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Ep. 32: SCOTUS Gutted the Voting Rights Act. What's Next? (Mimi Marziani, Esq.)
38 Plays3 days ago
Constitutional law attorney, voting rights expert, and former president of the Texas Civil Rights Project Mimi Marziani joins Kate and Alex to break down the Supreme Court's Callais decision — and what it means for Texas, for redistricting, and for democracy itself.
Plus: Mimi's clients are refusing to be silenced, Alex's daughter turns four, and Kate announces she's hanging a shingle.
What we discuss:
- What the Callais decision actually holds — and why Justice Thomas's concurrence may be more honest about it than the majority opinion
- The 25-year arc from Bush v. Gore to Crawford to Shelby County to Rucho to Callais — a slow burn with a fast finish
- Why the court reaching out to decide a question the parties didn't ask is virtually unprecedented, and what Citizens United has in common with it
- The immediate-effect ruling and why the only plausible explanation is to benefit Republicans in the 2026 midterms
- The Texas redistricting fight: how a 150-page federal court finding got swatted away on the shadow docket
- The Republican Party of Texas lawsuit seeking to restrict primary participation — and Mimi's amicus brief
- Tennessee's new map, the Memphis dismemberment, and what comes next
- Why 2030 redistricting is the stakes underneath the stakes — and why Texas is about to gain five more congressional seats
- What it would take for Congress to act: the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the filibuster, and what 2029 might look like
- The one thing standing between Republicans and unlimited gerrymandering: losing
"Republicans in Texas believe in Texas Democrats more than Texas Democrats do." — Mimi Marziani
Read Mimi's new article: Weaponized Oversight: Texas’s Escalating Campaign Against Nonprofit Advocacy & the Chilling Effect on Speech and Association, 45 Rev. Litig. (forthcoming 2026), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6748785.
Support the show:
Love what we're doing? Become a member at patreon.com/missiontexaspodcast — just a few dollars a month keeps independent Texas media alive. And if you can't spare the cash, a five-star review goes just as far. God bless Texas. 🤠
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Transcript
Introduction: Mission Texas and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Howdy. This is Mission Texas. A political podcast about winning Texas by 2032 or else we may lose the White House for a generation. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Clark.
00:00:13
Speaker
And I am Kate Rumsey. Other podcasts may focus on the day-to-day the next election. But we are keeping the eyes of Texas on the bigger prize. What happens after the next census?
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome back. Our next guest is a constitutional law attorney, voting rights expert, and a former president of the Texas Civil Rights Project. She and her firm have represented people you might know, like Powered by People, and she's testified before Congress and has taught at UT Law, including...
00:00:42
Speaker
the like One of the students here on my podcast, Alex Clark, was one of her students, and she also happens to be my and NYU Law classmate.
Mimi's Journey to Texas and Political Awakening
00:00:52
Speaker
So we called her here to break down the recent Supreme Court decisions and what it means for Texas. So welcome to the podcast, Mimi.
00:00:59
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. I'd be happy to be here anyway, but as you noted, i go back a long way with both of you, so it's really a pleasure. and know. Well, speaking of, I wanted to take us back to May of 2008 at Madison Square Garden. ah That's 18 years ago, right?
00:01:18
Speaker
That we both crossed the stage at and NYU Law's graduation ceremony, which is insane. I cannot believe it's been 18. years. But if you could catch me and Alex up, like, how did you end up being in Texas doing constitutional law voting rights? Because I don't recall when we like I knew you in law school that you had a connection to Texas.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. Yeah, how did I end up in this strange, strange state? So after law school, um I started my practice in New York. I clerked. um I worked for the Brennan Center for Justice, where I really honed my election and political law expertise. I spent a little time in private practice at Sullivan and Cromwell doing big, complex litigations.
00:02:05
Speaker
and But somewhere along the way, life happened. I got married to someone from Texas. otherwise known as my husband, and he had got a job opportunity in Texas.
00:02:16
Speaker
At first, he was flying back and forth um to New York, but then an amazing woman named Wendy Davis, who hopefully all of y'all have heard of decided to stand up for 11 plus hours in a historic filibuster protesting new restrictions on women's reproductive rights. And then she announced that she was running for a governor. And I had the opportunity to move to Texas to serve as her in-house counsel. And so I leapt at that chance. I moved to Texas
00:02:49
Speaker
in 2014 to work on the campaign. And then even though um we obviously lost that campaign, i decided to stay in Texas and i stepped into my previous role as president of the Texas Civil Rights Project shortly thereafter. um i will note though,
00:03:06
Speaker
By this point, I have been in Texas for 12 years, had two kids here. And, um you know, I sometimes joke that, you know, I feel like a therapist would say that I have complicated relationships with the state. But I really believe in in the promise of Texas. And I do really believe that we are on the precipice of pretty significant social and political change.
00:03:31
Speaker
Well, that gubernatorial race in 2014 was pretty pivotal in my life too. I had been one of the first crop of Battleground Texas fellows the summer before in 2013, after my first year of teaching in San Antonio. And then after my second year of teaching, I became a staffer.
00:03:49
Speaker
First time in my life paid to do political work and started out as a field organizer, became a campus organizer. When I was at UTSA registering voters and trying to bring Wendy new Davis on campus,
00:03:59
Speaker
I would run into all these issues with administrators because they thought that I was just another college student. And that was my design. I wanted to fit in. I would tell them, like, you know, why are you giving me all these issues? like I know what the law is. You should you should be helping me.
