1. Kevin McCarthy Wins Speaker of the House Bid (1:17)
2. Probable Cause Affidavit Unsealed in Idaho Murders Case (13:16)
3. West Virginia Judge Upholds Ban on Transgender Athletes Competing in Female School Sports (29:10)
4. South Carolina Supreme Court Blocks 6-Week Abortion Ban (32:21)
All sources can be found here: www.jordanismylawyer.com
Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok @jordanismylawyer
1. Kevin McCarthy Wins Speaker of the House Bid (1:17)
2. Probable Cause Affidavit Unsealed in Idaho Murders Case (13:16)
3. West Virginia Judge Upholds Ban on Transgender Athletes Competing in Female School Sports (29:10)
4. South Carolina Supreme Court Blocks 6-Week Abortion Ban (32:21)
All sources can be found here: www.jordanismylawyer.com
Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok @jordanismylawyer
[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, Diehl. Oh, and one last thing.
[00:00:20] I'm not actually your lawyer.
[00:00:25] Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. I hope your 2023 is off to a fantastic start. I have four news stories for you today. The first, we're gonna start, of course, with the fact that Kevin McCarthy one his bid for Speaker of the House.
[00:00:44] We're also going to talk about the probable cause affidavit in the Idaho murder case. And then we're gonna get into two state cases, one being that Virginia upheld a transgender ban on sports, and the other that South Carolina's Supreme Court just struck down a six week abortion ban. So those are the stories for today.
[00:01:05] Without further ado, let's get right into it.
[00:01:18] As of Friday night, Kevin McCarthy won the bid for Speaker of the House, but it definitely wasn't easy. In fact, it required a historic 15 rounds of voting. Now that's actually not the all time high, so the last time it was above nine rounds was back in the 18 hundreds, and we're gonna go over that a little bit at the end.
[00:01:38] I have kind of like a fun facts section for you. , but let's talk about what the issues were, why he found himself in this predicament. Because typically the party that you know has the majority in the house has no problem electing their candidate to the speaker position. Right? So McCarthy was actually previously the minority leader in the house.
[00:02:00] He was elected to that position in 2019, and he held that position for four years. Because of that, he was. Expected to win the speaker bid without really any question. But when the red wave didn't happen like everyone thought it would during midterms, McCarthy's, chances of winning actually significantly decreased.
[00:02:18] And it's not that he wasn't going to win, but it was just going to be a lot harder because the way the house is broken down is that it has 435 total members. Currently the split is 222 Republicans to 213 Democrats. So what that meant is that in order for McCarthy to get the majority to win that speaker position, he couldn't lose more than four Republican votes because the majority of 435 total members.
[00:02:45] Is 218, given the fact that no Democrats were gonna vote for him, he needed the Republicans. Well, there's 220 0 Republicans, so if you take four of those away, you're at 218, which is why everyone kept saying he can't really lose more than four. . Well, there was one problem, so originally he had 20 detractors, which meant that 20 Republicans weren't giving him the vote.
[00:03:10] Some of these included Matt Gates, he's a a Republican representative from Florida, and he said it was too risky to vote for McCarthy because McCarthy and his eyes underperformed in 2022, so he didn't necessarily want him taking that speaker position. Another oppositionist was Andy Biggs, who actually also ran for speaker.
[00:03:30] but lost to McCarthy. And another one was Ralph Norman. So there definitely were Republican representatives who were against McCarthy becoming speaker. And because of that, they weren't voting for him and he wasn't getting that majority that he needed. So those same Republicans that voiced opposition, ha, kind of how they leveraged their opposition, I guess, is that they said they'd be willing to vote for McCarthy as long as he made concessions, which he did end up doing.
[00:03:57] And we'll get into those concessions later. But first let's kind of go through how the vote works, and then we'll go into how McCarthy was brought over that majority threshold. And then we'll talk about the concessions and we'll finish up with some kind of fun facts. So again, to get the majority, you either have to have 218 votes, right?
