You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
From the rolling bluffs of the Driflus region to the pristine shorelines of Superior in Michigan.
From the Northwoods to the Kettle Moraine.
Civic Media broadcasts across all of Wisconsin, for all of Wisconsin.
Take a trip with us across the radio network to hear from communities throughout the state.
This is the Civic Media Spotlight.
Welcome to the second hour of the Civic Media Spotlight.
We begin this second hour with Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Pete and Greg are joined by Jim Santel to break down major legal developments, including the latest around the Voting Rights Act and how recent decisions could impact voting standards.
With smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.
You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.
It's news and culture without the noise.
Yeah, I'm on!
Here's Pete Schwabba.
Dude.
And Greg Bach.
Dude!
Music just makes me wanna swing.
Like the Rat Pack did, not the other way.
Hey, welcome to Nightlight, ladies and gentlemen.
Happy Tuesday, everybody.
I am Pete Schwabba, coming to you live from Marinette, Wisconsin, and joining me, as always, just downstate, just down the coast, as it were, Mr. Greg Bach.
Hey, buddy, how are you?
I'm well.
How are you doing this evening, afternoon, whatever, still daylight out, Pete?
I'm doing
very well.
I woke up this morning and I walked out into my living room and the sun was pouring in and I could see the water through the trees.
It was sparkling.
It was a gorgeous day.
And then I opened the door 40 degrees, Greg.
Oh boy.
It was a big tease.
But I'm doing well.
It was a gorgeous day.
And we're on the air now.
So what more could you ask for?
How many days does Christmas City, USA actually get a weather that you approve of?
About four.
Okay, that's what I thought.
Okay.
Here's why you have to really love Wisconsin to live here, because people say, oh, well, our summers are the greatest.
And summer in Wisconsin is great.
But the second I'm done with spring and Mayflies, you're looking at mosquitoes, humidity, honest to God, my favorite season in Wisconsin is fall.
I love fall.
It's not too
hot.
It's beautiful.
It's probably the most beautiful area in the country, Wisconsin and fall, in my opinion.
Okay.
Well, all
right.
No good.
Take a note of that, guys.
Who was that agreeing with you?
I think that was
Dom.
I got to check in with
Dom.
What's up, buddy?
You're sporting the short sleeves and rubbing it in my face, and it's so warm there in Madison.
Yeah, I agree with you.
Fall is the best time of the year.
In
general,
no matter where, most of the time, no matter where you're at, I love fall, love the colors.
Spring's nice, but there's a lot of rain, but fall is that perfect happy medium.
It's the first one.
Oh my God, seriously.
Oh, what's the matter?
Wait a minute, what?
Just listening
to
two.
No, no, just like, I like, it's the rain and the... Well, are we wrong?
Well, spring is great.
I love spring.
Spring's actually my favorite season.
But here in Wisconsin, we get about 36 hours of spring, then it goes right to
summer.
Cause I'm
with
you.
I like spring historically and on paper, spring is great.
Check the
records.
Exactly.
No, I do, I do love fall.
I despise winter.
I, you know, I feel like it's, it's a, but you know, Pete and I, you can, we can attest to this.
Like the winter is now or nothing, what they used to be.
Winters used to be like early October through
March.
Wow.
But now, I mean, like last year, the fact that we got snow in November and December last year was weird.
It was weird.
Yeah.
This winter has kind of sucked a little bit, I think.
But you're right.
The last few years, it's been like nothing, nothing we grew up with,
certainly.
No, exactly.
Exactly.
But I'm happy for the weather we got.
It's 55 degrees here in Radio Park.
I'm happy about that.
I'll take that over 60 below.
Thank you.
That's pretty good.
I'll take that too.
We have a I would say we have a great show tonight, Greg.
Would you agree with that statement?
I'm going on a limb here.
What if I said no?
What if I was like hmm?
I think this is going to be a spectacular show No, it's gonna be a great show.
We got we got a great we got a great a couple hours ahead of us I mean hanging out having fun having some good
conversations, too Absolutely, it's gonna be great.
We've got a great question and
We're going to have some really fun.
We've got some big stories to talk about.
We've got a really good guest tonight on the show.
We've got Greg, your buddy, and mine, a civic media colleague, attorney Jim Santel, former U.S.
attorney and host of Amicus, a law review.
right here at Civic Media, which is fun.
And you've had Jim on a lot on your previous gig, Matt and Aaron Eyre,
right?
Yeah, we used to have him on once a week on Thursdays.
