To godly and present endorsement of the version who wrote all the Voter Suppression laws out of canvas. And hillary clinton, putting forward the most detailed and in many ways ambitious plan for voting reform and Campaign Finance reform that any major Party Candidate has put forward in years and years. This is on the electric mind electorates mind. We also see an upsurge of creative activity around the country. The single biggest change that could make a huge difference would be moving this country away from the ramshackle Voter Registrations. If we had universal and not a magic registration of everybody has 18 ineligible to vote, it would be transformative. It would add tens of millions of people to the rolls to the rolls them at cost incur potential for fraud good and its starting to happen all over the country. Oregon and california passed versions of this. The new Jersey Legislature passed that although governor christie vetoed it. They are considering in illinois. It is going to happen and it will make a huge difference in american democracy. On money in politics, there is a wide bipartisan cross partisan revulsion against Citizens United and the other case. We know that the new Supreme Court opening will be to a National Debate on what we expect out of the Supreme Court. We see not only focus on the constitutional doctrine, and the new and creative versions of Public Financing of reforms that could make a big difference here and now. The best system in the country right now is here in new york city to match small contributions. Seattle just enacted and we dont know how, and even more creative system that gave vouchers to candidates. Theres a ferment across the country. Even nonredistrict dan, that hardest nut to crack, you are seeing change. The Supreme Court little noticed opinion in june left nonpartisan redistricting commissions that are being placed in arizona, california appeared since then, the folks in ohio just passed one. Loretta has a somewhat different reform come at the you see redistricting in states all across the country. There is a debate over this. There is a fight over this. Some of the core issues of american democracy are debated and engaged in a way we havent seen in years. Last week the Utah State Senate voted to repeal the 17th amendment. They want to end the right to vote for senators. This is going to be a fight that will go on and on. John adams was right. There will be no end to it. That is the american story. It is a chapter we are already maxed and that is what the book is about. Thank you for your attention. [applause] now we are going to try to move the podium and i am going to have a conversation. One of the things that is a thrill for me as to have a chance to work with some of the countries most Effective Advocates and deeply knowledgeable experts on these issues of democracy every day at the president center, but the challenge for me as i have to keep out. Im very lucky that we are thrilled im into paris is going to join the conversation. Thank you, michael. One of the things that is the prevailing theme of the book is that every point in our nations history there is then a push over the right to vote and the book acknowledges and those of us who are recent studies of history no there for about 50 years there was at least an understood agreement that the right to vote should be accessible to all and should be broadly available. What i want to know is what is going on then and can we recreated for the future . Its a great question and it is true even though as less they say theres been a concerted push, concerted political drive to restrict Voting Rights are not done the Campaign Finance laws, for a long time these were not partisan issues. The last time the Voting Rights act was brought before the congress, and it was signed into law by george w. Bush and it passed the senate 98nothing. Campaign finance reform, john mccain, was one of the great champions and in fact was the last president ial candidate to take Public Financing. The partisan lines that seem so far been fixed in this polarized moment actually have not been. Why was it there was this sort of broad consensus . Among the reasons were that it seemed like the right thing to do, but it also seems that it didnt necessarily affect one side or another in their partisan calculations. In fact, in the south, part the consequence was there were many more people of color is liked it, but a lot of the white voters move to the Republican Party and its strength in the Republican Party as well. One of the lessons i drive is parties are going to look out for their own selfinterest either in the countrys interest or not. Enlightened selfinterest is something we ought to seek. It also been the case that people have taken this up for granted. When the florida recount happened and we all learned that 537 votes was all it took to win the presidency in one state, that was a wakeup call that turn out now is going to matter more than anything before. If you think of elections, when i was working in the Clinton White house, the idea that swing voters were what people thought about was really not wrong. Starting in 2000, partisan about parties realized on one hand that turnout mattered a lot and you could win in a tight, tight, evenly matched partisan environment by suppressing the other side though. So it may be that this is an artifact of political shift over the longterm. The country is changing so much and it is not all unusual so much when there is change at the end group in effect that has something to lose does everything it can to hold on. That was true in 1800 were the federalists tried to change the voting laws because they were buried jeffersonians would now be voting and they took away the right to vote for president in a batch of states. When you look at the rise of voting by people of color, those are the states that are most likely to have these new voting laws. So as long as the country is in this great longterm contest is shift, we can expect to see some of these fight. By. One of the things i found so interesting was the recognition from the beginning of time politicians have been manipulated or also some people can participate and some cant. As a voting lawyer, they dont cast people against partisan machinations. So the question that i would have is giving me an england of money, partisan than race, how with it that our court or our politics are supposed to separate . Well, as you know, in some of these cases the defense