From all sides of the political spectrum on key Public Policy issues. Joining us today to talk about her book is an africanamerican studies professor at and where university in atlanta. Why did you write this book . The book emerged out of two things. One was the 2016 election. There is what i heard the pundits talking about how you know black people just did not show up. Hillary lost because black people did not show up in hillary lost because my people just were not feeling hillary. And i looked at that and he didnt make any sense because this was the first election in president ial election in years without the protection of the Voting Rights act. And we have had a series of laws coming targeted at africanamericans, so i want to begin to lay out how actually vote or suppression works. Because it is legal to democracy. So what protections were in place before the 2016 election under the Voting Rights act, and what happened to them . Remind our viewers. Passed,65, Congress PresidentLyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights act. Was the kind of massive disenfranchisement that was happening particularly in the south. Where you had counties that had a majority black population zero africanamericans were registered to vote. What the Voting Rights act did was to have a provision in their called free clearance. Free clearance meant that artain jurisdictions that had documented history of discrimination against its citizens, the Voting Rights for its citizens, had to have all of okd by the laws u. S. Department of justice, or by the federal courts in d. C. , and it worked. Mississippi, in before the Voting Rights act in early 1960, only 5 of africanamericans were registered to vote. Two years after the Voting Rights act was implemented, almost 60 of africanamericans were registered to vote. Free clearance, it stopped racially discriminatory laws from being able to be enacted and doing a wicked dance on the american electorate on our policies. Court3, the u. S. Supreme gutted the provision of the voter rights act. That, within two hours after the decision, texas implemented a racially discriminatory for id law. North carolina was not far behind, nor was alabama. The states just went wild. Figuring out, how do we suppress the votes of these key constituencies . They went after hispanics, asianamericans, as well as the young and the poor. And it wasnt just mississippi. You write in your book black registration went from less than 10 in 1964 to almost 60 in 1968. In alabama, the figure rose from 24 to 57 . Whole,region as a roughly one million new voters were registered within a few years after the bill became law, bringing africanamerican registration to a record 62 . What evidence do you have that in 2016, the Voter Registration was down, or there was suppression of the blackbaud . The black vote . Part of what we see is in wisconsin. There were 60,000 fewer votes cast in wisconsin and 2016 than there were in 2012. Wisconsin had implemented a racially discriminatory order id law among other things, a targeted milwaukee were set in the states black population lived. That 60,000 decrease that happened in 2000 10, 60 8 of that drop happened out of milwaukee alone. Election, the 2016 lack of voter turnout went down lack voter turnout went down. Voter turnout went africanamericans turned out early to vote early. And removed those days. Is any emailed that goes around republican circles where they are celebrating in 2016, the 8 decrease in early voting turnout for africanamericans. So, this is what we are seeing across the board. The house controlled by democrats, as you know, has the Voting Rights advancement act. It has been approved and sent over to the senate. Davis talking about this Voting Rights advancement act on the floor. Eres what he had to say what we have debated today is not a reauthorization of this important, historically bipartisan legislation, that has prevented discrimination at the ballot boxes because it does not need reauthorization. Sections two and three of the the ra that are currently in effect are continuing to help safeguard the public from discrimination at the ballot box. Every eligible american who wants to vote in our countrys elections should be able to cast their vote. This bill is only about free clearance and the democrat majority giving the department of justice and the federal government control over all election activity. Jurisdiction under preclearance cannot move a polling location, expand vote by mail efforts, nor properly maintain their voting rolls without a partisan department of justice clearing everything they do. This is about control and taking power away from state and local Election Officials who they dont like and putting it in the hands of the federal government. The Voting Rights advancement act establishes new criteria for andrmining which states political subdivisions must obtain preclearance for changes to voting practices in these areas may take effect. What section two actually does is provide for the kind of litigation that eventually will that up to a jurisdiction has systematically discriminated against its electorate. It hurls us back in some ways to the 1957 civil rights act, where you had to have a Voting Rights violation, then you had to have somebody sued, then you had to have litigation. All of that is going on. Months, years are going by. Had elections going on based on the disenfranchisement of american citizens and politicians being elected on a tainted electoral basis. In order so that they could continue to implement policies to continue to disenfranchise. It is not like the federal government had not tried over and over to allow these states to honor the u. S. Constitution in the 15th amendment. Looktates systematically at the 15th amendment and said, how do we get around it . That is why you have the Voting Rights act. What we saw with the gutting of section four