Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Hans von Spakovsky Discusses 2025 1st Term Cases of The Supreme Court

Transcript

Hans von Spakovsky Discusses 2025 1st Term Cases of The Supreme Court · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

0:03
Speaker 1: All right, ruminators, third and final hour at least for
0:06
Speaker 1: today of The Morning Show with Preston Scott. He is Jose.
0:09
Speaker 1: I am Preston, and it is great to have back
0:13
Speaker 1: with us on the program. He's a friend of the show.
0:16
Speaker 1: Hans von Spakowsky is the Senior Legal Fellow for the
0:20
Speaker 1: Edwin Mees Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the
0:23
Speaker 1: Heritage Foundation. How are you, sir, Preston.
0:28
Speaker 2: I'm doing just great, and that's nice to talk to
0:30
Speaker 2: you again.
0:31
Speaker 1: It is delightful to have you back on the show.
0:34
Speaker 1: I prepped your team with what I wanted to talk about,
0:38
Speaker 1: but I'm going to throw you a curveball to a
0:40
Speaker 1: certain extent what I got to talk talking with the
0:44
Speaker 1: audience yesterday just about I wondered if Donald Trump was
0:49
Speaker 1: We know now that in his first term he had
0:52
Speaker 1: a lot of people around him that were not his friends.
0:55
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, do you think he got bad advice
0:58
Speaker 1: on his choice is for the Supreme Court? What is
1:02
Speaker 1: your appraisal of the makeup of the court right now?
1:08
Speaker 2: Well, my appraisal is that Alita, Alito and Thomas are
1:17
Speaker 2: rock solid conservatives. They seem to always get it right.
1:23
Speaker 2: The other conservatives, Amy Cony barrett Is is proving to
1:28
Speaker 2: be a disappointment. Cavanaugh and Gorsic often get it right,
1:35
Speaker 2: but occasionally they signed Kavanaugh more than Gorsach side with
1:43
Speaker 2: Justice Roberts, who you know, on a lot of a
1:47
Speaker 2: lot of cases, he's he's good. You know, he was great,
1:50
Speaker 2: for example, in the case a couple of years ago,
1:54
Speaker 2: where where the Supreme Court finally told American colleges this
1:58
Speaker 2: is the Harvard, you know, your Carolina, you cannot discriminate
2:03
Speaker 2: in your college admissions based on Ray. So on the
2:06
Speaker 2: other hand, you know, he sometimes I think is too
2:11
Speaker 2: politically politically motivated and not wanting to do something that
2:19
Speaker 2: really might have set the left. And so for example,
2:22
Speaker 2: it hadn't been for him, Obamacare would not be enforced today.
2:28
Speaker 1: I use that as the example. I have tried to
2:32
Speaker 1: avoid saying conservative and liberal justices because it's my tendency,
2:37
Speaker 1: and I've tried to go with activist and originalist. And
2:41
Speaker 1: when Justice Roberts to me, in that ruling, defined what
2:45
Speaker 1: an activist judge is an activist judged in my definition,
2:49
Speaker 1: And you tell me, Hans, if this definition works or not.
2:52
Speaker 1: An activist judge does what he or she thinks they
2:56
Speaker 1: meant or what it ought to be. They don't on
3:00
Speaker 1: what is written, what the law is. And if the
3:02
Speaker 1: law is flawed, so be it. Let Congress fix it.
3:07
Speaker 2: Yes, no, that's exactly. You do what the law says,
3:11
Speaker 2: what the Constitution says. And you know it was Justice
3:15
Speaker 2: Scalia once said, Congress often did things that are totally stupid,
3:25
Speaker 2: but it wasn't his job to fix that. His job
3:28
Speaker 2: was to apply the constitution.
3:30
Speaker 1: And that's where we are today. And I feel the
3:33
Speaker 1: unpredictability of the court right now is in a lot
3:37
Speaker 1: of ways, it's creating its own set of problems.
