Week in Review: *Midterm Elections* November 7-13, 2022

1. Midterm Elections Recap (1:32)
2. Midterm Mini-Stories (9:36) - Maxwell Frost Becomes First Gen Z Congressman (9:54); Most Expensive Midterms in History (11:19); Four States Ban Slavery in State Constitutions (12:32); Four States Approved Abortion Protections (15:00); Rep. Kevin McCarthy Announces Bid for House Speaker (15:51) 
3. Texas Judge Blocks Biden's Loan Forgiveness Program (17:04)
4. Vogue Sues Drake and 21 Savage for Using Fake Vogue Cover to Promote New Album (22:01)

All sources can be found on www.jordanismylawyer.com.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Jordan: You are listening to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. This is your host Jordan, and I give you the legal analysis you've been waiting for. Here's the deal. I don't care about your political views, but I do ask that you listen to the facts, have an open mind and think for yourselves deal. Oh, and one last thing.

[00:00:20] I'm not actually your lawyer.

[00:00:25] What's up guys? Welcome back to the, Jordan is my lawyer podcast. I'm so excited to be recording today because obviously we have a lot of really exciting things that are happen. Midterm elections obviously just took place, so you already know we're gonna go over the results of that. But, um, there's also some interesting things in doing my research that I found out about that I feel like you may not know that, you know, like certain ballot measures that passed in certain states and, and that kind of.

[00:00:50] Smaller stuff that maybe didn't make the news in a lot of places. So I wanna go over that. I also have a little mini election series, so it kind of ties into those smaller things that maybe the news didn't cover, but yet still came as a result of the elections. So I'm gonna get into that as well. And then I will also talk about the student loan forgiveness program and why that is currently on hold.

[00:01:12] And I'm also gonna talk about a lawsuit involving some pretty popular rappers and a very popular. Magazine. So without further ado, let's get into it.

[00:01:33] Okay, let's talk about midterms. So, as of Friday afternoon, there were too many Senate races that were too close to call. There were three to be exact, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. But then as of Friday night, the winner in Arizona's senate race had been called by the AP and other news networks, and that call was made in favor of the Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly.

[00:01:54] So what that means is that control of the Senate basically boils down to two races, Georgia. And Nevada, so let's talk about both of them. Georgia is a bit more complicated. They're going to have to have a runoff election. We'll talk about why, but they basically have the Democratic incumbent warnock running and the Republican candidate walker running.

[00:02:16] Warnock, the Democratic incumbent has 49.6% of the votes, whereas Walker has 48.3% of the votes and 99% are reporting. So pretty much all the votes are in and they are very, very close. Now, Georgia law requires that one candidate has at least 50% of the votes. Obviously, neither of these candidates do, which is why we're going to see a runoff election.

[00:02:42] In December, now Nevada as of 1:00 AM on Saturday, the Republican candidate had 48.5% of the votes, and the Democratic incumbent had 48.4% of the votes, and there was 95% reporting. This race is so close. Um, literally a difference of 800 ish votes, but as of Saturday, Nevada was still counting votes, which is why we may not know until early this week because obviously they have to count those votes and see, you know, what, what the results of those are.

[00:03:17] Their Nevada's whole rule was that if the mail-in votes were postmarked by election day and received, Up until Saturday at 5:00 PM local time, then they could be counted. And on top of that, voters also have a couple of days to cure their ballots if needed. So Nevada state law actually allows for certain ballots to be cured.

[00:03:37] And what this means is that if, let's say a mail in ballot was opened, someone's signature isn't there, or it doesn't appear to match, then the voter would be contacted to correct it. Now, realistically, the percentage of people that have to cure their ballots is probably. Small, so that likely won't be an issue.

[00:03:54] But as of Saturday, they were still counting the mail-in votes, and that's why we likely won't know the results of Nevada's Senate race until early this week. Now for the Democratic Party to control the Senate, they just need to win one of these two races, which is why everyone's saying all eyes are on Nevada.

