No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Supreme Court upends elections across the US

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

The redistricting wars explode with a major Supreme Court update. Brian interviews Robert Garcia, Tommy Vietor, and Kyle Kondik.Pre-order THE DAY AFTER - https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/thedayafterSubscribe to Pod Save AmericaRead more from Kyle Kondik - https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The redistricting wars explode with a major Supreme Court update, and I've got three interviews, Robert Garcia, Tommy Vitor, and the managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics, Kyle Condick. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. The Supreme Court has finally dropped their Calais decision, effectively gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which means that the legal protections for black majority districts are now gone. So in a state like South Carolina, for example,

where Republicans are in charge everywhere, the congressional delegation is seven Republicans and one Democrat. That Democrat is Jim Clyburn, and his district is protected under the Voting Rights Act. Well, now that it's struck down, Republicans in South Carolina can draw him out of that district and just do an eight-to-nothing gerrymander, all Republicans. And they can do that in states across the country, leading to anywhere from one to two dozen seats flipping from blue to red. That's a big hit that Democrats are going to have to contend with, especially when you add in these mid-cycle redraws, Florida's passing their gerrymandered map right now.

And of course, the census in 2030 is going to transfer somewhere around a dozen electoral votes from blue states like California and New York to red states like Texas and Idaho. So it's grim, especially over the next few years. But if there was ever an impetus to fight, this is it. And in fact, AOC put it perfectly when she said this. Should New York respond in kind by doing its own redistricting once the amendment passes? of? I have long felt that we all have to play by the same set of rules. And the Republican

caucus has made it very clear that they want and are setting rules of partisan gerrymandering. The Democratic caucus has tried to pass nonpartisan gerrymandering for 10 years. Republicans have rejected it. And so we have to all abide by the same rules. And so if Republicans are going to redraw North Carolina, if they're going to redraw Texas, if they're going to redraw Texas, if They're going to redraw and gerrymander every one of their states. Then unfortunately, we have to provide balance to that until we get to the day where we can all finally agree to put this behind us and pass nonpartisan gerrymandering federally. Which is exactly the right posture.

Like, we know how the Republicans fight. So our only option here, the only one, is to fight back using every weapon we've got. That means New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado, Washington. These states need to step up, recognizing. the urgency of this moment and fight fire with fire. And look, is this a race to the bottom? Yes, but we cannot unilaterally disarm. And look, we have to be clear-eyed about the fact that this is a stopgap solution at best. Even if we compete and win the gerrymandering wars, and frankly, even if we get full control of government and manage to pass a new Voting Rights Act or a

Freedom to Vote Act, there's always going to be a Supreme Court waiting in the wings to strike anything down, meaning there are no permanent solutions so long as this 6-3 conservative court exists. So there will come a day when Democrats have full control of government, and I will fight for that day with everything I have. And we need to come to accept the fact that when we get to that point, we need to take big swings to make sure that we're never in this position again. In practice, that looks like expanding the court. And in fact, I write about this in my upcoming book, which is titled The Day After. So here's an excerpt from the book. To restore democracy, to restore integrity to the judicial system, we urgently need to reform the Supreme Court.

reforms need to be based on principle, not politics, to have any legitimacy or public support. The first order of a filibuster-free Congress should be reform of the Supreme Court, not the second or third or fourth, where it will be too late to save the Republic and our independent judiciary. If any subsequent reforms are to stand a chance at surviving, we cannot leave in place a rogue branch of government with the power to strike down anything that doesn't comport with its far-right ideology. The first reform should be to expand the court in line with the principles that determine the number of justices in the early years of the republic. The first Supreme Court had six justices reflecting the six Federal Circuit courts.

The court grew to seven justices in 1807 after a seven circuit was added. It grew again to nine after two new circuits were added in 1837. Today, there are 13 federal court circuits, but only nine Supreme Court justices. The court should reflect the size of the country and the scope of its legal challenges as it did more than a century ago. And again, that book is called The Day After, so I'm going to put a link to pre-order the day after in the show notes of this episode. I would really appreciate for those who are listening right now, if you haven't yet had a chance to pre-order this book and you want to support my work,

the best way to do that is to pre-order the day after. So that's what needs to happen. And we have to normalize this idea now so that when we have power, we don't waste time negotiating, but rather spending that time actually doing. Like, we've spent so much time talking about the need to fight. This is how we do it. The era of strongly worded letters is over. Now we have to fight like democracy depends on it because clearly it does. Next up are my interviews with Robert Garcia, Tommy Vitor, and Kyle Condick. No Lie is brought to you by Ship Station. Look, when your business starts growing really fast, shipping and fulfillment can quickly

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Congressman, thanks so much for joining me. We have a major update here with all eyes on Pam Bondi because this April 14th sworn deposition for the oversight committee came and went. She didn't appear. You made an announcement this morning that you were moving forward with the contempt resolution and then suddenly we had an update. Can you explain what that was? Yeah, look, she obviously missed her date two weeks ago, right?