[00:04:16] Because that's the majority of total representatives. Or you have to have the majority of votes of those present and voting. So it's very possible that not all representatives will be present and voting at one time. So just as kind of like a hypothetical example, let's say there's only a hundred representatives present, likely not gonna happen.
[00:04:34] We're just doing it for the ease of the hypothetical. So there's a hundred representatives present and voting. You could win with 51 votes, even though that's nowhere near that full 218 majority, but because it's the majority of the representatives present and voting, that would still be sufficient. But then it kind of gets tricky so party members don't have to vote for their party candidate.
[00:04:57] What do I mean by that? People in the house can literally vote for anyone, even if the person they're voting for isn't serving in the house. So, as an example, gates, the representative in Florida, voted for former President Trump when the chamber held its seventh vote. Now, obviously former President Trump has no elected office position.
[00:05:18] He's not, definitely not in the house. So, For him to vote for Donald Trump is just kind of a show of like, I'm willing to do anything but vote for McCarthy kind of thing. So that's kind of a little caveat. Party members don't have to vote for their party candidate and they don't have to vote for someone who's even in the house.
[00:05:34] So what brought McCarthy over this majority threshold? Well, originally, and as I said before, McCarthy had 20 detractors, which meant that there were 20 people. Who did not wanna vote for him eventually after 11 rounds of voting, 14 of those 20 flipped. Now keep in mind that the reason these people are gonna flip is because McCarthy's gonna make concessions.
[00:05:58] So by the end of it, you know, he has like X amount of concessions, but they come at each round. Once he realizes he's kind of stuck, he makes more concessions, right? So in the 14th round, Lauren bro, who's a Republican representative in Colorado and Matt Gates, that Florida representative. Voted present, and that was like the first time they had voted present.
[00:06:18] So that brought the threshold down, but it still wasn't enough. So basically at this point, McCarthy's trying to get these people to vote present because the more people that vote present the greater chances he has of getting elected. So once those two voted present in the 14th round, the total number of voting members became 432 to win.
[00:06:39] He needed 217 votes because that's one more than half. But the problem is McCarthy only had 216 votes, so he was short by one. So then they were actually going to call it after the 14th round, but they ended up doing a late night 15th round and going into that 15th round, there were three representatives that voted present that hadn't previously.
[00:07:02] So he, McCarthy essentially, you can say, gained three more votes and that was Andy Biggs, who's a Republican representative out of Arizona. Eli Crane, who's a Republican representative, also from Arizona, and then Bob Good, who's a Republican in Virginia. That lowered the threshold enough, um, to where heat, to where McCarthy was able to achieve the majority.
[00:07:23] So by the end of it, McCarthy had conceded to quite a few things and not everyone was happy about these concessions. Obviously, you can never make anyone happy these days, or sorry, I should say, you should nev you can never make everyone happy. these days. So one of the concessions that was made is that McCarthy agreed to vote separately on the 12 different appropriations bills rather than allow them to be bundled together in an end of year spending bill.
[00:07:50] So this request was actually made by the far right representatives who were not happy with this spending bill that was just passed a month ago, that 1.7 trillion spending bill, which included tons and tons of things. So they. These 12 different appropriations bills voted on separately and not included in that end of year spending.
[00:08:09] Bill, if you're interested by the way, in hearing about the spending bill that just passed last month, go ahead and listen to my most recent episode, and I cover that. In that episode. Another concession he made was that he agreed to cap discretionary spending at the levels. They were at the beginning of the Biden administration for both.
[00:08:26] Defense and domestic spending, and this came kind of as a part of a commitment to balance the federal budget within 10 years. So that was another concession. A third concession was that he agreed to create a subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. And this subcommittee would essentially be tasked with probing the federal government's information collection on private individuals and ongoing criminal investigations.
[00:08:53] So this would likely include, you know, the DOJs probe into the document sees from Mar-a-Lago. So basically what the subcommittee would do is keep an eye on the federal government and how they're collecting their information in their investigations. So another thing that he made a concession on was he agreed to lower the number of G O P conference members needed to start the process of removing the speaker.