[00:04:12] Because if the Democratic incumbent wins Nevada, then really the Georgia runoff election doesn't matter too much because the Democratic party already controls. Uh, now on the flip side of that, if the Republican candidate in Nevada, which he's currently 0.1 percentage points ahead, like I said, up by 800 ish votes as of Saturday morning, then the Senate control will boil down to Georgia's runoff election.

[00:04:37] In the Senate, Republicans had zero pickups. Democrats had two, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Arizona was the race that was called on Saturday. Uh, Pennsylvania was the one where Federman was running against Dr. Oz, and those pickups resulted in 49 Republican Senators. 47 Democratic senators and two independents who vote with Democrats.

[00:05:00] So let's break these numbers down and talk about the possible combinations that we could see. Although there are two independents, keep in mind that these independents are basically grouped with the Democrats because that is who they typically vote with. So you'll kind of see how that factors into the breakdown.

[00:05:17] But there's basically four possible combinations if the Republican candidate wins in. And the Republican candidate wins the Georgia runoff. Then the Senate breakdown would be 51 Republican, 47 Democrat and two independents. So basically 51 49 in favor of Republicans. Republicans would control the Senate.

[00:05:38] This is the second possible combination if the Republican candidate wins Nevada. And the Democratic incumbent wins Georgia. Then the breakdown becomes 50 Republicans, 49 Democrats and two independents. And again, because the independence vote with Democrats, this is technically a Democrat controlled Senate.

[00:05:56] Now, the same result would happen if the Democratic incumbent wins Nevada, and the Republican candidate wins Georgia right now, if the Democratic incumbent wins Nevada and the Democratic incumbent wins Georgia. Then the Senate breakdown becomes 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats, and two Independents, which is basically 49 51 Democrats in control.

[00:06:20] So as you can see, the Democratic Party really just needs to win either Nevada or Georgia to take control, but they don't need to win both. They just need to win one. Republicans though need to win both races to control. Now let's talk about. As of Saturday in the house, there were 211 Republican representatives, 201 Democrat representatives.

[00:06:44] Now all of the projections are showing that the Republicans will likely control the house. There is a chance that the Democrats do, but that there would need to be some things. To happen. For that to happen, that likely won't. So according to NBC news, Republicans are projected to win 221 seats in the house, which is three more than the majority, uh, needed, which is 218.

[00:07:08] And Democrats look like they'll take about 214 seats. Now, keep in mind that estimate has a margin of error of seven seats and pr, just to give you a different perspective, had a similar projection. A little bit different, but similar. That, uh, Republicans will take a slim majority with anywhere from one to seven seats.

[00:07:26] And NPR also said that Democrats do have a long shot chance at retaining control, but they would need some races where Republicans are currently leading to shift in their favor in order for that to happen. So those are where the numbers currently stand as of Saturday. We could know more by Monday when this episode drops.

[00:07:44] So just remember that if the Republican candidate does win Nevada's Senate race, which he's currently up, barely up, but currently, then the Senate control will boil down to Georgia's runoff election in December. Because remember, Democratic Party just needs to win a one election, either Nevada or Georgia.

[00:08:02] But on the flip side of that, if the Democratic incumbent wins. Um, which again, we'll know early next week probably. Then the, uh, Democratic party controls and that's it. And it doesn't really matter what happens with George's runoff election now. This goes without saying that following the election, there was a lot of talk about, um, you know, how this red wave didn't really hit like people thought.

[00:08:27] And in my opinion, and again, you guys know, I don't like to give my opinions, however, none of my views are infiltrating this opinion at all. This is purely an unbiased, truly unbiased opinion. I believe that the reason that we didn't see a red wave. Has to do a lot with Roe versus Wade being overturned. I think that if Roe versus Wade was not overturned in June, then you would've seen a lot less Democrats turn out to the polls and therefore Republicans would've showed up more.

