Strip Mining Democracy
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
Ralph Nader
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2021
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s program, we look at two ways that corporate lobbies and their political allies subvert democracy: “gerrymandering” and “preemption.” First, law professor Herman Schwartz breaks down the scourge of partisan gerrymandering. Then Mark Pertschuk, director of “Grassroots Change,” sheds light on how states and the federal government can “preempt” cities and local communities from for instance raising their own minimum wage, allowing paid sick leave, regulating firearms, banning plastics, or enforcing anti-discrimination laws. Plus, Ralph, David, and Steve discuss the infrastructure package and stock buy backs.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There was a guy who was really a genius, who died recently, named Hofeller, who was the Republicans' |
| 0:07.7 | star, Jerry Mander. And he took North Carolina, which has been very closely split. It's a swing |
| 0:17.0 | state and was told to make a 10-3 Republican. And he did for 10 years. He died recently. He was |
| 0:27.6 | quoted at one point of saying, Jerry Mandering is the only legal way that one can still steal an election. |
| 0:39.0 | It's the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. |
| 0:50.0 | Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Scrovan. Hello, my co-host David |
| 0:53.7 | Feldman. Hello, David. Good morning. And the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph. |
| 0:58.4 | Hello, everybody. Topics today are script mining democracy, Jerry Mandering and preemption. |
| 1:05.9 | Take it from there, Steve. Well, yeah, before we begin, I want to put in a plug for our meeting of |
| 1:11.3 | the Congress Club. On October 17th, that's a Sunday. I talked about this last week. We're having a |
| 1:16.6 | Congress Club virtual town hall. Ralph, David and I want to hear your stories and share strategies |
| 1:22.8 | to keep holding Congress accountable. So if you're a Congress Club member, look out for an invitation |
| 1:27.9 | from us. And if you're not a member, become a member, you'll give a Zoom link for Sunday, |
| 1:32.7 | October 17th at 4 p.m. Eastern time, 1 p.m. Pacific time. Go to nader.org or RalphNaderradioire.com |
| 1:41.3 | to sign up and join the Congress Club. We look forward to seeing you. And as Ralph referred to |
| 1:46.1 | before, one way to win elections in our system is to convince voters that your policies are the best. |
| 1:52.9 | The other way to win elections in our system when your policies are not that popular is to |
| 1:58.4 | manipulate the levers of power. One of those levers is the power of state legislatures to draw |
| 2:04.0 | voting districts. In a true democracy, our state legislatures would apply the latest population |
| 2:09.4 | data to divide up districts fairly. But we don't quite live in a true democracy. For many reasons, |
| 2:16.0 | one of which is partisan Jerry Mandering, manipulating the boundaries of electoral districts in order |
| 2:21.3 | to favor one political party over another, which allows one party to dominate the electoral map |
... |
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