So she would have to come in, have her deposition in place. It was under subpoena bipartisan. She misses it. And so since that date, we've been warning Pam Bondi and Chairman Comer that we were going to file contempt charges. And if we did not hear, we reached out to the DOJ, we reached out to Pam Bondi and her counsel directly. We've been talking to oversight Republicans, nothing, no information.

And so this morning, just like we promised, we filed contempt charges in the House. And, you know, ironically enough, 45 minutes later, after we filed the Senate, those charges, James Comer announces, we now have a date that's been rescheduled with Pambani. And so clearly, they folded. I'm glad that we actually finally have a date. We've got to ask these questions. Pam Bonny has a lot to answer for. And I'm glad that James Comer finally set a new date. What do you presume happen behind the scenes? Do you think that this date already existed and was being, was being, you know, hammered out between Pam Bondi and

James Comer or the Oversight Republicans, or do you think that they saw that you basically called their bluff and were like, okay, what date works for you, April 29th, great, let's put it on the books and then pretend, of course, that that was going to be the case all along? Yeah, I mean, we don't know, right? I mean, what we do know is we had had zero information or communication. We had sent Comer a letter asking if there had been any progress on setting the date,

nothing. We'd called, talk to James Comer's staff, no response. We'd reach out to Pam Bondi to the DOJ, nothing. And so as of this morning, by the time we had filed those contempt charges, we had had zero communication or information about rescheduling that deposition. And so the fact that 45 minutes later they came up with this date, whether they had already been working on that date or whether they came up with it on the spot, we'll never know because they weren't communicating with us. What matters is we finally got a date and that we pushed and got the Republicans to actually do the right thing. And I think, you know, I've said from day one, we have to be in the fight. If we're willing to fight and push hard, we're going to get good results.

So we've heard this announcement from DOJ or Pam Bondi's team that it's going to be May 29th. But have you gotten official word? And I ask that because right now you have, you know, the contempt resolution that's filed. And so that's going to move forward. And we've seen, you know, this wouldn't be the first time if Pam Bondi decided to play some games. This wouldn't be the first time that, you know, the Republican. will have screwed around. And so is this contempt resolution going to remain in place and presumably moving forward while you wait for any official correspondence here? It is. We're not removing the

contempt resolution. It's been filed in the U.S. House. And now we have a date. And so I don't expect there to be a vote or this get taken up until we see if she actually appears. And if she doesn't appear on her scheduled date, then I think that this obviously gets eligible. elevated and I think it'll really cause a lot of issues for Republicans. She needs to come for her deposition. It was a bipartisan vote through a subpoena. And so I'm glad that we have the state, but it's just unfortunate that we have to fight so damn hard for them to do the right thing. But we're going to continue to do so to get justice for the survivors. So the assistant attorney general, Harmeet Dillon, had come on to Twitter and replied to a tweet that oversight Democrats posted

where you all laid out that Pam Bondi was going to contend with these contempt charges. And Harmeet Dillon said, fake news, why lie oversight Dems? You know that Pam Bondi, through counsel, agreed to a specific date your committee council proposed for a transcribed interview earlier this week. Be better. Cheap stunts like this are a waste of time and space. Now, we've already spoken about the fact that, you know, there was no date that was given to the Oversight Democrats. This is just, you know, this is basically just make-believe to make themselves look better in retrospect. But why do you presume that Harmeet Dillon on behalf of the

DOJ is out here advocating for Pam Bondi when just a few weeks back, the whole point of, of this effort to try and claim that Pam Bondi didn't need to be there was because she's no longer at the DOJ and so she could no longer speak for what's happening at the federal government. And yet now you have DOJ officials who are speaking on behalf of Pam Bondi and fighting her battles for her. Well, I think what's incredibly bizarre is the DOJ continues to, a sense, would be a mouthpiece for Pambondi. Right. And it's officials. She doesn't work there anymore. The DOJ has said that their position is that Pambonty doesn't need to appear. And now we're there pushing back and calling us liars. I mean, that's a joke. I want to see the correspondence. I want to see the email or the