He was here for the, for half an hour talk every single week to brief us on everything coming up.
And he'll be doing the same thing tonight that he did with us on Matt and Aaron Eyre.
We'll be talking about all the biggest stories coming out of the world of law.
And I think they'll be the one.
Top story we'll be talking about that came out of the Supreme court last week.
That's really making my stomach hurt lately when I read about it, but he'll be here talking about that as well as some other things.
So that'll be a really good conversation.
Plus you can check out his show, amicus a law review every Saturday from nine to 11 live, but you can always go to civic media dot us slash shows and catch up.
All those episodes are right there on the website.
You can go listen to them as a podcast, take them anywhere you want, listen at your leisure, but it's a two hour crash course in law school every single week.
He is
so good.
It's it's gonna be great to talk to Jim.
I've never met Jim or had him on the show, so I'm
excited to meet
him I've got tons of lawyers in my family, so I'm very comfortable around lawyers Yeah, and it'll be good to have Jim here and then in hour number two Greg.
This is gonna be fun We just mentioned we're from Wisconsin.
We love the seasons We're gonna talk cheese with Samantha with Samantha Bushman the cheese queen of Wisconsin and a cheese Influencer if you will very excited to have Sam on the show
Wow, I
like that.
I want to know what rigorous courses she had to go through to achieve the crown.
Like was it like Pugelist?
Was it was a mental?
Was it like, you know, cheese knowledge?
Did she have to outsmart her opponents?
Did she just have to eat a lot of cheese?
I mean, if that's the case, not cheese queen.
My goodness.
We'll see who'll ask her to weigh in on the cottage cheese thing too.
I'm excited about
that.
I just had
some today.
I just had some today.
Tom have you waited?
Are you a cottage cheese guy?
Have you
waited lately?
How much do
you wait?
I'm just kidding.
Just
don't answer that.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
I'm a big cottage cheese.
Yes, I love cottage cheese.
I love because it's taco Tuesday So I'm gonna I'm gonna have a little mix of cheese as well.
So I'm excited
wait hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on okay I'm just gonna hold my head for a second.
Did you just say it's I love cottage cheese and it's taco Tuesday.
It's it's not you put cottage cheese
Do you put cottage cheese on your okay?
Well, okay, though.
If you go back if well, yeah, you can do whatever you want Do you live your life you live your life?
It's fine.
I'm just saying if you go back to the tape and You listen it sounded like you said I love cottage cheese and it's taco Tuesday like those two things are synonymous And I was like I don't know what you are talking about right now.
I
would never I would never But I do like a lot of I like a lot of cheeses, so I'm excited to hear this interview I think it's gonna be really
good.
Yeah, okay
Well, we'll find out what the cheese queen says about cottage cheese.
I have a feeling she's going to side with Greg, but that's okay.
We've got a great question tonight too.
Did you guys have a good day?
Is everything going all right?
Do you feel prepared to do the show?
Are you stretched out?
What did you do the prayer?
Scratch out.
Yeah, I did some laps buddy a coach.
I really, really warmed up them hammies.
No, actually really quick story of just basic human kind.
It isn't a big thing, but today in my neighborhood's trash day and today is also a recycled trash day.
So we do it every other week.
And I was just getting ready to put the recycle bin out.
It was a little bit later than usual.
And as the garage doors opening up, I hear the truck coming around the corner and I'm holding the bucket in my hands to come out and he starts going past.
He sees me and he hits the brakes.
And I'm like, oh, darn it.
I'm like, oh, I missed it.
Not him, me.
I missed it.
This should have went out last night.
And he stops and goes, he's like, you need me to come back?
I'm like, yes, I was so.
overwhelmed with the kindness, because he could have just easily gone to the next house and be like, too bad, buddy, I got a schedule to keep, not my problem that you're late.
He stopped his truck on a dime, and he backed up, and I just fed the bucket into the truck, and I just walked up to his window, and I was like, thank you so much, because to me, it wasn't a massive thing.
He didn't pull me out of a ditch, he didn't pay for my dinner, because I ran out of cash.
He just did a kindness, and it was cool, and it just, in that moment, when you connect with people, I love that, I love that.
I love those, I totally agree with you, Greg.
And I, for whatever reason, my guys don't like me, the waste management people.
Sometimes when I get out, I go, they get my cans and they're on the ground, like tipped over and everybody else's are still upright.
And I even posted once on social media, I'm like, way to go guys, another swish.
Like I got to pull these things up.
It's just annoying, but that's a great story.
