Chicago. That's what they did.
It was a he was It will go down our

(02:39):
children and our grandchildren will read about the day that
the Texas Democrats stood up to the historic resistance.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
To Jerry mandering.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Now, I don't want to relive or relitigate everything we
discussed yesterday about jerry mandering and the history thereof. If
you don't understand what jerry mandering is, go listen to
yesterday's pot and then come back and listen to today,
because I don't want to repeat myself. But isn't it
hilarious that their opposition claiming that House Republicans and well,

(03:14):
for that matter, the Texas Legislature of Texas Republicans in general,
are wanting to read district midterm. Is not something that's unusual.
It's been done before. It may be rare, but it's
been done numerous times. And what they're really complaining about
is because of population shifts in Texas, the Texas House

(03:36):
and Senate, controlled by Republicans want to read district in
ahead of the twenty twenty six midterms so that they
can gain a few seats, anywhere between three and five
seats in Texas. In other words, they're objecting to Texas
doing what they do all the time in other states.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Again, like most.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Political theater, the drama was better lit than ridden.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
It was.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
It was pathetic, it's sad, it's funny, and sad. At
the same time, what these Democrats inadvertently illuminated was not
Republican overreach but their own decades long monopoly on congressional
tart cartography, map drawing, if you will, in the states
that they dominate. So trying to indict Texas, they put

(04:30):
their own actions on trial. So to begin, you got
to understand the stakes. So a little bit about what
I talked about yesterday. Texas has gained population at a
blistering pace. They should have been awarded two more seats
in the House of Representatives after the twenty twenty census,

(04:52):
but the bureaucritic errors by the Census Bureau cost Texas
those seats that effectively disenfranched eyed millions of people that
have moved into the state of Texas. Now no coincidence,
those seats would almost certainly have landed in Republican hands.
The math is simple, The motive is simple. The motive
is in fact, the motive is just an adult raated politics.

(05:18):
And that's not majority that's just political when you're in control,
when you have the majority, while you still have to
respect minority rights, for example, you just can't, you know,
disenfranchise black voters or Hispanic voters, or Asian voters, or
transgender voters, or voters who are left handed versus right hand,

(05:41):
I mean, whatever kind of crap we put people in. Now,
it's just a political process. Apportionment is a constitutional process
by which we divide up the four hundred and thirty
five members of Congress among the fifty states. Redistricting is

(06:03):
a political process. Okay, So Colorado you get eight congressmen
now Colorado legislature, and this is a you know, let
me digress for just a moment. Let me just back
up and digress, because here's something I really want you
to think about. This is one of the points that
I make consistently. But here's an example of what I mean. So,

(06:28):
apportionment is constitutional. The US Constitution says that Congress, the
Article one part of our three part government, will apportion
the members of Congress among the states. So we have

(06:49):
four hundred and thirty five members, they get a portioned
among the fifty states. Now, in terms of how that
gets within the state gets divided up is done by
the state legislatures. That's a political process. It's also an

(07:10):
example of two things that I don't want to gloss over.
This wasn't ane of my notes. It just popped into
my head. The concept of federalism. One, we have a
federal government of limited and enumerated powers. One of those
is dividing up the number of congressmen among the fifty states.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
But then the states, they the.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Legislature, they decide the boundaries for those congressional districts within
their states, because that's a state responsibility. There's an example
of federalism, but it goes deeper than that. When I
say that electing state representatives and state senators is as

(08:04):
important as electing US Senators and US House members. Here
here's a quintessentially perfect example of why. Because if Democrats
control your legislature, they're going to draw those congressional district
lines to favor Democrats. So if we would get off

(08:28):
our asses in Colorado and figure out a way for
the dumbass Colorado Republican Party to get their act together
and elect a majority of Republicans in the state House
and the state Senate, well, then guess what they would
be drawing the congressional district lines and could favor Republicans,

(08:51):
so we might have a majority.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Republican congressional delegation. So when you tell me.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
That state fudgeures or just where I don't care about.
I don't even know. I don't even know who my
state senator is. I don't even know who my state
representat is. Well there's the result because you don't pay attention. Yeah,
I'm chewing your ass out. You don't pay attention to
your state elected representatives, and we end up with a
Democrat majority. Now I know we we got ram rotted

