The Gerrymandering Rush Is Leaving Voters In the Dust

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and shout out our show in the comment field. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And now on to left, right and center. Hey, everybody. Welcome to left, right, and center. I am David Green. So we are deep into a midterm election year. And yet, and yet, many voters are not even sure what district they're going to be in and who they might be voting for. Is that a problem in our democracy?

Well, neither party seems to think so. The aggressive push to redraw congressional maps to maximize your party's chances this fall shows no sign of slowing down. The latest push comes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act. The court said, yes, you can create districts to ensure representation based on race, but only if it's shown there was racist intent when a congressional map was previously drawn. With that, the court invalidated how Louisiana created two majority black districts. Republicans in Louisiana jumped on the case, planning now to eliminate one of those districts, likely adding a Republican to Louisiana's delegation.

The state even postponed this weekend's congressional primaries to make time to redraw the map, and they are not the only ones. Tennessee and Missouri redid maps for their primaries in August, as did Alabama, whose primary was supposed to be next Tuesday. This is the state's Attorney General, Steve Marshall. Alabama originally drew its maps around geography and communities, the Gulf Coast, the black belt, the wiregrass, and a federal court punished us for it. Today, the Supreme Court vindicated the state's long-held position. Now the power to draw Alabama's maps goes back to the people's elected representatives.

Predictably, there is talk now about how Democrats should respond to this. In California, let's remember voters already approved a redistricting plan in response to the GOP's moves in Texas, a plan that could give Democrats as many as 48 of the state's 52 seats in the House. The LA Times is now reporting that some Democrats in California are floating the idea of doing one more round, even this late in the game to, who knows, make sure. sure Democrats represent every single district in California. Sarah Isger is here on the right. On the left, we have Liz Brunig back with us. She's a staff writer at the Atlantic. Liz, I'll start with you. Is this a race to the bottom in our democracy? I am inclined to think so. Yeah. And I think the sort of

long-term danger here isn't just that Republicans are sort of guaranteed to win during red years, but that they have built in or trying to build in like a floor that would prevent them from losing, even during blue years. So, you know, they're packing and cracking up districts to kind of insulate themselves from shifts in public opinion, which would make the House of Representatives a lot less responsive to the actual will of the majority. I think that's the danger here. And I think it's been a slow moving sort of crisis, but it's really coming to a head right now. Sarah, I mean, Liz is saying that Republicans have sort of a grand plan here. Democrats have been saying, at least, we're just responding to.

to what Republicans are doing because we have no choice. Do you buy that? I just don't think there are good guys and bad guys here. I think there's only bad guys. To the extent that Republicans can now gerrymander red states and Democrats can't gerrymander blue states. It's only really because the blue states were already gerrymandered, right? There's no Republican representative in New England, despite it being about 60, 40 Democrat to Republican. Jerrymandering is the problem, not one political party or the other. We could fix it tomorrow. Congress could pass a law determining how states can draw their districts. We could ratify a constitutional amendment setting out guidelines for that. But you'll note that neither political party wants to do that because what this is really about is incentives to stay in office.

So I think this is a crisis, but it's not one party's crisis. It is a crisis of our democracy, what we demand of our elected representatives. Yeah, Liz, I mean, it feels like a crisis to me that something that's truly taking a good bit of the power out of voters' hands. I mean, ultimately, voters still sure, could, you know, decide to have a grassroots effort to hold an incumbent accountable for supporting things like redistricting. I don't feel like we're getting close to that. And here we are with these political moves that might dictate who's in the House and who's not and who has the majority more than voters do. And that feels really scary. It is scary. And I mean, there are a couple of points that I think really concern me. One of which you're alluding to, I think, which is this could lead to a great deal of voter alienation when maps are sort of redrawn weeks before an election or months before an election like they're happening now. I don't mean to exaggerate here. But you could reasonably argue this is a procedural voter suppression effort. And then citizens don't really know who they're representing. are where to vote, it probably will prompt lower turnout and the sense that the game is rigged. And I think

compounding that problem is that the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court is not a neutral referee. So if voters were counting on these laws running up against, you know, being struck down by the courts, I think that seems pretty out of reach as well. And I don't think Sarah is wrong to say that we've kind of created a race to the bottom here. Sarah, you've obviously been thinking a lot about the Supreme Court, writing a lot about the Supreme Court, making sure that we understand what this majority is. I mean, is Liz right that this particular majority right now is not one poised to push back on something like this?

Well, Democrats like to say that they put in a partisan gerrymandering law last year and that Republicans rejected it. What they don't want to say is that, nope, there were a whole bunch of other things in that law that they knew Republicans would reject. So we've also, you know, and I think we've talked about this in the past, we're in this era of press release legislation. We're not actually going to pass legislation, but we're going to say that we proposed it, knowing that it won't pass with no hope of passing, so that we can say that we're for these things or the other things. But I would love to see an actual movement from voters to get behind candidates who actually want to end these things. It wouldn't be that hard.

and I feel like it should be pretty bipartisan at this point. You know, the South Carolina Republicans rejected the opportunity to gerrymander their state. And the Republican Senate Majority Leader in South Carolina gave this incredible speech as he explained why he was rebuffing Donald Trump's efforts to pressure the state into doing this. Even after the Republicans in Indiana, who had said no to Donald Trump, lost their seats over it. I highly recommend everyone listen to the speech. But if you don't mind, David, I just wanted to read a few lines. from it. I will tell my Republican friends, Republicans are stronger when the Democratic Party is vibrant and viable. Competitions make you better, y'all. We know it in the economic sector.

