Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Mondaire Jones:

Congress was wary of allowing Andrew Johnson to appoint justices to the Supreme Court. They shrank the size of the court to defeat white supremacy. And I would submit, given what we’ve seen come from this court, with respect to its hostility to voting rights in decision after decision, we’ve got to do the same thing here. Specifically, we’ve got to add seats to the Supreme Court.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Mondaire Jones, he’s a member of Congress from New York’s 17th Congressional District, which includes two counties about an hour north of New York City. When he was elected in 2020, Jones became one of only two openly gay Black members of Congress. In his short time on Capitol Hill, he’s become an outspoken leader on issues ranging from voting rights to gun control. He’s also introduced high-profile legislation that would expand the size of the Supreme Court. Jones joins me to discuss why he supports court expansion, whether Congress can pass any gun laws, and his unusual reelection battle. That’s coming up, stay tuned.

QUESTION & ANSWER:

Preet Bharara:

Now let’s get to your questions.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes in an email from Kathy who asks, “In light of the Texas shooting, what do you think of the prospects for raising the age to possess assault weapons from 18 to 21? And is this a good idea?” Well, there have been a lot of gun proposals that are back on the table, or at least being discussed in earnest, mostly by Democrats, by some Republicans as well, in the Congress and in state legislatures. And I think among the most effective policies that’s being promoted, in my view at least, is the raising of the age. There is a whole body of scientific evidence that suggests that young people’s brains are still forming past the age of 18, that impulse control in particular is something that needs to develop over time, sometimes not until someone is 25 or 26. And in light of the fact we’ve had multiple incidents over time, in Parkland, in Newtown, in Uvalde, where the shooter was between the ages of 18 and 21.

Preet Bharara:

You wouldn’t stop every possible shooting with an assault weapon, but you would probably stop a lot of them. And with respect to the folks who say, “Well, someone who’s a criminal is going to violate the law. They’re not going to obey the law with respect to the age by which you can buy a gun.” I know that the shooter in Uvalde tried to get a gun through his sister before he turned 18. She refused, he wasn’t able to get one. What did he do? He waited until, literally, his actual 18th birthday when the law in Texas permitted him to get an AR-15. That’s an example of a case where the law worked. Had the age been 21, whether or not that shooter would’ve purchased the weapon or been able to purchase the weapon. The other reason for optimism is we’ve seen it happen in multiple places, including places where you wouldn’t have expected that kind of gun reform to pass.

Preet Bharara:

After the Parkland shooting in 2018, Florida, red, blue purple, whatever you want to call that state, Florida, which I think cares a lot about the Second Amendment and gun rights passed a provision that increased the age to own certain weapons from 18 to 21. And by the way, the sky has not fallen. However, there’s a cautionary note here with respect to how these things are working their way through the courts. California, a fairly liberal blue state, passed a law that didn’t allow people under the age of 21 to buy semi-automatic rifles. That was challenged in the courts, made its way up all the way to the Ninth Circuit. The court of appeals pretty recently. And by a vote of two to one, that regulation was struck down. The Ninth Circuit judge writing for the majority spoke in fairly histrionic terms, in my opinion, writing among other things, “America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army. Today, we reaffirm that our constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice, the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.”

Preet Bharara:

Now, no one denies that 18-year-olds can serve in the US military, in all the military forces, and are permitted to use weapons. In fact, the use of those weapons helps to preserve and secure our liberty and independence and sovereignty. But the difference between what happens when you serve in the military and what happens if you’re a kid from down the block is that in the military, you get training. In the military, it’s your job. In the military, there are consequences for misusing weapons. In the military, you don’t own your weapon, the government does. So the comparison to the young people who have fought for this country in the past and the present, and compare that to casual usage of an AR-15 by an 18-year-old who has nothing to do with the military or with law enforcement seems a bit silly to me. But it’s a ruling that’s on the books. It will likely go to the Supreme Court, and we’ll have to see what happens.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes in an email from Brian who asks, “What do you make of the justice department’s decision to investigate the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas? Well, I think it’s a great thing. As Joyce Vance and I discussed on the Insider podcast this week, among other things, separate and apart from the tragic loss of life and the inhumanity of the shooter and the delayed response, most of the things that were said by law enforcement officials in Uvalde, local and also statewide, have turned out not to be true. There’s been misleading statement after misleading statement. I’m recording this on Wednesday morning. And I think just in the last day, we have heard that an initial statement that a teacher had propped open a door that allowed the shooter to get into the school. That statement was false. The teacher, in fact, according to video that’s been reported upon, actually saw the shooter and apparently shut the door, it just didn’t lock properly.

Preet Bharara:

So it was a malfunctioning or improperly working lock. So in light of the fact that the local authorities and even the people who supervise the local authorities, the state authorities have seemed to have gotten nothing right. They don’t have very much credibility. And whatever you think of the justice department with respect to things that they’re doing, whether you think they’re too slow or too aggressive or not aggressive enough, on the issue of figuring out what happened with transparency, they have a very good track record. They have done these kinds of after-action reports in other mass shootings as well, including San Bernardino and the Pulse shooting. It may take some time, I expect that they’re going to be doing a lot of interviews. They’re going to be collecting a lot of documents.