(09:22):
by the blueprint, I understand that fully. But now Republicans
in this state continue to shoot themselves in the foot,
and so we end up with Democrats deciding how that
those apportioned congressmen are going to be redistricted. So think
about that the next time somebody says, well, I want

(09:42):
to run for state center, I want to run for
state house, or or you're like, I don't care about
voting for them, yes you should. In addition to that,
just as a footnote, oh, they're going back into session
because we have an eight hundred million dollar budget hole.
That's almost a trillion dollars. Yes eight hundred million, I

(10:05):
mean almost a trillion. Almost a billion dollars might as
well be a trillion dollars and Democrats are going to what. Oh,
they're gonna try to kill the taxpayer builder rights. They're
going to increase fees out the wazoo. They're gonna cut, cut, cut,
And of course what's Polis doing. He's out blaming the
ob QUB bill. Oh no, no, maybe it's because you

(10:28):
did things like when they expanded Medicaid, you included transgender
surgeries for miners in that. How about that once you
eliminate that and save some money. So, yes, state legislatures
are incredibly important, and but for some reason we always
focus on Congress.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
All right.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Now back to Texas for a minute. So Texas, Texas
lost seats because of the screw up in the twenty
twenty censes. Those seats would have not probably, I think,
without a doubt, would have ended up in Republican hands

(11:06):
because the math is simple, the motive is simple, and
the motive is pure. It's political, but it's pure. Then
came the knife of the Voting Rights Act that got
twisted with an activist interpretation. The Voting Rights Act, as
you heard Harmeat Dillon say in the last segment, which
once notably sought to protect minority voters, has now metastasized,

(11:28):
and it's metastasized into this legal cudgel that's forcing Texas
to create racial coalition districts. Now, these districts draw not
to represent natural communities, but to guarantee preferred racial outcomes.
Has diluted Republican voting strength across the entire state of Texas,
across the entire map, and the cost of that at

(11:50):
least five congressional seats, five Republican congressional seats.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Now we're going to get in the weeds.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
A quiet case in the Fifth Circuit, Petaway versus Galveston County.
That case, while nobody talks about it, had huge implications.
The court ruled the Fifth Circuit, sitting in New Orleans,
the court ruled that such coalition mandates, in other words,

(12:29):
rather than drawing your lines congressional lines to represent natural communities,
we want to guarantee preferred racial outcomes. The court ruled
that such coalition mandates are not required under Section two
of the Voting Rights Act. So that decision cleared a
path for Texas to redraw its maps in line with

(12:53):
both demographic reality and constitutional clarity. That is what gives
Governor Abbott's special session the bonafides to go in and
do what they're going to do. That's why you got
the Democrats fight, and that's why you got the national spotlight.

(13:16):
And what this national spotlight shows is devastating to Democrats
because across the nation, in state after blue state, Republicans
are just ghosts. They're non existent in their in their
own you know, they always use the word democracy. I'm
going to specifically use the word democracy here, even though

(13:36):
I think's inappropriate. Republicans have been lost as Democrats state
to five fight to save democracy. Let me explain why,
and let's go through some states. Let's start with Massachusetts.
I've missed. I've mentioned Massachusetts for two days now. Trump

(14:02):
won more than a third of the vote last November.
Massachusetts has zero Republican House members, none, not as Zilch,
not since nineteen ninety seven. Nineteen ninety seven was the
last time Massachusetts sent a Republican to Congress. This means

(14:24):
that nearly two point five million people vote Republican in Massachusetts,
a state that pretends that they do not that Republicans
do not exist. Two and a half million people vote
for Trump. They don't have one representation, not one seat
in Congress. That's jerry mandarin, and that's jerry mandering to

(14:47):
get a preferred outcome. Speaking about nine seats, Trump wins
more than a third of the vote. And there's not
a Republican anywhere to be seen either either in the House.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
I know what the Senate.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Every state gets two senators, but they're both Democrats too.
Massachusetts is the primo example of Democrat hypocrisy. Oh, they're
bitching about Texas, but just look at Massachusetts. Rhode Island
state number two. Trump got over forty percent of the

(15:25):
vote in Rhode Island last November. How many Republican Congressmen
are there in Rhode Island?

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Zero?