It also happens in the political sector. Competition makes you better. A legitimate opponent will make a competitor better every time. I don't think you accomplish those goals by stamping out the opposition and not giving them a voice. I hear those who say they would do it to you. We've heard that if the Democrats were in power and they had the opportunity, they'd do it to you. Maybe. I don't know. We've seen that in other places. I would hope that wouldn't be the case, but I'm not naive. My larger question, though, is that the way it should happen? I think you do what you do, you know, to be right. Sometimes you'll get taken advantage of. You should do it anyway. You should do it because it's right. Not because you might win because of it, not because it may hurt an opponent.

You should do it because it's right. And I believe that good and decent people, those people who make up this state in this country, they will determine right from wrong, and they'll respond accordingly, even if that means at the ballot box. Straight into my veins. Love it. Yeah. Well, Liz, how do we make room for voices like that to emerge when you have Donald Trump, you know, punishing lawmakers in Indiana for standing up against his redistricting plans?

And frankly, when you have people like Gavin Newsom and Barack Obama supporting, you know, the redistricting plan for Democrats in California, like can a voice like that, really break through? I mean, one hope so. And I think there's a lot to admire about those remarks that Sarah just shared. But I think at this point, voters and myself have kind of low and lowering expectations for voices like that to actually make a difference in our politics because things are hyper-polarized. They seem to be getting more and more polarized. So do I have a great deal of hope that everyone might suddenly come to their senses and recognize that we have a representative democracy and the will of the people should be represented in the House of Representatives, as Sarah was saying.

I mean, my confidence in that is relatively low at this point. I fear we live in a moment where everyone justifies doing the thing they know is wrong because of a crisis, right? I've heard this from Democrats justifying voting for Graham Platner. after a decade of saying, you know, Republicans absolutely have sold their principles out to vote for Donald Trump. This is the main Democratic Senate candidate, we should say, who has the tattoo that's incredibly offensive and looks like a Nazi symbol that he's been talking about. But yeah, go on. And, you know, went on a neo-Nazi podcast in January, has said things about women and sexual assault that would make Donald Trump blush. But the idea that I hear from them is, yeah, but if it comes down to the Senate majority, you're damn right I'm going to vote for him.

And it's like, really, it profit a man nothing to sell his soul for the whole world, but for the Senate majority. And this is what you heard from Republicans when they were voting for Donald Trump in 2016. Well, this is for a Supreme Court seat. Democrats will pack the Supreme Court. This is for, you know, X, Y, or Z that's on the line in this election. So I can put my principles on the back burner because this is a crisis, because I have to in this case, because the other side would do it. And both sides are equally susceptible to this, but refuse to believe that they themselves are. And boy, the partisan gerrymandering has brought that to the fore, right?

Partisan gerrymandering is bad. But if we have to do it, we have to do it because they're doing it. And then both sides just ride that all the way. And that's where we are. My only pushback is call me if you actually see Donald Trump ever blush over something. But we can talk about that later. It's an orangeish blush, David. Yeah.

The real-time implications of what is happening, though, are clear. They're not hiding somewhere. I mean, when Louisiana postponed its congressional primaries this weekend, tens of thousands of mail-in ballots were already turned in. And the governor, Jeff Landry, this was his response to this on 60 minutes. Voting was already happening. As we sit here right now, more than 45,000 ballots have been returned. What happens to those? Oh, those ballots are discarded.

and those voters will vote again in November. You say that like it's not a big deal. Well, it's not a big deal. It's not my fault. If anybody has a grievance, take it to the United States Supreme Court. I mean, just discard the ballots and it's not a big deal. I mean, Sarah, I just like the argument of... That's ridiculous.

Well, the argument of the governor here and Republicans in Louisiana is the Supreme Court has now established a different legal precedent. And those districts that were drawn under the Voting Rights Act are no long. longer constitutional, right? So their argument would be, we have to respond in this moment. I'm not agreeing with that. I'm just saying that that's essentially their argument, right? Yeah. I mean, look, Louisiana sort of gets a pass here. If you remember how this started, they originally drew one majority minority district. A judge told them that they couldn't draw only one. So then they drew two majority minority districts. Then a judge told them they couldn't do a racial gerrymander. And that's why they ended up at the Supreme Court because they had dueling injunctions that left them with no

maps at all. But that doesn't apply to Alabama. It doesn't apply to Florida or these other states that are just doing absolute shenanigans. And as Liz said, I mean, I'm in total agreement. It is a form of voter suppression in the sense that you don't know your congressman. How could you possibly have experienced whether he's good at constituent services or whether she has a voting record that you know much about at all if your congressman changed last week because your district changed. We should call that voter suppression. You know, I want to finish by asking you both about something that you've talked about on the show before, Sarah, which is the Purcell principle. I mean, a legal doctrine where, you know, federal courts, you know, maybe shouldn't change rules

too close to an election for fear of causing confusion. Like Liz, it's like the problem has been established. Everyone knows what the problem could be. And yet here we are making the problem worse and causing absolute chaos for a lot of voters in a number of states in our country. Yeah, I mean, I think that's an accurate characterization of what's happening. And I think as I mentioned earlier, we would look to the Supreme Court to manage what's happening here. But they are relying on the Purcell principle to say that these unconstitutional maps should be allowed to stand.

