Have State Legislatures Gone Rogue? And Joshua Yaffa on Evan Gershkovich

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Just a month ago, the story of two lawmakers expelled from the Tennessee legislature captured headlines across the country. Their offense wasn’t corruption or criminal activity— instead, they had joined a protest at the statehouse in favor of gun control, shortly after the Nashville shooting at a Christian school. Earlier this week, Representative Zooey Zephyr, of Montana, was barred from the House chamber after making a speech against a trans health-care ban. In the past few years, in Arizona, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, legislatures have worked to strip powers from state officials who happen to be Democrats in order to put those powers in Republican hands. Jacob Grumbach, a political-science professor and the author of “Laboratories Against Democracy,” talks about how state politics has become nationalized. “If you’re a politician, and you’re trying to rise in the ranks from the local or state level in your party,” he notes, “your best bet is to join the national culture wars”—even at the expense of constituents’ real concerns.

Plus, the contributing writer Joshua Yaffa talks with David Remnick about Evan Gershkovich, the first American reporter imprisoned in Russia on charges of espionage since the nineteen-eighties. “Evan was not sanguine or Pollyannaish or naïve about the context in which he was working,” Yaffa notes, but he returned to Russia again and again to tell the story of that country’s descent into autocracy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:11.7	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Ramnick.
0:15.0	Just a month ago, we were riveted by a story about two lawmakers expelled from the state
0:20.4	legislature in Tennessee.
0:22.6	Their offense wasn't corruption or criminal activity.
0:26.4	They had dared to join a protest at the state house in favor of gun control, just after
0:31.2	the Nashville shooting at a Christian school.
0:34.7	And for that, the men who just began their terms in the legislature this year were thrown
0:39.8	out.
0:41.3	I don't personally want attention.
0:44.4	What I want is attention on the issue of gun violence, but instead we're here with
0:49.5	the resolution you put up talking about expelling me for advocating for ending gun violence
0:55.8	in the state of Tennessee.
0:59.5	But those young men are not the only Democrats being targeted by the Republican colleagues.
1:04.6	Just weeks later, Representative Zoe Zepher of Montana was barred from the House chamber
1:10.3	for the remainder of the session after making a speech against a trans healthcare ban.
1:16.0	In Arizona, Wisconsin and North Carolina, state legislatures have tried to strip powers
1:22.0	from state officials who happen to be Democrats in order to put those powers in Republican
1:27.3	hands.
1:28.3	Now, debates can get ugly in state legislatures for sure, but these are not exactly debates.
1:33.5	There are steps to prevent debate and they're deeply anti-democratic.
1:38.6	So how is this happening and why?
	...

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