3:41
Speaker 2: Yes, no, I agree. And the refusal of Chief Justice
3:47
Speaker 2: Roberts he apparently starting to change, but the refusal of
3:52
Speaker 2: him until recently just to start stepping in and stopping
3:58
Speaker 2: some of these staying some of these nationwide injunctions that
4:02
Speaker 2: have been issued all across the country, that was a
4:05
Speaker 2: real problem.
4:07
Speaker 1: Give me your bottom line on those district nationwide injunctions.
4:12
Speaker 1: Do district judges have that level of authority?
4:15
Speaker 2: Yes?
4:15
Speaker 1: Or no?
4:17
Speaker 2: Only and very rare, very restricted circumstances. And from what
4:24
Speaker 2: I have seen, every single one of the nationwide injunction
4:28
Speaker 2: so far issued by judges have been unlawful and totally unjustified.
4:35
Speaker 1: Talking Supreme Court with Hans von Spakovsky with the Heritage Foundation, Hans,
4:40
Speaker 1: what rulings that we've seen of late are the most consequential.
4:46
Speaker 2: Oral arguments normally end in April and the Court spends
4:50
Speaker 2: May and June writing up all their opinions. Last week
4:55
Speaker 2: actually was very unusual because, as you know, they held
4:59
Speaker 2: oral art arguments in the Justice Department asking for an
5:04
Speaker 2: emergency stay of the injunctions against President Trump's executive order
5:10
Speaker 2: on birthright citizenship. Like I said, that was rare. Arguments
5:14
Speaker 2: aren't usually held in May. But look, there's more than
5:18
Speaker 2: a dozen important cases that we are now waiting on
5:22
Speaker 2: decisions on. For example, the US versus Scrammeti case. That's
5:28
Speaker 2: the case out of Tennessee in which Tennessee, along with
5:32
Speaker 2: Oh Gosh, more than a dozen states banned the surgical
5:37
Speaker 2: mutilation and abusive drug treatment of minors children to do
5:44
Speaker 2: so called gender transitions, and they were sued. The Supreme
5:49
Speaker 2: Court is going to say whether states have a right
5:51
Speaker 2: to top that kind of abuse of a treatment. There's
5:57
Speaker 2: a porn case, free speech Relection versus Paxton Texas passed
6:03
Speaker 2: what it is just a common sense law. They passed
6:05
Speaker 2: the law saying that if you are a porn site,
6:11
Speaker 2: you have to verify that somebody as an adult before
6:15
Speaker 2: they can use your site. Right, and these porn of
6:19
Speaker 2: groups all got together and have sued over that. There's
6:27
Speaker 2: another there's another case. If you can believe this government
6:30
Speaker 2: of Mexico as sued Smith and Wesson saying that their
6:36
Speaker 2: production and sale of firearms is the approximate cause of
6:41
Speaker 2: injuries in Mexico stemming from violence committed by the drug cartels.
6:48
Speaker 2: That is a ridiculous lawsuit because most of the cartels
6:52
Speaker 2: are equipped with military weapons which they get from corrupt
6:58
Speaker 2: Mexican military officials. But again that's an important case. There's
7:04
Speaker 2: a big registricting case out of Louisiana, and look one
7:09
Speaker 2: of the most important ones that were waiting on and
7:12
Speaker 2: they just had arguments. A couple of weeks ago. Is
7:15
Speaker 2: a case out of Maryland that could affect kids, our
7:18
Speaker 2: kids all over the country. A school board in Maryland
7:23
Speaker 2: said no parents are allowed to opt their kids out
7:28
Speaker 2: of the instructions on gender and sexuality that we are
7:37
Speaker 2: putting into the school program. And this goes down as
7:41
Speaker 2: low as pre kindergarteners, teaching them about gay sex and
7:47
Speaker 2: drag queens and things like that. And this wasn't in
7:52
Speaker 2: one class, you know, a class on sex education. They
7:55
Speaker 2: are infusing it into the entire curriculum, including English classes.
8:01
Speaker 2: And they told parents, done, can't opt your kids out
8:04
Speaker 2: of that. That's a really really important case.