And would that be the case with a different partisan makeup on the Supreme Court? No, I don't think so. And so I don't feel like they're being neutral arbiters of the law here. Sarah, is that fair? I mean, could the court have done something different here with this case, realizing that they might be going back on this very principle? For reasons that are probably a little too in the weeds for most listeners, I don't think the Purcell principle applies to the Supreme Court's merits docket. This case has been at the Supreme Court for 18 months now. Oh, interesting. You have to do it at some point. And we don't want the Supreme Court to start releasing opinions based on political strategy. They release opinions when they're ready, like when they're done. We want them to stick. to that. We don't want them to say, well, if we wait a month, then the maps would be set and the primary would be over, or if we need to hurry this up because of X, Y, or Z. And the other, you know,

legal thing worth knowing is it's sort of like if you stacked a bunch of negatives on top of each other, it's like not a double negative, but like a triple negative, quadruple negative sometimes. You have to pull out federal injunctions about these maps, basically federal courts saying no to the state because the Purcell principle is about federal. courts interfering in state law and state mapmaking, which is what state legislatures are constitutionally tasked with doing. And so it says that federal courts can't basically mess with the state policy too close to an election. But in this case, where a bunch of the states had federal courts saying they weren't allowed to do something, the Purcell principle actually says

you take those away. Anyway, I know that gets messy. But, you know, I read very closely the dissent from the Supreme Court's three liberal justices in the Alabama case. And we had a whole podcast on it over at Advisory Opinions if you do want to get into the legal weeds. And the answer is, I don't really like this. I don't like what Alabama's doing. Their politicians should be making different decisions. But unfortunately in this case, I think the Supreme Court applied the law correctly.

And while the dissent, you know, makes some very good cases for why this is bad, again, applying the law. we send these cases back to the district court when there's a Supreme Court decision that changes the law. Well, we want to hear what all of you think about this and everything else that we talk about on the show. We've got a community that you should join. It is the left, right, and center, substack. You can sign up. We'll send you a weekly inbox reminder to think about and hone up on what happened on the show and get to the conversation debating.

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Listen wherever you get your podcasts or find us on YouTube. Hi, we're back again with left, right and center. Thanks for being here. I'm David Green, joined by Liz Brunig on the left. She's a staff writer at the Atlantic, and Sarah Isger is here on the right. You know, somehow I think COVID feels like it happened 50 years ago and also just last week.

Do you all feel that? This pandemic killed 7 million people around the world, altered how we live our lives during that time. And the pandemic left this lingering question, I think. Is our country ready for the next public health crisis? Well, enter hanta virus. Let me calm those nerves front and center here first. The World Health Organization says it is a low risk to the public and does not spread easily between human beings. So we are not staring in the face of another global pandemic.

It sounds like at this point. But this week, passengers did disembark an international cruise ship where there was a hanta virus outbreak. The 18 people on board who live in the United States are back and American authorities put them into quarantine for observation. This is something we're closely watching because even if this does quietly fade away, it is a test for how our government responds to an infectious disease. You know, right now the government, I think, should be communicating with transparency, getting a head of misinformation, which is a huge problem right now in our society, projecting calm. President Trump seemed pretty calm about this himself when he was speaking to reporters. It seems like it is not easy to spread. In fact, it's in certain ways very hard to spread. It's been, we've lived with it for years, many years, and we think we're in very good shape. Liz, is that the right tone and message to be delivering right now, do you think? I do think that there's a lot of reason in it. And I do think that it is pretty legitimate for a leader to try to be realistic about expectations and to try to calm down public concern. Because as you were saying, we all went through this pandemic. It was pretty hellacious. It changed the world. It changed our lives. It created a lot of lasting political issues that we're still dealing with today. And I think everybody has a lot of PTSD. from it. But by all accounts, it does seem like this is a different animal than COVID. For one thing,

it's not novel. We know what we're dealing with. And there have been successful containment efforts in Latin America in the not too distant past. So I do think that at the moment, there's no need to be radically concerned. But when you look at how, for instance, Argentina has managed those outbreaks, you should begin to wonder if the United States would be capable of doing such a thing. And I'm afraid that it might not be. Yeah, I think you're right. And Sarah, it's so interesting. Like we've talked even recently about how Donald Trump is such a chaos agent.