[00:09:16] This is, this process is also known as a motion to vacate. And before the number of conference members you needed to start the process was five and now it's one. So this is one of McCarthy's biggest concessions that he made. And this could obviously have some negative repercussions down the road just.
[00:09:34] If it only takes one representative to initiate the process, you could see it happening quite frequently if just one representative isn't happy with certain things that McCarthy's doing, uh, and you know, that could cause delays, et cetera. So, We'll see how that plays out down the road, but that was one of his biggest concessions that he had to make.
[00:09:54] He also promised to give house members 72 hours to review bills before they make it to the house floor. And then a few of the other promises he made was to require a vote to raise the federal debt limit to hold votes on congressional term limits. and also hold votes on a border security plan. So as I said in the beginning, not everyone was happy with these concessions.
[00:10:18] One of the critics was, uh, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, and he said in a statement that McCarthy surrendered two demands of a fringe element of the Republican party paving the way for a MAGA Republican controlled house to cause a government shutdown or a government default with devastating consequences to our country.
[00:10:39] Of course, as with anything, you have people that are critical of these con concessions. You have people that are happy with the concessions. That is just how the world works these days. Now that McCarthy has been elected, the house can resume its normal order of business. It can get back to work because if the house doesn't have a speaker, nothing is happening.
[00:11:00] And also there's. Technically, there are no rules in the house when there's no speaker because the speaker sets the rules. So this is actually one of the fun facts I was gonna tell you guys. Because the house technically doesn't have rules when there's no speaker representative. Nancy Mace actually brought her dog Libby to the house vote on Thursday, which obviously normally wouldn't be allowed.
[00:11:22] You don't see representatives bringing their pets to these votes, but because it was kind of chaos and there were no votes and there was no speaker to control things, She was able to do that. And then the second fun fact I have for you is that the last time the house voted on multiple ballots for a speaker was 1923.
[00:11:41] That's almost a hundred years ago. And then it only took nine ballots. In this election, it took 15. The only other time the speaker boat has gone above nine ballots. Obviously this election that just happened, and then in 1855, which was the longest vote in history, it lasted over two months and there were 133.
[00:12:03] Rounds of voting. So I don't know. In my opinion, I think that this really just speaks to the division that we see in our nation and how it's really only getting worse. I this, I don't know, I think it kind of foreshadows what the next couple years are gonna look like. And I know some analysts are saying the same thing.
[00:12:21] I always tell you guys, it just seems like. Division is not getting any better and this kind of signals that it's just so, it's just so, there's so much controversy all the time now and you know when you see something like this and you see a historical vote, something that breaks records because people can't just come to an agreement.
[00:12:44] I don't know. It, to me it speaks volumes that our society just keeps getting more and more divided. But I wanna know what your thoughts are. What do you think about this? What do you think this signals? I mean, do you think there's any underlying messages here? Maybe you don't, but if you do, I'd love to hear what you think about it.
[00:13:02] As always, I have that comment section on my website. So if you go to Jordan is my lawyer.com. You can certainly find the. Down at the bottom of this episode's description page. So definitely take part in that if you have any thoughts, because as always, I would love to hear them. Now that takes us to the probable cause affidavit that was just unsealed in the Idaho murder case.
[00:13:22] So in the last episode, I reported that the Idaho murder suspect Brian Coberg had been arrested in Pennsylvania. I talked about how he could either waive his extradition because his arrest warrant was out of Idaho, right? And. He was taken into custody in Pennsylvania, so he had to be extradited to Idaho and he could either have waived his extradition, which is what he ended up doing, or there would've been a whole extradition process that would've taken time.
[00:13:49] So because he waived his extradition, he was returned to Idaho and the probable cause affidavit was unsealed. The probable cause affidavit for those who may not be familiar is basically the set of. On which law enforcement can obtain an arrest warrant. So they lay out all these reasons of why they believe this person is responsible for the crime, and they present it to a judge.
