The NPR Politics Podcast - The Supreme Court Rules On Racial Gerrymander & Tuesday's Primaries

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

The U.S. Supreme Court said that Texas' legislative and congressional maps are not a racial gerrymander, tiptoeing around another major political ruling. Plus, six states head to the polls to set the stage for the 2018 midterms. And the fallout from Sarah Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia. This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, Congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, and political editor Domenico Montanaro. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Another narrow decision that avoided getting too political. We'll talk about that, as well as six states preparing for primaries tomorrow. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Monsignor, a political editor. So, Domenico, we're going to start with you and the Supreme Court. Another day, another decision. This time it's a 5-4 decision. The court ruled that Texas's legislative and congressional maps are not a racial gerrymander. I hear this. I think we've been talking so much about these

big gerrymander decisions that could be coming. But this is not that. Yeah. And this is not one of the most hotly watched gerrymander cases. That one, we already had that decision, which had to do with Maryland and Wisconsin's rules, because those had a little more broader implications for the rest of the country, really sort of indicating that the Supreme Court didn't really want to touch gerrymandering, political gerrymandering at this point. They have weighed in on racial gerrymandering before,, to say that the districts that had been drawn, both the congressional and legislative districts, were racially gerrymandered, the court said no, and only one of those districts is unconstitutional. What's the difference between a political gerrymander and a racial gerrymander?

Well, that's a good question, actually, that you could ask somewhat tongue-in-cheek, because there's a lot of people who think there isn't much of a difference anymore because of how hotly split we are when it comes to politics and race and how closely divided those are. But essentially, a political gerrymander is one that you draw lines around people to say that politically, I want to put more Democrats in this district or more Republicans in that district, as opposed to saying I'm going to move or pack in a whole bunch of African-Americans in this district and Hispanics in that district. That's a racial gerrymander. Now, both are actually unconstitutional. But the court has to make a decision on whether or not one is or isn't. And on political gerrymanders, they've been really reluctant to weigh in on that.

And they did that again in this term. So what exactly did they decide? They decided in this Texas case that the court-drawn districts that had been done, so this wasn't like one that was drawn by Republicans or Democrats. This is one that was drawn by the court after there were some issues with the districts that had been originally drawn by Republicans. And the Supreme Court this time said that this case, that these districts are OK. They decided, though, this in a 5-4 margin. OK, so you had the usual conservative liberal split on this. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent. It was 46 pages. That is a very big dissent. The majority opinion was 41 pages,

which is also very long, but shorter. So that reminds me that as I was talking to people, house watchers of all types, Republicans and Democrats, they're all kind of hoping that these spring and summer decisions would give them answers and would give them victories. But it sounds like you're saying they're not getting nobody's really getting a clear picture out of this. Well, if you're a Republican, you're pretty happy about this because Republicans for the last decade were able to pick up a whole lot of seats in a whole lot of states. And, you know, a lot of people thought that given that the Supreme Court had decided to take up the Maryland and Wisconsin cases together, that that would signify that the court was ready to weigh in on political gerrymandering. Instead, they sidestepped it and said, you know, we don't really want to deal with it at this point. We don't think that the case was made adequately. And they kind of did the same thing in Texas today.

Well, that gets to a broader question I have about the end of this year's term, because in a lot of the high profile cases we've been waiting to hear about, you mentioned a couple right there. I'm thinking also about the decision about the baker and whether or not he had the right to refuse making a cake for a same-sex marriage. Masterpiece cake shop. Yeah. That was another case that ended up being decided on more or less technical, narrow grounds. It seems like the court is trying to avoid big political statements this term. Well, I think that, you know, Chief Justice John Roberts, this is his court. And I think that he is somebody who we've seen repeatedly is someone who doesn't necessarily like to weigh in on things that he feels that Congress should decide. And Kelsey of Supreme Court Justice Chief Roberts must be very happy because on issue after issue, Congress consistently addresses and fixes and resolves the big questions that we're facing.

