Judge Napolitano - The Runaway Texas Democrats

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
H here's a quick weather today. We're gonna have partly
cloudy skies around noontime. We have an opportunity for some
isolated stores and they say to expect downpours. Today's high
eighty five Ray moves out of a night. It's gotta
be a little bit muggy sixty seven for a low
eighty six with dry conditions tomorrow and partly cloudy skies
be clouds of night sixty seven and partly cloudy Friday
with the high of eighty eight. Right now seventy degrees.

(00:41):
Time for a traffic up day. Chuck Ingram from.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
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crews continue to work with an accident at northbound seventy
I have and Sharon they're on the right shoulder. Minimal
delays to get by northbound seventy one. There's an accident

(01:06):
above Montgomery Road in Keemwood on the right hand side.
Also cleaning up on four at the eastbound two seventy
five ramp.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
All clear on eastbound.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Two seventy five at forty two in Sharonville from an
earlier accident. It is International clown Week, so maybe you
can celebrate by dressing up like Saint Boso or your
favorite Midwestern town mayor maybe even your favorite congressman like
Chuck Schumer. Or how about an MLB manager like Yankees

(01:38):
manager Aaron Boone. Well, no, wait, that's not really fair
because they haven't had their judge. We've got ours, and
he's coming up next. Chuck Ingram on fifty five krs
the talk station.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Hey thirty see this, he gave that a lot of thought.
Judge ed of Paul.

Speaker 5 (01:57):
Clever, very very clever. If you follow what he's talking about.
Mentioning me in the same breath as Aaron Judge is
exhilarating for me.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Ah pro props to you know. Sometimes yeah, chech Czechsota
half does it. You know, it's National pretzel Day. So
here's Judge of Pulatano. Whatever. That was a good one,
though I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to go
over and commend him if I can get him out
of his his his studio parked in the back in
the corner there, Judge Ennen of Palitano. It's always a
real pleasure to have you on the program. And the

(02:29):
subject matter of your column the runaway Texas Democrats. I'm
sorry every time I read an article about the Democrats, uh,
denying the quorum and running away to Illinois or wherever
they run. I think amNY Python and the Holy Grail
with the scene with with well a couple of scenes
where they run away, run away. Not sure if you're
familiar with the movie, but I can't deny myself the

(02:49):
opportunity to laugh at that. But your column points out,
at least legally they're allowed to run away.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
They are, they are in the Congress, and the state
legislature of Texas can't stop them because the right of
every person listening to us now, they're right of every
person anywhere to cross interstate lines unimpeded. And I'm not
talking about obeying traffic laws. Are paying a toll on
the George Washington Bridge is a natural, fundamental right. And

(03:23):
you know, I can't get into the politics of what's
going on in Texas except that it's going to start
a firestorm because California is going to do the same
thing for the Democrats and so on New Jersey. However,
these people have the right to leave the state, and
the Governor of Texas, frustrated though he is, cannot have
them arrested.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Now, you see, I mean it's complicated issue for me.
I guess there was one component that would sort of
criminalize their behavior if they got paid to leave, which
is a different element than just them walking out to
deprive the quorum.

Speaker 5 (04:01):
But there may be Texas laws against that kind of compensation.
And the governor has intimated that if someone is paying
your expenses to leave, or if you've raised funds for
that purpose under Citizens United, a Supreme Court opinion that

(04:25):
basically says raising money for politics is the equivalent of
free speech.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
I think they can do it.

Speaker 5 (04:32):
Can Texas ex post facto declare their behavior to be criminal? No,
the constitution prohibits that. So what started out as a
bit of a stunt. Let's find a way to get
five more Republicans out of Texas, and then morphed into
deep and profound frustration. Sixty Democrats are leaving their jobs,

(04:53):
their family, and their responsibility by leaving the state. Now
becomes a very serious constitutiontional issue.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
And that's why I wrote about this.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
The right to travel is a fundamental liberty. It is
up there with speech, assembly, religion, self defense, just as
if it were articulated in the Bill of Rights. That's
not me, that's the Supreme Court of the United States
in nineteen sixty nine in this case Shapiro versus Thompson.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Well, in your column, and I'm glad you did this
because something that's rarely ever mentioned. Of course, you point
out that it's rarely, if ever addressed in any case law,
the Ninth Amendment. And you point out or I recognize
that Madison couldn't like codify all natural rights that we enjoy,
because you know, sitting down and sort of you try
to think of of all the fundamental human rights we

(05:44):
have would be a difficult chore, and you might leave
one out and inadvertently not included. Ergo, that wouldn't be
a fundamental right. But the Ninth Amendment protects all of those,
and yet it's rarely ever mentioned. Much in the same
way the Tenth Amendment. I mean, you know, all rights
not expressly reserved of the federal government reside in the states.
I think that seems to be a very powerful tool
for states to fight back against federal government control and

(06:06):
entering to areas of the law that they have no
authority of the Constitution to enter into.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
Correct Justice Clarence Thomas.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
Is the excuse me, the current champion of the Tenth
Amendment on the Supreme Court, and every once in a
while he has four of his colleagues agree with him,
and then these things stop the Feds in their tracks.
So I don't know how this is going to end.
The last two or three times they did this, they
got sick and tired of being away from their families

(06:38):
and away from their jobs. They came home, they fulfilled
the choir, and the Republicans got what they wanted. The
same thing may happen again. The big picture is this
will cause an equal and opposite reaction, and if you
do the math, the Democrats are likely to benefit more
from this than the Republicans. Because there are more Republican

(07:01):
seats in democratic states that could easily be turned into
Democratic seats by moving the margins.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
Is this moral? Is this fair? Is it constitutional? Well?