Seeing him sort of send this message of calm right now, it's almost reassuring that he's going in that direction so far, I think. This is actually one of the weaknesses of pluralistic societies, right, an inability to mobilize singularly around a threat. It's what China, you know, touts all the time, right? That they can move their entire country in whatever direction they want and nobody's allowed to dissent and they're in America. Like, look at them all flim flamming around. Of course, our greatest weakness has proven our greatest strengths over time. We are the longest written constitution in the world for a reason. And when you see threats like World War II or World War I, it's sort of interesting.

like we sort of live in the present where we look back and everything looks like, wow, they were so unified and look at them, you know, mobilize. That's not what it felt like in the moment. If you read, you know, sort of primary accounts of what the run up to World War II looked like, it was an incredibly partisan moment. FDR was a revolutionary president in terms of the use of executive power. And, of course, staying more than two terms like George Washington had. people thought he, including Democrats at the time, thought he was a potential tyrant to destroy, you know, the American Constitutional Republic.

I say all that because like nothing new under the sun in American history at this point. So, yes, we will be bad at mobilizing against a singular threat at the beginning until we're not anymore. Well, I also, it's sort of the mobilizing question. But I've been thinking about, again, I'm glad that we have established that Hanta virus is not currently looking like a threat that could be as awful as COVID was. But like we know that something like COVID can happen. And, you know, I think about especially in this, in these political times where there can be misinformation spread like wildfire where science is questioned, you know, based on your own political beliefs. You know, during COVID, President Trump had his

expert, Deborah Birx. I mean, both President Trump and President. Biden had Anthony Fauci, who obviously became a lightning rod. Right now we have the head of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Batacharya. He's also the acting head of the CDC, and this is him speaking to CNN recently. The American people will tell, I say that the CDC has absolutely been working, you know, night and day to stay on top of this to keep you safe from outbreaks like this. You want to moderate the response to the actual epidemiological threat. And so that's what we did with this hauntivirus threat.

You know, I just think about what happened in COVID and it became so politicized. And someone like Anthony Fauci, who I always deeply respected and his resume and everything, became politically divisive. You know, if Badacharya were to become the spokesperson for the government during times like these, if they get worse, you know, I want to think about how he's performing right now. You know, he is someone who's already divided public health experts. Earlier this year, there was a CDC study about the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine. He canceled its publication, said it was inaccurate. Former CDC officials called the move, you know, pretty bewildering. So, you know, Liz, what do you take away right now from who we have in positions in this scientific community who would guide us as a country through a very difficult crisis if it comes to one?

You know, I think there are, as I was alluding to, a lot of downstream effects that came with COVID and a COVID response in the United States. And I think one of the effects was that we have an increased. libertarian view of public health. People didn't like being told to wear masks. They didn't like being told to get the vaccine. They didn't like having to present their vaccine passports. And I think the response to that has been pretty wide ranging. And one of the places where you can see how COVID had a sort of acute effect on the libertarianization of public health is vaccine rates, not just COVID vaccine rates, but childhood vaccine rates really dropped off after people had this kind of reaction to what they took to be draconian, but in my view, we're never that draconian,

limitations on public life that came along with trying to manage COVID. That drop-off and vaccination has also had a lot of downstream effects, the measles outbreaks that are happening around the country and that have taken the lives of many children are a direct result of those vaccine rate drop-offs. and I think you can trace it back to COVID. And because of that, I feel like we're not actually that well positioned to handle another major public health crisis. So I agree with a lot of what Liz just said, except for her description as to why people feel more libertarian than they did. It's not because the government said they should wear masks exactly.

It's because they felt lied to by so-called experts and they don't trust them anymore. Public health experts told them they weren't allowed to go to church, but you were allowed to go to a casino. Public health experts said you couldn't gather in places outside, except if you were protesting for Black Lives Matter. That was a public health crisis itself that was larger than the public health crisis of COVID. So one public health crisis trumped another in terms of whether you could gather for that. You couldn't talk about the origins of COVID, according to the public health experts. and so they shut down conversations about that through the government threatening social media companies. That's why people stop trusting these things.

And I think that a lot of groups of experts lost a lot of their trust from the American public, not just public health experts, although we dunk on them the most, I think, because of the pandemic. And there hasn't been a lot of soul searching about that and about what to do to gain that public trust back. But here's where I totally agree with Liz. the consequences are going to be devastating, not having children vaccinated against diseases that we eradicated or came close to eradicating decades ago because these public health experts lost the trust of the American people.

They need to get it back by not putting politics and partisan politics above what their actual expertise is supposed to be and acknowledging when they don't know things instead of using that, expertise to bully people into submission, which at the beginning of COVID, there was a whole lot we didn't know. I don't blame public experts for not knowing, but I do blame them for saying, because I am an epidemiologist, we do need to wear masks. It should have been, here's the best information we have. Therefore, we are recommending X, Y, or Z, but it was used as a bludgeon. It was often used in partisan fashion. And of course people weren't going to trust that moving forward.