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, wait a minute, the last Republican representative in Rhode Island.
You think Massachusetts was mad in nineteen ninety seven, how
about nineteen eighty nine. It's been thirty five, thirty six
years now since Rhode Island had a Republican congressman. Yet
a Republican candidate for president gets over forty percent of

(15:56):
the vote. Jerry Mandering in its finest Maine, Trump got
forty five and a half percent of the vote. Every
congressional seat in Maine is controlled by the Democrats. The
last time that there was a Republican was when Olympia

(16:19):
Snow left office way back in nineteen ninety five. Has
a Republican voice ever spoken from the main From the
state of Maine in the House Chamber in DC nineteen
ninety five, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, New Mexico, Hawaii. It's all

(16:42):
the same story. Republican votes cast, none counted. Now, when
I say none count remember, because the electoral college is
based upon what oh those delegates, those electors elected by

(17:05):
congressional district in those states. So you know we've got
we've got elate electoral votes. We do have a Republican
So we do have some Republican electoral votes here in
those states alone. From aut Connecticut, Delaware, New Mexico, Hawaii,
almost ten million Republican voters live under de facto congressional

(17:31):
gag order, not a single voice in Washington to speak
on their behalf garry mandering.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
With perfection, absolute perfection.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
So what happens when Republicans do gain a football?

Speaker 5 (17:51):
Michael, The saddest thing in my classes that I teach
is when people tell me I know all about Nancy
Pelosi and then I ask him, well, do you know
all about you or congressman.

Speaker 6 (18:01):
They can't even tell me their name.

Speaker 5 (18:03):
And I say, well, I'm sure Nancy Peloso certainly doesn't
care about you.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
You don't even live in her state.

Speaker 5 (18:09):
If you know the name of her, but you don't
know the name of your own congressman, well shame on you.

Speaker 6 (18:14):
That's that idea. We don't even know who runs this state.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Now here. I'm going to criticize Kathleen's talk back. There
was a perfect opportunity for her to tell us about
her classes, rather than bitch about the people who show
up for the classes that only care about Nancy Pelosi.
She could have talked about by the way, I teach

(18:43):
a class on how to get involved in local government
so that you can effectively maybe someday be a state
representative or a state senator.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Kathleen marketing market market market.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Sell sell sell, So if you want to leave another
talk back, maybe Dragon'll play it.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Now.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
He may win a little paola to do that, but
you know, and if you can't afford it, Kathleen, I'll
give him a quarter. I don't carry any change. Maybe
maybe I've got a one.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
Dollar bill in my I'll take one of the several
hundreds you keep in your wallet.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
I don't think I have a single Benjamin in my
pocket at all today.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
That's weird for you, it's very weird. Five or six
I'm panic stricken. I don't know what to do. Five
or six. That's on a bad day.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Usually there's a you know, like fifteen or twenty, because
you never you never know when you're gonna need to
get mugged, and.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
You want to make sure they are happy. I want
to be happy, muggers. You want to survive. I want
to survive, exactly. So all I got a five?

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Okay, boom stap tab try tap tab. All right, just
go back real quickly. Think about Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, wayho Maxico,
and Hawaii. Republican votes cast, none counted. Maine, Trump gets

(20:13):
forty five and a half percent of the vote. Every
congressional seat is controlled by Democrats. Rhode Island forty of
the vote goes to Trump. Zero Republican congressional seats, Massachusetts
more than a third of the vote. Zero Republican House seats.
So they're effectively disenfranchised those people. Now, I'm making an

(20:38):
assumption here which is false. But I'm making an assumption
that most of them. That's probably not false that most
of the people who voted for Trump were Republicans. I'm
sure there were some yellow dog Democrats. I'm sure there
were some unaffiliated or so called independent voters, and I'm
sure there maybe even some Democrats.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Because if you live in a state.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
That is solidly Democrat and everything's a portioned Democrat, if
you actually want to vote for you know, in a
general election or vote in a primary, you may register
Democrats solely for that purpose. But nonetheless you're a Republican
at heart. But you have no representation, you have no voice, none, whatsoever.

(21:24):
Even when Republicans do get say a foothold, you know,
they get one congressional seat or whatever, it really is
just you know, they're just hanging by their fingernails. Let's
go to Maryland, for example. Republicans got over a third
of the vote in twenty twenty four, but they have
just one out of eight congressional seats. Oregon, forty one

(21:51):
percent of voters cast ballots for Trump, but Republicans hold
just seventeen percent of the House seats in the state legislature.
That pattern repeats itself in New Jersey, Illinois, nearly half
the population votes read, but the congressional delegation is overwhelmingly blue.