[00:14:15] And that judge is who ultimately signs off on the warrant. So in reading this probable cause affidavit, you basically get. , the full idea of what law enforcement knew, the facts that they had found and had shed light on, and why they thought this was the man. So this is linked on my website, per usual. Just go to this episode's description page and scroll down.
[00:14:39] You'll see all the sources, and this is one of them. It's available in a pdf, uh, link, so you will see it. Let's run through it and kind of go over what it tells us. So it says on November 13th, 2022 at approximately 4:00 PM. Moscow Police Department, sh. Sergeant Blake and I responded to one 12 King Road, Moscow, Idaho.
[00:15:00] Here AF here and after referred to as the King Road residence to assist with scene security and processing of a crime scene associated with four homicides. Upon our arrival, the Idaho State Police forensic team was on scene and was preparing to process the scene. Officer Smith, one of the initial responding officers to the incident advised me he would walk me through the scene and the person writing this, by the way, his name is Brett Payne.
[00:15:24] He is employed by the Moscow Police Department. So it says, officer Smith and I entered the King Road residence through the bottom floor on the north side of the building. So keep in mind, this house was a three-story house. Officer Smith and I then walked upstairs to the second floor. Officer Smith directed me down the hallway to the west bedroom on the second floor, which I later learned through Z's driver's license and other personal belongings.
[00:15:47] Found in the room was zanna car noodles. At here and after car noodles room. Just before this room, there was a bathroom door on the south wall of the hallway. . As I approached the room, I could see a body later identified as car nodal laying on the floor. Carotal was deceased with wounds, which appeared to have been caused by an edged weapon.
[00:16:05] Also in the room was a male, later identified as Ethan Chapin here and after Chapin. Chapin was also deceased with wounds later determined to be caused by sharp force injuries. So this was the couple, right? So if you've heard this story, there were two girls. and then, uh, a boyfriend and girlfriend. The girlfriend was one of the roommates and her boyfriend happened to be staying with her that night.
[00:16:27] So the affidavit then goes on to say, I then followed Officer Smith upstairs to the third floor of the residence. The third floor consisted of two bedrooms and one bathroom. The bedroom on the west side of the floor was later determined to be Kaylee. Go Cals. Here in Alfred. Go Cal's room. I later learned there was a dog in the room when Moscow police officers initially responded.
[00:16:48] Officer Smith then pointed out a small bathroom on the east side of the third floor. This bathroom shared a wall with Madison Mo here and after Morgan's bedroom, which was situated on the southeast corner of the third floor. So on the second floor, you have the couple. And then on the third floor, you have two female roommates who had their own rooms on that floor, but they were sleeping in the same room on that night as girls will sometimes do.
[00:17:11] So the affidavit says, as I entered this bedroom, I could see two females in the single bed in the room. Both gone clouds and Logan were deceased with visible stab wounds. I also later noticed what appeared to be a tan leather knife sheath. laying on the bed next to Mo's right side. The Idaho State lab later located a single source of male DNA left on the button snap of the knife sheath.
[00:17:33] And that is ultimately his biggest mistake, obviously. So then the affidavit kind of gets into the events that took place that night. And rather than read you the whole thing verbatim, I'm just gonna sum it up for you. Basically, the one roommate and her boyfriend who were ultimately killed were at a fraternity house on campus from about 9:00 PM to 1 45 in the morning.
[00:17:56] They got home around 1 45 and they went to the room and. , that was it. The two girls that were killed in the same bed were out that night at a local bar. They were at the bar from about 10:00 PM until 1:30 AM and then after at like one 30, they went to a local food vendor, like called the Grub Truck. It's like a food truck essentially.
[00:18:17] And it's downtown Moscow and this Grub truck live stream. Their food truck and like the activity around the food truck on a streaming platform called Twitch. So that's the video that was kind of going viral and circulating. If you saw it, it was like the two of the, these two girls, they were at the food truck just kind of talking out, hanging out.