letter where they told us the date. They didn't, they didn't share anything with us. And so they were communicating with Chairman Comber, he had been keeping us in the dark. And so, look, we're going to, we're not going to sit around and just take their word for it. I think at the end of the day, we need her to show up. We're going to keep that contempt resolution filed. Pam Bondi hasn't released 50% of the files. And now Todd Blanche is doing the same thing. She docs survivors. She put them in danger. Why were Galane Maxwell given so much special treatment and so many others then get exposed in the files and the personal information put up? I mean, just, the haphazard nature of the way they've treated this whole thing. It's got to be investigated. And so we

look forward to her coming here. We have a lot of questions for her. I think she's going to face a very, very aggressive and committed group of Democrats to get the truth. And that's the part I want to dig into here because, you know, while I think all of the mechanics surrounding, you know, the will she, won't she come are certainly interesting. The important part of all of this is what's going to happen once she appears. And so can you talk about why it's so important to get Pam Bondi in front of the Oversight Committee for a sworn deposition? Yeah. I mean, look, first, this is the same Attorney General that said the binders were on her desk. I mean, she started off by creating this whole bizarre influence, like MAGA influencer event early on, saying that the files were released.

They weren't. Then she said that it was a hoax and followed along with President Trump was saying that wasn't true. Then they tried to hide the files. They defied the files. They defied the subpoena, I mean, over and over again, this has been just a constant cover-up at the highest levels. We need to ask questions. Who was the person that actually mandated the move for Gleine Maxwell? Who did that? We still don't know. Well, I bet you she does. And so she's going to be asked that question. Why are 50% of the files still not presented? She needs to answer those questions. So that's what we expect to happen under the deposition. No Lie is brought to you by Better Help.

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If anybody knows anything about crime, they know 86. You know, it's a mob term for kill them. You ever see the movies? 86 them. People like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others. He, you know, Comey is a dirty cop. He's a very dirty cop. He cheated on the elections.

He tried to help Hillary Clinton, as you know. He dismissed a lot of things that he should have proceeded with. I'm joined now by the co-host of POTSafe America, Tommy Vitor. Tommy, that was Trump justifying or trying to justify his administration's indictment, second indictment now of James Comey in this interminable effort to prosecute his political enemy. So first off, how convincing do you think? his whole excuse for this indictment was. I mean, I think we could see the fear in his eyes there.

I think he was shaking. He was quivering. This is a man who saw his life flash before his eyes in the form of some seashells on Instagram posts. One might even say that he's shell-shocked in this whole situation. He did seem shell-shocked. I think that it's on us to take this seriously. Violence is never acceptable.

The whole thing is absurd. Trump couldn't even pretend that he really thought James Comey was planning to kill him by posting a photo of some shells that he didn't even arrange himself. He just stumbled upon. This is so stupid. He clearly is just trying to ruin this guy's life and get him charged a bunch of lawyers' fees and stuff him in court and create anxiety. And it's pretty effective so far. Yeah, it's effective.

I mean, look, this is, you know, it would be bad enough if this was happening in a vacuum. But even worse, given the fact that for the entirety of the Biden era, I mean, Republicans literally created a subcommittee on the weaponization of government. Yeah. Like, this was a thing they pretended to care about. And so they don't actually dislike weaponized government. They just don't like when the other side... You've got to point the weapon in the right way. Yeah, they want to be able to weaponize government,

but they only want to be able to do it unilaterally onto themselves. The hypocrisy is so infuriating. Like, look, I think Hunter Biden's kind of scummy guy who traded on his father's name and got contracts that he wasn't qualified to have from companies like Burisma, whatever, right? Fair. But then, like, I was watching last week a clip on Foxx's... news of Eric Trump getting congratulated by Maria Barton Romo for getting a $24 million

Pentagon contract for his new drone, like robotics companies. Like, I'm sorry, you think this is on the level? Come on. Yeah. How do you think about that? Because we are in a post-shame, post-truth, post-hypocracy world. And so, you know, you have a media company. I have obviously all of my channels.

And both of us are especially focused on combating and confronting right-wing disinformation. and the shame and hypocrisy that they that they exhibit. But like, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you fight back against this when you have like Maria Bardo, literally congratulating, congratulating Eric Trump for being able to like successfully pilfer the government. Congrats on looting the Pentagon budget. Yeah. And I mean, like Trump is engaged in a lawsuit where he's literally suing his own IRS and just picking out a number, you know, out of the house so that he can pay himself billions of dollars. I believe it's a $10 billion dollar lawsuit. Yeah, he's, you know, It could be more.

