hall. we begin with a legal battle brewing in north carolina over that state s new voter i.d. law, considered to be one of the strictest in the country. the naacp, the aclu, and at least two other groups are pressing ahead with lawsuits challenging the sweeping new restrictions. without any formal ceremony or cameras president, north carolina s republican governor silently signed that measure yesterday afternoon. it limits early voting in the state and requires voters to show photo i.d. at the polls. pete williams joins me now live about this. certainly there s been a lot of backlash about what this north carolina law means and also how the governor is reacting to it. well, the governor did put out a ewe tube video. he said voter i.d.s are what most states now require, that you have to have an i.d. to board an airplane or even to buy antihistamines at the drugstore, so why not do it to make sure the election process is safe and fair and eliminates fraud, or at least reduces the chanc
election in 2016 to be president? it s certainly one of the key signs she s made so far that suggests she may run. this was the first in a series of policy speeches she plans to give. we can expect some more. just to jump back to the north carolina issue, if i may, one of the things that i think is attracting a lot of outrage is the photo i.d. provision itself is stricter even than some of the other photo i.d. laws that other states have passed where it requires not only that you have a current valid state i.d., but that i.d. matches the name on your voter registration card, which is tripping up a lot of plaintiffs. michael, what do you make of this? we re looking at images that we remember from florida, the long voter lines that we had there in the last election. this is just going to be a precursor to what we might get coming up in north carolina. what do you make of the criticism against these laws and about the fact that hillary
waters. yesterday she did in a speech in san francisco while speaking at the annual american bar association conference. one of the topics she addressed specifically was voting rights in north carolina. take a look. legislators in north carolina have pushed through a bill that reads like the greatest hits of voter suppression. restricted early voting, no more same-day registration, or extending voting hours to accommodate long lines, stricter photo i.d. requirements that disqualify those issued by colleges. we ve seen a sweeping effort across our country to obstruct new obstacles to voting. often under cover of addressing a phantom epidemic of election fraud. not every obstacle is related to race, but anyone who says that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in american elections must not be paying attention. zach, is this the most on-the-record we ve seen hillary clinton in terms of tipping her hat to wanting to run for the
get permission in advance before making any voting changes. but you can be sure that there s going to be lots of court battles on this. the law doesn t take effect in 2016, so there s plenty of time to duke this out in the meantime. pete williams, thanks so much. appreciate it. i want to bring into our conversation zach roth, national political reporter for msnbc.com, judith brown, who s the codirector of the narc advancement project, and sirius xm s michael smerconish. judith, i want to start with you. we have the north carolina governor putting up this video on youtube, not giving interview, but putting up a straightforward clip on youtube to respond to what the law means. take a look. let me be direct. many of those from the extreme left who have been criticizing photo i.d. are using scare tactics. they re more interested in
phone. andrea: we did the story on the five months ago. the cheerleaders put bible verses on a sign. they went to court for the right to be able to do it.id you can , and the court said you know what, ladies? you can. that decision was held up in a court the girls are now allowed to do it. i like how they said they knew that god would work it all out, and he did. andrea: bob. bob: i have a phrase of my own. it s relativism. we re not going to use it any more. i also have one more thing, but i m waiting for it. here it is. today, folks, we have a big day. today is dana s 35th birthday party. this is her very kind of thing. she eats this whole thing by herself, she and das per. happy birthday, dana. dana: thank you, everybody. it s been a great year. greg: i made something for you. eric: it s a drawing i made of myself as a unicorn.