Supreme Court News

some Supreme Court news. I do love some good Supreme Court updates. And I will begin there if you want to join me for that conversation or anything else in your mind. 879-9-4-2-6. Frankly, I'm going to treat this whole week as though it's Friday since we won't have a Friday. And since it's a special week, since it's the 4th of July, 250th anniversary week, whatever's on your mind, it's fine whenever. Call on in 879-9-4-26. You want to talk about baseball? Let's talk about baseball. You want to talk about that Sienna poll? Let's talk about it. You want to talk about the Supreme Court story? I'm about to talk about right now. Let's talk about that, too. Whatever's on your mind. 879-9426. States, states are free to count mail-in ballots that arrive after election day so long as they are postmarked by then. or election officials deem the ballots to have been cast on time, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The five to four decision, is a significant loss for President Donald Trump, who had sought to crack down on mail-in voting ahead of November's midterms. Trump has repeatedly argued that delays in tabulating votes fuel election fraud by Democrats. Trump's Justice Department and the Republican National Committee had urged the justices to strike down a Mississippi law. Yeah, that was right. It was a Mississippi law. That's an important part about this story here. that allowed officials to count ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive up to five days later. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court's three liberals in concluding that federal laws governing House, Senate, and presidential contests are too vague. to mandate that all votes be in the possession of election officials by that day. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. The high court's ruling allows about 30 states, more than half. to continue their practice of providing a grace period in which some or all late arriving ballots are tallied if they are postmarked by Election Day or officials determined that they were indeed cast by then. Earlier this month, Trump had decried California's practice of counting ballots that came in up to a week after the elections happened there. In March, Trump signed an executive order seeking to limit who has access to mail-in voting, directing the U.S. Postal Service to only send mail-in ballots to people on an approved list of absentee voters. Last week, a federal judge blocked the U.S.PS from implementing that order. In another executive order signed last year, Trump told the Justice Department to take all necessary action to enforce federal election day statutes by ending the tallying of late arriving mail-in ballots.

A judge blocked that provision. And now we're at this Supreme Court decision here. So let's unpack it for a minute now, shall we? Let me go ahead and let the cat out of the bag in the beginning of this distillation of the issue just to be transparent and clear with you, the listening audience. I agree with the majority on this race or on this side case. I do. I would have counted myself with Amy Coney Barrett and... And Judge John Roberts on this one. Why? Because there's really two main reasons. The first is that accepting them the day before or the day after election day has no impact on fraud if if. The chain of custody is handled the exact same way. If the process by which they are collected, kept, and counted is specifically the same way, it really doesn't matter if it's the day before or the day after or the five days after, right? I find it to be absurd. I believe very strongly that it should be that it has to be there by Election Day. I don't think it's that hard. I think that if you're an absentee voter and that's something that you're trying to do, the onus is on you to not be a moron and do it too late to actually put it in on time and to make sure that it gets there on time and to do it with enough lead time that it will get there by Election Day. I don't think that's hard. Okay. So let's be clear. That's what I think it should be. But we're talking about legality here. What is legal and what is not legal? And states have significant authority to run their own elections. There's no doubt about that. That's constitutional. If they choose to run it in a way that I wouldn't and accept a ballot longer than I would, you know, with the postmark being a certain thing, you know, I might not love that, but that's kind of the point of law, is that I have to accept. things I don't like. The other reason why I think that this is not that big of a deal is because I'm just not on Trump's, on Trump's side of the argument related to the extra time is about fraud. If you think that, if you think fraud is happening with that group of absentee ballots that's happening, that's coming in like three or four or five days later, because they were postmarked on that day. If you think fraud's happening then, then you, The fraud is happening before it, too. Like, the problem would be the absentee system and a chain of custody being loose in the mail. That's, you know, if you have fraud concerns, that's where it is. If the process is, I fill out ballot, I lick stamp. Actually, you don't even need to lick a stamp because it's already taken care of. I lick the envelope to close it. I put it in the mail. The mail people pick up the envelope. Bring it to the processing facility. Processing facility processes it, puts it on a specific truck. The truck gets delivered to the place it needs to be delivered. It arrives at said place, and it is in the possession of person X. Person X. Person X.