[00:08:59] So. Because I did talk about in a TikTok, and I believe I covered this in a podcast episode, that leading up to elections, a lot of the polls, the, the early voting polls found. The main issue that voters were concerned with was the economy and inflation, and behind that was abortion. Now, If abortion wasn't an issue, I think a lot more people would've been concerned mainly and really solely with the economy and inflation, and that's where we would've seen that red wave.

[00:09:30] So that's my take on it. But nonetheless, those are the numbers. That is where. Everything stands. So let's get into this kind of mini election series that I have for you. I have five stories in the series, and it's basically the things that may not have been talked about so much in the news, maybe kind of flew under the radar with everything else going on and figuring out who's gonna control the house, who's gonna control the Senate, yada, yada.

[00:09:54] So number one is that Maxwell Frost became not only the youngest member in the house, but became the first Gen Z Congressman. So he ran for the seat in Florida's 10th district, which is Central Florida, the Orlando area. And he has basically spent years organizing for gun control and he has his agenda.

[00:10:17] Gun, gun, stricter gun laws are very high up on that agenda. He spoke to CBS after winning his race and said in part something like universal background checks, ensuring guns are not getting in the wrong hands. It's increasingly popular in this country, and we just need to muster up the political will.

[00:10:33] I'm very excited to get Congress to work. Yes, with people across the aisle and in my own party to push this forward. It's something that is often put on the back burner, but we are losing lives. People are dying every single day and we can't just sit around. So those were his words on that. So it sounds like he's not necessarily trying to take away the Second Amendment like some Democrats are, but rather just kind of find a middle ground and work together to figure something out as far as like, look, you guys, you know, we can have our guns, but.

[00:11:00] Make some stricter laws so we don't have the psychopaths and the criminals and whoever else getting their hands on guns. He also plans to focus on abortion rights, saying we need to make sure we protect safe and legal access to abortion end. So that is Maxwell Frost making history becoming the first Gen Z Congressman, the second many.

[00:11:20] Story I have for you in regards to the election is that this was the most expensive midterm election, yet according to a nonpartisan research group, open Secrets candidates and political action groups spent almost 17 billion. Combined dollars on state and federal campaigns, so 7.8 billion of that was spent on state elections.

[00:11:45] 9 billion of that was spent on federal elections, and both of those numbers are up from the last midterm election. Now, where is this money coming from? Well, according to Open Secrets, just 10. Wealthy people gave more than half a billion dollars loan, but a lot of the money actually came from cryptocurrency and the tech sector.

[00:12:05] And then there's also almost a hundred million of what they call dark money. And it basically got its same because it is what it is. It can't be traced back to the original donor. It's kind of a mystery where it came from. So that's where the money comes from in a nutshell. But, Thought that was interesting that this was the most expensive midterm election yet.

[00:12:26] And I have a feeling that as time goes on, they're just gonna get more and more expensive. But we'll see with that number three. Four states approved ballot measures to ban slavery in their state constitutions in the 2022 midterm elections. Now, these states are Vermont, Oregon, Alabama, and Tennessee, and you're probably sitting there thinking, Wasn't slavery banned by the 13th Amendment and the US Constitution in 1865?

[00:12:53] Why are we still talking about it in 2022? Well, that is because, yes, slavery was banned by the 13th. A. But the 13th Amendment provided an exception for punishment, which you may not know. So the exact text of the 13th Amendment reads this, Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime.

[00:13:14] Where of the state shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction end. So basically, Slavery is not allowed except if we're punishing someone and they have to be punished as a slave. So interestingly enough, Louisiana also had this ballot measure, but it wasn't approved because the measures sponsor withdrew his support before election day.

[00:13:43] He said it was because of changes to the text, but nonetheless, It was rejected in Louisiana. Now, something interesting about this is that states have slowly began removing slavery from their state constitutions since 2018, when Colorado was the first to do it. Nebraska and Utah then did it in 2020. And that's not to say that slavery was a thing in these states up until 2018, 2020.