Preet Bharara:

What they bring to the matter more than anything else, apart from their expertise, is credibility. They’re neutral, they’re outsiders, they just want to get to the truth. This is something that will probably be overseen by the Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who you may know from this podcast. So I have every faith and confidence they’ll look at a lot of answers. We may get some recommendations for what to do in the future to prevent this kind of thing. I mean, it’s not a criminal investigation, some people seem disappointed by that. I don’t know what crime necessarily would’ve been committed if they get information that leads to a finding that someone committed a crime, federal or otherwise. I assume they will take that on themselves or make a referral. But the purpose of this is to get to the truth, which is something we’re having a hard time getting from the local folks in Texas.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back with my conversation with Mondaire Jones.

THE INTERVIEW:

Preet Bharara:

Representative Mondaire Jones who represents a district just north of New York City thought he’d sail comfortably into a second term in Congress, that is until a few weeks ago, when a court-appointed special master drew brand-new district lines that have thrown New York into political chaos. Now, Jones is running in a completely different district, one that encompasses Lower Manhattan in parts of Brooklyn, and he’s facing a crowded primary field that includes Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Preet Bharara:

Representative Mondaire Jones, welcome to the show.

Mondaire Jones:

Thanks for having me.

Preet Bharara:

It’s good to have you. It’s been a while. There’s a lot of stuff going on, but I want to begin with some of an issue in which our paths intersected, and my question is… You’ve had a lot of experiences, you’re a fairly young person to be in Congress, not the youngest but one of the youngest. What was the most formative work experience in your younger years, and why was it your internship at the Southern District of New York?

Mondaire Jones:

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to select among my various professional experiences.

Preet Bharara:

Well, you can pick a real one, but folks may not appreciate. And this is, by the way, something that makes me feel very old and ancient. But some years ago, you were an intern, in your summer in between the first and second years of law school at the Southern District of New York, when I was the US Attorney.

Mondaire Jones:

That’s right, and I remember meeting you at a holiday party.

Preet Bharara:

Oh, how did I behave?

Mondaire Jones:

You were totally fine, you were…

Preet Bharara:

I was totally fine.

Mondaire Jones:

You were personable, you asked me who I was clerking for. I was proud to tell you the name of that person, and I thought to myself, “This seems like a very nice guy, despite all of his professional accomplishment.”

Preet Bharara:

And here, some years later, you’re a member of Congress and I have a podcast.

Mondaire Jones:

A widely-listened-to podcast.

Preet Bharara:

I guess that’s right. So I want to talk about your rise in politics and some of your background, but let’s come to that in a few minutes. We’re recording this on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 31st. And the issue that we keep talking about on the podcast and that you hear about in the news and, I think, has horrified the nation is, once again, we have this mass shooting at an elementary school. And everyone is hurting and grieving and praying, depending on what you think is effective, and there’s a lot of call upon Congress to do something. So we had the shooting in Texas last week, seven days ago, unlike some typical mass shootings that people have calculated to stay in the news and the headlines for about a three-day cycle. This is day seven, and we’re still talking about it. Is Congress going to do something?

Mondaire Jones:

I think you will see Democrats in Congress do something. Let me just take a step back and say that I was 11 years old when Columbine happened. And as horrified as I was during that time period, I never imagined that mass shootings would become a norm in this country. We are barely halfway through the year, and we’ve had over 200 mass shootings already in this country. It is a uniquely American problem, and it’s something Congress can solve for. I mean, the House has passed background checks, as well as legislation to close the so-called Charleston Loophole. Many people will be surprised to learn that if the FBI does not complete its background check in three days, the purchaser of a firearm is entitled to that firearm. But we’ve got to go further, we’ve got to pass a ban on assault weapons. We’ve got to raise the age to possess firearms to 21.

Mondaire Jones:

I think we should be imposing liability from manufacturers and distributors who negligently market their products to people who have no business possessing firearms in this country, and so much more. You’ll see on a majority vote, House Democrats pass that legislation out of that chamber. But because of this super majority requirement we’ve got in the Senate, requiring 60 votes, And because of the chokehold that the NRA has over my Republican colleagues in both the House and the Senate, I think you’ll continue to see this term, folks struggle to get common-sense legislation that is so broadly popular with the American people out of that body, out of the United States Senate so long as the filibuster remains intact.

Preet Bharara:

So you mentioned broad support in the country, and this is something maybe you can explain to folks as a civics matter. And maybe one of the answers is something that you mentioned, the NRA. How can it be that on certain kinds of provisions and proposals, notably universal background checks, there is 80-something percent approval in the country for such a thing. And common sense tells you, “It makes sense, get rid of the loopholes on background checks.” How can it be true that with that kind of support, a standalone measure, for example, on background checks can’t pass the Senate? Isn’t the Senate a Democratic institution in our country?

Mondaire Jones:

The Senate is not a Democratic institution, the Senate remains one of the more anti-Democratic institutions.