00:04:12
Speaker
They didn't really care what I had to say. But one phone call or one email from Mimi, suddenly, you know, the red carpet was rolling out. was like but Would you like a table for voter registration? When can we get the candidate to come and speak? You know, come on down. of course you can. And I was like, wow. Wow.
00:04:29
Speaker
Who is this Mimi person? Even though I was in a pre-law student in undergrad, I had never really made the leap to go to law school until the experience I had on Battleground Texas and and seeing Mimi, not to make you blush or anything, but you Mimi was a hero, right? She was like, I wanted to be like her. And so it is it is very meaningful to me to have you on the podcast. It was meaningful
The Decline of Voting Rights Protections and Supreme Court's Role
00:04:54
Speaker
for me to intern for you whenever you were at the Texas Civil Rights Project.
00:04:58
Speaker
and to take your election law class. And so what a full circle moment. Well, thank you so much. I do have a question for you. What is your political origin story? I mean, was was you coming in house for Wendy, was that like your first kind of professional foray into politics too?
00:05:13
Speaker
Yes, it was. i had done a little bit of volunteerism here and there, probably most notably for ah President Obama's reelection campaign. I was in the legal boiler room in Philadelphia in 2012. But I will say, have often described myself as a radicalized partisan, that I really came into politics way that most normal people do. I i grew up in the American South. I saw all sorts of injustices because of structural racism and the the many, many years of of buildup and you know honestly, the still segregation of my Southern community.
00:05:50
Speaker
And that led to me asking a lot of policy questions um throughout my kind of educational career, ultimately decided that I wanted to be a lawyer and um seek to address some of those root causes of injustice. And, you know, I think even, you know, when I started working at the Brennan Center, i did not consider myself particularly partisan. And it was, i mean, Sadly, this is a good segue to the conversation we're having today. i was um extraordinarily disgusted, for lack of a better word, by what I saw starting around 2008. And eight and in the Republican Party very cynically started manipulating the rules of voting to try to gain electoral advantage. And it just struck me, you know, so at odds with American values and with how our Constitution has been constructed. And it ultimately has, you know, led me in um on a much more partisan path that, you know, I would love to you know someday get to a place. I mean, it wasn't that long ago, namely 2006.
00:06:58
Speaker
where overwhelmingly bipartisan majorities of Republicans and Democrats passed the Voting Rights Act amendment in Congress. It actually passed in 2006, 98 to zero in the Senate. Like, think about that for a second. Literally nobody voted against the Voting Rights Act, including from the Republican Party.
00:07:19
Speaker
And George W. Bush, Texan, signed it into law, at a ceremony at the White House where he invited, you know, all of the kind of major civil rights leaders to be there in the Rose Garden. And, and you know, I say that and that sounds like a different planet. Like that's so far from where we 20 years later. It's like you can't even imagine it.
00:07:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think about that is such a bygone era. I mean, you and I graduated and then we saw Barack Obama get elected in the fall. I remember i was in ah starting my first job in New York and Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and we went into the financial recession. and it feels like eons ago ah we were dealing with all of that.
00:08:03
Speaker
And then now speeding up to now and what we're dealing with with the Supreme Court. And I'm wondering if we can contextualize the reasons decisions because I, as a new lawyer, did a project on voter ID.
00:08:18
Speaker
And we have seen since then the gutting of parts of the Voting Rights Act with regard to preclearance, which meant that the southern states under the original thera had to get preclearance from the DOJ in order to do anything with their voting laws. And then the Supreme Court under this more conservative Supreme Court ah said, not an issue anymore. We don't have racism like we did in the 60s and 70s. So you don't need the world clearance thing.
00:08:46
Speaker
Be gone with you. So i think my favorite line from the Shelby County decision was RBG saying, it's like getting rid of your umbrella during a rainstorm because you're not getting wet.
00:08:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah, so I mean, how do you see this recent decision in the context of those in the past that we've been dealing with? You know, I think in some ways, and and look, hindsight is always clear or whatever that phrase is, but i do think that there has been a slow burn to get here. And perhaps we are seeing an acceleration from the Supreme Court. And I do think after the most recent decision in Calais, is very difficult and and we can get to that. But I don't see how anybody can argue that this current Supreme Court is not deeply compromised. And and it's like, I mean, they they're not adhering to
00:09:38
Speaker
precedent. They are not respecting Congress's important role in in this system, and they are just blatantly, i mean, I wish, like, it breaks my heart to say this, but they're just blatantly putting a thumb on the scale in favor of their preferred political party. um Unfortunately, the the Supreme Court has been part of this story for a while, and, you know, I think if you go back and see the Bush v. Gore decision 2000, of course, the Supreme Court stepped in, found an equal protection violation in the ways that Florida was counting ballots differently in different counties. There's all sorts of things one could say about that, um including that the Supreme Court was like, don't ever quote this decision again. know Like nothing to hear. Yeah. Let's forget this happened today.
00:10:30
Speaker
But ever since that decision, you can see that there was a push by certain Republican operatives to start manipulating election rules for political gain.
00:10:41
Speaker
This then led us to 2008, the Crawford decision, where the Supreme Court, ah in a voter ID case, even though it had evidence that voter ID would be extraordinarily burdensome, for poorer people and smaller groups of people, and that it was passed, I mean, maybe more importantly, and that it was passed for no reason other than to try to punish Democratic voters. Supreme Court green-lighted it.