I think he deserves more. How do you think about that? I think about it by, like the hypocrisy part, no one gives a shit about hypocrisy. Like no one can't defend Hunter Biden or care. I think calling out the corruption is the way you go forward. Like I think Maria Bardoom actually kind of did us a favor by being so embarrassing in that clip and like just so fundamentally not doing her job

as a journalist in that moment. Like I don't say to congratulations to anyone for our Pentagon contract. Congratulations to the son of the president for pilfering the defense department. budget. What are we doing here? So yeah, look, I think there's a lot of lessons learned about beating authoritarians. And one way you do it is by highlighting corruption like this. Yeah. And Tommy, I think it's important to note that like as we're talking about the corruption that we're seeing right now, it's also kind of ingrained in in every different level of government. We saw at the Supreme Court just today with the, with the Calais decision. So basically the

way that this works is the Supreme Court was hearing a case Louisiana versus Calais that was that was ultimately, where ultimately the Supreme Court justices wanted to hear specifically about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. They ultimately ruled to gut Section 2 the Voting Rights Act along ideological lines, 6.3, that would eliminate any mandate for a minority opportunity district. So a black opportunity district, Brown Opportunity District, whatever it may be. And so even in these states like South Carolina, where we have Jim Clyburn, for example, you know, this is a district that's protected constitutionally because otherwise full Republican control of that state, they would draw that district out. Well, now they can. Now there's no protection

for these black opportunity districts and minority opportunity districts. And so in light of that, what would be your advice to other Democrats where we haven't seen, where we haven't seen them flexed their muscles yet? Like we have, for all this talk, we actually haven't seen a ton of movement on the left. We saw Gavin Newsom and California Democrats do it in California. where we are. We saw Abigail Spanberger, State Senate President Louise Lucas, and the Virginia Democrats do it in Virginia. We saw a court decision go away in Utah, but otherwise, you know, Republicans just did it in Florida. Obviously, Republicans did it in Texas, in Missouri, in North Carolina, in Ohio.

And so, you know, there are still a lot of weapons that have yet to be wielded on the Democratic side. New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Washington. What's your message to these Democrats? out there in light of what we saw today. Yeah, look, I think in the short term, we got to win the midterms by as much as humanly possible. Once we do win, we need to use subpoena power as aggressively as possible to get more information about these corruption stories and lift them up and highlight them.

I think in the short term, I do think that we need governors and state legislators to threaten to gerrymandering kind. Yeah. As much as I hate it, like, I'd prefer not to be doing this, but I think it's necessary. Well, the option always exists to pass national legislatures. legislation banning partisan jury. Yeah, and then long term, I do think, like, there has to be a huge reform agenda as part of the Democratic platform in 2028 and beyond. Because voters hate everyone right now.

The Gallup did an approval rating. They asked people what they, Gallup asked people their approval of Congress, and the approval rating of the institution was 10%. Pretty bad. Yeah. Pretty bad. And so people hate Congress. They hate the institutions. They think the system is broken.

They think it's rigged. And there has to be a big reform package that includes. anti-gerrymandering that includes getting money out of politics that includes term limits of some sort. Like we also Democrats have a gerontocracy problem. So we should need to think about like what, how do we present to voters a real vision that shows we are different and better than the other guys without, you know, just like waving the white flag in the short term. Do you think it's a good idea to run on the idea of expanding the court? And I ask that because even if Democrats are fortunate enough to take the House, the Senate, and the White House at some point, which already is

a pretty heavy lift. The Supreme Court has showed us today that they're there as kind of a backstop to push back against any voting rights legislation that even unified control of government by Democrats could push through. Like this Voting Rights Act was bipartisan legislation that existed for decades, 60, you know, almost 60 years, 1965. Yeah. And, and, and, and, And the last time it was, it was, like, you know, ratified or codified. It was 98 to nothing in the Senate and then signed by George W. Bush. So, like, this is longstanding legislation. So, like, even if we pass another iteration of the Voting Rights Act, we now know that

the Supreme Court is just going to be there to act as an obstacle to allowing it to stay. And so, you know, sure, you can, you can do, like, these scattershot laws and then they get blocked by the Supreme Court and you just kind of go back and forth, but that's just tinkering around the edges. Does fundamental change at the Supreme Court level need to take place in order to actually entrench these solutions that we're seeking to pass? I think like the court expansion probably needs to be part of the agenda. I don't know that I run on it. I don't know that it's like a particularly popular thing. It's sort of just polarizing. I think both sides like it when their team talks about doing it, dislike it when the others. But I do think it's got to be a part of a part of the

agenda. And yeah, I mean, look, we're going on. We're now several decades into this very determined, well-funded, well-organized project by the Republicans to fill the courts with ideologues. It's like Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society and all these groups, just not thinking for one second about people who really understand the law. It's like, how can we shove the biggest number of, like, right-wing partisan actors into judicial slots? Democrats need to figure out a way to counteract that and fight back. It's just going to be, it's like a generational project at this point. Do you think they get it? Like, do you think that the fight mentality, not the strongly worded letter, but like true fight mentality is actually