collects it, brings it to the place that they need to to hold the ballot, count the ballot, etc. If any of that makes you nervous, then again I say it doesn't particularly matter if it's the day after or the day before because the exact same process happens. That whole chain of custody that I just described to you is the same a week before, two weeks before, three weeks before. And if you're worried that fraud is slipping into it, we've got to tell you, I'm a little bit more worried that it happens then because less people are paying attention. If you're a mail carrier and you're like, well, I know that guy's address and I saw a sign on his lawn and I don't want his vote to count. I'm just going to burn this. I'm going to bring it home and I'm going to burn it, right? That's you. And you're a mail carrier and you do that? Guess what? That's because of the chain of custody. That's the issue is who's touching them and how comfortable are you with a vote passing through hands and floating around in the ether? Because if you're comfortable with it two weeks beforehand, it's really no different two days afterwards. It really isn't. More importantly, the problem with the after. The waiting and the aftercount, if you want to call it that, the after count. That's what I'd like to think. Think of it as being. The problem with it is more the appearance of sneaky stuff, because look, let's just be clear here. Absentee ballots are not used the same in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Democrats love absentees. The Republicans hate them. Republicans vote on Election Day. Democrats oftentimes vote absentee because now it is a ideological... church they worship at that absentee balloting, early balloting, mail balloting, any kind of balloting that's non-traditional is some sort of a sacred democratic right and so they seek it, they choose it, they love it. They can't get enough of it. And the Republicans distrust it so they don't use it unless they have to. So when an absentee ballot is counted, who do you think? Those ballots will be more geared towards the Democrats or the Republicans. You know the answer just as well as I do, the Democrats, because they like it. Republicans don't. So when, after the fact, a batch of those gets thrown into the machines to count, and it's five days later, and suddenly you see a Democratic candidate making up a shortfall that they had, or maybe overcoming someone, or, oh, my God, look, the numbers are coming in that say that this Democratic candidate is doing really well and doing better, and boy, this looks fishy. That's the problem. The appearance. of some sort of impropriety, some sort of a fraudulent. I mean, that's why Trump gets all hung up on this, because he can't think beyond an inch deep on anything, apparently. He thinks fraud happened because numbers change. And numbers change for very logical reasons because more Democrats vote absentee. So when they start counting them, duh, no kidding, they come in. Does that mean that any of those people didn't intend to vote for a Democrat? Does it make any of their votes illegitimate? No.

It's a fact of life. Get over it. Like, I'm sorry. So this, to me, this is not a big deal at all. What I would be much more concerned with if I was, oh, I don't know, say a ballot integrity Republican, somebody who cared a lot about fraud and wanted to fix things, is I would change law in these. I mean, why is Mississippi of all states? Why do they accept ballots late? Why are 30 states, which include a lot of Republican states? Why do they accept them late? Why? If you have a problem with this, it's, dude, go to the state legislature, change it. It's not hard. Get enough votes. It's the way to do it. It just is. The problem with everything that Trump is doing about election integrity stuff is that they're executive orders. There's no federal statute. There's no state statutes either. He is attempting to try to use executive authority to make the system how he wants it. And, well, that's great and everything, except for sometimes when you use that executive authority, you know, I'm not going to get into every single decision by one of these judges issuing a stay, saying he can't do this, he can't do that. I'll just say this. Several of those decisions are right because he is overstepping his authority in a lot of places. Some of them, I think, are wrong. I think he can do a lot of things. I think he can't do a lot of things. It's a little bit of a mixed bag, okay? But even if all of them were fine, even if every single one of those executive orders was fine, guess what? The moment that President Gavin Newsom comes in or the next Democratic president comes in snaps their fingers, they're gone. Overnight, nothing changed because state law wasn't changed and federal law wasn't changed. If you actually want to do anything about this, fix the law. And I do, by the way. To be clear, I don't frankly like. You know what I'd like? I'd like absentee voting to have nothing to do with the mail. I would like absentee voting to be 100% in, like I did this year. I was not going to be here on election day, so I couldn't vote on that day. I was gone in Kansas City. So I had to vote early. or absentee, right? And what did I do? I went to my town office. I was handed a ballot. I filled it out. I handed it back to them. They put it in the place where they keep the ballots before they ultimately count them. I trust my town. I also trust the fact that the only people that handled the ballot were me and a person who is legally required to handle it in a certain way or else they go to jail. That is it. That's what absentee voting should be. If you want to vote early, if you have to vote early, if you can't be there on election day, I don't think it's hard for you to show up at your town office and say, I'm sorry, I can't be there. The only exception to that, and there's probably an easy exception to make in law, would be... people who are infirm and are unable to travel, right? You are 95 years old and you can't really leave your house anymore, whatever. Do you think that it's really all that hard to create some sort of a provision for them to be able to vote with, I guess, a traditional mail-in ballot, I guess? Maybe. It's pretty easy, I would assume. But the whole point here is that the law is designed wrong. But the law is the law, and the Supreme Court is charged with upholding that law. And I think that they ultimately...

