Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words 20160404 : vimarsana.com

And i said what is it about . He said but nothing clicked and i said you can bring a little bit by he brings ted big boxes of stuff to where i was staying and i read them and this was about when he was head of the division and they discovered a lot of the campaigns in the state and local elections were paying people for their votes. Host this is 2004 . Guest 2007 right after bush verses al gore. In fact, i did look in the documents where he went by the house of the old black woman in louisiana and told her there is someone buying votes and she said i vote a preacher comes by here in texas up in his car and takes us to the polls and tells us to to vote for on a piece of paper it tells us to talk to a particular person instead we need some help it evoked these numbers and we put that back in the car and they drive us over to the shop there was a drivein in day by s. A. Pork chops in which to drink then drive the selfie and gives us 5 apiece and i was doing this since i was a little girl. I did not know that was illegal but of course, you get a 5 and the pork chops in which so i thought it 5 and a porkchop said which is corruption but i thought i would write about the people who sell their votes and how long that is and violates the law in every state for that to happen then i thought about it these are the most marginalized people they have enough problems. Nursing homes in chicago where they have absentee ballots they give them to sign then give them these are little flask of whiskey. Places in wisconsin where they tell people who were looking for Public Housing give me your absentee ballot. It is not their fault but the campaign. I dont read that legal stuff but with the turnout of what i call chump change. So this is about fraud you are not known as a conservative. Tell us about your background. [laughter] this is not about voter identity should fraud. It has nothing to do with that. That is one category. This is something both parties engaged at the states and local level. In the use the gobetweens girl like in my hometown in national. There was a boss who had a barbecue joint this is the way to stimulate turnout because it is hard to get for your voters. It isnt anything that has to do with one party or anything. You are a snap an academic but there are a lot of democrats who would say that will latch onto this and say even Mary Frances Berry says there are voter fraud. Exactly when i told my good friends that i was writing this in some whereby students and they could try to say that i said this but i did not end when i let people read it they said it is in to that at all. Talk about chicago and philadelphia. All over the country they do exactly the same thing when they ask about it they just do what the whites do that is how you get a turnout. And then every place that you can imagine. And did many of these communities you have those who want everything but they have had these offices from whatever party it is and they will take care of their full and that is what they do. Just to understand the problem, whoever is Henry Anderson jones . From national. He would get money from the people who are running from office to take that money had promised touche delivered from the up for black ward. It is unjust on election day. But if somebody in your family is sick you might get somebody to come see them. Their put in jail if you cannot take care of them. They have to vote this requires absentee ballot balance or having someone in the Clerks Office for those who were doing it end getting something from the campaign. Doing what they say. Invaded the same thing for another community so generally this is a kind of thing that he did that is pretty common all over. And older woman from chicago civic she started to have raffled not saying they had to vote in particular but in the last election in chicago where the governor got elected and then one people to get out and vote. So what they offered was the idea if you have now voted sticker you can purchase a page in the raffle. But in chicago that you are not supposed to do that. And then she backed off. I think it is a good idea. The raffles or lotteries for or free anything once the votes and have the sticker is great but they say this is wrong if she didnt want to fight it so she backed off. So what about the issue others in florida . Date control the school board the council and all local governments. Because if you control the local a local government you control all the of jobs so you tell if people the extended family who complained that if you dont get your whole family to vote for you will lose your job because you didnt get everybody to vote and they never did anything for other people in that community for the things that they need. Most of what you need on a daily basis his state and local government president ial elections are exciting but your daytoday living depends on them. So you get into a little bit of ferguson with policing and park fees and a variety of civil rights issues and education. Tell us in terms of these local elections a notoriously low across the country talking about people of color. Like the woman i talked to said they dont do what they say theyre going to do they say they will fix the school but the sense is that it doesnt happen is the thank you could make the same argument about president ial arguments. 