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Speaker 1: During Jeff Sessions nomination hearings for Attorney General, fellow senators

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Speaker 1: like Democratic Senator Corey Booker, testified that sessions record on

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Speaker 1: civil rights and voting rights contradicts the requirements to be

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Speaker 1: attorney general. He will be expected to defend voting rights,

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Speaker 1: but his record indicates that he won't. But Sessions promised

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Speaker 1: to defend voting rights for all. I deeply understand the

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Speaker 1: history of civil rights in our country and the horrendous

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Speaker 1: impact that relentless and systemic discrimination and the denial of

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Speaker 1: voting rights has had on our African American brothers and sisters.

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Speaker 1: I have witnessed it. We must continue to move forward

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Speaker 1: and never back. But under Sessions, the Justice Department has

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Speaker 1: moved further and further back, walking away from the Obama

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Speaker 1: administration's years of efforts to combat strict voter ID laws,

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Speaker 1: and there's now a clear indication that Sessions has not

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Speaker 1: only abandoned any efforts to combat strict voter ID laws,

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Speaker 1: but has gone to the other side. Last week, the

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Speaker 1: Justice Department submitted a brief dropping its challenges to Texas

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Speaker 1: voter ID laws, the toughest and most controversial in the nation,

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Speaker 1: and supporting Texas in a lawsuit that alleges the I

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Speaker 1: D laws discriminate on the grounds of race. Joining me

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Speaker 1: are two voting rights experts Nate personally, professor at Stanford

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Speaker 1: University Law School who joins me in the studio, and

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Speaker 1: then to Tokaji, professor at the Ohio State University Maritz

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Speaker 1: College of Law. Nate. This case has actually been a

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Speaker 1: long and winding legal battle that even went up to

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Can you summarize it as best I can? So?

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Speaker 1: The District Court found that the Texas voter I D

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Speaker 1: law was unconstitutional under the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments. As

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Speaker 1: well as a poll tax, it also violated the Voting

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Speaker 1: Rights Act and the idea the original voter ID law

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Speaker 1: was seen as intentionally discriminatory against racial minorities in UH Texas.

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Speaker 1: And so that went up to the to the Fifth Circuit,

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Speaker 1: which is the Appella court that oversees Texas, and then

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Speaker 1: as you said, went up to the Supreme Court sort

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Speaker 1: of uh an issue a summary opinion. The the upshot

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Speaker 1: of the sort of procedural changes until now is that

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Speaker 1: the UM Court has been asked to revisit its findings

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Speaker 1: as to whether this was intentionally discriminatory, it did and

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Speaker 1: said it was, and then um, the state of Texas

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Speaker 1: altered the voter I D law to make it a

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Speaker 1: little bit easier for people to register and to vote,

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Speaker 1: so that instead of just having strict photo ID requirements,

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Speaker 1: you could sign an affidavit if you didn't if you

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Speaker 1: had a reason that you didn't have a photo i D. So, Dan,

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Speaker 1: what did the Justice Department say in stepping away from

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Speaker 1: this case, Well, the Justice Department had previously taken the

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Speaker 1: position as the civil rights groups who brought this case

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Speaker 1: argued that the law was intentionally discriminated tour that is,

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Speaker 1: that it was intended to discriminate against minority voters, specifically

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Speaker 1: African Americans and Latinos, And the Justice Department has now

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Speaker 1: backed away from that position, which is not altogether surprising

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Speaker 1: when you consider that just Sessions is now the head

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Speaker 1: of the Justice Department, but is rather unusual for the

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Speaker 1: Justice Department, which generally tries to maintain consistent positions even

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Speaker 1: when there there is a change in the administration. But

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Speaker 1: I think the signal here is pretty clear that this

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Speaker 1: Justice Department is not likely to be a strong defender

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Speaker 1: of voting rights in the way that the last one was. Nate,

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Speaker 1: how different is the new version of the law. Is

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Speaker 1: it still the strictest voter ID law in the nation.

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Speaker 1: It's not, I don't. I don't think it sort of

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Speaker 1: depends on how it's applied in practice, and we don't

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Speaker 1: have an election yet where where Texas has applied this law.