You're just reading my mind. There's a theme here, I think, of people saying, you know, Congress, it would be great if you guys could get together and do your job. And Congress keeps saying, well, we can't do that. As you and I prepare for another week of the same basic plot line of will they vote on immigration? I feel like I've been in this groundhog day for roughly three years. Yeah, I mean, this is Congress really isn't getting any better at this. And we saw the president tweet over over the weekend or at the end of last week that he wanted to see a big red wave come and solve this problem. But that's not what we expect to have happen. If anything, there might be a big blue wave and make it a little bit harder or medium a medium blue wave. Or a medium blue wave and a tiny gain for Republicans in the Senate. Either way, there's not any outlook that I can see where it actually gets easier to legislate over the next couple of years. That's right.

So let's shift gears here and talk about a bunch of primaries tomorrow. Maryland has an interesting governor's race. Kelsey, pretty crowded primary on the Democratic side. Yeah, absolutely. And something, again, we have talked about many times here is that on the Democratic side, you have somebody being endorsed by Bernie Sanders. You covered this yourself, right, Scott? Yeah, he has endorsed Ben Jealous, the former head of the NAACP, who's one of the front runners in the very crowded Democratic field. Several other high profile Democrats have as well, including Kamala Harris, California Senator, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. Maryland, right now the polls are a lot closer. So Bernie Sanders is yet again putting his credibility on the line. We've talked about this before. There's this interesting

contrast where on one hand, the Democratic Party as a whole is really moving more toward Bernie Sanders on a lot of big issues. But when he endorses in specific races, he does not have a great track record. Yeah, and he's endorsing on a race where the whoever wins in this primary isn't likely to actually win in the general election. The governor there is a Republican, Larry Hogan, and he is very well liked. And there are a number of Democrats who are happy to cross party lines to vote for him. But, you know, back to the whole conversation we've been having about voting, you know, one of the things that I think is going to come up a lot over the next couple of days is that the Maryland DMV or the Motor Vehicle Administration failed to move updated voter

information to the Board of Elections. And they're blaming a programming glitch, but it means that 19,000 Maryland voters are going to have to vote on provisional ballots. And so that's a huge number. And it's people primarily who changed addresses or, you know, changed names because they got married or changed party. Yeah. Which that can be the really big issue when you go to try to vote in a primary. Right. Because that's when you're primarily like actually having to identify which party you're in and you become active in just the party system. Yeah. I, because that's when you're primarily, like, actually having to identify which party you're in. And you become active in just the party system. Yeah.

I mean, one thing, you know, this is my home state. And one thing that, oh, man, did I say home state? Oh, man, New York is going to be mad at me. But I have been in Maryland now. Make a choice. I have been in Maryland now 11 years. So, yeah, I mean, look, beating Larry Hogan is going to be a really interesting attempt for Democrats to try to take him on because he as Kelsey said, he is very popular in the state currently. And he's like Charlie Baker in Massachusetts in the sense that these are two of the most popular governors in the country.

And what do they have in common? The Republicans in pretty liberal states. It was a shock that Larry Hogan was able to pull off the upset that he did. But he's been pretty moderate as a governor. He's pushed back against the president quite a bit. He has. And that's, you know, but it whether or not you know, this sort of liberal versus pragmatic push that we've seen play out in a lot of other primaries we're going to see in Maryland. South Carolina held its primary a couple of weeks ago, but it has a runoff tomorrow. Domenico, this is another place where Donald Trump is stepping in and making an endorsement and trying to shake up the race that way. Right. So he endorsed Henry

McMaster, who's the governor of South Carolina, and he is going to actually campaign for him. And he's going and saying that McMaster is somebody who was with him early on and is endorsing him. And we're going to see the power of the president's endorsement, see if it plays out again in South Carolina. Remember, South Carolina is a really important early primary state in presidential primaries. And McMaster, somebody who got behind Trump early and Trump is showing his loyalty back. We'll see if he can put him over the finish line. And Vice President Pence was out there campaigning as well. I mean, this is part of the way the White House has handled most of its early supporters. They treat loyalty as a really important currency.