60 or it could be 27 in a area but with ferguson large turnout but a few months later the local election in 2013 the turnout is 6 percent africanamerican. Guest it is a good point but it is totally different at the local level first of all, your dont have a huge registration turnout you dont have the ground game also president ial elections are widely advertise in the media whereas with the spectacle of the election so how can you escaped that great spectacle . But the turnout with the president ial election is nothing to brag about it wasnt as high as people thought it would be in retrospect the you get more people interested because more celebration integrator ground game and the people into the registration dont educate voters. And i hate to be cynical because unlike the same candidates to vote over andover. We always talk about new voters the most state and local dull like them because they dont know what they will do. So with increased turnout is more money and is required to identify more people there will be more problems and then have to raise more money. And with that vote buying that i saw in those said to the hauling and then they make money off of that. And then they buy back more cheaply to educate the voters. So if you were to educate the voters they may hold you accountable for you didnt go for Medicaid Expansion you better vote. You are free to wheel and deal with part of the many issues and those better voting over and over that as well voters suppression on the cheap and real democracy. Karen just to be clear 90 percent of local elections are a different time with very low turnout. Cant not much publicity we have a few different places there is a study done in that more of anyplace else in to have the documents that show idyllic that every county budget enough places focusing with louisiana either where people were wired so i know that and it doesnt surprise people we use a louisiana politics is corrupt. But elsewhere in other places like West Virginia and illinois and wisconsin you can see it happening there and in nashville and atlanta and other places if you think about it they will read the book with what is going on in their town to realize or there is more ground many or stuff like that. It happens. Some people uld say we have to understand the scope of the problem to deal with in other words, c because he would pick up the voters and because of the vote to buy or the fraud unit photo identification or because of xyz we have to purge so isnt this scope issue how big it is . And i would think the researchers could do this but it is one of those things matter where you live or what town you are in bed you know, that happens already. You may not know how much it is the you know, that happens. People think about it but i could never imagine. They say yes. I remember in anybody can tell you in chicago they know that happens and people can tell you what happens to them. So now researchers even have graduate students go through to find out with every indicator the with the ink people in that category are only interested in to figure out only one party if from the research that he does so doesnt matter how many places you found it. You said the issue is buying rather than impersonation. That is not a problem. Is a situation of identification, and that would prevent this problem but i think that simplesse said we need photo id not to stop fraud but of the appearance of the corruption and it makes the of voters feel better so sometimes they feel they will stay home if they feel there is corruption ended with make them feel better and that is a rationale to make people feel better so wouldnt some people say you are elevating the stories . It will not work or prevent fraud. It will make them feel more uncomfortable. But in fact, here is my take on photo id i support litigating to get rid of these so passive losses but i also think organizations with Voter Registration and getoutthevote campaign or people that dont have the resources and dont a understated because it is too expensive to get a drivers license or to clear your record in fact, there should be just as much of the campaign to help people get photo id to educate them for sororities and fraternities and the naacp and aclu and all of those organizations to be just as interested in to help people because while we fight it out in the courts there are primaries going non there are elections going on and people cannot participate in the also the picture ids for lots of things other than voting and those who dont are marginalized. Host see you are sitting there is a reality out here. Guest if you want to help the up or marginalized you should be concerned i saw a woman who could not get into the building for the Doctors Office was and was said because she had no photo id six they had dissented from that and said we should just have photo id because pour people need identification anyway but my biggest concern is with gatt members in the amount of impersonation fraud compare that to the number of people who dont have photo id so lets lets get the data and once we get that did make some decisions but this is the argument that was made but they need it anyway so go ahead to be proponents. Your argument is no . I said look at the facts and in the analysis just because they need photo id we can set up a campaign to get them the photo id without saying you need that to vote. Guest i agree with that but those who argue against the photo id lot and dont say anything at all about all the poor people who cant get into the courthouse or the Doctors Office and not the least bit interested to figure out a way to help them to do that. Then that is wrong. Host that is always the case when you talk about Energy Assistance you can be with to help people get their heats in the winter through liheap if youre dealing with people dont have resources that is the immediate issue run but then the underlying structural issues but that doesnt necessarily mean the you are against dealing with the underlying issues as well. Of course,. If i was going to make the intellectual argument we would debate this. But the reality is with those elections while we are litigating. And there are elections going on. In saying we ought to be thinking about there are ways to do something. But you should be struck down it reminds me of people who talk about Medicaid Expansion. Eventually they will come around. And with those who dont have helped or any health care. They will come around and i. M. Willing to do that. Aided the meantime what is going on. And lets talk about the Voting Rights act and then it sucks all the air so lets spend more time of that bright shiny object. I have done the work on Voting Rights into in terms of protesting the civilrights