September 3, 2025 • 58 mins
In this episode, we delve into the legal landscape surrounding two significant cases. First, we explore the ongoing legal actions and challenges against Roblox, focusing on the allegations of inadequate protections for its users. We examine the implications of these legal battles and what they mean for the future of online gaming platforms. Additionally, we turn our attention to the Congressional redistricting case currently before the Supreme Court, analyzing its potential impact on the political landscape and the precedent it may set for future redistricting efforts. Join us as we unpack these complex legal issues and their broader societal implications.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(02:33):
Well, hello everybody.
Apologies for that uh tech issues right out of the gate this morning, but we won't letthem hold us back.
Welcome to the state of freedom.
My name is Danielle Walker and I am joined by my co-host Chris Alexander.
Sorry.
(02:54):
I know way to just come right out of the gate, but Chris is good to have you back in thesaddle after you were out sick last week.
We are coming to you live.
on Voice of the People, USA TV and radio network on Rumble, X, YouTube and Facebook,wherever you're watching, please give us a like, a thumbs up and a share.
It helps us gain visibility.
It helps us with the algorithms.
(03:15):
Comment in the chat.
We love hearing your thoughts.
We want you to be involved with us.
And joining us today is a friend of the show and a guest we have not had on in a while.
And frankly, we have missed her.
Louisiana's Attorney General, Liz Murrill has been busy going after child predators andmost recently a gaming app that enables them to elicitly connect with children.
(03:39):
We are so pleased to have you with us today, Attorney General Murrill.
Thanks for joining us.
Well, you know, it's great to be with y'all all the time.
Thank you for having me, Danielle.
Absolutely.
Let me get into the scripture of the day before we talk about all these things that aregoing to make us um rage.
ah The scripture today is 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verses 8 through 9.
(04:04):
And it says, let's see, just as the scriptures say about 8 through 9, yes, God is morethan ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace.
so that you will have more than enough of everything, every moment, and in every way.
He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do, just as thescriptures say about the ones who trust in him.
(04:28):
Because he has sown extravagantly and given to the poor, his kindness and generous deedswill never be forgotten." And this is a reminder of the goodness, the care, and the grace
of God.
And I found what was interesting here to be that the one who is given extravagantly to the
is considered by the scriptures to be one who trusts in God.
(04:48):
So if you're having trouble trusting in God, you may need to increase your giving becausethe two go hand in hand.
Generosity and giving does not go unnoticed by the Lord.
Caring for people, especially those who are vulnerable, does not go unnoticed by Him.
And His abundance will flow into every area that we pour out our time, our finances, ourparticular skill set.
(05:10):
He sees it all and He rewards it all.
Absolutely, it's a daily process, that kind of surrender for sure, Danielle, but it'ssomething that we have to daily commit to for sure.
Attorney General Liz Murrill, it is such a pleasure to have you with us today.
(05:32):
going on.
Thank you, Chris.
Let's talk about this year, most recently the suit uh of Roblox.
I was reading about this platform this morning and I was blown away about what appear Lizto be almost no safeguards to protect vulnerable miners.
(05:53):
And you are calling national attention to that.
Yeah, look, this is an app that is dangerous by design.
um It was built this way without these protections or with extremely low, low levelprotections to drive up user engagement.
That is the name of the game with an app.
(06:13):
You're trying to drive your numbers up.
They've very successfully done that with this particular app to the point that they havesomething like 81 million users every day.
um at any given moment active on this app.
And a large, large number of those are children.
So my statistics show that, and I think these come from Roblox, that about 60 % of theiruser base, and we're talking about hundreds of millions of people, under the age, or 16 or
(06:48):
under, and 40 % of them are under the age of 13.
Yeah, and the specific allegation, and I think this is powerful language, Liz, it saysthat, you know, the wildly popular site has perpetuated an environment where sexual
predators, quote, thrive, unite, hunt, and victimize kids.
(07:11):
And that is very powerful.
And I think based upon what you're seeing and what appears to be the case, 100 % true.
Yeah, and the owner, the person who kind of started this app is still the largest, Ithink, shareholder.
They went public a few years ago.
(07:32):
And so now you have private equity groups that are driving the train when it comes topushing up and pushing the folks that are in control to drive up their user engagement.
And so if they put the kinds of controls in place that I would like to see,
uh limiting children's ability to talk to strangers on this app for starters, you wouldprobably see a drop in user engagement.
(07:58):
You would certainly see a limit on user engagement.
If we got rid of children that are under the age of 12 or, I mean, just for the fun of it,talking about it, let's say under the age of 10, you would drop a significant number of
users out of this app and that would affect their
(08:20):
their numbers enormously and that would affect their view of the app and their growthnumbers that they see and the private equity groups would see that as well.
it's a problem when your stock price is driven by user engagement and your user engagementis driven by allowing sex predators access to your platform.
(08:41):
Yeah.
At what point does it go from?
Yeah.
Sorry, Chris, was just gonna say forgive me if I missed part of the conversation becausemy bandwidth has been totally messed up this morning.
So I kind of was a little bit delayed.
But some of the games that I've seen on this app are one was called escape to EpsteinIsland.
(09:02):
One is called Diddy Party.
I mean, there cannot be any doubt that they intend to foster an environment that harmschildren with games like that.
Has this raised some uh eyebrows of parents?
It has.
mean, think that it's drawn, the lawsuit itself has drawn the attention of a lot ofparents who probably didn't understand how dangerous this game is to their kids.
(09:28):
And just to put a finer point on it, it's not just one game like that.
These are called, they call them experiences.
There are hundreds of them.
And so, they get popular, someone creates one and then somebody creates another one.
And then all of a sudden there's hundreds of them.
There's one called a public bathroom simulator.
(09:51):
There are bedroom experiences where people can congregate.
There are these sort of party experiences where people can all be naked through theiravatars.
They're avatars that are naked.
But in one of those experiences, a seven-year-old girl's avatar was raped by two maleavatars.
(10:15):
This mom is having to explain to the daughter what rape is and what happened to hervirtually, basically.
um The whole thing is just a super problem, and that's before you even get to the groomingthat's occurring through the apps, through these experiences, where they can talk to your
(10:36):
child and then potentially move your child off the app to another place where they cantalk even more.
in another protected environment.
And we see that happening where they'll move them to another app and Discord is one of themain places we see them doing that.
And we know this because we track the sex predators through our Internet Crimes AgainstChildren unit when we get tips and we can find them frequently on these apps.
(11:04):
Yeah, is the goal uh the ultimate goal here to completely dismantle Roblox?
Not necessarily, Chris.
I I have said they need to fix it or they need to shut it down.
I I would like to see them fix it.
It's not my objective necessarily to go put a business out of business, but I do thinkthat they need to fix it and they have tools to do so.
(11:32):
There are other apps that are using much more aggressive tools that have meaningful ageverification in place.
Roblox had not been using meaningful age verification.
It had not actually been policing its own app adequately.
They only had 3000 monitors on an app that has something like 300 million users, 81million daily users, and they only had 3000 monitors on the app.
(12:02):
mean, that's compared to TikTok, which also has problems, as you know, I've sued them aswell.
they have something like 123,000 of them.
you know, by comparison, when you look at the amount of users that they have and thenumber of children that they have and the problem that they have with predators accessing
(12:28):
children through their app, it demands more from them than what they've provided.
And what is the civil action uh seeking Liz?
What's the ultimate objective?
fines, penalties, and injunctive relief.
So if they don't voluntarily fix it, then we're going to get an injunction that forcesthem to fix it.
(12:48):
And I think that is part of the objective.
They have, in my view, engaged in deceptive trade practices.
uh They have made deceptive comments that have led parents to believe that this app issafe for their children, and it clearly is not.
Yeah.
And Liz, you post, sorry, go ahead, Chris.
(13:10):
go fix the problem or go away.
Right.
Yeah.
I like that.
let sex predators into our parks.
We don't let them into our schools.
I think they have created basically a public venue where the sex predator can thrive andhunt and groom children.
(13:31):
And we would not allow that anywhere where children are so prevalent in society.
I don't know why we would allow it through an
Yeah, well said.
Well, thank you for bringing the suit, Liz.
I saw on your ex page a few days ago, you penned a statement and it says, and I'll justread it for the audience.
Over the past 10 years, we've seen an increase of 1200 % in reported cyber tips.
(13:55):
I'm working tirelessly with law enforcement across the state and our Louisiana InternetCrimes Against Children Task Force to protect kids from sex predators.
Now, is that what?
What accounts in your view for the 1200 % increase?
Is it just the sheer access to internet and device use that's gone up exponentially orsomething else?
(14:19):
I think it is, I think 100 % it's social media.
It's the ability to kind of, it's the expansion of all these apps online that allow chatrooms and encrypted messaging and things like Roblox where you can create these
experiences that attract children and then attract predators and don't have a meaningfulway of sorting them out and kicking the predator out and tracking the predator.
(14:47):
ah We had one individual who was tracking predators on the app and reporting them toRoblox and he was banned.
ah So I'd like to see more banning of sex predators and less banning of people who reportthem.
ah But I do think that it is 100, those statistics I believe are accounted for by theexpansion of social media and access to children through social media.
(15:14):
Liz, if you're successful uh in the suit, ah one of two things will happen.
Either they're going to have imposed these restrictions and these limitations and thesesafeguards, or they're going to dismantle as a company.
And that would be the alternative that you would promote if they did not follow throughwith what they're supposed to be doing.
(15:37):
Yeah, look, they need to be much more socially responsible about what they are doing andlegally responsible for what they're doing.
So I would like to see them lean in a lot more heavily.
If they're going to be the leader in this space, then they should be the leader inprotecting children in this space.
And they need to do more than just give uh it kind of feeble promises, which they've made,which have turned out not to be accurate.
(16:07):
You know, that's just lip service.
And I think they need to do more than give it lip service.
There is, you know, meaningful outreach that we can do with parents.
If, you know, if we collect fines from roadblocks for their conduct, then that's what Iwould use that money for is to find, to fund more outreach to parents so they will
(16:28):
understand how to protect their children.
You know, what's so sad is that we have
believed we have felt like our children were safe if they were in our house and in theirbedroom, and they're really not.