And that hasn't changed. And they really punish dissent. Right. And on that note, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back and talk about a Republican in the total opposite position who did not back Trump early. In fact, just the opposite. That's former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who's now running for Senate in Utah. We are also going to talk about the fallout from multiple members of the Trump administration being kicked out or asked to leave restaurants. Hey there, I'm Joshua Johnson, the host of 1A. We're spending a week bringing you stories of cutting edge ideas and new technologies that could change our lives for years to come. To hear our reports from the Aspen Ideas Festival, check out 1A wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back, Kelsey, Mitt Romney on the ballot again, running for Senate in Utah.

Yes, where he, you know, he's very popular there, even though he hasn't really been living there that much. You know, you say the Olympic Games, you have some long term credibility. And you have long term credibility in a state where the population is largely Mormon. And he is a notable one of probably the highest profile Mormons in the country. And he's the most popular politician in the state. I mean, anytime a poll comes out asking favorability ratings, Mitt Romney's right up there. And he has a beautiful home right on the slopes of Deer Valley. Well, that's interesting on a few different fronts. First of all, it's just interesting that Mitt Romney decided to come out of retirement and run for office again in a totally

different state. But what's interesting is there's been a trend line this year of Republicans really getting punished in primaries for standing up to President Trump or criticizing President Trump. Mitt Romney, of course, went way out of his way to blast Trump during the 2016 election. He tried to reconcile with the president a little bit. He famously met with him and ate frog's legs and discussed the possibility of being secretary of state. With that grimacing photo that you can't get out. I can't get out of my head. Yes. Kelsey Romney has really not not quite backtracked on all of that, but really tacked in a different direction. Yeah, I think it's important to note that Utah in general, the voters haven't shown a lot of love for the president. There's a very, you know, awkward relationship where you have a lot of people who are traditionally Republicans, but have really strong objections to his style and to the way that he kind of comports himself in the political arena and in the public arena.

Romney started to look like he was going to be the great defender of the never Trump wing of the party. But he's moderated that and he's kind of tried to stick his criticisms of the president to issues where it bubbles up to the most national importance. And I actually think the reason why this is important is because it shows us how hard it would be for him to actually push back on the president if he does come to the Senate, if he is elected. I think there are a lot of high hopes from people who are of that never Trump wing of the party that he would be that leader because major leaders of that movement are leaving. Talking about Jeff Flake of Arizona, Orrin Hatch, who I guess kind of mixes it up and does some of that sometimes, sometimes he doesn't. Yeah, he's had a mixed record on that. Bob Corker of Tennessee, they are leaving. The hope was that Mitt Romney would, you know, take up that mantle all year about Republicans paying the price politically. If Romney does not as well as expected in a state where Trump is already not super popular with Republicans and he's gotten more popular over the last couple of years with Republicans.

But still, it's a it's like a lukewarm it's a lukewarm relationship. If he if he suffers because of that in Utah, I think that really tells us something. Yeah. I mean, I think Romney is the overwhelming favorite. He should win not just the primary, but the Senate seat. He could be on every Sunday show every week if he wanted to. Now, will he take up that mantle? Will he not? I mean, we've seen Jeff Flake kind of flake out, frankly, in some cases. Bob Corker is doing it. But again, he's leaving. So there's no one in Washington taking that up. We should say on all this, though, that I think last week is the most high profile example to date of Senate Republicans, congressional Republicans,

pushing back aggressively and it actually having an effect. Yeah. And that and it we're talking about the immigration conversation here. And the idea is that McConnell does want to vote at some point in time on family separation as a standalone issue. And there has been some measure of pushback on the Trump administration about trade as well. But that's pretty limited. If you think about the broad, like the wider number of issues where Republicans don't agree with this president. The number of times I had to walk up to somebody, read them a tweet and say, do you agree with the president? And they get really uncomfortable and run into an elevator. Like I don't have enough fingers, toes and limbs to count those times. All right, one more state to flag,

and that is New York, which really confused me at first because New York's gubernatorial primaries are in September, but they do their congressional primaries in June. Your other home state, Domenico, always trying to be difficult. Kelsey, I'll start with you.

