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Ep054: Gavel Governance · 775 Alive

• 0:00
  that it was a 5-4 decision with [music] Barrett and Roberts joining the three liberal justices. Whatever deadline they have for postmark [music] ballots, they can continue to count ballots until they're counted. It can't conceive of a pathway where someone cannot live in this country their whole life and still be subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The central legal question here is, are males that identify as females in the same protected class as females as a whole? Welcome to 775 Alive, a podcast focused on Nevada from Vegas to Reno to Elco. We decode [music] politics, economics, and critical global issues, offering common sense perspectives [music] true to our Nevada roots. I'm Scott Gavorski, PhD historian. And I'm Crystal Newton, business strategist. Let's get into it.
• 0:52
  Well, welcome back here to 775 Alive. Uh we're now caught up after the 250th anniversary celebrations over July 4th and uh you know, right before those we had all those big decisions out of the Supreme Court. Very very very busy end of term. Yeah.
• 1:05
  Yeah. It's really cool to that we have celebrated 250 years. And in my opinion, um the Supreme Court more than specific rulings that came out, they're doing their job in trying to it seems push some of the job back onto Congress, which is something I think that's important to point out here because we do have an imbalance as we go over some of these Supreme Court rulings. Um, which one which one was your favorite Supreme Court ruling that came out or maybe most substantial do you think? Uh, well most substantial I think in the short term of those that whole range that came out the last few days. uh I think is the the Watson verse RNC which was the one about counting ballots after election day because that's been a a sticking point for a lot of uh opponents on the uh on the right about the election uh integrity issue. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. I think uh or I think July 10th might have been the final day for California's vote. It's over a month after.
• 2:10
  Um, so yeah, it's very important that we get legal clarity on how far is too far. I mean, obviously, we don't want to wait for election results all the way up to the next election. So, how far is too far? Yeah. [laughter] What about you? What what are the cases that you find interesting? Um, you know, Birthright Citizens, um, very interesting to me. I you know that question of jurisdiction is is really interesting cuz I you know I I can't conceive of um a pathway where someone can not live in this country their whole life and still be subject to the jurisdiction thereof. So I'm I'm excited to talk that one out with you. I'm I'm curious how you thought it went. Mhm. And of course the other one that had some repercussions here in the 775 was of course uh the u um boys and girls sports decision, right? Because we had that failed petition drive uh here for a constitution or changing the constitutional amendment. So um I think a lot of you would have thought that that would have would been more important to me because I'm been a female athlete my whole life and I have two black belts. So, I know first and foremost how powerful men are. And I, you know, I think this one was important to me, too. But I think in the the bigger scheme of things, we got to figure out who's a citizen. But yeah, how are we allowing men and girls sports? How how is this justified? We're going to break that one down. I'm excited to talk about that, too.
• 3:43
  Scott: Can we go back another interesting comparison. So, of course, you know, we we talked a little bit about this before.
• 3:52
  We had did an interview with Chad Peace who you know played a key role in instituting California's open primary. California's primary was June 2nd. And under California law you have 30 days to count the votes, right? So that would have been July 3rd was the deadline they set to count. Although counties could actually ask for an extension, right?
• 4:19
  So they could add another month to count.
• 4:19
  Crystal: Scott, I would have taken my blood pressure medication. [laughter] Scott: Oh, I mean it's, it's a really, you know, one of the I mean, I don't know when counting became so difficult, right? Of course, you mentioned July 10th was when they were supposed to certify the accounts. We'll see if they they make that.
• 4:41
  But the idea that I mean, yes, California is a big state, right? No doubt about that. But geez, the the fact that this can drag on for weeks and months. I mean, this has really been, I think, one of the big issues that's impacted some of these political discussions about election integrity.
• 4:59
  Crystal: Yeah. And I think we should take a lot policies that are being executed in California.
• 5:05
  Nevada is just at the beginning stage of adopting some of these policies. They're very popular across the United States and people really want to tend towards democratic policies. They're all very enticing. There's lots of free stuff promised and so I'm cautioning Nevada by telling them about a lot of things in California. I'd like to bring it up and and to show this is the end of the pathway if you keep adopting democratic type policies without conservative values intertwined somehow.
• 5:43
  of course, for those of you who who live out in the 775 or even in the Vegas area. One of the things we see constantly is those . . . the" slogan, "Don't California My Nevada, right?
• 5:56
  Scott: This effort that you know . . . I had somebody tell me once, this was years ago, that one of the problems with California is is everybody in California is convinced they represent the future of the nation. Everybody outside of California is just convinced they're crazy, right? And it's gonna be interesting to see.
• 6:16
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. And you know, because they import a lot from China and resell it to the rest of the United States. And they make tremendous profits doing that. So, they can afford to make everything super pretty and super perfect.
• 6:33
  Scott: It's not really templatable to the rest of the United States. And quite frankly, it's offensive when they drive through our lands and and pity us.
• 6:39
  Scott: And I'm like, you know what? We're living within our means and we're focused on the important things in life. I don't think beautifying, you know, a city is is quite as important as say fixing the problem in our school system.
• 6:56
  Scott: and this has been this of course gets into an issue. So, first of all, California, of course, has a lot of of other resources just than playing the middleman for this reselling of stuff, right?
