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- [00:01]
A
When you run a business, there are
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B
a lot of boxes to check.
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A
Let's see, Payroll, check.
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C
Inventory, check insurance.
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D
Ugh.
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Well, good things. Simply Business makes getting small business insurance fast and easy. Just answer a few questions, review your quotes and get covered in under 10 minutes. All online. It's that simple. Check insurance off your list@simplybusiness.com
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the redistricting wars take a miserable turn for Democrats. And I've got three interviews. Louisiana mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, NAACP general counsel Kristen Clark, and candidates for the Georgia Supreme Court, Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to no Lie. Some daunting updates for the Democrats as these redistricting wars that were launched by Trump continue to devolve. Alabama is now moving to eliminate their existing 5:2 map and revert back to their previously struck down 6:1 map which packs all Democratic voters from Montgomery and Birmingham into just one district. This follows Tennessee successfully eliminating all Democratic districts by cracking Nashville and Memphis. Louisiana goes from two Democratic seats down to one. South Carolina is now advancing a map that eliminates the state's only Democratic seat. And of course, that's in addition to the five additional Republican seats in Texas, four in Florida, two in Ohio, one in North Carolina, and one in Missouri. I presume this trend will continue with Republicans eventually eliminating almost all, if not all Democratic districts in states that they control. So here are a few hard truths. First, Republicans will not stop. They to their credit, engage in these long term projects, whether it's Roe or the Voting Rights Act. They will fight to eliminate these things for 50 or 60 years if they have to. And they did and they were successful. Which means the Democrats will not be able to reason with these people. They will not be able to compromise with them. They will gain nothing by conferring goodwill to the other side. And the only thing worse than watching Republicans run roughshod over a democracy is thinking that some misguided sense of compromise will ever change anything. My second point, going tit for tat against the GOP buys us nothing. You will not find a bigger advocate for the Prop 50 ballot measure than me. I literally raised a million dollars toward it. I'm proud of the fact that it happened. But in retrospect, adding just five Democratic seats to neutralize five Republican seats in Texas was not a deterrent. Clearly to his credit. Here's what Mark Elias said a year ago.
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E
Republicans don't care about democracy. You know, Republicans support Donald Trump because an authoritarian and they will abuse every norm. They will violate every Tradition. They will seek to weaponize every law, every practice, everything that they can in order to gain power for the sake of having power. And they are not going to be deterred from doing that if they are, you know, turn a grotesque map into an obscene map in Texas. And our response is, okay, well, we found, you know, four or five seats of our own. They. They will take that as a win, right, because they've done what they want. And then, as you say, they will move on to Missouri, they'll move on to Florida, they'll move on to Ohio, they will move on to Utah, they will move on to, you know, wherever will be their next place. And they will not be deterred. What we need to do is we need to recognize that if we want to stop the slide of democracy, we as Democrats, we as people in the pro democracy movement, need to tell them that if they take five seats, we're going to put 30 seats on the table, right? Because they need to understand that there will not just be parody if things go against them, but actually if they guess wrong and this winds up escalating, they could wind up on the severe losing side. So when people say to me, you know, don't bring a knife to a gunfight. I don't even want to bring a gun to a gunfight. You know, I want to bring something more than a gun to the gun. I want to bring missiles to the gunfight. I want to bring hand grenades to the gunfight. Because I want the other side to understand that not only are we going to fight as hard as them, but we are going to fight smarter than them and we're going to fight harder than.
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B
And he's right. You gain nothing by going tit for tat. You have to go on offense. Which brings me to the third and final point. We now know the Republican strategy, not a secret. It's not gonna sneak up on us here. They will gerrymander every Democratic district out of existence. Their judges will let them do it, even if expressly prohibited by their own state constitutions. Florida proved as much. So our only recourse now recognizing what they are doing is to go on full offense. That means that Democratic officials in New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and on and need to wake the fuck up and start redrawing these maps for full, full Democratic control. Why? Because going tit for tat deters no one. You need to show Republicans some deterrent effect for what they're doing. And also, look, if Democrats do go all out, guess what? They can actually win. The redistricting war. California has 52 seats. Republicans currently hold seven. That is a big haul. New York has 26 seats. Republicans currently hold seven. That's a big haul. So these governors and state legislators on the left need to realize that this is no longer about fairness. It is about fighting back so that Democrats are not engineered out of the House forever. And look, I get that Democrats don't have the stomach for this kind of warfare. Find it. The time for good government solutions is long gone. Now it's existential. I'm going to read an excerpt from my new book, the Day after, which was written expressly because Democrats do not wield power while Republicans are content to abuse it. How have Republicans managed to skew democracy so much? Because they pursue power over principle, whereas too many Democrats pursue fairness and good government. Republicans controlled the drawing of 191 districts in 2024, compared to only 75 controlled by the Democrats. The rest of those House districts were drawn by commissions, courts or divided state governments. In the Democratic strongholds of California and New York, there are independent redistricting commissions. In Texas and Florida, there's no such thing. In Republican controlled districts, there is little recourse to correct the maps in their largely conservative courts. The judges