Virginia 'Has to' Bring Redistricting Case To the Supreme Court Says Jim Messina

0:00 What would the political consequence be of a $5 gallon of gas

0:03 on average across the country versus the north of $4.50 where we are now?

0:07 What what is that 50¢ difference?

0:09 What could it potentially be?

0:11 Kailey, it could be a whole bunch of of, political earthquake.

0:15 You know, I just saw some numbers

0:17 showing that the president's approval rating and members

0:19 of congress approval rating are moving up and down with the price of gas.

0:24 It makes sense.

0:25 Research we did, in the Obama years also showed

0:28 that people's view of the economy gets baked in about June.

0:32 Why June, Kailey?

0:32 It's because that's when people, get their kids out of school and go on the road

0:37 with their first vacations and start to look at how expensive things are.

0:41 And so if you're sitting in June with $5 gas,

0:43 you were gonna have a whole bunch of angry swing voters out there.

0:47 And I think that's a really big problem for the party in power.

0:52 It's a problem for all, you people, all incumbents to talk about,

0:55 but especially with the president's party and kind of his war of choice in Iran.

1:00 So $5, gas, I think you're seeing the White House very,

1:03 very focused on trying to get this war over because they understand what

1:07 the gas price issue is doing

1:09 to the president's personal approval rating and his parties.

1:11 And I think that's why you're seeing the president

1:14 push so hard to get a deal with Iran.

1:17 Well and I've asked this question, repeatedly as we have seen,

1:21 him him more adamantly making the case that he wants to see this, wrapped up.

1:26 If you think that he could be willing for the sake

1:29 of domestic politics to make a less strategically advantageous deal with Iran,

1:33 than he might have otherwise agreed to had

1:36 have we not been approaching a midterm election?

1:40 Yeah.

1:40 I mean, I think that's the position you're in.

1:42 When you're in the White House,

1:43 you realize you have a whole bunch of really bad decisions in front of you.

1:47 And right now, sitting a hundred and seventy

1:49 nine days before the election, you know,

1:50 what his political team is likely telling him is get this thing over quickly,

1:55 and it doesn't really matter how you get it over.

1:59 The problem is that sort of playing short term ball,

2:03 Kailey, instead of playing long term.

2:04 And in the White House, you wanna play long term.

2:07 And if he agrees to something that is worse than the Obama deal with Iran,

2:11 he's gonna have huge problems in the way the international

2:14 community views him and in the way his own party says,

2:17 why did you pull us into a very unpopular

2:20 war to get less than we had when we started?

2:23 So, again, there aren't any great solutions here.

2:26 It is very hard to get out of these things once you've started them,

2:30 but the political pressure becomes the reason

2:32 for making deals you wouldn't ordinarily make.

2:37 Well, so clearly, this is, quite literally a war that he is still,

2:41 trying to win or claim some victory from.

2:43 I'd like to talk to you,

2:44 about a war of a different, kind, really a euphemism here,

2:48 Jim, which is the redistricting, wars,

2:50 which began in Texas, trickled on to California.

2:53 Now they've gone all across the country and including,

2:56 coming to Virginia where voters did decide to approve

2:58 a new congressional map that would have been 10 to one,

3:02 ten Dems, one Republican, a net of four seats, advantage Democrats.

3:07 The Supreme Court today struck that down.

3:10 Where does this leave the party now ahead of November?

3:14 Well, look.

3:14 No one can say this is a good moment for the Democrats.

3:17 The Democrats just passed the perfect map for them

3:20 and spent tens of millions of dollars to get it done.

3:23 And the fact that the court just did this is a bad moment for the Democrats.

3:27 The Democrats will argue, well,

3:28 we still have a shot at three of the four seats we were targeting,

3:32 so maybe this isn't as bad.

3:34 They will also point out that if the precedent

3:37 that the court used today to invalidate this rule,

3:40 a really arcane, technicality saying there must

3:43 be an election in between this decision,

3:46 and and the next election, If we're gonna apply that to Florida,

3:51 which is where the Republicans are now going,

3:53 their courts would strike this down as well.

3:57 In general, Kelly, I think these redistricting efforts,

4:00 are not great for the country.

4:02 I think the country doesn't want more partisan district.

4:04 They want more people to work together, but both parties are trying to get

4:08 control of the United States House of Representatives.

4:10 And so now we're gonna spend the next two to four years

4:14 with you and I talking on Bloomberg Radio and TV about all these states,

4:18 both blue and red, trying to do this.

4:21 I think when it's all said and done,

4:22 it looks like to me that it's basically gonna be a wash.

4:25 And you've seen the kind of prediction markets

4:27 and other analysts today say even with the Virginia rulings,

4:31 the Democrats are still favored to win the house,

4:34 but we are now in a redistricting war that you

4:37 and I are gonna be talking about for years.

4:41 Well and so where is this ultimately going

4:43 to leave the country in terms of political polarization, Jim?