being authored as we are not discriminated against africanamericans. Were the discriminating against democrat because that way the game is played. Democrats did it to us whenever they could. I think there is one of the things that was so interesting, as i mentioned, you know, at the beginning they didnt think much about who could vote. But if you go back and look at the constitutional convention, at the notes James Madison took, which were secret. They are not supposed to be made public for a long time and people spoke very frankly. Madison and his colleagues are very concerned about precisely this kind of manipulation. In fact, there is a provision in the constitution called the elections clause that says while the space at the voting rolls, congress and the federal government explicitly have the power to override those roles. That is one of the only places in the whole competition with the federal government is giving up power. Madison was very committed very worried that state legislators would rig the voting rules to favor their own side. You cant even imagine what the abuses are going to be. The things they were thinking about for things who would later call gerrymandering, changing the district lines are passing laws to make it harder for your opponent to though. Now they would move the polling place from one county to another and nobody could find it. But it is the same idea. One of the things we need to do this kind of recovery the notion that the constitution actually addresses precisely these kinds of shenanigans trying to rig the rules to benefit themselves or their own side. That has been present for American History and there are strong legal and constitutional basis for regulating that, even beyond the Voting Rights act, which has focused necessarily on one particular thing which was Racial Discrimination in states with a history of discrimination. Theres a lot of really colorful heroes and villains of the book, but the court said that by this player. They are big players in the book and most people who know the history of the jurisprudence would agree with that. My question is why. Why has that been that the court had at last allowed progress to have been aimed at worst be responsible for some of the rollback. Given that, it does not shed any light on how we should view the Upcoming Court . I think you are right. For those of us who grew up big in the courts and the Supreme Court especially with the always there as the tribune liberty and protecting our democracy, it is somewhat startling to understand that very really has happened throughout American History. From the beginning, the chorus wash their hands of trying to advance the goals of democracy. There was a case in the 1840s and that comes out of one of the forgotten that very colorful battles over Voting Rights were rhode island was one of the last stage that still have the property requirement. There was a revolt in rhode island in rhode island and their two governors did one had been elected by the lack or it with requirement and the other without. Waved his sword around and sword around and they sword around the decanted down and try to fire on the state armory that it was raining and the canon didnt work. Kind of like a comic opera. But it all went to the Supreme Court and they said which one is the real governor of rhode island. Supreme court washed his hand and said this is a political question. We are not getting into this. In a way that was kind of funny bear, it was terrifying later when the Supreme Court refused to help the African American voters that the south sued repeatedly and had cases that the Supreme Court in the 1890s and made 1000 the Supreme Court in the opinion that Oliver Wendell holmes, the great chest and said this is terrible but theres nothing we can do about it. An awful opinion to read. The courts just wash their hands of it. And some ways it was a distressing retreat from their responsibility. But it is also fair way of saying this is actually up to the Higher Powered in this country, which is the people. So the people pass constitutional amendments. There were constitutional amendments five times explosively expanding the right to vote and the people have made the site through their voices in elections. I dont know that we expect the court, if there is a new Supreme Court justice, it is not that we want the justice to be aggressively charging and im doing and remaking the landscape here but we mostly want is the court to stay out of the way when the democratically accountable branches pass something that the Voting Rights act or the campaignfinance laws. I think the Supreme Court nomination and election that around it is going to be, to use the cliche, a teachable moment where it is debated in a way past not been in a long time. If you think about the effect of a revolving around roe v. Wade and the right of privacy or the Thurgood Marshall nomination when he was nominated to fight about that, being about civil rights at the brandeis nomination when he was nominated in antisemitism, but it was really about the controls on corporations. All of those things will be part of this, but thisll be about the democracy law cases have much of anything else. I am going to invite our audience to step up to the microphone and ask questions while folks are assembling it will ask one more question but i do encourage all members who are interested in talking to start making your way in mind. Michael, you talked about the Popular Support needed to be generated to pass a constitutional amendment pending the poll tax. Since then, the court has interpreted the poll tax in many laws that have been thought to be found or to operate have not been given by the court. Theres both an interesting story about that amendment as well as what has happened since. The constitutional amendment to add the poll tax was not supported by the civil rights movement. The naacp and other groups opposed it, denounced it. They said this could be done by statute. It was a white supremacist segregation senator who passed it, who pushed it. You are right that even since then the courts have not taken the logical implication, which is their art email financial barrier to voting and extended to the places in ways that it ought to be. In the case and texas that the center has helped to bring challenging the voter i. D. Laws, the lead witness which we are proud to have brought into the case was an elderly woman named sami believes they. She was born in mississippi. She