[00:14:09] This is just to say that up until then, slavery still existed in the constitution. As an acceptable form of punishment. So according to Ballotpedia 15 state constitutions expressly allow slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. eight states will expressly forbid it once this year's ballot measures go into effect.

[00:14:33] So once these ballot measures take effect, eight out of those 15 states will not allow slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. The other 27 states, Just make no mention of slavery as punishment for a crime. So it's not an issue, but I thought that was interesting. Nonetheless, I, to be honest, did not know that slavery was still allowed as a form of punishment in some places.

[00:14:59] So there's that. Number four in the mini-series is that four states voted to protect abortion rights, Vermont, California, Kentucky, and. So Vermont, California, and Michigan all voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. So basically there is now a right to abortion in the state constitution.

[00:15:22] It is a constitutional right in that state. Kentucky voters didn't necessarily do that, but they rejected a measure that would have explicitly stated in the state constitution that there's no right to abortion. So, It kind of would've left it up to Kentucky, the Kentucky legislature, to do what they want with abortion.

[00:15:42] But that was rejected. So now the state constitution won't say that. Um, so a little bit different, but kind of the same. Now the fifth and final mini story in this little mini election series is that the Republican, uh, representative Kevin McCarthy has announced his bid for house speaker. So in a letter to his caucus on Wednesday House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy announced his intention to run for Speaker of the House.

[00:16:08] It didn't really come as a surprise. I mean, he's currently the house minority leader. He was expected to run. For the top house leadership position, he doesn't currently have any challengers, so it was. You know, a lot of people, I guess, saw this coming. The internal vote inside the G O P conference is expected next week, but the full house vote won't happen until January when the new Congress starts.

[00:16:37] So that's the deal with that. Those were my five. You know, many stories as they pertain to the election and from. We're gonna get into the student loan forgiveness plan, and what happens now that a Texas judge blocked the program.

[00:17:04] On Thursday, a Texas judge blocked President Biden's plan to forgive student loan debt for certain borrowers. Ruling that the program used SERT Congress's power to make laws. In coming to this ruling, the judge explained in part quote, In this country, we are not ruled by an all powerful executive with a pen and a phone.

[00:17:25] Instead, we are ruled by the constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government. The court is not blind to the current political division in our country, but it is fundamental to the survival of our republic that the separation of powers as outlined in our constitution.

[00:17:42] Be preserved. End. Now, the arguments in this case basically boil down to the authority that the Heroes Act provides. What is the Heroes Act? It's also known as the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003. It was enacted after nine 11. And basically what the government's lawyers are, are arguing here.

[00:18:05] What the Biden administration is arguing here is that under the Heroes Act Congress granted the Secretary of Education, the power to broadly discharge student debt in the event of a national emergency. And what the government and Biden administration are saying is that the pandemic is considered a national emergency and therefore the Secretary of Education has the power to implement this loan forgiveness program while.

[00:18:31] What the judge in Texas is saying is that, no, the Heroes Act didn't provide the authorization for the loan forgiveness that the Biden administration claimed that it did. And this law doesn't provide the executive branch a clear congressional authority to create this student loan forgiveness program because remember, the Secretary of Education is part of the executive branch, so.

[00:18:55] Again, just to kind of recap and clarify, the Biden administration is saying that under the Heroes Act, Congress gave the executive branch, AKA the Secretary of Education, the power to broadly discharge student debt in the event of a national emergency. But the judge is saying, no, this law does not give the executive branch clear congressional authority.

[00:19:16] Because this authority exists within Congress, the authority to make laws. Now, although this is a Texas lawsuit, this isn't the first challenge. There's been many challenges by many states and many different groups. Um, but this Texas case did change things a little bit. So the program was already on hold due to a separate lawsuit filed by six states.

