What A Day - South Carolina Takes The Lead

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

The rule-making arm of the Democratic National Committee voted to reshuffle the presidential primary schedule, making South Carolina the first state to hold a primary in the 2024 elections. The new order will change which voters have an outsized voice in selecting the Democratic nominee for president, and the issues that candidates will center in their campaigns.The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in Moore v. Harper on Wednesday, a high-stakes case that could endanger free and fair elections. The justices will decide if state legislatures have the power to regulate federal elections.And in headlines: protesters in Iran are planning a three-day strike amid conflicting reports about the fate of the morality police, coal miners in Alabama hit the 20-month mark in their ongoing strike, and Georgia voters broke early voting numbers ahead of Tuesday’s Senate runoff.Show Notes:Every Last Vote | Vote Save America – https://votesaveamerica.com/every-last-vote/Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Monday, December 5th. I'm Juanita Tolliver. And I'm Josie Duffy Rice. And this is What A Day, hoping that Kiki Palmer stays as fun and bubbly as she is now, long after she becomes a parent. I'm looking at you, Josie. You're the only parent in this conversation. I gotta say, fun and bubbly. Not how I would describe myself after becoming a parent, but hopefully she can be the first person to pull it off. On today's show, Iran gave mixed messages over whether it would disband its controversial morality police. Plus, if pest control is your passion, New York City has a job for you. It most certainly is not my passion. Do not sign me up for this job. I don't want anything to do with that. But first, black and brown voters to the frontC voted to reshuffle the presidential primary schedule,

taking the first step to bump Iowa from the number one spot and make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary. South Carolina would be followed three days later by Nevada and New Hampshire together on the same day. And then Georgia and Michigan just before Super Tuesday. So Iowa would be in the top couple. Girl, fully booted, fully booted from the top five. Got it. And this is a massive shift, right? Like, especially when you consider that some primary candidates usually drop out after Iowa and New Hampshire before a diverse electorate even has a chance to vote and weigh in. So this new schedule is going to change all of that, including which voters have an outside voice in selecting the Democratic nominee for president, which issues candidates focus on and build a platform on,

which media markets see the big spins in campaign ad buys, and most importantly, for me anyway, which regional food and good eats get all the shine in 2024. Gotta say, as a Southerner, South Carolina is going to have better food than Iowa. Just going to throw that out there. Bring it on, right? Like, honestly, candidates and strategists better throw out whatever playbooks they were using in the past, because each of these states being elevated have large, diverse populations of black, Latino, AAPI and indigenous people. And voters are going to expect an intentional and meaningful focus on the issues and priorities affecting their communities. And considering that the Democratic base is largely comprised of Black and Brown voters,

this is a huge step in recognizing the critical role that Black and Brown voters have played within the political party since they got the right to vote. And I assure you, voters in these states will be expecting the same parade of candidates, engagement, and Democratic Party investment that Iowa has enjoyed for more than 50 years. Yeah, that is absolutely right. This would be a major step in the right direction when it comes to actually representing the base of the party. Speaking of Iowa, I'm sure the Iowa Democratic Party is thrilled about this. Just kidding. I feel like they are not going to go quietly into the night on this. Is that right? That's absolutely right. And a lot of folks will likely miss the draw of the Iowa Fair and fried Twinkies and Oreos, which, Josie, fried Twinkies are delicious, okay?

That's not true. We can agree on fried Oreos, but fried Twinkies are no. But Iowa doesn't really have a strong position to argue against this change, considering how they fumbled the bag and the early vote count during the 2020 Iowa caucus that didn't name a winner until days later. Add that to the fact that the population of Iowa was pretty homogenous with about 96 percent of the population identifying as white in the most recent census. It seems like a no-brainer. During the Rules Committee vote, Iowa and New Hampshire were the only objecting votes, but that was to be expected, of course, since New Hampshire has a state law that, quote, requires the state to hold the first primary in the nation. What's still up in the air, though, is whether or not Iowa and New Hampshire will accept the final primary schedule.

