Stacey Abrams Is Hellbent on Stopping the GOP's "Jim Crow 2.0"

The Mother Jones Podcast

Mother Jones

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🗓️ 10 March 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

Stacey Abrams has a name for the series of bills that just passed the Georgia state legislature: “Jim Crow in a suit and tie.” Abrams joins the Mother Jones Podcast to explain why your right to vote is once again under attack—perhaps more so now than it has been in generations. Donald Trump’s big election fraud lie sparked a deluge of voter suppression efforts across the country. Over the past two months, GOP legislatures have pushed 253 new voting restrictions in 43 states. Under the guise of “election integrity,” these restrictions run the gamut: enacting voter ID laws, limiting early voting, repealing no-excuse early voting, and purging voter rolls. The Roberts Supreme Court has gutted the section of the Voting Rights Act that would protect against voter suppression in states with long histories of voter discrimination. HR 1, the so-called “For the People” bill, could put crucial voting rights protections back in place. It’s the most ambitious democracy reform bill since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But right now, it remains unlikely that it will ever pass the Senate. Why? Because of the filibuster. Mother Jones voting rights reporter Ari Berman joins Jamilah King to talk through the contents of HR 1, the issues with the filibuster, and how Republicans are benefitting from minority rule to further curtail democracy. The 2020 election might be over, but voting rights are still very much at risk.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello Stacy. Hey, all right. I apologize. I made the mistake of answering a call. It was an elderly
0:05.6	woman who wanted to explain to me all the things that I needed to do to save democracy.
0:10.9	I feel like that's probably just like your day every day though. People calling you about how to save
0:15.5	democracy. It is and they have some very good ideas that if we lived in a free and fair society
0:20.0	would work. So I appreciate you taking the time. I know you're really busy. It's great to talk to
0:23.8	you as always. You as well. Thank you. Those two voices, you know them. That's Mother Jones
0:29.2	Voting Rights reporter Ari Berman and Stacy Abrams, the Voting Rights powerhouse which transformed
0:35.2	the political landscape in Georgia and as a result with country. You're going to hear that conversation
0:41.7	today because your voting rights are under attack once again. This is the Mother Jones podcast.
0:52.0	I'm Jamila King and Brooklyn.
1:01.2	On today's show, some of the biggest possible changes to how you vote in this country
1:06.4	are on the table right now. It's a reform package of epic proportions but it's not clear if it'll
1:13.7	pass because of how the Senate works. You might have thought that a bunch of this went away in 2020
1:20.4	after Donald Trump was out of from office but you're wrong. The war on voting has only
1:25.8	increased. And remember when Georgia flipped blue, you're going to hear Stacy Abrams.
1:31.7	That's right. The woman herself of the hour talking about the new voting rights bill.
1:36.9	Voter suppression laws in Georgia. Your rights under attack. We're getting into it with
1:41.6	Stacy Abrams and Ari Berman. Stick around. Ari Berman is a senior reporter at Mother Jones and
1:48.8	our voting rights expert. He's been closely tracking everything going on. Ari, welcome back
1:54.4	to the show. Jamila, good to talk to you again. Thanks. Ari, I'm seeing you everywhere on CV,
2:00.2	on Twitter that usually means there's something bad happening for democracy. What's going on now?
2:06.8	Yeah, I thought I was going to get a break after the election and somehow I'm busier now than I
	...

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