Challenge accepted: Democrats strategize to counter GOP runaway gerrymandering

0:00 If we have learned one thing during the course of this administration,

0:03 it's that sitting back and doing nothing is simply not an option.

0:08 And in case you're getting yourself up to speed on what is possible,

0:11 and I was just talking with Chris about this, and I'm certainly doing

0:14 that, there are states like Colorado where

0:16 Democrats maintain a trifecta on the state level,

0:18 and we're activists right now are working to present

0:21 voters with a redistricting ballot measure this November.

0:23 There's also New York, which is trying to do the same, but for next year.

0:27 New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill has also said

0:29 her Democratic supermajority may soon look to redistrict.

0:32 Illinois Governor J .B.

0:33 Pritzker has signaled he would do the same.

0:35 But I'm also looking at you,

0:37 Maryland, where despite Governor Westmore's support,

0:39 the redistricting effort has largely stalled

0:42 because the Senate president has stood

0:44 in the way and continues to as far as of this night tonight.

0:48 Now, my first guest tonight served

0:50 as the attorney general under President Obama.

0:52 And in response to today's news of Tennessee,

0:54 he framed this fight ahead like this.

0:56 Make no mistake.

0:57 This fight will be hard.

0:59 It will be long and there will be setbacks as well as many victories.

1:02 Martin Luther King Jr.

1:03 once said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

1:08 But the arc does not bend on its own.

1:10 It's now on us again to do the necessary

1:12 work to pull that arc towards justice together.

1:15 Joining me now is former U .S.

1:16 Attorney General Eric Holder.

1:18 He's now the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

1:22 It's great to see you.

1:24 I have been looking forward to talking to you for some time now,

1:27 but certainly since the Supreme Court ruling last week.

1:30 And let me start by asking you

1:32 about the movement by all these Republican legislatures.

1:35 I just tried to outline in states like Mississippi and Alabama and Tennessee.

1:40 And we knew Republican governors and legislatures in the South

1:43 would move quickly after the Supreme Court decision.

1:46 But tell me how you've been digesting what we have

1:49 seen happen over just the last week since the decision.

1:54 Well, the unbelievably bad decision from the Supreme Court in the Calais

1:58 case allowed these states to do exactly what it is that they're doing.

2:03 But what they're doing demonstrates the very need

2:05 for the continuation of the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act,

2:09 in particular, Section 2.

2:11 If Section 2 was still a viable piece of legislation,

2:14 we wouldn't have these states going into special

2:17 session and stripping from black and brown people,

2:19 particularly in the South, African-American people,

2:21 their rights to participate fully in our democracy.

2:25 You know, the Voting Rights Act was put into place

2:28 to give African-Americans in the South the ability to be full citizens.

2:33 And what these state legislatures are in the process

2:36 of doing is turning back the clock to a pre-1965 America.

2:41 And that's something that we have to fight.

2:43 I'm bound and determined to do exactly that.

2:45 So let's talk about that, because right after

2:47 Tennessee passed its new newly gerrymandered map today,

2:51 the NAACP filed an emergency petition to stop it.

2:54 It's going to be one of many legal challenges

2:57 as this Republican last second gerrymander push plays out.

3:01 In the immediate short term,

3:03 what recourse can be found in state and federal courts?

3:06 And I ask this, it's so important because

3:07 I think it's demoralizing to see what's happening.

3:10 So what WHAT CAN HAPPEN IN FEDERAL AND STATE COURTS HERE?

3:14 YEAH, I THINK WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LOOK LARGELY TO THE STATE COURTS

3:17 TO TRY TO DETERMINE HOW WE PUSH BACK AGAINST THIS ON THE LEGAL FRONT.

3:21 BUT THE REALITY ALSO IS THAT we underestimate

3:23 the power that we have as so-called ordinary American citizens,

3:27 what I like to call extraordinary ordinary American citizens.

3:30 We have to remember that in our history,

3:32 the great social movements that this nation has put together

3:35 and that WHAT CHANGED THIS NATION WAS AS A RESULT OF THE PEOPLE,

3:38 ORDINARY PEOPLE GETTING INVOLVED.

3:40 SUFFRAGETTE DEMANDING THE RIGHT TO VOTE FOR WOMEN.

3:43 BLACK AND WHITE KIDS GOING DOWN SOUTH

3:45 AND RIPPING DOWN A SYSTEM OF AMERICAN APARTHEID.

3:48 JUST RECENTLY extraordinary,

3:51 ordinary Americans in Minneapolis kicking DHS and ICE out of Minneapolis.

3:55 All this happened because the people got together and decided,

3:59 we're not going to stand for the policies

4:01 that this ADMINISTRATION IS GOING TO PUT INTO PLACE.

4:04 NOW, IT'S GOING TO TAKE SOME TIME.

4:05 IT WILL TAKE SOME TIME AND PEOPLE CERTAINLY HAVE TO VOTE.

4:07 PEOPLE HAVE TO ORGANIZE.

4:08 PEOPLE NEED TO ASK THEMSELVES INDIVIDUALLY,

4:11 WHAT IS IT THAT I CAN DO TO PUSH BACK AGAINST THAT WHICH THEY ARE TRYING TO DO?

4:14 AND IF EACH OF US DOES THAT.

