MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Supreme Court
Interview
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HAYES: Think about that for a second. If they step on our land, we have judges. It`s insane. Oh yes, in America we have judges. I`m sorry you can`t come in. That`s the President`s immigration policy in a nutshell. Whether you`re talking about a student from Yemen or an asylum seeker from Guatemala or a doctor from Iran, in the eyes of this President and his allies people like White House aide Stephen Miller and Congressman Steve King, immigration poses an existential threat both to the nation`s identity, its racial makeup and crucially their own grasp on power.
Now to be clear, those people who view their mission as preserving and entrenching the political power of their overwhelmingly white base, they still make up a small minority of the political class and of the country in general. But right now at this moment, they are the ones in charge unless and until the bigger portion of the majority of the country mobilizes against them. I`m joined now by a member of the Democratic Party leadership, 2018 candidate for Attorney General in Minnesota, one of the few Muslims serving on Capitol Hill, Congressman Keith Ellison. Congressman, first your reaction to the majority opinion in which the Chief Justice basically says maybe he said some nasty stuff but you got to just look at this sort of terms of the four squares of what`s in there and it passes constitutional muster.
REP. KEITH ELLISON (D), MINNESOTA: Well it`s really kind of a surprising and shocking decision because it`s very clear that you can have a document that might be facially neutral but if it`s intent, purpose, and expected application are discriminatory, then that is not going to pass constitutional muster. Yet the Supreme Court said if they get a thin excuse for national security they`ll pretty much let the President do anything. That`s pretty disturbing because you can imagine how this can be applied in other areas. This seems to be a represent it comes to the President`s most odious and ugly discriminatory impulses.
HAYES: You know, there`s something else this Court has done which is it is struck down lower court`s blocking racially prejudicial redistricting plans including in the Texas case. They`ve also upheld Ohio`s purging of people from the voter rolls. Again, those were similar people on both sides of those issues in terms of the opinions. What do you see is happening in terms of how the Republican Party and the court and the president are using the power they have right now?
ELLISON: Well, they`re using their power to dominate the country even though they represent a minority of Americans. They are -- you know, the decisions that we just saw regarding voting were nothing short of disturbing. They are hostile to the idea of representative democracy and I`m telling they`re pretty overt about this. They`re pretty clear. You remember well the Kris Kobach commission that was going to study the false you know, voting the group that according to him fraudulently switched the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. I mean, that -- and that`s just sort of the beginning. I mean, we all know that we`re living under a gutted Voting Rights Act. We still have not been able to pass the restoration of that. So that`s what we`re looking at, a minority that is trying to dominate the majority and is using the courts, the legislature and the President to do it.
HAYES: What do you say the people are saying, well, they`re doing a pretty good job right now? What do we do about it?
ELLISON: I have to agree -- I have to agree that they`re doing a good job that about at it but what we`ve got to do about it is mobilize and get out there. We`ve got to go to those low turnout districts and get folks out to the polls and we`ve also got to argue that it is about an election but it`s not only about an election. Activism, engagement, participation in society really has to go up. You know, I tell you sitting on the sidelines in this moment really is -- it`s not a protest, it`s actually a surrender. And so what I`m -- what I`m asking folks to do is get out there and do something about it. I just left a rally here in Minneapolis in front of the federal courthouse and I can tell you people are energized, they`re not demoralized.
They`re looking for things to do. People are running for office and they`re getting involved. Just the other day, we had the parkland students here in Minnesota. They`re organizing young people to register to vote. They`re making sure that the Millennial vote turns out in November and people stay active throughout the year. That`s what we got to do about it, Chris. We cannot simply assume that things are going to get better because they usually do. In this particular case, they may not unless we act now.
HAYES: Do you feel like Democratic leadership is sending a strong message about what the sort of agenda of the party is in resisting what you described as a kind of minority managing to sort of exert its power of majority, how to resist that?
ELLISON: Well, let me tell you. I think that the Democratic Party leadership has shifted its focus. I mean, right now we`re not only focused on every four years, we`re focused on every single day. The Democratic National Committee is thinking about how we can support candidates in municipal races, state legislative races, school board races, all kind of races up and down the ballot. And we don`t just do it every four years we do it every single race and so that is a shift in focus.
We simply cannot have an approach where we raise money from a lot of rich people and then buy ads every four years. That`s not going to work. We need to engage people in the every single level. And you mentioned a few the other cases where there`s one that we`re watching for tomorrow and you probably are keeping your eye on the Janice case as well. That has a lot to do with the shape and trajectory of our country as it relates to public employee unions. So we`re keeping our eyes out, Chris.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Keith Ellison, thank you.
ELLISON: Thank you.
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