00:11:07
Speaker
Then you had Citizens United 2010, and then you had the Shelby County decision 2013 that dismantled Section 4. that dismantled section five of the Voting Rights Act, which was the really important innovation that made sure that states with a history of discrimination in voting had to go and get permission from the federal government before they could change their rules. and And this was really important, not only as a legal weapon against those rules, but it also had kind of a built-in deterrent effect.
00:11:37
Speaker
because states like Texas had to send an email, I mean, is is how it usually started, the Department Justice and say, we want to enact this photo ID law, but, you know, here are the reasons we think it's not going to have a discriminatory effect. Obviously, Texas's photo ID law did and does have a racially discriminatory effect. Like the initial litigation, for instance, found that, you know, somewhere around 600,000 registered Texans who are Black and Latino lacked ID, much higher rate than... Angela is in Texas. And so, of course, it was blocked by Section 5 until that Shelby County decision. But I think you can look at each of these decisions and you're starting to see groundwork for what we've seen most recently. And then actually, I'd probably add to that 20, I think it's 19 decision in Rucho where the Supreme Court said, you know what?
00:12:27
Speaker
partisan gerrymandering is like too hard for us to make a decision on And so we're just going to say that federal courts can't intervene. and And all of those things have kind of like led us to where we are. today Well, I think about this in the terms of like what I do daily, which is in federal criminal law. And we see a lot of the Supreme Court saying, hey, Congress hasn't spoken like we can't extend these laws in this way. One example is an immigration with what's happening right now. I've i've been speaking to different bar associations, including in Minnesota, about how we have an action under Congress, a statute that says that you can sue federal law enforcement if they violate your constitutional rights. The Supreme Court then said, well, this doesn't really apply to the Department of Homeland Security because Congress or really didn't speak to that. And that's, these are really administrative officers and Congress needs to speak. If you just put these two things together and you're like, well, Congress did speak with the Voting Rights Act.
00:13:22
Speaker
And now you're dismantling it. And I understand under Calais, like it's different, like there's constitutional grounds and statutory grounds. But it just seems to me like there's such a contradiction, as you're saying, as to what the Supreme Court is signaling. Like you want Congress to step in. Congress obviously is not in a lot of ways. they We've got the filibuster and we've not passed like legislation, like you're saying. But also you're striking down what Congress has spoken on. And it just seems so frustrating to me yeah to see both. You know, it's and it's deeply, it is deeply cynical. I mean, first, though, I will totally admit, I mean, Congress is part of the problem here Congress absolutely could and should have stepped in in this like, you know, whatever this 20 year period, 25 year period that I just described and passed laws to try to counteract the Supreme Court's decision making, especially ones that that are overtly ah trample on laws that Congress has made.
00:14:20
Speaker
And, you know, I think that the loss of that muscle, yeah like the dysfunction in Congress and the loss of this muscle has been um extraordinarily problematic for our constitutional system.
00:14:31
Speaker
You know, the Congress is not supposed to be the Supreme Court's, you know, little sister. It's supposed to be a co-equal branch of government. And we've seen both the presidency and the Supreme Court really get elevated over Congress. So that's that that is a huge problem. And the Constitution is actually really clear. You know, after the Civil War, 15th Amendment said that there shall be no racial discrimination in voting and that Congress can pass appropriate measures to enforce it It took Congress a while. There was Reconstruction and then ah obviously the massive contraction of rights that happened for many, many, many years until you reached the Civil Rights Movement.
00:15:13
Speaker
But then Congress did it, passed the Civil Rights Act, in my understanding, the most successful civil rights law country has ever seen. And it has brought in 50-year-plus period of multiracial democracy, including, going back to Obama, the first Black president of the United States, something that, you know, there were people alive when he was elected that thought they would never, ever see that.
00:15:39
Speaker
And noted, it was reauthorized as recently as 2006. Importantly, in 1982, Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, and actually in response to a Supreme Court decision, he included language that the Calais Court just completely disregarded, where it said that that it's not just discriminatory intent that Congress was concerned about, but it was concerned about the entire opportunity of racial minorities to elect Candidates of choice. And there's been case law that's that's built up around that, but that's the language of the statute. And Calais, the Supreme Court, I mean, first, very cynically, I think disregards the language of the 15th Amendment, which puts this ball in Congress's court, not in the court's court. Second, completely ignores the legislative history and the plain language of these 82 amendments by but basically telling us that, you know, in order to be constitutional, that you have to show discriminatory intent in some way. and
00:16:41
Speaker
possibly most cynically of all, Justice Alito, writing for the majority, claims that he's not, you know, striking down Section 2, which I can only imagine is because he is, he thinks politically that is better for the court.
00:16:54
Speaker
But instead, he creates this ridiculous new test that no plaintiff is ever going to be able to to match because, mean, it says somehow you have to submit evidence. And as a litigator, I mean, I have no idea what this would look like. You have to submit evidence that the racial minority, that that the way that they would choose their candidate of choice is completely disentangled from partisan politics. even though we have a two party system and that's how they're operating.
00:17:25
Speaker
You know, Mark Elias said this the other day, and I think he is correct, that, you know, basically what you would have to show, i mean, i think that if you can show that all the black voters in Louisiana would actually vote for a Republican,
00:17:37
Speaker
and therefore satisfy the state's partisan goals in redistricting, I think you could have that district.