8:08
Speaker 1: It's it's remarkable the things that we find being litigated now.
8:13
Speaker 1: You know, when when you and I, when you and
8:15
Speaker 1: I were younger, the difference between what was legal and
8:18
Speaker 1: what was right was pretty narrow. Now it's massive in
8:22
Speaker 1: some places.
8:23
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, no it is. And look, the problem
8:29
Speaker 2: in Maryland I just to talk about is so bad
8:33
Speaker 2: that it was a coalition of Jewish families, Muslim families,
8:40
Speaker 2: Christian families, all of whom sued this school board which
8:44
Speaker 2: absolutely refused to take this basically propaganda of the left
8:51
Speaker 2: out of the school curriculum and refuse to let their
8:54
Speaker 2: parents parents opt their kids out of it, even though,
9:00
Speaker 2: as they pointed out before the Supreme Court, the school
9:04
Speaker 2: lets parents opt their kids out of all kinds of
9:07
Speaker 2: other stuff, including you know, fizit and all kinds of
9:12
Speaker 2: other activities. But no, they're not allowed to opt out
9:16
Speaker 2: of this. Why. Well, because the whole point of this
9:19
Speaker 2: is to spread this left wing propaganda into the schools
9:23
Speaker 2: and to basically brainwash these kids.
9:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's grooming. It's trying to normalize something that is abnormal.
9:29
Speaker 1: It seems that, you know, President Trump this time around
9:32
Speaker 1: very very different than the first time around. He knows
9:35
Speaker 1: what he's facing. He has surrounded himself with different people
9:38
Speaker 1: that I think mostly are signed on. Are the executive
9:43
Speaker 1: orders you mentioned in the break how busy things are
9:46
Speaker 1: for you? Is? Are the executive orders designed to do
9:50
Speaker 1: exactly what they're doing to force cases before the Supreme Court?
9:54
Speaker 2: Well, I think some of them are. But I think
9:57
Speaker 2: the main thing is he's trying to get as much
10:00
Speaker 2: as he can or the full extent of the executive
10:03
Speaker 2: authority he's got. I mean, I actually just told him
10:05
Speaker 2: up the numbers Presdent yesterday. President in the first four
10:09
Speaker 2: months of his presidency has signed one hundred and fifty
10:12
Speaker 2: two executive orders, thirty eight memoranda, and fifty seven proclamations.
10:19
Speaker 2: Proclamations are important. That's, for example, how he used a
10:24
Speaker 2: proclamation to declare that Venezuelan TDA gang, a terrorist group.
10:33
Speaker 2: So he realizes he's got one term. He wants to
10:38
Speaker 2: get as much done as possible. And I got to
10:41
Speaker 2: tell you, he and his people have been doing a
10:44
Speaker 2: really good job. Despite some of the setbacks in the
10:49
Speaker 2: Lower Court, they've been doing a great job. And I
10:52
Speaker 2: actually think that in many ways, Democrats shot themselves in
10:57
Speaker 2: the foot. And the reason I say that is that, look,
11:01
Speaker 2: if he had gotten re elected to a second term
11:04
Speaker 2: right away, he still would have been dealing with so
11:08
Speaker 2: many of the problems he encountered in the first term.
11:11
Speaker 2: Agreed those four years out of office, and the fact
11:17
Speaker 2: that I could tell you this was a real phenomenon Washington.
11:20
Speaker 2: Liberals in this town, in the law firms, in the corporations,
11:24
Speaker 2: did everything they could and try to make sure that
11:28
Speaker 2: none of the top people in the Trump administration got
11:32
Speaker 2: regular jobs. They tried to keep them out of private industry,
11:37
Speaker 2: out of law firms. So what did they do. They
11:41
Speaker 2: formed all these NGOs, nonprofit groups, and what do they
11:46
Speaker 2: do During that four year period, they worked on and
11:51
Speaker 2: developed all of the policy changes they were going to make,
11:54
Speaker 2: all the stuff that we have now seen in those
11:57
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty two eeos Basically, they spent four
12:01
Speaker 2: years preparing to be back in office, and that is
12:06
Speaker 2: why we have seen So we've seen more accomplished in
12:10
Speaker 2: the first four months of this presidency than I think
12:12
Speaker 2: any president ever in our history.