And I love when you make those little, you know, connections with people you know you're never going to see again.
Not like that, but I remember waiting
in a grocery store line once and some person has taken forever because they've got 18 million coupons.
And I just shared a look with this woman who was behind and she just looked at me and we both share the same look.
It was like, just beautiful connection in the universe.
I'm never gonna see her again.
Of how annoyed you
were.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, hey, you know, just human emotions,
right?
You heard it here, folks.
Pete Schwabba hates people who uses coupons.
All right.
Hey,
listen, I'm fine with coupons, but you know, you know,
You ever get stuck behind the triumvirate, the person with the coupons, who also wants lottery tickets and cigarettes, and what else do they have?
They pay by check.
I mean, it's like, you gotta pack a lunch, man.
I
feel like this conversation's a 1984.
Well, that's,
listen, Christmas City, USA, we still have a lot of people.
We have a lot of elderly people.
They pay with checks and they drive very slow.
And sometimes you can't even see their head
over the seat.
It just, it looks like a car driving itself.
That's cute.
Naked gun, yeah.
Well, let's get to our question of the night, because we've got news stories to cover, too.
Let's talk about the question.
OK, question.
Question.
Question.
Question.
OK, I
have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Domanda.
Question.
Question.
OK, be ready to be freaked out, folks.
Yesterday was National Paranormal Day.
So tonight's question is what urban legend, ghost story or paranormal phenomenon scares you the most?
I don't really believe in that stuff, but I'm open-minded enough, Greg, where I go maybe and I don't want to doubt it too much because I feel like the universe will prove me wrong and I don't want that to happen.
So I
tip my hat to the paranormal society.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2-8-5-5-7-5 Civic, let us know.
Send us a text, send us a comment on the app, or if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or ex-Twitter, send us a stream comment.
And a reminder, folks, that this Thursday night, for nightlight movie, I'm having trouble talking to take a
break.
Take a moment.
Take a moment.
There we go.
There we go.
Try again.
Take two.
This Thursday night.
And our number two is the Nightlight Movie Club, folks.
And this week's movie is Ghostbusters.
And it was chosen by our senior producer, Tucker Logersky.
So check out Ghostbusters and text in, call in, whatever, tell us your favorite scene or character or line from the movie Thursday night.
And our number two Ghostbusters is this week's Nightlight Movie Club feature.
So there you go.
Awesome.
It'll be fun.
All right.
Dom, let's get to our big three.
The first big story.
Oh man.
Oh man.
Well, what was once supposed to be a big old ballroom paid with money from friends.
It's coming out of my pocket, your pocket friends to the tune of a billion dollars.
And actually one, actually 1.4 billion because they want to do 400 million for the ballroom, but they want to, but the Senate Republicans want to secure $1 billion in funding for security related aspects of the White House ballroom project as part of a.
broader, roughly $70 billion funding package for immigration enforcement, which they aim to pass with little to no support from Democrats.
God, don't you love democracy, guys?
Doesn't just make you feel
great.
This is heightened too after the supposed third assassination attempt that took place a couple of weeks ago.
The push for public money accelerated.
That's weird.
Third assassination attempt, I don't know, Greg, I felt like this was coming.
When the president said this is going to be out of my pocket and some friends, I thought, okay, he's going to pitch in a dollar and everybody else is going to cover the rest.
But, you know, I knew we'd get here.
I'm just not surprised at all.
And I hope there is some pushback even from Republicans.
Come on.
I mean, well, there's the only one that is from this article in ABC News.
The only pushback there seems to be from Rand Paul, who said they would, he said, Rand Paul.
Push forward, he's centered by the way, push, put forward a separate bill that would authorize the ballroom, but not fund it, which I don't know what that means at all
because it's
like, it's like saying, Hey guys, you can have a car if you want.
I'm not paying for it.
But this is just, I mean,
I don't believe any of this.
I don't believe a word they're saying.
I don't think, I don't think this is all going to be, I don't think we don't need this.
I think it's all lying.
I mean, he was talking about the ballroom within an hour after the incident.
So to me, this is all just part of the big plan to bulk us out of billions of dollars.
It will be billions.
And so we're all of his influencers too.
So there you
go.
But we'll see what happens.
We've got a couple more stories to cover, including all the weird outfits of the Met Gala.
So we'll get into all that after this very short break.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Buck on the Civic Media Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
started.
Oh my gosh.
That was a tag from last night, our interview with David Zucker.
And he came out guns a blazing.