(22:12):
And it's I don't think it's just Republican voters who
are waking up to this hypocrisy. Even Democrat strategists who
gained out the scenarios for counter redistricting in states like
Massachusetts or Rhode Island.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Well they expressed, oh, I'm shocked by this.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Why would they feign shock because there were no Republican
districts left to target. You can't draw maps to flip
what has already been obliterated, which is why I find
them running to for example, if they go hide in
in Illinois. And by the way, you're right they took

(22:52):
a charter jet to get to Illinois, because I mean,
you don't want to drive. I mean, who wants to drive?
And you know you don't want to say, my gosh,
I'm a state representative. You expect me to fly commercial? No,
they charted a flame. Yeah, they charted a flight.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
This is.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Cartographic tyranny. You know, I collect antique maps. What I
should do is I should start a collection of antique
maps of congressional districts, like collect all the congressional district
maps of Colorado since statehood and see how those have
changed over time. It would be interesting, because it is.

(23:37):
It's tyranny by by the map. But let's go back
to Texas for a minute. Republicans control the legislature, the maps,
while favoring the party in power, still managed to produce
Democrat victories.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Now, where does that happen in Texas?

Speaker 2 (24:00):
As I've pointed out before, it generally happens in the
urban centers. So it generally happens in the Dallas Fort
Worth metroplex, San Antonio, Austin, or Houston Harris County. It
also happens along the Rio Grande. Democrats held roughly thirteen
out of thirty eight seats. Trump got fifty four zero

(24:23):
point five percent of the vote in Texas. Now, while imperfect,
the disparity is far less egregious than any of the
blue states that I just told you about.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
But now let's go back to the Pedaway ruling.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Because now we've got the Fifth Circuit decision in the
Petaway case in hand. So Texas is now ready to
remedy the distortions in their own congressional districts.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
The maps that are.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Under discussion are not designed to pack Democrats into fewer districts,
but instead are designed to reflect actual population clusters and
allow for legitimate political representation without artificial racial engineering, which
is completely in line with the Voting Rights Act, completely

(25:11):
in line with the Latino case that I told you
the Supreme Court decided a couple of years ago. But
there's still a lot of irony in this because the
Democrats who are screaming about jerry mandering are its most
prolific experts at jerry mandarin. The party that's out there shouting,

(25:33):
I mean, how many times have we heard that Republicans
are trying to suppress voters. We're trying to suppress turnout,
We're trying to keep wax from voting. We're trying to
keep poor people from voting. I mean, it's just ad
nauseum what they do. Yet the party to keep screaming

(25:54):
that that's kind of funny because they're the ones that
have actually suppressed millions of Republican voters through decades of
manipulating the maps.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
And now that one state.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Now there was a Cairn up on Fox News earlier
that jd Vance is having a meeting in Indiana. Indiana
is rumored to be thinking about doing the same thing.
I hope they do, But right now, it's hilarious that
we've got one state, one state that dares to push back,

(26:35):
and one of the Democrats in that state do. They
jump on a chartered jet and they fly to Illinois,
where Governor Pritzker then goes on the Stephen Colbert's Late
Show and even Stephen Colbert holds up a map. I
played that sound bite for you yesterday. Even Stephen Colbert
holds up a map and says, look at this congressional district.

(26:56):
Why it looks like a scorpion's tale. It's so narrow
and curves up way of here, and then the one
that goes across the top of Illinois. I mean, jerry
mandering is at its finest. Absolutely, this finus. But here's
the beauty of all of this. The consequences of their

(27:16):
running away actually might be the opposite of what they intended,
because now that there's national scrutiny on what's going on,
I haven't seen a lot of sympathy for their cause.
But instead I'm finding a lot of curiosity about this case,
about this this profuffle. There's a lot of curiosity about

(27:38):
the maps that they so vocally defend in other states. Suddenly,
as I pointed out with these examples of Maine and
Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and then Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, New Mexico, Hawaii,
suddenly people are beginning to look at Oh, we have

(27:59):
all of these these states where you claim that, oh
my gosh, well we're gonna do the same thing in Massachusetts.
Oh well, we really can't do that in Massachusetts, because
we've already done it to such a degree that there's
nothing left to Jerrymander, because we've got all Democrats already.