12:16
Speaker 1: Why do you think, circling back to the Supreme Court
12:18
Speaker 1: for a second, why do you think MS thirteen members
12:21
Speaker 1: have more standing than say, people questioning voters, citizens questioning
12:25
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election.
12:28
Speaker 2: Well, that's one of the problems with our judicial system
12:32
Speaker 2: right now, and in particular, this problem is caused by
12:36
Speaker 2: the fact that if you look at the individuals that
12:39
Speaker 2: Barack Obama and even more so Biden appointed and got
12:44
Speaker 2: confirmed to the federal court, they are the most left wing,
12:51
Speaker 2: radical ideologues that have ever sat on the federal bench.
12:55
Speaker 2: And they apparently think that in their courtrooms their kings
13:01
Speaker 2: and queens and they can do anything they want until
13:04
Speaker 2: and unless some higher court overturns them. And that's the
13:09
Speaker 2: way they're acting, and that that is a real problem
13:11
Speaker 2: throughout our judiciary.
13:13
Speaker 1: Hans. We did some math based on a ten million
13:17
Speaker 1: figure of illegals in the country, which could be significantly off,
13:21
Speaker 1: but it's at least that that if you look at
13:24
Speaker 1: that it's about an hour of judicial work per person
13:28
Speaker 1: if you get them into federal district court. There's six
13:31
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy seven federal district judges. That's seven and
13:35
Speaker 1: a half years of hearings and court appearances if they
13:41
Speaker 1: do eight a day for the rest of the you know,
13:45
Speaker 1: and take no other cases. Does in Congress, does Congress
13:48
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to address this pass a law to
13:52
Speaker 1: allow for this process to be changed.
13:56
Speaker 2: Yes, because the Supreme Court has said on more than
13:59
Speaker 2: when it came that aliens who are illegal in the
14:03
Speaker 2: country are entitled to some due process. But it's not
14:07
Speaker 2: what people believe under the Constitution. What Congress has said
14:10
Speaker 2: is the new process they're entitled to is what Congress
14:14
Speaker 2: gives them. And if Congress, for example, were to change
14:19
Speaker 2: the law to say the only hearing you get is
14:23
Speaker 2: your opportunity to present your case before an employee of
14:28
Speaker 2: the Justice Department or the barbaroinger Homeland Security and that's it,
14:33
Speaker 2: Congress could do that and that would be perfectly legitimate
14:36
Speaker 2: under what the Supreme Court has said.
14:38
Speaker 1: Last question for you before we let you go, what
14:41
Speaker 1: will it take before the Supreme Court settles the issue
14:44
Speaker 1: of protecting women's sports in Title nine as it was written.
14:48
Speaker 2: It's going to take the Supreme Court finally issuing a
14:53
Speaker 2: tough decision on this, the same way they issued a
14:57
Speaker 2: very tough decision like we were talking about begin when they,
15:01
Speaker 2: you know, three years ago, when they finally said to
15:04
Speaker 2: American college and universities, you have to stop discriminating on
15:09
Speaker 2: the basis of race in your admissions. And the Supreme
15:13
Speaker 2: Court is going to have to get a case once
15:16
Speaker 2: again where they tell colleges, athletic associations and others that
15:25
Speaker 2: Title nine of the Civil Rights Act, which protects women
15:29
Speaker 2: in colleges and universities, particularly in sports, it means what
15:33
Speaker 2: it says. I mean, that's what they have to tell them.
15:37
Speaker 2: It means what it says.
15:39
Speaker 1: Hans always, I love the time and I appreciate you
15:41
Speaker 1: carving out some for us. Thanks you very much. Sure,
15:44
Speaker 1: thanks for having me my pleasure. Hans von Spakowski with
15:47
Speaker 1: the Heritage Foundation on the Morning Show with Preston Scott