Joe Crowley, interesting place within the House Democratic Caucus to begin with right now and facing an interesting challenge. Yeah, so he is favored to be one of those people who's on a short list that could run the House Democratic Party. But he is facing a challenge from a 28-year-old activist who she has less than one-tenth of the amount of money as Crowley does, but she's a credible threat. And there are several Democrats who have credible threats in their primaries. And we are in a climate where not

just here in America, but if you look at all the international elections happening right now, there is a massive throw the establishment out feeling that just continues. You're seeing it in Mexico. So again, even though people are heavy favorites, it's always worth keeping an eye on it because there are surprises sometimes. You know, and the Crowley race also has this other dynamic where he is a, you know, a white guy, an older white guy. And this is a young Hispanic woman who, you know, who is saying that, you know, John Crowley doesn't have the face of the party in the future. And yeah, I mean, to see Crowley, who's somebody who would normally cruise to reelection, have to deal with this really does speak to the sort of bubbling up of the populist left. All right. One more thing to talk about before we go. And that is that over the weekend, California Democrat Maxine Waters said this to a group of supporters.

Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere. All right. So this comes after White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant over the weekend. And after the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was confronted by protesters at a Mexican restaurant last week over the Trump

administration's policy of separating children from parents who enter the country illegally. And there, Stephen Miller, the top advisor to the president on immigration issues, immigration hardliner, also confronted in a restaurant in Washington, D.C. You know, this came at a time when the policies the administration was pushing forward, separating parents from their children, really struck deep nerves with a lot of people. But this idea of confronting people in public, of saying they're not welcome, of kicking them out of places, that struck a nerve as well. And Kelsey, you have some Democrats already pushing back and saying Maxine Waters

is wrong to say liberals need to do this all over the place. Yeah, I think the most prominent person would be Nancy Pelosi, who is the leader of House Democrats. She tweeted this morning, in the crucial months ahead, we must strive to make America beautiful again. Trump's daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable. As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea. Now, it's notable that Pelosi would push back on Waters. And while she didn't mention Waters by name, she was like retweeting a video and a story about Waters. So it was very clear who she was speaking about. And this is important because Pelosi has kind of had to play this role throughout the past year and a half, where she's trying to tamp down people on the left and in different parts of the party who want to impeach the president, who want to push back in really very, you know, while she wants to respond to the base that it feels very passionate about this, is trying to avoid the kind of insurrection that

Republicans saw during the Tea Party wave, where they lost complete and total control of their party and became an ungovernable bunch in the House. And President Trump weighed in today as well and tweeted, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become together with Nancy Pelosi the face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for, Max. This is exactly what Democrats don't want. They do not want to be pitting themselves in this culture war. They don't want to be pitting themselves in this culture war. They don't want to do this. But here's the thing about that that I find to be fascinating, because you don't have a president right now who's looking to tamp down.

No, the opposite. He ramps it up at all points. Right. I mean, this is a tweet that's essentially saying, bring it on. You want to have a fight with us? We'll bring a fight to you. Presidents, first ladies, they're always in the spotlight. People always say bad things about them. But usually a president takes the higher road because they are trying to hold the country together. And this is the first time we've seen a situation in this country where you essentially have the president, you know, stoking the flames, too.

It's totally changed things in the way that Congress deals with one another as well. Because if you think about it, Democrats used to like to say they were the ones who were being the responsible, taking care of people, the nurturing kind of image that they have tried to cultivate. And part of that was saying we will never shut down the government. Well, we saw that not be the case earlier this year.

I mean, this is the way the president handles things has really started to impact the way that the lawmakers interact. All right, we packed a lot into a Monday episode. We will certainly be back several times later on this week, but that is a wrap for today. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.