• 7:06
  Scott: Uh, but they're shutting a lot of that down. So, you know, Los Angeles area used to be a huge gas and oil production facility. They're closing most of their refineries down, which is one of the things that's wrecking havoc on Nevada's gas prices because so much of the state gets gas from California. Up until recently they had the the only functioning rare earth mineral mine in the United States. Now we're starting to see that expand to other states.
• 7:34
  Scott: And of course timbering, fishing, this type of stuff. They've got a lot of natural resources.
• 7:39
  Scott: But yeah, your fundamental your fundamental point is correct. I think that one of the things that's going on is California seems to have been putting some emphasis on some stuff and actually, I would argue, letting their infrastructure collapse, right? So California roads are horrible. Victor Davis Hansen has pointed out part of California's water problems is they haven't built a new reservoir in something like 40 years, right? So their infra . . . their population doubles but they haven't increased their water infrastructure. Of course they can't they can't get anything done with the Palisades fire area. That was a key point of Spencer Pratt's campaign.
• 8:18
  Scott: are normal political gripes and unfortunately they go even further. I'm . . . the Spencer Pratt campaign definitely pointed out they're their policies support homelessness and the homeless industrial complex which in my opinion is horrifying. So just a lot of misguided stuff and you know, Nevada could be that that could be us 20 years from now if we keep heading down that path.
• 8:44
  Scott: gets us back to I think probably, as we talked about, probably one of the most important decisions here out of this Supreme Court at the end of session was the decision in what was that? Watson versus Republican National Committee, right? Where the RNC claimed that the state of Mississippi was violating election law by counting votes after election day, right?
• 9:12
  Scott: And it's an interesting . . . it's a very interesting case. And of course in this case the Supreme Court delivered, and it was a 5-4 decision with Barrett and Roberts joining the the three liberal justices, arguing basically that no, states, you know, whatever deadline they have for postmarking ballots, they can continue to count ballots until they're counted. You can't stop counting on Election Day.
• 9:40
  Scott: Crystal: Right. And so is as a question of can you or can you not count ballots past election day? Was that basically the question?
• 9:55
  Scott: Scott: Right. And it's part of the question of mail ballots. of course the SAVE Act and the Trump administration and a lot of a lot of people on the political right want to get rid of mail ballots. Now of course one of the things we've talked about before is large parts of the 775 in Nevada, these rural districts Elko County has 10 precincts that have only been mail ballot since the 1990s. It just wasn't worth, you know, these are rural ranch areas.
• 10:26
  Scott: It wasn't worth trying to set up a separate polling location for those precincts or to ask them to drive in some cases 100, 120 miles into some place like Elko to vote, right? So, you know, one of the things is we have actually a lot of experience with these mail ballots and there's, there's two sides to this. One is a lot of these decisions about postmarking. If you're going to use a mail ballot, you know, a lot of states say, well, it has to be postmarked by election day, which is Nevada's law, but we've had an earlier decision in Pennsylvania and California that might say, well, four, five, six days. In fact, the Supreme Court struck down earlier this term, the Pennsylvania law, and says, you know, you can't you can't say, well, if it's postmarked, you know, if there's no postmark, you have to count it as if it was postmarked by election day, right?
• 11:18
  Scott: Which opens up the thing from fraud. But the case in . . .
• 11:25
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah, I think California, didn't California date? [laughter] Scott: Right. Yeah, it was the date you signed it the the smiley face as we saw on one of those, right? Once you make the mark . . .
• 11:44
  Scott: chain of custody issue there, I think.
• 11:44
  Scott: Scott: Right. But I think one of . . . Yeah, I think one of the things to bear in mind though is is we could have a legitimate debate about postmarketing, right? And these date things are important. Of course, we had the the case where the Supreme Court stopped the redistricting in Virginia over basically a timing issue that they didn't have it presented within when voting started. And Virginia tried to claim no, no, no, it's election day that means everything. And the Supreme Court says you can't do that. Or the Virginia Supreme Court said you can't do that. So, we're having a lot of arguments. But in the Watson versus RNC debate, the issue is not over when the ballot was submitted. The question is over whether you could keep counting. And that's a separate issue, right? Because even in Elko County, well, to give you an example, 2022 in Elko County, we had a massive snowstorm the day of the election. And we actually, you know, the sheriff's department from some of the outlaying polling locations, the sheriff's department collects the ballots and voting information and brings it in here to the county clerk to count, and and it actually didn't arrive til the next day. I mean, we're talking feet of snow. So, even the sheriff's department couldn't get out to deliver the votes. And the RNC would somehow argue those votes somehow become invalid. So I think in that case this is the Supreme Court. I think that was a good decision actually, right? This idea that you can't count received ballots. I do agree we need to strengthen when the ballots are submitted, but the idea somehow at midnight on election day you have to stop counting is absurd. So . . .
• 13:26
  Scott: been interesting to watch people try to tackle this issue. I think I think most Americans would agree that you can keep counting them so long as as long as the vote was cast on election day, it should be counted, right?
• 13:39
  Scott: Scott: Right. And you know, some cases true, some cases not, that are coming out that two or three days after the election, oh, we found an extra box in a back room of ballots.