He
really did.
He
really, really did.
He
had enough for your truly.
Let me tell you.
Yeah.
You know what, Greg?
I kind of said, look, I didn't say it forcefully, but I was like, Greg is a Milwaukee comedy staple.
And he knows Dick Chudnow.
And then all of a sudden he was your best friend.
And then two minutes later, he was going after you
again.
But to me, I just always look at it from the point of view of like, hey, if Don Rickles made fun of me, I'd be in hog heaven.
So like one of the guys that I grew up idolizing was making fun of me.
I'll take that.
Absolutely.
Totally.
I'm with you.
Hey, our question of the night, folks, is yesterday was national paranormal day.
What urban legend, ghost story, or paranormal phenomenon scares you the most?
Let us know, drop us a text on the text line, 855-752-4842, or you can text us on the app, or if you're listening or watching on the stream, drop us a stream comment.
You said we had a couple of texts, Greg, from already
about this.
We do.
AJ from Madison would be getting a comment earlier about our discussion regarding the weather.
He says, or AJ, I don't know, is AJ a man or woman?
I've been doing it.
AJ?
Yeah.
Definitely agree and at sweatshirt weather.
That must be where that he's right.
And it's at sweatshirt weather.
Lots of corrections here.
The weather has gotten crazier and crazier every year.
I'm getting a new roof and siding maybe over it.
My goodness.
Oh yeah.
I mean, that's, I don't even want to think about getting a new roof anytime soon.
Found out recently that we had a roof put on our house before we bought it like 10 years ago.
So I'm like, all right, cool.
We got time.
Yes.
What?
Have you had to replace it yet?
No, no, no, no.
Oh, okay.
No, it's less than, no, it's less, it got in 2019 actually.
So it's pretty new,
pretty new.
Yeah, it's funny.
I used to, you know, I remember when I moved to the West coast and I was like, oh, I can't, I'm never going to be handled.
I love the seasons too much.
By year two, I was like, I'm never going back.
Like you become a wimp so fast.
And
I live in cold weather again.
I never thought it would happen.
But yes, when you get older, it just sucks.
I'm with you, AJ.
All my friends who moved to LA like a year or two and they're like, oh man, it's just so much night.
I'm like, shut up.
My God.
Ugh.
So boring.
I at least tried not to be that guy, but
I was like,
yeah.
Year three, we just spent Christmas there.
I was like, yeah, it's still Christmas.
It's just warm.
We can go park, you know.
I did Christmas in LA.
I did Christmas in LA one year and I was like, I want to stay here every year for Christmas.
It's great.
I love this.
Oh really?
Oh yeah.
It was great.
Yes.
Fantastic.
I see a question of the night coming out of this conversation.
Dom, let's get back to some news, please, buddy.
The second big story.
The second big story is Epstein.
Oh, wait.
No, I
just wanted to say
that so we don't
forget.
This comes to us.
Not laughing at Epstein.
I'm laughing at that.
That's great placement.
I'm not kidding, Greg.
I, we haven't heard much, you know, in the last few days, there's so much chaos and it's, it's, I feel like that strategy is working, but you know, this, certainly this next story reminds me a little bit of Epstein.
It's from CNN by way of Yahoo News.
Taxpayers have paid.
more than $300,000 in confidential sexual harassment settlements on behalf of six former members of the House of Representatives or their offices, according to GOP rep Nancy Mace.
How do you like that, Greg?
She named six former lawmakers or lawmakers' offices involved in settlements totaling more than $300,000 of taxpayer money.
And it's part of a new bill.
I'm looking for the, oh, the OCWR, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, record retention policy that was put into place in 2013.
This is that in action, and it covered a lot of these costs, but it was with, or I'm sorry, they went after this, but it was $300,000 of taxpayer money.
That is horrible.
Yep.
Yes.
I won't stand for
it.
Well, and here's the thing too in this story.
In this story, they talk about the fact that this reminds me a lot of anytime the United States settles with a business that they're not going to admit wrongdoing.
It says right here, the general language of the settlement contract reviewed by CNN, the accused office admitting to, they do not have to accuse, sorry here, I don't know how to read.
The accused office does not have to admit to any wrongdoing, but rather the states that the office is agreeing to the settlement to, quote, avoid the inconvenience of protracted litigation and the expense to the parties and the taxpayers of such litigation.
So instead, they just take money out of a coffer that we paid for and say, hey, shut up and go away.
That's it.
And they don't have to admit wrong.
There's no, there's no, any, sorry.