commission there isnt any part to this issue i have not touched but the reason why it is important any time i find people taking advantage to get away with it big time like those who didnt hold those local Council Elections and they would have controlled the patronage. Allegis to have the election and even when they are forced to. And then to pretend those who paid money to this person or that person if the federal government had not been invoked unvocal da was a part of it. And held that seat from the time of anybody could remember even after they did all of that and i have just it the person for you to appoint somebody in a bad love him but he did not know his way out of the paper bag. When i looked at all of that i say this whole part of the system you will understand say they dont want to go to war are not interested because nothing happens. Have you share this . No i have not. The local district attorneys which is really upset him, they dont want to prosecute because they get elected in the same way and they are all in it together so therefore they find reasons not to. Local judges in those communities are elected so the system goes on the way that its always going on unless you make a federal case where there is discrimination of some kind and there are proposals to test the law to give the federal government more power over voting in general. And if there is a proposed constitutional amendment that folks have introduced. But we know how hard it is to get a constitutional amendment and so i think that my way which is explaining to poor and marginalized people what you could get collectively for your vote if you tell them to go away and then figure out what you want and get the candidates that you want is a better interim solution than trying to wait to see if you are going were going to get an amendment or people are going to decide to come to their senses. Host lets say we actually enforce the state law or are we we figure out a federal statute obviously there are prosecutions for the state officials even though they are not federal officials, so lets say that there was a prosecution. Isnt there a problem with authorities investigating political activity and that chilling legitimate participation . You can use that as a weapon to tell the political Participation Participation and fewer of if youre of the mind to use it for that. They can always figure out a way to use whatever walls are passed to do something to benefit themselves as a weapon against the people they consider their opponents is that its possible. Postcode is one of the reasons people say we shouldnt regulate speech or Campaign Finances etc. Because they will be on a witchhunt to kill the opponent. Thats why it is a remedy to come back to my proposal which is to say that the organizations that are concerned about voting should educate the people im talking about and use the collective power they would have to get people they want to run to support them and hold them accountable, not to support the people and year after year and give them these little bits of goodies and then go off and vote for stuff that has nothing to do with what they want or pass laws that are erroneous for them. Thats the way that the democracy ought to work. And thats why this corrupts democracy and why i dont think that its going to pass anyway but it would be better than trying to pass any kind of law that can be abused by those that have the power to use it. Host so the different churches all the organizations that do get out the vote and registration off to be doing education and picking candidates and holding candidates accountable and showing them how to do it. Host what let me ask about the role of the race. The reason that its difficult is because there is a frame of people of color violating the law into kind of casting a stone said thursday civilrights narrative which is access to inclusion and these people just want to participate and there is this counter narrative which is kind of a law and order just as they commit all that crying they are fraudulent in terms of their voting etc. So there is a kind of racial narrative thats out there. How does your book play or navigate navigate and how does the race factor into the concerns. It ought to be obvious to the people in this book into the old folks of all colors are being taken advantage of. In fact its the folks that give big money to the Campaign Donors that but then use the money to dribble out little bits for all these people who are the malefactors in this whole process. Its not colored folk that we are talking about who are doing this. So they are the people that are paying a little money to pass the people people for the candidates are running. So it has nothing to do with people being crooked although im sure that there are just like everybody else and latinos but the class of people in office and who are running for office come and its the same people often over and over in the legislatures committee, they are the ones that are corrupt and the other people are not getting the benefits because they are not acting collectively they havent found a way to collect it all these years. Host what would you say to the argument come and when i say republican i mean civic republican for the argument that this is why we want t limit to those who cant be bought for will vote their conscience, and this is one of the problems with these progressive reforms that expand the franchise. There are two things come upon, you got people that are not paying attention to the issues in the argument and the other argument would be we have all these Campaign Finance problems because we have to communicate with all these people and persuade before when we had a few folks voting that her property landowners they were making decisions and we didnt need all this money to communicate and we didnt have the campaigning people study for elections and made the decisions based on the merits. It has occurred in history just as it has since our early history we have people going out having duels and killing each other and even had when they made