• 13:50
  Scott: It's like, how does that happen, right? And that's that I think is what the RNC was was trying to address is that if you stop counting at that date that stops that type of stuff. My argument would be that there are other ways to stop that, right? And that, you know, we shouldn't be having these ballots. Because one of the things of course . . . let's go back to California case, right? one of the things you have is all of a sudden these mail ballots show up two or three days later and they have to get they have to get accepted and get counted. Now, if you want to say no, we have to receive the ballot by election day, I'm actually okay with that, right? that would stop some of the surprises. But, you know, saying, "Okay, well, if we if we get a bunch at like 11 p.m. on election day and the post office delivers 5,000 ballots that we're not going to be able to count in an hour, they shouldn't count at all," Is ridiculous. So, I think the Supreme Court actually got this one correct.
• 14:58
  Scott: you know, sometimes it's not about the direct lawsuit, it's about shaking out some kind of answer, and we did need some kind of answer. So, it's good that we have a directive from that.
• 15:08
  Scott: From them on that.
• 15:08
  Scott: Scott: Yeah. And it's going to I think, about some of the election stuff. So, but yeah, you were saying something earlier about you thought actually the birthright citizenship case was far more important.
• 15:26
  Scott: there's a lot of people that come here and just to be born to grab the US citizenship and go home.
• 15:34
  Scott: And I think it's really obvious that the founders in the Constitution did not intend for that to be the case or or failed to ever envision that being a thing. I think it was really important to try to get some clarity on that. And so the . . . who was the guy in the 1800s the railroad was that the last Supreme Court decision on birthright citizenship?
• 16:03
  Crystal: Yes. Wong Kim Ark.
• 16:03
  Crystal: Scott: Yeah. That was the 1890s and that actually right? It wasn't the last decision. I imagine there's been some others, but it was one of key points. So, let's let's back up a bit, I think, and outline some of the stuff here. So, where this comes from is of course the 14th Amendment, one of the Reconstruction era amendments to the US Constitution after the Civil War. And basically what it did is anybody, it says anybody born on the US soil becomes a citizen. And the obvious, the direct important issue in that time period when it was written was of course the issue what do you do with the freed slaves, right? Do you allow them to become US citizens? Did you do something else?
• 16:51
  Crystal: And the decision taken by, again, Republicans in Congress who passed the 14th Amendment.
• 16:57
  Crystal: this was one of the radical Republican deals.
• 16:57
  Crystal: Was, you know, they're considered citizens because they were born here, right? Um, so . . .
• 17:03
  Crystal: Crystal: And I think I, you know I listened to Clarence Thomas give his opinion on this and Clarence Thomas his interpretation of the 14th Amendment was that it was created almost specifically as an avenue to give African-American slaves citizenship.
• 17:25
  Crystal: Scott: Correct.
• 17:31
  Crystal: and it was allowed to be applied in a limited of amount of other places, but it really wasn't meant to be this catch-all that it's become.
• 17:38
  Crystal: Scott: Right. And part of his argument, of course, this is probably one of the longest Supreme Court decisions I said or I've ever seen. I mean, the document you download from the Supreme Court is, geez, something like almost over 200 pages, right? And 90 some pages of that is Clarence Thomas's dissent.
• 18:01
  Crystal: out that the decision was 5-4 which is definitely indicative, indicative of of contention.
• 18:08
  Crystal: of course Roberts and Barrett voted with the three liberal justices again on this, on this case.
• 18:16
  Crystal: I think one of the issues that you have with this . . . well let's back up because part of Clarence's argument is actually interesting. It's one of the things that actually touches strongly on the 775 outside the general current issue. So when the 14th Amendment was passed that born on American soil actually didn't apply to Native American tribes, right?
• 18:44
  Crystal: you're right. Cuz they're a foreign land, aren't they?
• 18:49
  Crystal: Article I section two going all the way back to when the Constitution was written in 1787 is they didn't consider Indians not taxed is how it's phrased, right? So taxing becomes the justification. If there are native Americans who are somehow taxed by the US government, they could count as citizens, right? But if they weren't taxed--that is they maintain that sovereign state status--they weren't considered citizens and in fact going back to your to the historical cases, it was 1924, in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, that finally allowed Native Americans who are born within the territorial boundaries of the United States, even if it is on their reservations, to be considered US citizens, right? So one of the things is from the beginning there's a real question about that jurisdiction issue, right? The 14th Amendment under, or under the jurisdiction of the US, right? And I think that's one of the stronger arguments to be made is that even then they, you know, even Native American reservations weren't considered to be under the jurisdiction of the United States.
• 20:02
  Crystal: Crystal: Well, you could argue that being your territory being surrounded by the American government and culture does in a lot of ways subject them to our jurisdiction. I mean in terms of just think of like food delivery, food supplies, medicine supplies, there's a lot of interactivity between the two, which is different fundamentally from say a Chinese mom flying over, giving birth and taking the child back and that child never setting foot on US soil, never being exposed to US food, culture, not having to use US services.
• 20:44
  Crystal: Like I don't understand how this person is subject to our jurisdiction if they've had absolutely zero interaction with our country, right? You know what I mean, right?
• 20:58
  Crystal: I'm not, I'm not sure geographical surrounding because under that logic, somehow the people of Switzerland should somehow become citizens of France and Germany as well because they're landlocked. So any supplies that come in have to come in through these other countries. I don't think that's the issue. It's back to this jurisdiction.