settled in? I think they get it, but it's like it becomes just a question of time management and all the other crises going on, right? Like the next Democrat might inherit some sort of financial crisis or something, right? And it's like making sure they still prioritize. okay, we need to get these judges vetted and through the system and votes and get rid of the filibuster or anything that will block them. Like that, I think is the key. It's just like determination to do it. Yeah. But Brian, like in the near term, you know, Trump in, in the Oval Office today was basically saying like he wants to see a bunch of Republican states redistrict right now, start redrawing the maps. I mean, how worried are you about this impacting the midterms? I'm not worried about

the midterms. They don't have much time to be able to do it. The only state that I'm worried about right now is Florida and we are in the midst. I mean, by the time everybody's watching and listening to this, Ron DeSantis may very well have already signed the new gerrymander into law. But otherwise, you know, there are already primaries taking place. So I'm not really worried at this point. I'm actually, we did catch something of a break, recognizing that Section 2, the Voting Rights Act was going to be gutted anyway. I don't think there was anybody who thought that this thing had a shot. But we got lucky that it didn't pass, that this ruling didn't come down in January or February. Like six months ago.

Yeah. Because then everybody would have been able to redraw their maps. And we would have seen, you know, 12 to 20 seats already that would have been, you know, gone. Yeah. So we caught a little bit of a break. I think midterms are basically priced in. I think in terms of the redistricting wars. It's pretty much a wash at this point.

So, you know, what I'm looking at really is how this impacts 2028 and beyond. And remember, it's not just. these mid-cycle redraws that we're seeing right now. And Republicans still do have weapons. We still do have to see, you know, this Florida map signed into law. We still have to see a bunch of Republican states that have the opportunity to do so. Indiana might come back and do something. Ohio has the opportunity to, you know, do a harder gerrymander than the one that they have right now.

But remember, we have the census coming in 2030. And we could see California lose, you know, four or five seats. New York loose seats. We could see Arizona, Nevada, Washington lose seats, New York, Pennsylvania lose seats, and the states that are going to gain them are probably going to be, you know, Texas, Florida, and a bunch of sunbelt states that disproportionately vote for Republicans. And so, you know, all of those things combined, yeah, they worry me. And that's why it's incumbent on Democrats to, A, fight everywhere, because if we win these state legislatures, that could be the bulwark against a Republican legislature passing a new gerrymandered map and and giving support to

these lawyers who are fighting these fights. I speak to Mark Elias almost every single day on on this channel and you know, Norm Eisen and all of these other attorneys who are doing this work. But yeah, it's going to be a slog for the next few years. And that's why it's absolutely incumbent to make sure that we can get Democratic majorities and pass nationwide legislation to ban partisan. and gerrymandering once and for all and give the opportunity for some of these Republicans who've been clutching their pearls pretending that they're these white knights for democracy to vote for it if they actually don't want to see gerrymandering like they're saying only after every democratic state does it you were saying you want you think we need to like

86 the court is what you're saying before we got we got in this we got 86 this video right with shells with shells yeah we have to make no you said we need to make the court beautiful necklaces with shells of numbers like 86, hypothetically. I don't, legally speaking, I cannot affirm or deny. I'm just, for the record, I am just kidding because this shell thing with Comey is so stupid. Cut to indictment. Yeah. Well, look, I think that's a good way to.

A good place to end. I think that's a good, legally speaking, I think that's a great place to end. Highly recommend for those who are watching right now, please help build a good way to end. up this progressive media ecosystem. We need as many voices in this ecosystem as humanly possible, especially as Republicans continue to consolidate control, electorally speaking, in the media space, whatever it may be. So a small step everybody watching can take is to subscribe to Pot Safe America's YouTube channel. If you're listening on the podcast, subscribe on the podcast. I'm going to put those links on the screen in the post description, in the show notes, wherever you're listening,

you'll be able to find it. Tommy. Oh man. As always, thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks. I'm joined now by Kyle Condick, managing editor of Sabato's crystal ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Kyle, thanks so much for taking the time. I want to talk to you about this new map that was released by Florida Republicans. This is obviously a gerrymander to counteract what Democrats were just able to pass out of Virginia that 10-1 map. So I got to ask first and foremost, can we talk about the legality of this move? Because there is a constitutional amendment in place in Florida that would ban partisan gerrymandering. that seems to be exactly what this new map would require in order to pass it.