It's the same thing that happens to these billion dollar corporations.
They pay a big fine.
They may be like, well, we didn't do anything wrong.
We're just going to just have some money.
They're going to just take some money that we'll get back in our taxes anyways, because we have to pay it.
There you go.
Yeah, and
it's
it's really infuriating to the two of the reps were John Conyers of Michigan Democrat and Blake Farron hold a Texas Republican This just has to stop and I you know what I applaud Nancy Mace I think is kind of nuts sometimes, but you know to break ranks with your party, especially the Republican party Like Audrey Taylor Green did like that takes guts and maybe they're positioning themselves to grift a different way or something.
I don't know
But this stuff has to come to light, Epstein.
On that note, let's go to our third store of the evening.
The third big story.
So the Met Gala was last night.
If you don't know what that is, it's a big old party with a bunch of rich people dressing up very weirdly to raise money for a really good cause.
But there was more to it this year because apparently Jeff Bezos and his
a wife who he married in Italy for $50 million, were the co-chairs of the whole event, and people were unhappy, Pete.
They're very unhappy.
They were,
particularly Taraji P. Henson, who I love, and Meredith Lynch.
Two actresses said, what are you doing, people?
All of you A-listers are here.
The Trump administration has gutted the arts funding.
Bezos is a big supporter of Trump, but he's wearing two hats here and supporting and putting himself front and center.
It's a weird event.
I've always thought it was a weird event to begin with and I'm not a
fan
of it.
I love artists.
I love actors.
And a lot of great actors were there dressing like, and that's part of the gig.
I get it, but come on.
It's just a strange event.
My favorite thing is that online commenters, they said we're speculating whether or not this whole hubbub was because, was the reason why Zendaya and Meryl Streep weren't there.
And Streep's people were like, she's never been there.
So I don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah.
Ooh, controversy.
Yeah.
All right, folks, we are coming back after the news with our pal attorney, Jim Santel.
Jim is always fun to talk to.
He's going to keep us informed and it'll be good to catch up with him.
That is all coming up next.
This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic
Media.
here on the radio.
I don't know what I'm doing right now.
I'm sort of out of it today, but I'm so happy you're
joining
us.
I know we're happy you're joining today.
If you want to be part of the conversation, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic leave a comment on the live stream.
We're currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter still ahead.
We got a great program for you a whole second hour with the cheese queen.
And our question of the night is yesterday was national paranormal day.
So we would love for you to let us know.
what urban legend, ghost stories, or just, you know, paranormal phenomenons is what gives you the creeps, gives you the scaries.
Let us know, drop a comment on the live stream, give us a call, send us a text.
We'd love to hear from you.
But we're going to move on right now with our first guest of the evening.
He is a colleague, a friend, former US attorney and host of Amicus, a law review here on civic media every Saturday from 9 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
Jim Santel is our guest.
Good afternoon, Jim.
Hello.
How are you doing?
Greg, Pete, great to be with you.
It's been much too long.
And I'm told there are a few things that happened in America recently.
And I think you said you wanted to chat about them.
So good to be with you and all your listeners once again today.
And yes, we did want to chat with you.
There is a huge story that came out of the US Supreme Court last week regarding the Voting Rights Act.
But before we get into that, I want to, because that story was last week,
And we can go back to 2013, but really the crux of this is all about our Chief Justice John Roberts, whom back in the 80s had this very dream in mind, which was to either gut or completely eliminate the Voting Rights Act.
Can you talk more a little about the history of it and what has led to what happened this past week, which you've talked about a lot in the past few months.
Right, absolutely.
And so I think it's important for listeners, again, they see the headlines, but to recognize that the Chief Justice
John Roberts, when he was in the administration in the White House, also Brett Kavanaugh, also in counsel's office in the White House, wrote memorandums decades ago talking about a very, very powerful chief executive.
The need to be powerful, the need to be swift, and much of that ended up in that horrific opinion of a couple of Fourth of Julys ago in which the Supreme Court said that
Presidents are immune from prosecution many ways, but also talked about again this great power and That continues to animate what the Supreme Court has done
It certainly sees its place into these recent decisions as well in which they're giving the president huge amounts of authority principally on the shadow docker to do what he wants.
And that is the big story.
And I appreciate Greg, the identification of that because there's something much larger going on as dramatic as the Voting Rights Act case is.
And I would also identify it as the single most important decision of this term.
arguably, and I know this may be hyperbolic, but arguably in our lifetime.
Why?