• 21:16
  Crystal: if everyone around Switzerland went to war, that would definitely affect what they do inside their country.
• 21:21
  Crystal: Scott: Well, yeah, but that's happened though, you are subjected to those surrounding neighboring territories.
• 21:32
  Crystal: to the jurisdiction. So, for . . .
• 21:32
  Crystal: Crystal: Right, right.
• 21:39
  Crystal: the Nuremberg laws. I mean, it's a horrible example, but it gets exactly to this point, right? Swiss citizens aren't subject to Nazi era laws or or some of the other stuff. So that's, they're not subject to national conscription like France had in the 1950s. That's they're not under the jurisdiction, right?
• 21:55
  Crystal: Crystal: Yeah.
• 22:01
  Crystal: that's interesting I like to bring back up is the question not only the rights of citizenship, but the obligation of citizenship. But while we're talking jurisdiction, let's get back to the case you ask about with Wong Kim Ark, which was from the 1890s. And what happened in that case that a lot of people found interesting is that this was a a child of Chinese immigrants who was born in the United States. Now the parents were, the parents immigrated legally, right?
• 22:39
  Crystal: And might have been to work on the railroad, I don't know. But by 1882, we get the Chinese Exclusion Act where the US government doesn't allow anybody from China to come in, right? It's one of the, one of the more grotesque nativist acts in American history. But his parents were already here. They were legally, you know, they have a residence card. They go back to China for a visit and take him with them and the authorities claim he can't come in under the Chinese Exclusion Act. The child, although, the parents came. And the case goes to the Supreme Court and is one of the first tests of the 14th Amendment born on US soil. The difference in this case is that his parents are voluntarily and knowingly under the jurisdiction of the United States, right? It wasn't that they just came here for two weeks and decided they weren't citizens, but they had a legal right of residence and he was born here under that legal right of residence.
• 23:42
  Crystal: So that's one of the things I think that's really dodgy about this is that we can't settle on what jurisdiction means.
• 23:50
  Crystal: Crystal: And I, you know, I was convert these sort of problems into practical things. And why this gets to me so much is you can think about this. This allows citizenship to be bought for under five grand. So it costs maybe $1,000, $2,000 to fly here and fly back and then a few thousand in hospital bills.
• 24:25
  Crystal: And by the way, if you fly back without paying the bill, no one's gonna come after you for it. So it costs even more. But essentially, this allows people that come here, give birth, and come back to buy citizenship for their children for under five grand. And that really bothers me.
• 24:44
  Crystal: it's not only bothersome, but there's increasing evidence, and I'll be the first to admit, I don't know how extensive this is, right?
• 24:49
  Crystal: But there's increasing evidence. We had a scene here just over the last week with supposedly these billboards on the Mexican side of the border offering advice to people coming across the US border from Mexico. Oh, do this and make sure your kids, your child becomes a US citizen that the anchor baby issue. But one of the things that's come out here over the last couple months, right, after the oral arguments on this issue was there is some evidence that there are some some basically hospitals or services that particularly will allow Chinese citizens, Chinese nationals to come in. You know, they'll house them during the birth. The child's born here, the child becomes a citizen, and then they go home with that American citizenship. right?
• 25:41
  Crystal: It's almost sort of a spa type of thing. Now, how extensive those are, I don't think anybody knows, but we have at least one or two cases where they've identified that. But I think this issue is a little bit more complicated than just the birthright thing because I think there's a couple other things in play in this. One, I don't think this issue is quite as . . . the decision I don't think is as expansive and there's been a lot of attention particularly to Gorsuch's partial dissent, right, from this decision. And one of the things Gorsuch puts out is that you know the issue is, first of all, we probably don't want presidential executive orders which is what this started, right? Trump issues an executive order to stop this. You know, maybe we shouldn't have executive orders overwriting amendments to the Constitution, right?
• 26:38
  Crystal: Crystal: Mhhmm.
• 26:47
  Crystal: things Gorsuch put out, which a lot of people seem to be making some hay of, and we'll see where it comes from, is Gorsuch basically pointed out that, you know, even though it's in an amendment, Congress could actually define what "under the jurisdiction" means without violating the 14th amendment, right? So, Congress has the full power to clarify that. And one idea is what it would be is it would require at least one of the parents to already be a US citizen, right? So if one of your parents is a US citizen, you're born on US soil, you're automatically a US citizen, right? We'll have to see if Congress takes that up, but it's an interesting approach. And again, I think part of this is, what we're seeing with some of these Supreme Court decisions, is we're getting at some big issues, but it's not based on the idea that the the issue itself is bad, right? And I'll have to admit there's a lot on the political right and left that assume every one of these issues is about the fundamental principle. But what seems to be going on in my view is that the Supreme Court's actually taking a very close look at how we have to address these issues and in some ways I think that's much more important.
• 28:08
  Crystal: I was really happy to kind to watch the Supreme Court take this position of almost kicking it over to Congress and say do your job. This been something that I've thought a lot about the last two years. And you know, there's only so much President Trump can do if Congress does nothing.
