The Supreme Court on Mail Ballots, Trans Sports Bans, and Campaign Spending Limits

This supporters’ exclusive midweek episode digs into three major Supreme Court rulings with big implications for elections, transgender athletes, and campaign finance. Mike and Jay start with Watson v. Republican National Committee, where the Court upheld Mississippi’s post-election mail ballot receipt window and debated whether “Election Day” means ballots must be received — or merely cast — by then. They then turn to the Court’s ruling allowing West Virginia and Idaho to restrict girls’ and women’s sports to biological females, with Mike and Jay unpacking Title IX, equal protection, intermediate scrutiny, and the hard factual questions around transgender athletes who never underwent male puberty. Finally, they take on National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, where the Court struck down limits on coordinated party spending with candidates, raising familiar but still combustible questions about money, speech, corruption, political parties, Super PACs, and whether campaign finance law is mostly just constitutional whack-a-mole.

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The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.