Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Test & Trump’s DOJ Power PlaySupreme Court’s Voting Rights Test & Trump’s DOJ Power Play

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

Politics, News

4.4 • 783 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike and Joey open with the Supreme Court’s unusual re-argument in Louisiana v. Calais, a case that could reshape Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Joey outlines the tangled history of Louisiana’s redistricting and argues that race-based districts may themselves violate equal-protection principles. Mike predicts Justice Kavanaugh will be the key vote to end broad race-based redistricting, though he worries about dismantling long-standing anti-discrimination tools. Next, the guys turn to what Mike calls the “weaponization” of Trump’s Department of Justice. Mike sees politically motivated prosecutions of Trump critics like John Bolton and Letitia James as evidence that Trump’s promised deweaponization of DOJ has been just the opposite. Joey counters that the prosecutions reflect needed accountability for past abuses, not revenge, though he agrees that unchecked prosecutorial discretion is dangerous. After that, they debate whether the Attorney General should be independently elected and if the traditional wall between the White House and DOJ still makes sense. Mike argues separation preserves public trust; Joey insists a vigorous, unified executive better ensures accountability and national security. After answering several listener questions, the guys close with their revived “Rants & Recommendations” segment. Mike vents about mowing his Ohio lawn in October, while Joey rails against the avalanche of Amazon boxes modern “convenience” creates. Mike turns the gripe into a win by praising the joys of “processing cardboard” with his ever-growing pocket-knife collection. The Politics Guys on Facebook | X Check out the excellent Sustainable Planet podcast. Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Atheists, agnostics, long-haired widows, short-haired widows, vandal, Oolagulligan.
0:05.2	I'm the government, hug the government, hug the government, love, the government, hug the government, love, the government, hug the government.
0:13.0	Welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy.
0:18.7	I'm Northern Kentucky University political scientist Michael
0:21.4	Baranowski. I'm joined today once again by my conservative counterpart, Cincinnati area attorney,
0:27.1	Joey Ashbrook. Hey, Joey. Hey, Mike. As usually, you know, I think I could have talked for probably
0:33.0	another half an hour about immigration and that and got it a nitty gritty. But we ran out of time. And of course,
0:39.9	we had a bunch of other things we wanted to talk about as well on that weekend show. We're
0:44.4	moving them into the midweek show here. And I thought one thing that I've been following,
0:49.0	and I know you've been following it as well, a pretty important Supreme Court case in the last
0:53.7	week or so. Yeah, our first segment for the midweek show case in the last week or so.
0:54.9	Yeah, our first segment for the midweek show is on the case of Louisiana v. Calais,
0:59.6	the V. Calais, in an unorthodox Supreme Court case, it's not that common.
1:04.5	The court actually heard initial oral argument and the underlying questions,
1:08.7	and at the end of its last term, ordered a second argument for this year.
1:12.8	And then in August, sent out a request, an additional request for briefing on a constitutional issue
1:19.9	that the court was not considering previously. And the simplest way to think about it is,
1:25.9	big picture, this relates to Louisiana voting.
1:28.2	And let me just start with this.
1:29.8	This is a really complicated case.
1:31.7	We're going to talk about this in simple ways, but just to keep everybody up to speed on what's going on.
1:36.8	And then to be able to think through for themselves and also encourage you to listen to the oral argument, which is really long, but which is kind of interesting.
	...

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