Republican Strategies and Gerrymandering
00:17:44
Speaker
But if you can't make that showing, which given that Black voters in America tend to vote for Democrats at like 85, 90 percent chance, you know, it's it's just not at all clear how you're going to be able to show, you know, race and politics are disentangled and establish these minority opportunity districts.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, and it does seem like whenever we as a country elected the skinny guy with the funny name in 2008 and flipped states that no one saw coming, right? You know, Indiana and Iowa and North Carolina, Florida and Ohio, Republicans were like, never again.
00:18:21
Speaker
We got to change the game because this doesn't feel good. Because you said, I mean, 2006, 98 to zero, 2008, we have ah the election of Barack Obama. And it does seem like the entire movement from the court, not just with the VRA, but like you mentioned with campaign finance laws and everything else has been to move away from having people be able to cast a ah ballot that matters, like in the sense that like it's actually going to have a chance to affect the outcome or select a candidate of their choice.
00:18:51
Speaker
And I'm just going to shoehorn it in here because you're involved in this case too. This is like the thread the Republicans are pulling on to the extreme. There is a current lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas right now where the Republican Party of Texas is saying the 5% of voters during a midterm, the 10% of voters maybe during a presidential election, that's way too many people showing up and voting in our primary. Yeah.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah. Do you want to talk about that? Because you you filed an amicus proof in this case. I'm trying to get one up, yeah but we'll we'll see how it goes. I mean, i will say before I do, though, i just I think it is really important for folks to recognize the through line that you are of hinting at. I do think that, you know, Obama was elected.
00:19:39
Speaker
Republicans had an opportunity then. you know, there's kind of famous autopsy you know report that came out, I think, after Obama was reelected. The Republican Party had an opportunity to reinvent itself and better cater to the American people. And instead, they chose to double down on grievance politics. They chose to double down on these tactics of manipulating election rules to give them a leg up. And that really started with redistricting in 2010. And then they slew, if you remember, mean, Kate, that's what you were remembering. Then there was unprecedented amount of Voto-ID and other new restrictions passed 2011, 2012. And then, and to justify it, the Republicans had to claim that there was voter fraud, which of course is, you know, vanishingly rare. and then Trump comes and he just supercharges all of this. He's like, you think you have grievances? Let's talk about grievances, right? Like, you think you have voter fraud? Let's talk about voter fraud. have the grievances. And it's just, and it's blown up. I'm sure you can find me 11,000, however many votes and we can, we can turn that over too.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah. and And so now we find ourselves in 2026, the Republicans aren't even, they're not even pretending. They're just saying we're, I mean, this is how you get to Trump calling Governor Abbott last summer, literally on the heels of this horrible tragedy in central Texas, little girls dying at a camp.
00:21:04
Speaker
And Trump calls Abbott and doesn't say, you know, what can we do to make Texas safer for Texans? um What can I do to support your the people of Texas during this massive tragedy?
00:21:16
Speaker
He says, get me five more seats because I think I deserve it in Texas. And Abbott, then you're telling me to jump? How high? Shoved through these maps. We can talk about the Texas redistricting, but at the end of the day, there's just there's no justification for it other than Trump wanted it. And the reason Trump wants it is because he doesn't want to have to face any accountability by a Democratic Party controlled House of Representatives.
00:21:40
Speaker
It's just I mean, they went from kind of like pretending like they weren't trying to rig things to just blatantly saying, yeah, we're trying to rig it because we don't think we can win outright this November. Yeah. And so now we have this new opinion come out because yeah all of that process seems like it's about to get supercharged even further. Like just when you think this could be like the the top is the worst, it could be something new happens. And so after this lawsuit has finalized the opinions out, we have new announcements from states saying, you don't like our gerrymandering.
00:22:12
Speaker
We're going to gerrymander even harder. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be horrible. I mean, it's already horrible, like you're seeing. And because of the Texas litigation where, you know, a federal court in El Paso, in 150 page decision, found that there was Texas, of course, was considering race when it was drawing the new maps that we have right now, because Ironically, they were kind of claiming that to try to save face and not look like they were just you know bending over for Donald Trump. And then the the court said, well, race was predominating in these maps. And Alito, you know, and the federal judge halted the maps, goes up to the Supreme Court in a shadow docket decision in December. Alito says, we all know it's really about politics.
00:22:57
Speaker
So and also, by the way, I think we're too close to the primary for us to do anything about it. And then you fast forward. And just last night, the Supreme Court has now allowing Alabama and another shadow docket to move forward with new maps, even though their primary election is next week. And even though their map was found to be not just, you know violating Section two,
00:23:21
Speaker
But violating the Constitution because it was racially discriminatory. i mean, it's just like it's I can't even i mean, they didn't try to justify it. And I was kind of joking with somebody. I'm like, but in their defense, I don't think they can justify it. So I guess that's why they just issued a docket and hope and hope nobody notices.
00:23:38
Speaker
I mean, can we go straight into the Calais decision? Just like, what is the ultimate holding? Because we're not allowed to have racial gerrymandering, but we can, i'm guessing now from this holding, partisan gerrymandering. Is that really what we're dealing with?
00:23:54
Speaker
So the Supreme Court had already said in Rucho a couple years ago that partisan gerrymandering was basically, you know, non-justiciable is the, you know, legal word, basically, that we're not going to touch it. Amazingly, in Calais, Alita does a couple of things, again, that I think are incredibly cynical. One, he claims that he's not overturning Section 2, although if you read Thomas' concurrence, he's kind of like, woohoo, we just struck down to Section 2. He's like... but I guess they didn't have their talking points were not in order. And the dissent obviously is like, I mean, you've rendered it useless.
