Transcript
A (0:02)
Hi, this is Dalia Lithwick, and I'm popping up in this off week for Amicus to tell you about a conversation I had recently that I think is a really worthwhile follow on from the conversation we had last week about the big voting rights cases at the court. And as part of this year's south by Southwest Festival, which is going on right now, I got a chance to speak to Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon about voting, about big money, dark money, and about the filibust. The conversation comes as Senator Merkley and some of his colleagues in The Senate introduced S1 this week. It's known as HR1 in the House. More broadly, the for the People Act. Our Slate plus members have access to that full interview from south by Southwest. Here's just a snippet. Hi, and welcome to south by Southwest and today's urgently needed discussion with Senator Jeff Merkley from Oregon on democracy reform and voting rights and the for the People act, which is a comprehensive Senate package aimed at bolstering basic ideas of one person, one vote and constitutional democracy. My name is Dalia Lithwick. I cover the courts and the Supreme Court and the law for Slate, and I host the podcast Amicus. And I'm so delighted to be in conversation today with Senator Merkley on this issue. So I think I'm just going to start by saying that we're here to try to connect two kind of attenuated ideas that despite Joe Biden's victory and inauguration, democracy has by no means triumphed over impulses of authoritarianism and that we need structural reform to bolster the kind of slightly rickety infrastructure we have now. And so I think I want to start just saying there's nobody I'd rather talk to about this issue than Senator Merkley, who's been working so phenomenally hard to try to draw attention to and kind of shine a light on these issues. Senator Merkley has served as the junior US senator from Oregon since 2009. Before that, he was the 64th speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. He's been a leading voice in this effort to restore the foundations of democratic governance by taking on these issues we are going to discuss today. Vote suppression, dark money, gerrymandering, corruption. So, Senator Merkley, I want to welcome you to south by Southwest. It's really a treat to get to talk to you again.
B (2:39)
Alia, thanks so much. It's a pleasure to be with you. And this is such an important topic for the future of our country.
A (2:45)
So I think I want to start by just saying that these ideas are not necessarily connected. I think there has been, we have lived through four years of illiberalism, of what seems like authoritarianism, and then you and I are going to have a conversation about democracy, reform and voting rights. So of course they're connected in some sense. But I think that for people who say, hey, you know, phew, we just emerged from a four year period that saw fundamental erosions of constitutional rights and freedom. And look, the system held, everything worked and we stood in lines and we voted and so we can move on and think about other things. And I think you and I start from the opposite presumption that the system held, but barely. I think you told the Atlantic you see it as if, quote, the American vision of representative government has slid over the cliff and it's like we caught a root and we are just clinging onto it by our fingertips. So somewhere between the capitol insurrection on January 6th, Brennan center reporting showing that in the 2021, so far we've seen 253 bills to restrict voting access in 43 states, seven CPAC panels on vote fraud and stolen elections, you and I, that this is not over by any means. This is ongoing and possibly escalating. But I'm going to ask the hard question first, Senator, which is connect what we've seen in the last four years for people who don't understand why democracy reform urgently needs to happen now.