They're not safe if they're online.
Yeah, that's so true.
that's a note of caution for every parent in the state of Louisiana.
(16:50):
No question about that.
You cannot be too involved because it's everywhere.
You know, there's no question.
But what you're doing to uh to put a wall between perversion and really what is evil andour children is admirable.
And no doubt it'll be successful.
uh Would you consider would your office consider a criminal
(17:13):
prosecution, if that's statutorily possible, Liz, if you were to determine that some ofthis was intentional, I'm talking about on the part of Roblox itself, are they
intentionally allowing this traffic on their platform or is it just a case where they'rejust woefully negligent?
(17:33):
Look, I think they are knowingly allowing this on their platform.
It's been reported numerous times to them.
The statistics are uh
are appalling and with the low level of reporting uh tips to the national centers forexploited and uh trafficked children.
So I think that the numbers themselves are very damning.
(17:57):
um I would consider that if it were the right case, but that would involve a particularchild who's been uh trafficked or um exploited or abused.
through roadblocks and it would be a difficult prosecution for something like that.
I would rather see them change it and protect the millions of children who use their appand to take responsibility for aggressive protection of children instead of aggressively
(18:27):
protecting predators.
Yeah, and then if they fail to do so at some point, perhaps there is a level of criminalculpability.
Well, when you know you're doing it and you're doing it intentionally and we can tie thatto the conduct, then I think we have a case.
Yeah.
What about uh redistricting?
(18:51):
Arguments, United States Supreme Court, October 15th.
And the question by the Supreme Court is, does the uh Voting Rights Act or Section 2 ofthe Voting Rights Act violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits racial
discrimination?
That's the central question, it seems.
(19:12):
What is uh the attorney general's position now on this issue as far as this district thatwas drawn in 2024?
So, you know, it's kind of nuanced, Chris, I'll tell you, because I don't think you cankind of understand where we are now unless you understand how we got here.
(19:34):
ah So, you know, our position on the question that was presented for re-argument is thatyou can't violate the Equal Protection Clause in response to a Section 2 violation.
And we've also more aggressively taken the position that Justice and I think JusticeKavanaugh explained it in his dissent that we think that the kind of aggressive use of
(20:00):
section two to draw majority minority maps is unconstitutional.
And, you know, we argued that, we have argued that in other cases that are now pending.
oh The state house and Senate maps case has this issue in it where we are the defendant.
in a case that was brought about the same time as the original 2021 lawsuit in theRobinson case.
(20:29):
so to understand where we are right now in the Callais case, you have to go all the wayback to the Robinson case, which was the original case that challenged our 2021 map.
And I defended that map.
and I've never abandoned the defense of that map.
(20:50):
And when I testified in the legislature on the new map that I'm defending partially, Iexplained that we had lost time and time and time and time again in the courts and that
Judge Dick was gonna draw the map or we could draw the map.
(21:14):
And so if we drew the map,
then we could protect our political preferences in the drawing of the map.
But there was no situation where we weren't going to have a new map.
And so we could draw our own map, protect our political preferences in the process, andthen proceed from there.
(21:35):
The problem that we've had is with the jurisprudence.
And if you go back and you look at the Fifth Circuit opinion that came out on ourpreliminary injunction,
That decision came out after our case had been kicked back out of the Supreme Court, theRobinson case.
(21:55):
So if you remember, I did get cert granted on that case.
It sat for about a year while the court Hurd the Alabama case.
And then they kicked our case back out again after issuing the Alabama ruling againstAlabama.
they further muddled the jurisprudence and the Miller decision.
(22:17):
mean, just, you know, it's impossible to make sense out of that decision.
It says you have to think about race when you draw a map under section two to solve asection two violation, but you can't think about it too much or you'll violate the equal
protection clause.
So, you know, nobody could understand that, at least of all legislatures whose job it isto draw these maps.
(22:40):
And we have complained about that all along.
And when we went to the Supreme Court back in March, we said, you need to fix this.
Like, we don't want to be here and we don't want to be back here.
And here we are back in the very same case in, you know, with a decision, with a questionthat we now are briefing because, and we're briefing it differently than we did before.
(23:08):
because the question that they've posed is essentially the question that we posed in theRobinson case.
And so, you know, we've been pushing this issue up to the Supreme Court, but we gotslapped down in the Robinson case where we pushed this issue up and we were told, back and
draw your map.
(23:30):
So we drew our map.
And now they, you know, I don't think, I think five of them don't like the map.
I counted five who didn't like the map when I sat at World Arguments in March, but theycouldn't quite articulate what their position was going to be, I guess, because we never
got an opinion.
And now we will, I believe we will get an opinion.
(23:54):
I can't say I know what will happen.
I long ago abandoned predicting how Supreme Court opinions will go.
It was surprising to see this re-argument because they've never...
This is the fourth time in the history of the United States Supreme Court they'vescheduled a case for re-argument.
Yeah.
So the uh do you think it's likely that the Supreme Court is going to go broader thansimply Callais and use that as a precedent to declare Section 2 of the Voting Rights uh
(24:24):
Act unconstitutional entirely?
It could ah so I mean I do think they'll go beyond the facts of our case I don't thinkthey're going to issue a ruling that's just limited to our facts in our case.
ah I don't think they would have scheduled it for re-argument if that was the intent.
ah I do you know I do think that there is a space where they don't have to go fullthrottle and declare section two unconstitutional.
(24:54):
um that would involve kind of rejiggering all of the jurisprudence that they've written,um explaining how your court, how, so here's the trick box we're in.
The jurisprudence is supposed to tell legislatures what to do because that's whose job itis to draw maps.
(25:15):
In fact, what they have created is a situation that creates a litigation game.
It tells courts, it really is a roadmap for courts on how to redo the whole thing.
And that's not what they're supposed to do.
And we started to move away in the Charleston County decision that came out last year,where Justice Alito very clearly said, federal judges aren't supposed to be drawing these
(25:46):
maps.
Well, hallelujah, and thank you for that.
Because they aren't.
The Constitution says the legislature is supposed to draw the maps.
But when you get into litigation in one of these cases, everything the legislature didgoes out the window.
It becomes a litigation game of experts and fact finding by a federal court judge, whichis extremely difficult to get overturned by courts of appeal and by the Supreme Court.
(26:12):
So you're handcuffed once those factual findings are made.
And that's where we were in Robinson.
we were handcuffed by the factual findings of the judge that were never not reversed bythe court of appeal and were aligned very closely by design in my opinion to the Alabama
(26:33):
case.
And so we were not in a good position in Robinson, but now we're actually addressing theissue that we tried to raise in Robinson.
So I don't know what they'll do.
um I think there is a space where they could rejigger all their jurisprudence and notdeclare section two of the voting rights unconstitutional.
(26:54):
But Justice Kavanaugh has floated that in uh his dissent in the Miller v.
Milligan Alabama case.
Liz, are you in a position to say if the Supreme Court does ultimately rule that this mapis unconstitutional, do you believe that we'll be able to have a new map in time for the
(27:21):
uh next congressional race?
Is that starting in March, the primaries maybe?
So the primaries under the current dates start in March.
I think the legislature could come in and change some of those dates um and allow for moretime.
(27:42):
m Will the Supreme Court issue their opinion?
mean, they know what our dates are.
They will know what our dates are if we change our dates.
um And so they can issue the opinion or they can hold the opinion.
I have no control over that.
I do think that the legislature can come in and rejigger the dates a little bit to give alittle more time for the legislature to, mean, for the Supreme Court to rule.
(28:10):
At the end of the day, I think that we are going to see an improvement no matter whathappens.
I think that you will see an improvement in the jurisprudence around section two or youwill see a kind of massive sea change with section two.
But either way, I do think we're about to see something very consequential that willhappen and our legislature can respond accordingly.
(28:39):
Liz, uh thank you for your work and all that you continue to do for the state ofLouisiana.
I have one last question though on the redistricting.
Was there anything that could have prevented the legislature in 2024 from defending thecurrent map?
(28:59):
The map that Speaker Mike Johnson said he thought was constitutional?
And I think Paul Heard also said that map was constitutional, that there were some othermaps that were offered.
Were there alternatives to drawing what appears to be a classically racially gerrymanderedmap?
(29:20):
No, I really don't think there are.
mean, not in the sense that...
So the first part of your question is, the first map constitutional?
I believe that it was.
I argued that it was.
and we got shut down by every court and the court of appeal.
so I think that we were in a position where Judge Dick was gonna draw a new map or wecould draw a new map, but that map was not going to stay in place one way or the other.
(29:52):
And I do not think that we would have been successful in the litigation had we not drawn anew map.
And we may...
You have to dig a little deeper, I think, into the appellate process to understand why.
But as I said before, we were handcuffed by the fact finding of the district court judge.
(30:15):
The Supreme Court had not moved to where it is right now yet.
And so you can't look at this question pending right now and think, well, we would havewon this two or two years ago.
We weren't going to win it two years ago.
We weren't going to, I mean, I tried, I tried over and over and over again, and we keptgetting shut down.
(30:39):
I had the case in the United States Supreme court and they sent it back for evaluation inlight of Miller and we didn't win.
you know, I think the, I think now the second question is, could you have drawn anothermap?
The directive we had by the judge was to draw a majority minority map.
(31:03):
That's the question that I think is kind of being evaluated now that we couldn't get themto evaluate then.
So it's kind of strange, but here we are really litigating a question that arose that Itried to raise in the first litigation.
(31:23):
Could we, I think the question is, and this is a question that I think will come up is,
and the Robinson plaintiffs have attempted both in Robinson and in Callais to propose aseparate map, the map that ran along the river.
And that was the map that the plaintiffs proposed in the Robinson case.
I don't think that map is any different than this one.
(31:46):
So if this one's unconstitutional, then I think that one is also unconstitutional becausethey both drive, they both require you to crack and pass.
black voters in order to create that majority minority district.
So the
the 14th Amendment.
(32:09):
that's what the court's gonna decide, right?
We argued that in Robinson.
The Robinson plaintiffs are arguing that that is necessary, using, solving the Section 2violation is going to give a compelling state, is a compelling interest.