Preet Bharara:

I’m going to tell Chuck Schumer you said that.

Mondaire Jones:

I think he would agree, we’ve got to get rid of the filibuster. I’ve spoken to Chuck about this, and he’s been very clear on how he feels about the filibuster. I think even folks who grew up in the Senate, shall we say, are and have completely changed their perspective on the continuing utility or relevance of something that was of accidental origin to begin with. I mean, this is a relic of the Jim Crow era. Most famously, it was used to block voting rights legislation in the way that it was used to block voting rights legislation earlier this year. And I say this as someone who co-authored the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, but why… The filibuster means you need 60 votes. If something has 85% approval, why shouldn’t 60 votes be easy to come by?

Mondaire Jones:

That gets to the heart of the problem, and that is our broken democracy. We live in a society, in a political system in which elected officials choose their voters rather than voters choosing their elected officials. And to be more precise, what I’m talking about is this practice of partisan gerrymandering. You can draw districts that will ensure that a particular candidate of a particular party is elected again and again, regardless of whether the positions that they take, their voting patterns, are actually responsive to or representative of the electorate that voted for them in the first place.

Preet Bharara:

No, I get that, and we’re going to talk about the gerrymander issue in your upcoming reelection. But that doesn’t apply to the Senate, Senate’s not gerrymandered. Why can’t we get more than 60 votes in the Senate if you have 85% support for a policy?

Mondaire Jones:

That gets to a related issue that I was about to go into, which is voter suppression and the role of big money in our politics. All of these things are problems, and they conspire to deprive the American people of a truly representative government. We have seen, last year alone, over 400 voter suppression bills introduced in over 40 different states. In at least 19 of those states, those bills became law last year. At the same time, we’ve seen very powerful special interests, interests that have a lot of money to deploy, whether in the form of independent expenditures or direct contributions to candidates, play in a major way to distort the policies that we see or don’t see come out of Congress.

Mondaire Jones:

And so you get a situation where both Republicans and Democrats are clamoring for meaningful legislation that would work to end gun violence. And you’ve got senators, to say nothing of House members, just completely unresponsive to those demands because at the end of the day, they are leaning on these special interests to fund their campaigns for reelection. And unfortunately, we’ve still got way too many people in the Senate and in the House who will put their reelection before the interest of their constituents.

Preet Bharara:

How do you feel about hardening the targets, having one-door entry, which some Republicans have been promoting, in arming teachers?

Mondaire Jones:

We saw an armed police force in Texas a few days ago utterly fail to save dozens of lives, children and teachers. The solution is not arming more people, the solution is taking away the arms of people who have no business possessing them in the first place.

Preet Bharara:

I tend to agree with that. And the idea of giving teachers arms, that’s advocated by people who don’t think teachers can determine for themselves the proper curriculum and the books that their students can read is a big disconnect. So here’s a fundamental issue that I never know the answer to, and I’ve thought about it at large since I took political science in college. And that is, depending on what moment you’re at and what you’re trying to achieve as an advocate for a particular point of view or particular set of proposals, do you hold out for the full loaf or do you settle for the half loaf? And I think that’s very directly on point today, with respect to these gun reforms. What’s your view on whether or not Democrats should pursue four or five or six game-changing things, red flag laws, raising the age, universal background checks, banning assault weapons again, since that’s sunsetted back in 2004, or at least trying to get one or two of those things done, if there’s some will to do that? How do you think about that?

Mondaire Jones:

I think we need to pass what we are able to pass this term because progress…

Preet Bharara:

So that’s a half loaf.

Mondaire Jones:

Yeah. If under the framing that you just articulated, yes. But at the same time, we need to be showing to the American people, through forcing votes on all of these things, that there is one major political party just unanimously opposed to the broadly popular, broadly supported legislative agenda of the American people, and which is shared by Democrats. I mean, why wouldn’t we pass an assault weapons ban, And why wouldn’t we have a vote on that to show the American people…

Preet Bharara:

I don’t know. I don’t know, Congressman, and it’s deeply frustrating to a lot of people. So it sounds like you have a pragmatic view, at least at this moment, on gun reform, which is the… If you could pass one thing, if you could get all the Democrats and the dubious Democrats on some of these issues, like Joe Manchin and at least 10 Republicans in the Senate, if you could get them to agree on one thing, what would be your top priority?

Mondaire Jones:

I would ban assault weapons. I would ban assault weapons because the damage, the carnage that comes from the ability to use those weapons in such a short period of time is devastating. And there is no justification for civilians possessing AR-15s, for example. And we’ve seen the same weapon used in massacre after massacre. You’ve got folks in the military saying there’s no reason for these weapons to be on our streets. You’ve got folks in the military saying they don’t use many of these weapons in the military, and it is why I think you see the numbers as high as they are when you examine the casualties.

Preet Bharara:

Why do you think the Senate hasn’t put this up for a vote immediately? Is it because there is some potential movement and traction on something bipartisan, or is it something else?

Mondaire Jones:

That’s a question better posed to your former boss, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

He won’t come on the show yet.