00:24:29
Speaker
the The actual holding this um argument that um racial discrimination is a you know trigger strict scrutiny. And then the question of whether or not compliance with Section 2 can be considered a compelling state interest.
00:24:45
Speaker
And the thing that's very weasel, you know, Leder does is he says, well, you know, complying with Section 2 can be a compelling interest, but only if compliance matches this new crazy test that involves giving me a map that somehow completely takes race out of the equation and disentangles partisanship. And then he just says and takes into account kind of traditional redistricting values, including partisanship.
00:25:14
Speaker
and And so just I know that sounds very technical, but to say it otherwise, in Root Show, at least the court is kind of holding its nose and saying like, you know partisan redistricting, partisan gerrymandering is kind of distasteful, right? Like it's like we don't like it, but we can't do anything about it.
00:25:29
Speaker
By the time you get to this decision, Alito is essentially elevating partisan gerrymandering to some sort God-given right to state legislatures. And it's like, so in order for anyone to challenge a map under Section 2, they have to take into account partisan aims of a state. And so this is one of the things that the Supreme Court dinged the plaintiffs for in Texas, even though the plaintiffs had all this evidence. It 150 pages that went into the decision of how race predominated in drawing these new maps.
00:26:04
Speaker
They got their hands slapped for not somehow producing this like unicorn of a map where there's minority opportunity districts, And it still achieves the Republican Party's goals in the maps. I mean, it's just completely wild. And again, I mean, I guess the last thing I'll say in Calais is that, you know, I mean, the dissent, I think, does a terrific job of just calling them out. That this, you know, that essentially Alito, this sleight of hand is is like creating an impossible standard and he knows it's an impossible test.
00:26:38
Speaker
right Well, now that Calais has enshrined the God-given right to discriminate in the hands of state legislatures, that really raises the stakes um on a practical level for all of us who are listening and wanting to get involved and to be a part of the mission, the mission Texas, to to make sure we we flip the state. Because state legislatures are, they've always been important, but increasingly so,
Advocacy and Political Organization as Solutions
00:27:02
Speaker
it seems. What's to stop the Texas legislature in 2027 from redistricting again with even fewer guardrails?
00:27:09
Speaker
Only two things. are I mean, really, it's one thing. i mean, the political process. And, and you know, and it's it's like, ah you know, it sucks because it's like, you know, Somehow we have to kind of out-organize and out-hustle where when this playing field has been decidedly rigged. But that is the only option here. And do think, yeah you know, to have some optimism, I think that the Texas map, I think the Republicans overplayed their hand.
00:27:36
Speaker
I don't think that they're going to get five new Republican seats. We'll see. But I mean, that's what the voter the voters can and make sure that's true. And I think that that's also going to be true in some of these other states as well. I don't know them as well as as Texas, to be able to to say that. And, you know, and I think then more broadly, like, I do think that this should be a rallying cry. I mean, like, this is, it's really, it's jaw-dropping. I mean, it is really egregious.
00:28:06
Speaker
You know, a couple technical points that I think are worth lifting up and hopefully, you know, i don't know if this is what gets people in the streets, but at least for lawyers to think about. but There is only, I'm only aware in the last, like, 25 years or so, at least in, you know, law democracy world, of two cases where the ah court has done what it just did in Calais. So if you remember, what actually came to it was a different question about these Louisiana maps.
00:28:35
Speaker
And it sent them to note back to the the plaintiffs and said, no, we actually want to decide a separate question. We want to decide, you know, basically the core of Section 2 and its constitutionality.
00:28:49
Speaker
That's not what the parties asked it to decide. I mean, it reached out. And I mean, and that's, you know, if you think about John Roberts famously saying that the court calls balls and strikes. I mean, that's like the umpire saying, like, you know what, we're actually going to play basketball today. know You came to play baseball, but we're going to do something else.
00:29:09
Speaker
we heard We heard that Michael Jordan, even though he's on the baseball team, he can shoot some hoops, so pull him up. Exactly. Like Robert showed up and he's like, I think my team's way better at basketball. I think I'd like to play that game.
00:29:21
Speaker
The only other case that I can remember the court doing this is Citizens United. It did the exact same thing. That was a very technical campaign finance question about whether pay-per-view movies It could be a campaign ad and regulated under the campaign finance law. And they sent the question back to the parties and said, no, we want to hear kind of this much bigger issue about the constitutional rights of corporations and of money in politics.
00:29:47
Speaker
And I think that that is worth just underscoring that piece of it, that, you know, the the court did not have to decide this. this is This is not usually how it works. The parties bring stuff to them. It's not that the court gets to make up what it's going to decide.
00:30:00
Speaker
And then number two, normally the court makes a decision and there's a I think it's a 45-day period before the judgment issues, which is pretty common that there's some sort of period.
00:30:11
Speaker
Well, the Supreme Court decided to find good cause to overrule that normal period and have this go into effect immediately. And the only conceivable reason for that is to allow Republicans to take advantage of this decision for the 2026 midterms. I mean, I literally can't think of another like and I guess like Alita thinks that's a good reason. The court thinks that's a good reason. but i I raise ah those are fairly technical points, but I think that for lawyers in particular, maybe really lawyers who are not as partisan as, you know, for instance, I am. I think it's worth thinking and sitting with that because those are deeply, deeply troubling moves that I think show that the court is is as moved away from being any sort of neutral umpire in this situation and is is showing some...