[00:18:36] So then they left the food truck and they went. Uh, they took an Uber home at about 1:56 AM so according to the two roommates that survived, they said that everyone that lived in that house was home by 2:00 AM and everyone was asleep, or at least in their rooms by 4:00 AM Now, this is with the exception of.
[00:18:58] Al who received a DoorDash order at the house at about 4:00 AM and the reason that law enforcement knew that is because the DoorDash delivery driver actually reported that information. So one of the surviving roommates stated that she originally went to sleep in her bedroom on the southeast side of the second floor, and she was woken up at about 4:00 AM by what she stated.
[00:19:18] Sounded like enclave. Playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms. A short time later she says she heard who she thought was gong, KCLA, say something to the effect of, there's someone here. A review of the records obtained from a forensic download of Caro's phone showed this could have been car nodal, as her cell phone data indicated she was likely awake in using the TikTok app at approximately 4:12 AM So basically what's happening here is one of the surviving roommates thought that she heard Gong Kcla, who was on the third floor say something to the effect of, there's someone here.
[00:19:52] But records show that it actually could have been Caral who was on the second floor because Coronado was awake, cuz her phone records shows she was on TikTok at about 4:12 AM So then the surviving roommate says she looked out of her bedroom, she opened her door, looked out into the hallway, didn't see anything, and then she went back in her room and it says she opened her door a second time when she.
[00:20:15] What she thought was crying coming from colonel's room. She then said she heard a male voice say something to the effect of, it's okay, I'm going to help you. And obviously it's unclear at this point whether that male voice was. Coberg or her boyfriend, cuz remember Al is in bed with her boyfriend. But then at approximately 4:17 AM a security camera located at 12 King Road, which was the residence immediately to the northwest of 1 22 King Road, which is where the murders happened.
[00:20:48] Picked up distorted audio. Sounded like voices or a whimper, followed by a loud thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times. Starting at 4:17 AM The security camera that picked this up was less than 50 feet from the west wall of Caro's bedroom, so it's very close. And the affidavit goes on to say that dm, one of the surviving roommates, stated that she opened her door.
[00:21:12] Third time after she heard crying. Now this is where it gets really, really creepy. So she opens her door cuz she, she thinks, she hears her roommate crying and she sees someone in black clothes and a mask that's covering the person's mouth and knows walking towards her. I literally have the chills talking about this.
[00:21:32] She described the figure as five 10 or taller male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. The male then walks past her as she stood in a quote frozen shock phase, and walked towards the backs sliding glass door and left. The roommate locked herself in her room after seeing him, and this is when investigators believe that Coberg left the scene.
[00:22:00] Now the combination of one of the surviving roommate's statements to law enforcement and the review of records and video footage. Leads investigator to believe that the homicides occurred between 4:00 AM and 4:25 AM It is unclear why this man saw this roommate standing there and didn't do anything. I mean, typically when you hear about these things like killers don't want there to be any witnesses, you know, so it's very.
[00:22:29] Strange to me During the processing of the crime scene, investi investigators did find a shoe print, and this was located during the second processing of the crime scene. And basically it was like a diamond shaped pattern similar to the pattern of a van's type shoe sole, and it was just outside the door of dms bedroom, which was consistent with dms statement regarding the suspect's path of travel.
[00:22:53] Right, because she said he walked right past her. So you have that information from one of the roommates, and then there's camera footage that shows a white sedan that's traveling, you know, in and out of the area. And it basically says that it was traveling, you know, in the area at approximately 3:26 AM And it details, you know, the direction that this car is heading at what times, and yada, yada yada.
[00:23:19] A review of the footage from multiple videos obtained from the King Road neighborhood. Multiple sightings of the vehicle starting at 3:29 AM and ending at 4:20 AM These sightings show that the vehicle makes initial, makes an initial three passes by the house and then leave via Walta drive. And it says that the vehicle can be seen entering the area a fourth time at approximately 4:04 AM It's then seen departing the area of the King Road residence at approximately 4:20 AM at a high rate of speed.