You're listening to Left, Right, and Center from KCRW. We're talking about about the Hanta virus, which fortunately does not appear to be a global public health crisis, not moving in that direction, but kind of thinking about what the next public health crisis could look like in our country. And Liz, I'm really curious about some of what Sarah was just saying moments ago. You made the point that there's this libertarian response to a lot of the government's COVID policies, feeling like some of them were draconian measures. I think, Sarah, you even alluded to this. Like, I give some grace to public health experts for not knowing everything. I mean, they're reacting in a moment of utter crisis trying to make the best decisions. But,

Liz, I do wonder if there are some lessons there. Like if maybe some intellectual humility as part of the messaging could come across as less draconian and preachy and more, we're in this together. We are scientists, but like you were humans, trying to do the right thing. This is what we think is best in this moment. We understand why it doesn't necessarily make sense to you in your life, but we're really trying here and we need you to do this. Yeah. I, I mean, I think that Sarah is right about the politicization of the pandemic control measures, including sort of making allowances for people to gather outside if the political intent was deemed valid, as opposed to placing general limits and general guidance on gathering outside.

I do think that played into why people had such a negative reaction to the COVID measures. Okay. And I do think some intellectual humility on behalf of the experts, not to mention. and a whole lot more coordination because one of the issues with COVID was that it was novel, was that there was a lot of mixed information coming out and mixed messages coming out from the people who were in charge of managing our public health at the time. And so I think all of that sounds right. But on the other side of the ledger, you look at how Argentina has contained hanta virus outbreaks in the not so recent past. And it was through kind of semi-driconian measures.

I mean, there was enforced month-long quarantines of entire villages, and they were pretty intense about it in a way that I feel like as the United States, we're not all that well equipped to be at this point, in part because of the downstream effects of COVID. Although so far, the people who have been brought back in the United States with potential exposure to hauntavirus have been quarantined at hospitals that have biocontainment units. And so I am hopeful that those kinds of efforts can freeze this in place before it becomes a sort of human-to-human spreading phenomenon. My only issue with what Liz just said is that the reason that we cannot quarantine entire villages is because we have individual rights in this country against the federal government doing exactly that. And again, greatest weakness, greatest strength.

I just hope Americans come to understand that when they're, is this kind of threat that individual rights are what we based a pluralistic country on. And at the same time, this is why choosing to be vaccinated is still important. You know, I worry about one, I think about the CDC, which has cut thousands of staffers over the past year. So if we're talking about serious conversations about getting the messaging, right, there are just fewer people to be engaging those conversations. And Sarah, I wonder about the intellectual humility that we're going to be. we're all talking about craving, but whether that actually exists inside this administration. Like, you know, I think about President Trump nominating Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC.

She's a doctor, former deputy surgeon general. And in contrast to the person who would be her boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.., she is enthusiastically supports vaccines. Now, she's confirmed, I wonder how effective she could be dealing with a public health crisis. Could we have those conversations that are based on intellectual humility where she is saying, look, like, this is what needs to be done from my scientific experience. And would Robert F. Kennedy Jr.., would President Trump, like, listen and find a nuance and nuance, you know, crafted message? I'm not confident. I'm not confident, but the last administration didn't fare particularly well in this either.

And before that, if you remember at the very end of the Trump administration, when the vaccine was developed, one of the first people to come out and say that she didn't trust the vaccine because she didn't trust the president was Kamala Harris, a sitting U.S. Senator who was about to be the vice president. She was the one who undermined the vaccine for partisan reasons. So again, this is like another story where I don't think there are good guys and bad guys. I think there's just bad guys who want partisan gain over public health. Maybe I'm too libertarian in this moment. But I think it's worth emphasizing America's individual rights for people because it is unique among nations.

It's why we have a First Amendment that's so different than any other country. and that means we have a lot of dumb speech out there, speech that I hate that I disagree with at the top of my lungs, but my God, I'm proud that we allow this speech in this country. And if you want to be able to quarantine villages of people, so to speak, then you need to be willing to commit anyone with mental health issues or someone who's homeless perpetually. All of that we got rid of because we don't want to treat people as groups, as threats.

We instead give everyone due process of law. law and there's downsides to that, but my God, let's appreciate the upsides. Liz, what, you know, Sarah keeps bringing up the quarantining villages and how it's in contrast to kind of who we are as a country with individual rights. Like, how do you find that balance if it's even possible to take measures like that in a country like theirs? The problem with pandemics or with epidemics or with any kind of rapidly spreading disease, and the hanta virus is no joke.

I mean, it has a 20% to 50% mortality rate. that's a lot more serious than COVID. The issue there is that we have this great respect for individual rights, and there is much to be admired there and much beautiful about that. On the other hand, when you're dealing with human-to-human transmission, someone's individual right to be out and about in public while carrying hanta virus begins to abut your right to be out in public and not contract hantavirus. So I think the government is in this difficult position,

of having to manage everyone's individual rights when those are in conflict with one another. All right, Sarah and Liz and I are going to come back and talk about another story that deals with health, and that is the junk food lobby in Washington, D.C. right now. You are listening to Left, Right, and Center.

All right, we are back again with Left, Right, and Center. I'm David Green with Sarah Isker here on the right and Liz Brunig on the left. She's a staff writer at the Atlantic. You know, we've talked a lot on the show, including today, about what Congress is actually doing these days. But, you know, rest assured, they are standing up for our right to eat junk food, candy, soda, all of it. I don't know. Maybe they like the stuff themselves. And God forbid there'd ever be hypocrites on Capitol Hill.