the universal manhood suffrage without having property it tells you it had nothing to do with race or anything like that. Theres a lot of people that said we shouldnt expand this to because it couldnt have been to many that could have happened. Host these people all work in the factories etc. And they will do with their bosses tell them and they will really participate. And even the aristocrats. But i talk about that in the first chapter of the book throughout history thereve been people in favor of limitations and limiting suffrage at every turn even when we are expanding suffrage at the same time there are efforts to whether it is where people live over what language to thats always been true. Thereve always been those that thought they were not educated, those who are, who dont know enough should be voting and certainly the illiterate. I dont think thats been the main problem in our politics. Host lets have a little academic. Why is vote by a problem . The founders paid for the refreshments and people to vote the people that vote for them etc. You talk about australia doing something. So whats wrong . Guest nothing. Whats wrong is getting people that and not having them understand the things they complain about, which they do complain, not getting done. The goal of getting those done is undermined by the acceptance. Host its fine as long as you have this disclosure. Guest it would be better for them if, i dont care if they give 5, at each polling place you could hand out 5 that would be great. But the point is when the candidates use that instead of keeping their promises were doing something about the problems that the of the people and their constituencies have and then told them we are not going to do anything for you because you got people ready so we dont have to do anything for you, thats the part of the democracy that is corrupt you have people representing you that are supposed to be representing the community but in fact they are representing the interests of whoever else is involved with those that they care about and all that you are getting out of it is this a. Host what is the difference between 4 to a particular way vote a particular way and the Campaign Promise we are going to build this new bridge and put in the community. Isnt it a quid pro quo in both of them . Guest getting the Campaign Promise to build a bridge or the community that is needed is responding to the needs of the community. The individual voters and then you dont you dont get Medicaid Expansion, you dont get anything, clean water or any of the stuff, all you get is that. Thats where the problem is and the voter isnt educated enough. They are not educated enough and those that care about them and have organizations that are supposed to be trying to help them dont educate them enough to know that you can get the better whatever it is that you really need if you were to do it this way and when he comes back and says lets not talk about this lets talk about what im going to give you. No problem just to get turn out in terms of the little peer pressure to encourage people to participate in and of itself. It would still be a problem if somebody said we are going to do this and it hopes the community but helps the community but i know how people are and therefore a. That isnt possible i would imagine. Guest if you said you were running into you were going to put the bridge up and you told them you were going to do the bridge and they all came out, that is as they say in new orleans that is just something off the side of. You know youre not even going to try to get the bridge built or anything else. The only thing you tell them is this is what you get. Host it is the notion of taking a choice. Guest you are undermining the choice and getting people to vote for someone they probably wouldnt have even gone to vote for by giving them Something Like that rather than discussing what the issues are, what the policies are, what you stand for and the like. Host what if, this is going to be paternalistic but if i know that you need a boot camp but you dont even know what it is, i noted here are the things you need to improve your community but ive got to get you the polls ive got to use any means necessary and ive got to do some shady stuff here, what is the classic, whats the political classic here about the grass but my point is this is just politics and in order to get what we need to get, we have got to kind of engage in this. Guest i dont mind the turnout incentives. It is a choice issue which is democracy is supposed to be about making a choice. Host lets talk about solving the problem. Guest when i was writing this book towards the end he said we should have mandatory voting and all of our problems would be taken care of come he didnt say say all that most would be taken care of. By the time i wrote that in the book and that president obama said that and i was at the end of the page the next day he said i dont know if theres a good idea. That is a good idea. I guess he thought about it and if it isnt a good idea because what the mandatory voting does that does is it makes people vote even if they dont like any of the choices. Host is that a man of the none of the above option . Guest it makes them go out and vote and you vote for somebody. It doesnt matter who it is you can vote for whoever you want to. I dont think that people should be forced to make a choice from among the people and they are just going out there and for the candidates into and the turnout it means that probably you dont have to do very much at all depending on how many people are on the ballot because they all have to come out of the votes no matter what you do you wouldnt even get a pork chop. Host i dont think its going to happen. We are very much in liberty in terms of the country that they would have been but as an academic matter, dont we change the game from manipulating the turnout of mobilizing people to the polls or suppressing the vote for politicians making arguments on the merits about policy . We know everyone is going to participate because they face a fine if