often refrain from interfering with map schemes, unlike the mostly liberal courts reviewing maps in Democratic districts. So I wrote this book expressly because I realized that this issue was creating a massive asymmetry between the two parties. One party wields power recklessly and aggressively, the other party just shies away from it. But at a moment where democracy itself is endangered, that kind of disparity is literally going to relegate Democrats into obscurity forever. And by the way, if you'd like to support my work and support that message, please consider pre ordering this book. I'm going to put a link in the show notes of this episode. I'd really appreciate it. So look, at this point, I hope that everybody listening recognizes that the onus is on us to apply as much pressure as humanly possible to our blue state officials. And if they won't do it, like Maryland State Senate President Bill Ferguson, then we need to support others who will, like Bobby Lapin, who is running against him. If they won't do it like Colorado Governor Jared Polis, we need to support the gubernatorial candidates in Colorado who will do it. And the same goes for every seat in every blue state there is. Now is do or die. Our democracy quite literally depends on it. Next up are my interviews with Nithya Raman, Kristin Clarke, Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan. No Lie is brought to you by Shopify. So picture this. It's late at night, you're in bed, scrolling through your feed. We've all done it. And then all of a sudden you see that one product you have been looking for forever. You click the link, you add it to your cart. Maybe you shop around a little bit, but you finally go to your checkout and as you're filling in your address, you realize you don't have your card anywhere near you. And that's when you see it. That purple pay button that has all your information saved, making checking out as simple as a simple tap of your screen. Legitimately one of the best features on the Internet. And that's what you can expect with shop. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all E commerce in the United States. From my own website, brianteller cohen.com to brands just getting started. You can get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. And you can get the word out like you have an entire marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. And what if I get stuck? Shopify's always around to share advice with their award winning 24 customer support. I have used it on more than one occasion and it is legitimately the best in the game. See less carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com BTC go to shopify.com BTC that's shopify.com BTC I'm joined now by candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, Nithya Raman. Thanks so much for joining me.
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A
Thank you for having me.
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B
So this is the city that I live in. I've been covering this race. I'm curious first and foremost because I think a lot of the national attention that this race is getting is owed in large part to the fact that Spencer Pratt has been a very vocal kind of Trumpian voice in this race. But like Donald Trump In 2016, there are a lot of people that are saying there are a lot of things that are wrong with Los Angeles and nobody seems to be speaking as bluntly about how to fix them as him. And so what is your response to to the attention that he's garnered online with very much the same style that Trump had 10 years ago?
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A
You know, I think that Spencer Pratt is tapping into a lot of the frustrations that people have in Los Angeles by the way that things are going. And his Trumpian qualities is exactly why I think Angelino should be taking this race seriously, but should also be grappling with the critiques. LA right now feels worse than it did two years ago or three years ago for a lot of Angelenos. It feels like we are moving in the wrong direction rather than in the right direction. And that isn't just a consequence of the fact that economically, things are harder. It's also a consequence of the fact that even some of our most basic services in the city, like street lights and potholes, are worse than what they were before. There's 30,000 streetlights on across the entire city. There's more potholes than they were, and our homelessness crisis continues to exist on our streets. And I think this is the same issue that we're facing nationally, which is if you feel like the country is moving in the wrong direction, and if you feel like establishment Democratic politics is not feeling that urgency to solve those issues or to prevent them from happening in the first place, people lose faith in government. And I feel that frustration around me in Los Angeles every day. And that's, you know, it drives me in my work, and it drove me to run for this seat. But I also think it's a very real thing that we should take seriously, and we need to grapple with, and we need to offer it an honest response, a response that's rooted in actually solving these problems. Otherwise, people will turn to fascism, to mini Trump, which is who I think Spencer Pratt really represents.
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B
So if you're saying that these problems need to be fixed, if you're correctly diagnosing these problems, if they're so obvious to you and me and everybody else who recognizes the issues with Los Angeles, clearly the mayor, the current mayor, Karen Bass, could see these things, too. And so what is the response as to why these things aren't getting done?
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A
You know, I think some of the problems are the direct result of the way in which our local political machine works and the way in which campaign financing works here and the way in which political campaigns are funded. We are in a budget deficit right now, a real kind of fiscal challenge that was driven by the fact that the police union is one of the major players in our local politics. And the mayor signed an unsustainably large contract with LAPD in 2023 in part to secure their support for her future election, which she has. And that money is now being spent against me. And that unsustainably large contract has led to real budget deficits which have led to service cuts across the entire city, which have made life in this city harder and worse for ordinary Angelenos. I don't think the choice right now needs to be between our broken status quo that is motivated by these kind of really political decisions around some of the most important issues facing Los Angeles and between a MAGA Republican. These do not have to be our only options. I really feel like we can build a better city here, but we have to reorient ourselves towards serving the public, towards serving Angelenos, not just serving the political interests that really maintain the status quo in City Hall.
