A Plan to End Partisan Gerrymandering

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.3 • 107.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Supreme Court ruled last month that federal courts cannot rule on cases of partisan gerrymandering, saying that judges are not entitled to second-guess the decisions made by state legislators who draw voting maps. We spoke to one man who has long believed there’s a way to address the issue without the courts. Guest: Eric H. Holder Jr., who served as the United States attorney general for six years under President Barack Obama. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: The Supreme Court’s decision on gerrymandering instantly raised the stakes for the nation’s state legislative races, which are often overlooked by voters, but can shape the course of policy from abortion rights to education.What is gerrymandering, and why did the Supreme Court rule on it? Here’s a refresher.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Barrow. This is the statement.
0:10.0	Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts are powerless to rule on cases of partisan gerrymandering,
0:18.0	saying that judges are not entitled to second-guess the decisions made by state legislators who draw the voting maps.
0:27.0	Today, a conversation with a man who has long believed there's a way to fix the problem without the courts.
0:43.0	It's Monday, July 29th.
0:50.0	Hello.
0:51.0	Hello.
0:52.0	Hi.
0:53.0	Hi, Mr. Holder.
0:54.0	Yeah, this is Eric Holder.
0:55.0	Hey, it's Michael Barbaro from New York Times.
0:57.0	Hey, Michael. How you doing?
0:58.0	Good, good. Thank you very much for making time for us.
1:01.0	Sure.
1:02.0	Eric Holder was the attorney general under President Obama.
1:06.0	So I want to start in 2010, which is when it seems that the story begins.
1:12.0	What were you doing at the time?
1:15.0	In 2010, I was in my second year as attorney general.
1:19.0	It's the day after in America with midterm elections delivering the biggest shift of power and more than that.
1:24.0	In the midterm elections that happened at that point, Democrats didn't do well at all.
1:29.0	The biggest walloping of the Democrats since the 40s.
1:32.0	The biggest midterm election results in 70 years. That's history.
	...

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