• 28:26
  Crystal: He's got to . . . he's got executive orders. He's got to use them. Then we have the Supreme Court. They're going to coach him or not coach him, but referee him as as best they can. But ultimately, they're both looking to Congress and, the American people should be too, to do their job.
• 28:43
  Crystal: And this was something that resonated. You may not agree with this, but this was something I thought continually through the ICE raids was, man, if Congress passed meaningful immigration, comprehensive immigration, we wouldn't have to tear up communities like this.
• 28:59
  Crystal: you know, just do your job, Congress.
• 28:59
  Crystal: Scott: Well, and this is . . . yeah. No, you're absolutely right, and I agree with you 100%. You know, Congress has really struggled with immigration policy for, geez, decades, 40, 50 years, right? And I'm not really sure why. I mean, I've got a bunch of theories, but part of it just seems to be Congress is is too afraid of handling the hot potato, and unfortunately, that's what we elect them to do. But yeah, you're absolutely right because you, you know, we have a lot of debates over the enumerated powers. We have a lot of people on the far right that argue that the federal government should be doing a very narrow set of stuff. And one of the unquestionable rights of the federal government is to enforce immigration policy. I mean, that is clearcut in there. And we've gotten in this weird situation where in the late '70s, the president is allowed to declare refugee status without reference to Congress. This is one of the ways that the Supreme Court supports, for instance, Trump potentially revoking that temporary protected person status for Haitians, right?
• 30:15
  Crystal: Because presumably if the Biden can identify them as refugees, another president can say no, we're not going to recognize that, right?
• 30:20
  Crystal: Crystal: Right.
• 30:24
  Crystal: shouldn't be making that decision, right? But . . .
• 30:24
  Crystal: Crystal: Well, the key word there is temporary.
• 30:31
  Crystal: yeah. And there was supposed to be a lot of the asylum cases. And again, this gets into why isn't Congress fixing our mess of an asylum system?
• 30:36
  Crystal: Why aren't they riding roughshod over immigration services about the processing times on this stuff?
• 30:44
  Crystal: I mean, one of the things that's been going on for decades is, you know, it it takes forever to get anything. You know, if you want to be naturalized, it is a complex process and probably one of the most complicated bureaucratic snafus ever.
• 31:04
  Crystal: And if we really want to do immigration, why don't we fix the bureaucracy, right?
• 31:08
  Crystal: Yeah, and I mean these are all very clean and neat arguments, but I think this is . . .
• 31:15
  Crystal: There's one final component to this that really is upsetting, and that is the multi- trillion dollar industry that the cartel performs in getting people across the border. And that also leads into high crime rates. And it also leads to jobs being taken. It also leads to housing being taken. all the things that Americans happen to be complaining about right now. So, I mean, this is one snake where if we we can cut this one, you get all the heads at once. And I can't for the life of me figure out why our federal government won't fix this one like gushing wound in the American side.
• 31:57
  Scott: Well, and I agree with part of it. I mean, you know, some of the criminality, for instance, you know, whatever the travesty that the criminality in Chicago is has absolutely nothing to do with immigration, right?
• 32:08
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. And I'm the immigrants that I'm calling criminals. It's the cartels that bring them over.
• 32:21
  Scott: and I think there's also a problem that one of the things we're seeing and we're starting to see the Trump administration, this has gone unreported in the media, which is part of the problem in this issue, but one of the things we've seen out of the Trump administration is a much greater willingness to go after employers who are exploiting these illegal immigrants, right? We just had a big case in . . . was it South Carolina or North Carolina? One of the Carolinas. We had a big case with, you know, some farms in California that were using underage workers. And you know this to my mind's one of the issues, for all the cries about humanitarianism, the idea that you're going to allow people in the country, allow them to function under the radar, just opens them to exploitation, right? And there's no way to enforce it. If you had a rational immigration system where these people could come in and if nothing else, even if they're just getting a green card and not going through the naturalization process, being able to track that and see where they are being employed, for instance, is a much more efficient way to try to address some of the concerns about the exploitation by employers, exploitation by landlords, so on and so forth. And of course, one of the things that got argued, and I haven't looked at the report, but there's a report that's been circulating over the last week that, you know, an analysis indicated that about 30% of the increase in housing cost over the last five years since COVID was generated by immigrants, illegal immigrants taking up housing, right? And, you know, we saw this in Vegas. Vegas prices collapse since these ICE crackdowns.
• 34:07
  Scott: I was just going to say that and I definitely I had mixed feelings because I didn't want to celebrate it. I know that these raids are horrific and they tear people apart and relationships and it's even hard on businesses and so I don't ever want to celebrate it. But it was hard to miss the drop in prices as the ICE raids went on. I mean, we had almost a 30% drop in apartment rental prices in Las Vegas.
• 34:29
  Scott: Scott: Right. And, yeah. And it was pronounced.
• 34:37
  Scott: Yep. And you know, part of my thing that I think is interesting that might might stop some of this, and this is this is semi- tongue and cheek, but it actually, you know, when I worked in the Census, part of my job was trying to recruit Native Americans to work with the Census Bureau to be able to count on reservations and have that community trust and everything. And one of the issues is to be a federal employee, you have to have your secret, if you're a male, you have to have your secret [selective] service number. And that actually than citizenship was a much bigger hurdle in many Native American communities. And it brings up a very old question about whether citizenship is just about rights or just about obligations. So . .