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B
So there are three issues that I want to focus on and that's housing, homelessness and Hollywood. And I think that Hollywood and housing are things that I want to discuss reforms with you. But homelessness is something that we're spending a shit ton of money on right now that I think largely folks can agree is not getting better, or at least not visibly getting better. I'm sure that if you look at the numbers, you know, there's some, you know, small incremental percentage of people who are getting into beds, but I think in large part people in this city recognize that a lot of money goes toward this and that there isn't, you know, a solution that, that, that is, you know, easy to identify taking place. And so, you know, why hasn't this been able? Why is this issue so difficult to navigate in Los Angeles, especially given just the influx of money that's put toward it?
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A
A big part of the reason. So I want to say that in my district we've had a really big reduction in tents and encampments. And I represent District 4 and we've done a lot of the work in my district to actually reduce visibly and palpably the number of large encampments, tents that were on the streets. I've seen a 54% reduction over a three year period and more over the time that I've been office. I've been in office. And so I think you can make a palpable impact on this issue, but it requires real coordination. In LA right now, we spend, we've increased our spending on homelessness by 15 times over just a few years. And we've given a lot of money to our homeless services authority and to homeless service providers. But in the city, despite my efforts to create oversight and accountability, there's very few staff that are actually looking at how we're spending that money and ensuring that Every single dollar that we're spending is actually getting to results.
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D
Do you.
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B
Do you know that the total number of spending in the past fiscal year that goes toward homelessness in L. A?
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A
So the. It's about 700 million from the budget.
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B
And do you know how many people were taken off the streets and put into beds?
- [15:22]
A
I don't know that offhand, but there are. Yeah.
- [15:26]
B
Like, roughly. Is there any thousands of people go
- [15:29]
A
indoor to shelter and to housing across the entire system every day, every year. But many of them return to the streets because they don't have adequate care in the shelters. They're not connected to mental health services, and people cycle in and out of shelters all the time. But the reality is, part of the reason we don't see a lot of progress on our streets is that we still lack the number of shelter beds that we need for our total homeless population. We only have a third of the shelter that we need for our total homeless population, and we don't manage our shelters very well. And so when people get into them. This is what I was saying. We invest a huge amount of money in homelessness. But the city of Los Angeles right now does not have an office, an entity, and a department that is tasked with ensuring that every single dollar is working as hard as it could to get people indoors and to keep people indoors and to make sure that they're moving on to their next step as quickly as possible. This, to me, is a huge failure of accountability. I've pushed to create the very first bureau of homelessness oversight in the city. We finally got that passed through the city budget process last year. But because of a lack of urgency from city hall, including from this mayor, we don't have a single new staff member for this homelessness oversight body at all, which means we have no information, no one responsible for actually making sure that the system works. I can do whatever I can at the district level, but at the citywide level, we have to have the urgency to create a truly accountable system, and that requires the mayor's efforts. She is the person who has the convening authority and the power to be able to move that forward. That's part of why I'm running. And I want to go back to what I said earlier, which is if we don't build trust and faith in the system, if we don't ensure that people's tax dollars are going towards real results, if this city, which has voted three times in the past few years to tax itself, to provide a response to the crisis on our streets, with Housing and with shelter and with services. If we don't demonstrate results, people will lose their faith in government.
- [17:37]
B
Yeah.
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A
And that. That scares me as a progressive, as someone who really believes in the power of government to do good. We need to deliver on that.
- [17:46]
B
What does success look like? Let's say you're elected mayor, and obviously the issue of homelessness is, you know, the subsequent election will be a referendum on that issue. Let's be honest. It's. It's Los Angeles. It's always a referendum on homelessness. What does success look like for you in four years?
- [18:03]
A
So I released a plan just a few days ago talking about my approach to how I would address this issue. And what I'm promising is a reduction in tents and encampments across the city by 50% by the Olympics, which is in two years, and by the end of my first term, that we will have addressed all tents and encampments across the city. And I have a plan. Excuse me, I have a plan to get there that uses our existing investments and our existing dollars, but uses them much more effectively and ensures that people are transitioning into lower cost voucher programs and mental health beds that can effectively get many more people off the streets without asking for more money from the public.
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B
Another issue I want to switch over to is the entertainment industry. I have interviewed every gubernatorial candidate I've interviewed. Even when I've spoken to Newsom, I've been a bug up his ass every time about expanding the TV and film tax credit. I've lived here for 15 years. I moved here because of the entertainment industry. I have seen a city bustling with activity when it comes to TV and film production, down to what it is right now, which is even in my own circle of friends, I've had people move to Atlanta, people move to New Jersey, to New Orleans, even to Canada, because that's where the work is. And so, as we look toward, you know, trying to regain what we can from this industry, what is your plan to bring jobs back to. Not, you know, to the city that. That we live in?
