0 daughters and kept them protected. protected them. been a truly great father to them. been a true partner in his marriage. treated his office with such respect and dignity. has never once let us down with his personal behavior. and yet they hate him. they really do. i don t have to be the one to tell you, we live in a country where a good chunk of the country hates its elected president and won t really, i mean really, tell you why. it s the same reason they spend their time thinking of clever gimmicks to keep so many people from voting. anybody disagree? that s hardball for now. thanks for being with us. all in with chris hayes starts right now. good evening, from new york. i m chris hayes. tonight on all in we have heard from another juror in the trayvon martin case. the one nonwhite juror who spoke on abc today and said george zimmerman got away with murder. within hours of the ruling, texas attorney general praised the voting rights decision and announced the state s vo
0 groups in the state? when you look at the state of texas, chris, for instance, between 2000 and 2010, texas was the fastest growing state of any other place in the union. 90% of that growth between 2000 and 2010 was latino and african-american. why the republicans would want to discriminate against latino and african-american voters instead of trying to do outreach continues to puzzle many, and i think that it s a bad thing. we all need to band together to stop these sort of action and need to be doing everything we can to get everyone to vote. trying to limit the right of individuals to vote and to exercise their suffrage is a bad thing and it s not the friendly texas thing to do. well, that s very supporting. i have a theory or two why republicans might want to restrict the franchise for the people you named. congressman marc veasey of texas. thank you for joining us. joining me at the table, julie fernandes. now a senior policy analyst with country? i think the question that c
0 i have a theory or two why republicans might want to restrict the franchise for the people you named. congressman marc veasey of texas. thank you for joining us. joining me at the table, julie fernandes. now a senior policy analyst with the open society institute. i did not know what section three of the voting rights act was until today. i consider myself a little bit of a voting rights act buff. what is section 3? what is the federal government doing here? why do they have the authority to do it? section 3 is the provision in the voting rights act that has been there since 1965. it allows federal courts to order certain jurisdictions, the preclearance obligations if they feel that organization is engaged in to walk people through this, you have this map that is covered by section 5 which is preclearance, right? correct. section 4 is the part of the act that draws the map. these are the places, you have to two to the federal government and be like, is this cool we do this?
legal defense fund. debo adegbile. he argued the shelby case before the supreme court. and julie fernandes, former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights at the u.s. department of justice where she oversaw the enforcement of this act and now a senior policy analyst at the ole miss society foundation. dave, can i begin with you? you argued this case. you read the decision. yes. why did they strike down? what can you explain to me what specifically the 5-4 majority found unconstitutional about the current formula that is used by congress? in a sense the court put itself in a position you d expect congress and the legislature to be in. they were grappling with the progress that we ve made as a nation. and what we said in our brief and what i ll say today, we should not get hung up and misunderstand something fundamental. the idea we made progress shouldn t mean we can t stop striving to make more progress. the court got stuck on this point because there s been progress
we think the way congress did this may not be the right way, but congress, it s up to you. that s the important part we are now. we have a member of congress, a republican who voted for that reauthorization the last time it came up and a current member of congress. a democrat. we re going to talk about precisely that. debo adegbile. julie fernandes. how is congress going to take on this mess? i will ask a democrat and a republican if there s any hope. that s next.