(32:36):
that satisfies strict scrutiny.
So as lawyers, think y'all understand, like there is this level where if it's triggeredstrict scrutiny, that doesn't mean that it is automatically unconstitutional.
You just have to have a compelling state interest that's very narrowly drawn to solve thatproblem that is a compelling state interest.
(33:00):
That's what they're arguing now.
And I'm not sure that argument's gonna carry the day.
Yeah.
Well, I don't think.
uh
that.
mean, we're not arguing that.
We have been consistently arguing that you can't violate the equal protection clause tosatisfy a section two violation.
We've argued that all along.
We were told go draw the map, so we went and drew the map.
(33:22):
And I supported that decision to draw the new map because I knew Judge Dick was gonna drawthe map if we didn't draw the map.
um So I think the legislature did the right thing.
I do, I think they did the right thing.
uh And I think that the court needs to address this trick box that they have put statesin, where Judge Dick believed it was entirely okay to violate the Equal Protection Clause
(33:47):
to satisfy a Section 2 violation, a statutory violation.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know that any court would have any authority to order our legislature todraw a district that is racially gerrymandered.
So in order to satisfy Section 2, if you have to violate the 14th Amendment regardingracial discrimination, you can't do it.
(34:13):
So I don't think our legislature really should have felt burdened to draw a map that washighly questionable as far as the racial gerrymandering.
If you've seen the map,
a lot of people agree with you, Chris, but the problem is we were being ordered to do itand we had found no sanctuary for that opinion.
(34:34):
Like we argued that and I found no safe harbor for it.
No, they were ordered to draw a majority minority map.
They were ordered to draw a majority minority map.
I agree.
they were not ordered to draw a majority minority map if it required them to violate theConstitution.
So if you...
(34:55):
two maps you can draw and they both do the same thing.
Because of the way that our population is spread, if you look at the map they drew thatthe Robinson plaintiffs proposed that went down the river, or you look at the other map,
which was kind of the Clio map, they both do pretty much the same thing.
(35:15):
The only difference is that one pulls black population out of Monroe and the other onepulls it out of Shreveport.
That's really the only difference because we don't have enough black population to createa performing majority minority district unless you pull it out of those places.
And so there was never any dispute over that, that that was the only two ways to draw thesecond district.
(35:44):
And so the question that you are saying is decided, it's clear, is not clear.
It is the question that the Supreme Court needs to answer.
It seems clear to you, it seemed clear to me when I was defending Robinson, and yet therewe were being shut down at every turn by the courts of appeal and being told, go draw the
(36:11):
map.
So we could have defied the court and done exactly what they told
It looks like we lost Liz.
It says the recording stopped on her side.
Let's see if she comes.
there she is.
Okay.
It's okay.
(36:31):
And it may be better, Liz.
I think your recording was cutting out, so maybe just don't join with your video.
No one's immune to uh it.
no, I get them all day long.
So, you know, I mean, it's been frustrating.
(36:52):
had been, yeah, but what if the position had been, oh okay, we're gonna fight againstthis.
We're gonna defend our current district.
Alabama and Alabama got shut down.
I mean, I don't, got to go study the Alabama case and see what happened to Alabama.
Alabama was accused of being racist.
They were accused of perpetuating a, a, a, a history of violating the voting rights act bythe judges.
(37:19):
And, and so, you know, that's the problem that we faced.
I honestly don't think, no, I wouldn't have.
you won.
Chris.
I didn't win.
I lost.
it is.
Well, you won now.
history.
I'm sorry.
You're rewriting the history.
We're winning now only because we drew the district only because we drew the district thatthe court demanded that we draw.
(37:46):
Are we in the court now with this question posed?
We weren't there before.
And so I think, look, I'll argue this all day long with anybody who wants to argue itbecause I lived through it and I argued these cases and I took it up.
every single time to the Court of Appeal every possible way.
I mandamus to the judge twice.
(38:08):
You know, I mean, there was no safe harbor for us.
So I understand that people, yeah, it was good that we did what we did.
It was good that we drew really a racially gerrymandered district to give the court theopportunity to say that it's a racially gerrymandered district.
We took, there were two options, both of which required us to pull black population fromall of the communities of interest down.
(38:38):
One went to the left, one went to the right, but there's only one way to do it.
And so, you know, the question is, does that violate the equal protection clause?
We argued in...
way to do it.
There's no really way to do it without violating the Constitution, is what you weresaying.
There's no way to do it without uh violating the Constitutional 14th Amendment, right?
(39:03):
Because if you have to violate the 14th Amendment in order to satisfy the racial dilutionrequirement in Section 2, then you can't do it.
And you just say we can't.
you're assuming the answer to the question, Chris.
You're assuming that it violates the 14th Amendment.
That's the question the Supreme Court is going to answer.
(39:25):
And so the answer is not assumed.
We don't know the answer.
And while it seems easy to answer for you, and it certainly seemed that way to us when wewere defending the first map.
Courts have told us that we had to do this anyway.
And the question, the real core of the question is going to be whether it, and this iswhat the court will determine, is whether there's a compelling state interest that
(39:56):
satisfies the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.
That is the question.
And so we said we can't do this without pulling...
and cracking and packing and they said, go do it anyway.
So we did it and there's only two maps that you can draw where you can meet the standardsthat have been required by the court's jurisprudence to create a performing majority
(40:24):
minority district.
That's not just the court's jurisprudence, that is what the experts say.
You've got to have 55 % black.
population for a major Latino or whatever the minority is that you're trying to create theperforming district for.
So has to be 55 % to be a performing district.
There was only one way that there were two ways to do that.
(40:47):
Is the current district an unconstitutional racial gerrymand?
I am not gonna answer that question.
The Supreme Court's gonna answer that question.
It depends on what they do to their jurisprudence, I mean, you we argued in the first partof this case that under their current jurisprudence, that map survives.
(41:10):
If they change it, it doesn't.
Do you think that it should, do you believe that it should be vacated?
The district should be vacated.
I think the court needs to change its jurisprudence.
That's what I think it needs to do.
I'm gonna defend the law that the legislature passed.
And I won't back away from that.
It was a super majority of a Republican legislature who passed the map to protectpolitical preferences that we would not have been able to protect if we let the judge draw
(41:43):
the map.
But there were only two options for us at the time.
She was gonna draw the map.
or we were gonna draw the map.
And so either way, we were going up on a new map.
And so I think that they did the right thing.
I think they drew the map that protected political preferences, it protected Mike Johnson,it protected Julia Letlo, and under the court's current jurisprudence, that map would
(42:08):
survive.
If they change their jurisprudence and they align it and give us better direction aboutaddressing this conflict between section two and the equal protection clause,
which I have begged them to do, then, you know, maybe the map doesn't survive.
I don't know.
But I'm not, you know, I have taken both positions in this case because it's a veryawkward, you know, position the courts have put us in.
(42:35):
And that's why I've said over and over and over again, it's over and over and over again.
The court needs to change its jurisprudence on section two.
Yeah, it's a it's a it is a tough position to be in for sure.
absolutely.
Thank you so much for spending some time.
the one that's had to defend the cases.
(42:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you so much.
just, it's just really fun to sit here and see how much fight our AG has.
That's, it's just an excellent marker for our, for our state to know that you, you knowhow to fight and you're doing it um admirably.
So thank you so much for taking some time today.
Thanks for sparring with Chris and, and it, it means because you spar with Chris meansthat I don't have to.
(43:21):
So,
And that's the reason why.
Yeah, it's always a pleasure to be with you, Liz.
And I love the fact that we can be open and, uh you know, and respect each other.
And you're doing on balance an outstanding job, particularly with regard to these uhperverted uh sex predators on this platform.
(43:42):
And I hope that you're successful in really, really cleaning that up.
That's a big task.
uh
Thanks.
And look, I think on redistricting, I'm confident that we're going to end up in a betterplace uh as a country with this next opinion.
you know, whatever happens with our map, I think that the opinion is going to be a superimportant one.
(44:07):
And uh I think it's going to, you know, improve things in litigation around the countryand redistricting.
So.
Keep your fingers crossed for that.
No matter what the outcome is, that's a good outcome if it helps to fix Section 2jurisprudence.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
(44:27):
Thank you so much, Liz.
And we have so much else we'd want to talk to you about, so we'll try and get you back onsoon.
But thank you so much for your time today.
Good to be with you.
I'm happy to come back another time.
Yeah.
Okay.
Bye y'all.
bye bye.
All right, and we will just break quickly for a short ad.
(44:48):
Don't go away.
(45:28):
Gosh, Chris, we have had so many tech issues today.
My bandwidth has been garbage.
Liz's bandwidth was not great.
I don't know if you got a lot of scrambling from her side.
little bit, but we're coming through.
Yeah.
I think my bandwidth is still struggling now, but I think it was a great conversation.
(45:49):
really, I mean, I can't say enough how much I appreciate what she's doing specifically onthe child predator issue.
She mentioned it, but there, was this young man who was working with law enforcement andhe referred six child predators and had, they were arrested.
mean, he worked directly with law enforcement and, and uh Liz even mentioned it.
(46:12):
He was banned from the website and I believe he even got a cease and desist order sayingthat he needs to stop referring child predators to the law enforcement.
Yeah, that is just the most perverse thing that at some point in the future, which is whyI asked her about that, this has to be elevated to the level of a criminal indictment.
(46:36):
And I think her concern was that she may not have had been able to establish the specificintent ah to allow these predators on their site.
And you have to have that for a criminal prosecution.
But it's very close to that.
It's very close to that, I would say, to criminal in nature.
And it's on such a
broad scale, Danielle, it staggered me.
(46:58):
ah You know, the scope of this platform, Roblox.
Yeah, and not only that, Chris, uh some of the reporting from parents about what theirchildren have experienced on these sites is absolutely reprehensible and is absolutely
criminal.
um while Liz may not be bringing a criminal charge against them, I would encourage anyparent whose children have suffered, I think they should.
(47:26):
Yeah, absolutely well said.
And I think on the redistricting, think that uh the attorney general's office, I believenow is trying to get this district, this current district struck down ah as
unconstitutional gerrymand.