[00:19:40] Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, and South Carolina. It's, it's on hold because these states brought this lawsuit. The court basically said, Look, you don't have standing to do this. They appealed it, and now it's being considered by a federal appeals court. But in, in appealing the case. The program was put on hold, and that happened in October, at the end of October, October 21st, And what that hold did was stop the Biden administration from clearing debt, so they couldn't really take any action as far as forgiving any debt.

[00:20:13] But they could still accept, uh, applications, right? So borrowers could still apply for relief on that website that everyone's applying on. Now, though, what this Texas ruling did is basically has the Department of Education not accepting applications anymore. So previously, although the program was on hold, applications could still be submitted.

[00:20:37] You can't submit an application. So if you actually go to student aid.gov, which houses the debt relief application, it updated its website to notify people visiting the site. That student loan debt relief is blocked, and what the website says is quote, Courts have issued orders blocking our set Student debt relief program.

[00:20:56] As a result. At this time, we are not accepting applications. We are seeking to overturn those orders. End quote. Um, this decision from the Texas judge was appealed immediately to the fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals by the doj. And what this means basically is that this case has to play out entirely before the Biden administration can do anything as far as canceling debt.

[00:21:18] So this case will likely make it all the way up to the Supreme Court. So that will add time to when we could see a final result. So it's gonna take a while. That's my anticipation that you know, this isn't just gonna take a month or two. This is gonna take a long time to figure out if any debt can be canceled.

[00:21:34] But all in all, This isn't that surprising, and I'm sure it doesn't really come as a surprise to you. Once this program was announced, there was immediate pushback and people were, you know it, It was almost like instantaneously there was talks of challenges, so not surprising. What you need to know that stems from this Texas lawsuit is that as of now, The Department of Education is not accepting applications for debt relief.

[00:22:01] So that takes us into our fifth and final story, and it's kind of a more lighthearted one, I guess. Vogue is suing rappers Drake and 21 Savage over a fake magazine cover promoting their new album. So Drake and 21 Savage have this new album coming out called Her Loss. Actually, it already came out, my apologies, came out on November 4th.

[00:22:23] It's called Her Loss and prior to its release. They basically made these fake Vogue covers. It looks like it would be a Vogue cover, right? It says Vogue in the like style that Vogue is typically written. It looks like it would be a cover, and it's Drake and 21 Savage on the front. Um, and so what Conde Nass is saying, Conde Nass is the publisher of Vogue, and what they're saying is that Drake and 21 Savage used a fake vogue cover to promote their album.

[00:22:53] They didn't get the permission of Vogue and therefore they're now suing for any potential profits that were made off of the trademark infringement. So this wasn't just an Instagram post, right? It's not like Drake or 21 Savage just posted this picture to Instagram and you know, made his followers think he was on the cover of Vogue?

[00:23:12] No, he posted Instagram. But also made his caption quote, me and my brother on news stands tomorrow. Thanks. At Vogue Magazine and Anna Winter for the love and support on this historic moment, Her loss November 4th end quote. I mean that like he goes So far as to thank Vogue Magazine and Anna Winter. How could people not think, you know that this isn't real?

[00:23:42] Right. So Connie Nass filed their lawsuit. It's a 30 page lawsuit. I have it linked on my website, Jordan is my lawyer.com. And basically they're arguing that the widespread promotional campaign is built entirely on the use of Vogue's trademarks, which gives the false premise that the two artists would be featured in an issue of the magazine.

[00:24:03] And they're not right. And they never got anyone's approval. They never talked to Vogue, they never talked to Anna Winter, nothing. So according to the complaint, they actually created copies of the cover, the fake cover, and distributed them to people and put them up as posters. And this is something that Vogue typically does as part of its own real promotional activities, right?

[00:24:24] So now they're mimicking Vogue's promotional. Activity on top of that, following the Instagram post news outlets, published stories with headlines like Drake and 21 Savage Land Vogue cover ahead of Collab album. Like all of these headlines that literally like people thought this was real, and the complaint references comments from Instagram users that are basically illustrating, people thought this was a real cover.