much as I think many of you probably would dislike it, made the right decision here. Right now we have you and Anthony from Buxton is with us. Anthony, how are you? Good morning, Matt. I'll try to be quick here. Yeah, I don't like this thing after the election day. You know, that's when the votes to be counted. I don't like the shenanigans, the appearance of it, but... Your take is probably right on this, and it's really simple. You know, if the executive branch can dictate to the state's their election laws, it's the old concept of what if the Democrats take over the presidency someday. There's a reason that states have a right to control this, and that's simple. That's a simple of why your position is right. like it or not because if it ever happens that they take control they'll start doing like like i think the next thing down the line they all want to do internet um online voting and i'm i really am not comfortable with that no nor should you be coming down yeah yeah but you're right i mean states have it right it's in the constitution we don't have to like you know what i will to give a little bit of grace uh and room for the other side of this argument too i i have not yet read the dissents I don't know if you know how many of there were written, but I'd like to go. Neil Gorsuch being a federalist. I mean, he's pretty, he's usually on the side of extreme federalism. So I'm kind of be curious to see his logic on why he was on the other side of this one. He dissented. I wasn't sure. Well, it was Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh that were the four. Yeah. So the other ones, Amy Coney Barrett, and John Roberts were on the prevailing side. So I don't know. I'm going to have to read a little bit more about their argument. It's possible. I could read that. Come back. in the next segment and be like, eh, maybe I see their point. I could see that. But I think my instinct is that as much as I don't like it, it is a federalism issue. It just is. Yeah. And it's just like I said, someday the Democrats, God forbid, are going to be, and they'll start doing stuff. We have to have, you know, like endless. Pretty soon the illegals will be voting. They'll be on the list. You know what I mean? There's a reason. There's nothing that prohibits them from doing that. Other than them not passing that law yet, but they could theoretically do that. Not for certain offices, obviously. But if you wanted for your state office, for governor, for state legislature, they theoretically could do that. The other big one from yesterday was much less paid attention to, but really something you should have paid attention to. The Supreme Court on Monday gave President Donald Trump a sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent. By a vote of six to three, the justices struck down a federal law that bars the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission. except in cases of inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. That law, a majority of the justices ruled, violates the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. And in reaching that decision, the court overruled its 91-year-old decision in Humphreys executor versus the United States, which had upheld the law at the center of the dispute. More broadly, Monday's decision was a major victory for proponents of the...

Unitary executive theory, the idea that the president should have complete control over the executive branch. Under this theory, the president should be able to fire any member of the executive branch, and laws like the one that the court struck down that restrict his ability to do so violate... the separation of powers. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts contended that the president must have the assistance of officers he can trust. Although it's up to the Senate to decide whether or not to confirm those with whom the president would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the president's power. are subject to be removed by him. Then and only then can they remain accountable to the president and the president to the people. Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a 49-page dissent that was joined by Elena Kagan and Catendry Ketanji Brown Jackson. Today, she wrote, the court. discards the democratic regime created by the Constitution in favor of one that distorts the structure of government to fit the majority's theory of unitary, total executive control. The result, she concluded, is a president who emerges with far greater power than ever before. Now, remember a little rant of mine from... Was it earlier this week? No, I think it might have been last week. Late last week. Related to the court decisions, related to the judicial branch, and how when there are rulings, people judge them based on outcomes. Do I like what this decision means? What does it do? Like what's practically going to happen afterwards? Because if I like it, it's a good decision. If I don't like it, it's a bad decision. That's essentially what Sotomayor has just said there. She doesn't like that the president will emerge with far greater power than ever before. And so that is the reason why she's on the opposite side of this decision. I don't like that Trump's going to have more power. Same Supreme Court, by the way, that handed him a significant loss on the mail-in ballot issue. Same ones, right? So you'll only remember that they backed him up, right? You'll never remember that they didn't. But anyway, I'm... I don't want to get too sidetracked. The point here is that Sotomayor didn't make a legal argument there. And now it is a 49 page of dissent, so there are legal arguments in it. I'm just saying that is the pullout quote. That is the main thrust of the argument. And it's because I don't like him. He has too much power. Well, I'm sorry that you don't. And I'm sorry that you don't think he should have it. I'm not terribly comfortable with the executive having expanding authority either. I'd much prefer that they had less. But let's just be clear here. The Humphrey case from 91 years ago was a horrible decision. It was a horrible decision. And what they just did here is correct. Think about what it means.

For the person in charge of the executive branch to not be in charge of the executive branch. The whole contention of the six to three majority was that the congressional law that said the president cannot do this was essentially an assumption of the president's power and it shouldn't have been viewed as okay. Like, Congress doesn't get to say, they don't get to pass a law that says, we just get to appoint, you know, Senate confirmed cabinet members. They can't just assume that power because specifically in the Constitution it says they don't have it. The president has it. So if they passed a law that said, no, no, no, we have it. I don't care what he does. We're going to name our own cabinet people. And then we will confirm them. It would be struck down immediately because it is a violation of the separation of powers. And that's what happened here. The executive branch is run by the president. And honestly, I'm sorry, but like any executive of anything, whether it's a corporation, a government, or anything else, the people who work in the executive branch work at the pleasure of the person who's running the executive branch. And what Congress tried to do here, if you're curious about why this is a thing, is they tried to create these semi-governmental. I think the actual term is quasi-governmental. entities, which were supposedly, quote unquote, independent of other government structures, especially independent of the executive branch, right? So Congress would have, say, in approving these people, the president would maybe propose them in the first place, but once they're in there, they live on an island by themselves accountable to no one. Does that sound smart to you? I'm sure you don't like the president firing people, say, at the Federal Trade Commission, which is at the center of this case here. You don't like that because he doesn't like them and he doesn't like the decisions they'll make. Well, I'm sorry you don't like that. But hold on a second. Do you really think there should be unaccountable, unfirable bureaucrats in control of massive and important things in this country? I mean, it kind of cuts at the very core, does it not, of checks and balances and the multiple branches of government and the balance that is very inherent in all of that when he set off this completely different entity over there. Of course it does. It's a bad idea. It's the right ruling.