That's what Liz is saying.
And I think that it is so appropriate that our attorney general is on board uh with that,regardless of the progression that got her to this point.
(47:55):
uh
I think speaking of which, Danielle, Hurd yesterday off the cuff here a little bit thatDonald Trump is revisiting operation warp speed.
Imagine that.
That, he's, that, you know, and so, and so think about that.
He has been pushing that for so long as, as, as a, you know, a monumental achievement.
(48:15):
And now he is severely second guessing all of it.
That's what a leader does.
And I think, you know, Liz is she had her office has the position now.
ah to get us the results that we need.
Yeah, and that would have been another great thing to cover with her if we had more timebecause I know she was very much opposed to the COVID mandate.
So hearing her perspective on how this uh re-look at Operation Warp Speed and at thesemRNA vaccines would be pretty interesting.
(48:46):
I think she's probably got a nice salty take on that.
Murrill is a...
Exactly.
I mean, Liz Murrill, she was very instrumental in blockading some of these vaccinemandates right here in Louisiana in schools.
She was very strong on that issue.
And she's uh just done a lot of wonderful things for our state.
(49:11):
Yeah, yeah, it was a pleasure to have her on today.
I hope we can have her on on a day where we have fewer tech interference and can have asmoother conversation.
ah But I appreciate that she was willing to stick in, stay in there and spar with you,Chris.
There was a couple times I wanted to just kind of get in and say, okay, all right, let'sstop.
But you know, it's an important conversation.
(49:33):
she's.
Yeah, and it's it's just an it's an interesting issue and it's an interesting discussion.
And um I think I think she's got oh I think she's got her eye on the ball on this.
Yeah, well, the truth is, Chris, the real media doesn't uh dig to the next question onissues like this.
(49:54):
And these are things that have been concerning people across our state.
This issue of the congressional map is a huge one that has national and internationalimplications, truly.
So uh hearing her perspective, hearing her reasoning and her logic through this,understanding that she's fought through uh several different cases on this.
(50:15):
ah It's just, it's a fascinating thing and I think it's an important conversation to havebecause I don't think that people are necessarily asking the next question and trying to
dig in and understand where her office is coming from on this.
So to me, I think it is a great conversation to have um and win, lose or draw, like shesaid, we're going to get better clarity out of the Supreme Court after the re-arguments on
(50:42):
October 15th, but I can't.
I can't think that if it's the fourth time in history that the Supreme Court has calledfor re-arguments that this is uh just going to be a small case focused on Louisiana and go
away.
I think this is going to have pretty monumental implications for the future ofcongressional map drawing.
(51:03):
Yeah, no question about it.
uh My position from the beginning, Danielle, has been that we should have fought todefend, as Paul Hurd said, the original map.
And because it was constitutional, it would have survived scrutiny.
Liz's position was that it would have been litigated, been caught up in the courts.
But if there's ever an issue that's uh worth litigating, then quickly,
(51:30):
you know, uh is issues related to, you know, our votes and our districts.
uh And, you know, it's a fundamental.
So that's an issue that's worth litigating.
And if they had litigated it all the way up to the Supreme Court, they would have wonbecause the Supreme Court looks like they're on the verge of declaring that district uh
unconstitutional.
(51:51):
And probably, yeah.
sorry, just to ask you, so let's say, let's follow the argument if Judge Dick had drawnthe map, if they said, no, we're going to appeal um and Judge Dick drew the map, can they
just sue the judge for drawing an unconstitutional map and it's not even her right to drawthe map?
(52:12):
They could have reconvened, looked at it and said, this is an unconstitutional racialgerrymander.
We can't do this constitutionally.
And they would have had to go fight on the issue.
I just don't think that any court has the authority to order the legislature to dosomething that they're not constitutionally allowed to do.
(52:32):
That's the point.
Yeah.
Although to be fair, we've seen that lots of judges in the last, uh what, year, two, threeyears are doing things that are completely unconstitutional every single day of the week
to thwart the will of the people, ah full stop.
You've seen what they've done across the board with trying to slow Trump's ah executiveorders, trying to slow deportations.
(53:01):
and uh completely block his agenda.
Yeah, that is very true.
uh But we're talking about the legislature here and the legislature's primaryresponsibility to govern elections.
And it just seems like they sort of surrendered to something that Paul Heard said was anobvious uh racially drawn district.
(53:29):
And if you can't draw a district uh majority minority without violating the Constitution,
you have to go all over the state to, it's clearly a racial gerrymand, and Paul Heardthought there was no question about it.
In fact, he said that 90 % of this current district was declared constitutional decadesago.
(53:53):
So it's just hard to understand uh why they didn't fight more.
Is it your perspective that had they continued to fight, we would have just gotten to theSupreme Court sooner?
Okay.
we had continued to fight aggressively, we would have just gotten to this point in alllikelihood much sooner, because there's no question that this district is
(54:18):
unconstitutional.
It's clearly a racial gerrymand, and it just seems like people should have been able tolook at this and say that from the beginning instead of waiting for a court, ah even the
Supreme Court, to tell us that.
Yeah, yeah, it's true.
You know, I am thankful, Chris, that we are in a period of time right now and sorry, Ithink I was having a bandwidth, it was circling on my side, but what I was gonna say is I
(54:48):
think I can be thankful right now at least that we're in a period of time where we cancall things what they are, whereas this time two years ago,
Even having a conversation, an honest conversation about racial gerrymandering was like uhwelcoming the bolt of lightning to yourself, you know, under the Biden admin.
(55:11):
So I just, we have to appreciate how far we've come politically and culturally, sociallyin the last two years as well to appreciate, uh you know, perhaps the position of Liz and
perhaps the position of the legislature being a little.
more gun shy when it comes to doing the constitutional thing whenever they were put in aposition of having to do the socially acceptable thing as mandated by an out of line
(55:44):
judge.
Yeah, that's true.
But we can move with urgency now, go into session and get to work sooner rather thanlater, as Paul Hurd said.
absolutely.
And one thing that maybe we should mention, Chris, is that we are urging this legislatureto go into session, into special session before September 15th so that there can't be any,
(56:07):
um, any concern about not being able.
We can head this off at the pass, right?
If, if the position of the state is that this is not the map we want, this is not the mapwe believe in, this is the map that we were dealt.
then why doesn't the legislature go ahead, go into special session, create the map that'suh constitutional and uh do it so that we can be in a position to have that in place for
(56:38):
March or whenever they're able to get a ruling um on the map.
But I think that if we delay, that's only putting off the inevitable and potentiallygiving Cleo Fields another term.
That's the issue.
That's the issue.
That's why uh time is of the essence.
(57:00):
Because if the legislature does not move proactively, Danielle, and make this rightlegislatively, uh then uh until after the arguments in October, when they go in and have
their argument, I mean, they should be doing this now.
They should have their ducks in a row now.
uh And so, you know, the moment this comes down,
(57:23):
they're ready to go, not reacting.
Yeah.
What I did appreciate about what Liz said was that they have, the legislature has theability to push back the dates of the primaries.
I didn't realize that the legislature in any way set the dates of primaries.
Were you aware of that?
(57:44):
I think that I was, and that is something that would be plausible to push back the datesif necessary.
Yeah, absolutely.
It should be part of what they're aiming to do.
Yeah, and they probably need to confer with Secretary of State Landry to make sure thatshe can achieve that in a timely manner.
(58:10):
Yep.
Well, Danielle, as always.
I'm so sorry.
Let me do a couple of announcements.
I'll cut you off.
um But the next iteration of the voting machine horse and pony show will regroup nextweek, Tuesday and Thursday in the old governor's mansion starting at 9 a.m.
ah On Tuesday, it's the clear ballot clear clear vote voting system.
(58:34):
And Thursday is E.S.
and S.
ah Please be there.
Go and show.
your lack of support for these systems, but show your interest and make sure that ah Ithink having citizens there reporting on what's going on is absolutely critical.
I don't know, Chris, if you want to mention that.
Was ES &S the company that sued Secretary of State Kyle Ardman, Chris, last time?
(59:01):
I believe so, yeah, for saying that there was irregularity in the bidding process.
Exactly.
um But yeah, I think, Danielle, that there is a lot of pressure on our Secretary ofState's office now from multiple uh levels to pay attention to the citizens with regard to
(59:24):
our voting system.
uh And it is, you know,
I don't know how it's all going to break, but I still believe that there is significanthope to draw back this massive investment of our money in electronic voting machines.
Yeah.
And I don't know that President Trump can be more clear in his statements than he hasbeen, which is same day voting, uh mandated citizenship, proof of citizenship when you go
(59:56):
to vote and paper ballots.
That was a truth that he put out at the end of last week.
I think he's just getting stronger and stronger and more emphatic on his point.
So I would very much like for
all of the executives in our state and all of the legislature to pay attention to whathe's saying.
if I, Chris, if, secretary of state Landry moves forward with the purchase of thesemachines in the face of all that president Trump is saying, in the face of all that ODNI,
(01:00:25):
uh, Gabbard is saying, it's an absolute slap in the face to the people.
And it is a huge, huge waste of our taxpayer dollars.
And absolutely would be just callous uh disregard for the obvious increasing will ofLouisiana citizens and the will of the Trump administration that has weighed in on an
(01:00:51):
essential issue that's a matter of critical infrastructure for our whole country.
uh And there's no way that she can claim that she's not aware of the obvious discrepancybetween what she's doing and what the administration
is doing and saying.
ah And so um I think that there is a lot of pressure on the Secretary of State right now.
(01:01:15):
Yeah, and I would dare to say that uh the office of the director of national intelligencehas a lot more uh expertise at her disposal to look into these machines than um we do at
the state level.
So why don't we just take a breath and let's see how that shakes out, see um what uh D &IGabbard has to say in her report.
(01:01:43):
Probably enough on that for today.
I'll get myself all riled up again.
uh But I'll just mention one last announcement.
Tomorrow I will be joined on For the Love of Freedom with our good friend Joe Hoff.
You won't want to miss it.
Same time, same place, 10 a.m.
Central.