So what actually, like, prompted this change? What happened? All right. So some folks are going to point directly to three explicit events. One, Iowa messing up in 2020 during their caucus. Two, South Carolina reviving President Biden's struggling campaign in 2020 under the leadership of Representative James Clyburn. And three, Jamie Harrison, the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, becoming the present chair of the DNC. Now, I would hope, emphasis on hope, that all of this was prompted by the political reality that Democrats need to invest in their base voters and shifting early resources and attention to diverse battleground states like Nevada,

Michigan, and Georgia, which are going to be critical in a potential 2024 Biden-Trump rematch. President Biden hasn't officially announced a re-election campaign, but starting in South Carolina definitely starts him off with a bang. So is this like, is it a done deal? What comes next? Not quite done yet. The DNC still has to have a final vote early next year to lock all of this in. But the hope is that the final vote will also garner overwhelming support. Now, there is still the possibility that there could be legal challenges, especially in the case of New Hampshire, which I mentioned has a law on the books and they need to be first. But we're going to keep following this and we'll keep you posted with updates. Great. OK, so in other election news, I know the Supreme Court has been extremely

active lately destroying fundamental right after fundamental right. But believe me when I say that the case they're planning to hear this Wednesday is really, really, really worth paying attention to. That is when the Supreme Court will hear Morabee Harper, which is likely going to be one of the biggest cases of our time. In fact, one of the lawyers in the case calls it, quote, the most important case since the founding for American democracy. Like a small statement. And let's just say, given who's on the Supreme Court right now, it's not looking good. It's not looking good. Right. I feel like we need to cue the gloom and doom so people understand how bad this is. Like, I feel like we already know what to expect and from whom to expect the most ridiculousness.

Clarence Thomas. But before I jump to all of my conclusions, would you tell us a little bit about this case? Honestly, on first glance, this case seems kind of like narrow. Basically, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether, according to the Brennan Center, quote, the North Carolina Supreme Court has the power to strike down the legislature's illegally gerrymandered congressional map for violating the North Carolina Constitution. Basically, North Carolina state legislators are arguing that, quote, independent state legislature theory means that the state courts and state constitution have no power when it comes to federal elections. This all sounds kind of theoretical, but let me tell you how it came to be.

This case came to fruition last year when North Carolina's Republican state legislature passed a very extreme gerrymandered map in order to ensure a Republican supermajority in the state. And when I say extreme map, I mean the most extreme-y of maps. Extreme-y, extreme-y, extreme-y. According to the Brennan Center, this map was a radical statistical outlier, more favorable to Republicans than, are you ready? 99.9999% of all possible maps. Basically, the Republican legislature, legislature like did the ultimate gerrymandering they like they like reached the peak of gerrymandering look this sounds like herman cain's dream number

but beyond that they clearly are cutting out the impact of college town democratic hubs cities across the state like this they use surgical precision here yeah this is this is cutting out a lot of brown voters young people democratics like this is wild and it makes it clear what their horrible intentions are yeah they basically were like how can we make it so no democratic vote counts and they period they like did that to the maximum extent. Once again, ninety nine point nine nine nine nine. OK, so now the Supreme Court has ruled that federal courts can't hear partisan gerrymandering cases. So voters in the state who are like, what's with this map? They brought a case in state court saying, among other things, that this absurdly gerrymandered map

violated the North Carolina state constitution's free elections clause. And so the North Carolina Supreme Court agreed with the voters and they struck down the map saying it was, quote, designed to enhance Republican performance and thereby give a greater voice to those voters than any others. That is like a fairly strong statement for the state's report. And also like kind of an understatement, right? It's like not just greater voice, the only voice, right? Republicans, though, even though their map was the state Supreme Court was like, no, this map is crazy. The Republicans were like, we will not be deterred from their efforts to subvert democracy. So they introduced a second gerrymandered map. Of course, that one was also rejected. Two Republican legislators decided to ask the conservative activist Supreme Court to decide whether or not this was even allowed. So at the state level, they've been playing ping pong over this. They've been going back and forth over this horrible, horrible map.

But tell us more about what the independent state legislature theory is that you mentioned earlier. Like, how does that play into all of this? Yeah. So this theory says that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the authority to regulate federal elections. And to be clear, I mean state legislatures alone without any checks and balances. So no input from governors, no vetoes, no input from state courts, and no say from the state constitution. State legislatures get to do what they want. So this is like, needless to say, an insane theory, just like crazy. And to quote the Brennan Center again, it runs contrary to the constitutional text, history, practice, and precedent. I mean, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. The Supreme Court has already rejected all of those things in terms of constitutional text, history, precedent and practice. So I feel like this

is right up their alley. Yeah. I mean, you know, these the Supreme Court is like full of people who like love the framers, love originalism. The framers did not trust state legislatures, which is why they insisted that Congress have the power to set parameters for federal elections. That part. The idea that like this is in the Constitution is like it's on the Constitution because like they didn't put it on the Constitution. It's like pretty much there. Right. And this theory basically like eliminates any semblance of checks and balances, which

you may remember if you've ever taken first grade basic civics or whatever. It's so basic. Is the number one thing they talk about in American governance. And this theory basically eliminates that. I mean, this could end up meaning a lot of very bad things for voters in elections. Like under this theory,

there's no reason that a state legislature couldn't decide to just like give all their electoral votes to Trump, even if most of the state's votes went for Biden. You know, I'm in Georgia. It's a Republican state legislature. When we went blue in 2020, there's no reason under this theory

that the state legislature couldn't just be like, well, actually, we want to give all these votes to Trump. There's just like nothing preventing that. And there's so many- And we know he was calling them. He was calling Georgia.