Maybe it's that the food and beverage industry, though, has ratcheted up its lobbying everything. spending $113 billion since President Trump returned to office. That is according to Politico. This has been a real downer for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. and his Maha movement. They want to stop government food assistance programs from buying unhealthy foods, ban certain food dyes, ensure that schools are serving healthy dining options. Congress has mostly said, eh. So has Maha's vow to remake food in America just been a bunch of empty calories?

Sarah, do you see a reason to defend junk food? I've always been a crunchy con, David. A crunchy con. I love that term. Yeah, Crunchy Khan is a little different than Maha. Like I was sort of a, you know, whole foods going tofu, eating, green smoothie drinking type. Maha, it's different. But they are still a minority within the Republican Party. and of course kind of originated in the fringes of the Democratic Party

and have moved over to join the Republican Party. So look, you've got to give new coalitions time to build up all of their infrastructure. This is true regardless of what the issue is. So give Maha time to build its infrastructure and see if it can co-opt the Republican Party. This will but be the first battle for them. Whether they win or lose in the end, a little hard. to say. It kind of depends whether they can build their coalition. This is like political science at its most fun when parties are realigning, when coalitions are starting to build and we sort of get

to go back to like, you know, the big bang or something and watch as the dark matter grows. Liz, let me ask you, is the kind of coalition building and a kind of long game like that that Sarah's talking about bringing together people from sort of different parts of the political aisle to stand up for kids and healthy eating. Is it possible? Question one. And also, do you care? Well, so I'm also going to come out of the left field here. I'm not a crunchy con. I'm sort of a treat-loving leftist. I am a creature of suburbia. I love Captain Crunch, Sour Patch Kids. You're disgusting, Liz. I'm with you. I'm with you on those two specifically. Sour Patch Kids and Captain Crunch, like those, that was my cereal growing up. Like, don't take that away from me. No, absolutely. I put

it on ice cream, I put it on frozen yogurt. So good. It's great stuff. It's beautiful to me. At the same time, the farm bill, for instance, is a massive subsidy program for corn and soy, and these become high fructose corn syrup and feed for factory farms. And so there's definitely, you know, an element of regulatory capture here where big ag and big food have a lot of control of the politics of how we eat.

And to the degree that Maha is about trying to build coalitions that can push back on, that and resist that, I think that that is, you know, potentially a good thing. I just think that Maha comes with a lot of baggage that is not about better nutrition, is not about lowering obesity rates and rates of diabetes and rates of chronic disease. It's about, for instance, low vaccine adherence and raw milk. And so I think there's a lot there that makes sense and a lot there for somebody on the left to admire. But I do think that in part because of polarization and in part because Maha has to build coalitions on the right, it comes along with a lot of problems. You know, we've talked a lot today and often about how our politics can seem really

messed up these days with things like redistricting and everything we've seen and Congress not doing its job and voting being a mess. And one thing I will say that I do love about our show is when people reach out and are just sort of seeking a conversation about how they should deal with a moment like this from both sides of the political aisle, which I think is awesome. So I want to turn to one listener question who is dealing with an identity crisis and wanted our advice. Hey, LRC. I'm Jack calling from the University of Oklahoma. I turned 18 last May, and my first big elections are coming up this November. I'm a registered independent, but I have a hard time defending my choice to be one. I'm told that I'm throwing my vote away. You all talk about how more people

are becoming independence, but what does that mean? So in short, who am I politically? Sarah, can you help Jack answer the question who he is politically and how he should handle this moment? Jack, welcome to the fight I have with all of my coworkers. Jack is on the side of David French, for instance. David French believes he should vote for the candidate he actually wants to win, and that's not throwing your vote away, that's democracy and that's how it's supposed to work in an election, because if everyone just votes for one of the two candidates, you're proving the point, right, that those are the only candidates that can win. That's a smart take. David is a smart guy. I will say that, like, maybe the political operative in me is just a little bit more,

I'd like to think of it as realistic, that, yep, one of these two candidates is going to win, and I would like my vote to be for the person who I actually believe, will be in office or to vote against the person, you know, whatever. But like, this is the vote. So it depends, Jack, which team you want to be on. Mine or David French is I think they are both completely reasonable, principled, smart teams to be on. But they are different ways of looking at politics. Liz, is Jack throwing his vote away by being an independent?

Votes are expressive. I understand the impulse to want to throw your vote behind someone who has. a reasonable chance of winning. But throwing your vote behind someone who doesn't win, but building up those numbers for independence can be a corrective to the parties that you decide not to vote for. It gives them information about how pleased or displeased people are with what they're offering. And it can make a difference in how elections go for them, and they should be wary of that. They should be interested in what independents are thinking. And if you don't identify as an independent and don't cast independent votes, then I think you're also foregoing something that is

within your power as a voter. In terms of political identity, I mean, I think of myself as a dedicated two-party hater, right? I mean, I'm not emotionally attached to the left party, even though I am a left person myself, because there is a lot to be frustrated by for a left person going on with the Democratic Party. So I don't think you're being ridiculous or immature to maintain. your suspicions and your displeasure with the two parties that are available to you. The two-party monopoly is a hard thing to live with, and it's not very democratic. Totally agree with everything Liz said. That is 100% right.

