Morning Wire - DOJ Sues Tennessee & Equity Theft | 4.28.23

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

The DOJ is suing the state of Tennessee over a law that bans transgender surgeries for minors, House Republicans pass a bill that would raise the debt ceiling while slashing spending, and the nation's highest court hears the case of a 94 year old woman who’s home was seized and sold for a profit by the government after she missed tax payments. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.  Black Rifle Coffee: Get 10% off your first order or Coffee Club subscription with code WIRE: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/  Cynch: Download the Cynch app and get your first tank exchange for just $10 with promo code WIRE. Visit http://cynch.com/offer for details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Biden DOJ is suing the state of Tennessee over a new law that bans the medical transitioning of children. What's the federal government's argument? And how are Tennessee lawmakers defending the new law? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, April 28th, and this is Morningwire. The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would raise the debt ceiling while slashing spending. But Senate Democrats are declaring it dead on arrival. Democrats cannot and will not allow the Republicans' do.

DOA Act to ever become law. What's in the bill and is there room for negotiations? And the Supreme Court hears the case of a 94-year-old woman whose condo was seized and sold for a profit by the government over her failure to keep up with property taxes. Really the only people, in my experience, who support these kind of laws are the people who have a personal or financial stake in them. We discussed the bipartisan push to abolish equity theft. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.

Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. As the battle over transgender medical treatments for children heats up across the country, the Department of Justice is now attempting to block Tennessee's Protecting Children from Gender Mutilation Act, which prohibits transgender surgeries and hormones for minors. Here to discuss the Biden administration's attempt to block the law as Daily Wire reporter Amanda Pressa Giacomo. Hey, Amanda, so tell us what's happening now with this Tennessee law. Sure, as we've reported here, Republican Governor Bill Lee signed the bill into law last month.

This effectively barred doctors from conducting trans surgeries or giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to anyone under the age of 18 for the purpose of gender identity. The law, which is set to take effect on July 1st, was largely pushed through by Republicans, but also gained some support from a few Tennessee Democrats. But the administration is now trying to block it. That's right. The DOJ sued the state on Wednesday, claiming that the ban violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The department said in a statement that the law discriminates against trans-identifying kids by denying them sex change services while, quote,

allowing non-transgender minors access to the same or similar procedures. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark, who leads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, she further claimed that the law targets transgender youth, whom she said are especially vulnerable to serious risks of depression, anxiety, and suicide. All right, so that's the DOJ's angle. What are supporters saying about this lawsuit? Well, Governor Lee has already responded directly to the lawsuit. He told the Daily Wire that it's federal overreach at its worst and vowed to continue to protect children from, quote, permanent life-altering decisions. Republicans in Tennessee have argued that gender-confused children need mental health treatment, not surgery or puberty blockers. They also make the

distinction between using something like puberty blockers for medical reasons, for example, precocious puberty, as opposed to psychological or ideological reasons. Here's Tennessee House Majority Leader William Lamberth discussing the bill, which he sponsored, by the way, in some pretty plain language. We're not going to have, you know, any kind of quack doctor coming to this state and start doing double mastectomies on children that are suffering through body dysphoria. Now this battle over transgender medical procedures for minors has been raging across the U.S. In Tennessee, this law was sparked by reporting about Vanderbilt's transgender clinic here in Nashville, reporting by the Daily Wire, we should note. Remind us of how that played out.

Yeah, that's right. The Daily Wire last year uncovered video and screenshots showing that the medical center offered these controversial trans surgeries to minors, and according to video, hormones were given to kids as young as age 13. What also got a lot of attention was footage of Dr. Shane Taylor, an LGBT specialist at the hospital, openly stating that, transgender surgeries can be huge, quote, moneymakers. And the female and male vomiting surgeries, these are huge moneymakers.

There's a different things that I've read that said. It could be up to $100,000. Dr. Winnecker, who's our servant, says that there's entire clinics where the entire clinic is supported just by their phalloplasties. And that is like a fraction of the surgeries that they're doing. These surgeries are labor intensive. They require a lot of follow-ups. They require a lot of O-R time.

They make money. They make money from the hospital. After the backlash, Vanderbilt confirmed that they have performed some transgender surgeries on minors, though they downplayed that. They also announced a pause on these surgeries for anyone under 18. Now, looking more broadly here at this battle, which other states have similar proposals to ban these surgeries and treatments on minors? Well, this is definitely a growing movement. There are lawmakers in at least 14 states now that have proposed measures restricting or banning gender surgeries and puberty blockers for minors. That includes states like Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia.

Two of the first states to actually move on this were Arkansas and Alabama. After Arkansas passed its law, the state caught a lawsuit from the ACLU, and that case is currently ongoing. Alabama last year made trans surgeries on minors a felony in the state, and they were similarly sued by the DOJ. That was partially blocked by a judge. Cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers are allowed for minors, but trans-surgery. surgeries for kids in the state are banned. Okay. The opposite movement, I should note, is also taking place in more deep blue states like

California, for example, which has declared itself a so-called transgender sanctuary state. Here, doctors can conduct these procedures on minors, including kids from other states. Critics have slammed these policies for potentially allowing children to undergo these treatments without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Well, the Biden administration's decision to intervene here clearly follows a pattern of focus on trans issue. We'll see what the courts do. Amanda, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire reporter, Amanda Presta Giacomo. Coming up, the GOP-led House moves to slash spending in a new debt ceiling bill.