And if you love what we're bringing here on the State of Freedom, if you're enjoying theperspective, the guests,
(01:02:06):
um The honesty, uh please consider becoming a monthly supporter.
You can do that at freedomstate.us.
God bless you and marching along we shall go, Danielle.
Yeah, thank you, Chris.
God bless you.
Glad to have you back, man.
Amen.
Well, hello everybody.
Apologies for that uh tech issues right out of the gate this morning, but we won't letthem hold us back.
Welcome to the state of freedom.
My name is Danielle Walker and I am joined by my co-host Chris Alexander.
Sorry.
(02:54):
I know way to just come right out of the gate, but Chris is good to have you back in thesaddle after you were out sick last week.
We are coming to you live.
on Voice of the People, USA TV and radio network on Rumble, X, YouTube and Facebook,wherever you're watching, please give us a like, a thumbs up and a share.
It helps us gain visibility.
It helps us with the algorithms.
(03:15):
Comment in the chat.
We love hearing your thoughts.
We want you to be involved with us.
And joining us today is a friend of the show and a guest we have not had on in a while.
And frankly, we have missed her.
Louisiana's Attorney General, Liz Murrill has been busy going after child predators andmost recently a gaming app that enables them to elicitly connect with children.
(03:39):
We are so pleased to have you with us today, Attorney General Murrill.
Thanks for joining us.
Well, you know, it's great to be with y'all all the time.
Thank you for having me, Danielle.
Absolutely.
Let me get into the scripture of the day before we talk about all these things that aregoing to make us um rage.
ah The scripture today is 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verses 8 through 9.
(04:04):
And it says, let's see, just as the scriptures say about 8 through 9, yes, God is morethan ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace.
so that you will have more than enough of everything, every moment, and in every way.
He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do, just as thescriptures say about the ones who trust in him.
(04:28):
Because he has sown extravagantly and given to the poor, his kindness and generous deedswill never be forgotten." And this is a reminder of the goodness, the care, and the grace
of God.
And I found what was interesting here to be that the one who is given extravagantly to the
is considered by the scriptures to be one who trusts in God.
(04:48):
So if you're having trouble trusting in God, you may need to increase your giving becausethe two go hand in hand.
Generosity and giving does not go unnoticed by the Lord.
Caring for people, especially those who are vulnerable, does not go unnoticed by Him.
And His abundance will flow into every area that we pour out our time, our finances, ourparticular skill set.
(05:10):
He sees it all and He rewards it all.
Absolutely, it's a daily process, that kind of surrender for sure, Danielle, but it'ssomething that we have to daily commit to for sure.
Attorney General Liz Murrill, it is such a pleasure to have you with us today.
(05:32):
going on.
Thank you, Chris.
Let's talk about this year, most recently the suit uh of Roblox.
I was reading about this platform this morning and I was blown away about what appear Lizto be almost no safeguards to protect vulnerable miners.
(05:53):
And you are calling national attention to that.
Yeah, look, this is an app that is dangerous by design.
um It was built this way without these protections or with extremely low, low levelprotections to drive up user engagement.
That is the name of the game with an app.
(06:13):
You're trying to drive your numbers up.
They've very successfully done that with this particular app to the point that they havesomething like 81 million users every day.
um at any given moment active on this app.
And a large, large number of those are children.
So my statistics show that, and I think these come from Roblox, that about 60 % of theiruser base, and we're talking about hundreds of millions of people, under the age, or 16 or
(06:48):
under, and 40 % of them are under the age of 13.
Yeah, and the specific allegation, and I think this is powerful language, Liz, it saysthat, you know, the wildly popular site has perpetuated an environment where sexual
predators, quote, thrive, unite, hunt, and victimize kids.
(07:11):
And that is very powerful.
And I think based upon what you're seeing and what appears to be the case, 100 % true.
Yeah, and the owner, the person who kind of started this app is still the largest, Ithink, shareholder.
They went public a few years ago.
(07:32):
And so now you have private equity groups that are driving the train when it comes topushing up and pushing the folks that are in control to drive up their user engagement.
And so if they put the kinds of controls in place that I would like to see,
uh limiting children's ability to talk to strangers on this app for starters, you wouldprobably see a drop in user engagement.
(07:58):
You would certainly see a limit on user engagement.
If we got rid of children that are under the age of 12 or, I mean, just for the fun of it,talking about it, let's say under the age of 10, you would drop a significant number of
users out of this app and that would affect their
(08:20):
their numbers enormously and that would affect their view of the app and their growthnumbers that they see and the private equity groups would see that as well.
it's a problem when your stock price is driven by user engagement and your user engagementis driven by allowing sex predators access to your platform.
(08:41):
Yeah.
At what point does it go from?
Yeah.
Sorry, Chris, was just gonna say forgive me if I missed part of the conversation becausemy bandwidth has been totally messed up this morning.
So I kind of was a little bit delayed.
But some of the games that I've seen on this app are one was called escape to EpsteinIsland.
(09:02):
One is called Diddy Party.
I mean, there cannot be any doubt that they intend to foster an environment that harmschildren with games like that.
Has this raised some uh eyebrows of parents?
It has.
mean, think that it's drawn, the lawsuit itself has drawn the attention of a lot ofparents who probably didn't understand how dangerous this game is to their kids.
(09:28):
And just to put a finer point on it, it's not just one game like that.
These are called, they call them experiences.
There are hundreds of them.
And so, they get popular, someone creates one and then somebody creates another one.
And then all of a sudden there's hundreds of them.
There's one called a public bathroom simulator.
(09:51):
There are bedroom experiences where people can congregate.
There are these sort of party experiences where people can all be naked through theiravatars.
They're avatars that are naked.
But in one of those experiences, a seven-year-old girl's avatar was raped by two maleavatars.
(10:15):
This mom is having to explain to the daughter what rape is and what happened to hervirtually, basically.
um The whole thing is just a super problem, and that's before you even get to the groomingthat's occurring through the apps, through these experiences, where they can talk to your
(10:36):
child and then potentially move your child off the app to another place where they cantalk even more.
in another protected environment.
And we see that happening where they'll move them to another app and Discord is one of themain places we see them doing that.
And we know this because we track the sex predators through our Internet Crimes AgainstChildren unit when we get tips and we can find them frequently on these apps.
(11:04):
Yeah, is the goal uh the ultimate goal here to completely dismantle Roblox?
Not necessarily, Chris.
I I have said they need to fix it or they need to shut it down.
I I would like to see them fix it.
It's not my objective necessarily to go put a business out of business, but I do thinkthat they need to fix it and they have tools to do so.
(11:32):
There are other apps that are using much more aggressive tools that have meaningful ageverification in place.
Roblox had not been using meaningful age verification.
It had not actually been policing its own app adequately.
They only had 3000 monitors on an app that has something like 300 million users, 81million daily users, and they only had 3000 monitors on the app.
(12:02):
mean, that's compared to TikTok, which also has problems, as you know, I've sued them aswell.
they have something like 123,000 of them.
you know, by comparison, when you look at the amount of users that they have and thenumber of children that they have and the problem that they have with predators accessing
(12:28):
children through their app, it demands more from them than what they've provided.
And what is the civil action uh seeking Liz?
What's the ultimate objective?
fines, penalties, and injunctive relief.
So if they don't voluntarily fix it, then we're going to get an injunction that forcesthem to fix it.
(12:48):
And I think that is part of the objective.
They have, in my view, engaged in deceptive trade practices.
uh They have made deceptive comments that have led parents to believe that this app issafe for their children, and it clearly is not.
Yeah.
And Liz, you post, sorry, go ahead, Chris.
(13:10):
go fix the problem or go away.
Right.
Yeah.
I like that.
let sex predators into our parks.
We don't let them into our schools.
I think they have created basically a public venue where the sex predator can thrive andhunt and groom children.
(13:31):
And we would not allow that anywhere where children are so prevalent in society.
I don't know why we would allow it through an
Yeah, well said.
Well, thank you for bringing the suit, Liz.
I saw on your ex page a few days ago, you penned a statement and it says, and I'll justread it for the audience.
Over the past 10 years, we've seen an increase of 1200 % in reported cyber tips.
(13:55):
I'm working tirelessly with law enforcement across the state and our Louisiana InternetCrimes Against Children Task Force to protect kids from sex predators.
Now, is that what?
What accounts in your view for the 1200 % increase?
Is it just the sheer access to internet and device use that's gone up exponentially orsomething else?
(14:19):
I think it is, I think 100 % it's social media.
It's the ability to kind of, it's the expansion of all these apps online that allow chatrooms and encrypted messaging and things like Roblox where you can create these
experiences that attract children and then attract predators and don't have a meaningfulway of sorting them out and kicking the predator out and tracking the predator.
(14:47):
ah We had one individual who was tracking predators on the app and reporting them toRoblox and he was banned.
ah So I'd like to see more banning of sex predators and less banning of people who reportthem.
ah But I do think that it is 100, those statistics I believe are accounted for by theexpansion of social media and access to children through social media.
(15:14):
Liz, if you're successful uh in the suit, ah one of two things will happen.
Either they're going to have imposed these restrictions and these limitations and thesesafeguards, or they're going to dismantle as a company.
And that would be the alternative that you would promote if they did not follow throughwith what they're supposed to be doing.
(15:37):
Yeah, look, they need to be much more socially responsible about what they are doing andlegally responsible for what they're doing.
So I would like to see them lean in a lot more heavily.
If they're going to be the leader in this space, then they should be the leader inprotecting children in this space.
And they need to do more than just give uh it kind of feeble promises, which they've made,which have turned out not to be accurate.
(16:07):
You know, that's just lip service.
And I think they need to do more than give it lip service.
There is, you know, meaningful outreach that we can do with parents.
If, you know, if we collect fines from roadblocks for their conduct, then that's what Iwould use that money for is to find, to fund more outreach to parents so they will
(16:28):
understand how to protect their children.
You know, what's so sad is that we have
believed we have felt like our children were safe if they were in our house and in theirbedroom, and they're really not.
They're not safe if they're online.
Yeah, that's so true.
that's a note of caution for every parent in the state of Louisiana.
(16:50):
No question about that.
You cannot be too involved because it's everywhere.
You know, there's no question.