I mean, I'm a conservative who doesn't belong to the right-wing party, obviously. But one other thing that we didn't talk about, is he talking about not being able to vote in a primary because he lives in a closed primary state? That is unacceptable. Jack, register for one of the political parties if you're going to be shut out of the primary process because that's where these decisions are getting made and don't let labels prevent you from having your voice heard in those primaries. So you're saying he can be an independent, but he should register for one party to take part in

the primary season. That's important. Yes, if that's required in your state. I mean, I just want to say, like, whoever's telling you that you're throwing your vote away, Jack, I hope they're saying it, like, not in a preachy kind of way, like you're a jerk. I just would say, like, you don't have to make the same decision in every election season. Like, you can think about what's important to you. Maybe there's one candidate who really inspires you and you as an independent want to vote for them, even if some people say you're throwing your vote away.

There might be another election that comes and you're like, you know what? I'm an independent, but I've got to vote for the Republican or the Democrat here because there's an issue that means a lot to me and my community. So I don't think it has to be binary. Being a swing voter is a powerful thing to be. Yeah, very powerful. One other listener, Sarah, on a recent show, you made the case for increasing the size of Congress beyond 435 seats. And several listeners, like Tim here, said that they wanted to hear a little more from you. My name is Tim Coulter.

I live in Los Angeles. With so much talk about gerrymandering lately, what I'm not hearing is a good discussion about expanding the number of seats in the house. We haven't added more seats in over 100 years. 750,000 constituents is too many. How do we address this? The benefit of representation for smaller communities seems definitely worth it. So about 100 years ago, Congress passed a law setting the number of seats at 435. There's a pretty good argument that that law was unconstitutional, actually, because the Constitution says how many each representative will represent roughly, but nevertheless, here we are.

that means that we could just repeal that law from Congress, and that would revert back to the constitutional standard of having that sort of maxed out number of constituents you can have in a district. Something pretty easy to do. You just need half the votes in the House and, you know, the filibuster-proof majority in the Senate right now. How it would work in a like a logistical sense, you would not be able to fit all of the members in the House of Representatives that we currently have. That's a problem. I don't really have a good solution for it. But then again, how much work are these guys actually doing in the chamber itself? God knows they're not listening to each other debate anymore. So I'm willing to deal with those problems as they come, the logistical ones. The legal ones are incredibly easy. And then there's the political, democratic changes that would come from that. I'm a conservative. I don't like change. I like the status quo. And I like things to be changed incrementally when we do need to change them. I'm a chest. Chesterton's Fence kind of girl, but I feel like I have studied this fence, and this fence is stupid. So Chesterton's Fence kind of girls sometimes do still want to take down the fence. Tim, Jack, great questions. I hope you all keep them coming.

We love hearing from you. If you have a question and want to send it in, just record a voice memo, keep it to around 30 seconds or so. Tim, Jack, you did great with that. Maybe we'll play it on the show. You can send that voice memo to us. at LRC at KCRW.org. LRC at KCRW. just drop your first name

if you don't mind where you're calling from and maybe you'll hear us take up your question on the show. Okay, we are going to leave it there and go to our left right and center, Rants and Raves. Liz, the floor is all yours. Thank you.

There's a lot of news about the rodent-born illness haunt of virus going around with this latest outbreak evidently linked to a pair of tourists who visited a landfill in Argentina where rodents in their droppings were no doubt plentiful given rodent's love of garbage.

And I would of course recommend never visiting any landfill or any other site of pest congregation. You'll never catch me there. But if you are concerned about exposure to infected rodents wherever you may go, please keep in mind the creatures on the front lines of rodent annihilation, the humble cat. Thanks to eons of ongoing cat on rodent murder,

animals like rats and mice are terrified of the mere smell of cats, including their urine and simple pheromones. Since the time of ancient Egypt, cats have symbiotically protected humans from rodents and other pests that invade human dwellings to seek out, among other things, trash and scraps. They charge no fees for their keep and ask little more than pets in a warm place to sleep. My own pair of gorgeous 15-pound Siberian cats have delivered multiple rodents to me in our time together, which make for gruesome gifts that I am nonetheless very grateful for as any rat or mouse they leave on the kitchen floor is a rat or mouse no longer scurrying through my house. They've also been known to annihilate spiders, wasps, and beetles, all of which I'm endlessly

grateful for. I am the president of the feline fan club. I am a huge cat lobbyist. So remember to thank your local cat. Can cats run for president? I wish. I mean, seriously. Like, I'm ready.

I'm ready. Thank you for that. And we should all never forget that. Sarah. You know, it's funny, last week, my rave was about cats, and Liz just put mine to shame. I mean, we're building. We're just building cat momentum here on the show.

We're building cat momentum. And my two 12-pound Kuwaiti cats, thank you for it. So. On the front lines. Well, they're not on the front lines, of anything, except the nap schedule. Well, they could be. They could be, yeah.

You know, you really have to seek out a Mouser. It's a skill set. The cats that live with the British heads of, you know, the 10 Downing Street, et cetera. Like they keep track of how many mice those guys kill. Like they have actual, you know, 360 reviews like we do in jobs. So those are working cats. My rave has to do with pandemics. So at the start of the COVID pandemic, I was six months pregnant.

