Jackson Steps Back Into Her Lonely Role And Breaks The Fourth Wall

Hello, it’s the weekend, this is The Weekender ☕

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, since she joined the Court, has taken on a singular, likely uncomfortable mantle. She’s often the only one willing to relitigate fights already lost to the conservative supermajority. Often, she does this alone, either out loud or in writing. 

A perfect example of this cropped up during oral arguments on Tuesday, when the Court was considering whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ decision that ghost guns — guns you assemble from a kit — must be regulated like normal guns passed muster. 

While her colleagues debated the intricacies of the guns and the rule, Jackson stayed quiet until the round-robin section, when it was her turn to question Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar. 

“Justice Kagan talked about the problem of the agency potentially taking over what is Congress’ business, and I guess I’m worried about the different concern, which is about the Court taking over what Congress may have intended for the agency to do in this situation,” she said. “All of my questions — the reason why I didn’t really engage with the other part of this is because all of my questions for you stem from that concern.”

The other liberals had moved on to trying to get their colleagues on board with rejecting the gun manufacturers’ frankly insane request to let these untraceable guns promulgate. Jackson was stuck on the underlying issue — why are they litigating this at all? ATF, the agency in charge of knowing about guns and how to regulate them, already observed a problem (the explosion in the use of ghost guns to commit crimes) and addressed it, requiring those guns to have serial numbers and background checks.

She’s fighting a lost battle; this Court is unapologetically hostile to federal agency power, unabashedly committed to the right-wing cause of dismantling the regulatory state. Its overturning of Chevron deference last term was just the opening salvo.

So what Jackson is doing may seem fruitless. She has no chance of winning over her right-wing peers on this argument. But when one political party is stuck in the minority on the Court, this is what they can do: lay the groundwork in dissent for ideological reorientation that can become possible in the future, when that bloc amasses enough justices and the majority swings left. 

And in the meantime, in the years before that happens, she can provide an important service too: the equivalent of a main character in a sitcom breaking character, locking eyes with the camera and saying “you guys see that this is all bullshit right?”

— Kate Riga

Here’s What Else TPM Has On Tap This Weekend

• Josh Kovensky weighs in the ways in which the Trump campaign has turned the 2020 crusade against ballot access on its head in the last week.
• Khaya Himmelman unpacks the latest news on the rogue Georgia Election Board: Georgia Republicans are joining Democrats in trying to invalidate the last minute, Trumpian rules the board has passed in recent weeks that will make it easier to delay election certification in the state.
• Emine Yücel digs in on why “bros” aren’t supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
• Emine Yücel also explains why the conspiracy theories surrounding recent hurricanes have gotten so bad that even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis feels compelled to dispel disinfo.

— Nicole Lafond

Welcome

Imagine: there’s been a massive natural disaster. It’s disrupted basic social services, from medical care to law enforcement. In some affected areas, access to food supplies is in question. FEMA has been mobilized, as National Guard units deploy to rescue victims and begin recovery.

How, in this situation, would you run an election? It was a question that the country had to answer in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic — though more manageable in many areas than the above scenario — was at a high point. The answer was to broaden access in ways that allowed for options other than in-person voting, be it voting by mail or by dropbox. The result was a dramatically expanded franchise and one of the highest turnout elections in modern history.

Republicans seized on that expansion in access, claiming baselessly that it produced widespread voter fraud and, in some cases, promising to never to let it happen again.

Until, apparently, Hurricane Helene. After the storm swept across western North Carolina, leaving floods and destruction in its wake, the Trump campaign petitioned the state to make various last-minute accommodations to ensure that affected areas (deeply red outside of Asheville) retained the flexibility needed to vote in disaster conditions. These include waiving uniformity requirements for voting times, allowing people from outside affected counties to staff polling places, and allowing people to vote from anywhere in their county, regardless of precinct.

All of this would have made the 2020 Trump campaign howl, both before the election and after as a supposed cause for their loss. But in a certain sense, you have to welcome them to the cause: it might be incredibly hypocritical and for nakedly self-serving reasons, but hey, politics isn’t supposed to be altruistic. They’re finally in favor of voting rights, somewhere.