But what you're doing to uh to put a wall between perversion and really what is evil andour children is admirable.
And no doubt it'll be successful.
uh Would you consider would your office consider a criminal
(17:13):
prosecution, if that's statutorily possible, Liz, if you were to determine that some ofthis was intentional, I'm talking about on the part of Roblox itself, are they
intentionally allowing this traffic on their platform or is it just a case where they'rejust woefully negligent?
(17:33):
Look, I think they are knowingly allowing this on their platform.
It's been reported numerous times to them.
The statistics are uh
are appalling and with the low level of reporting uh tips to the national centers forexploited and uh trafficked children.
So I think that the numbers themselves are very damning.
(17:57):
um I would consider that if it were the right case, but that would involve a particularchild who's been uh trafficked or um exploited or abused.
through roadblocks and it would be a difficult prosecution for something like that.
I would rather see them change it and protect the millions of children who use their appand to take responsibility for aggressive protection of children instead of aggressively
(18:27):
protecting predators.
Yeah, and then if they fail to do so at some point, perhaps there is a level of criminalculpability.
Well, when you know you're doing it and you're doing it intentionally and we can tie thatto the conduct, then I think we have a case.
Yeah.
What about uh redistricting?
(18:51):
Arguments, United States Supreme Court, October 15th.
And the question by the Supreme Court is, does the uh Voting Rights Act or Section 2 ofthe Voting Rights Act violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits racial
discrimination?
That's the central question, it seems.
(19:12):
What is uh the attorney general's position now on this issue as far as this district thatwas drawn in 2024?
So, you know, it's kind of nuanced, Chris, I'll tell you, because I don't think you cankind of understand where we are now unless you understand how we got here.
(19:34):
ah So, you know, our position on the question that was presented for re-argument is thatyou can't violate the Equal Protection Clause in response to a Section 2 violation.
And we've also more aggressively taken the position that Justice and I think JusticeKavanaugh explained it in his dissent that we think that the kind of aggressive use of
(20:00):
section two to draw majority minority maps is unconstitutional.
And, you know, we argued that, we have argued that in other cases that are now pending.
oh The state house and Senate maps case has this issue in it where we are the defendant.
in a case that was brought about the same time as the original 2021 lawsuit in theRobinson case.
(20:29):
so to understand where we are right now in the Callais case, you have to go all the wayback to the Robinson case, which was the original case that challenged our 2021 map.
And I defended that map.
and I've never abandoned the defense of that map.
(20:50):
And when I testified in the legislature on the new map that I'm defending partially, Iexplained that we had lost time and time and time and time again in the courts and that
Judge Dick was gonna draw the map or we could draw the map.
(21:14):
And so if we drew the map,
then we could protect our political preferences in the drawing of the map.
But there was no situation where we weren't going to have a new map.
And so we could draw our own map, protect our political preferences in the process, andthen proceed from there.
(21:35):
The problem that we've had is with the jurisprudence.
And if you go back and you look at the Fifth Circuit opinion that came out on ourpreliminary injunction,
That decision came out after our case had been kicked back out of the Supreme Court, theRobinson case.
(21:55):
So if you remember, I did get cert granted on that case.
It sat for about a year while the court Hurd the Alabama case.
And then they kicked our case back out again after issuing the Alabama ruling againstAlabama.
they further muddled the jurisprudence and the Miller decision.
(22:17):
mean, just, you know, it's impossible to make sense out of that decision.
It says you have to think about race when you draw a map under section two to solve asection two violation, but you can't think about it too much or you'll violate the equal
protection clause.
So, you know, nobody could understand that, at least of all legislatures whose job it isto draw these maps.
(22:40):
And we have complained about that all along.
And when we went to the Supreme Court back in March, we said, you need to fix this.
Like, we don't want to be here and we don't want to be back here.
And here we are back in the very same case in, you know, with a decision, with a questionthat we now are briefing because, and we're briefing it differently than we did before.
(23:08):
because the question that they've posed is essentially the question that we posed in theRobinson case.
And so, you know, we've been pushing this issue up to the Supreme Court, but we gotslapped down in the Robinson case where we pushed this issue up and we were told, back and
draw your map.
(23:30):
So we drew our map.
And now they, you know, I don't think, I think five of them don't like the map.
I counted five who didn't like the map when I sat at World Arguments in March, but theycouldn't quite articulate what their position was going to be, I guess, because we never
got an opinion.
And now we will, I believe we will get an opinion.
(23:54):
I can't say I know what will happen.
I long ago abandoned predicting how Supreme Court opinions will go.
It was surprising to see this re-argument because they've never...
This is the fourth time in the history of the United States Supreme Court they'vescheduled a case for re-argument.
Yeah.
So the uh do you think it's likely that the Supreme Court is going to go broader thansimply Callais and use that as a precedent to declare Section 2 of the Voting Rights uh
(24:24):
Act unconstitutional entirely?
It could ah so I mean I do think they'll go beyond the facts of our case I don't thinkthey're going to issue a ruling that's just limited to our facts in our case.
ah I don't think they would have scheduled it for re-argument if that was the intent.
ah I do you know I do think that there is a space where they don't have to go fullthrottle and declare section two unconstitutional.
(24:54):
um that would involve kind of rejiggering all of the jurisprudence that they've written,um explaining how your court, how, so here's the trick box we're in.
The jurisprudence is supposed to tell legislatures what to do because that's whose job itis to draw maps.
(25:15):
In fact, what they have created is a situation that creates a litigation game.
It tells courts, it really is a roadmap for courts on how to redo the whole thing.
And that's not what they're supposed to do.
And we started to move away in the Charleston County decision that came out last year,where Justice Alito very clearly said, federal judges aren't supposed to be drawing these
(25:46):
maps.
Well, hallelujah, and thank you for that.
Because they aren't.
The Constitution says the legislature is supposed to draw the maps.
But when you get into litigation in one of these cases, everything the legislature didgoes out the window.
It becomes a litigation game of experts and fact finding by a federal court judge, whichis extremely difficult to get overturned by courts of appeal and by the Supreme Court.
(26:12):
So you're handcuffed once those factual findings are made.
And that's where we were in Robinson.
we were handcuffed by the factual findings of the judge that were never not reversed bythe court of appeal and were aligned very closely by design in my opinion to the Alabama
(26:33):
case.
And so we were not in a good position in Robinson, but now we're actually addressing theissue that we tried to raise in Robinson.
So I don't know what they'll do.
um I think there is a space where they could rejigger all their jurisprudence and notdeclare section two of the voting rights unconstitutional.
(26:54):
But Justice Kavanaugh has floated that in uh his dissent in the Miller v.
Milligan Alabama case.
Liz, are you in a position to say if the Supreme Court does ultimately rule that this mapis unconstitutional, do you believe that we'll be able to have a new map in time for the
(27:21):
uh next congressional race?
Is that starting in March, the primaries maybe?
So the primaries under the current dates start in March.
I think the legislature could come in and change some of those dates um and allow for moretime.
(27:42):
m Will the Supreme Court issue their opinion?
mean, they know what our dates are.
They will know what our dates are if we change our dates.
um And so they can issue the opinion or they can hold the opinion.
I have no control over that.
I do think that the legislature can come in and rejigger the dates a little bit to give alittle more time for the legislature to, mean, for the Supreme Court to rule.
(28:10):
At the end of the day, I think that we are going to see an improvement no matter whathappens.
I think that you will see an improvement in the jurisprudence around section two or youwill see a kind of massive sea change with section two.
But either way, I do think we're about to see something very consequential that willhappen and our legislature can respond accordingly.
(28:39):
Liz, uh thank you for your work and all that you continue to do for the state ofLouisiana.
I have one last question though on the redistricting.
Was there anything that could have prevented the legislature in 2024 from defending thecurrent map?
(28:59):
The map that Speaker Mike Johnson said he thought was constitutional?
And I think Paul Heard also said that map was constitutional, that there were some othermaps that were offered.
Were there alternatives to drawing what appears to be a classically racially gerrymanderedmap?
(29:20):
No, I really don't think there are.
mean, not in the sense that...
So the first part of your question is, the first map constitutional?
I believe that it was.
I argued that it was.
and we got shut down by every court and the court of appeal.
so I think that we were in a position where Judge Dick was gonna draw a new map or wecould draw a new map, but that map was not going to stay in place one way or the other.
(29:52):
And I do not think that we would have been successful in the litigation had we not drawn anew map.
And we may...
You have to dig a little deeper, I think, into the appellate process to understand why.
But as I said before, we were handcuffed by the fact finding of the district court judge.
(30:15):
The Supreme Court had not moved to where it is right now yet.
And so you can't look at this question pending right now and think, well, we would havewon this two or two years ago.
We weren't going to win it two years ago.
We weren't going to, I mean, I tried, I tried over and over and over again, and we keptgetting shut down.
(30:39):
I had the case in the United States Supreme court and they sent it back for evaluation inlight of Miller and we didn't win.
you know, I think the, I think now the second question is, could you have drawn anothermap?
The directive we had by the judge was to draw a majority minority map.
(31:03):
That's the question that I think is kind of being evaluated now that we couldn't get themto evaluate then.
So it's kind of strange, but here we are really litigating a question that arose that Itried to raise in the first litigation.
(31:23):
Could we, I think the question is, and this is a question that I think will come up is,
and the Robinson plaintiffs have attempted both in Robinson and in Callais to propose aseparate map, the map that ran along the river.
And that was the map that the plaintiffs proposed in the Robinson case.
I don't think that map is any different than this one.
(31:46):
So if this one's unconstitutional, then I think that one is also unconstitutional becausethey both drive, they both require you to crack and pass.
black voters in order to create that majority minority district.
So the
the 14th Amendment.
(32:09):
that's what the court's gonna decide, right?
We argued that in Robinson.
The Robinson plaintiffs are arguing that that is necessary, using, solving the Section 2violation is going to give a compelling state, is a compelling interest.
(32:36):
that satisfies strict scrutiny.
So as lawyers, think y'all understand, like there is this level where if it's triggeredstrict scrutiny, that doesn't mean that it is automatically unconstitutional.
