Partisanship OK Under Constitution, May Be Used as Proxy for Racial Discrimination

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]And more states are redistricting to rewrite racially based maps. This comes on the heels of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act. Joining me now to discuss these developments, Jim Trusty, former federal prosecutor.

[00:00:12]Jim, great to have you back with us. So, with the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act decision now finalized, uh more states are moving quickly to redraw these congressional maps that previously relied heavily on race as a central factor. If you could, Jim, unpack what this shift really means for redistricting and voting rights going forward, and do you expect these new maps to face any significant legal challenges?

[00:00:37]Well, I think you can pretty much bank on legal challenges, no matter who, you know, is on the side of the redistricting and who's trying to oppose it. What's kind of interesting is, you know, the Supreme Court telegraphed that we wanted to move toward a color-blind, a race-free kind of government governmental system, state and federally, a long time ago. There was the Bakke case, which was about school admissions uh based on affirmative action, and I think it was O'Connor said, you know, we've got to move beyond this. We've got to move to a Martin Luther King kind of society where the government never makes determinations based on race. She didn't make the change then, but she telegraphed it. I think what we've seen with the recent ruling is the Supreme Court saying, "Look, we're not going to allow you to remedy past discrimination with new discrimination." So, what's interesting to that, Steve, is "Okay, fine. Now you're telling, you know, folks in in state houses and in Congress, you can't make these decisions based on race, but what's still okay is partisanship."

[00:01:37]Yeah, you heard a clip from the Louisiana or the Indiana uh state representative saying, "We're trying to maximize the number of representatives in Congress." You know, people could criticize that as kind of naked partisanship or or complete uh political consideration, but that is okay under the Constitution, and that may become the catchphrase. People, instead of admitting that they're trying to do racial gerrymandering, might move to a system of saying, "No, we were just trying to preserve our political largesse, our political power within this state." And so, again, expect litigation as to whether they're being straight brokers when they use partisanship as a a proxy for racial discrimination. But, Supreme Court is is kind of, I think, marking a new day, and this even includes the way they've um uh expedited their ruling uh in in recent in recent days in terms of um basically saying we're not going to wait for reconsideration motions. We're going to allow states to move forward quickly with redistricting plans before the midterms hit.

[00:02:41]Certainly profound reverberations coming from that ruling that uh you know, we're still watching very closely. Uh meantime, Jim, I want to get your thoughts. The FBI executing search warrants on a Virginia state Senator Louise Lucas today uh at her office and a next-door cannabis dispensary. Very little really about the investigation uh publicly known yet, but it looks to be part of a broader corruption case or investigation. What kind of cases could prosecutors be building, and what seems within the realm of possibility right now?

[00:03:15]Yeah, a lot. I mean, Steve, this is really early stages, so there's a lot of guesswork. But, you know, normally if you're talking about a search warrant, you can say for a political figure, you can say a couple of things. Number one, it is likely a political corruption investigation. It's something where you're looking at things like honest services fraud, bribery, you know, quid pro quo types of dealings. And this was, of course, a champion of uh redistricting in Virginia and a very outspoken Trump credit critic. So, it's kind of an interesting moment that the search warrant hits. But, the second thing you can say uh or maybe two two A and two B about a search warrant is uh starting point is a judge found that there was probable cause that crimes were committed by this person and that involved this location.

[00:04:01]That's a low standard, but it certainly tells you that there's something other than just pure politics involved in the investigation because you now have a permission slip from a judge. Uh and that also what what gets really complicated is that dispensary. This is a political figure who's been involved in the marijuana dispensary business. It could be that this is not a traditional public corruption case, but something relating to the marijuana dispensaries.

[00:04:26]There's been rumors and rumbling about her involvement there. Uh we're also hearing that there was a a total of 10 different search warrants, 10 different raids that took place, and a couple of people taken into custody. So, it also tells you this is pretty far downstream.