remembered vividly and angrily tapping out the poll tax for her mother. She moved to chicago and detroit, went to college, work your whole life, moved to texas and was on Social Security now. In two hours after the Supreme Court said the Voting Rights act and its protections were no longer needed, texas passed the law or implemented the law in an accent or date as an eligible voters on the books suddenly were no longer able to vote. She gave testimony. And was asked why didnt you just get your birth certificate . Why didnt you do with mississippi and get your birth certificate. I had about 42 for that would do the most good. That was very powerful and the judge ruled this was in effect the poll tax. They have said the poll tax and what a democracy based on one person in the inevible of a marketbased economy was thought at the very beginning and it cannot be untangled and would unlikely i would not expect the courts to be the one to solve it for us. Yes, my name is joseph haydn and i was partners with dissenter among many other civil rights organizations. I filed a classaction lawsuit in the year 2000, challenging new york state. As a result and we discovered two states four state that the time had to write and that was maine massachusetts, vermont and utah. Presently theres only two states. Maine and vermont. We challenged his fellow disenfranchisement on the grounds on it was discriminatory and essentially what we were doing and poor people of color and where the majority of prisoners came from. And 10 judges jay shoes split down the middle five to five and that was the end of that initiative they are to change the fellow disenfranchisement. What i wanted to know his prisoners their citizens. They dont lose their citizenship while they are in prison. Prisoners in maine and vermont have the right to vote even though they commit the same crimes as people in the other 48 states. How does america maintain their sense of exceptionalism, champions of democracy and fairness and justice and continue this charade of the right to vote. Thank you what you did and for your determination over all these years and thank you for the question. This issue of felony disenfranchisement is both one of the longrunning and very sorry stories in American History. Theres been a great deal of progress, not encoding by people who are currently incarcerated, but by people who are back in the community. And interestingly it has not been in the courts, which has not been friendly largely to these kinds of cases. But in the court of Public Opinion where the evangelical community and many conservatives work with Voting Rights advocates and prisoner rights advocates. Among the members of congress who are most outspoken on this is randy ball, the republican senator from kentucky. And that are now two states rand paul we still have a lifetime ban on voting three, but the most significant of which is florida. Right. And before, you know, one of the things that im really proud of that the Brennan Center was able to do is just two weeks ago we won a victory in maryland where we drafted legislation, the folks on the ground were able to get it through the legislation. The governor vetoed it and we overrode the veto. So starting for the maryland primary there will be 40,000 people who have criminal convictions in their past and will be eligible to vote. What this tells me is this is a long fight but it is a winnable fight, and it is a fight that if we continue to be smart and strategic about where we make the case that we make the claim were going to bring of the people of on. Ive got a map. I know what we want to go next. Im from pacifica radio. First of all, as you know the voting turnout since 1960 has declined in general throughout the united states. Aside from the issues you have raised, and its good to hear someone more optimistic the people im normally around talking about this. Theres this great cynicism among the voters and certainly one of the tropes we see in this election is how it is being manifested by the supporting trump and those supporting santos. So i wondered how that reflects itself, what your thoughts about that are. Secondly, you need 16 states where these laws of disenfranchisement are in varying ways effective or not effective or in motion. How do you see them playing out in this election . To let me answer those two questions in reverse order. We dont really know the degree to which these new laws will dampen turnout. Im very careful not to make overly broad claims because a lot of things affect turnout, who the candidate is in everything else. Having said that, theres increasing evidence that they do in fact dampen turnout. The Government Accountability office, the highly respected nonpartisan think tank used by both parties in congress, look out, for example, the strictest voter id laws and found that they do in fact suppress turnout but a special in the minority committee. There are other studies that suggest a bigger impact but we dont really know, i just hope that they would not have a depressive effect on turnout this time. The bigger question is why do so few americans vote . And it is in only since 1960 that turnout is low. In fact, turnout has been low, it bumped along with low levels with rare exception since the beginning of the 20th century. Its partly a result of laws and rules, but its partly result of political culture as well. One of the things that surprised me as i read the book, as i read the history and wrote the book, was the degree to which turnout was so high in the 19th century, at a time of great party mobilization. The Political Parties were engines of participation and engines of turnout. There was a lot of fraud then but that wasnt the reason the numbers were so high. I think if we could find a way to energize and engage people now, around organizing and activity, in day to day life, that would help to boost turnout. But its a longterm problem. If you think about it, weve got these highly gerrymandered electoral districts with sorting people into likeminded areas, so a lot of places vicious liquidity electoral competition no matter what you do. And theres the gerrymandering on top of it. And we have a twoparty system in the united states. And if we were in europe, they would be the trump party from a right wing populist party, it would be the rubio, roche party, centrist party, clinton part and more voices would feel represented. Is a longstanding trends but have to say low turnout wasnt last week and