LEADER JEFFRIES ON MS NOW: "IT WAS A TOTALLY DESPICABLE DECISION GUTTING SECTION 2 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT"
Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MS NOW's The Briefing, where he emphasized that Democrats will continue to aggressively push back against Republican efforts to undermine our elections and voting rights.
JEN PSAKI: Joining me now is House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Okay, so I think when we all saw the ruling come down today, I mean, it shook a lot of us to the core, probably shook you. Not that it was necessarily unexpected, but it threw into question so much of what many people have fought for for decades over the course of time. And I think for a lot people, just on the technicalities of it, they made them freak out. Like it's gonna make it harder to win the House. I know, today, I mean, I referenced earlier, the New York Times said that this could result in half of the, in a dozen seats lost to Democrats in the South over the course of time. That's not immediate. Mark Elias said today it could be more like two seats at risk leading up to November. As you're thinking about the nitty gritty of this, you have a lot of skin in the game here. You could be the House Speaker soon enough. How many seats do you think this could impact leading up to November?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, it was a totally despicable decision in terms of gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which up until this point had been the preeminent piece of civil rights legislation in American history as part of our march toward a more perfect union and achieving a multiracial democracy. And there was a lot of sacrifice. A lot of people bled. People died to actually get to a point where you had an unfettered right to vote that was free of racial discrimination and intimidation. And the Supreme Court majority, of course, has just ushered that back in, in part because they are doing everything they can, it appears, to artificially give Donald Trump a Republican majority in the Congress and in the Senate, which of course he's at risk of losing because his presidency has been a disaster and the Republicans have been nothing but sycophants and rubber stamps for Donald Trump's extreme agenda. We're going to make sure that there's a free and fair election in November and this voting rights decision by the Supreme Court has come late enough in the process that I agree entirely with Mark Elias that at the end of the day, at best, it may give the Republicans an additional seat or two in advance of November of 2026 and then we have to battle it out in connection with 2028.
JEN PSAKI: So I want to get there in just one second. I just want to ask you too about Florida because Florida just passed, of course, this redistricting effort today. That could garner them a couple of additional seats in Florida. You kind of threatened maximum warfare. I think it was last week you said that. Just in that specific case, what does that look like? I know there's a question of like who has standing to file a lawsuit. What's the next steps there to even fight that particular effort?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, they're going to be Florida voters who are going to file a lawsuit as soon as DeSantis signs this gerrymandering scheme into law because the Florida voters in 2010 enacted the Fair Districts Amendment that explicitly prohibits partisan gerrymandering and explicitly prohibits communities of interest, towns and villages and cities and counties, from being broken up, particularly to benefit one party, which was done in this instance, the Republican Party, and to target Democratic incumbents who were elected by the people of Florida. And so this map is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. And we're going to pursue every litigation avenue in state court that is available to the voters. At the same period of time, as was done in Texas, this DeSantis dummymander is going to create additional opportunities for Democrats to defeat Republican incumbents while fighting hard to hold on to our Democratic incumbents who were put into harm's way. They're not getting an additional four seats out of Florida in the same way that Texas Republicans are not getting an additional five seats out of Texas, particularly in this midterm election where everything continues to break in our way because Republicans have been a complete and total disaster. And we're continuing to center the people as it relates to our commitment to making their life more affordable and driving down the high cost of living.
JEN PSAKI: And they've miscalculated. I mean, this could be the case in Florida too, even as they've, even some Republicans there have expressed that concern. So let's talk about—because it's not that you and many people want you to be the House Speaker, it's also you want to stay House Speaker and we're talking about a lot more states at risk leading up to 2028. There are a lot of things on the table that could be fighting back I mean, of course there would be fighting, passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. But Trump is not—he's still going to be in office. He's not going to sign that. There is additional redistricting efforts that could be undertaken, but some of those could impact, I mean, majority-minority districts potentially. How do you think about the balance of those things? What are the tools that you are willing to deploy in this maximum warfare effort?
LEADER JEFFRIES: The Congressional Black Caucus will continue to lead in this effort and we'll partner with them, with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. But here's an important thing to understand. When you see these caucuses grow over time, the growth has largely come in districts that aren't majority-minority. In fact, many Asian American, Latino and African American Congressmembers right now represent swing districts that we've repeatedly flipped. With respect to the CBC, right now there are 56 members of the Congressional Black Caucus in the House, four in the Senate. But of those 56, only 11 represent majority-Black districts. Only 11. And you have at least 15 or 20 who are representing districts that are about 15% or less African American population in the community. So we have the ability, as has been demonstrated repeatedly, to get elected in communities that are diverse all across the country and to put the American people first regardless of race and we'll retain that ability notwithstanding what Republicans may try to do. Now the Deep South has a history of intense racial discrimination and we're going to have to deal with that in a variety of different ways, including by recognizing the fact that this Supreme Court still is going to have to contend with the 14th Amendment and intentional discrimination claims that we can still bring. That's the reason why the Governor of Alabama today, the Republican conservative Governor, said our hands are tied in Alabama, there's nothing that we could do to try to impact the two congressional districts that are represented by African Americans in the state of Alabama because they are prohibited by the 14th Amendment from changing their map.
JEN PSAKI: This is—this fight is going to continue because they've decided that the only way to win is to disenfranchise voters and make it harder to participate. Leader Jeffries, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you.
Full interview can be watched here.