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Speaker 1: But the story with voter ID laws is that in

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Speaker 1: some ways, you know, the the effect that it's going

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Speaker 1: to have on the population can be had had just

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Speaker 1: by the enactment of it and by people knowing that

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Speaker 1: there's an obstacle to vote. Um, if you have to

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Speaker 1: then prove that it was difficult for you to get

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Speaker 1: a photo, I d you know, very few people are

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Speaker 1: actually going to jump through that legal hoop. And so

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Speaker 1: one of the sort of critical legal questions as it

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Speaker 1: now stands with this law is did the State of Texas,

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Speaker 1: by adding this additional sort of easing of the provision,

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Speaker 1: did it remove itself from the charge that it was

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Speaker 1: discriminating intentionally on grounds of race? And the Justice Department

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Speaker 1: says that yes, that was enough to do it. Dan,

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Speaker 1: what's your opinion of the law. Well, Um, my opinion

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Speaker 1: of the law I suppose is that it's probably designed

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Speaker 1: to make it more difficult for certain groups of people,

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Speaker 1: including but not limited to, racial minorities, to vote. Of course,

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Speaker 1: that's not the stated intense behind the law. But if

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Speaker 1: you look at the pattern of states in which these

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Speaker 1: kinds of laws have been enacted, there almost always enacted

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Speaker 1: by Republican dominated legislative bodies. The conventional wisdom at least

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Speaker 1: is that these laws are likely to have a greater

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Speaker 1: negative impact on turnout by Democrats um racial minorities in particular,

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Speaker 1: including African Americans and Latinos, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and

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Speaker 1: so I think that's probably at least a part of

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Speaker 1: the intent behind the law. But intent is a is

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Speaker 1: a complicated question, especially when you've got a multi member

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Speaker 1: body like a legislature. I'm sure that there are some

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Speaker 1: members who have voted for this law in at least

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Speaker 1: some degree of good conscious, believing that this was a

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Speaker 1: law that was needed in order to promote the integrity

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Speaker 1: of the rules and prevent voter fraud. So in one

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Speaker 1: of the problems, and we see this in the opinions

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Speaker 1: that the courts the lower carts of issue on this

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Speaker 1: question is figuring out whether there was racially discriminatory intent.

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Speaker 1: Is a really challenging thing to do. I've been talking

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Speaker 1: with Nate Persley, professor at Stanford University Law School who's

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Speaker 1: in our studio in New York, and Dan Tokaji, professor

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Speaker 1: at Ohio State University Maritz College of Law, about the

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Speaker 1: Justice Department dropping its challenge to Texas strict voter id laws,

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Speaker 1: walking away from an ongoing court case and Nate. Let's

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Speaker 1: expand this discussion a little bit and talk more about

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Speaker 1: what else the Justice Department has done as far as

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Speaker 1: voting rights. Well, the administration has been involved in the

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Speaker 1: area of voting rights in many different areas, so outside

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Speaker 1: the Justice Department, it's obviously now well known that there's

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Speaker 1: this commission that's set up chaired by Mike Pence and

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Speaker 1: Secretary State co Chris Koback from Kansas, that is the

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Speaker 1: Voter Integrity Commission, which is recently asked for voter data

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Speaker 1: from all of the states, many of which are not complying.

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Speaker 1: So we know about that second UM they have recently,

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Speaker 1: the Justice Department has asked all the states to come

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Speaker 1: up with UM explanations for what they're doing to enforce

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Speaker 1: the national Voter Registration Act. This is the what's known

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Speaker 1: as the Motor Voter Act. It's what it is, the

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Speaker 1: federal law that deals with voter purging as well as

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Speaker 1: voter registration, and so um, there's a question there is

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Speaker 1: why are they interested in the in the purging rules

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Speaker 1: that these states are um engaging? And then second or

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Speaker 1: last them, not the administration, but but Republicans in Congress

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Speaker 1: are also looking at the possibility of defunding and eliminating

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Speaker 1: the Election Assistance Commission, which is the board that was

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Speaker 1: established after the two thousand election pursuing to the Help

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Speaker 1: America Vote Act and is one of the only federal

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Speaker 1: agencies that deals with election administration. Dan, which of those

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Speaker 1: moves or other moves that you know of concerns you most?