[00:04:41]It's probably not something that sprung up overnight. It's a case that's been going on for some time because really usually, not always, but usually the execution of search warrants is that moment of the law enforcement surfacing, of going overt, and that tells you that they're comfortable that they've done enough legwork in advance that they can go public. So, I think we'll know a lot more in coming days than we know right now, but it might not be a typical kind of public corruption case and more of a marijuana dispensary case.

[00:05:12]Might be worth noting too, Jim, uh Virginia's one of those uh unique state legislatures where state uh officials, particularly the senators there, uh it's a part-time position. So, I believe it's like 18,000 a year uh that they get for their part-time service, and then, you know, they have to obviously feed their families. So, there is some talk of that maybe weighing into it. Uh with that said, Jim, uh as the president of the state Senate, uh this uh this woman Lucas, she also leads Virginia's redistricting efforts, possibly uh flipping four seats blue. But, the investigation into her actually reportedly started under the Biden administration, yet we're hearing a lot of talk about this particular case today as being, uh, partisan uh, witch hunt.

[00:05:58]What is your response to those who consider this politically motivated?

[00:06:02]Yeah, I think again, too early to judge.

[00:06:04]I mean, it certainly seems like something that didn't spring up overnight, didn't spring up over the last couple of weeks based on the machinations in Virginia and passing, uh, at least temporarily passing the uh, redistricting effort that uh, Governor Spanberger has been supportive of. So, you know, again, what happened during the Biden administration is going to be murky for a while, but this could not possibly have been something that went from zero to 100 in a [clears throat] two-week period, at least from my experience. So, uh, that tends to tell me that it's not necessarily political at all, but something that uh, law enforcement is handling, not politics.

[00:06:43]Jim, I want to bounce back to the Supreme Court and get your uh, thoughts on a case that has also been bouncing back and forth. Uh, it's uh, the abortion pill case. Last Friday, a court temporarily blocked mail delivery of that drug. I believe it's called, uh, mifepristone, uh, one of the most prevalent methods of abortion. How do How the Supreme Court, excuse me, now the Supreme Court has halted that ruling, uh, just for this week. Help us cut through sort of the legal back and forth here. Where does this case actually stand?

[00:07:15]Yeah, complete chaos is the short and honest answer, Steve. But, look, there's a I guess it's a morning-after drug.

[00:07:22]It's a prevalent drug that's being used.

[00:07:24]And during the Biden administration, uh, and maybe this related to COVID, maybe not, but they said, "Look, we're going to start allowing for uh, distribution for prescriptions to take place without direct visits, without direct contact between the patient and the provider."

[00:07:40]And typically, what that meant is televists, you know, people pop up on their laptop and talk to a doctor. The problem Louisiana pro-life groups had with that is that it basically provides an end run to state restrictions and state regulation. If you're allowing for televises, then it's much more likely that you've got people that might be manipulating uh their whereabouts to basically get a get a drug easier than they would have gotten in person. So, they sued. The fifth circuit went along with the idea that you have to have in-person uh restriction or in-person contact to allow for these prescriptions. And the Supreme Court said, "Well, hold on." and issued a stay. So, we're a long way away from the merits of whether the Supreme Court is going to weigh in on or allow for televise prescriptions of a morning-after drug. But, we're left with complete chaos. There's a hearing There's pleadings due tomorrow. There's a hearing on Monday. Uh people that have current prescriptions don't really know what to do. Some of the pharmacies are saying, "Well, let's move to a different drug for the short term because we're not really sure if we're breaking a law or not or breaking an injunction." So, I think we'll have a little more clarity after Monday. But, for the time being, it's it's one of these kind of unintended uh byproducts of the Dobbs Dobbs decision where, you know, different state regimes create tensions to have problems, for instance, with uh in-person versus televise prescriptions.

[00:09:08]So, uh I don't think it's the last that we'll see of these types of issues. But, we'll have a little better sense probably by about Monday or Tuesday.

[00:09:16]Former federal prosecutor Jim Trusty, as always, appreciate your insights.