FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall - Jeff Poor Show - Thursday 9-12-24
com into your life like I do every night from the heart of your radio I play a little sad and I play a lot of play and if you all change the song here's open. Welcome back to the Jet Force Show at FM Talk for those 6.5. Thanks for staying with us on this Thursday morning what's left of it. Real quick update from Natalie here. My daughter's there I'm scared but my husband is there too he's law enforcement officer so I know he will take care of business and said that is her daughter just texted her from Foley High School. The kids go home early so apparently someone pulled a gun during a fight at Foley High School and that's why there is that situation but it sounds like everything is locked down and taken care of. Joining us now on the line here always a pleasure to bring on our attorney general here at Alabama Steve Marshall General good morning are you? I'm doing well Jeff and sad to hear that situation in Foley but you know one things that we probably don't talk about enough is the work that we do at the AG's office to promote school safety and like SRO's being present in the schools I think are tremendously helpful. Schools planning for events like this are obviously critically important but nobody likes to hear that news so things are going well down there. I don't even know like how I would react if that were my child's school. I got like I'd be lying to get there but you know that's just the impulsive nature of a parent I suppose. Anyway on to other news general are you tracking this this like Haitian resettlement stuff we're hearing about around the state different places I I think Athens, Albertville, Dallas, Silicon good even some of the rumblings about Franklin County and Russellville. What do you make of all this? Yeah I think it continues to kind of to blossom as far as what we're hearing like you as you know I'm from Marshall County and so definitely familiar because I was up there just recently where people informed me a little bit about what was going on you know followed the news relating to the bus and what that meant and at least have some clarity around it but yet it's that broader issue though that I think that Americans have been struggling with and concerned about for quite some time and that is this increased flow across the borders whether they are rolled through a program that's being used and an improper way whether they are seeking a asylum as we understand the many of the Haitians are. I mean this is a significant issue and not only is it involves communities understanding what it means for public safety but this is a great strain on public resources I mean you saw I don't know if the news just yesterday of where the governor of Ohio is having to expend two and a half million dollars for a local county in Ohio to deal with the services that are just needed to try to deal with a population that is struggling to get acclimated into this country and so yeah we are definitely learning more every day being in touch with some of our federal partners to understand a little bit about why but it's a legitimate concern and I think it's something that people need to be paying attention to. So you're getting some answers from from the federal government and that's used to be like one of the complaints here from the the congressional delegation and from I think even at state level that they're not really getting any response to the federal government. Yeah I don't know that we're getting satisfactory answers but we're at least been given some understanding as the vehicle through which particularly the Haitian community are arriving and that's really more an asylum and parole than it is say illegally crossing across the poorest border in Mexico but in and of itself you know we have fought I mean almost just since day one of the Biden administration multiple efforts they've had around immigration clearly going beyond the bounds of programs that were established by Congress exceeding the authority that's been given to them to make decisions that they are not lawfully entitled to do but yet it doesn't mean that we don't recognize and see the need to be able to continue to be aggressive on that front. This is where elections matter and to the extent that we didn't understand it completely I think the debate showed it again the other night where you have a declared candidate the president who said that she wanted to not only encourage illegal immigration but also you know provide gender changing surgeries for those who come into this country all awful I mean the insanity of that should not be surprising when we see what's going on in the number of people that have come into this country. Well they're not just this episode with the the Haitians but just in general it does appear rather intentionally or are not intentionally that they're undermining a lot of local communities particularly in some rural areas does the state of Alabama have any recourse with the federal good. Can they can they sue the federal government or can they what can they do to question some of this policy that's leading to this that's putting the new burden on the state of Alabama. Yeah some of the things that we've been proactive in multiple cases across the country not just with me as the AG from Alabama but AGs across the country I mean you saw I think AGs were the first to call for me orcas's impeachment just because he's been such a failure in this job but the other thing that we know and here's the reality is that you saw Scott Beeson several years ago lead a charge in Alabama to have a very