Opening Arguments OA188: Three Cases About Voting Rights
Jul 3, 2018
01:01:05
Today's episode takes a look at three recent decisions from this Supreme Court and how each one will affect voting in the midterm elections: Husted v. Randolph Institute, Abbott v. Perez, and (surprisingly) Janus v. AFSCME. First, though, we begin by addressing a conspiracy theory that's making the rounds suggesting some nefarious relationship between Anthony Kennedy's son, Justin, and Donald Trump. Does this story hold water? Listen and find out! Then, we break down each of the three cases: Husted, involving Ohio's efforts to purge voters from its rolls; Abbott, involving Texas's efforts to racially gerrymander Congressional districts; and Janus, which will result in drastically weaker public sector unions. What does this mean for the midterms? (Hint: it's not good.) Finally, we end the answer to Thomas Takes The Bar Exam #82 regarding the search and seizure of heroin from plain sight. Remember to follow our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and like our Facebook Page so that you too can play along with #TTTBE! Recent Appearances Thomas was just a guest on Episode 421 of the Cognitive Dissonance Podcast. If you'd like to have either of us as a guest on your show, drop us an email at openarguments@gmail.com. Show Notes & Links
- If you missed last year's Fourth of July Spectacular, that was Episode 83.
- You can read the Liptak & Haberman New York Times article about Trump and Kennedy by clicking here.
- The Ohio case is Husted v. Randolph Institute, and the Texas cdase is Abbott v. Perez.
- Before you read Janus v. AFSCME, you may want to check out our extensive coverage of the case back in Episode 150.
- The statute the 5-4 majority blatantly ignores in Abbott is 28 U.S.C. § 1253.
- Finally, this is the research Andrew mentioned regarding the correlation between right-to-work states and lower voter turnout and lower Democratic share of the vote.