- [19:37]
A
You know, I think we have to make a much better case for this tax credit. And as mayor, I want to be the loudest, most fervent advocate for a tax credit that is designed to be competitive with the other jurisdictions that are taking jobs away. And frankly, we should have been advocating for this years ago because the loss in jobs has been happening for many years now. We need a tax credit that has no cap, that is guaranteed years into the future. It has to be guaranteed because studios want to invest locally. And in order to invest locally and to make those investments, you have to be able to know that you can apply for this next year or the year after. So it has to be with no cap. It has to be guaranteed years into the future. And I think we have to figure out better ways of structuring it so that above the line costs are addressed so that we can also incentivize things like post production to also happen here. I mean, this is the kind of tax credit that we desperately need. And, you know, as a representative, as a mayor of the city of Los Angeles, I would be the loudest advocate for that, both in Sacramento and now in D.C. where discussions around a tax credit are also happening.
- [20:45]
B
I'm very glad to hear you say a tax credit with no cap, because that's something that I've been advocating for for years. And I think that the $750 million is a good first step, but it's only a first step and clearly not enough to bring, you know, to bring business back into Los Angeles as we are now at the lowest point that we've been for those who have careers in the entertainment industry in this city, but another.
- [21:08]
A
And I think. Oh, and I think for businesses who are trying to figure out. For studios that are trying to figure out where to shoot. Yeah, right now it's a lottery system.
- [21:15]
B
Correct. And that's why we saw Netflix invest so much money into New Jersey, you know, and that would have been great for me 20 years ago, and I grew up in New Jersey, but not so much anymore. But another big part of this is not just the tax credit. It's also the difficulty to shoot in this city. And I have the luxury, even though I work in politics, of having all of my friends work in the entertainment industry. This way I don't have to talk about politics after work. But, like, it is difficult to shoot in this city, and the permits are a nightmare to shoot in this city, and the costs are a nightmare to shoot in this city. And we have regulated ourselves into obscurity at this point. And so, on a more local level, do you have a plan to make it easier to actually shoot in this city so that money, time, resources doesn't go toward dealing with bureaucracy that doesn't exist in other places where they clearly want this business? And those same bureaucratic loop barriers don't exist 100%.
- [22:12]
A
And this city has an approach to film permitting and filming in LA that we need to completely change. The city has taken shooting for granted. It's taken the Industry for granted for a very long time. And now we need to do much more to ensure that we are actually incentivizing and making it as easy as possible for productions to shoot here. And I would do everything possible to ensure that we're removing the barriers in City hall to those issues. On day one, I would appoint a film liaison who had film industry experience, who knew what productions needed. I would staff out a full film office in the mayor's office so that we were making sure that all issues were addressed, so that we could be doing interjurisdictional coordinating. So many places in la, like the beaches, have both county and city responsibility. It should not be on productions to liaise between two different jurisdictions. It should be on the city to make sure that this is happening across the city. We have things like neighborhood filming conditions, where productions have to pay additional fees, even to homeowners associations and to local neighborhood associations. These kinds of things are remnants of an industry that doesn't look the same anymore. And we need to get rid of all of those kinds of barriers and costs. There are also additional costs for things like police officers and fire marshals. Not every production needs the level of bureaucracy and staffing that we required of them. And I would want to make sure that we were removing all of those and for smaller productions, potentially eliminating it entirely.
- [23:47]
B
Great. And just for folks who are watching and listening right now, I also want to be clear that when we talk about the entertainment industry, this isn't like to help Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and George Clooney like these are. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs that are everything from catering to PAs and production, to post production and special effects houses and hotels that rely on people coming into town to shoot this stuff. And transportation. I mean, it is all the jobs that the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs that make up this industry beyond just what you see in front of the screen. It's no different than what the auto industry was to Michigan or any other major industry is to the region that they come from. So I know that people will kind of turn their nose up at the entertainment industry because it doesn't feel as important. But this city exports culture to not just the rest of the country, but the world. And I think that has never been more important, especially at a moment when reality oftentimes feels so grim to have that world to escape into and to support the arts in such a big way. And finally, I want to talk about housing, because I'm intimately familiar with this and I know that it is as close to impossible to build in Los Angeles as it could be. Even as I have built my own house, I know that you can't put a shovel in the ground for more than a year. I mean, this is, everything I'm saying is no surprise to you. I'm sure you've heard it every which way. So what is the, what is your stance on reforming all that makes Los Angeles so difficult to build in?
- [25:32]
A
I mean, we absolutely need to transform this city into a city that says yes to new housing, rather than a city that is really designed around delaying and denying new housing. We have an extraordinarily intensive housing shortage here. We have the fewest homes per capita per adult of any city in America and we have the highest rent burden population of any major city in America. Those numbers are directly related to each other. And it didn't happen by accident. This city said no to housing for a very long time. Residents stood up and had an active anti housing movement. And City hall responded by making construction as slow as possible, particularly for apartments that are exactly what we need so much more of. Our average time for approving an apartment here is over a year and a half, much longer than in other states like Texas and Colorado. And I want to change all of that. I want to create a bureaucracy that's designed to say yes in a, in a reasonable amount of time. So I want to put in place a shot clock, a deadline by which the city has to say yes or no to a permit application. 60 days for zoning compliant projects, 120 days for projects that require some zoning changes. I want to make sure that we are having a single inspector look at a project from day one to finish. So that bureaucracy is not giving you two different responses to what you need to do in order to actually be allowed to build. I want to make sure the Department of Water and Power, which can add millions of dollars in costs and add months of delay to a project, is forced to come to the table from the beginning and tell you exactly what it's going to take and when they're going to turn the lights on. All of these things, these bureaucratic changes can actually transform the process of construction here and can make it much more possible for the city to build at the scale that it needs to in order to address our housing shortage.