aggressive bill that became the law of the land to give greater authority at the local level to deal with immigration issues and that was struck down by the eleven circuit. Now there's small pieces of that that are still in play e-bearer five remains at least a tool that can be used but the problem that we face at a state level is that immigration is generally by the course been declared the domain of the federal government and not state governments and it hampers our ability to do things at a state level doesn't mean that at a local level we can't evaluate the businesses are there and what's attracting individuals to certain communities but at a state level it becomes much more difficult. Now the other thing you're hearing from a lot of different places these these NGOs operating within the state of Alabama and we had been Roberts on he's a law baker and he didn't really have much good to say about these NGOs but they're operating within the state here are they tell me are they under your jurisdiction I mean I don't know if they're operating illegally or not but it would seem that if you so desired you there would be some scrutiny there. Yeah the NGOs generically are not necessarily going to be something that that we have authority over and out to the extent that you're a charity in Alabama you actually have to register whatever your purpose may be but it doesn't give us you know significant oversight over their daily actions as much as ensuring that they are not for example masquerading as a nonprofit and instead they are a for profit organization but to the extent that they are engaged in illegal activity it does give law enforcement an opportunity to be able to weigh in but their advocacy efforts and their interaction with others is really not something that we have an opportunity to be able to to scrutinize. Generally the title night fight and you're having to challenge us in the court now you've got some relief here in Alabama from what the Biden administration wants to do kind of update us on that and your progress there. Yeah really please what's going on there. Just a circle back just real quickly on the immigration side you know the safe act remains something out there that Congress ought to pass and when we talk about you know issues that both parties ought to be able to support that's ensuring your citizens in this country to be able to vote and giving our election officials access to appropriate data to be able to confirm it so let me just throw that out there is one last thing that Congress can do to be able to help here despite the pushback of the Democrats in this administration but you know very pleased that that every appellate court now that has been able to consider this idea of gender identity becoming part of the definition of sex which allows Alabama's law relating to boys playing as boys and girls playing as girls in sports which would open up the bathroom doors of girls locker rooms to those claiming to be women that in fact are men really pleased that that we've been able to not only in all of the red states that have been engaged in this litigation to be able to put that rule on hold but uniquely I think we ought to celebrate the efforts of people like moms for Liberty that have weighed in to give relief in blue states that don't want to fight this principal fight and so I think you know collectively you talked about sort of NGOs earlier and really the nonprofit side this is one where we've been able to see tremendous success by the litigation efforts of those that are just not standing in the role like me as Attorney General but also have members associations across the country that are adversely impacted by this as well and so I think it's a great success story about where we are now we see that this case is going to continue to kind of make its way through the courts I think it's a case the United States Supreme Court will eventually have to deal with but the good thing is that as in this regulation and others that are coming at the last minute from the Biden administration one important roles that AGs can can play is to be able to stop those unlawful actions that they're making put those on hold not allowed them to become the law of the land so this is not another impediment that the Trump administration will face when they come into office in January well let me ask you that so so let's say that the the Trump emerges victorious in November and he resids some of this title night this executive interpretation of it or whatever where does this where does this litigation where does this suit go from that point forward is it just get dismissed or do we get like a a finality to it to where we had this question answered once and for all yeah I think it becomes moot and we'd go back to the the rule that the Trump administration passed which was common sense recognized but we all understand to be who is a man and who is a woman and allows title nine to do the things that it's appropriately doing but it can have multiple effects you and I've talked a lot about the work that we've done to push back against the craziness of gender affirming care where kids are being used as experiments for the woke crowd you know you've got a case currently pending of the United States Supreme Court that's been taken there by the Department of Justice challenging the work that was done in Tennessee that mirrors Alabama's law Trump comes in January they have the ability to tell the Supreme Court that they're changing positions and at that case becomes moot so there's a myriad of areas that that we have the opportunity by our votes in November to have a course correction