What Next - Amicus: The “Stop the Steal” Fight That Never Ended
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2023
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
Enjoy this episode of Slate's Amicus, while the What Next team enjoys the holiday.
Wisconsin’s State Supreme Court heard one of the landmark cases of the 2020 presidential election. During oral arguments in Trump v Biden in December 2020, Justice Jill J Karofsky participated in proceedings via Zoom from her office inside the state capitol in Madison. Outside her office window, she could see armed protesters gathered in what she later viewed as a dry run for January 6th. In a 4-3 decision, with one Republican justice siding against Trump, the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted to uphold Biden’s victory in the state. On this week’s Amicus, Justice Karofsky speaks for the first time about the fallout from that case: Fallout in her personal life, for herself and loved ones. Fallout in her professional life, with an investigation and the threat of sanction for her line of questioning in oral argument. And beyond all that, the fallout for democracy—and for the role of jurists within that democracy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, it's Mary Harris. And it's a holiday weekend, so instead of the usual show, |
| 0:07.1 | I've got a little treat for you, an episode of one of my favorite other Slate podcasts, Amicus. |
| 0:13.0 | Twice a month, amicus dives deep into the American judiciary and how it's changing, from the |
| 0:18.1 | Supreme Court on down. In this episode, host Dolly Lithwick talks |
| 0:22.8 | to a state Supreme Court justice from Wisconsin. When this justice said Donald Trump's |
| 0:28.7 | stop the steel movement was un-American and smacked of racism, it unleashed months of trouble. |
| 0:36.2 | Here's the show. |
| 0:50.2 | Music It unleashed months of trouble. Here's the show. Hi, and welcome back to Amicus. |
| 0:52.8 | This is Slate's podcast about the law and the rule of law and the courts. |
| 0:57.3 | I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and I write about these things for Slate Magazine. |
| 1:01.5 | The High Court is in the midst of its long break this week. So aside from a little depressing revelations about the spouses of justices who evidently make some bank off relationships |
| 1:13.0 | to their partners last week in a little ethics reform news. |
| 1:17.2 | This week, things are relatively quiet at the Marble Palace. |
| 1:21.4 | In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Biden largely forgot to mention |
| 1:26.9 | the court, or the EPA, or the court or the EPA or the Clean |
| 1:30.1 | Water Act or the loss of abortion rights for half the population. |
| 1:34.5 | All that happened kind of in a blur. |
| 1:36.6 | But given that Justice's Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Neil Gorsuch |
| 1:42.0 | all took a pass this year anyhow. |
| 1:44.1 | Maybe it doesn't really matter. |
| 1:45.8 | I just want to take a break for a moment to remember that when Justice Clarence Thomas stopped attending the State of the Union back in 2010, |
| 1:54.2 | he explained his reasoning to students at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida, by saying this, quote, |
... |
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