Because voting, as you often talk on this show, voting is the pathway to everything, right?
Where do we get Supreme Court justices?
We vote presidents in.
Where do we get them confirmed?
Senators, everything we do depends upon voting.
You get that one wrong.
and everything else falls apart.
And that's why this decision of last week is so important.
That's why this focus, again, on the previous history in this is also important.
This is the third strike.
There was Shelby County a number of years ago, 2013, 2021.
We got Bernovich.
Basically, these are the Supreme Court chipping away at various
aspects of this, of the Voting Rights Act.
And now they did the third one, which is called Calais, that's the name of the case.
And it really does, as Elena Kagan said, brings the Voting Rights Act virtually.
There's a little bit of an open door here, but virtually to its knees, it's basically a done deal now with respect to the capacity to use the Voting Rights Act to address discrimination in voting.
including racial gerrymandering, all but raced from the ways in which we understand our nation.
What is the opening, Jim?
You said a little opening.
To me, I read this is completely done, but what is that opening?
Yeah, the opening is very small Pete.
And again, it's one that would not practically, but again, people who support this decision identified what a San Milito said was
what you need, the only way, the only way to show that there is racial gerrymandering, this unconstitutional, if you can prove in a court of law that it was intentional, that I sat down and I said, you know what?
I want those black people not to be able to vote.
It's gotta be that extreme.
And the reason why your question is so good is we all know that that is barely, that's a tiny little aspect of this.
No one's going to stand up in any legislature these days and speak that way.
And so while the majority says, yes, you can still prove this by establishing intentional discrimination.
But if it's just discrimination that comes from your political gerrymandering and you didn't intend to do it, that's OK.
That's the very small piece that's out there.
As a practical matter, you're absolutely right, Pete.
Virtually impossible to show in a court of law the nature of discrimination at that standard.
And yet, when the majority says, oh, we're not doing anything, we're simply updating.
We're updating the previous standards.
And Elena Kagan, of course, goes nuts about that.
She says, no, you're not updating it.
You have brought this to its knees.
And I agree with her.
Again, the semantics of this are very, very small.
And that's the thing too, reading about this.
The roots of the Voting Rights Act was to combat racial prejudice in voting in the South, and what has happened is that people who want the VRA to go away
And now it has, have spun it as a reverse racism aspect to say that this is prejudicial against non-black people, that once again, it's the burden of white people are being put up.
And let's just say what it is.
It's white people.
They don't care about brown people.
They don't care about Asian people.
They care about white people getting their votes.
I mean, it's not like they're the majority of the country anyways, but they spin it as this is anti, this is discriminatory.
rhetoric that it's non-black are just being put upon.
So we must make this right, which is not the case at all.
Cause we're seeing right now, state houses scrambling to redraw their
maps.
And that tells you all you need to know, right?
If this was some legitimate interest in democracy and simply redefining maps in a way that we all could agree with, you wouldn't be having these skirmishes, special sessions in at least two states.
yesterday and today, more of that coming up.
And to your point, that's exactly the basis upon which the Louisiana case against called Calais, every American should say that in the same breath that you say, Brinovich and Shelby County.
Those are the three that effectively brought the Voting Rights Act to basically its end.
The case itself was brought by people, identified themselves as non-African American voting citizens.
What an interesting way to describe yourself, right?
And they basically said that, yes, under the 14th Amendment, under the 15th Amendment, 14th Equal Protection, 15th Amendment, right to vote, my rights are being discriminated against by virtue of creating a second majority black district.
That is affecting me.
That cannot happen.
And you articulated it perfectly, Greg.
That's the basis upon which this lawsuit
which the Supreme Court has now put its imprimatur on preceded.
It is a very, very perverse view of the world.
And again, to get back to your fundamental point, Elena Kagan says this as well, and they're very good.
I commend to your reading, frankly, the majority, but also then Elena Kagan's dissenting opinion.
She begins by talking about section two of the Voting Rights Act, 1965.
For 60 years, it has been the intention of Americans.
It has been re-upped by the legislature.
It was intended
to ensure that people of color have the right to vote in America.
And now, you're not affirmatively saying that you don't have the right, you have now made it easy.
easy to discriminate based upon race.
And all you need to do, here's the formula, here's the cynical formula that that Sam Alito embraces.
He says, basically, sit down and draw your maps based upon political lines.
There's another case, 10 years or so ago in which they said we're not going to touch those.
So go ahead, Republicans and Democrats, Kamala, you can do the same thing.