Mondaire Jones:

He is, I think, an incredible majority leader. And I trust him to work to get as much pass as Democrats in the Senate can. But as a member of the House, what I want to see is up or down votes on everything that would make a tangible difference, any and everything that would save lives and that would work to end this crisis, this pandemic, this epidemic of gun violence in America. We’ve got to be messaging to the American people that we are actually working to do something about this. And if it doesn’t pass, then they’ll know who’s responsible for it. It’s why it was so important for Chuck to have held the vote on the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.

Mondaire Jones:

Now, all of America, the entire world knows that there were 52 senators who didn’t care enough about saving American democracy and protecting the fundamental right to vote, to make an exception to the filibuster, to do precisely that, to pass voting rights legislation. And you’re already seeing the consequences of that. I mean, Kyrsten Sinema will have a primary challenge in the state of Arizona, and you’ve got a number of Democratic candidates running throughout this country, in states that they can win and pick up seats, running explicitly on doing away with the filibuster or at least reforming the filibuster so that we can pass legislation to protect the right to vote and save our democracy, and so that we can pass legislation, by the way, to codify Roe v. Wade.

Preet Bharara:

So let’s talk about that. One of the reasons I know you wanted to have some time on the show was to talk about a proposal that you have put forward to expand the court, the Supreme Court. What would your bill do?

Mondaire Jones:

I’ve got a bill with Jerry Nadler and Hank Johnson called the Judiciary Act of 2021. We introduced it on Thursday, April 15th of 2021, and it would add four seats to the Supreme Court. We did this long before we saw Justice Alito’s draft opinion that purports to overturn Roe v. Wade and points to a number of other fundamental rights as being questionable from his perspective and from the perspective of the majority. This is something that is not a novel idea. The size of the Supreme Court has changed seven times before in our nation’s history. And this project of expanding the court is urgently needed because we’ve got a 6-3 far-right hyperpartisan majority, one that is hostile to democracy itself. Recall that long before we saw Justice Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs, it was the Roberts Court, somehow a less conservative Supreme Court majority, 5-4 at the time, that gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the greatest legislative achievement of the civil rights movement. And Justice Roberts, in his majority opinion, in a decision called Shelby v. Holder, gutted-

Preet Bharara:

We don’t need it anymore.

Mondaire Jones:

… said we don’t need it, unleashing the wave of racist voter suppression that we are seeing all throughout this country. And there have been other decisions since that 2013 decision, further weakening the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This was a piece of legislation that was reauthorized unanimously in the Senate, and nearly unanimously in the House of Representatives in 2006.

Preet Bharara:

How much of this proposal is animated by anger? I don’t know if anger is the right word, but frustration with the way that Merrick Garland was treated and being kept off the court and how Amy Coney Barrett was rushed on the court.

Mondaire Jones:

People are right to be angry over the fact that Supreme Court seats were stolen by Mitch McConnell, from people who had been nominated by duly-elected presidents and whose nominees, in one instance, in the instance of Merrick Garland, weren’t even given a hearing, which was not the intent of the founders, by the way, when they talked about advice and consent with respect to nominations. But I want to be clear that this isn’t an attack on the Republican Party. And we know that justices appointed by Republican presidents have been very different from the partisan hacks comprising the majority today. I’m thinking of David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

Preet Bharara:

The one… You’re talking about the people who flipped to the liberal side.

Mondaire Jones:

People who cared about American democracy and respected the will of Congress.

Preet Bharara:

But even people like Warren Burger and others, you couldn’t predict every vote on every issue like you can now.

Mondaire Jones:

That’s right, and we haven’t even touched on the behavior of people like Clarence Thomas. I mean, some people don’t even try to hide the fact that they’ve become partisan hacks on the court.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve opined on this, but since you mentioned Clarence Thomas, are you of the view that he should recuse himself because of the activities of his wife? And are you further of the view, like some people are, that maybe there should be stronger action against him up to and including impeachment?

Mondaire Jones:

I share those views.

Preet Bharara:

You think Clarence Thomas should be impeached?

Mondaire Jones:

I think an investigation should occur into Clarence Thomas and that impeachment should be on the table. At the same time, I’ve introduced legislation with Hank Johnson that would implement a binding code of ethics at the Supreme Court where none currently exists.

Preet Bharara:

So who’s opposed… What are the reasons for people to be opposed to that?

Mondaire Jones:

There is no good reason.

Preet Bharara:

There’s not, there is no good reason.

Mondaire Jones:

If we are to have a system of checks and balances, we’ve got to ensure that Supreme Court justices are not above the law. Obviously, there is the tool of impeachment, which Congress has at its disposal. But Congress is also empowered to enact a binding code of ethics. We’ve got that, by the way, for lower court judges. Why shouldn’t we have it for Supreme Court justices? In the case of Clarence Thomas, we know that his wife, Ginni Thomas, was conspiring with president Trump’s chief of staff at the time to overturn the results of that free and fair presidential election in 2020. And Justice Thomas knew that his wife had been very active in efforts around that and had no reason to participate in a decision that came down eight to one, in which he was a lone dissenting view on requiring the production of evidence to the January 6th select committee, which could have included those text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. No, I am in total agreement with you with respect to a mandatory code of ethics that can be enforceable. I’m a little bit more mixed on court expansion. The two proposals that come up from time to time are court expansion and then limited terms, 18 years or something like that, for Supreme Court justices. Do you have a view on that second one, on term limits for Supreme Court justices?