they dont participate, etc. , therefore this isnt about gaining the turnout, this is about the issues in the debate. Guest in australia and some other countries where they have this, there is no evidence the debates are any more substantive than we have here. So if we are going to talk about evidence than we have to research that and see what the answer was. Host what about taking the suppression piece off the table . Guest if you had everybody registered from the day they were born or whatever year it was and then they all have to make a thumb print and vote then you wouldnt have a voter id issue. Whether or not it would make the politics more responsive, thats what i would have to look at and see what the evidence is. But my feeling is based on just a couple places i know that they havent been any more for accountability than they are here. Host what is the role of money and politics . Guest first its given to the Campaign Operatives who use part of it as street money and a part of it to give to these folks and part of it thats where the money comes from. Host but in america we stand more on yogurt, so isnt it just the misuse of money as opposed to money in itself being the evil . We could use money on mobilizing the turnout legitimately as opposed to to getting people these incentives. So my pushback is this isnt a campaignfinance. Guest is to the extent that a lot of people depend on the amounts amount that we are talking about and people who are concerned about Campaign Finance issue are the Campaign Finance issue are concerned about what they called unlimited amounts of money and they are mainly interested in the president ial campaigns. But here there is money involved. We are not talking about enormous amounts of money because not much is being given that people were being taken care of all year long by the people that are there political operatives, so it isnt so much the money and the donors its what the money is being used for. Host this is the cheapest way to get people out and win an election and if we had more money than we could knock on doors ive times a year and engage these people in real discussions so that when it came time for the election they would be engaged and they would want to vote anyway and as a result we need our money in politics so that we can engage them with more than just a pork chop sandwich and 5 but we can engage them in the real Civic Engagement. Guest the people that are campaigning in these places most of them are not interested in engaging they are just interested in voting for them and in fact they are not interested in enough that they would be holding them accountable for anything thats where the education piece comes in. Its against the interest of the local candidate to do what you just said. They have a burden figuring out what they want to do after they get in office than they would otherwise. You are just making it harder for them so it is a lot easier just to get the person to vote for you. [laughter] host as a law professor i have a hard time understanding the fact that there isnt a legal solution for alternatives in all and all this other kind of stuff. Guest in the community i was thinking of the people were educated to understand how you put the pieces, when i see educated about i dont mean uneducated but organized in such a way they understood that by putting these particular pieces together and voting in this way that we could get better policing or whatever it is they want to get, that would be a solution to the problem and then you wouldnt have any trouble in the turnout because people would think that they would be turning people say things like why am i voting nothing is going to happen. Thats because of the experience they have or what they see not much happens but if you organize to understand that then it would be different. What is your response to the person who says frankly it is naive to educate 200 Million People about why they should vote and participate but the Political Science. Its because someone asks them to vote to get out to vote and some people would say this im not saying it that other people would say it. There are other people that are kind of the readers etc. But mobilizing and we want to change the way they are more mobilizing people. They should mobilize them in other ways and it is not it is naive to say that we would educate 200 Million People about the virtues of Civic Engagement. If they dont have jobs etc. , then they made a costbenefit analysis compares the costbenefit analysis compares Political Science on this doing what theyve got to do is going to benefit them more than the one about vote they have. Host i would say that youre absolutely right to make that argument but its not what im talking about. Youre not going to educate them about Civic Engagement or even use that word. Youre not even going to use the word educated. If youre going to do, if you did what im saying is in the local communities, small places where people live, churches and other organizations would say here are the issues in this town that weve got and how are they going to fix it . Us pick somebody there that we can all support. Some of you say you dont have ids but in the meanwhile, lets get some together and take these people down because we need you to vote and if we do that then we might have a chance to get what are the things we want here in this community . Its got to be the community by community, social organization by social organization whether they collect branches or whatever they are. So the whole world we are going to educate, and using words like Civic Engagement or having a class called civic. It wont do. And i even tried. Host i have enjoyed our time together so much. Again, this is a great book. This is one of the great things about this and you know, thanks for taking the time and sharing it with us. Guest thank you for asking me those wonderful questions. I wish that i had known the answers. Usually it is authors are sharing their new releases. Watching on the tv is the best television for serious readers. They can delve into the subject