of the Voting Rights act is that the states went wild again. This isnt about control and the federal government trying to take control, it is about honoring the constitution and the 15th amendment that says the state shall not abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. I want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation. Republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independent, 202 7488002. You can also text us with your first name, city, and state. Carol anderson, you write in your book about the motivations. Did notinority voters just refuse to show up, republican legislators and governors systematically blocked africanamericans, hispanics, and asianamericans from the polls. The impending democrat collapse of the Republican Party was overwhelmingly white constituencies becoming ever smaller shares of the electorate and the gop extremist inability to craft policies that speak to an increasingly diverse nation. The republicans opted to disenfranchise rather than reform. Guest yes. It is sad. In so many ways, it explains where we are right now. Where you have a party that has moved so far to the right that its policies just dont resonate. Trumps why you have the point person in wisconsin talking about in a closed meeting that the way that we do it, republicans suppress the votes, thats how we win. Because it is Voter Suppression of Traditional Democratic and graphics. You have this key urge for the republicans to stay in power, but it is only by not resonating with americans as we understand democracy, as we understand the vote, as we understand elections, but by keeping key constituencies in that electorate from voting. To keep them blocked from the ballot box. And that is what the policies have done. It has book is at been updated to talk about what happened in 2018 election. Preview that. Guest in the 2018 election, this is where you saw this massive voter turnout and it was the highest voter turnout in the midterms since 2018. And so, one of the things you will hear, how can there be Voter Suppression when you have this massive voter turnout . Because of, it was in spite of. And so you have this massive rogue wave of civil organizations, Civil Society organizations that were getting d, driving people to and from the polls because of the massive pull closures, that were providing information, that foruant, suing the states closing down poles, for not having enough machines in minority precincts, for scrapping away absentee ballots because of socalled signature match. It was Civil Society doing the heavy lifting, and the energized public that understood how our democracy was at stake, in so they were willing to stand in line for hours in order to be able to vote. That is what happened in 2018. Organizations working with that engaged electorate in order to make this democracy vibrant and real. Florida,e in miami, dependent, good morning. I would just like to know how requiring somebody to show an id is inhibiting or probing. I dont understand that. I mean, do you think that people thatdont you think people who are not citizens should be allowed to vote, like the rest of your constituents do . Hillary lost because she lost. Get over it. Have a nice day. Guest that was a wonderful independent talking. Let me walk you through how the idps works. The idps, one of the reasons why it works so well is because it sounds so normal. It meets our middleclass norms. Everybody has an id, so how hard can it be . Everybody has one. Well, thats not how the state has crafted this. What theyve done is theyve identified, by race, certain types of ids that whites have, and that black people do not have or that latinos do not have. And then, theyve made the access to the ballot box based on the prevalence of those types of ids. Alabama,nstance, in alabama says you have to have a government issued voter id. So, your bank card is not going to work. So, a government issued photo id. What typesdecided, of government issued photo id . They decided that Public Housing id, for example, does not count as a government issued photo id. But doesnt get more government issued that Public Housing . Inl, when you realize that alabama, 71 of those in Public Housing are africanamericans, and for many, its the only id that they have, this becomes a way for alabama to begin to carve out that electorate. What alabama did was it shut down the department of Motor Vehicles. For fiscal reasons, to be fiscally responsible, shut down the department of Motor Vehicles in the black belt counties. Requiring them, people who dont have a drivers license, and you dont drive, to go to the next county or 50 miles away in order to get a drivers license. So that they could be able to vote. That is how it works. That is how it works in texas, in georgia, in North Carolina, in alabama. So, the voter id sounds reasonable except its not. And what we also have happening here is this mixture, this wild mixture of the systematic denial of rights or the right to vote for americanwell, we have had cf slavery. That is unpaid labor, followed sharecropping. Endemic in the africanamerican community. So endemic that the poll tax was going to require somewhere 6 of the annual farm income, family farm income, in mississippi. Of the annual family farm income. That is no small fee. That is where you are making a choice about, can i vote or can i put food on the table . Reasonable andso raceneutral. Fast did as did another test that said, we believe we ought to have an engaged citizen rate that understands our foundational principles, so we dont think it is too much to ask for them to be able to read and interpret a section of the constitution. Well, when you systematically swathseducation to large of the population and then you put a legal document in front of them and tell them to read it and interpret it, it is designed again to say, we dont want black people to read, to vote, without saying, we dont want black people to vote. U. S. Supreme court in fact, saw that the poll tax and literacy test were ratesneutral enough that they did not violate the 15th amendment. Of thewo pillars mississippi plan of 1890 were so 3 erful that by 1940, only of africanamerican adults were registered to vote in the south. 