Republicans in the House passed a proposal to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling on Wednesday. The bill lays the groundwork for the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to open negotiations on a debt ceiling hike. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to discuss. So Tim, Tim, off, what's in this GOP bill? So the Limit Save Grow Act packages together a debt ceiling hike alongside spending cuts and reforms that would cut the national deficit by about $4.8 trillion over 10 years. Most of the cuts will come from returning the government's discretionary spending to fiscal year 2022 levels in 2024.

Federal spending growth would then be capped at 1% annually for about a decade. But Republicans did hit a few specific targets. Most of the $80 billion in new funding for the IRS would be received. and they want to gut climate portions of President Biden's signature inflation reduction act. House Conservatives also successfully included increased work requirements to receive food stamps. How much leverage does McCarthy have right now? Well, getting this passed is a big victory for him in that it gets him to the negotiating table, which is what McCarthy's message has been all along.

McCarthy put together a fragile coalition. If he had lost one more vote, the Limitsave Grow Act wouldn't have passed. Now it's up to Biden and the Democrats, but mostly Biden, to meet with McCarthy and hammer out a deal. It's not clear what the final deal could look like, but there may be some room to get allies on the other side of the aisle with cuts to the IRA. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has been upset with Biden recently over the administration's excessive spending on green initiatives. Manchin this week threatened to vote to rescind the Inflation Reduction Act if the Biden administration doesn't change course. If this administration does not honor what it said it would do and basically continue to liberalize that, where $384 billion is what we're supposed to invest over 10 years,

and they blow that out of the water and it's six or seven or 800, I will do everything I can in my power to prevent that from happening. And if they don't change, then I would vote to repeal my own bill. Now, in the past, we've reported that Biden said he wouldn't negotiate. Is that still the Democrat response? Democrats trash the bill pretty heavily, and Biden has so far refused to reach out to McCarthy. He's still saying he won't negotiate on the debt ceiling. I'm happy to me with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended.

That's not negotiable. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused Republicans of holding the United States credit rating hostage. The default on America Act is a ransom note. Because effectively what you are saying is pass our extreme mega-Republican bill, or else America is going to default. The bill got a similar reception in the Senate. Here's Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Speaker McCarthy needs to recognize that all the energy he is putting into the passing the default act on America will be wasted effort.

It is D-O-A, plain and simple. Now, Schumer is right on that last point. McCarthy's bill won't pass the Senate. But the GOP bill was always supposed to be a starting point and not the final agreement. And most lawmakers expect concessions on both sides before a final deal is reached. All right. Well, we'll see what happens. Tim, thanks for reporting. Anytime.

That was Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. The Supreme Court heard a case on Wednesday of a 94-year-old woman who had her condo seized by the state due to her failure to pay $2,500 in back taxes, plus $15,000 in late fees. A bipartisan legal coalition is arguing that seizure of home equity by the state in excess of what is owed is unconstitutional and predatory. Joining us now is David Dearson, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation and a member of the Tyler legal team. David, thanks so much for coming on. Absolutely, Georgia. Thank you. It's pleasure. So first off, can you lay out the points of Wednesday's case? What is this case about? Sure. The case involves Geraldine Tyler. She's a 97.

four-year-old woman living in Minnesota, and since 1999, she'd owned a condo in Minneapolis. Beginning around the early 2010s, she began to fall behind on her property taxes, generating a principal debt of $2,300. After the government tax on statutory interest and penalties and fees, that figure balloons to $15,000. And what they do, Hennepin County, Minnesota, is they foreclose. on the home, and they sell it for $40,000, and they keep every penny, including that extra $25,000 that they weren't owed. And unfortunately, this is not unusual. In Minnesota, on the contrary, it's how the tax laws are written. And it's also how the tax laws are written in about a dozen other states, too. So we ask the Supreme Court to rule that the government can't take more than it's owed in

taxes and that if the government forecloses your home for a relatively small tax debt, the Constitution requires it to pay you back for the difference. Now, your organization says that at least 8,950 homes were sold between 2014 and 2021 because of unpaid taxes and that the former owners received little or nothing in those dozen states that have these equity theft laws on the books. Why don't we hear more about this? Why is Tyler the only plaintiff? Actually, this case was filed as a class action. So in some sense, she's not the only plaintiff. But to your question about why we don't hear more about it, I think that's an unfortunate but predictable side effect of the fact that this problem affects the most vulnerable among us.

It's people who are the most likely to struggle to keep up with their property taxes for a host of different reasons are also the people who are least likely to have the means to fight back. Now, I know predicting how the Supreme Court rule is often a fool's errand, but is there any indication of how the justices might rule in this case? Yeah, I mean, I certainly feel very optimistic after the argument. A lot of the questions were sort of in the nitty, gritty, theoretical legal details. For example, when exactly does the constitutional violation take place under our theory. What exactly is the property interest that's taking? And if I'm being optimistic and conjecturing, which I am, to me, that that suggests an interest in ruling in our favor and a desire

to get that ruling exactly right. I think if they were intending not to rule for us, they might not have reached some of those finer technicalities. All right. Well, David, thank you so much for coming on and explaining this for us. Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. That was David Dearson, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, and a member of Geraldine Tyler's legal team. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.