And so would this pass legal muster? It's a great question. I mean, I think you could look at the map and say, hey, this obviously is a Republican gerrymander. You know, the previous map, I think you could argue that too, although I think it's a clear argument here. But whether the Florida Supreme Court would actually enforce that is a completely open question. Governor DeSantis has made, I think, six of the seven appointments to the Florida Supreme Court. It's a conservative court. it seemed like they might rule against at least portions of the pro-apublican map that passed in

2022. They declined to do so. And in some ways, what's going on here is that the Sanchez administration is kind of taking this fair districts amendment that voters approved about 15 years ago, kind of head on saying that basically there are portions of the, it's called the Fair Districts Amendment that don't stand up to constitutional scrutiny and that there were protections in it for basically for majority minority districts that, again, don't pass legally. go muster. And so they say the whole thing is obsolete. Again, I'm no lawyer. I don't know what, you know, what this court is ultimately going to decide. There are legal hurdles to jump here, though, for Republicans. I kind of feel like Governor DeSantis is sort of taking them head on in this

proposal. Well, I mean, this feels like a more egregious gerrymander than even the one that DeSantis himself pushed forward against the wishes of the Republican legislature. Like, the existing map is the gerrymander that really was just, uh, Ron. on Desantis' pet project. Like, the Republican legislature had a less egregious gerrymander. DeSantis, you know, as part of his whole political platform, wanted to be more aggressive. They got that passed. This takes that to even a new level. And so I'm just, I'm just wondering here, is it possible for the opponents of this map to come in and say, even if the, you know, Republican state Supreme Court in Florida wasn't willing to take a look at or block the existing

Republican map, this one is even more egregious than that one. Yeah, look, I think you certainly could make that argument. Certainly it would, it seems like it would, it would produce an even more lopsided Republican House delegation. It's 20 to eight Republican right now. If this map performs as intended, it would go up to 24 to 4. Now, I think there are reasons why it might not perform as intended in in the context of 2026, which should be a much bluer or at least less red year in Florida than 2020 and certainly 2024 were. But again, you and I can talk about that and think that it's an obvious argument, but it may not be an obvious argument to the to the Florida Supreme Court. Another thing here is what does the U.S. Supreme Court do with this CalA decision on Section

2 of the Voting Rights Act and basically whether majority minority districts or are essentially protected. You know, and this, the letter from Rod DeSantis' legal counsel that accompanied this proposal today kind of suggested that, you know, Republicans are going to get their way on Calais. The decision has to come out yet. I think DeSantis was hoping that the decision would come out, would have come out by now. That's part of the reason why he pushed this back all the way until late April. We don't have that decision.

We don't know what's going to say. It may be that Sam Alito is writing that decision. It may be that Sam Alito gives Republicans everything they're. want. But if Calais isn't decided in favor of Republicans, it may also be the case that this map doesn't stand up to federal scrutiny on racial redistricting lines either. So again, lots of open questions legally about this map. Okay. So you alluded to the political implications here. Is there a world where this proposed gerrymander could actually turn into a dummymander because the lines are, you know, the districts are drawn too thin where the margins are, you know,

if you bring a, you know, an R plus 15 district down to an R plus five in an election year where Democrats are overperforming by, you know, 10, 12, 14 points, do you think there's a world in which we could see this backfire? I think in order for it to be a quote-unquote dummy bander, Republicans would have to come out of 2026 with fewer than 20 seats, which is what they have now. And there are 20 fairly durable seats. And I'd also say that, you know, there are a few districts on the, current map and also the proposed map of Maria Salazar in Florida 27,

Corey Mills in Florida 7, who's got a lot of scandals and problems of his own. You know, it's possible that they might have lost under the old map. The new map didn't really change their districts all that much. So if they lose, you can't really blame the map for the reason why that would happen. It would be as part of kind of a mega-democratic wave. So this reminds me a lot of what happened in Texas, in that in Texas, Republicans want to gain up to five new seats based on their new map. They may or may not be able to do that, but I don't think they're going to come out of this

election with fewer districts than they had before they drew the map. It's just a question of how well does this map perform for Republicans? That's true in Texas. I think it's true here in Florida, too. You know, there was a lot of reporting that even Florida Republicans, folks who are, you know, the elected officials who would be impacted by these maps, were pushing back against the idea of engaging in the special legislative session to, be able to pass these new maps. Can you just speak on that idea and whether you think that that

was taken into account here? I don't know if what was taken into account. In fact, this process was so secretive that even the state legislature, which is ostensibly in charge of this process, I mean, they basically just outsource things to the governor. The governor's office seemed to, you know, produce this map. It showed up on Monday. It looks like the legislature is going to rubber stamp it over the next couple of days. Maybe they won't. It's possible that they could push back on it, but this has really been driven by the governor's office, and presumably the White House has been, you know, probably knows something about it. But again, there's not really been anything publicly said about it. You know, you think of redistricting as being sort of a publicly deliberative

