white house editor at politico, and dave ho, director of aclu s vote rights project. and joining us from texas, ari berman, author of herding donkeys: the fight to rebuild the democratic party and reshape american politics. dale, i want to start with you. if the supreme court has told us under section four, history is no longer the basis. if it is awfully hard to prove intent, then can we imagine disparate impact as a way to get to voter protection? i think we absolutely can. because focusing on intent, as you pointed out, really focuses on the wrong question. if i m the victim of discrimination, it doesn t really matter to me why i ve been discriminated against, only that i ve been discriminated against. so north carolina, their voter suppression law, it s going to disproportionately affect african-americans. if i m one of those african-american voters, it doesn t matter to me if the legislature did that because they don t like black people or because they think that black people
whiter, more conservative. so the gamble is that sort of motivating factor, it will be a bit muted at the polls the next time around. and of course, if those laws are in place and left in place, they re there for the 2016 cycle, and that s what the real goal is. and we know that there s no president obama on that so we know we ll get a decline in the midterms, no president obama running for re-election at the top. we ve got to find where that motivational source is. and that s part of what s interesting about reverend barber s movement, is this idea that it s about our democracy. ari berman, as always, thank you so much for all of your reporting. you know we re going to keep your eyes on you and what you re up to and the work that you are doing down there in texas and in north carolina. dale ho, thank you so much for joining us and for the work that aclu and others will have to do now that there s no section four. coming up a little bit later, illeana van zandt comes to nerdland.
to be impact-based. you only have to prove discriminatory impact, not intent. that preserved section two as one of the pillars of the voting rights act, which survives today. congress can do the same thing right now with section three. it s not a very difficult change. they could do it tomorrow, if they wanted, and there s an historical precedent for them to do so. ari, i m so glad you brought that up. and dale, i want to come back to this. because right now, in front of the supreme court, what s potentially being heard is the mt. holly case. and that s a fair housing case, it s not a voting case, but it does hinge on this question of disparate impact and whether or not disparate racial impact is a fair basis. and if this makes it to the court of john roberts, who in the 1980s, as a young justice department attorney, was vigorously against an impact standard and wanted, instead, an intent standard, are we looking at the possibility of even that mt. holly could take down the voting