Mondaire Jones:

Term limits would be prospective. They would do nothing to stop the threats to fundamental rights that we see emanate from the 6-3 majority, whether it is hostility to the fundamental right to vote or, more recently, the apparent intention to explicitly overturn 50 years of settled precedent called Roe v. Wade. And this court, this majority opinion points to other fundamental rights, namely marriage equality, so the right to marry someone of the same gender, the right even to marry someone of a different race.

Preet Bharara:

Yep. Do you fear or do you think it’s unreasonable to fear the loss of a right to contraception?

Mondaire Jones:

That was one of the decisions that Justice Alito pointed to in his draft opinion. And so my question to skeptics of court expansion, and I know that there are many in the legal profession, and as someone who was a lawyer before he got to Congress, I am familiar with what we’re taught in law school, which is to believe that the justices are unbiased and independent arbiters of justice. But we know that that’s not true. And if folks ever questioned whether it was true, they’ve got a lot more evidence today than even a few years ago to make a determination in the opposite direction.

Mondaire Jones:

And the fact is the problem can’t get worse. What I hear from skeptics mostly is, “Well, what happens if Republicans turn around and do the same thing?” Well, the crisis that you are trying to avoid is already here. It doesn’t get worse than a Supreme Court that’s overturning fundamental rights, including the right to an abortion and the right to vote. It doesn’t get worse than justices giving speeches at explicitly partisan conferences and weighing in on political matters in a way that Supreme Court justices should not. We’ve got to act now while we’ve still got the ability to protect our democracy.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. I’ll quote you back to yourself. You wrote recently in support of your proposal, “Court expansion would not cause a death spiral of democracy. That death spiral is already here, and it will only get worse if we do nothing.”

Mondaire Jones:

After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson who had been his vice president became president. But Andrew Johnson, it turned out, was not in favor of Reconstruction. He wasn’t in favor of the political and economic enfranchisement of former slaves in America. Congress was wary of allowing Andrew Johnson to appoint justices to the Supreme Court because they worried that his justices would be in the mold of folks who would roll back the progress that the Reconstruction era was meant to advance. And so what they did was they literally shrank the size of the court from 10 to seven, to prevent him from nominating and getting justices confirmed to the court. They shrank the size of the court to defeat white supremacy. And I would submit, given what we’ve seen come from this court with respect to its hostility to voting rights in decision after decision, to say nothing of the other fundamental rights that I mentioned, we’ve got to do the same thing here. Specifically, we’ve got to add seats to the Supreme Court and, once again, have a pro-democracy, pro-racial justice, pro the rights of women to have an abortion majority.

Preet Bharara:

So we’ve talked about two major issues, guns and reproductive rights. Do you think those will have a notable effect on the midterm elections?

Mondaire Jones:

I certainly hope so, I certainly hope that…

Preet Bharara:

You think Democrats will come out in droves because of the threat of these two things.

Mondaire Jones:

I’ve got to believe that people of good conscience, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, will be appalled by what they are seeing come out of the Supreme Court, to say nothing of what my Republican colleagues in Congress have been doing or not doing, and vote their conscience. And that is my project as a leader in American politics. It’s not just to legislate, that’s not the way I view my job. I view my job between now and November as, after my primary is over, going to states where voter suppression laws have been enacted and educating people about how to navigate those new laws and about the importance of reelecting people like Raphael Warnock and Mark Kelly to the United States Senate, and picking up just two more Democratic Senate seats to make future filibustering of voting rights legislation an impossibility.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Congressman Mondaire Jones after this.

Preet Bharara:

So can we shift gears for a second and talk a little bit about you, your past in politics, although it’s not that ancient, and then your future in politics? Because people outside of New York may not realize what a complicated mess your reelection is all about, we’ll get to that in a second. But first, a guy like you, smart, talented, ambitious, Stanford undergrad, Harvard Law School, clearly, you care about the law and you care about policy and you care about improving the country.

Preet Bharara:

You’d have been thought of as a natural to go into politics. But for some period of time, I understand you were very wary about going into politics. You worked at a law firm for a while. And the reason you have said you were wary about politics was, and I’m quoting from you in the interview you gave with your old college newspaper, The Stanford Daily, you said, “I never thought that I could successfully run for office because I was gay. I didn’t think that I could be accepted as an openly gay candidate, and so it has only been in recent years that I thought it would be possible.” And you also said, “That was always the thing that kept me out of electoral politics until recently.” How’d you get over that concern?

Mondaire Jones:

I grew up feeling so afraid that someone might find out that I’m gay, and that was true all the way into the early years of law school. But it was my visits to the West Village on weekends and on breaks…

Preet Bharara:

See, even the Harvard guys come to New York during breaks.