process. It really wasn't in the sense. Now, look, when the, you know, when the Virginia Democratic gerrymandera emerged a few months ago, that was also something that, you know, I think was sort of dictated by the state legislature. It is fair to say, though, that the map came out and then the public voted on it. So there was a sort of a public deliberation in that regard. It really hasn't been in Florida. And, you know, the members themselves, you know, most members will never want to see their district changed unless they are getting, you know, a better district for themselves. But the members, I mean, look, the state legislature doesn't seem to have much power here, let alone the members who don't really have a formal say, even though, you know, they're the ones

who represent Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives. Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's also worth noting that in both Democratic weapons here in this redistricting war, both California and Virginia, both of those went to the voters in every instance where the Republicans pushed this through, whether we're talking Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, Florida, those are going to be done by Fiat, by folks in charge where the voters never have a say in the matter. So I think that's just like something that's pretty telling in this entire process. I did see some polling today that if they did put this to the voters, that it wouldn't pass in Florida. which is why I presume it's being done in the way that it is.

Well, part of the reason why California and Virginia went to the voters is because they basically had to in order to get around the redistricting commissions that were written into the Constitution. Now, if Florida actually did want to do away with the Fair Districts Amendment and go to the voters, you know, to amend the Constitution in Florida actually takes 60% of the vote, which is what this, you know, which is what the amendment got. I think it was back in 2010.

Now, what the DeSanth's administration seems to be arguing is that even though the voters approved this back in 2010, that it's not operative anymore because of, you know, basically a Florida Supreme Court decision recently that kind of pushed back on some aspects of it having to do with racial redistricting. Well, look, on that point, like, you, if you're Ron DeSantis and you have a Supreme Court that doesn't really care what the Florida Constitution says, if you have, you know, these instances where where judges or state officials don't even want to take into account what the law is supposed to be, then like you don't have to worry about thresholds. You don't have to worry about anything

because you've got these people in Ron DeSantis' pocket who are just going to rule by Fiat anyway. Well, look, I mean, part of the story since Rand DeSantis ran for president was that he was such a powerful governor of Florida, particularly in his first term. I mean, his ability to get the, you know, the first map done

in 2022, I think was an example of his power. I think there's been some thought that maybe his power is waning. He's a lame duck governor. He's going to be out of office starting next year. But this is another real power play from DeSantis because he's trying to essentially not only dictate this map to the state legislature controlled by Republicans, but also suggesting to the Florida Supreme Court that they should essentially go along with the map and also maybe even decide that the Fair Districts Amendment isn't, you know, isn't operative anymore or at least doesn't doesn't have any teeth. So it is a real power play. Again, we'll see if it actually works or not. Can you talk about if Florida Republicans are successful in pushing this through what the net

sum of these redistricting wars is going to look like? So there's a way of looking at it. So we've got eight states now who are, have redistricted or attempting to redistricting. You sort of look at them in groups. So it's California versus Texas last year. Texas is trying to add five new Republican seats. California's trying to add five new Democratic seats. California also short up a few current Democratic seats, which I think you have to kind of keep in mind when you're doing the arithmetic here. So I think California was a little bit better for Democrats than than Texas was for Republicans, but they're kind of similar. Virginia trying to add four new Democratic seats, Florida trying to add four new Republican seats. In some ways, maybe they cancel themselves out,

although, you know, there are legal questions about both, and, you know, we've got to see how they perform in the elections. Ohio was not really a Republican. and gerrymander, although it was a, certainly it's a, it's a pro-Republican map in which you'd expect to be a neutral map to be. Maybe Republicans get a seat or two out of Ohio, although I don't think anything is really guaranteed there. Utah court-drawn map, plus one Democratic. Maybe you could say Ohio and, you know, and Utah maybe canceled themselves out. And then you've got Missouri and North Carolina, you know, an additional Republican seat apiece. The Missouri map might get thrown out by the courts because of a, you know, or might basically put on pause by a referendum.