— Josh Kovensky

Georgia GOPers Join The Pushback Against MAGA-Dominated State Election Board

A group of Republican state legislators, led by a former GOP Georgia Senate president pro tempore, filed a legal challenge against the MAGA-backed Georgia state election board this week. This latest effort is only one of many other legal battles — from Democrats and Republicans alike — being waged against the board’s approval of controversial election rules so close to November. 

In a 26-page amicus brief, the coalition of GOP lawmakers argue that the board’s recently adopted rules that have the potential to delay election certification demonstrate that the board has “exceeded” its authority.  

“…the Georgia State Election Board (“SEB”) exceeded its limited, delegated authority by adopting unconstitutional rules that will bog down the administration of future elections — including the presidential election to occur in one month’s time — with vague and cumbersome processes,” the brief reads. 

The three Trump-endorsed members of the board who have approved these new rules are Janelle King, Janice Johnston and Rick Jaffares. Trump referred to these members by name at a recent campaign rally, describing them as “pitbulls, fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”

One of the rules in question is a rule that gives the board the power to not certify the results of the election until after a “reasonable inquiry” into any discrepancies in the voting process at the county level has been conducted by election officials. The problem, however, is that a “reasonable inquiry” is never actually defined, giving the board the power to potentially delay certification with baseless claims of voter fraud. 

“This new rule stands in stark contrast to the Georgia Election Code which defines a certification process that is mandatory in nature and limits the superintendent’s investigatory powers to only those situations in which the number of ballots cast exceed the number of electors in the precinct,” the brief argues. 

The second rule was passed last month and requires election workers to hand count the number of ballots cast in addition to a machine tabulation of the results in each precinct. While supporters of the rule claim that, according to the proposal, it will “ensure the secure, transparent, and accurate counting of ballots by requiring a systematic process where ballots are independently hand-counted by three sworn poll officers,” critics say the rule is simply another way to delay election certification. 

The case is scheduled to go to court on Wednesday, according to reporting from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

— Khaya Himmelman

You Know The Disinfo Is Bad When DeSantis Feels Compelled To Weigh In

Hurricane Helene and Milton devastated communities and left a trail of destruction across the southeastern U.S. in recent days, including across the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. 

In the wake of all the destruction, death and tragedy, former President Donald Trump and conspiracy-theory-lovin’ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have been shamelessly spreading lies and disinformation about the storm, taking advantage of the moment to campaign against the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Over the past week, Trump has baselessly claimed that people’s homes and properties were being confiscated after evacuating to escape the hurricane and that victims of the storm were only receiving $750 in assistance. Trump also claimed that federal disaster relief funds meant for hurricane victims were being distributed to undocumented immigrants.

Meanwhile, MAGA loyalist Greene has been claiming that the federal government geo-engineered Hurricane Helene in order to seize control of lithium deposits in a certain area of North Carolina, called Chimney Rock.

Truly unhinged stuff.

The baseless claims and the onslaught of lies have gotten so out of control that even one of the far-right’s staple figures, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, had to step in and admit that he has been working with the Biden administration to aid recovery in his state, despite what … some conspiracy theorists are saying. 

“I’ve worked well with the administration. The President approved our request. We’re going to be sending, post landfall, major disaster declaration request. I think that that’s going to be approved,” DeSantis said during a CNBC interview. “I’ve worked with both President Trump and President Biden. You haven’t really seen politics get into these storms. I think we both understand that people’s lives are at stake and you got to rise above.”

You know shit has hit the fan if DeSantis is preaching about not injecting politics into something on live TV.

— Emine Yücel

Words Of Wisdom

“Just speaking as a dude, right? A country guy. I’m just telling you right now. I mean, I talked to lots of guys. You know, I’m a bro. So when you talk to people, no one’s looking at her and saying this is the strong leader.”

That’s former Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) talking about Vice President Kamala Harris during a CNN roundtable discussion.

He continues his remarks by saying, “But it’s not a sexist thing to say.”

If you say something and feel like you have to follow it up with that, it probably is, bro.

— Emine Yücel