4:16 IF EACH OF US IS PREPARED TO COMMIT OURSELVES TO THAT CAUSE,

4:19 WE CAN BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS OTHER GENERATIONS HAVE

4:21 BEEN IN THE PROTECTION AND THE ENHANCEMENT OF OUR DEMOCRACY.

4:26 IT'S SUCH A MOMENT I THINK PEOPLE WILL BE TELLING

4:28 THEIR GRANDCHILDREN about where they were or maybe their great-grandchildren.

4:32 Let me ask you about another development.

4:34 The Republican governor of Louisiana, of course,

4:36 declared a special emergency to halt

4:37 the state's congressional primary election so Republicans can

4:41 implement a new map After tens of thousands

4:43 of voters had already cast their ballots,

4:46 there's obviously a lot of litigation around that.

4:48 But you think about this a lot, both the legal possibilities,

4:52 the political IS THIS A PRECEDENT THAT WE SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT DOWN THE ROAD?

4:58 I MEAN, LEADING UP TO THIS NOVEMBER,

5:01 PAST THIS NOVEMBER, CANCELING ELECTIONS, I SHOULD SAY.

5:04 YEAH, I THINK THAT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WE OUGHT TO BE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT.

5:07 THIS IS TAMPERING IN AN ELECTION PROCESS IN THE MOST GROSS OF WAYS.

5:11 I MEAN, AN ELECTION WAS ALREADY UNDERWAY IN LOUISIANA.

5:14 ABOUT 42 ,000 PEOPLE HAD ALREADY CAST THEIR VOTES.

5:17 AND THEN THE GOVERNOR DECLARES AN emergency.

5:19 Now, first off, the governor can't declare an emergency

5:22 in the way that he's trying to do.

5:23 The Louisiana state constitution says only the legislature

5:26 can make decisions about the timing of elections.

5:29 But he declares an emergency.

5:30 I'm not exactly sure what the emergency was.

5:33 And then he halts the election.

5:35 It's almost as if you're in an election and you

5:38 look at the polls and you make the determination,

5:39 well, you know, if we hold the election right now,

5:42 we're not going to do too well.

5:43 So let's postpone it until we can get

5:45 TO A BETTER TIME AND PERHAPS ENHANCE OUR CHANCES OF WINNING.

5:48 AND THAT'S IN ESSENCE WHAT THE GOVERNOR HAS DONE.

5:51 HE'S NOW BEEN SUPPORTED OR WILL BE

5:53 SUPPORTED BY THE REPUBLICAN DOMINATED LEGISLATURE THERE,

5:56 AND THE IMPACT WILL BE TO DRAW MAPS

5:58 THAT will strip away from African-Americans in Louisiana,

6:02 rights for which they have fought for so long,

6:04 rights that they had only granted to them by the Supreme

6:08 Court just a couple of years or so ago.

6:10 Again, a THAT IS A DARK CHAPTER IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

6:18 I MENTIONED A COUPLE OF THE STATES WHERE THERE IS POTENTIAL FOR ACTION.

6:22 IN THE PAST, I SHOULD JUST just note,

6:24 you have advocated as many people have and as we

6:26 all should for to adopt independent redistricting committees.

6:29 We, many of us would love to see

6:31 something like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act pass,

6:33 of course, but in the short term,

6:35 AS PEOPLE OUT THERE TRYING TO EDUCATE THEMSELVES

6:38 AND FORM THEMSELVES AND KIND OF WHERE THERE ARE STATES,

6:42 WHICH STATES THEY SHOULD BE WATCHING OR LOOKING TO WHERE ACTION

6:44 TO REDRAW MAPS COULD HAPPEN TO TRY TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD.

6:48 WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING MOST CLOSELY,

6:50 WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE OUT THERE BE PAYING ATTENTION TO?

6:54 WELL, I MEAN, THE STATES THAT YOU TALKED ABOUT, YOU KNOW,

6:57 COLORADO, ILLINOIS, NEW JERSEY, NEW YORK, POTENTIALLY MARYLAND, YOU KNOW,

7:01 AND WHATEVER other states that we can

7:03 look at and see where there are possibilities

7:06 of redrawing maps to make sure that we

7:08 respond to that which the Republicans have done.

7:11 And people need to understand this, we wouldn't be in this crisis

7:14 but for the way in which Donald Trump initiated it.

7:18 He was the one who started this whole thing

7:20 by saying he needed five seats out of Texas.

7:23 And I think they expected us, that is progressives,

7:25 people care about our democracy, Democrats to simply say, well,

7:29 you know, I'll go on television and I'll bemoan the fact that what they did,

7:33 I'll write an op-ed.

7:34 And my determination, I think the determination of many of us was that, no,

7:38 we're going to fight back.

7:39 You know, we have to deal with this crisis

7:41 that they have presented us with, and make

7:44 sure that we win in this crisis so that ultimately we can heal our democracy.

7:49 And healing the democracy I think ultimately is going to call is going to mean

7:52 that we're going to have to pass

7:54 federal legislation to ban partisan and racial gerrymandering.

7:57 But to get to that point, we have to make sure that we save our democracy

8:00 so that we have the capacity to do that.

8:02 You know, people need to understand.

8:03 We need You know, authoritarianism rose in in Europe,

8:07 in the early part of the 20th century, not because authoritarianism was strong,

8:12 but because the defense of democracy was weak.

8:15 And we cannot repeat that mistake.

8:18 The risks are entirely too high.