- [27:29]
B
And I mean to that point too. There is, there is national significance here, especially as we approach the 2030 census where California is expected to, to shed electoral votes and the states that are gonna pick them up are not historically blue states. I mean, Texas is expected to pick up electoral votes. And so how does the national environment inform, if at all, how you think about your responsibility or your duty to make sure that we support our population here in California?
- [28:00]
A
Oh, I think it's incredibly important, especially as we're watching the redistricting battles play out across the rest of the country. We cannot afford to let this state and this city become less populous. We can't afford to give up House seats at this moment. I mean, I think it is absolutely essential for us in terms of our broader democratic project here in the country. And to me, this work on making sure that this city is welcoming, that we can actually invite more people to live in it instead of driving working families out of it. We lost 54,000 people over the past few years, and that's a huge population loss here going to impact us into the future. One of the things that has always been something that I've been so proud of as a representative of Los Angeles is that this city is a place of inclusion and welcoming for the LGBTQ community, for people of color, people who are fleeing oppressive environments at home come to Los Angeles seeking refuge. And if this place becomes unaffordable, it is no longer that for so many people. So for me, it is really part of. Of what I love about Los Angeles, part of what we need to keep alive about Los Angeles. Our housing crisis is intimately connected to our ability for this city to be a place of welcoming and inclusion and opportunity. And I think it's a really important electoral strategy at a time when every vote in the house matters.
- [29:31]
B
Well, I appreciate you taking the time today. Thanks for addressing all those issues. With that said, for folks who are looking to help out with your campaign, where can they go?
- [29:38]
A
Nithyaforthecity.com is our website where you can donate, sign up, learn more, and I'm on socials at nithyaforthecity. Everywhere you go to consume social media.
- [29:47]
B
Awesome. Well, I want to remind people who are watching right now, if you live in Los Angeles, if you have friends or family in la, the election is happening right now. We are in early voting. The election. The Last day is June 2nd, so please make sure to make your voice heard to get your ballots in. And, Nithya, thank you so much for taking the time.
- [30:05]
A
Thank you so much for having me. I sincerely appreciate it.
- [30:10]
B
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- [31:34]
F
Thank you for having me.
- [31:35]
B
So we have some news here in light of the fact that not only has the Supreme Court struck down section two of the Voting Rights act, but now Tennessee is the first state to redraw their maps to eliminate the only black opportunity district in that state the NAACP has sued. So can you first off, give some information as to what the legal basis for this lawsuit is given the fact that it seems, at least from, from, you know, the general public's vantage, that with Section 2 of the Voting Rights act struck down, there is no more justification or requirement, I should say, for states to even have black opportunity districts.
- [32:14]
F
Yeah, well, first, today was a dark day in American democracy. The Senate and House floor that led to eventual dismantling of the only majority black congressional district in Tennessee was just disastrous. And you know, this comes just a few days after the Supreme Court's ruling that really put the death knell in the Voting Rights Act. At the naacp, we are committed to using every tool available to fight back and to stand up for voters and to make sure that every American, every citizen in Tennessee has an equal voice in the electoral process. And so what we did today is we filed suit in state court. The governor called a special session, an extraordinary session, in order to pull the legislature back to redraw the maps. Under state law, that proclamation has to be very specific and clear. And the proclamation called lawmakers back to redraw the boundary lines of maps, but they did a lot more. There is a. Well, a law that's been on the books that stretches back five decades that actually makes mid decade redistricting illegal, unlawful. And so they had to take action with respect to that law. They also did something else unusual. They waived the residency requirement for one year for people who are going to be running under the districts carved out in this new map. It's our position that the proclamation should have included these very two significant and important actions, and because the governor didn't include those two additional actions, this session was unlawful, that the map should be discarded and that they should start back from square one. And starting back from square one, I think should be leaving the status quo in place. There's no reason that Tennessee needs to do this.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah. Well, other than to eliminate as quickly as possible any, any representation for the state's only black opportunity district. Given the fact that this is so that, that this is so urgent right now. You know, we have midterms coming up. So quickly. Are you seeking a preliminary injunction? How fast do you expect this process to move?
- [34:48]
F
We think it will move very fast. And so stay tuned. It's why we did not delay and we moved very swiftly to file our lawsuit just hours after the maps were passed through the legislature. But we're really tracking very closely what's happening across the South. You know, Tennessee clearly wanted to be at the, you know, start of the tidal wave here. But it is a dark moment in American democracy where we see state officials taking bold and unprecedented action to disenfranchise black American citizens.
