MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript - Voting Rights

Interview

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MADDOW: So it was that moment in 2008 when we simultaneously had this great civil rights advance of electing an African-American president, and also the civil rights reverse in terms of gay couples in California, that moment in 2008.

Now, this week, we are essentially having the mirror image of that moment, thanks to the Supreme Court. With the elation over the Supreme Court ruling yesterday making this grand step on gay civil rights. That being celebrated all over the country. While at the same time, the country is still absorbing the decision by the same court just one day before to take a sledgehammer to the cornerstone of American civil rights law when they destroyed the voting rights act.

And, yes, it`s under different rationales and for different structural reasons and responding to different specific circumstances and cases, but regardless, like that night in 2008, if you were in California, once again at the same moment the country is being pulled in two opposite directions on civil rights. Because of what the court ruled this week, the voting rights act, today, is dead. It`s gone. Only Congress has the power to bring it back from the dead, and maybe they will?

But in the meantime, red states that had wanted to change their election laws in really racially discriminatory ways. But they could not get away with it because the voting rights act stopped them from doing that before. Those red states are now charging full steam ahead already as of today with racially discriminatory voting laws.

I mean, in Texas, the voter I.D. law was called obviously racially motivated. It was called an attempt to keep whites in power. And that`s why it was blocked, federally. But with this week`s ruling taking the justice department out of the mix, Texas is going ahead going ahead with this law that until this week was too racist to be legal.

But they are doing it. They are doing it, as is Mississippi, as is Alabama, as is North Carolina. All of these states that had been restrained from enacting voting laws that were too racist to be allowed before this week, they`re now going for it. It`s not theoretical, like they are cleared to go ahead with it, they`re going. It`s already happening.

And so in these red states, all of the states that were fully covered under section five of the voting rights act, were all Republican-controlled states. And in these red states, it`s going to be a state-by-state fight at least for now.

And in Washington, I mean, Republicans in Congress are going to have to decide what to do. They`re going to have to decide if they want a national fix for this problem, as President Obama suggested there should be today. They have to decide if it`s going it be a national fix. In the meantime before they get around to that, they have to decide whether to side with what`s going on with the red states now, whether decide with the Republican state governments.

Are national Republicans going to take the side of the legislators whose voter I.D. plan was found to be actually just a way of keeping white people in power in Texas? Or are they going to be on the other side of that fight? Republicans in Congress have to decide which side they are going to take. And in all the other states that have been freed from the voting rights act, too.

But this is going to be a fight. A state-to-state fight on voting rights in the short term starting right away. And in the same short term, it`s going to be a state-by-state fight in the three dozen states in the country who still do not have marriage equality. And who now must decide whether or not to keep offering gay people only second-class citizenship even after this federal ruling.

I mean, from the prospective of the Supreme Court, we have been pulled in two opposite directions in these last two days. but from a practical level, in terms of what happens next, in terms of how we will move forward or not on both of these issues, we are not being pulled in different directions in terms of what happens next. On both of these issues, this is now a fight in the states, especially in the red states, over whether or not being gay should make you a second-class citizen and over whether or not our election laws ought to be blatantly racist. It`s going to be both of those fights in parallel in a lot of the same states, all starting right now.

These two decisions from the Supreme Court this week pulled us in different directions, but the fight from here on both of these issues is the same. It happens on the ground locally, pulling in the same direction in a lot of the same places toward protected equal civil rights. And sometimes in some places that`s going to mean pulling together in the courts. We learned today that gay couples in New Jersey are suing for the right to marry in New Jersey. They`re going to try for equality in the courts there. Some people in some places are going to be trying not in the courts but in the streets.

Guess where this is? This is Little Rock, Arkansas, yesterday afternoon. DOMA is dead. These folks are with a group called the Arkansas initiative for marriage equality. And yesterday, they got together and they walked through the streets of Little Rock for the right to marry in that very, very red state. Voters in Arkansas approved a ban on same-sex marriage in 2004. The vote was overwhelming in Arkansas.

But look at this. In Arkansas, they`re starting a movement to overturn that ban, a homegrown movement. They have been working on this idea of marriage rights since the day after the November election 2012. This march, these Arkansans marched at the gay pride parade in Conway, Arkansas. If you live in a red state, this is no surprise to you. If you live in a blue state and you though red states your monolithic, no, say hello to the complicated unexpected rest of America.