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Speaker 1: The one that is the most ominous from my perspective,

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Speaker 1: This a letter that the Justice Department recently sent to

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Speaker 1: the states asking for information about what they're doing with

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Speaker 1: respect to the National Voter Registration Act, including lists maintenance.

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Speaker 1: And the reason why that is especially disconcerting or at

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Speaker 1: least worrisome to me is that it suggests that the

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Speaker 1: Justice Department maybe pressing states to purge voters from their roles,

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Speaker 1: and that this could be a first step towards that. Now.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that for sure, but it's probably not

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Speaker 1: entirely coincidental that this letter from the Justice Department went

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Speaker 1: out at the very same time that the UM, the

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Speaker 1: Pence Cobac Commission, this commission that is investigating vote or

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Speaker 1: fraud UM sent out some requests to the states as well. UM.

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Speaker 1: And it suggests to me, reading between the lines, that

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Speaker 1: we may be seeing the beginnings of a concerted effort

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Speaker 1: to remove voters from the rules. This is a somewhat

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Speaker 1: less conspicuous issue than voter I d but from my perspective,

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Speaker 1: one that is at least as important, because if you

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Speaker 1: look at the empirical research, it tends to show that

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Speaker 1: voter registration practices affects who votes and who doesn't as

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Speaker 1: much as anything else. And so I'm I'm really concerned

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Speaker 1: about what the Justice Department may do in the future

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Speaker 1: when it comes to voter registration lists, and Nate, of

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Speaker 1: the ones that you spoke of which concerns you most well,

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Speaker 1: I agree with Dan on that this is the most

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Speaker 1: significant action, but but part of it is we don't

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Speaker 1: know yet what the KOBAC Pen's Commission is going to

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Speaker 1: do although it doesn't have legal authority to propose reforms

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Speaker 1: or I could propose reforms, but it's not gonna enforce them. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, depending on what they do at the back

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Speaker 1: end of this process, that could be the most significant.

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Speaker 1: It's certainly the most notorious in terms of the amount

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Speaker 1: of attention that it's getting. But the d J has

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Speaker 1: all the authority and needs under the National Voter Registration Act,

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Speaker 1: and so in terms of the effects, say on voters

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Speaker 1: in the next election, that might have the most pronounced effect. Nate,

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Speaker 1: are you concerned about the twenty eighteen elections? Many broad

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Speaker 1: questions I meant concerned about about, you know, voter rights

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Speaker 1: and voters being able to get to their you know,

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Speaker 1: assign polling places and sign in. Well, you know, midterm

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Speaker 1: elections tend not to have big administrative problems because we

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Speaker 1: don't have huge turnout like we do in presidential elections. Um.

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Speaker 1: I'm concerned about sort of the the the fog of

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Speaker 1: war that's that may hang over this election because of

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Speaker 1: all of these concerns that are leading up to that.

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Speaker 1: But so long as we have the decentralized, state specific

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Speaker 1: election administration system that we have. Most of the problems

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Speaker 1: that we're going to identify are going to be state specific.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that the federal government is going to

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Speaker 1: be able to shape election law in the same way

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Speaker 1: that maybe they would hope to. Well, one thing is

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Speaker 1: for certain that both of you will be very busy

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Speaker 1: over the next few years, because it seems as if

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Speaker 1: we're talking about elections all the time. And I want

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Speaker 1: to thank you both for being on Bloomberg Law and

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Speaker 1: Nate for coming to the studio. That's Nate personally. He's

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Speaker 1: a professor at Stanford University Law School, and Dan Tokaji

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Speaker 1: he's a professor at Ohio State University Maritz College of Law.

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Speaker 1: They're both experts in voting laws. As you saw coming

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Speaker 1: up on Bloomberg Law, the country's consumer watchdog is making

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Speaker 1: it easier for consumers to sue banks in class actions,

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Speaker 1: a move which is sure to be widely opposed by

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Speaker 1: financial industry groups, congressional Republicans, and the White House. We've

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Speaker 1: already heard from some industry groups and a Congressional Republican

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Speaker 1: about what they say is unfair about this new rule

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Speaker 1: that's coming up