- [35:32]
B
And it's not just in Tennessee. I mean, we're looking at this process playing itself out in Alabama, in Louisiana, where the Calais decision first originated from, in South Carolina, where the only representative black representative in that state is Jim Clyburn. You know, I had spoken about this issue on air on News Nation with Katie Pavlich, and she has echoed this right wing talking point that the Supreme Court decision effectively desegregated the south because now you don't have districts that were drawn expressly for black Americans or brown Americans. And so what would your response to that talking point from the right be?
- [36:10]
F
Well, it's interesting that we're not talking about, you know, a different part of the country we are talking about the south for a reason. Because, sadly, this is the part of the country that has a very long and egregious and undeniable history of discrimination when it comes to giving black American citizens access to the franchise. So it is not surprising that this is the part of the country that is proving to be ground zero as we see this mass disenfranchisement campaign unfold on the heels of the Supreme Court's ruling. The Voting Rights act is. Was one of our nation's truly most important federal civil rights law. And it just helped to push to really nudge our country in the right direction. And that nudge, that movement really proved to be most important in the south, which is the part of the country, sadly, that had been most resistant and hostile when it came to opening up the doors of democracy to everyone.
- [37:21]
B
I'm sure that the feeling coming out of this moment is that this is kind of a retrenchment of Jim Crow. Is that what it feels like from your vantage? And I guess as a follow up to that, what do you say to folks who see things moving so sharply in the wrong direction so that they can have some sense of hope as we move forward and not just completely give up in despair?
- [37:51]
F
Senator Oliver in the Tennessee legislature stood up on a table and held up a big banner that said Jim Crow 2.0. You know, I think that is precisely where we are, but it's not the frame that I'd like to think about this moment in. I think about this being an opportunity for Americans to come together and say that this is not the direction you need to be moving as a country. And some of the crowds that we saw at the Capitol today in Tennessee were multiracial and intergenerational. And I truly believe deep, deep down that this is an opportunity for us to dig deep and just say that this is not the America that we want in 2026. And it's why we're committed to being really bold and aggressive, using the courts as a way to. To fight back and move us back in a different direction.
- [38:52]
B
I'm joined now by candidates for the Georgia State Supreme Court. Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan, thank you so much both for coming on.
- [39:00]
D
Thank you for having us.
- [39:01]
B
Georgia has been in the news quite a bit lately. First, because in Fulton county, ballots were seized from the 2020 election. That effort was led by Tulsi Gabbard. But more recently, there seems to be a focus from the administration on even poll workers in Georgia whose names are being shared with the administration. So as we look at Georgia in this upcoming election, where that state is often the testing ground for voter suppression efforts that are gonna be economic exported to the rest of the country, what do you say to folks who don't have faith that there are going to be free and fair elections because of all of the interference that seems to already be happening?
- [39:37]
C
So I'll jump in first. I think the biggest thing for people to understand in the context of this race is that all election challenges go ultimately to the Georgia Supreme Court. And so whenever you're talking about interference with an election or any attempts to. To monkey around with results or whatever, all of that ultimately goes up to the Georgia Supreme Court. And that's why it's so incredibly important for anyone who is concerned about this to make sure that they feel confident that the people that they're voting for and that they're putting on the court are really going to, you know, make sure that their rights are protected.
- [40:15]
D
Ultimately, I would agree that the right to vote, having access to poll places that are not being encumbered, it's very important and it's a very staker right to not have it interfered with. And as Jen previously said, we have a unique opportunity here in Georgia to decide what does our court look like. Who are those justices that will ultimately serve for the next six years and help determine some of these key moments in Georgia's history. So it has been an honor to run for the Supreme Court and to give the voters of our state another opportunity and a different choice for what the court can look like and making sure that we stand up and uphold the Georgia Constitution and the rights of all Georgians.
- [41:04]
B
So miracle, the partisan makeup of the court right now is, I believe, that there are nine seats on the state supreme Court and eight of them are conservatives. Is that correct?
- [41:17]
D
That is correct.
- [41:18]
B
So this is, you know, this would be the beginning of a process to rebalance out a court that is overwhelmingly Republican, not dissimilar to what we saw in Wisconsin, for example, where there isn't there was an overwhelmingly conservative court. And it is these election cycles where liberals are able to chip away at the conservative majority to the point where it actually flips. But it has to start somewhere, and it could start here. And so, you know, we had just spoken about this idea of election protection, voter protection. But what other issues come before the Georgia Supreme Court? Why does this matter for folks in Georgia?