00:31:01
Speaker
very troubling signs of of favoritism. Well, I wonder, like, what is next, right? Like, I think there's, we had precedent for a mid-census redistricting here in Texas, and then you now have the ability to partisan gerrymander I know some of our state reps have been sounding the alarm. One of them, a friend of the podcast, Mihaly Plesa, up here in North Texas, wrote an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News about it. And she's anticipating that this is going to be happening every two years in our legislature.
00:31:30
Speaker
And that's what we're going to be experiencing until, as you're saying, we get involved in the political side and elect new people. But you're also seeing it across other states. I mean, I think, didn't Virginia, they're new...
00:31:42
Speaker
like they actually elected and voted on new maps as ah an electorate and went up to their Supreme Court and now they're appealing it to the U.S. Supreme Court. So is this are going to see them this U.S. Supreme Court decide in favor of Democrats that, OK, they are partisan gerrymandering and that is permitted. So i think it'll be very interesting to see. Yeah, I mean, and the Supreme Court has, the the court has made clear at least that it is going to be hands off of partisan gerrymandering.
00:32:10
Speaker
And so it did not intervene in California's map. The Virginia one is somewhat more complicated because the state Supreme Court said that the Virginia map violated state procedural rules. I haven't looked at the substance enough to have an opinion one way or another, but that's a obviously a much harder thing.
00:32:27
Speaker
You know, there's there's probably legitimate reasons for the U.S. s Supreme Court, unfortunately, not to get involved. I think the thing that that we'll see is what supposedly, like even under this decision, like you can still bring a case to challenge a map for being racially discriminatory under the Constitution.
00:32:47
Speaker
And I think the question is going to be, you know, where the court goes with that. I mean, this is like I think the the most charitable reading of the Calais decision. The, you know, someone like John Roberts would probably tell you that, you know, as he's as he's actually put it, that the best way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. And all racial discrimination meeting needs to be held to strict scrutiny.
00:33:11
Speaker
And, you know, that is that's been a theme through also like affirmative action type cases. I think that it will be very telling to see what happens as more of those cases get up to the court. I mean, in Tennessee last week, the Tennessee legislature, an entirely white delegation, just voted on a new map that completely dismantles the city of Memphis's political power. And the only way to do that is to chop the black population in half and spread them out.
00:33:40
Speaker
you know They're going to argue, of course, that that's only partisanship. But you know this stuff starts to look exactly like what you saw before the civil rights movement. And I'm going to have, you know, I just have a hard time believing that there's not some evidence that there was some intentional discrimination there. I guess we'll see. And so those cases will continue to pop up.
00:34:02
Speaker
Well, and just to remind everyone of the stakes, I agree, like it's going to be a great year for Democrats. And so maybe they're not going to get the five seats they tried to draw for themselves. But come 2030, because of all of the new people who just come in, our population has just been exploding. We're about to get another five additional seats.
00:34:20
Speaker
And so whoever's in charge of the legislature or the governor's mansion or all of the various actors who are involved in that kind of process, that's really going to be the critical moment where we have to have some power, some hand in that process, because forget whether these five seats are going to go to Republicans this year.
Strategies for Voting Rights Reform
00:34:39
Speaker
How is the split of 10 seats going to happen in 2030? I mean, look, what I'm about to describe is not going to be easy, but there is a way out of this. And it's through first the political system that all of us need to be electing people who believe in democracy and they believe in a level playing field and they are willing to maybe put, i mean, God forbid, put partisan advantage aside in favor of things that actually work. for voters. So we're going to have to get that done.
00:35:08
Speaker
Ideally, there can be a pro-democracy majority in Congress and in the presidency after 2028. And then I think that it's going to be imperative to pass pro-democracy reform at the federal level. And it's going to have to be big and bulky. And it's you know and it's like, this is our 1960s moment all over again. And Congress ken prohibit partisan gerrymandering.
00:35:32
Speaker
yeah And they've already tried, right? Like, that was it the John Lewis Voting Rights Act that wouldn would have created independent commissions throughout the country and gotten rid of partisan gerrymandering? It would have. um I don't think it mandated um independent commissions, but it it did prohibit partisan gerrymandering. And actually...
00:35:49
Speaker
You know, I know it didn't pass. So it's always, you know like it's hard to get through the what ifs. Well, I think it's worth pointing out because and and this happened on Fox News with James Tallarico. They were trying to get him until well you like it whenever your side does it, but you don't like it whenever Republicans do it. But every Democrat voted for that piece of legislation and every vote Republican voted against it.
00:36:08
Speaker
only reason that didn't pass is because at the end of the day, Christian Sinema and Joe Manchin, they wouldn't go take the next step of making some sort of exception to the filibuster. right but and all the Democrats were willing to do that, you know, even the ones from blue states. And so I do think that you know, look, a lot has changed, obviously, in our democracy. And and i don't know that what is going what should be passed, if we have the chance to do it in 2029, should look exactly like what was proposed before. But I do think that we're going to need really big thinking in DC to pass structural reform. And then I totally agree with you, Alex.
00:36:45
Speaker
Also, everybody needs to take seriously redistricting in 2030 and control of state legislatures and other important feeds And again, you know, we'll see what happens in 2026. But i I do think that at the end of the day, the best thing that we could do to curb the sort of abuse of gerrymandering is for Republicans to not benefit from their attempt to game the system. I just don't think there's a better way for them to learn that lesson.