very quickly and then there's some regulations that that have come into play that are going to take the work of Trump and his team to be able to get those reverse but it's look it's no different than when President Trump came in after the Obama administration there was years of work that had to go into changing the course the regulatory course of where the prior administration has taken it but the good thing is we've had multiple wins not only on the the gender side of the house but we've also seen it all men and the energy issues that impact you know the the the pocket books of Alabamians that we're going to allow this administration to bring common sense approaches that protect citizens but also regulated at an appropriate level. Join by him and Attorney Gerald Steve Marshall here on the program a moving right along gambling and your office has been involved in busted up some of these speakeasy behind the scenes I don't see casinos but slot machines or whatever to see a big old parlors or whatever they want to call them. You take a kind of more of an active role it seems maybe or maybe I mean I don't know that's just my perception that you're seeing more of these these situations where you have to go in and handle business where maybe perhaps you know the local law enforcement isn't or hasn't for whatever reason is that sort of a trend do you expect to see more of that in the future? Well actually Jeff I'd flip it a little bit and what you said what what is actually been really successful and I think we could talk about this from the very beginning is that when you have local law enforcement willing to partner and do the work we're able to stop these illegal operations and had a great partnership with the sheriff in Dallas County for the recent efforts that you saw in Selma to shut down I think it was six different facilities that were there that were operating illegally it shows that local efforts can work I think saw an operation recently in Gadsden that was done to be able to shut down some some operations that were there what would help is if we had increased penalties to be able to convince those that would do this that this is something that they would face significant punishment if in fact they wanted to continue with that because right now I don't think they see the risk when it's only a misdemeanor for which they can be charged but it does show that that collaboratively we have the ability to be successful about these operations and and we clearly are willing to do our part in making that happen. Oh one more thing here and we have a very competitive second congressional district election I think it could come down to maybe a handful of votes so we talked about election integrity and it kind of gets brushed aside because somebody of our elections at Alabama are going to are so one-sided we're kind of a one-party state but it seems like to me like kind of more than ever this is gonna be like it's gonna be important to make sure there's nothing nefarious or untoward going on and we have now have laws on the books right after last year what do you see that playing out I know you've had a at least one circumstance with a County Commissioner County Commission candidate trying to use the absentee balloting process. Do you feel like you're in a good place to enforce this new law? We do now of course there's a challenge to that law which we are defending in federal court but right now I feel very good about our opportunity to be able to move forward with it to the extent their violations between now and November but Jeff I think significant praise needs to be given to our Secretary of State I think Secretary Allen is doing multiple proactive things to be able to show Alabama is that gold standard for elections ought to be about but it's also why it's important to have eyes on what's going on locally to be able to share that information if in fact there's concerns that things are happening unlawfully and the Secretary of State's office has been a terrific partner in sharing information that we have the ability then to investigate and see whether or not we can prove I think the prosecution that's going on right now in our outside of Birmingham is an example of that but yet we won't be surprised if we see others moving forward. Yeah I guess the last question we're wrapping up here though it's this isn't really a this law the books wasn't a solution looking for a problem that we do know or we do think that this is going on a little more that maybe people are aware of. Yeah I mean Clay County is that perfect example in a race that was was not too separating the two parties it was close and particularly and I think you've highlighted I think the second congressional district is the most competitive race that we have out there you know two or three votes and every precinct are going to go a long way in determining who is the eventual winner in that race and so I think every vote is important every vote matters the Alabama legislature is spoken very strongly about whether or not ballot harvesting is going to be allowed in Alabama and they've said no and we need to make sure in cooperation with with our partners that we enforce that law if we see that there's a violation so yeah I think it was definitely something that that was going on and now we have the opportunity to make it stop. General you're always very generous with your time hopefully you get you on soon but I think you can for making time for this program. Thank you Jeff. All right that was turning Gerald Steve Marshall there we'll be right back this is Jeff Porchola if I'm talking about those six five ♪ Ooh, yeah ♪