• 35:14
  Scott: Crystal: Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. So, are you saying that native, there's some natives here that don't have US citizenship?
• 35:26
  Scott: They have US citizenship, but what they've done is they're . . . so in many cases they're disconnected.
• 35:33
  Scott: So males in the US since, you know, the Jones Act'73 have to sign up for selective service, right?
• 35:39
  Scott: Might have been before that, but the modern system emerges with the when they got rid of the peace time draft. And if you don't have . . if you're not registered with selective service, you can't, you're ineligible for a federal job, right? That's an obligation of citizenship if you're male.
• 35:55
  Scott: Right? And if you look at Greek and Roman and some of these other societal models of citizenship, it was primarily based on the obligation, right?
• 36:01
  Scott: That the rights of citizenship followed from the obligations of citizenship. We've tended to reverse that. But think what might happen to, say, Chinese citizenship if the US were to pass a law, just speculatively, that you know you lose that citizenship if you're one of these these people who you know came over to the US, your parents came over to the US gave birth here, you never stepped on the US for 18 years, maybe until you come back to college and then they won't let you in the country because you haven't registered for the selective service and that's reject your citizenship. Or you know the US is also one of the few countries on earth that taxes you based on being a US citizen, not where you are geographically located. So technically you know if you're working overseas that income is taxable by the US government.
• 36:54
  Scott: Imagine what would happen if the US government does that, right?
• 36:59
  Scott: Scott: Wait, sidebar. I if you refuse service, do you have any clue or idea what happens to you if you don't complete your service?
• 37:18
  Scott: Scott: Well, this is Yeah. Well, and no. What they they have they have alternatives, and it's not just military service. It's often couched as national service, right?
• 37:30
  Scott: Crystal: Like civil service or something?
• 37:35
  Scott: it's not necessarily civil service, and in the US and it's been talked about that you know you revive sort of the the AmeriCorps or Peace Corps idea domestically. A lot of times, particularly for religious exemptions, like in Israel up until recently a lot of of sects of Orthodox Jews, you know, had a religious, a religious objection to military service, right?
• 37:57
  Scott: Well, what would happen is when you called up, you might be assigned to to be a medical unit, right? Quakers in the US is another good example of that, right?
• 38:07
  Scott: Where you, you have an alternative form of service to fulfill that obligation of citizenship. But my point my point is bigger. I mean, you know, one of the things is that, you know, we're talking about this in terms of rights of citizenship.
• 38:27
  Scott: But it's interesting to think what would happen to this system if we got serious about enforcing some of the obligations of citizenship.
• 38:30
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah.
• 38:36
  Scott: conversation. I don't think it's going to happen, but it's an interesting point.
• 38:41
  Scott: I always thought when people turned 18, they should have to pass the citizen the same citizenship test that the immigrants have to pass to become a a citizen. I'm like, I think we all should have to pass that test. I don't know what happens if you fail that test. Like I said, I don't know if we can send people some. We'll send them to Alaska. [laughter] mean one of the things it can do is actually, it could actually help tell us . . . it could probably help us identify some problems in the education system for one. But it would also go a long way to ensuring Americans understand their rights and everything.
• 39:22
  Scott: I love this conversation, but I think we should give it a few minutes to guys and girls sports everyone's favorite subject. So, this ruling it really the central legal question here is are males that identify as females in the same protected class as females as a whole? Is that, is that correct? Yeah, that's more or less, yeah, more or less the decision. Of course, this is interesting because this has been something that came up and you know really since 2020, right?
• 40:01
  Scott: Crystal: But I should say no. Their class. But go ahead. [laughter] Scott: Well, and this was not contentious. This was a straight political divide. It was a 6-3 decision with Sotomayer, Kagan and Jackson Brown opposing this, right, so this split directly. And of course you know if you remember back to 2022 or 2021 when Jackson Brown was proposed, she got the famous question in her hearings, you know, what is a woman? And her response was I'm not a biologist, so I can't answer the question. And you know this is sort of the natural progression of this.
• 40:40
  Scott: Currently 27 states have laws that ban boys and girls sports, right? Biological males from competing with biological women.
• 40:58
  Scott: is not one of them.
• 40:58
  Scott: Scott: Nevada is not one of them. And petition drive that Governor Lombardo was trying to promote that just failed for various reasons, right? I mean, it failed because they didn't have enough signatures. Now, why they didn't get the signatures, that's something that's been arguing. It . . . they were expecting this court case to come down. And there was also a challenge to the Nevada Supreme Court that about four or five days before the deadline, the Nevada Supreme Court finally said the petition could go forward.
• 41:30
  Scott: But the truth is that, that shouldn't have stopped them from collecting signatures earlier.
• 41:34
  Scott: My personal opinion is that it was, it was an incredibly piss-poorly managed effort.
• 41:43
  Scott: They hired some consultants that probably should never have been involved with this. But that being said, this is emerged as a controversial issue I think for a couple reasons, right?