4:46 Because on the one hand,

4:47 I've heard the argument that actually what you're seeing with a lot

4:51 of these Republican redistricting efforts in particular

4:52 is a watering down of what were much,

4:55 stronger r plus, you know, whatever double digits districts that are now,

5:01 less stronghold or or or not quite as much of a stronghold,

5:05 in terms of, the Republicans present in that district.

5:08 But I've also heard that, no,

5:10 this is just going to create more hard r's and hard d's in terms of districts.

5:15 There's going to be fewer swing districts to compete compete over.

5:18 Therefore, it's going to lead to, basically,

5:21 what already is a rare thing on Capitol Hill these days,

5:25 moderates being even less frequently elected into office.

5:28 Where do you come down on that?

5:31 I come down on both sides.

5:32 I think in the short term, it is clearly made there be less, swing districts.

5:37 Of the 435 congressional districts right now, The Cook Political Report,

5:43 which is sort of the bible for political geeks like me,

5:47 say that only 17 seats are true toss-up seats.

5:51 Kelly, 435, only 17.

5:53 That number used to be in the seventies, eighties, or nineties.

5:57 I think that is bad for the country.

6:00 However, long term, I am hopeful that your second scenario is right,

6:03 that you're gonna see more districts put into play.

6:06 The the Voting Rights Act,

6:08 case of the Supreme Court did was gonna put a bunch of, minority

6:11 votes into many districts to allow more districts to be in play.

6:16 That's the hope.

6:17 That's the only good hope out of what

6:19 I thought was a terrible Supreme Court ruling.

6:21 In general, I think the country is better

6:24 off with more more seats being in play.

6:27 Why?

6:27 Because you tend to get members who wanna work with both sides,

6:31 wanna put aside politics and get things done.

6:33 I don't think it's good that 400 members only care

6:36 about their primaries and don't care about their general elections.

6:40 Well and as as you, talk about that Supreme Court

6:43 decision on on the Voting Rights Act, that, of course,

6:46 is what enabled Tennessee yesterday to draw out the only democratic seat,

6:51 that that state had in the house of representatives.

6:54 There's a question now,

6:55 as to whether or not South Carolina would be willing to do

6:58 the same knowing that lone democratic seat is held by congressman Jim Clyburn.

7:02 What would the consequence be if we saw Clyburn drawn out?

7:07 You're talking about a guy who was a former whip

7:10 of the House of Representatives who is universally loved by both parties,

7:13 who is known as one of the kind of, you know,

7:16 people that work with both sides to get things done.

7:19 This is exactly what you and I were just talking about.

7:22 The last thing either party should want is the likes

7:25 of Jim Clyburn out of the House of Representatives.

7:27 Both parties should want him in there because

7:29 he works with both sides to get things done.

7:32 But when you're in a redistricting mode of scrambling to every state,

7:36 both parties are doing this.

7:38 And I think the long term damage could be real.

7:41 And the other thing is, like,

7:42 we shouldn't have a state like South Carolina where there's not one dam.

7:45 We shouldn't have a dam states where there's not one republican.

7:48 There's a way I was seeing yesterday, Kailey,

7:51 to redistrict California so there's only one member

7:53 republican member of the house out of 55.

7:56 Great.

7:57 You can do that, but should you?

7:59 Like, is that really the best thing for the fourth largest economy?

8:02 I don't think so, and I don't think your listeners do either.

8:05 And so I hope that, you know,

8:07 the court sorta caused this, and I hope that at some point,

8:10 the court steps back and says, you know, what hell have we wrought?

8:14 And maybe we can step back and try to figure out

8:16 some way to put the genie back in the bottle here.

8:20 Well and finally, on the courts, Jim,

8:22 there's obviously a question as to whether or not Virginia

8:24 Democrats in particular will choose to continue this legal fight,

8:28 potentially escalate it to, the United States Supreme

8:31 Court after the state Supreme Court ruled this way.

8:33 Do you think that would be a race a waste of resources,

8:36 frankly, given as you mentioned,

8:38 they already spent tens of millions doll of dollars on this in the first place,

8:41 and this is gonna be a much more competitive midterm election.

8:44 Is that money better spent elsewhere?

8:46 Oh, Kailey, it's never a good idea

8:48 to act ask a political hack about legal issues, but I think they have to.

8:51 I think you have a whole bunch of donors,

8:53 and you have 3,000,000 people in Virginia that just

8:55 voted for this who are saying, I'm sorry.

8:58 What just happened?

8:58 And so I think, you know,

9:00 a whole bunch of smart lawyers will get in a room tonight,

9:02 read this case, and decide whether or not they have

9:04 a case in front of the United States Supreme Court.

9:07 And maybe this could be a moment where the court can sorta,

9:09 you know, put the genie back in the bottle as we discussed.

9:12 But I think you're gonna see the Dems do

9:15 everything they can to protect 3,000,000 voters who just voted.