[00:23:50] It says, after reviewing the numerous observations of the suspect vehicle, the forensic examiner initially believed the suspect vehicle was a 2011 to two 2013 Hyundai Elantra. Upon further review it, he indicated it could also be a 2011 to 2016 Hyundai Elantra. So based on that knowledge, the investigators were then given access to video footage on Washington State University's campus in Pullman, Washington.
[00:24:15] Now if you've been following the story, you know that the suspect goes to Washington State University, and a review of that video indicated that at about 2:44 AM on November 13th, a white sedan, which was consistent with the description of the white Elantra, was observed on WS U surveillance cameras. And then it kind of just gets into all of the different places that this Hyundai Elantra traveled.
[00:24:39] And then it gets into when Brian Koberg was ultimately associated with the Hyundai Elantra. So it says on November 25th, 2022, M P D asked area law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for a white Hyundai Elantra in the area. On November 29th, 2022, at approximately 12:28 AM Washington State University police officer queried White Elantras registered at W S U as a result of the query.
[00:25:03] He located a 2015 white Elantra with a Pennsylvania license plate. This vehicle was registered to Brian Coberg. Residing at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they eventually get the license, the license information. They see a picture of him, they see that he's a white male with a height of six feet, weighs 185 pounds.
[00:25:22] They also see in his photograph that he has bushy eyebrows. So the physical description is consistent. With the description that the roommate gave, so then it gets into cell phone records and how they tracked those. The records actually show that Coberg had been around the area, like in where the King Road residence was for months leading up to the murders.
[00:25:43] So his cell phone pinged in that area multiple times. Uh, I mean, the evidence is pretty damning. And then at the very end of the affidavit, it says, on December 27th, 2022, Pennsylvania agents recovered the trash from the Coberg family residence. The evidence was sent to the Idaho State Lab for testing, and on December 28th, 2022, The Idaho State Lab reported that a DNA profile obtained from the trash and the DNA profile obtained from the knife sheath identified a male as not being excluded As the biological father of the suspect profile, at least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect's biological father.
[00:26:26] So this doesn't mean that. That Co Berger's father killed the roommates. Obviously what this means is they took the DNA n a from the trash. Obviously this is where co Berger's parents live. This is at his parents' house, so assuming his dad's d n A matches his, this is just more evidence that. You know, the, the DNA on the knife sheath is Brian Koberg, if that makes sense.
[00:26:50] So, because of all of those facts, the arrest warrant was granted. The, I mean, the evidence is there, right? It's, you can't deny it since the unsealing of the affidavit, the. Father of Kaylee Golas told ABC News that they don't know Brian Koberg, but they are starting to see connections between Kaylee and Koberg.
[00:27:12] And they said they're not ready to discuss the connections, but they're, they're quote, happy, relieved, and thankful. So we don't know exactly what those connections are, but it seems like there is some sort of connection between the two, and I'm sure that'll come out eventually. But right now, as of right now, there's no motive.
[00:27:28] There's no murder weapon, and there's no information, real information as to whether Coberg knew any of the victims, obviously, aside from what her father has said and, and what their lawyers have said, but there's no details. Now, what I wanna know and, and what stood out to me is why didn't this roommate call 9 1 1 when she saw, I mean, not that that would've helped anything, probably.
[00:27:54] I'm just putting myself in that position. If that were me and I saw a a, a man in my house, yeah, I'd be in shock, but I feel like my immediate instinct is to call 9 1 1. Now, I did hear that they always had people in and out of the house, so I don't know, maybe sh she thought it was someone she knew, but she also said she was just frozen in shock.
[00:28:15] So I, I don't know. It, it just, I can't figure it out. So I'd be curious to hear what you guys think about it. And I also, why didn't. Kill her. I mean, obviously I'm so thankful he didn't, but typically, like I said before, killers don't want witnesses to their crime, right? So he saw her, I'm assuming they made eye contact or something.