00:37:16
Speaker
And I think it gives us hope, though, if we can segue into our like more hopeful part of this podcast, which is that look how many people voted in our primary. Look at who were electing Taylor Remitz's huge win. We've got an incredible opportunity in this midterm. All the stars have aligned for us to have a big win. i think we've mentioned this so many times in other episodes of just how we are, we're there, we're we're better on messaging, we have better infrastructure, we've got candidates in every race. yeah We are doing a really great job here in Texas. And I think that we're moving towards that so that we can, by 2028, have a better handle of the legislature to then gear us up for redistricting fights.
00:37:58
Speaker
Definitely hopeful and all the things. The Taylor-Romette swing ah applied across the state will make them really regret yeah their attempts to gerrymander. I mean, I sometimes joke that like Republicans in Texas believe in Texas Democrats more than Texas Democrats do. But I mean, there's a lot of things leaking right now from Republicans in Texas, and they're very nervous about November. And I think that they should. I mean, it's like, you know, the signs that we're seeing from the electorate, I feel very strongly that
Optimism and Activism in Texas Politics
00:38:29
Speaker
Democrats have... great candidates on the ballot.
00:38:32
Speaker
And, you know, this Paxton-Cornan fight on the Republican side in particular, and to some degree the um for the AG's race, too, I think is really damaging all of these candidates. And and it's an end you're seeing it in some of the polling that's coming out around where Texas Republicans are not very excited Well, Mimi, you hit the nail on the head and we're trying to change the fact that Texas Democrats need to buck up and be a little more optimistic.
00:38:58
Speaker
Republicans are great about sharing their good news, spreading their gospel. Yeah. We got to get into the habit and we got to get those muscles flexing. we got to get the reps in. So this segment is called Good News.
00:39:10
Speaker
Good. All right. living In your life, personally or professionally, that is just so good. You got you gotta to share it. So my law firm has been representing a number of nonprofits that have been targeted from the state um unjustly.
00:39:27
Speaker
and um and that's obviously extremely unfortunate. And, you know, I've said before, and I'll say it again, i mean, Kim Paxton has got to be the most corrupt politician in America, which is really saying something right now. Like, that's hard. like that's funny It means he's going to win the runoff, though, right? Yeah.
00:39:45
Speaker
um Yeah, i mean, we'll see. i mean, who knows it will win, but he has a real good shot of it. But I think the thing that is good about this is, you know, not only have we been winning in court, but the there has been a incredible movement of these small you know, many of them grassroots community groups, and they have tiny budgets, tiny staffs, they're volunteer driven. They have looming over their head, the law enforcement arm of the state of Texas, a state with a GDP the size of Germany,
00:40:19
Speaker
And they're not giving up. They're getting up every day and they're talking to voters about the issues that matter. They're registering voters. They're ah testifying in the legislature. And I have to tell you, I find that, you know, both really inspirational and i think it's working. i think that part of this whole thing is to excuse my language, but is to scare the shit out of everybody and get everyone to stop talking and stay home.
00:40:44
Speaker
And we've seen over and over at these groups that have been partner groups of groups and individuals, um including, you know, that's how empowered by people that have been targeted by the state have refused to do that. And I think that that has been a really empowering thing or for Texans.
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah, Texans don't scare easy. Exactly. good news Completely unconnected to anything political. My daughter turned four yesterday. Oh my gosh. Happy birthday. And so we have a ah Gabby's dollhouse themed birthday party coming up on Saturday.
00:41:17
Speaker
And I'm just, it's just such a, kids are the best markers of time. Yeah. ah Time flies. I'm just so proud of her. We were reading like we always do before bed last night. And we have these like five minute Marvel stories because I'm a big nerd.
00:41:33
Speaker
And she loves them now too, which is great. We were going through one of her favorite five-minute stories, and she would, like, from memory, tell me verbatim, word for word, what was coming next.
00:41:45
Speaker
Oh, I love that. So the future is bright in our young people, at least at the Clark House. yeah Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I love that. Well, my good news back to professional is that we're all the lawyers here. And it's kind of fun to be able to talk to you about this, Mimi, that I, as of yesterday, left my big law firm job. and I am never thought I'd do this, but I'm hanging a shingle as well. So all three us are our own law firm.
00:42:11
Speaker
Yeah. Alex is putting up the guns. Entrepreneurs. let's go. I just felt really called to represent people in the federal criminal system and especially in this administration, using my experience in the DOJ and being able to hold this administration accountable. Because it's not just about representing someone and declaring their innocence, but it's also making sure that law enforcement is doing their job, making sure prosecutors are doing their job, making sure the judges are doing their job.
Personal Achievements and Future Plans
00:42:40
Speaker
And i feel very called to do that. It's very hard to do that in a big law firm.
00:42:44
Speaker
Right now, ah the DOJ is basically gutted. Like half the jobs are empty. They're providing bonuses to get people to come to law firm. I know. I know. It's insane. And so the... Like you can go to ICE or you can go to DOJ just for one, right? you get 50 grand if you walk in the door. Yeah.
00:43:01
Speaker
So there's not a lot of white collar criminal matters that big law firms tend to take on. And I feel like, you know, to get back into the court and to this system, I want to take on matters having lower overhead, lower rates and being able to do it on my own at a law firm. So really excited about that. So that's my that's my big good news. if you know be My law firm announcement, but it'll be it's in the process right now. I'll let you announce that, Kate.
00:43:27
Speaker
I just want to take a moment to recognize the three of us are all going to have our name on the door. I am Clark of Ryman Clark PLLC. We got Mimi of Marziani Stevens and Gonzalez PLLC.