He was calling Arizona. He had legislators from Pennsylvania and D.C. for lunch. He had Wisconsin legislators. Like they were ready and and D.C. for lunch. He had Wisconsin legislators. Like they were ready and willing to do exactly that for Trump. And that's why I'm like, look, making this ghost face like what? Because that could become a reality. Right. And if that was a reality, there's no one to even check that power. Right. State legislatures could do whatever they want regarding federal elections with no consequences, no issues.

It's crazy. So this theory is unhinged. It's absurd. And it's dangerous. Like, why did SCOTUS even take this case? Yeah, it's a really good question. And the answer is, like, once again, dun-dun-dun, we need our music, right? It's like that.

It's like, because the answer is not ideal. The reason the Supreme Court decided to take this case is because multiple Supreme Court justices have expressed support for this completely bananas idea. Right. Gorsuch has been explicit about his support and a 2020 opinion. He like straight up says he agrees with this theory. Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh have also endorsed some version of this in the past. Now, Chief Justice John Roberts has rejected the theory in the past. So he'll theoretically side with the three more liberal voices on the Supreme Court. Then there are Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, who seem to sort of like at least be either explicitly support it or support some version of it. And that leaves us with one possible swing vote. You guessed it. Amy Coney Barrett. You called her a swing vote. Right. Like I would never. That's not true. Unknown vote. Unknown. OK. Unknown. Because she's right up there with federal society approved justices. She's like right down for the most extreme of the extreme policies. But do you think that they have any boundaries around this? Like, do you think that they're down with this? I don't think they have any boundaries on this.

I'm hopeful because it is it flies so drastically in the face of all of the principles of, you know, like American elections. Right. These are like like the Federalist Society has spoken out against this independent state legislature theory. One of the main councils against it is a lifelong staunch conservative. Like, there are a lot of conservative voices who are like, hey, this is crazy. Because by the way, in North Carolina, it would hurt Democrats, right? But you could imagine a scenario where the state goes for the Republican candidate and the Democratic state legislature subverts their vote. Like this isn't good for any voter in America. It's not good for us.

Plain and simple. It's bad for democracy. It will dilute our votes. It would give state legislatures the ability to reject our votes and do whatever they want. The only people it's good for are state legislatures who would have more power. And I would hope that the Supreme Court can see that, regardless of party, but the Supreme Court are also not regular civilians.

So I don't have a ton of that part. Anyway, we will keep a close eye on how this case plays out, but that is the latest for now. We will be back after some ads. Now let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. The mass protests in Iran over the killing of Masa Amini continue, though the fate of the so-called morality police unit that arrested her is unclear. Over the weekend, Iran's attorney general said the morality police had been abolished and that officials are considering changes to the country's strict dress code for women.

But as of our recording at 9.30 p.m. Eastern, neither of those moves had been confirmed. Meanwhile, protesters are planning to launch a three-day strike this week to pressure the regime to make good on those promises. One of the countless important documents Donald Trump has not read, the U.S. Constitution, has become the latest target of his rage. In a social media rant over the weekend, the former president called for the termination of the Constitution so that the 2020 election results could be overturned. Trump's post followed the release of internal Twitter documents from 2020, which Elon Musk claimed were proof that Twitter under previous CEO Jack Dorsey conspired to stop free speech during the presidential election. Of course, Trump's comments have been met with widespread criticism,

but many prominent Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, have stayed silent on the issue. I'm just thinking about, remember when Donald Trump used to flush documents down the toilet? Right. Just thinking about him flushing the Constitution. Hundreds of striking coal miners in Alabama hit a milestone last week. They've now spent 20 months on the picket lines to demand better pay and benefits from their employer, Warrior Met Coal. It's believed to be the longest work stoppage in Alabama history.