Mondaire Jones:

In New York’s newly drawn 10th congressional district where…

Preet Bharara:

We’re going to get to that.

Mondaire Jones:

… I saw other queer people, including queer people of color, living authentic lives, and it helped give me the courage to come out. I grew up in a Baptist church where things have gotten better, but it’s still a little taboo to be gay, to say nothing of having grown up seeing people all around me invalidate my very existence, including people in elected office. But we have seen so much progress over the past few years, progress unlike anything I ever imagined growing up and even into early adulthood. I mean, I never imagined that we would see Pete Buttigieg, for example, be, for a time, the front runner and a Democratic primary for president of the United States.

Mondaire Jones:

I didn’t think that I would see a time when we had marriage equality when I was growing up. And I remember where I was when New York passed marriage equality. Still being closeted, by the way, and not being able to celebrate with my actual friends, so going out by myself to just celebrate that and so many other things that we’ve seen in recent years. And then I made my own history, along with Richie Torres as the nation’s first openly gay Black members of Congress when we were elected back in 2020. And it’s just wild to be, according to what other people have said to me, the inspiration for others that I never had growing up.

Preet Bharara:

How has the church been about you?

Mondaire Jones:

Supportive. I mean, in my first campaign for Congress back in 2020, I was so heartened by leaders in the Black church who rallied around my candidacy and who remained supporters of mine.

Preet Bharara:

So let’s talk about what’s going on at the moment, and it’s a little bit complex. You are a representative in New York City’s 17th district, correct?

Mondaire Jones:

Correct.

Preet Bharara:

Which you’re not my Congressman, but you almost are my Congressman. That includes portions of Westchester and what else?

Mondaire Jones:

And all of Rockland County.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. There was an attempt to redraw the maps, the Democratic attempt. They control all of the government in New York, the governorship and the two legislative branches and the two legislative components of the legislature. And they put forward a map that they thought was going to further advantage Democrats, people do that. Whether it’s gerrymandering or not, you can comment if you want. That was rejected by a number of court decisions. And just recently, in fact, since the time that we talked about your coming on the show, after the rejection of the Democratic map, a court appointed a special master to redraw the maps further, and the mandate was to do it in a more fair way. And I understand that some people don’t think that’s what the result was.

Preet Bharara:

So there are totally redrawn districts. And so now, you are not running for reelection in the 17th, you are going to run for election in the 10th. And the 10th district is new. As I understand, it’s all of Manhattan below 14th Street and parts of Brooklyn. And it’s an exciting and interesting race for a lot of reasons. Among them, I think every New Yorker is running for that seat, includes you. There’s a member of the state legislature who’s running. And Bill de Blasio, former two-term mayor of the city of New York, is running. There are suggestions that my former colleague, Dan Goldman, may be running for that seat. Can you explain to folks how it comes to pass that you’re running in this other district?

Mondaire Jones:

When the Republican judge appointed a special master to single-handedly redraw New York’s congressional districts, the result was the obliteration of the district that I currently represent. And I was put in a position of having to decide whether I was going to run against one of my colleagues, incumbent Democratic members of New York congressional delegation, whether Sean Patrick Maloney whose job is supposed be to keep our majority in the House as the chair of the DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or a friend and ideological ally, Jamaal Bowman, Black progressive in the Southern portion of Westchester where my residence had been drawn and where a chunk of my district had also been included.

Mondaire Jones:

And so I took a step back and I said, “Mondaire, you’ve been just a leading voice in the Congress to defend our democracy and protect the fundamental right to vote from the threats of the far right. You can either be a member on Member Primary with one of your colleagues, as we are all working to save this country leading up to November, or you can run in a district that has given so much to you, a place where you’ve worked, a place where you learned how to live your authentic life, and a place whose communities you’ve already been championing in Congress, whether it’s through the American rescue plan or negotiating passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the House version of Build Back Better, or your work to defeat the rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism against our AAPI brothers and sisters, and Black and Brown communities, and Jewish communities.”

Mondaire Jones:

And it is a district that despite having Stonewall, despite having birthed the LGBTQ liberation movement in this country, has never had an openly LGBTQ representative in Congress. And so for me, the decision was a logical one, and I’m so looking forward to making my case to the great people of Lower Manhattan in Brooklyn.

Preet Bharara:

I’m going to coin a phrase. You were kind of pissed at Sean Patrick Maloney, is that fair? Well, look, before you answer the question, he announced that he was going to make a run for the district that has a lot of the 17th’s turf in it, which is your natural district. And you didn’t mutter this on a hot mic. You said forcefully, “Sean Patrick Maloney did not even give me a heads up before he went on Twitter to make that announcement,” and you go on to say, “And I think that tells you everything you need to know about Sean Patrick Maloney.” That sounds pissed to me.

Mondaire Jones:

I stand by that statement.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. Have you made up since, have you had any conversations since?

