Hochul announces one-year statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers

A law professor flagged a legal theory from a Trump amicus brief that he says would let foreigners bring enslaved people into the U.S.

During an interview on the Legal AF podcast, legal expert Paul Gowder talked about American legal scholar Richard Epstein and an argument he made in an amicus brief filed in Trump's birthright citizenship case. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled against Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, and Epstein filed the brief on Trump's side.

Gowder explained that Epstein argued that the phrases "subject to the jurisdiction" and "within the jurisdiction" have different meanings in the Constitution. Epstein observed that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" is used in the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, and the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

Epstein interprets that to mean that those two amendments can only apply to people who are members of society in the United States, or "subject" to the jurisdiction, not simply within it, according to Gowder.

"Richard Epstein wants to read 'subject to the jurisdiction' to mean like in more control of the U.S., basically a member of the U.S. community, not somebody who's just passing through," Gowder explained.

That would allow Epstein to argue, "We can read the 14th Amendment to exclude tourists and to exclude undocumented people," Gowder said. But with slavery and the 13th Amendment, "he just, like, embraces the notion that therefore the 13th Amendment must mean that if somebody from a country that has legal slavery comes to the U.S. as a tourist, they can bring their slaves with them," Gowder explained.

"Like, what?" Gowder said in dismay as he described Epstein's idea as "slave tourism."

Gowder stressed that Epstein isn't a fringe legal scholar and described him as a "very, very famous NYU law professor, worshipped by the [Federalist Society], like basically, for a certain kind of right-wing thinker, people on the right often think he's like the greatest legal mind of his generation."

However, for Gowder, Epstein is "completely nuts."

The GOP fears the "absolute destruction" their nominee for a gubernatorial race will cause, a New York Times columnist wrote.

NY Times columnist Michelle Goldberg detailed the concerns of the GOP after self-described "high-risk humanitarian" Victor Marx won his party's nomination for governor last week.

Marx has been in the national spotlight for claiming that he killed a man when he was 7 years old. Goldberg also highlights his series of bizarre and dubious claims, such as that he saved over 40,000 women and girls from sex trafficking, that he can perform exorcisms by phone, and that he has a black belt in "Cajun karate," which was invented by his father, Karl Marx.

Although some of these claims haven't held up under scrutiny, Goldberg wrote, "These discrepancies haven't stopped Marx from building a brand out of action-movie evangelicalism," and winning the GOP nomination for governor to go up against Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in November.

However, the Colorado GOP is worried about his nomination, Goldberg noted, not because it has its sights set on the governorship but because of how it will affect down-ballot races.

"Marx's close victory in a three-way primary has some Colorado Republicans despairing," Goldberg wrote. "Given how blue the state has become, the GOP never had much hope of winning the governorship, but Republicans told me that having Marx at the top of the ticket could put some statehouse and congressional races in danger."

Darcy Schoening, a top Colorado GOP party staffer who runs an anti-Marx website, told Goldberg that Marx is "going to do absolute destruction to all the candidates down ballot," and that his campaign has divided the state's right wing.

"The elevation of Marx is, in part, a story about the right-wing revolution eating its own," Goldberg wrote. "Marx demonstrates what can happen when voters, feeling apocalyptic, disdain concerns about expertise and electability and let themselves be guided by their id."