'Do You Think Voter ID Requirements Are Illegal': Josh Hawley Presses Biden Nominee On Voting Law

thank you mr chairman of yield thank you ranking member langford senator hawley you are recognized for your questions thank you very much mr chairman and uh thanks to the uh nominees for being here congratulations on your respective nominations um ms alicon if i could start with you i want to pick up where senator langford left off just a moment ago and ask you about these lockdown orders that the district of columbia held were unlawful um just to follow up on something did you have any role in the policy of these lockdown orders in terms of creating the lockdown orders thank you senator no i did not the mayor's office of legal counsel passed those orders okay and did you have any role in the litigation i see that you weren't formally listed on the briefs but i just want to be sure were you involved in the litigation anyway can you pull your microphone a little closer to you i think having trouble hearing you absolutely senator um yes as with all high profile litigation i was aware of it and i was involved and as solicitor general i make a decision of whether or not to take affirmative appeals from adverse decisions and i think it is a matter of public record and not betraying any client confidences to say that the district did not appeal the preliminary injunctions in the capitol hill baptist case and the companion archdiocese case do you agree with the federal district court's conclusion in that case that the restrictions violated the free exercise of religion in light of ethical duties to my clients i don't think i can comment on whether the district court's opinion in my view was correct or not i can say as a matter of public record the district of columbia did not appeal those preliminary injunctions the supreme court the u.s supreme court similarly struck down restrictive lockdown measures by new york and california in in separate cases let me ask you this what do you understand to be the current framework doctrinally for evaluating claims of religious discrimination sure so i senator i think it depends if we're in the riffra context then a neutral law that substantially burdens religion will be subject to script scrutiny and has to satisfy a compelling government interest and be narrowly tailored to that effect outside of the riffra context in the cases like tandon and others that the supreme court was considering they were applying the test set forth in lakumi which is that even a facially neutral law can have a burden on religion and if so then strict scrutiny is triggered i think what we learned from from tandon and the other cases which were the first time the court was able to and you know address the question of how covet 19 regulations interacted with religious liberty was that if any secular activity is treated more fairly than a religious activity that that raises the bar and strict scrutiny applies so let me come back to the to the district of columbia case given what the district court found there and it's holding and given what the united states supreme court has found in the uh brooklyn diocese case and the south bay united pentecostal case and others uh what's your let me put you this way i mean are do you do you regard this issue now as settled these cases as controlling are you prepared to follow this as as precedent established case law thank you senator with the caveat that in the district that rifra applies i think yes the standard has been said which ought to heighten the protections which is yes has heightened protections but i fully understand that the lakumi test which has been reaffirmed time and again from fulton and then was applied in the context of program 19 in tandem in other cases absolutely is the framework it's been the framework and it's one that i would faithfully apply if i were presented with such a question if i were fortunate enough to be confirmed well i appreciate that answer i i i've been in the position or akin to the position that you hold now i was the attorney general of my state so i understand that sometimes and similarly in my state um i was independently elected and so the governor and other officers of the state were my clients and and uh you know you don't pass the laws you you defend the laws that's your job and you don't you don't always get to in fact you never get to choose what the laws are you just you defend them so i understand the position that you were in uh as it regards to your client and so fair enough i do want to say for the record uh in light of the capitol hill case the capital baptist case and the district court's opinion there i think that what the district attempted to do was very wrong it was contrary to law i think that it was unjust and the district court's opinion which i've read a number of times now is very unequivocal it's very very strong language and the idea that you would single out people of faith and say that they can't even meet outdoors if they're masked and they limit their gatherings but yet other secular non-religious groups and entities can do that that's hugely problematic so um it sounds to me like you appreciate that because you recognize the case law that is that is controlling on this now as we've as we've now discussed and i think established the us supreme court has weighed in on this but i just i can't let this issue pass without noting that and saying again how deeply deeply troublesome i find it and uh again i don't blame you for for your office for defending the law that's that's you know you're supposed to do that um i'm glad you didn't take an appeal i think that was the right decision and um you know hopefully that uh speaks well about your evaluation of the case let me ask you about uh something different you were counsel of record i believe for an amicus brief on behalf of the district of columbia and 17 states in the brnovich case you remember this case it was on behalf of or in support of the dnc their position of the brnovich case yes so that caught my attention because usually i mean that case was about arizona's interest as a state and regulating its own elections and and typically states support other states d.c is not a state but the dc as a as an entity along with um as its own independent entity often it stands with other states in supporting federalism concerns you didn't do that here i just am curious as to why you felt it was important to lead this effort on behalf of the dnc and the dnc's position which the supreme court rejected and so the bernabeu the court did not agree with your position in the brnovich case but just walk me through why you felt it was important to weigh in here against federalism um and in favor of uniform federal standards that the supreme court ultimately rejected thank you senator the district wanted to provide the experience of states to show that while elections are a matter of state concern section two of the voting rights act does not impose a substantial burden on them so we were writing a brief from experience as many states do to provide context to the supreme court of how a particular law plays out on the ground the factors that we focused on in the supreme court where that it is a fact-specific context-specific evidence-specific totality of the circumstances inquiry and ultimately the supreme court did not rule in favor of the party we were supporting but they endorsed in the majority opinion the totality of the circumstances test so i see the amicus brief we filed as being consistent with the ultimate holding of the case just my time has just about expired but can i just say do you think voter id requirements are illegal i have not had occasion to consider that question in my 15 years of appellate practice you don't have any opinion on it at all i mean it's been much litigated it was at issue in part in the brnovich case no senator i don't do you think it's unreasonable for states and counties to require a form of voter id uh in order to vote senator i would not want to give the impression that i had prejudged any issue where i fortunate enough to be confirmed and i can assure you that my personal beliefs have never come into play when i'm considering the advocacy positions of my client or if i were to consider any law that were to come before me well if that's the case shouldn't the answer be really easy shouldn't the answer be that they're absolutely not illegal given the crawford case senator the answer would be that if presented was such a case i would review the law including crawford and i would apply it faithfully so you you would you recognize crawford as good law and controlling yes i do okay um i might have some more questions for you on that i'm sorry uh mr howard it miss noddy that i did not get to you you probably aren't sorry but congratulations also on on your nominations i'll have some questions for you for the record uh thank you mr chairman thank you senator hawley the nominees have filed responses to

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 436,906

Keywords: Sen. Josh Hawley, voter ID, Senate

Id: 5b6D0y86Zc0

Length: 8min 36sec (516 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 02 2021