- 2 years ago
Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, joins "Forbes Newsroom" to respond the presidential debate and to recent Supreme Court decisions.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The past 24 hours have seen a bevy of Supreme Court decisions that affect the state of our
00:08democracy and a presidential debate that also affects the future of our democracy.
00:13So here to break it all down for us is Skye Perryman. She is the president and CEO of
00:19Democracy Forward, an organization that, as you might guess, protects the state of democracy.
00:24Skye, thank you so much for joining us.
00:26Thanks for having me.
00:28Okay, so there's a lot to break down on the Supreme Court front, but this morning,
00:31everyone is talking about the presidential debate between President Biden and former
00:35President Donald Trump. Broadly speaking, did you watch, did you think that the issues most
00:41affecting the state of the country were addressed last night?
00:44Certainly there were many issues that were addressed last night that we know are fundamental
00:48to democracy, such as reproductive health care, health care access, child care, and
00:55our overall system of democracy, our elections. But I do think that the debate did not really
01:02dive into some of the real extreme threats that we're seeing with respect to things like Project
01:072025 and other plans that are circulating around now to undermine our overall democracy.
01:16Now, of course, a debate is not the best format for going into the details. I know at one point,
01:20President Biden addressed rising rents, and it was a fast line. And as a renter myself,
01:25I wanted him to go back and go into detail there. But what issues or questions would
01:30you have wanted to see happen last night?
01:33I think I would have wanted to see more questions about how our government is going to be able to
01:39deliver for the American people. There are right now plans circulating in Project 2025,
01:46which is a 900 page document that's been put out by the Heritage Foundation and a lot of
01:52aligned pretty far right interests that are proposing things like seeking to undermine
01:58our federal civil service and the workers that work throughout the country to deliver services
02:03to the American people, to blacklist and replace those civil servants that swear an oath to the
02:09Constitution with partisan loyalists, with extreme ideologies. I think we did hear some
02:18discussion on reproductive rights and health care, but this is a year where we're having a
02:24presidential election after there has been a rollback of the fundamental rights of half of
02:31the population and of people. And so I would have wanted to hear more discussion on that.
02:38You mentioned contraception, and that is a perfect transition to some of the decisions
02:43from the Supreme Court that we have seen this term. You, Sky, have served as legal counsel on
02:48some of these cases. Let's start with the most recent one. SCOTUS issued an opinion on the
02:54Idaho abortion ban yesterday, or kind of a partial opinion if you listen to Justice Jackson and her
03:03dissent. But break down for us, what did the Supreme Court decide when it comes to emergency
03:08abortions in Idaho? Well, the Supreme Court yesterday decided to lift a stay that it itself
03:19put in place that prevented women in Idaho from being able to receive federally protected
03:27emergency care under a law that is known, it's abbreviated INTALA, but it is a federal law
03:33that enables all people, including pregnant people, to obtain emergency care when they need it.
03:39And there have been extreme attacks, such as the ban in Idaho that bans abortion in instances where
03:46people need an abortion in an emergency situation at an emergency room to protect their health.
03:53And so the Supreme Court yesterday, the result of its order is that women in Idaho will be able
04:01to receive that federally protected emergency care. However, what the Supreme Court did not do,
04:08and what it should have done, is to unequivocally state that state abortion bans like Idaho's
04:15that prevent people from seeking emergency care in an emergency abortion care are unlawful.
04:23And because the Supreme Court did not unequivocally state that, and it sort of
04:29kicked the can down the road, it essentially dismissed the petition that was before it,
04:33that it itself granted, saying that they made a mistake, but now has left open the possibility
04:39that either with respect to the Idaho case or with respect to a case in Texas or in other states,
04:45that those cases would come back up to the court and that the court might
04:49shut the door on this federally protected emergency care. And so it is a very disappointing
04:56decision. It is good that women in Idaho will be able to obtain some level of emergency care.
05:02Of course, the only reason that they were not able to obtain that is because the Supreme Court
05:07stayed a lower court's order that was enabling them to, that had found that the Idaho ban was
05:12unlawful because of these issues. So the Supreme Court sought to correct that, I guess, in the near
05:18term, but is really avoiding the broader issue. And what this means is that reproductive rights
05:23are still being threatened throughout the country. This does not provide any certainty
05:28for people in other states like Texas that are continuing to be deprived of emergency care.