- [41:55]
D
So the Georgia Supreme Court matters because the court ultimately decides what it looks like for us in Georgia, in Georgian, from a living perspective. Right. So Be it our right to dealing with access to the vote, health care, criminal matters. There are so many issues that are fundamental. What the Constitution looks like and how is it applied across the board to all Georgians, that ultimately goes up to the Supreme Court. So when we talk about a court that has the power to ultimately decide what do the laws in our state actually, how do they get applied and how they do they actually come out in context in our everyday lives, that is the Supreme Court. And so it's really important that when we're dealing with these major issues of our rights that are very fundamentally guaranteed to us, that we have a court that is willing to apply our Constitution fairly. What we've seen at the federal level is that a lot of those rights are being taken away. Those federal protections that we once had, they're not there anymore. And so now it's coming back to the states for the states to decide, what does Georgia look like, not just for this year, but from five years, ten years from now. And so that's very important. It's a very pivotal moment because it also leaves the opportunity for states to have different rules in play, different laws that govern, and it shouldn't be that way, but when we have the federal protections giving us the baseline, then now we leave it up to the states to make those important decisions. And so ultimately in Georgia, a lot of that will land at the Supreme Court.
- [43:28]
B
Jen, do you have anything to add?
- [43:31]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think miracle is exactly right. What we see is this devolution, right, where it's like things that we've relied on for so long in terms of the federal courts to really protect the individual rights of people in this country and in this state. And, you know, we've been. We've been told, you know, there's nothing here for you to see anymore, right? Whether we're talking about when Dobbs came out, and after 50 years, now women don't have fundamental right to autonomy into privacy, right? And then just last week with the Calais decision, in terms of the Voting Rights act, where it was completely gutted now forever, because Georgia is a former slave state, right? It was governed by the vra, so any challenge went to the federal courts. So in terms of our state courts, we've really never had to grapple with any of those issues or had any challenges arising under the state constitution, like a First Amendment or political association challenge. Now, because we can't go to the federal courts anymore, that's going to open up a whole other lane in terms of state courts and ultimately to the state Supreme Court level.
- [44:41]
B
So, Jen, I want to discuss the difference then, between the existing members of the Georgia Supreme Court and both of you in terms of some of these issues. In particular, you know, as there is more onus on state courts given the fact that, for example, the Voting Rights act will no longer apply and these issues won't be litigated in federal court, but rather in state court. Can you talk about some of the biggest differences between the existing members of the Georgia Supreme Court court, your opponents, and both of you?
- [45:13]
C
Yeah. I think the biggest thing is that our state supreme Court really now is controlled by folks who are members and leaders of the Federalist Society in this state. And for those folks listening who may not know what the Federalist Society is, I can tell you that members of the U.S. supreme Court that are members of the Federalist Society in align our Alito Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, you know, if all of the ultra conservatives are all Federalist Society folks, and so our court right now kind of follows, you know, what the US Supreme Court is doing, and that's kind of whatever they do, it kind of gets dictated down. The problem with that now is, you know, what are they going to do now that we have rights that need to be adjudicated under the state constitution? And I'll have to tell you that historically, Georgia's state constitution has been interpreted much more expansively in a more progressive way. I like to quote a former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court who basically said his judicial philosophy was that the federal constitution is kind of the floor for people's rights. And the Georgia Constitution always gives people in this state more, more protections, more rights. Right now, the folks on the court, they don't believe in that. They don't subscribe to that. And we've seen that in terms of a lot of the decisions that have come down. And probably what is more significant is what we know, what's heading toward us in the future.
- [46:53]
B
Miracle. When you've spoken with Georgia voters, I'm curious what the principal issue that has been brought up to you has been. And especially like in an environment like this where, you know, we have seen a Republican Party kind of campaign on one thing, and then when it came time for them to govern, deliver on something entirely different. So has that been a theme in your conversations with voters?
- [47:17]
D
It has been. People are really concerned with what our state looks like, what our nation looks like. And one of the things that I've constantly heard is what you just said. We were sold one thing, and now we have A totally different existence. Right. But beyond that, when it comes to the courts themselves, one thing that I've consistently heard Georgia voters say is that they don't feel like it's a place where they can get a fair shot. And because they don't feel like it's the place where they can get a fair shot, I think more people are tuning in to judicial elections than they probably have before because now they realize I actually get to pick who's going to sit on our state's highest court or any other quarter in our state. Right. So that has been a underlying theme that I've heard, but I was hearing that before I even made the decision to run as representing individuals across the state who've been really injured. My clients, when they come to me because they've lost a limb or they lost a loved one, they always ask me, will I get a fair shake? Will they take me seriously and will I be treated the same? And we hear about equal justice under the law, but it has to be a lived out principle. It can't be something that we're just espousing but not actually applying. And so that's why it's so important that we have justices on the court who will actually stand up and make sure that the rule of law is being applied for everyone and that our Constitution is being read in its most broad sense to ensure that all the protections that we're guaranteed are set forth. So those are the things that I've been hearing from the trail as I've been going around campaigning to that end.
- [48:49]
B
And I feel like I buried the lead here. But can both of you give an idea of what your background is and why you've decided to run this race? What's most important to you? What was the impetus to jump in here?