[00:24:49] There was no indication that this was fake. People were commenting things. It's about time and so excited. Can't wait to pick up this issue, yada, yada. So clearly people fell right into this, and the complaint goes on to say that on October 31st, Conde Nass and his lawyers demanded that the defendants stop what they're doing and take appropriate measures to curtail further public infusion before the release of the album on November 4th, but nothing was done.

[00:25:17] So then this lawsuit was filed on November 7th. Now in total, there are seven. So there's trademark infringement and counterfeiting, false designation of origin and unfair competition. False advertising violation of New York General Business Law 360 K, which basically deals with the use of the counterfeit Vogue Trademark Common Law, Trademark Infringement and Unfair Competition, and a violation of New York General Business Law 3 49 and three 50.

[00:25:47] And that basically deals with the false and misleading statements and advertising concerning the fake issue of Vogue Con NAS is seeking 4 million in damage. Or triple the rapper's profits from their album, whichever is higher, I would imagine the profits from the album will be higher. But in addition to damages, Con Nass is also seeking a preliminary injunction, which you've heard me talk about before.

[00:26:13] Basically asks the court to require a party to stop doing something. They also requested a temporary restraining order to stop the rappers from continuing to publicize the fake magazine cover. And they're also asking for damages over the trademark infringement. So here are my thoughts. Unless Drake and 21 Savage profited from selling the magazines, it doesn't seem like Con Conde really lost anything.

[00:26:39] Right? Like there was no real detriment to them. So maybe if they were handing them out to people, or if they were putting 'em up as posters, okay, fine. But if they weren't selling, , You know, it's a little bit different territory. If anything, you know, let's say Drake and 21 Savage weren't making a profit from it, than, if anything, this was just publicity for Vogue.

[00:27:00] And you know what they say? Any publicity is good publicity. Or is it all publicity is good publicity either way. You get what I'm saying? So obviously, you know, we'll see how the judge rules on this. We'll see where this case goes. It'll be interesting because the album is already out. So even if they stop using the Vogue covers, , the damage has kind of already been done.

[00:27:20] You know, so even if a judge does grant the preliminary injunction or the temporary restraining order, it's, it's already out there. So that's the deal with that. Um, and those are the five stories for the day. Now, obviously with the election results, things are gonna happen, things are gonna change. We're gonna see more.

[00:27:39] Keep in mind though, that although my numbers are as of Friday, a. Really nothing is gonna change because we're already seeing Republicans are gonna gain the majority in the house. Um, that's not gonna be surprising when it happens. And then as far as the Senate, you know, if over the course of the next few days, The Republican party wins either Arizona or Nevada.

[00:28:03] Then we're not gonna know who controls the Senate until December anyway, right until that runoff election in Georgia. So I figured, you know, why not talk about the elections now? It's not like anything is really so up in the air that it can't be talked about, but that's what we have as of now. As always, please leave me a review on whichever platform you listen.

[00:28:23] If you enjoyed this episode. Your guys' reviews really, really help me more than you know. If you've already left a review, obviously don't worry about it. But if you haven't, I'd really appreciate if you could take the time to do that. And then I also did wanna let you guys know little, um, look into the other side of me.

[00:28:39] So I know a lot of you guys obviously follow me on TikTok and Instagram and you know, listen to my podcast because of my unbiased news. But if you're ever interested in getting to know me on a personal level, I did come out with a podcast with my sister. It's called Same But Different. It's available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

[00:28:56] And it's basically us just, you know, talking about various things, telling stories, giving life advice, talking about being sisters, how we're the same, how we're different, all that fun stuff. And it's more of a fun. Show of personality rather than me just kind of reporting on the news, which I also love doing, but it's really nice for me to kind of have the balance of both.

[00:29:15] So if you're ever interested in getting to know me a little bit more, that's always there for you as well. And with that, I'm checking out. I will see you next Monday. I hope you have a great week. And until then, take care.