You just have to have a compelling state interest that's very narrowly drawn to solve thatproblem that is a compelling state interest.
(33:00):
That's what they're arguing now.
And I'm not sure that argument's gonna carry the day.
Yeah.
Well, I don't think.
uh
that.
mean, we're not arguing that.
We have been consistently arguing that you can't violate the equal protection clause tosatisfy a section two violation.
We've argued that all along.
We were told go draw the map, so we went and drew the map.
(33:22):
And I supported that decision to draw the new map because I knew Judge Dick was gonna drawthe map if we didn't draw the map.
um So I think the legislature did the right thing.
I do, I think they did the right thing.
uh And I think that the court needs to address this trick box that they have put statesin, where Judge Dick believed it was entirely okay to violate the Equal Protection Clause
(33:47):
to satisfy a Section 2 violation, a statutory violation.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know that any court would have any authority to order our legislature todraw a district that is racially gerrymandered.
So in order to satisfy Section 2, if you have to violate the 14th Amendment regardingracial discrimination, you can't do it.
(34:13):
So I don't think our legislature really should have felt burdened to draw a map that washighly questionable as far as the racial gerrymandering.
If you've seen the map,
a lot of people agree with you, Chris, but the problem is we were being ordered to do itand we had found no sanctuary for that opinion.
(34:34):
Like we argued that and I found no safe harbor for it.
No, they were ordered to draw a majority minority map.
They were ordered to draw a majority minority map.
I agree.
they were not ordered to draw a majority minority map if it required them to violate theConstitution.
So if you...
(34:55):
two maps you can draw and they both do the same thing.
Because of the way that our population is spread, if you look at the map they drew thatthe Robinson plaintiffs proposed that went down the river, or you look at the other map,
which was kind of the Clio map, they both do pretty much the same thing.
(35:15):
The only difference is that one pulls black population out of Monroe and the other onepulls it out of Shreveport.
That's really the only difference because we don't have enough black population to createa performing majority minority district unless you pull it out of those places.
And so there was never any dispute over that, that that was the only two ways to draw thesecond district.
(35:44):
And so the question that you are saying is decided, it's clear, is not clear.
It is the question that the Supreme Court needs to answer.
It seems clear to you, it seemed clear to me when I was defending Robinson, and yet therewe were being shut down at every turn by the courts of appeal and being told, go draw the
(36:11):
map.
So we could have defied the court and done exactly what they told
It looks like we lost Liz.
It says the recording stopped on her side.
Let's see if she comes.
there she is.
Okay.
It's okay.
(36:31):
And it may be better, Liz.
I think your recording was cutting out, so maybe just don't join with your video.
No one's immune to uh it.
no, I get them all day long.
So, you know, I mean, it's been frustrating.
(36:52):
had been, yeah, but what if the position had been, oh okay, we're gonna fight againstthis.
We're gonna defend our current district.
Alabama and Alabama got shut down.
I mean, I don't, got to go study the Alabama case and see what happened to Alabama.
Alabama was accused of being racist.
They were accused of perpetuating a, a, a, a history of violating the voting rights act bythe judges.
(37:19):
And, and so, you know, that's the problem that we faced.
I honestly don't think, no, I wouldn't have.
you won.
Chris.
I didn't win.
I lost.
it is.
Well, you won now.
history.
I'm sorry.
You're rewriting the history.
We're winning now only because we drew the district only because we drew the district thatthe court demanded that we draw.
(37:46):
Are we in the court now with this question posed?
We weren't there before.
And so I think, look, I'll argue this all day long with anybody who wants to argue itbecause I lived through it and I argued these cases and I took it up.
every single time to the Court of Appeal every possible way.
I mandamus to the judge twice.
(38:08):
You know, I mean, there was no safe harbor for us.
So I understand that people, yeah, it was good that we did what we did.
It was good that we drew really a racially gerrymandered district to give the court theopportunity to say that it's a racially gerrymandered district.
We took, there were two options, both of which required us to pull black population fromall of the communities of interest down.
(38:38):
One went to the left, one went to the right, but there's only one way to do it.
And so, you know, the question is, does that violate the equal protection clause?
We argued in...
way to do it.
There's no really way to do it without violating the Constitution, is what you weresaying.
There's no way to do it without uh violating the Constitutional 14th Amendment, right?
(39:03):
Because if you have to violate the 14th Amendment in order to satisfy the racial dilutionrequirement in Section 2, then you can't do it.
And you just say we can't.
you're assuming the answer to the question, Chris.
You're assuming that it violates the 14th Amendment.
That's the question the Supreme Court is going to answer.
(39:25):
And so the answer is not assumed.
We don't know the answer.
And while it seems easy to answer for you, and it certainly seemed that way to us when wewere defending the first map.
Courts have told us that we had to do this anyway.
And the question, the real core of the question is going to be whether it, and this iswhat the court will determine, is whether there's a compelling state interest that
(39:56):
satisfies the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.
That is the question.
And so we said we can't do this without pulling...
and cracking and packing and they said, go do it anyway.
So we did it and there's only two maps that you can draw where you can meet the standardsthat have been required by the court's jurisprudence to create a performing majority
(40:24):
minority district.
That's not just the court's jurisprudence, that is what the experts say.
You've got to have 55 % black.
population for a major Latino or whatever the minority is that you're trying to create theperforming district for.
So has to be 55 % to be a performing district.
There was only one way that there were two ways to do that.
(40:47):
Is the current district an unconstitutional racial gerrymand?
I am not gonna answer that question.
The Supreme Court's gonna answer that question.
It depends on what they do to their jurisprudence, I mean, you we argued in the first partof this case that under their current jurisprudence, that map survives.
(41:10):
If they change it, it doesn't.
Do you think that it should, do you believe that it should be vacated?
The district should be vacated.
I think the court needs to change its jurisprudence.
That's what I think it needs to do.
I'm gonna defend the law that the legislature passed.
And I won't back away from that.
It was a super majority of a Republican legislature who passed the map to protectpolitical preferences that we would not have been able to protect if we let the judge draw
(41:43):
the map.
But there were only two options for us at the time.
She was gonna draw the map.
or we were gonna draw the map.
And so either way, we were going up on a new map.
And so I think that they did the right thing.
I think they drew the map that protected political preferences, it protected Mike Johnson,it protected Julia Letlo, and under the court's current jurisprudence, that map would
(42:08):
survive.
If they change their jurisprudence and they align it and give us better direction aboutaddressing this conflict between section two and the equal protection clause,
which I have begged them to do, then, you know, maybe the map doesn't survive.
I don't know.
But I'm not, you know, I have taken both positions in this case because it's a veryawkward, you know, position the courts have put us in.
(42:35):
And that's why I've said over and over and over again, it's over and over and over again.
The court needs to change its jurisprudence on section two.
Yeah, it's a it's a it is a tough position to be in for sure.
absolutely.
Thank you so much for spending some time.
the one that's had to defend the cases.
(42:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you so much.
just, it's just really fun to sit here and see how much fight our AG has.
That's, it's just an excellent marker for our, for our state to know that you, you knowhow to fight and you're doing it um admirably.
So thank you so much for taking some time today.
Thanks for sparring with Chris and, and it, it means because you spar with Chris meansthat I don't have to.
(43:21):
So,
And that's the reason why.
Yeah, it's always a pleasure to be with you, Liz.
And I love the fact that we can be open and, uh you know, and respect each other.
And you're doing on balance an outstanding job, particularly with regard to these uhperverted uh sex predators on this platform.
(43:42):
And I hope that you're successful in really, really cleaning that up.
That's a big task.
uh
Thanks.
And look, I think on redistricting, I'm confident that we're going to end up in a betterplace uh as a country with this next opinion.
you know, whatever happens with our map, I think that the opinion is going to be a superimportant one.
(44:07):
And uh I think it's going to, you know, improve things in litigation around the countryand redistricting.
So.
Keep your fingers crossed for that.
No matter what the outcome is, that's a good outcome if it helps to fix Section 2jurisprudence.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
(44:27):
Thank you so much, Liz.
And we have so much else we'd want to talk to you about, so we'll try and get you back onsoon.
But thank you so much for your time today.
Good to be with you.
I'm happy to come back another time.
Yeah.
Okay.
Bye y'all.
bye bye.
All right, and we will just break quickly for a short ad.
(44:48):
Don't go away.
(45:28):
Gosh, Chris, we have had so many tech issues today.
My bandwidth has been garbage.
Liz's bandwidth was not great.
I don't know if you got a lot of scrambling from her side.
little bit, but we're coming through.
Yeah.
I think my bandwidth is still struggling now, but I think it was a great conversation.
(45:49):
really, I mean, I can't say enough how much I appreciate what she's doing specifically onthe child predator issue.
She mentioned it, but there, was this young man who was working with law enforcement andhe referred six child predators and had, they were arrested.
mean, he worked directly with law enforcement and, and uh Liz even mentioned it.
(46:12):
He was banned from the website and I believe he even got a cease and desist order sayingthat he needs to stop referring child predators to the law enforcement.
Yeah, that is just the most perverse thing that at some point in the future, which is whyI asked her about that, this has to be elevated to the level of a criminal indictment.
(46:36):
And I think her concern was that she may not have had been able to establish the specificintent ah to allow these predators on their site.
And you have to have that for a criminal prosecution.
But it's very close to that.
It's very close to that, I would say, to criminal in nature.
And it's on such a
broad scale, Danielle, it staggered me.
(46:58):
ah You know, the scope of this platform, Roblox.
Yeah, and not only that, Chris, uh some of the reporting from parents about what theirchildren have experienced on these sites is absolutely reprehensible and is absolutely
criminal.
um while Liz may not be bringing a criminal charge against them, I would encourage anyparent whose children have suffered, I think they should.
(47:26):
Yeah, absolutely well said.
And I think on the redistricting, think that uh the attorney general's office, I believenow is trying to get this district, this current district struck down ah as
unconstitutional gerrymand.
That's what Liz is saying.
And I think that it is so appropriate that our attorney general is on board uh with that,regardless of the progression that got her to this point.
(47:55):
uh
I think speaking of which, Danielle, Hurd yesterday off the cuff here a little bit thatDonald Trump is revisiting operation warp speed.