[00:28:36] Why'd he just go? I don't know. So if you have any thoughts on this or you've heard anything else, definitely comment on my website. This is a very awful, awful story, but the parents seem to be relieved that Elise, a suspect was found.
[00:29:03] So these last two stories I have for you are relatively short, and again, they are state stories. So the first one is that on Thursday, a federal district court judge in Virginia upheld Virginia's ban on transgender athletes competing in female school sports. So obviously this discussion has been a hotly contested one in recent years.
[00:29:22] And this stems from a 2021 lawsuit that was filed by the A C L U and it's West Virginia chapter On behalf of an 11 year old transgender girl who wanted to join her middle school cross-country team. The name defendants in the case were the State of West Virginia School, uh, board of Education. The Harrison County Board of Education and the superintendents of those boards.
[00:29:43] So the judge's role in this case was basically to determine whether the legislature's definition of the terms girl and woman is constitutionally permissible under the Save Women's Sports bill. So what happened was West Virginia enacted this bill called the Save Women's Sports Bill, and it prohibits transgender athletes from competing in female school sports.
[00:30:05] And in the bill it defines what a. Is and what a woman is, which is interesting because there's, that's been kind of a question of what is a woman? How do you define a woman? And I know there's a documentary out that kind of talks about that, but it is an interesting question. How do you define a woman and what the, what this particular bill says?
[00:30:26] Obviously, Everyone has a different definition, but what this particular bill says is that it, it means anyone assigned the female gender at birth. In the decision by the judge, he stated quote, I recognize that being transgender is natural and is not a choice, but one's sex is also natural and it dictates physical characteristics.
[00:30:48] That are relevant to athletics. The legislature's definition of girl as being based on biological sex is substantially related to the important government interest of providing equal athletic opportunities for females. The judge also rejected the claim that the bill violated Title ix. Title IX governs gender equality.
[00:31:08] So that was one of the ACL's points is that this bill violated Title ix. It's likely the A C L U will appeal this to the state Supreme Court. Obviously only time will tell. When I was looking into this case, it just said that they were kind of discussing what their lawyers to see what the next step was.
[00:31:24] Now, just as a kind of like side note before we move on to the next story in that, in that judge's ruling where I read you a brief section of it and he says, The legislature's definition of a girl as being based on biological sex is substantially related to the important government interest of providing equal athletic opportunities for females.
[00:31:43] That language actually stems from. The analysis that is applied by courts when equal protection issues are in front of it. So in order to pass constitutional muster constitutional challenge, a judge has to find that the law is quote, substantially related to an important government interest. And there's varying levels of these standards.
[00:32:08] But that was the standard that was applied in that case. So I just kind of wanted to clarify that's why he used that language sometimes language. Or like language in these opinions can be a little bit like, why did they say it like that? So I just wanted to give you some context so that case takes us to another state decision that is out of South Carolina.
[00:32:26] Also on Thursday South Carolina's Supreme Court struck down the state's six week abortion ban, stating that it violates the state constitution. So this case stems from a 2021 piece of legislation called the Heartbeat Act. and what the act did was it banned abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected.
[00:32:47] And we've seen this in other states as well, like Georgia, and it's not that. It's at six weeks. Six weeks is just when a heartbeat typically is detected. So that's why they'll call it like a six week abortion ban, even though the ACT doesn't explicitly say six weeks. It's just when the heartbeat is detected, which typically happens around six weeks.
[00:33:07] Now, this bill, the Heartbeat Act in South Carolina did include exceptions for rape, incest, and if you know the mother's life is in danger. Um, but it, it was actually previously suspended by federal courts. So this is pre Roe versus Wade being unreturned. It was suspended by federal courts as being unconstitutional because obviously we know, you know, prior to Roe versus Wade being overturned, there was that.
[00:33:31] It wasn't set in stone, but it was kind of like any ban before 22, 23, 24 weeks was unconstitutional. And then once Roe versus Wade was overturned, this South Carolina ban immediately took effect and then it ended up getting blocked again in August. This time it was a temporary block while the state's Supreme Court heard the case.