Mondaire Jones:

But it doesn’t change the calculus. Look, there were reasons why I could have run either of those two congressional districts. As I mentioned, the residence I’d been in in White Plains had been lumped into the same district as where Jamaal Bowman’s residence was. Sean is saying that, well, his residence is in New York City’s newly drawn 17th, and so he should be running in that district, even though I currently represent most of that newly drawn district. And look, Sean reached out to apologize. And as far as I’m concerned, we’ve got to move on. The process was the issue for me.

Preet Bharara:

I don’t want to take the focus off of you for too long, but the other thing people who are not in New York may not appreciate is this is not just happening in the newly drawn 10th. We have a situation in the 12th where longtime Democratic chairs of committees will be pitted against each other. Jerry Nadler, chairman of the judiciary committee, and Carolyn Maloney, a longtime member of Congress with a lot of power, they’re going to run against each other in the August 23 primary. What do you think that’s going to be like?

Mondaire Jones:

It’s devastating. I mean, Jerry Nadler is the chair of the judiciary committee. I serve on that committee, we need him in Congress. Carolyn Maloney has been a distinguished chair of the oversight committee. I think New Yorkers watching all of this play out understand that we are all just in a very difficult situation right now and are trying to make the best of what this Republican judge imposed on us, and people like Hakeem Jeffries have not shied away from describing-

Preet Bharara:

He sounds pissed, too.

Mondaire Jones:

… from describing what this judge did, what the special master did. He said it would make Jim Crow blush. I mean, you look at the way they’ve destroyed communities. They’ve destroyed communities of interest, which is what was supposed to be a guiding principle. They’ve separated those Black communities in Brooklyn, for example. It was one of the things that he was talking about. Jamaal Bowman has lambasted the special master for diminishing the Black population in his district. They’ve basically taken all of the Bronx away from him, with the exception of maybe 50,000 or so voters.

Preet Bharara:

What do you say to people in New York who will argue, well, the Democrats brought some of this upon themselves by being over aggressive in how they tried to draw the maps in the first place?

Mondaire Jones:

Partisan gerrymandering is something that I have fought to ban nationwide. It is one of the greatest proposals in the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act. And by the way, we’ll get better people in Congress when we don’t have districts drawn to elect people like Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene. That is a distortion of our democracy when people like that, who are clearly outside the mainstream, are able to get elected and reelected to Congress. So I think there were, clearly, issues with what the Democratic legislature did, and the New York Court of Appeals clearly felt like it could not stomach what the Democratic control legislation…

Preet Bharara:

And that’s made up of Democratic appointees, not a… You can’t blame Republican judges with respect to that court, right?

Mondaire Jones:

Andrew Cuomo appointed them, so you can make of that what you will.

Preet Bharara:

We’re not covering Andrew Cuomo here anymore.

Mondaire Jones:

But yes, in theory, these are Democratic appointed judges.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask you a question that’s always on my mind? I don’t know what you call people who have podcasts and talk on TV, pundits, the chattering class, whatever pejorative you want to use. Given my background and my expertise, there’s certain things that I talk about. I talk a lot about the January 6th commission. We talk about certain court cases. And then those are the kinds of things that I ask guests, particularly members of Congress. But when you are in your district and you’re campaigning, or you’re just in your community and having town halls or whatever kinds of ways you meet with your constituents, lately, what are the things that they are asking you about? What’s on their mind? Is it crime, is it inflation? Is anybody talking about the big lie? I mean, what’s on the minds of people, at least so far in the 17th?

Mondaire Jones:

It is inflation, it is gun violence, it is fundamental rights like the right to an abortion. And these are concerns shared by all New Yorkers. I mean, I was getting my haircut in Harlem a few days ago, and folks in the barbershop who are not typically very focused on politics were just exasperated, asking me, “How it could be that Congress hasn’t passed legislation to end gun violence. How could it be that we’ve not passed, through the Senate, universal background checks.” And I noticed that…

Preet Bharara:

They could be podcasters because I asked you that question, too.

Mondaire Jones:

Yeah. And I noticed that the gentleman with whom I was having those conversations or that conversation, they had children. These are tough guys. I mean, I know how they grew up, and there was just this exasperation and fear, fear for the safety of their children and for themselves, too.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve been very generous with your time. I have one more question. People like yourself, people like me, many of us are inspired by folks who came from before. And I know that your role model, legal hero, or hero generally, and you’ve talked about him on a number of occasions, is Thurgood Marshall who had a number of jobs, both inside and outside of government. And I wonder if you could tell us what about his life and career has inspired you. Although there’s some obvious answers, of course. But then second, if it’s the case that his work as an advocate meant more to you and is more inspiring to you than his work as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, is there a distinction in the strength you draw from those two different parts of his career?

Mondaire Jones:

So Thurgood Marshall was persistent and creative in the project of obtaining civil rights through litigation for Black people in America. There were so many setbacks that he faced, but he kept going. I mean, he kept filing cases and eventually got better case law. And his project, the Civil Rights Movement, gained momentum. As a litigator, his role was very different from that of associate justice of the Supreme Court. And still, it may surprise you to learn that perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve taken away from Thurgood Marshall’s career is that litigation is a terrible way of making public policy. We need people in Congress who are going to make laws, hopefully laws that the Supreme Court can’t strike down, if we also passed my Judiciary Act to add four seats.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think Thurgood Marshall should have been in politics?