Workers want their pay and benefits restored after the company slashed wages back in 2016 to keep the mines from closing, even though Warrior Met rakes in millions of dollars in profit every year. Meanwhile, negotiations for a new contract have stalled, and it's not clear when the two sides will reach an agreement,

but striking miners can thank the power of solidarity for keeping them afloat. In addition to community support, their union says they've pulled together more than $20 million from member dues and donations to help them stay on the picket lines. We are almost done with the 2022 midterm election cycle as the last Senate battle will be decided in tomorrow's runoff in Georgia. We've been closely following the race between Democratic incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican vampire expert Herschel Walker. Now, Georgia voters deserve a shout out, not just because they've had to endure another four weeks of political ads, but because more than 1.8 million Georgians have already cast their ballots and have broken some early voting records in the process. It's worth noting that since Georgia's election subversion law that took effect last year,

the runoff period is much shorter than it used to be. So it's no wonder that more people are voting now because they've had fewer days to do so. But Georgia's Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, doesn't see it that way. He released a statement last week saying quote the largest early voting day in georgia history shows that claims of voter suppression in georgia are conspiracy theories no more valid than bigfoot this man please look look spoken like a true voter suppression dude like that's all this is he is fully committed to feeding into his own lies as he furthers Jim Crow legislation.

Like, that's what this is. It's true. I have to say, as a Georgia voter, though, I'm feeling pretty good about this. I early voted last week. There were a ton of voters there. People really care. They're really coming out. I am proud of the Georgia electorate as of right now, Sunday at 930 PM Eastern.

We will see how I feel after Tuesday. But look, this is the fourth time that Georgia voters have to turn out for Senator Warnock. So I feel confident about this. But I got to give a shout out to not only the Georgia voters, but the organizers on the ground who had to contort themselves to jump through every hoop that Kemp, Raffensperger and Republicans in the state legislature have put in front of them this election cycle. That is true. Organizers have been amazing. Also, I would like to repeat your shout out to Georgia voters, including me, who have been getting all of the election texts that the rest of you stopped getting like a month ago. And for rats in New York City, the days of worry-free, pizza-fueled viral stardom are over, baby.

They're about to be the targets of an official, quote, rat czar charged with keeping rodent populations down. The city's mayor and foremost vegan who loves killing rats, Eric Adams, asked for applications last week to be his director of rodent mitigation. A tongue-in-cheek job posting calls for someone with a, quote, swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of badassery. But the posted salary range of $120,000 to $170,000 is no joke. If those numbers have you updating your resume and questioning your own principles of nonviolence against all of God's creatures, well, you might consider the magnitude of the task ahead of the future czar. New York's sanitation department says rat sightings have jumped 71% over the last two years.

I know, awful. And there are an estimated 2 million rats living in the city. Oh my God. I have a lot of questions because all of this is awful. 2 million rats is far too many rats. Like, no. Hate it. But I do want to know why you need to have crafty humor a sense

of crafty humor to fight rats there is nothing funny about a 71 increase in rats rats don't get your jokes they don't get your jokes there's nothing that like your crafty humor will do nothing makes this okay the only thing that i like about this job posting is the 170 000 salary exterminators line up ask for the highest number make sure you negotiate because this ain't gonna be an easy job this is not an in and out job you yeah trust me you're gonna earn every single one of that 170 000 right and those are the headlines one more thing before we go crooked coffee's best-selling coffee accessory the cold brewer is finally back in stock it's the perfect gift for the coffee lover in your life or

as a little something for yourself and let's be real a fresh cold brew you can make from home will taste a lot better than supporting a big chain that's not playing nice with its union as always every crooked coffee order supports RegisterHer, an organization working to register and activate millions of women across the country to vote. Head to crooked.com slash coffee to grab yours today before they sell out again. That's all for today. And if you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review.

Strike fear into the heart of a rat and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just vampire scholarship by true vampire experts like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Cricut dot com slash subscribe. I'm Josie Duffy Rice. I'm Juanita Tolliver. And dry out the Constitution, Donald Trump. God, the fact that he would like mark documents up with Sharpie and then flush it down the toilet is like, what type of fetish is he satisfying with that? I don't know.

I genuinely love the idea of him trying to flush the Constitution, marking it up with Sharpie and then like blow drying it with like a blow dryer. Well, his staff, his staff would blow dry because they're the ones who have to dig in the toilet. Yeah. We can't let Merrick Gar they're the ones who have to dig in the toilet. Yeah. We can't let Merrick Garland find out that this man tried to deflash the Constitution. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance.

Jazzy Marine and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producer is Lita Martinez. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kachaka.