Speaker 5 (07:13):
The Supreme Court says it's constitutional unless it's based on race.
If it's not based on race, it's constitutional.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
The gerrymandering that's going on, you're referring to.

Speaker 5 (07:24):
Correct correct, correct, And because you use the word jerrymandering
brings us back to Elbridge Jerry and Massachusetts legislator who
was first had this blamed on him in the era
of Thomas Jefferson. So this has been going on for
two hundred and twenty years.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, quite often jerymandering is done specifically in order to
create race based jurisdictions, you know, protect the communities, or
you know, incorporate all like for example, black people incorporating
them all into one general district so that insures.

Speaker 5 (07:58):
They know they'll have a repent senative in Congress, right, right,
That too can be unconstitutional if it impermissively disfranchises whites.
So there's really no end to this. The Supreme Court
hates these cases, most of these race based cases. The

(08:21):
court is all over the place and hasn't given any
clear guidance. The best guidance I can articulate is what
I said a few minutes ago. The legislatures can draw
the line anyway they want.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
As long as it's not race based.

Speaker 5 (08:34):
There is whether a case involving North Carolina somebody versus
Charlotte Mecklenberg. I forget the full name of the case,
where the congressional district was the width of a highway
because they wanted to connect A to B and they
have to be contiguous. Yeah, so the contiguity the connection

(08:58):
was literally a highway on which of course no one
lived it. Splame court said you can't do that. That
is not a valid apportion.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, I guess I'm sort of curious to know whether
this is something that could be addressed so they're allowed
to redistrict. There's no doubt this is a battle of
attrition that ultimately the Republicans of Texas will win because
the Democrats will eventually go home. There will eventually be
a quorum, as you pointed out. But the crisis that's
created by this and this whole idea of redistricting and gerrymandering,

(09:27):
is this something that's worthy of or can be addressed
by Congress. He said almost, yes.

Speaker 5 (09:33):
Yes, Congress. Well, Congress could prohibit redistricting other than right
after a census census. In fact, a two conservative Republican
members of the House their names now escaping. We have
introduced legislation to prohibit these midterm changes. But in terms

(09:56):
of how the districts are crafted, Madison left that to
the states, intentionally left that to the states. This very
little Congress can do without confronting, as you pointed out
a few minutes ago, Brian, the tenth Amendment, because this
issue of who you send to Congress and how you
send them is expressly reserved, expressly reserved to the states.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Now for those who are struggling to read through their
Constitution to find the right to the freedom to travel
as a fundamental right, it doesn't specifically say that, though,
does it. That's the ninth Amendment?

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Correct?

Speaker 5 (10:31):
Correct, The ninth Amendment, which is the catch all which
those of us who believe in the natural law argue,
was Madison's articulation of natural rights. Rarely has you know
I wrote a treatise about this called Freedom's Anchor, An
Introduction to Natural Law in American Constitutional History, and my researchers,

(10:54):
and I looked at every Supreme Court opinion that expressly
accepts or actually rejects the principle of natural rights. There's
very few of them, Brian right, very very few. There
aren't more than a handful, and most of them are
pre Civil War. So the concept of natural rights, though

(11:16):
these rights are natural to every human being, is something
that the Supreme Court really doesn't.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Want to touch.

Speaker 5 (11:21):
When they do touch it, they don't call it natural rights.
And I said to Justice Scalia once, well why are
you calling this a pre political right rather than a
natural right?

Speaker 4 (11:32):
Because without natural law stuff, it's too Catholic. It's too Catholic.
Too Catholic, you go to mass epartunity. How the others
won't go for it.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
I can't believe a man of his intellectual level could
even turn to that as being too Catholic. Natural rights,
those exist for people of all political stripes, even for
atheists and agnostic folks.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Right. You know, I was.

Speaker 5 (11:57):
Teaching when I was teaching at Brooklyn Law School, tour
to of course in jurisprudence, and a young man came
up to me. He said, Judge, I went to Catholic
grammar school.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
I went to a Catholic college.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
I heard about natural wall till I'm blue in the face.
Now I'm out of law school that's primarily Jewish, and
I have to hear about it again.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Only in America, Only in America. Oh, we are blessed
every week here in the greatest Cincinnti area, well actually
nation wide, since I got people from all different states
tuning into the program every morning. But we're blessed to
have you on regardless of where you're listening from Judge
and Neapolitano every Wednesday at eight thirty here in the
fifty five carsing Morning Show. Get his column comes out
tonight at midnight. The runaway Texas Democrats who you got

(12:42):
me talking to today on judging Thooday.

Speaker 5 (12:44):
I have Scott Ridder at one o'clock today, who's about
to argue that some of the president's foreign policy moves
there deeply dangerous, like sending nuclear submarines closer to Russia.
Max Bloomenthal, who will make the case about the starvation.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
In God and Phil Giraldi?

Speaker 5 (13:06):
What is the intelligence community up to next? Why was
an mi I six British intel agent arrested by the
Russians in Ukraine. So this is the stuff we're talking
about this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Great material and subject matter. We'll be listening to Judging Freedom,
and of course next Tuesday or next Wednesday with another
edition here on the fifty five Carsing Morning Show. God
bless you, your honor, have a great run, and all.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
The best to you and your family, your listeners, and
to Streker who really puts this show together all the time.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
I see him down there at the bottom of the.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Screen without Joe the show don't go oh catchphrase we
got going on here, and I appreciate you recognize him
because he is a critical element to the fifty five
care Sing Morning Show. Love you brother.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
We'll talk next week. Have a great forty two.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Right now, fifty five car see the talk stations stagraund
We've got more to talk about. Joe's got the phone
lines open. You feel free to chime in if you
care too. I'll be right backed fifty five KRC