05:35So there are a lot of legal mechanisms that you referenced in your answer right there,
05:40but for folks who want to know if they can get care in Idaho, the takeaway is that if they
05:47are pregnant and they are experiencing a medical emergency that would require an abortion,
05:54as of yesterday, the court is allowing them to receive that. But future challenges to Idaho law
06:02could undo what the court just did? Yes. So if it sounds confusing, that's because what the court
06:10has been doing on abortion is confusing. And it's, that's a purpose of a lot of this extreme behavior
06:17is to confuse people. So let me, I'll break it down really simply. In Idaho, the abortion ban
06:25that prevents people from receiving care in the ER to protect their health, if that care requires
06:32an abortion. Right now, there is a federal court order from a lower federal court that is in effect
06:38that says that that part of the ban is unlawful and that women can obtain that care. That's what
06:43the Supreme Court essentially allowed to go into effect yesterday after it had stopped that
06:48protection for people for a period of six months. The problem with what the Supreme Court did
06:53yesterday is that it did not say unequivocally that the Idaho ban was in fact unlawful. It did
07:00not, it did not address this issue with respect to other states. And it essentially avoided those
07:06issues, which is just as Jackson pointed out in her dissent means that women across the country
07:11continue and healthcare providers across the country continue to exist in a state of uncertainty,
07:18a state of chaos. And of course we know from the stories in Texas and the accounts in Florida and
07:23other places that women are continuing to be deprived of emergency care. Yesterday, the court's
07:29order did not did not change that at all. I'm glad you mentioned Justice Jackson's dissent because
07:35at face value, if you're looking at the headlines a little quickly, you know that she's a member
07:39of the more liberal wing of the court. So to hear she wrote a dissent in this case,
07:44I think is another aspect of this that might be confusing. But essentially, is it fair to say that
07:50her dissent was telling the court, hey, we should have been clearer on this, we should have set a
07:55more forward precedent? Right. I mean, what she's objecting to is the fact that all the court did
08:01yesterday was dismiss a petition that it itself took and lifted a say that it itself put in place.
08:10And it is not addressing the underlying crisis in this country, which is that there are extreme
08:15organizations and states that are seeking to deprive women who are pregnant of emergency care
08:22that federal law requires that they receive. The court evaded that issue. You could say the court
08:30potentially wanted to maybe evade accountability in a year as momentous as this presidential
08:36election year might be one way to look at that. But the court evaded that issue, did not resolve
08:42that issue, which means that women and their doctors throughout the country continue to exist
08:47in a state of confusion or worse in places like Texas in a state where they're not able to provide
08:53or get the care they need. However, for women that are in Idaho, who had not been able to access
09:01medical emergency care as a result of the Supreme Court's own prior stay, the court did lift that
09:08yesterday. The court also dismissed a challenge to the FDA's certification approval of the drug
09:17Mifepristone, which is used in medication abortions. Do these dual decisions signal to you,
09:24Skye, that the court just doesn't want to decide on abortion beyond what it did two years ago with
09:30Dobbs? Well, I think we've seen what these two decisions are saying is that the court certainly
09:38doesn't want to decide anything that it perceives will outrage the public, particularly this year.