• 41:54
  Scott: I should say that Nevada is protected though, even though it's not on the books. We have our . . . I forget what the governing body is of high schools and there's some kind of inner scholastic organization that sets the the parameters for high school sports and they explicitly say that your gender where your sex has to align with the sex of the team and sex is different than gender. I know we're getting into that splitting hairs thing and I . . . a lot of us just hate having this conversation, but it's it's legally important to point out that gender and sex are different. You can identify with whatever gender you want, but you were a one or the other sex at birth and you must be on, you have to be in alignment with that sex when you play on a sports team. So, Nevada is protected in a way there.
• 42:47
  Scott: Scott: Well, in a way. and NI, is it the Nevada Inner-Scholastic Athletics Association or something like that.
• 42:55
  Scott: Crystal: That's it.
• 43:01
  Scott: the National Collegiate Athletics Association also has adopted the rules. And of course, the problem is twofold. So, first of all, you have Title IX of the US code, which governs a lot of of girls sports. And this comes out of a period, late 60s, early 70s, this was part of the feminist movement, the so-called second-wave feminism, where you know they were noticing you know male athletes could get scholarships to schools and they could participate in sports and they could have this experience females couldn't, right? So the law was put into place to try to govern these.
• 43:39
  Scott: So if you have a certain amount of male sports in a college or a high school you have to offer something for females And what has emerged since that came out--again about we're 50, 55 years into that--is that a lot of these programs developed into . . . for a lot of female athletes this is a way, just like their male counterparts, to get college tuition right you participate in sport you get into a scholarship swimming. Riley Gaines is a good example of this. But then what happens is we have this shift whatever the philosophical issue is on on gender and men, you know, there's a reason that certain sports, and you and I have had the conversation, we disagree on what these sports are, but certain sports and let's just take swimming, males on average, not absolutely, but on average, males tend to have longer limbs and that leverage results in faster time for swimming, right? And she had a case of Lia Thomas who has now been stripped of the title. I mean, somebody that was 400 and some in the men's rankings goes right to the top.
• 44:48
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah, I was just going to say competing against males, he, she, she, he, she, he . . .
• 44:53
  Scott: he was like number 400, ranked number 400, and then when he jumped over to this the women's team, he was number one. You're like, [gasps] I can't.
• 45:06
  Scott: I just can't. [laughter] Scott: Right. And we've had, possibility of of particularly with contact sports right now to be fair part of the justification on this is a problem that's gone the other way. We spent the 80s and 90s in a in a debate in this country whether women could play in male sports, right? So we've got a number of females that serve on high school and collegiate football teams, right? Because women don't really have football leagues, right?
• 45:39
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah.
• 45:47
  Scott: of course, one of the problems we have here in Nevada particularly, right? Getting back to this issue is that, you know, we have a lot of very small high schools, right, that just aren't going to be able to provide, for instance, a girls soccer team and a male soccer team. There's just not a lot of interest for a girls soccer, right?
• 46:03
  Scott: But allowing those females to play on the male team solves that, right? And that's been used for years. The question really comes up whether you mandate it going the other way. I think this is an interesting issue because it's not just a state's rights issue. I mean, there's something fundamentally sort of, in my view is almost like the this reading of the Equal Rights Amendment was sort of picked up starting in 2020 in ways that a lot of people are just scratching their heads. I mean, one of the reasons this petition drive started is there's there's public opinion polls that 75, 80% of the people think this is nonsense, right? That there just should not be this type of of stuff, let alone the issue with bathrooms and stuff, right? Or the medical care stuff, right? The idea that you have a man that's born biologically male, right? I mean, we have hermaphrodism issues, they're relatively minor, right? These are psychological. But you know that somehow, somebody that's born biologically male identifies the women not only has to be given a pap smear and other female stuff but the idea they can then ignore prostate cancer, right? That just doesn't go away. [laughter] You know whatever that social construct is there's a biological reality under here. And I think people are tired of it. I think I mean, you know, we're starting to see real backlash between the medical establishment.
• 47:33
  Scott: A lot of European countries are just, you know, saying we're not even messing with this. This is nonsense. So, you know, I think this is, this was something that was coming.
• 47:44
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. I'm just exasperated with it because there's so much energy and effort and thought and money being put into like teasing out the the intricacies of someone's gender and understanding it. And I'm looking at a failing school system. I'm looking at AI coming on board and facing a society that isn't working. There's everyone's sick in this country.
• 48:12
  Scott: We're up against it with Russia and with Iran and China. And the idea that people want to sit down and spend time figuring out the nuances of their gender drives me insane because there's so many other problems to fix. And I just I can't understand it from an efficiency standpoint. I'm like, there's a lot of other problems in the world.
• 48:41
  Scott: Why are you spending six hours a day on this?
• 48:41
  Scott: Scott: Well, again, I mean, efficiency and identity, you know, they're sort of antithetical. And you know, my take is that if you're over 18, I could care less, right? I really, if you want to waste your money getting sex change surgery, that's on you. But a lot of this, and I think where the boys and girls sports is, is that this is explicitly in many cases dealing with minors.
• 49:05
  Scott: So it's the government sort of overruling and stepping into a space with, between parents and children. The whole range of issues about the, you know, schools not telling the parents that they're allowing the child . . . .So I mean this is a different issue and it's sort of weird and I tend to agree with people. I mean we have these arguments, oh we shouldn't let people drive until they're 25 because their brains aren't fully developed. But somehow at nine they can choose which, which gender they want to be, which to me seems a far more complex issue than controlling a vehicle, right?