And there were a lot of bad things to come out of COVID for sure. but one of the great things in my life was my COVID mom pod. And finding community among new moms who were also giving birth in the summer of 2020 was a real joy. And this week was our monthly mom pod dinner where we have dinner with just the moms, no kids, and catch up and complain about our kids mostly that we're so grateful for. And like, what a wonderful legacy of COVID that it built community as well. I love that. I don't know if this is a ran or rave. Have you all heard about the new United Airlines Relax Row that's coming next year?

No. It's like, I mean, I'm sure we've all been there walking through like first class looking at people getting ready to get comfortable in their flatbeds and then going back to economy. Apparently United is creating this thing where you can reserve all three seats in economy. to basically have like a bed sort of way less expensive than than business or first class. It sounds awful to me. I can never get comfortable on a plane like lying across. I guess it's what I'd be more interested in is can you reserve the whole row for like you and just your your partner? Like I my wife and I, I mean, she doesn't, she doesn't, she's not as neurotic as I am.

But like if we think we might have a road to ourselves and like people are still boarding, that's the most nervous I ever am, like whether someone is going to come and sit in that seat or not. Like I think other things. Like you do, right? It's not it's not just me. But I mean, it's like that because it can change everything, literally everything. Yeah. I mean, I think about, you know, political crises and other things. Like that makes me more nervous than anything.

So this is a, this is, I guess it's a rave to say like this is something to try. I'm not convinced yet, but it sounds lovely. And if it takes away that anxiety for me, that'd be great. It gives me the certainty I need when I sit down. Thank you for listening. And cats are amazing. And that is all the time we have for today. All right, Liz Bruning, Sarah Isker.

Thank you so much for doing the show. Really, it was a great conversation. I am sitting in the studio with Jill Smeo from KCRW because we want to take a couple minutes to just talk about the work that we're doing here at KCRW on left, right and center, and also the role that hopefully you can play in supporting us. Jill, tell us more. You're listening to left, right and center right now because you actually want to understand, not just be validated by what you believe. And I think in 2026, that is a pretty radical act. It's a space for people that are curious enough and humble enough to listen to the other

side. And the space is only possible because KCRW is truly independent. And it's fueled by 50,000 individuals that step up and say, you know what, today I'm going to go to KCRW.com slash give. I'm going to give $100 a month, $20 a month, whatever is significant to me, because I'm creating a world where this discourse exists. And it's so rare. And to me, something else that's really special about supporting KCRW is it's a vote for. hope. I mean, David, you've done this for so long. You've covered this fragmented political climate that we're in. I mean, what about left, right and center and KCRW gives you hope? It actually, we just heard a question from one of our listeners who's 18 years old, really confused about

this political environment, you know, told us that he's a registered independent and, you know, his friends have been saying to him, like, you're wasting your vote. And he was just, he wanted to reach out and have a conversation about his role as a voter and as a human being, there are just no places where you can actually be vulnerable and ask a question like that except for a place like this. And I really, I think of this show, I hope, as a community with our audience where we're just trying to work through the day's news and politics together. And I think when I think of KCRW, like a community that just that word comes to me, all the time. And so when you're supporting KCRW, you're supporting a community that you can be a part of

and be entertained and, you know, and be informed, but also be engaged and like really work through hard stuff together. And I think you're right. Like in this world, there are just fewer and fewer places that can provide that space. Yeah, absolutely. The cool thing about when you support KCRW is you're actually taking an action to create the world you want to live in, a place where we're We can disagree without destroying each other. And supporting a place in American media where that still happens. And KCRW is very uniquely that place. And we don't do this very often, but we are asking you to stop what you're doing right now.

Go to KCRW.com slash give. Don't let any more time get away from you because it might feel like a small thing, but your impact is enormous. And one of the beautiful things I love about this and talking about community is there might be people listening. of course there are that can't support right now. They're not in a financial position to do so. But if you are a person of means, think about the fact that you are providing the service for free to those of us in our community that can't afford to make a donation to KCRW. So if it's $100 a month, you're a VIP here.

Thank you. If it's $20 a month, that's significant. Thank you so much. It is just as important. What we're asking you do is just take this moment and go to kCRW.com slash give. Yeah, kCRW.com slash give, and I agree with you, Jill. I mean, it's don't let time pass. You're listening to left, right and center right now.

It'll take five minutes. Give whatever you possibly can. And we promise to keep the conversation going and keep all this great content coming your way and building this community that we can all be part of together. One more time, that is kCRW.com slash give. I'm in the studio with Jill Smeo from KCRW. Jill is always good to see you. We are in this community together.

I also want to thank the great team who put this show together every single week. Left Right and Center is produced by Leo Duran, our executive producer, Arnie Seiple. The show is recorded and mixed by Nick Lamponi. Todd M. Simon composed our theme music. Left Righten Center is a co-production of KCRW and Fearless Media. We're distributed by PRX. I'm David Green. We will be back next week for more Left, Right, and Center.

Hope you'll be here too. dot com slash LRC, the KCRW app or wherever you find podcasts. Left, right, and center is produced and distributed by KCRW.

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