(28:20):
This is the beauty of them acting in such a
performative manner because oh they've gotten the attention. They've gotten
the attention, but I don't think it's the attention they expected, Brownie.

Speaker 6 (28:35):
It all matters. X See.

Speaker 5 (28:36):
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(28:58):
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I'll eat and pay for coffee.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
But what about donuts doing it? Donuts or bagels. That's
the way to do it, right there, that's the way
to do it.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
So the consequences that they're running away is, as I
pointed out, probably going to be the opposite what they intended,
because the scrutiny that the media is now putting on
it really isn't generating sympathy for their cause. Oh they're
desperately trying because they're pulling out the standard. Oh my god,
it's going to be the end of civilization. I mentioned
that Fox headed on the Piron. Well, CNN has been

(29:35):
talking about it this morning too.

Speaker 7 (29:37):
And when you talk about pick up a seat here
and pick up a seat there, it really is just that.
In Indiana, I mean Indiana, Republicans already control seven of
Indiana's nine congressional seats, so it really is one seat
here or one seat there would be in response. We
know and look, as any student of politics or history
knows that this has been done. Jerry Mandering and free

(29:58):
drawing distinction to benefit your party has been done by
both parties over the course of many years, But in
response to Texas, we now are learning much more about
what could be happening in California because there are sources
telling CNN that the governor there is in serious talks
now to redraw the straights map, the congressional maps to
potentially help turn five Republican seats over to Democrats.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
What she doesn't understand is, as I explained yesterday, Gavin
Newsom doesn't have the authority to do that because California
voters put it in their constitution to have a commission
do their redrawing. So he could call the Assembly back
into special session and do what direct the commission to

(30:43):
do something? I don't think they have the authority to
do that. But why would I expect to see ann
anchor at to know the law?

Speaker 7 (30:50):
Do you support Democrats making these same moves that you
say Republicans are doing and delegitimizing democracy.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Wait, buying to the premises question, Texas is delegitimizing democracy.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
I have always been a supporter of nonpartisan redistricting. I
think we need a commission. I've offered many pieces of
legislation to do that. But we are in a fight
for democracy, a fight for democratic lives, and I think
that if there were women, are.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
We in a fight for democracy or are we in
a fight for Democrat lives?

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Now he may have misspoken, but I can't resist.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Why with this national scrutiny and everybody's now looking at maps,
they they've not generated sympathy but curiosity about the maps
that are currently in existence. So, for example, down in

(31:56):
New Mexico, where obviously owned property, why should a Republican
in Albuquerque, or a Republican in Bridgeport, Connecticut, or in Honolulu,
Hawaii be denied representation simply because of partisan map drawing cartography.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
This moment is perfect for redress.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Texas has already poised to gain five Republican seats through
mid decade redistricting. Ohio could add three, Indiana, Missouri could
add one. Each floor could net as many as three.
So what began as a Democrat stunt may end in
any Republican search. The Democrats, well, they've drawn the maps
like fortresses, designed not to reflect the public will, but

(32:40):
to repel it. Texas, for all the faults I could
point out about Texas, is trying to open the floodgates,
and now it's got the scorn of the press, lawsuits
from activists exile for its Democrat legislators. That's fine, who cares,
But it may have also sparked a reckoning an unintended consequence.

(33:01):
If this republic is to endure, it cannot do so
with millions of voters silenced by someone taking an ink
pen and drawing a line on a map. You know,
representation nott to be earned, not engineered. The voters in
Massachusetts from an Hawaii they actually do deserve to be heard.

(33:23):
And if this takes you know, a state the size
of Texas to bring that kind of a big fight
to make it happen, well then let's do it. Let
the map be redrawn. It's not going to be the
end of civilization. It's just that suddenly. And again this
is also i think part of the world that we
live in where we're so inundated with news and they

(33:46):
have to keep filling the news with all of these
stories and oh my gosh, it's the end of democracy. No, actually,
there's nothing new under the sun. This has been done before,
the process is being followed. Its constitution was to determined
by the US Supreme Court. And this is a political issue,
not a legal or a constitutional issue, so everybody just

(34:08):
take a deep breath, sit back, and get some popcort