Draw your lines.
And if you happen to disenfranchise people of color,
The rule now is, frankly, so what?
No longer a consequence, no longer a consequential analysis and effects analysis.
The issue instead is, what do you intend?
And when you ask me why I changed the lines and the numbers, I will say, oh, it's just for political reasons.
I wanted my Republican friends.
I wanted my Democratic friends to get into office.
Did we discriminate against blacks and other people?
Oh my goodness, that wasn't my intent.
And with that kind of a statement, what you have done is given imprimatur and given authority by the United States Supreme Court as of Wednesday of last week.
Our guest is Jim.
Pardon?
Oh, sorry.
It's stunning.
It's shocking.
Yeah.
That's Jim Santel.
He is a former U.S.
attorney and host of Amicus, a law review here on Civic Media.
He joins us now to talk about the Voting Rights Act or the decimation of it.
Yeah, Alito is, it's like I'm in Bizarro World or the, no, no, no, you can't, not gerrymandering is racist because it combats racism.
We can't have that.
Like what?
Like I can't even figure out what he's saying sometimes.
But Jim, how,
How long will it take?
Let's say the Democrats, if there are midterms, sweep the midterms, I've heard that this legislation can help the GOP pick up 27, as many as 27 seats in the South, in the House.
But if they don't, if the Democrats do win, how long would it take to undo damage if they even can of this legislation?
Yeah, that's the all important question right now, Pete.
And there is an answer to that.
There always has been.
Going back once again to Shelby County, going back to Bernovich, you're going back to now Calais.
There are things called legislative fixes, okay?
If you get into the majority in the Congress and you probably need a supermajority in the Senate, but you can put together a fix.
You can address what the Supreme Court has said as to Calais.
I can write a piece of legislation on the back of a note card today and say, here's the legislation.
We are hereby amending the Voting Rights Act to indicate to everyone out there that you do not have to prove intentional discrimination.
Instead, all you need to prove, and it's no small thing, but you simply need to prove an effect that discriminates against people of color.
That's the effects test.
You can make that change legislatively.
You can bury that, not just bury it, but you can embed it into new legislation and change what the Supreme Court has done.
You can do the same thing for Bernovich, the same thing for Shelby County.
All of these pieces of legislation, whose name is attached to them?
John Lewis.
It's the John Lewis Act of putting your number of 2015, of 2020, of 2022.
You can make a change
And all of these cases, virtually overnight, that challenge, Pete, which goes to your question, is you need both houses of Congress, and they can do it if they want to.
You also need a president to sign off on this, right?
Lyndon Johnson signed off on the Voting Rights Act way back when he corralled Southern Democrats at the time.
They were the ones who opposed to this.
And he said, nope, we're doing this.
You still have to have a president who signs it, so my own view is the best way of remedying this is to keep the Congress beyond the 120th, the majority Democratic Congress, beyond 120th Congress, which we're swearing in in 2027.
2029, when you get to the 121st Congress, you've still got a majority, you have a Democratic president, then you move, and then you make these changes in the Voting Rights Act.
You amend it to address exactly what
that the Supreme Court has been attacking for the past 15 to 20 years.
And voila, you've changed the law and restored it.
Now, will people challenge that?
Again, you bet they will.
They'll go back into the courts and maintain that's illegal.
But again, there is a process out there and listeners should know that if you vote and you get the right people in the office,
They can turn this back, not right away, but eventually.
We're going to keep the conversation going with Jim Santel.
He's the host of Amicus, a law review with us tonight here on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
You're just too good to be true.
Welcome
back to Nightlight with Pete Schwab and Greg Bach here on the Civic Meeting Network.
You can always get in touch with us, 855-752-484-2855.
7-5 Civic, leave a comment on that live stream.
We're currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform we still call Twitter.
Still lots of great programming ahead, including a discussion about our question of the night in recognition of National Paranormal Day, which was yesterday.
What is the ghost story or the paranormal?
thing that spooks you the most.
We'd love to hear from you.
We're going to keep the conversation going right now with our guest.
He is a former U S attorney, host of amicus, a law review here on civic media every Saturday from 9am to 11am.
Mr. Jim Santella is here and we have Jack from Merrimack on the phone has been waiting.
Jack, thank you so much for calling in.
What can we, what can we do for you tonight?
Hey, Jack.
Oh, good to talk with you again, Jim.
When Biden was elected, I stated that regardless of whatever issues there were, two things needed to be done.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act needed to be passed, and the Supreme Court needed to be rebalanced.
