Protecting Voting Rights with Eric Holder

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

NBCNews

News, Nbcnews, Why Is This Happening?, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Chris Hayes, Politics, Government, Society & Culture, Msnbc, Withpod

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Department of Justice, created in 1870, was initially formed in part to enforce Reconstruction era laws aimed at ensuring voting rights for formerly enslaved people. Yet, nearly 150 years later, voting access is still under attack. Eric Holder made history as the first black U.S. Attorney General, serving in the Obama administration. Holder now serves as the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which focuses on fighting back against gerrymandering to achieve fair maps. He joins WITHpod to discuss the fight for voting rights, growing redistricting concerns nationwide and how concerned he is about the possibility of former president Donald Trump being reelected.

Transcript

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0:16.5	I'm scared. I am nervous, but I'm also hopeful and I am determined to try to do all that I can to simply make our system fair. You know let the people decide let's have as neutral a system as we can.
0:21.1	Let's make this a battle of ideas as opposed to who's best at drawing the lines.
0:24.5	Let's make this a battle of ideas as opposed to who can misuse power as I think Trump inevitably would do. do.
0:34.0	Hello and welcome to Why is this happening with me, your host Chris Hayes. You know, we spend a lot of time in our lives now thinking about the Department of Justice
0:49.0	and what it does because it's such a central player, particularly in the world of attempting to hold
0:54.2	Donald Trump legally accountable. Jack Smith works the Department of
0:57.7	Justice, the Special Counsel Robert Herr, who released his report on
1:00.9	Biden's handling classified materials,
1:03.0	appointed by the attorney general and the Department of Justice.
1:06.0	And it's funny to think about the fact
1:07.8	the Department of Justice is a post-reconstruction,
1:10.5	post-civil war creation.
1:11.8	It's only 150-plus years old. It's created in
1:15.1	1870, 1871, 72, basically to handle the enormous amount of litigation
1:22.1	the government has to deal with in the aftermath
1:24.7	of Civil War and through reconstruction.
1:26.5	And one of the first things it does is attempt to enforce the reconstruction laws that try
1:31.8	to give genuine equality to black men and black folks more broadly,
1:36.6	specifically on voting the black men.
1:39.4	And it's also interesting to think that the position of Attorney General begins with the United States back in 1789
1:46.9	throughout the nation's history it was not until Eric Holder was sworn in as Attorney General
1:51.6	under Barack Obama in 2009 the nation had a
	...

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