These folks hope to put the Arkansas marriage equality amendment before they fellow citizens on the 2016 ballot. They want it voted on because they think they can win. They have worked out the language of the referendum proposal. They are preparing to collect signatures. In support of the proposition that the right to marry shall not be abridged or denied on account of sex or sexual orientation, not even in Arkansas. We are seeing news like this in Arkansas, in Ohio, in Montana, in North Dakota, in Michigan, in Wyoming. All these places you wouldn`t necessarily expect it, but it`s happening at a homegrown grassroots level. This is now a state-by-state fight in every state for the right to marry. Just as it is a state-by-state fight in every state for the right to vote.

Yesterday in Texas, a Democratic congressman sued the state of Texas over the voter I.D. law that until a few days ago was too racist for the federal government to let it go forward. He is now asking the court to block that law again.

Joining us now is Mark Veasey, he is congressman from Forth Worth, Texas. He`s a new plaintiff in Veasey versus Texas, Texas governor Rick Perry. Congressman Veasey, thank you very much for being here. It`s nice to have you here.

REP. MARC VEASEY (D), TEXAS: Thank you, Rachel. Thanks for having me on the show.

MADDOW: Let me ask you. Your overall reaction to the idea of the voting rights act, damage done on civil rights terms this week by the Supreme Court and how the fight to preserve voting rights in the country moves forward from here on out.

VEASEY: Well, the thing that I`m doing to preserve voting rights moving this point forward is I filed a suit in Texas, in Corpus Christi, to make sure this law is never implemented. As you stated earlier, this law was found to be discriminatory. And the fact just because section four was struck down that you would move to make a law that a court has found to be discriminatory is absolutely nonsense. Ant it sends the wrong message about Texas.

We are a great state and don`t want to send a message to businesses and companies and people that are moving to the state of Texas in records number, mostly Latino and African-American, that discrimination is OK. We need to stop. I believe this law, this voter I.D. law passed by Republicans, when I was still in the legislature in 2011, that it`s discriminatory and violates section two.

MADDOW: Do you think Texas still deserves the kind of special scrutiny it used to get under the voting rights act? If you could wave a magic wand and have Congress redesign a new formula to figure out who would have to be under that kind of special scrutiny from the justice department before they could change their laws like it used to be, would Texas need to be in cat category?

VEASEY: Rachel, let me tell you something. For the four terms I was in the state legislature, I saw some of the worst discrimination as far as public policy is concerned coming from Republicans trying to implement that public policy so it would have an adverse impact on African-American and Latinos when it comes to exercising the right to vote.

Groups like the king street patriots, they are alive and well, and they are actively trying to make sure that Republicans can continue to win elections at the expense of African-American and Latino voters. And absolutely Texas is not in any position to say that we should, can live in a post-section five world. There is no absolutely no doubt about that.

MADDOW: As a member of Congress now, you have a voice if Congress chooses to embark on this project. You`ll have a voice in setting the new rules for who should get special scrutiny. Congress could bring the voting rights act back from the dead by establishing a new formula for picking jurisdictions that ought to be subject to the kind of scrutiny that used to be established by that law. How will you try to make the argument to Republicans that Congress ought to do that?

VEASEY: Well, I would say to Republicans that when you look at civil rights legislation that took place in the 1960s, it took a bipartisan effort to get those things done, and so what I would tell my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, is let`s come together and let`s be for fairness. We want people to know that Texas and other states want to do the right thing when it comes to all of its citizens, and we know that many of these policies, like the ones trying to be implemented in Texas, are simply unfair.

Rachel, just to drive home just how unfair some of these laws are in Texas, when it comes to the voter I.D. law that was passed, if you are -- if you have a concealed handgun license, that will be an acceptable form of I.D. to vote. But if you are a student and have a state college I.D. or if you`re a veteran and have a veterans I.D., that would not work. That would not be acceptable.

MADDOW: Wow.

VEASEY: So if you have a concealed handgun license and a glock, that`s OK, but if you have a student I.D. or a disabled veterans I.D., no bueno. It`s not fair. We need to do the right thing.

MADDOW: Congressman Mark Veasey of Texas. One of the co-complainants in a new lawsuit challenging Texas` proposed voter I.D. law.

Thank you very much for your time tonight, sir. Please keep us apprised as this moves forward.

VEASEY: Absolutely. Thank you, Rachel, for having me on.

MADDOW: Thanks very much.

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