I think if all of these maps come through, it's kind of a wash. And again, it'll sort of depend on what the results are. Now, if, you know, Virginia succeeds in Florida fails or Florida fails and Virginia, or if Florida succeeds in Virginia fails, then maybe one, you know, the one side gets a clear advantage over the other. But I think the bottom line here is that things have not changed enough to, you know, to change, to change, to change, to change, to change idea that Democrats are favored to take the House. I think they've been favored basically the whole time this cycle. I think they continue to be. And we'll just see how redistricting ultimately ends up resolving here. Well, you had mentioned before the Calais case. And we don't only have the Calais case

that's coming down the pike. We also have, you know, the 2030 census, which is going to take a bunch of electoral seats away from historically blue states and put them, put them in historically red states. And so with that, you know, on the horizon here and with a bunch of Democratic weapons still, which still remain to be gerrymandered like New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Washington. And I'm sure there are other Republican states where you've got, you know, partisan officials who are willing to, you know, do their part in this whole, you know, race to the bottom, basically. Where do you think that one side might have an advantage over the other when all is said and done? Well, look, I mean, I think that it is indeed the case that Republican states should gain house seats and electoral votes from blue states in the 2030 census. Now, we'll see what actually happens. And that's also several election cycles away. I do think these redistricting wars are going to continue into 2028. Maybe you get the CalA decision in, I mean, it could come in at any time, but maybe it comes in June. Maybe it is a pro-Republican ruling. You know, maybe those protections from majority minority districts are eliminated. That'll have ripple effects. the south. It might also have ripple effects in in blue states too because maybe they won't have to, you know, feel like they have to protect certain districts. You could have states like Colorado and New York

go to the voters and try to roll back some of the redistricting, you know, commissions or restrictions in those states, much the way that California and Virginia did. Maybe a red state like Indiana that elected not to gerrymander or re-jerrymander in 2026. Maybe they do it in 28. So you could sort of go on and on and on with lots of possibilities, I will say that without some sort of national solution on redistricting in which you have some sort of agreement between the parties as to how to do it. I mean, that seems totally like a pie in the sky kind of thing. You're just going to keep going here. And I think the race to the bottom is probably going to continue.

One thing that I think may be a little bit dangerous for Democrats in the context of 2028 and 2030 is that some of these maps might perform well for Democrats in 2026 or maybe they won't lose as many seats as they expect in like a Texas or a Florida because of the environment. But maybe those maps will perform for Republicans in 20, 28, and 2030. So you kind of got to, you know, you got to take an election by election. And so maybe what looks like a wash in 2026 actually is a Republican advantage in 2028 because of the change in the political environment. Kyle, for folks who are watching and listening, where can they see and hear more from you? CenterforPolitics.org backslash Christa Ball.

We just put up an analysis on Monday of the New Florida. map, which I'm sort of referencing here today, you know, best guess is that I think it might be a challenge for Republicans actually to achieve that net gain of foreign Florida, even if the map is instituted for this year. So that's something we'll watch and going forward here. Kyle, real quick, is there any big surprise that you're anticipating come election day in midterms? I mean, look, I mean, I think it would still be a surprise if Democrats flip the Senate, but, and I think Republicans are still favored, but like you're starting to see. kind of more of the path emerging here over the past the past few months. But, and, you know,

the other thing is that, um, I'd say the bigger surprise than, you know, Democrats flipping the Senate would be Republicans holding the House because I do think Democrats are in pretty good position in the House. Um, and again, this redistricting thing has sort of added some uncertainty there, but that's generally been the case. And I think that that continues to be the case. You know, I feel like for as long as I've been in politics, we have looked at a few states as like, you know, just impossible, uh, uh, uh, to get back into the blue column. And that includes Florida, that includes, you know, Texas. I don't even remember a time when Texas was there, but, you know, that has been the perpetual prize.

A place like Ohio has gotten redder and redder. Do you have any feelings about the prospects that Democrats have in this election cycle as it relates to these states that have been for so long out of reach but would really upend the political map as we know it if suddenly Democrats are able to win in Ohio or Texas or Florida? Well, look, in order to actually flip the Senate, you know, Democrats are going to need at least two of those seats from a, you know, from a double-digit Trump state. And that assumes that they win North Carolina in Maine. It assumes that they hold all their current seats. You know, those may or may not be safe assumptions. But, but yeah, I mean, you know, Democrats are now locked out of, you know, the states that voted for Trump three times he was on the ballot, which are 25 states. That's 50 Senate seats. You know, they have to claw back some of those in some of those places to win. North Carolina is a natural place for that in the Senate. Then you look at like Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, maybe Florida, maybe Texas. So whether Democrats are going to make inroads in those states, it's probably not going to decide the House, but it very well may decide the Senate. All right.

I'm going to put the link to your website right here on the screen and also in the post description for those who are listening on the podcast. I'm going to throw it into the show notes. Kyle, as always, thanks for the analysis. Thanks for the work you do. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Robert Garcia, Tommy Vitor and Kyle Condick. That's it for this episode.

Talk to you on site. Sunday. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to bryantylarkoen.com to learn more.