00:43:40
Speaker
And then, you know, in due time, you will make your your announcement. Yeah, Rumsey Law. Yeah, I keep doing law there and that my husband that he'll join forces with me. But another day. Yeah, another day. all right. Well, that's all good news. um Before we head into our last segment, I want to put a plug for our Patreon. So if you'd like to support us as independent media and help us defer the cost of this podcast, you can be a member on our Patreon for a few dollars a month, or you can support us by giving us a five-star review wherever you find your
Efforts to Flip Texas Politically and Future Prospects
00:44:10
Speaker
podcasts. all right, Mimi, we have our last segment. We always give our our guests the last word. What is it going to take to flip the state from your perspective? Like, are we going to flip it? We talked a little bit about it, your hope that you know what we're going to do in the next decade. But what do you think it's going to take, not just from a legal perspective, but messaging, infrastructure, candidates? I mean, what do we what do you think we need to be doing?
00:44:33
Speaker
All of us have to leave it all on the field in 2026. If you think about 2018, where the national winds were were similar, but I think that they're going to be more intense in favor of Democrats in 2026. If you go back to this time in 2018, I mean, Beto became Beto, but I'm not sure he was at this point in 2018. He was still a relatively unknown congressman from el Paso.
00:44:59
Speaker
and We didn't have, as you noted before, the infrastructure that, I mean, this would be a whole other podcast, but I am so proud and excited to have played some role with with Alex. I mean, look, and it's never an escalator. There's you take steps forward and steps back, but there has been increasing infrastructure that has been built since Wendy ran in 2014.
00:45:21
Speaker
And it's stronger but you know than ever. There's outside groups. There's a bigger political apparatus. There's more money in the state. And there's lessons that have been learned from previous cycles. And I think that we have this stuff that that was not there in 2018.
00:45:35
Speaker
And then we have really, really strong candidates starting with James and Gina at the top of the ticket. You know, i have decided for myself, at least, that this cycle I am going to do everything, everything in my power, because none of us want to wake up the day after election day, see another 200,000 vote gap like it was in 2018. I mean, that is like in a state as big as Texas, like you can fill that gap block walking over the weekend in Houston. and So we really need and look, everybody plugs in in different ways. I think that
00:46:09
Speaker
You know, media is super important. I think, you know, being on the doors is super important. I think those of us with policy and legal skills, you know, you can plug into the campaigns through
Encouragement for Political Engagement and Support
00:46:20
Speaker
that way. But whatever it is, fundraising, obviously, whatever it is, today is the day to ask yourself, what are you going to do? And then go for it.
00:46:29
Speaker
I know. I mean, I think we're so close. 2018 was a big lesson for us. And if we can all knock one more door, donate one more dollar, champion the candidates and people that we have on this podcast, then I think that we're we're getting there. And do it earlier, right? Do it earlier, yeah. Beto's record-breaking haul that year, half of it came in like the last month of the race when I remember finally there was a poll that showed he could win. It's way more useful now. Actually, in my last little plug on this, sorry, now I'm taking too much time, but You know, I think it's important. You don't have to. i mean, I love James and Gina myself, but it doesn't have to be at the top of the ticket. You know that it's actually there are so many people who are sitting on the sidelines in our major cities in Texas more than enough to fill the whatever a couple hundred thousand gap that that Democrats face right now. And so I think that and another really good tactic to get involved is to think about your local candidates, your commissioner's court, your city council, your district attorneys, you know, whoever is running in your backyard.
00:47:33
Speaker
If you knock on doors for them and turn out more Democratic voters, that that is going to benefit the entire
Mimi's Ongoing Projects and Podcast Conclusion
00:47:40
Speaker
ticket. And so I just like to remind people that we often think about it top down, but I actually think bottom up is ah can be very very powerful in politics as well that's what our mantra around this podcast is supporting like down ballot candidates including john rosenthal who we just had a fundraiser for so now that he's like super down ballot he's still a statewide but yeah you know what what i mean it's not he is a lovely he's fantastic his came out i wish for my i hope for my kids sake that he wins because he will make us a lot safer in the state yes hundred percent well mimi how can we support you and follow what you do
00:48:15
Speaker
You know, I think um two two little plugs I'll give. One, have a new article out. It's been posted on SSRN, pretty easy to find under my name.
00:48:25
Speaker
But it talks about how Paxton has been abusing the vast powers of his office to retaliate against nonprofits in particular when he doesn't like what they have to say. And I think that's a really important important for everybody in this state to understand, but especially for lawyers. and There's a bit of a call to action for lawyers.
00:48:47
Speaker
And then next month, I will be in D.C. with the American Constitution Society on a panel talking about how smaller firm lawyers can help in this in this moment. And of course, there has been a massive contraction of big firms taking on pro bono work or just generally being brave enough to stand up to the the federal government or the state government.
00:49:12
Speaker
And so I think that this is a really important time for those of us who you know to whose his name is on the door to um you know take advantage of that privilege and that power. So i that's another thing that I'd love for people to tune in to.
00:49:28
Speaker
Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Mimi. really appreciate you. It was fun to catch up with you and reminisce about our NYU Law Dias. I know. Wild. can't believe it. ah it's been so It's been a minute, you know? I can't believe time has flown. ah Well, i will we will see our listeners next week, and I'll sign off by saying God bless Texas.
00:49:48
Speaker
You can follow us on all socials at Mission Texas Podcast. Email us at missiontexaspodcast at gmail.com. This episode is edited by Juan Jose Flores.
00:49:59
Speaker
Our music bumper is by Adam Pickerel, and our cover art is by Tino Sohn.