3 . Just as the state is getting ready to do right now. That tells you the power of this. Now you move this to where we are. So, you take things like, you have to have like a drivers license to vote, but we are not going to put drivers license bureaus anywhere near you live or anywhere near public transportation. Same for polling stations. They a study out of the did a study here that found within number of polling stations that have been closed in georgia alone that have increased the distance from where black communities are to where there polling stations are, increased them so much, somewhere between 50 to 80 thousand votes were not cast between 50,000 to 80,000 votes were not cast. Crow 2. 0. Host lets go to cathay from los angeles, republican caller. Caller you are completing so many issues, in my opinion. Im a black american woman, and i can see there may be differences in the south and the needs urban cities, but six decades of ideology has destroyed black america. In these urban cities. Conceivably, maybe black americans did not vote for Hillary Clinton because of blades it because they know the data of how six decades in these urban cities has destroyed black america. Homeless in los right after slavery, we owned one half of a percent of the wealth of america. Today, we own one half of 1 of the wealth of america. We are not progressing moaning democrat, we are we are not progressing voting democrat, we are regressing. The Median Income for black women in boston is eight dollars, so maybe i guess you are not on social media, but as in academia, you have to know the data. Host lets get a response. And i i know the data, know that we cannot begin this conversation with the rise of Lyndon Johnson. I know that we must begin this conversation with 1619. We have to look at centuries of policy, and understand that when i talk about Voter Suppression, im not talking about black people didnt vote for democrats. Im talking about black people did not vote because republican governments have targeted ensure thaticans to they could not get full access to the ballot box. I want people to vote. That is my concern here. People must vote. They must engage. And the parties must engage all of those constituents. When we have a party that decides he cannot engage in suppresses abode, that does the dance of joy in North Carolina because it targeted the days that africanamericans, from church come from church to vote at the polls. When you have in florida marking out the days of early voting one have looked at the chart and figured out when africanamericans go vote, that is a problem. Problemwe get to not a is that when we have laws on the , thenthat are enforced recognize the rights of all american citizens. I,t whichot about blex is fake. This is about american citizen right to vote, period. States thatanderson far too many policymakers believe the right to vote is something to be earned after perhaps paying modernday poll tax or walking miles to the nearest polling station to cast a ballot. A major legal and political paradigm shift is taking place. The responsibility for upholding the right to vote is moved and has play squarely on the backs of individual citizens. Carol anderson, what are you saying here . Guest what im saying is you ofe a secretary of state out alabama saying that voting is a privilege, and so it needed to be earned, so that meant that you had to stand in line for hours in black precincts, but youre able to get in and out quickly in white precincts. Or what is happened in georgia, where you had four in five hour in the 2018 midterm elections. And people had to leave because they had to go to work. So they are making a choice because, i got to put food on the table. We understand the kind of economic deprivations that happen when you miss a days work ok because youre trying to stand in line to vote. So, but what you hear is, if they really cared about democracy, they would stand in line. So, we are putting the onus on the individual to see this through, to jump through all of these obstacles, to jump through all of the hurdles in order to have their right to vote honored. But we are not putting that same responsibility on the state to uphold the 15th amendment of the constitution. And that is just fundamentally wrong. Host on the Supreme Court what hasin 2013, happened now legally . Is there a case that could go before the court to put back what was, as you say, as you argue, coming from the Voting Rights act . Sost not that i have seen far, but i cannot quite speak to that. I know that women, the court has had an opportunity, for instance in the extreme partisan gerrymandering case, and gerrymandering was also covered under the Voting Rights act. When the court has had the opportunity to do that work, the court has backed off and said for instance that that extreme partisan gerrymandering, like in wisconsin, where the republicans sequester themselves in a hotel room for months, drafting a map with software, looking at who lives where, and they had two goals. One was to reduce overall voter turnout, and that is what a string gerrymandering does. By doing ital was by competitive districts. The other piece was that regardless of how many votes the republicans get, they would always have a majority power, the majority of seats in the legislature. Think about that. Regardless of the number of votes, always the most, and that is what happened in the initial election were democrats received 52 of the vote and got 32 of the seats, and with each subsequent election, has gotten worse. The u. S. Supreme court look