it wasnt even just since 1960. Its been going on for a long time. A lot of it also, we all have to take some responsibly ourselves, we americans, and take advantage of the freedom of rights that we do have. My name is sarah brown, and im a longtime fan of the centers work, so thank you both. And the question is can going back to the point of optimism and what you spoke about with regards to expanding Voter Registration and the development weve seen in oregon and california specifically im really interested in what strategies like to those changes. Was a Grassroots Group applying pressure against existing power . Was it a little changed and Political Leadership shifts or was it a litigation strategy . And do you think that those strategies are replicable in other states Going Forward . It was not a litigation strategy. It was a combination of grassroots organizing pressure and enlightened leadership from public officials. The way it actually started in oregon was that a member of the state legislature there who we had worked with became secretary of state, and then through some rather fluky scandals, found herself cover and pushed this through. But there was a tremendous coalition in oregon. In california the coalition was pushing this, and the secretary of state alex padilla, took the lead. There was a moment in which perhaps a bit of is the prize to those of us old enough to remember this, where it wasnt entirely clear if governor jerry brown was going to sign the law. Among the reasons that confidence that he would was a videotape that was easy to find in about five minutes on the internet of them at the Democratic Convention in 1992 demanding the exact law and decrying anyone who would stand in its way. So this is one of those things where its this push and pull throughout history. It isnt only the marchers on the street or even the coalition. Its the people but its often also Party Insiders or elected officials whose sense of what the want to do lines up with the public interest. I think thats what youre going to see on this across the country. When you mentioned the challenges with energizing the electorate to vote, a lot of times i notice no one mentions the fact we need to reinstitute civics in the education system. I think if we were able to do that, we probably would increase voter turnout. But the one question i have for you is wheres the federal government dropping the ball in terms of subsidizing that type of initiative to ensure that we can get those results soon rather than 10 or 20 years later. Here, here. First of all i should say that Brennan Center thats an excellent study on this issue which is available on our website, brennancenter. Org. A special in a changing country. I dont know how we can expect to have a coherent social ethos and a workable democracy if we dont teach each generation what the history is the what the ideal are. And it is true that civics in schools have dropped off the curriculum, has been pushed up by all the other things. Theres a tremendous loss their industry issue of fighting for the right to vote, fighting or justice. When you think about going back to that very beginning of the american creed, which was obviously not actually how people lived in 1776, but it was that ideal to which people return over and over again. And abolitionists return to it, lincoln paraphrased at gettysburg in the progressive era, and every error since people come back and said we are just time to live up to what the founding ideals were of the country. When dr. King at the march on washington said this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, that all men are created equal, everybody in the audience knew exactly what document he was talking about. I dont know right now that americans would know that. Theres an understandable and justifiable skepticism about the past and its legacies and burdens, but we will lose something powerful and positive if we lose that common sense. So i agree with you completely, and the federal government, of course education is principal at the state level and local level, and every time the federal government gets involved there is unexpected backlashes, so i dont know that i know the answer to that. I think we have time for one last question. You make a good candidate for scalias replacement, but anyhow, okay. What is being done, i dont poll working in new jersey and reasonably out in like 15 minutes. I feel like in certain areas of the country minorities are being disenfranchised waiting an hour and a half, two hours. Whats being done on a federal level to deal with those issues . There is a recognition that not everybody has to wait on long lines. So much of what has gone wrong with our elections is as much a function of ramshackle elections as anything else. A lot of states have improved matters by moving to early voting or other steps that are in essence a kind of customer service. In a place like ohio where there was nearly a florida style debacle that almost upended the election of 2004, the actual expanded early voting and theres been a big political fight over it but its quite effective. But it varies from place to place and it is emphatically the case that in minority neighborhoods, and neighborhoods of color and in poor neighborhoods the lines are longer. Do to as much of the else as the underinvestment. Theres a president ial commission on Elections Administration that president barack obama appointed. It was chaired by mitt romneys lawyer and his own counsel, bob bauer, who teaches year at nyu school of law. They agreed on the need to modernize Voter Registration, and they agreed to ought to be a National Standard for how long you have to wait on line. We are one country. We ought to be able to have people vote with an equal and effective voice, no matter where they live. This is solely a matter of willing and investment. There some magical technology. So i will mention one technological thing to make you more nervous. After florida one of the things come in 2000, one of the things that happen with Congress Passed a law requiring states to move to electronic voting. And it was controversial because people were worried about security, but thats actually largely been addressed. There are ways to make machines actually better than the old machines, even the old beloved lever machines that we love to close the curtains on here in new york. Thats the good news. But that is is they are 15 years
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