Criminal justice and the war on drugs
In a July 2011 episode on prison costs, Bob Zadek described the NAACP as an example of the “strange bedfellows” libertarians find on criminal justice issues, saying the organization “sort of agrees with a lot of the positions of libertarians about these criminal justice issues.” He placed the criminal justice system in a category that lacks support among progressives, libertarians and those who look after the interests of minorities, and said it is driven by social conservatives in the Republican Party. Crime Down: Prison Costs Up (2011)
The same episode’s discussion of the war on drugs was carried mainly by guest Veronique de Rugy, who described National Review’s 1996 symposium position that the war on drugs had failed, and by Zadek, who noted California was under a judicial mandate to reduce prison overcrowding and that a federal judge had ordered the release of prisoners. Zadek said that on reflection he thought selective release of non-violent prisoners was a good idea. De Rugy said releasing non-violent criminals who should never have been there did not address the fundamental problem of laws sending people to jail. Crime Down: Prison Costs Up (2011)
Litigation history and anonymous association
A March 2022 episode with Jeff Kosseff treated the NAACP as a landmark litigant in the history of anonymous speech and association. Kosseff said the right to anonymous speech began being recognized through the courts in a free association case in the years right after Brown v. Board of Education, when the NAACP was fighting to get Alabama to desegregate its school systems and state officials were fighting back. He said the state attorney general noticed the NAACP had not filed the proper corporations filing application and, rather than simply requiring the form and a $10 fee, sued to oust the group from the entire state of Alabama. The United States of Anonymous (2022)
Kosseff said the case went to a courtroom of Judge Walter Jones, whom he described as the state trial judge who presided over New York Times v. Sullivan a few years later and as a white supremacist who had written columns saying the white race is superior. He said Jones issued a temporary order to shut down the NAACP and a discovery order requiring its membership list for the state of Alabama, with high fines for every day the list was not provided, even though there was no real need for the list to adjudicate a corporations filing dispute. Kosseff said the NAACP had evidence of retaliation against its members and refused, and the Supreme Court unanimously held that the NAACP did not have to provide the membership list, finding a real threat of retaliation and that disclosing member names would violate the freedom of association. The United States of Anonymous (2022)
Amicus coalitions and civil forfeiture
In a December 2018 episode on Timbs v. Indiana, guest Sam Gedge described the amicus briefs filed in support of the Institute for Justice at the Supreme Court. He said there were about 18 or 19 amicus briefs, and that the ideological spectrum of groups filing in support was breathtaking: the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center signing onto a brief with the Cato Institute, and the US Chamber of Commerce, among others. Awaiting the Verdict in Timbs v. Indiana (2018)
Gedge said the ACLU also joined, and that the ACLU had been fantastic on issues like economic sanctions and civil forfeiture. He said the issues—the justness and constitutionality of civil forfeiture, the potential for abuse in economic sanctions, and whether Bill of Rights protections apply to the states—cut across a cross-section of ideologies. Zadek asked about the Foundation for Moral Law, which he said he had never seen on an amicus brief, and Gedge said its focus was similar to many of the amici: regardless of whether the particular fine was excessive, the question had nationwide importance beyond Tyson Timbs and his car, and it is immoral for government to levy excessive fines and forfeitures on its citizens. Awaiting the Verdict in Timbs v. Indiana (2018)
Transit, bus service and minority neighborhoods
In an April 2020 episode, Randal O’Toole described Los Angeles transit policy as an example of subsidy-driven decision-making. He said Los Angeles had a good bus system carrying hundreds of millions of bus rides a year, then decided to build rail transit; as rail was built, bus service was cut and fares raised, and the system lost five bus riders for every one rail rider gained. He said the NAACP sued, saying bus service to minority neighborhoods was being cut to build rail lines into white neighborhoods, and the court ordered bus service restored for 10 years. O’Toole said ridership recovered during that period, and that as soon as the 10-year period expired the agency cut bus service, raised fares and started building rail again, again losing five bus riders for every rail rider gained. Never let a good crisis go to waste (2020)
