J. Christian Adams - President, Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, we're dragging a lot of lines around the country
right now. Of course, all this kind of goes back
to Galveston and the Galveston County case where they were basically
getting forced to redraw their lines because it was determined
that the lines were race based, and the ruling was
made that you couldn't draw your lines based on race,

(00:21):
so they changed it. The problem the problem the left
is having, of course, is that when you redraw these lines,
all of a sudden, these districts that were, you know,
always a Democrat district are not necessarily a guaranteed Democrat
district anymore. Joining US Public Interest Legal Foundation President Jay

(00:42):
Christian Adams, there's another case in Louisiana that's probably going
to end up in front of the US Supreme Court,
and it's probably not the only one.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's exactly right. And you're right, Galveston got this started.
We had a multi day trial, and eventually the Fifth
Circuit rule that you can't you can't have black and
Hispanic populations combine to create Democrat districts. You can't force
them to do that, and that got this hall started.
Judge Mark Henry down there really dug in and made

(01:11):
sure the Constitution was followed, you don't use race, And
here we are Supreme Court. Yesterday I heard arguments in
the case of Louisiana that will affect Texas no doubt.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Okay, well, I thought the court had already decided. Is
of this issue based on Galveston County? Is that not
the case? Is this? I guess this is the first
time this has made it all the way to the
Supreme Court.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided it to
some extent, but the Supreme Court case is a little different.
It's about the Supreme Court cases about how much race,
if any, can you use. The Galveston case was you
can't force Galveston or Terrence another place that Public Inters
Legal Foundation is representing, you can't force a county to

(01:56):
combine black in Hispanic districts to create democrat effectively predit districts.
The Fifth Circuit threw that out, and that's why Galveuson
in other places in Texas, including your legislature, have decided
to read district because of the Galveston case.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
I guess the good news is is that we're going
to get a decision by the Supreme Court sooner. Versus later.
We're expecting it, I assume before the November election, or
are we not expecting it before the November election.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Listen, if we had to put our nickels on the
calendar to bed, I'm going to guess sometime in April
or even in May. This is a really super huge case.
I mean, this is going to rock politics across the
country potentially, So the Court is going to have to
trade vote, going to have to really think it through.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Have the arguments been made yet or are they just
in the process of being made in front of the
Supreme Court?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, they went on for two hours yesterday. They were
meant to be only an hour. Public Interslegal Foundation filed
a brief in the case saying you need a color
blinditution under the fifteenth Amendment. But these arguments kept going
on and on and on yesterday in front of the
Supreme Court.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
So I realized that just because you get questions from
some of the justices and the nature of those questions
do not necessarily, you know, necessarily signal how they're feeling
about a particular case. But are you getting any sort
of a feel based on those questions and who's asking them?
On what way? The Supreme Court might be leaning at
this point.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, don't forget. There's a smaller issue and a bigger issue.
On the smaller issue, which is do the Louisiana maps survive?
The answer is almost certainly no. That's one congressional seat
tip for Republicans because they drew, and they drew an
extra black seat. I mean they said it was a
black seat. I'm using their words, and that's what's going
to doom the plan because you can't do that in America.

(03:49):
Can't say, hey, let's draw a Hispanic seed. It doesn't
work that way under the fifteenth Amendment. It's illegal. The
bigger question is what the Court does with the Voting
Rights Act, and that is up in the air. Roberts, Cavanaugh, Barrett,
these are the swing votes on this. It's clear that
the three Conservatives Gorsa, Chlito, and Thomas want to basically

(04:11):
redesign the Voting Rights Act. The middle Republicans probably not,
maybe not, maybe they do, who knows, we'll find out.
But that's where the fight is.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Okay, it's gonna be interesting see how that all works out.
Thank you for your time, sir, appreciate it. With the
Public Interest Legal Foundation that's President J. Christian Adams,