Mondaire Jones:

I think he was in politics.

Preet Bharara:

Yes, politics by litigation.

Mondaire Jones:

He galvanized a nation around principles of equal justice under the law and due process and racial justice. He wasn’t just a lawyer in the courtroom, he was a thought leader and, in his own way, an activist.

Preet Bharara:

What do you think he would say about the current court?

Mondaire Jones:

I think he would… I think justice Thurgood Marshall is rolling in his grave, looking at the progress that is being rolled back. And to know that he was replaced by Justice Clarence Thomas who is participating in that rolling back of progress that he helped to secure in the courtroom, I think, would be particularly painful for him.

Preet Bharara:

So unfortunately, I meant that to be the last question. But we can’t end on a down note, Congressman, so can you say something positive about the future of the country?

Mondaire Jones:

As I said on the floor of the House, the day after the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act was filibustered in the Senate like some scene out of the Civil Rights era earlier this year, the generation of John Lewis faced longer odds than what we faced today. I mean, just think, John Lewis was bludgeoned to the point of unconsciousness as he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which led later on to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the original Voting Rights Act. All we are called on to do today is to use the rights that his generation secured for us, our votes and our voices, so I do not despair when I see what is happening all around us. That is not to say that things won’t become worse before they get better. But it is to say that if the generation of John Lewis could secure the progress that it’s secured, then who are we to give up now in the face of all these threats?

Preet Bharara:

Amen, that’s much better, much better way to close our show. Representative Mondaire Jones, it’s been a treat and an honor to have you on the show. Good luck in the 10th.

Mondaire Jones:

Thank you so much, my friend. Take care.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Representative Mondaire Jones continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership for just $1 for a month, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

BUTTON:

Preet Bharara:

I want to end the show this week by talking about something that is just impossible to get out of your mind and impossible to get past. As I’m sure you all are too, I’m still processing and grieving over the horrible shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, the shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead. The massacre, of course, unfolded on the heels of another mass shooting that we’ve also talked about at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, which left 10 Black people dead in what was a racist massacre. The days since then have been sad and somber as people and families mourn. And the American people are, once again, left to reckon with a country in which mass shootings are tragically regular, and those in power seem unable or unwilling to do something about it.

Preet Bharara:

As I speak these words, I have cable TV on in the background, and the news is all about the burials and memorials of small children in Uvalde, Texas. And all around the country, parents, teachers, and students have to think about what would happen if an active shooter were in their schools and were faced with the terrifying reality that it could very well happen to them. That’s why in the days since the shooting in Texas, brave and inspiring students around the country are walking out, walking out of school to urge lawmakers to pass gun control legislation that could save lives in particular, their lives. In the DC area, for example, hundreds of students walked out of McLean High School and Swanson Middle School. One of the organizers is a 16-year-old named Bennett Brunner. Students, including Brunner, gave speeches as the Washington Post reports.

Preet Bharara:

Brunner said to the crowd, “Often, the older population looks down upon the youth and says, ‘What are you going to do about it? You can’t vote.’ But in four years, we’re going to be the people with the ballots. If you do not have comprehensive and secure gun legislation, then you’ll be voted out of power because it’s not getting better.” Afterwards, the group of teenagers chanted, “Am I next?” In Oregon, students at Roosevelt middle school organized a similar walkout. Photos show young people, not much older than the victims in Uvalde, carrying signs that read, “Lawmakers care more about fetuses than our lives,” and, “Protect kids, not guns,” and, “I shouldn’t have to be afraid to come to school.”

Preet Bharara:

14-year-old Oliver Coehlo told the local paper, The Register-Guard, “We went out and went to spoke from our hearts. We feel fear every day. I know I do, I know I feel fear every day. And I know that this is unacceptable, this just can’t Happen. Human life has to have worth.” There were also walkouts in Minneapolis Public Schools, at Green Level High School in North Carolina. And I could go on and on because students in at least 34 states in DC have led walkouts in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting, and more are being planned as you listen to this. I think that’s pretty incredible.

Preet Bharara:

But I should be clear about something. These children, they’re children, should not have to do this. They should not have to lose more learning time than they already have to the pandemic, to tell lawmakers that their lives and their schools ought to be protected. They should be able to sit in class, learn, and read and connect without the fear of being the next victim. And our lawmakers should do everything they can to protect these students and keep them safe from this horrible kind of violence. And yet, in the midst of so much sadness and fear that everyone feels in this country, these students are organizing with one another, speaking out together, and doing everything they can to make the point that we need sensible gun control legislation to keep them safe. It’s inspiring and it’s brave, and I commend each and every one of them.

Preet Bharara:

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Congressman Mondaire Jones.

Preet Bharara:

If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me, @PreetBharara, with the hashtag #askpreet. Or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338, that’s 669 24 PREET. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. The CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Wiener, Jake Kaplan, Sean Walsh, Namita Shah, and Claudia Hernández. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara, stay tuned.