O’Toole’s broader argument was that about 75% of the cost of running mass transit is paid by taxpayers rather than riders, so transit managers are beholden to politicians who hand out subsidies rather than to customers. He said politicians thrive on new grandiose projects and that the loss of bus riders is a triviality covered up in the glare of the stainless steel trains running on empty. He said transit has become a mode of travel for high-income people rather than low-income people, because high-income people are more likely to vote and to make campaign contributions to politicians who support mass transit. Never let a good crisis go to waste (2020)
Organizations and constituent interests
In a February 2018 episode, Zadek said that over the years he had done many shows on lobbying and organizations such as the NAACP, NOW and NARAL—organizations that have a certain class of citizens and fight to enhance and preserve the rights of their constituents. He said that to his knowledge there was no organization saying it was there to protect the rights of sex offender registrants. Guest Lenore Skenazy said there actually were a couple of such organizations, naming NARSOL, the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws, and W.A.R., Women Against Registry, and said she had spoken at both their conferences. A Sunday Morning Chat with The World’s Worst Mom (2018)
Skenazy described registrants as a downtrodden group considered pariahs by almost everyone, saying it is hard for them to get a job because their name appears on the registry, and that stores do not hire them. She described rules barring registrants from living within a thousand feet of a school, a daycare center, a bus stop or sometimes a church, which she said rest on the fantastical idea that anyone on the registry walking by a school will run into the playground and steal a kid and rape them. She said people on the registry are there for something they did do, not something they are going to do, and that the prediction rate is really wrong. A Sunday Morning Chat with The World’s Worst Mom (2018)
School choice and political positions
In an October 2022 episode with Cathy Reisenwitz, Zadek said it was almost like the role of the NAACP and organizations that seem to protect the rights of blacks, mostly inner-city blacks but all blacks, yet they oppose school choice, which he said is profoundly beneficial to blacks, and that they do so for political reasons. He said it has always been strange that black rights organizations have been so vigorous in opposing school choice, and he compared that to women’s rights organizations and their position on sex work, asking whether there is in general a strong women’s movement to continue regulation or criminalization of sex work. “I’m From the Government and I’m Here to Help” - Cathy Reisenwitz (2022)
Reisenwitz answered that within whatever could be called mainstream feminism there are strong strains of what she called sex negativity, in opposition to sex-positive feminism, which she said holds that sex is inherently morally neutral. She said sex-negative feminists seem to believe a woman can fully consent to cleaning a toilet for money or doing domestic labor for money or making a latte for money, but for some reason cannot consent to having sex for money. She said mainstream feminists, whom she called sex worker exclusionary radical feminists, correctly identify that sex work is often exploitative but ignore that there are harms and exploitation associated with all work, varying with how much power a worker has. She said what makes sex work more dangerous and exploitative than it needs to be is its criminalization and stigmatization, and that where decriminalization has been tried there are lower rates of exploitation, lower rates of violence and less trafficking. “I’m From the Government and I’m Here to Help” - Cathy Reisenwitz (2022)
Across episodes
The NAACP appears in six episodes spanning 2011 to 2022, and the excerpts show no development in how the show treats it: in each case it is cited as an example—of a cross-ideological ally on criminal justice and civil forfeiture, of a litigant in the anonymous association cases, of a plaintiff on Los Angeles bus service, of an organization that fights for its constituents, and of an organization whose school choice position Zadek calls strange. The treatment is consistent rather than evolving, with Zadek advancing the framing in the 2011, 2018 and 2022 episodes and guests Veronique de Rugy, Lenore Skenazy, Sam Gedge, Randal O’Toole, Jeff Kosseff and Cathy Reisenwitz supplying the specific episodes and arguments.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the NAACP’s founding date, founding principles, headquarters, membership figures or internal governance, nor do they describe the organization’s positions except as characterized by Zadek and his guests. They do not give the name of the Alabama corporations filing case, the citation or holding of the Supreme Court decision on the membership list, or the name of the Los Angeles transit litigation. The excerpts also do not state the outcome of Timbs v. Indiana, the identity of the justice who wrote any opinion, or which amendment the case turned on, and several excerpts end mid-sentence or at a section break where the discussion stops.