[00:33:51] So it was, it was very short in duration. Right. We had Roe versus Wade be over. It was overturned in June. So June, July, and then part of August is when this law was in effect and abortions couldn't happen after a heartbeat was detected. But then in August it was blocked temporarily, which meant, Hey, look, while the State Supreme Court is hearing this case, abortions can happen as they were happening before.
[00:34:17] So now that the State Supreme Court heard the case and they made their decision and they struck down this ban, now this ban won't take effect. Unless it gets appealed, of course, but it, the only way it can get appealed is to the United States Supreme Court and it's up to them whether or not they wanna hear it.
[00:34:31] So the basis of the suit, which was brought by Planned Parenthood, uh, a woman's clinic and two practitioners, was that the six week ban violated a patient's constitutional right to privacy. And we heard a lot, like, we've talked a lot about the right to privacy in regards to abortion because there's a lot of controversy surrounding what is the right to privacy.
[00:34:51] Protect the right to privacy actually isn't even explicitly written in the Constitution. So there's just a lot of arguments from both sides. This decision was very close. This was a three to two decision and in ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, that being the Women's clinic, planned Parenthood and the two practitioners, the Justice wrote in the majority opinion in part quote.
[00:35:13] The decision to terminate a pregnancy rests upon the utmost personal and private considerations imaginable and implicates a woman's right to privacy. While this right is not absolute and must be balanced against the state's interest in protecting unborn life, this act, which severely limits, and in many instances completely forecloses, abortion is an unreasonable restriction upon a woman's right to privacy and quotes.
[00:35:38] Basically what she's saying is, if you balance the right to privacy, A k a abortion in this case against the state's interest in protecting unborn life. This is, this far outweighs, you know, the state's interest in protecting unborn life. This is a quote, unreasonable restriction upon a woman's right to privacy.
[00:35:57] Now, the governor in South Carolina, who is a Republican governor, he actually was the one who signed this bill into. He was not too happy with this ruling and he tweeted after the fact our state Supreme Court has found a right in our Constitution, which was never intended by the people of South Carolina.
[00:36:13] With this opinion, the court has clearly exceeded its authority. The people have spoken through their elected representatives multiple times on this issue, end quote, and he added that. He looks forward to working with the General Assembly to correct this error, so this likely isn't done. Again, time will tell.
[00:36:31] Like I said, this could even make its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, where it would then be up to them to determine the constitutionality of a six week ban if they decided to hear the case, which. I honestly don't know. I don't think that they would wanna hear the case, but they might. I don't know it, it really just depends.
[00:36:51] I mean, the whole abortion issue was such a big deal when it happened over the summer that I would imagine the Supreme Court wants to steer clear of it, but we'll see. So that's what's going on. The reason I wanted to cover those two state cases, by the way, is because sometimes when we look at these state decisions and we, and we look at these things that are happening in respective.
[00:37:12] It can kind of show us rationale and reasoning for how things will happen on a national basis. So obviously it depends on, you know, who's in the Supreme Court, what the, the makeup of the Supreme Court, all of that stuff. But if either of these issues, like a ban on transgender, you know, athletes competing in sports, or a six week abortion ban, if either of those issues made its way to the Supreme Court, then.
[00:37:40] Reading up on how these state level judges. Ruled can kind of give us some perspective into the different arguments for those issues on a national level. So that's why I like to go over state cases. While they may not apply to all of us, I mean, I'm sure some of my listeners are in South Carolina or West Virginia, but again, they may not apply to all of us.
[00:37:59] But they very well could down the road on a national level. And with that, that concludes our episode. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, please remember to leave me a review on whichever platform you listen, apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, whatever it may be. It really takes two seconds to click, you know, five stars, or if you wanna take the time to write me a review.
[00:38:19] I love hearing what you guys have to say. I don't think Spotify lets you write reviews, but Apple Podcast certainly does. So with that, I will talk to you guys on Monday. I hope you have a great week. I will talk to you soon.