- [49:04]
C
Yeah, well, I grew up in South Georgia, you know, raised by a single mother who had a beauty shop. And it's one of those things where I didn't have lawyers in my family. But the most important thing was always about, you know, how you helped your neighbor and your community and really trying to lift everybody up. And it was only because of pro education policies in this state at the time that I was even able to go to college and then ultimately law school. And for the last 25 years, you know, my entire career has been dedicated to representing individuals a lot like Miracle, who are facing some of the most significant issues they've ever had to deal with. Whether it's, you know, the single mother who's facing eviction on Christmas Eve or You know, trying to run predatory lenders out of the state or folks who can't get their health insurance to actually cover their breast cancer treatments. I mean, but what it comes down to is always about an individual who has to get a lawyer involved just to get what they're due, and that's not. Right. Right. And so something has to fundamentally change. And that's also, in terms of the way the courts are working right now. People aren't getting a fair shot. People aren't being treated fairly. You know, if you're powerful and you've got money, man, you got a lot better shot, you know, in front of the courts, as they are in Georgia right now. And so I know that's why I'm running, and I know that's a lot of the reason why Miracle is running, too.
- [50:34]
D
Yeah. So I am originally from Louisiana, so the Kalay decision really hits a little differently for me because my family lives in Louisiana right now, the vast majority of them, and so they're having to grapple with what does it mean when elections are getting canceled, and what does it mean when we may not have the representatives of our choosing in front of us for us to select from. So, growing up in the South, I've seen firsthand how sometimes our laws disproportionately affect individuals. And that's one of the reasons that led me to law school and ultimately spending the last two decades or so of my career fighting for individuals and standing up against powerful corporate interests that try to harm the. Some people call it the little person, which has been an interesting term to me. But harming individuals? Right, Because I think we all matter, and when we are harmed, somebody needs to be there to stand up for you. So that's something that I prided myself in doing throughout my career, taking tough cases and getting great results for my clients. My decision to run for the Supreme Court really came when I looked at my baby's eyes. I have two young kids that are under the age of 10, and I frequently tell them, you can be whatever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do, but if you see something, you need to say something, and if you can do something, then you need to do something about it, and I'm in a position to be able to do the something Right. I don't agree with many of the decisions that have been coming down from the courts in our states, and I understand that there are going to be a lot of decisions that Georgians have to have made by our Supreme Court, and we need to have individuals on that court that we know will be fair, that will not lean towards corporate interests or special interests, but that will lean towards making sure we ensure that the rights of every Georgian are protected under our law and our Constitution. Because. Because we're leaving a Georgia for somebody else. Right. I have kids following up behind me, and I need to make sure that I leave this state better than what I found it. And so that's one of the main reasons that I'm running, because my babies deserve better. Georgians deserve better. And we need a court that will protect all of us.
- [52:37]
B
Jen, for folks who are looking to help your In Miracles campaigns, where can they go?
- [52:44]
C
They can go to jennifergeorgia.com, justiceforgeorgia.com, in Miracle
- [52:53]
D
Miracleforgeorgia.com so for both of us, the four Georgia's. Well, for me, four Georgia's F O R G E O R-G-I A.com so miraclefordgeorgia.com okay.
- [53:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna.
- [53:07]
C
I use the number, actually, so just the four and then Georgia spelled out. But look, follow us on social media share. You know, that's part of this is educating folks because, like, look, no one has done this successfully since 1922. Since 1922, an incumbent justice on the Supreme Court has not been beaten. So it's one of these things. Folks don't even know you can vote for somebody on the Supreme Court because they think about kind of at the federal level. And so part of this process has been about educating people to say, look, it is about transparency. It is about accountability. And you have the ability to actually choose the people who are going to make some of the biggest decisions in the coming years that absolutely not only impact your life, your children's lives, but even your grandchildren down the line.
- [53:55]
D
And might I add, Brian, that it's happening right now. This is in November. We have one race. One race only is here in May. We're voting currently in Georgia. If you're listening and you're a Georgia voter, you have until May 15th. So early vote. The election day is May 19th. We don't show back up on your ballots in November. This is our only race and our only time this term to change what the Georgia Supreme Court can look like and for you to have that option to do so as the electorate.
- [54:26]
B
Well, I appreciate, I appreciate you both being here. For everybody who's watching and listening right now, we all have a job to do, which is to make sure that everybody knows that this race is happening. If you can contribute, then please contribute. But otherwise, there is no excuse for everyone who is watching listening right now not to let people know, whether it's through social media, whether it's through word of mouth, that this race is happening in Georgia right now. And as I mentioned at the top, the process for flipping a deeply entrenched conservative Supreme Court begins with two seats in this case in terms of flipping the political makeup of the court altogether. So, so both of you, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. And again, I'm gonna put the links to both of your websites right here on the screen and also in the post description for those who are listening on the podcast. I'm gonna put it in the show notes and best of luck on the campaign trail.
- [55:18]
D
Thank you. Thank you for having us.
- [55:21]
B
Thanks again to Nithya Raman, Kristen Clark, Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Wednesday. You've been listening to no Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graeber, music by Wellsy and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me, Ryan Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels. Or you can go to briantylercohen.com to learn more.