There's not time to go into all the reasons that both needed to be done, except to say this.
Without those, I believed everything else done for the majority of Americans could be reversed, and that's exactly what's happened.
Democrats, if you get elected,
should promise the needed programs from universal medical care to increase to the minimum wage.
Um, whatever is else is, is popular.
Most people don't understand the importance of those other items.
However, because after regaining control, those two things absolutely have to be done.
The other changes can follow because eventually they will, but without real election reform, not the lying so-called reform.
for now.
And without nullifying the clearly corrupt justices on the court, the other changes won't happen or won't be permanent.
Thank you so much,
Jack, for calling.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
That's
the
mission, right?
Yep.
And I would say this too.
I don't just agree with Jack on that, but it's about the fact that the Democrats making promises they'll either keep or have the guts to keep when, if they get control of one or both of the houses.
A quick question I have for you, and I'm glad you brought up Democrats too, because, you know,
We see states scrambling to redraw their maps.
And now what we're also seeing is democratically run states who are looking to axe their independent redrawing committees, which Wisconsin is trying to create one in the face in the wake of 15 years of gerrymandered maps.
And now both parties are trying to change the rules so they can so they can show up their control, which if you get rid of those in those those independent committees, well, then.
That's going to be a problem for down the road because, you know, whether it's Democrat or Republican, they can then now, Jeremy, they can now redraw on political bias versus an independent group.
I mean, I just see a problem with all of this, right?
Absolutely.
And again, it's that immediate satisfaction of saying, we're just fighting back against those folks who are not playing by the rules.
We know that in those states, and there are a handful of them out there that have these independent commissions,
that people look at, including places in the Midwest and out west as well, people look at those and say, yeah, these are pretty good lines.
They're not perfect, but they work.
And they work for Republicans and Democrats alike.
And so Democrats also have to be very thoughtful about what they do here.
Do you want to jump in the pool, if you will, with Republicans and do these things that are just intended to violate basic norms about how we do these things?
Or do you want to play for the long game?
And again, I recognize completely
people saying, we can't be nice anymore.
We've got to play the game.
But I think, Greg, your point is very well taken.
There will come a time when I believe that Americans will look to those independent commissions and say, that's what we have to do.
And let's keep this out of the Supreme Court.
Let's restore the Voting Rights Act and let's get commissioners who will draw lines that we can all embrace regardless of what our party affiliation might be.
Here, here, once again.
Jim, in a recent Truth Social Post, the president referred to midterms as happening unconstitutionally.
What is he referring to?
How are maps drawn without gerrymandering or pre-gerrymandering unconstitutional?
What's
his angle
there?
All right, they are not.
Probably somebody whispered this in his ear because I wonder out loud if my president has read
the opinion in Calais.
I wish he would maybe take it back to the residence some night.
And when he's tweeting, he should read it instead.
And he would understand, yes, that the majority has said that if you engage in this line drawing and you do it just without intent, then it's unconstitutional.
But again, the language there that springs from that majority opinion has somehow gotten as an earworm into his ear.
And he has said, aha.
those folks who are on the majority here, they're onto something, all of this Louisiana, what Louisiana did, what those other states did, all of that is unconstitutional and therefore all the voting that we're going to be doing here in six months from now derives from that, it's all going to be unconstitutional.
My guess is somebody
drop that singular word into his brain and he misinterpreted all of this and that's where we get the elections coming up and don't don't we're all uh sophisticated enough to know
don't assume that he's not going to drop that as the election approaches.
He's
going
to maintain that the voting is illegal and constitutional, probably in those states where there are majority democratic districts and maybe where we do have a non-racial discrimination going on, he'll say that and who knows what he will do.
All these things are happening in anticipation of something, something coming up maybe by September, which is going to challenge our ability to vote in November.
Well, Jim, thank you so much for coming on the show and breaking this all down.
This is, as you said, is a very important decision from the Supreme Court.
It affects all of us.
And in one way or the other, whether we are in...
the south, the north, wherever it may be.
But this, when you're messing with our voting rights, that's the bigger problem in the long run.
But Jim Santel is a former U.S.
attorney, host of Amicus Law Review, which is on every Saturday from 9 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
here on Civic Media.
Catch the back episodes by going to civicmedia.us slash those, download those and listen to them
when you'd like.
There's nothing else to compare The sight of you leaves me weak There are no words left to speak But if you feel like I feel Please let me know that it's real You're just too good to be true Can't take my eyes off you
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