09:47But both in the EMTALA, the medical abortion decision, and in the Mifepristone decision,
09:52the court did not decide any issue on the merits. And so this continues to sow uncertainty
09:59in communities across the country. What the court did in the Mifepristone case was to say
10:05unequivocally that the case never belonged in the courts, that the plaintiffs in that case had
10:11no standing. But this highlights another problem that we have, which is that extremists are seeking
10:17to use our courts in ways that are improper. They shouldn't be in the courts. And in doing that,
10:23put Mifepristone access at jeopardy for over a year, where medical professionals, patients
10:31did not know whether that medication was going to be available because of the tactics that they used
10:37in handpicking a judge, in filing a case, in going to the Fifth Circuit, and of course all
10:43the resources that had to be expended to fight that battle when the Supreme Court said in a 9-0
10:48decision this case should have never even been in the courts to begin with. It's interesting that
10:53you mentioned the confusion that has been sown. There was a report from JAMA, leading medical
10:58journal earlier this week, showing that contraceptive access in states with abortion ban
11:05is down, and down more than what you'd expect if people were just getting longer forms of birth
11:12control, like an IUD, right? And so the authors of this study basically said there are fewer clinics
11:19operating in states with bans, but also there's general confusion among the populace about what
11:24is legal, what reproductive health can I access, and where can I access it? Is that consistent with
11:30what you're seeing? Yes, I mean, and that's a real concern because what we know is that these
11:35extreme groups that are behind cases like Dobbs, behind the Mifepristone case, behind challenges
11:41to federal emergency care, what they want to do is to confuse people, to make care inaccessible,
11:48and to create a situation where people cannot access the care they need, either because there's
11:54not appropriate information, because they can't, they live in a banned state, and maybe don't have
11:59the resources to travel to a place where the care is lawful. And so we're continuing to see
12:05harms from Dobbs, and those harms, unfortunately, did not get alleviated in this court term. The
12:12court had the opportunity to once and for all settle some of these matters, and instead it just
12:18kicked the can down the road. And so many people and many women across the country will continue
12:23to live in uncertainty and to face real harm, like the women in Texas who continue to be deprived of
12:30emergency care, even in very dire situations. Are there other cases on the horizon, either this term
12:37or next term, that stand to provide further clarity on America's reproductive health laws?
12:43Well, we, you know, there are attacks coming every day in courts across the country, and some of
12:49those will make their way to the Supreme Court. On the question of emergency care, there's a case in
12:54Texas right now that the Department of Justice has had to appeal to the Supreme Court, and so
13:02that petition for cert before the Supreme Court is pending, and the state's answer is due soon.
13:08And so I do think that we'll continue to see these cases. And what we have seen with this court is,
13:13unfortunately, at times, a trend where they avoid an issue during a year where they think everyone
13:19is paying attention, and then maybe come back and then seek to deprive people of their rights in
13:27times where they perceive that maybe there is less at stake. And so it's really important that
13:32we remain vigilant, that your viewers and those that listen to your programming sort of remain
13:37vigilant in highlighting these threats that we're seeing every day. Now, obviously, Democracy
13:43Forward looks at a number of issues and not just abortion, so I want to make sure we spend a few
13:47minutes on the Supreme Court decisions that were released this morning. There were a number of
13:52them. What stands out to you? Is there one or two that everyone should know the top-line takeaways for?
13:59Absolutely. I would want your viewers to know about the two cases that were decided this
14:05morning called Lope or Bright and Relentless. They deal with what some people may think is a
14:11very wonky issue, but it's a really fundamental issue for all of us as Americans because they
14:16deal with the way that our government operates to protect and serve the people in this country.
14:22This morning, the court overturned 40 years worth of precedent in these cases and made it harder
14:28for our federal system to deliver for people. It essentially overturned a legal principle
14:35that stands for the proposition that when Congress passes a law and federal agencies are entrusted to
14:43implement that law, whether that is worker protections, anti-discrimination protections,
14:48food and drug safety laws that the FDA, like Miffin-Christone or other things, that those
14:53agencies are accorded some deference when people seek to challenge their actions in court. Of
15:01course, we know agencies can't act unlawfully, and there are a number of challenges that might
15:06be appropriate, but for 40 years in this country, courts have generally deferred to the subject
15:12matter experts and to the agencies on certain questions. Today, the court dealt the American
15:17people a blow by overturning that precedent, and that essentially means that you will see
15:22more litigation, likely more litigation like the one we've seen on Miffin-Christone, where
15:27special interests file in their handpicked court and seek to undermine the FDA or undermine other
15:34federal agencies' abilities and expertise and abilities to deliver for people. We're watching
15:39that one really closely. Of interest to your forums viewers, we represented more than 200
15:45organizations that represented more than 250,000 small businesses who were very concerned that if
15:52the court did what it did this morning, that this would really unsettle their ability to grow and
15:58thrive and compete because of the chaos that this decision could sow. So that's one to definitely
16:04know about. Sky, thank you so much for breaking that down for us. There is so much more to come,
16:11and we hope to have you back to explain it more as the days and weeks unfold,
16:15but for the meanwhile... Always fun joining you. Thank you so much. Have a good rest of your day.
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