• 49:48
  Scott: looking at the state of California is working on a piece of legislation that would allow minors to emancipate themselves from their parents who they can claim are not accepting their gender identity, which is considered abuse. Mhm. This is really getting really far afield.
• 50:11
  Scott: know, and this is tying with a whole range of stuff. Of course, emancipated minors is there's a fairly extensive body of jurisprudence. But this gets into some, this gets into some real issues, I think. That I'm not really sure what the endgame is here. I mean, it just seems . . . it just seems something that's so antithetical to public opinion and it's so antithetical to any type of . . . reality, if I can say that, right? I know, I know that's controversial, but you know . . .
• 50:45
  Scott: Crystal: Well, no, I mean that really comes down to it like we have a free democracy which requires people to be focused and paying attention and holding people accountable.
• 50:58
  Scott: You know, the biggest core part of your identity should be centered around that, not who you have sex with and how you have sex.
• 51:05
  Scott: Scott: If you're an adult. And I think that's what the problem is. One of the things we haven't worked out is, you know, what what are the rights overall of children? And I think there is a push to extend those rights down. But at the same time, they're also trying to prevent I mean, you know, tobacco is an early example, alcohol, firearms, right? this idea that you could buy a 12 gauge shotgun at 18, but you can't buy a .22 pistol at 18. I mean, you know, that's a that's another example of like what's the mentality here, right? But um yeah, so I think I think overall in the case, this is West Virginia versus B.P.J., is that this is probably one of the most topical of the decisions that was reached. I don't think what they're in, but I think it's very fascinating. It's the only one of these that split along those political lines, right? So, three big cases, you know, right here at the end of the 20 . . . I guess this is the 2025-2026 term. But, you know, some major repercussions I think.
• 52:20
  Scott: You were . . .
• 52:20
  Scott: Crystal: And again, this is the Supreme Court is coming out of the Trump administration, which is not a criticism of Trump because ultimately it's Congress that's not doing anything productive. So Trump's left with executive orders and hoping he can get something through and the Supreme Court is being a good goalie right now. So that's where we're at. And I lay the blame, if anyone's upset about any of this, it's Congress's fault.
• 52:49
  Scott: Yeah, and I mentioned my take on this back we did the "Judging the Judges" episode back last year that I think--I don't necessarily think this is the conscious policy--but I do think this administration's not afraid of these Supreme Court lawsuits because I think one of the things that's going on is as Congress shrunk from a lot of these duties, and again this goes back to the 1970s, right? The Presidential War Powers Act. I mean they they seem to have constrained themselves to what Congress is going to do and what this did I think was left lacunae, left spaces, and I think what we've seen over the last 40 years is efforts of both the executive, the judiciary and the bureaucracy sort of rushing in to try to fill that space. And I think the . . . I think part of what's happening and this is why I think it's a good thing it's incredibly messy as we're going through it no doubt about that. But the truth is, I think what this these cases are doing is they're starting to reestablish some clear boundaries, right? You know, this is what the presidency can't do. You can't use executive orders to reinterpret an amendment. But at the same time, the president can't just say, "Okay, we're going to pick an arbitrary date to stop counting ballots." Right? That has to lie with the states. And overall in the long term I think this is a good thing because if everybody knows what the boundaries are we can stop sort of this what we've had with this see-saw policies as various groups try to assert their opinion.
• 54:27
  Scott: It's going to be a long process. But I actually think this is a healthy start.
• 54:33
  Scott: too. I think the voter needs to stay on top of Congress because I think they've gotten fat and happy off of their donors and they're lazy.
• 54:39
  Scott: They're not passing legislation because it's a hard thing to do. It's just easier to do favors for their donors and the voters need to pressure them. They need to pressure them. They're being lazy right now.
• 54:55
  Scott: what's that's, you know, one of the things we've said constantly is this is why elections matter, right? And it is the, you know, even local elections. There's a great thing my, a good friend of mine, well, Hank Thurston, we did the interview with him on AI. But one of the memes he's fallen in love with, you know, just as a way to wrap this up, is the point that the Murray Hamilton, who plays the mayor in Jaws that refuses to shut the beaches, he's also the mayor like, you know, six years later when Jaws 2 comes out and does the same thing. And it's like, you know, this is why local [laughter] elections matter, right? Why wasn't [clears throat] this guy out the first time? So, anyway, this is, this has been an interesting Supreme Court term.
• 55:38
  Scott: But probably something we'll follow up some of these cases and of course, starting in the fall, we'll start getting a whole new series of cases coming out, right? So, well . . .
• 55:48
  Scott: Crystal: Everybody can't wait. We can't wait, Scott. [laughter][laughter] No, we can't wait. But, you know, we've got other stuff to chat about, too. So, until next time, I'm Scott Gavorsky.
• 56:01
  Scott: Crystal: And I'm Crystal Newton
• 56:06
  [music] Scott: Thank you for listening to 775 Alive Crystal: Nevada Roots, Global Issues.
• 56:06
  [music] Scott: Thank you for listening to 775 Alive Crystal: Scott: Subscribe on YouTube or X services.
• 56:15
  [music] Scott: Thank you for listening to 775 Alive Crystal: Scott: You can email us at info@775alive.com