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The Al Franken Podcast

80: Lead Dem Election Lawyer Marc Elias on the Epic Battle for Our Democracy

The Al Franken Podcast

The Al Franken Podcast

Government, Progressive, Politics, Senate, Liberal, Senator, Minnesota, Franken, News, Saturday Night Live, Comedy, Snl

4.67.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2021

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Democrats have a limited time to prevent America from becoming an authoritarian state.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey everybody. I've got an important one today, you know, for once. Mark Elias, my lawyer,

0:12.0

and the election lawyer for virtually every Democrat in the Senate is with me to discuss perhaps

0:18.4

the single most crucial moment in the history of our democracy,

0:23.1

I think since the 1965 Voting Rights Act, if not more so, actually, a number of Democrats in

0:29.8

the Senate, including Amy Klobuchar and Joe Manchin have agreed on an historically significant

0:36.9

voting rights bill that if it passes,

0:40.3

would literally save our democracy. Mark and I will go into what's in the bill,

0:46.3

includes just a lot of stuff that isn't in for the People Act or the John Lewis Act,

0:53.9

because since those transformative pieces of election

0:58.6

form were written, not passed, written, Republican state legislatures have been passing

1:04.9

hideous measures to counter them. For instance, in Texas, they've recently made it the law that allows Republican

1:13.0

poll watchers to physically intimidate voters. Now, this puts a check on that, says that a poll

1:20.6

watcher can't come within eight feet of a voter. That's amazing, isn't it, that you have to legislate that?

1:28.6

But anyway, there's all kinds of responses to Republicans' responses to the election

1:35.0

reform bills that we had written.

1:37.7

In a way, you could say we flush them out.

1:39.8

They responded to the bills we wrote and said, all, we'll do something.

1:44.1

I will allow poll watchers to get within three inches of a voter and breathe on them.

1:51.2

If COVID's still happening, that'll be really effective.

1:55.4

The thing is, we either pass this new voting rights bill or we don't.

1:59.7

Mitch McConnell has let it be known that the bill

2:02.6

will not get one single Republican vote. Not one. But if we don't pass this Freedom to Vote

...

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