Imagine that.
That, he's, that, you know, and so, and so think about that.
He has been pushing that for so long as, as, as a, you know, a monumental achievement.
(48:15):
And now he is severely second guessing all of it.
That's what a leader does.
And I think, you know, Liz is she had her office has the position now.
ah to get us the results that we need.
Yeah, and that would have been another great thing to cover with her if we had more timebecause I know she was very much opposed to the COVID mandate.
So hearing her perspective on how this uh re-look at Operation Warp Speed and at thesemRNA vaccines would be pretty interesting.
(48:46):
I think she's probably got a nice salty take on that.
Murrill is a...
Exactly.
I mean, Liz Murrill, she was very instrumental in blockading some of these vaccinemandates right here in Louisiana in schools.
She was very strong on that issue.
And she's uh just done a lot of wonderful things for our state.
(49:11):
Yeah, yeah, it was a pleasure to have her on today.
I hope we can have her on on a day where we have fewer tech interference and can have asmoother conversation.
ah But I appreciate that she was willing to stick in, stay in there and spar with you,Chris.
There was a couple times I wanted to just kind of get in and say, okay, all right, let'sstop.
But you know, it's an important conversation.
(49:33):
she's.
Yeah, and it's it's just an it's an interesting issue and it's an interesting discussion.
And um I think I think she's got oh I think she's got her eye on the ball on this.
Yeah, well, the truth is, Chris, the real media doesn't uh dig to the next question onissues like this.
(49:54):
And these are things that have been concerning people across our state.
This issue of the congressional map is a huge one that has national and internationalimplications, truly.
So uh hearing her perspective, hearing her reasoning and her logic through this,understanding that she's fought through uh several different cases on this.
(50:15):
ah It's just, it's a fascinating thing and I think it's an important conversation to havebecause I don't think that people are necessarily asking the next question and trying to
dig in and understand where her office is coming from on this.
So to me, I think it is a great conversation to have um and win, lose or draw, like shesaid, we're going to get better clarity out of the Supreme Court after the re-arguments on
(50:42):
October 15th, but I can't.
I can't think that if it's the fourth time in history that the Supreme Court has calledfor re-arguments that this is uh just going to be a small case focused on Louisiana and go
away.
I think this is going to have pretty monumental implications for the future ofcongressional map drawing.
(51:03):
Yeah, no question about it.
uh My position from the beginning, Danielle, has been that we should have fought todefend, as Paul Hurd said, the original map.
And because it was constitutional, it would have survived scrutiny.
Liz's position was that it would have been litigated, been caught up in the courts.
But if there's ever an issue that's uh worth litigating, then quickly,
(51:30):
you know, uh is issues related to, you know, our votes and our districts.
uh And, you know, it's a fundamental.
So that's an issue that's worth litigating.
And if they had litigated it all the way up to the Supreme Court, they would have wonbecause the Supreme Court looks like they're on the verge of declaring that district uh
unconstitutional.
(51:51):
And probably, yeah.
sorry, just to ask you, so let's say, let's follow the argument if Judge Dick had drawnthe map, if they said, no, we're going to appeal um and Judge Dick drew the map, can they
just sue the judge for drawing an unconstitutional map and it's not even her right to drawthe map?
(52:12):
They could have reconvened, looked at it and said, this is an unconstitutional racialgerrymander.
We can't do this constitutionally.
And they would have had to go fight on the issue.
I just don't think that any court has the authority to order the legislature to dosomething that they're not constitutionally allowed to do.
(52:32):
That's the point.
Yeah.
Although to be fair, we've seen that lots of judges in the last, uh what, year, two, threeyears are doing things that are completely unconstitutional every single day of the week
to thwart the will of the people, ah full stop.
You've seen what they've done across the board with trying to slow Trump's ah executiveorders, trying to slow deportations.
(53:01):
and uh completely block his agenda.
Yeah, that is very true.
uh But we're talking about the legislature here and the legislature's primaryresponsibility to govern elections.
And it just seems like they sort of surrendered to something that Paul Heard said was anobvious uh racially drawn district.
(53:29):
And if you can't draw a district uh majority minority without violating the Constitution,
you have to go all over the state to, it's clearly a racial gerrymand, and Paul Heardthought there was no question about it.
In fact, he said that 90 % of this current district was declared constitutional decadesago.
(53:53):
So it's just hard to understand uh why they didn't fight more.
Is it your perspective that had they continued to fight, we would have just gotten to theSupreme Court sooner?
Okay.
we had continued to fight aggressively, we would have just gotten to this point in alllikelihood much sooner, because there's no question that this district is
(54:18):
unconstitutional.
It's clearly a racial gerrymand, and it just seems like people should have been able tolook at this and say that from the beginning instead of waiting for a court, ah even the
Supreme Court, to tell us that.
Yeah, yeah, it's true.
You know, I am thankful, Chris, that we are in a period of time right now and sorry, Ithink I was having a bandwidth, it was circling on my side, but what I was gonna say is I
(54:48):
think I can be thankful right now at least that we're in a period of time where we cancall things what they are, whereas this time two years ago,
Even having a conversation, an honest conversation about racial gerrymandering was like uhwelcoming the bolt of lightning to yourself, you know, under the Biden admin.
(55:11):
So I just, we have to appreciate how far we've come politically and culturally, sociallyin the last two years as well to appreciate, uh you know, perhaps the position of Liz and
perhaps the position of the legislature being a little.
more gun shy when it comes to doing the constitutional thing whenever they were put in aposition of having to do the socially acceptable thing as mandated by an out of line
(55:44):
judge.
Yeah, that's true.
But we can move with urgency now, go into session and get to work sooner rather thanlater, as Paul Hurd said.
absolutely.
And one thing that maybe we should mention, Chris, is that we are urging this legislatureto go into session, into special session before September 15th so that there can't be any,
(56:07):
um, any concern about not being able.
We can head this off at the pass, right?
If, if the position of the state is that this is not the map we want, this is not the mapwe believe in, this is the map that we were dealt.
then why doesn't the legislature go ahead, go into special session, create the map that'suh constitutional and uh do it so that we can be in a position to have that in place for
(56:38):
March or whenever they're able to get a ruling um on the map.
But I think that if we delay, that's only putting off the inevitable and potentiallygiving Cleo Fields another term.
That's the issue.
That's the issue.
That's why uh time is of the essence.
(57:00):
Because if the legislature does not move proactively, Danielle, and make this rightlegislatively, uh then uh until after the arguments in October, when they go in and have
their argument, I mean, they should be doing this now.
They should have their ducks in a row now.
uh And so, you know, the moment this comes down,
(57:23):
they're ready to go, not reacting.
Yeah.
What I did appreciate about what Liz said was that they have, the legislature has theability to push back the dates of the primaries.
I didn't realize that the legislature in any way set the dates of primaries.
Were you aware of that?
(57:44):
I think that I was, and that is something that would be plausible to push back the datesif necessary.
Yeah, absolutely.
It should be part of what they're aiming to do.
Yeah, and they probably need to confer with Secretary of State Landry to make sure thatshe can achieve that in a timely manner.
(58:10):
Yep.
Well, Danielle, as always.
I'm so sorry.
Let me do a couple of announcements.
I'll cut you off.
um But the next iteration of the voting machine horse and pony show will regroup nextweek, Tuesday and Thursday in the old governor's mansion starting at 9 a.m.
ah On Tuesday, it's the clear ballot clear clear vote voting system.
(58:34):
And Thursday is E.S.
and S.
ah Please be there.
Go and show.
your lack of support for these systems, but show your interest and make sure that ah Ithink having citizens there reporting on what's going on is absolutely critical.
I don't know, Chris, if you want to mention that.
Was ES &S the company that sued Secretary of State Kyle Ardman, Chris, last time?
(59:01):
I believe so, yeah, for saying that there was irregularity in the bidding process.
Exactly.
um But yeah, I think, Danielle, that there is a lot of pressure on our Secretary ofState's office now from multiple uh levels to pay attention to the citizens with regard to
(59:24):
our voting system.
uh And it is, you know,
I don't know how it's all going to break, but I still believe that there is significanthope to draw back this massive investment of our money in electronic voting machines.
Yeah.
And I don't know that President Trump can be more clear in his statements than he hasbeen, which is same day voting, uh mandated citizenship, proof of citizenship when you go
(59:56):
to vote and paper ballots.
That was a truth that he put out at the end of last week.
I think he's just getting stronger and stronger and more emphatic on his point.
So I would very much like for
all of the executives in our state and all of the legislature to pay attention to whathe's saying.
if I, Chris, if, secretary of state Landry moves forward with the purchase of thesemachines in the face of all that president Trump is saying, in the face of all that ODNI,
(01:00:25):
uh, Gabbard is saying, it's an absolute slap in the face to the people.
And it is a huge, huge waste of our taxpayer dollars.
And absolutely would be just callous uh disregard for the obvious increasing will ofLouisiana citizens and the will of the Trump administration that has weighed in on an
(01:00:51):
essential issue that's a matter of critical infrastructure for our whole country.
uh And there's no way that she can claim that she's not aware of the obvious discrepancybetween what she's doing and what the administration
is doing and saying.
ah And so um I think that there is a lot of pressure on the Secretary of State right now.
(01:01:15):
Yeah, and I would dare to say that uh the office of the director of national intelligencehas a lot more uh expertise at her disposal to look into these machines than um we do at
the state level.
So why don't we just take a breath and let's see how that shakes out, see um what uh D &IGabbard has to say in her report.
(01:01:43):
Probably enough on that for today.
I'll get myself all riled up again.
uh But I'll just mention one last announcement.
Tomorrow I will be joined on For the Love of Freedom with our good friend Joe Hoff.
You won't want to miss it.
Same time, same place, 10 a.m.
Central.
And if you love what we're bringing here on the State of Freedom, if you're enjoying theperspective, the guests,
(01:02:06):
um The honesty, uh please consider becoming a monthly supporter.
You can do that at freedomstate.us.
God bless you and marching along we shall go, Danielle.
Yeah, thank you, Chris.
God bless you.
Glad to have you back, man.
Amen.
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