Monday Morning Politics with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Monday Morning Politics on the Monday after Mother's Day. The predicted protests disrupting Catholic church services yesterday did not occur despite the draft Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, or if they occurred, no news outlet that I can find reported on any, but this did occur. The governor of Arkansas on TV yesterday acknowledged that rape and incest are not exceptions in the trigger law that would immediately take effect in that state if Roe is in fact overturned.

The governor of Mississippi refused to rule out banning contraception next in his state in this exchange on NBC's Meet the Press with the host, Chuck Todd.

Chuck Todd: Look, you've just said that you believe life begins at conception. If there is legislation brought to you to ban contraception, would you sign it?

Governor Tate Reeves: I don't think that's going to happen in Mississippi. I'm sure they'll have those conversations in other states.

Chuck Todd: You're not answering the question.

Governor Tate Reeves: That's always the case. There's so many things that we can talk about.

Brian Lehrer: "There are so many things that we can talk about," but apparently not that, not now, keeping the door open to banning contraception. Congress could transform a woman's right to choose from something determined by the Supreme Court to something voted into federal law. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to call for a vote this week on a bill that would do that, though he knows that with the filibuster in place, he'll never get enough Republican votes to pass it. Schumer plans to bring it to a vote anyway.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: This is not just one vote and then this issue goes away. You will hear a lot from us through the next months all the way through November.

Brian Lehrer: "All the way through November," implying the mid-term elections, Senator Schumer from New York. Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut predicted on Fox News Sunday that if the Republicans get control of the Senate in the mid-term elections, well--

Senator Chris Murphy: If Republicans get control of the Senate, they will get rid of the filibuster in order to pass a national ban on abortion. They got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court justices for the explicit purpose of putting on the court judges who would strike down Roe v. Wade. I think you can naturally assume that they would also change the rules to pass that national abortion ban.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Murphy on Fox News Sunday. With us now, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn and Queens. He is also Chair of the House Democratic Caucus under Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We'll talk about Congress and the draft Supreme Court decision, also about the mid-term elections for control of Congress under these new circumstances, and the redistricting mess in New York that could even sway control of Congress as the court is now drawing new Congressional district lines that are expected to more favor Republicans than the ones that the Democratic state legislature tried to draw.

Thanks for coming on, Congressman Jeffries, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Good Morning, Brian. Great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Does the House have a bill that would enact a woman's right to choose into federal law if it disappears as a constitutional right?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Yes. In fact, we've already passed the Women's Health Protection Act, which is the same legislation that Leader Schumer was going to bring to the floor of the Senate, I believe, on Wednesday. We passed that bill decisively because we understood that there was a significant and grave likelihood that this runaway radical Republican-appointed Supreme Court would try to do away with a woman's freedom to make her own healthcare decisions.

Brian Lehrer: We played the clip of Senator Schumer. Can you talk to our listeners about the point of calling for a vote on something Schumer wants but knows will fail?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: It seems to me that we've got to know where every United States senator stands on this issue because since this draft decision came to the forefront, many Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, have been ducking, running, and hiding because they understand the implications of their extreme position. I do think when you are engaged in a significant life-changing public policy debate, it's important to get every senator on record.

I also think it's important because we don't know where Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski stand. Both of them seemed to indicate last week that they felt deceived by multiple Supreme Court justices who were, at minimum, disingenuous during their confirmation hearings when they suggested that Roe v. Wade was a precedent they planned to adhere to, and the first opportunity they got to throw it overboard, they appear to be taking.

The question now is, what will Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins do? They claim to be supportive of a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions. On Wednesday, you'll have an opportunity to now demonstrate that support by voting for the Women's Health Protection Act. That, in and of itself, is a useful step in the right direction in this fight.

Brian Lehrer: Though, it still would not get the law passed because there wouldn't be 10, plus, if we can even assume all 50 Democrats, in order to get to the required 60, right?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I think what's important first is let's see if a majority exists. If a majority exists in support of this legislation, then you can actually have the conversation about filibuster reform. If a majority doesn't exist, then the conversation about filibuster reform is actually moot. Because even if you were to change the filibuster rule, you can't get to 50.

I'm hopeful that Wednesday will demonstrate that a majority of the United States senators, 50, 51, 52, support a woman's freedom to make her own healthcare decisions. If, in fact, that's the case, now you can go to step two, Brian, and have the conversation about filibuster reform.

Brian Lehrer: We played the Senator Murphy clip about the filibuster. If the Republicans have been all about abortion as a states' rights issue, do you think they would really try for some kind of federal ban that would outlaw or restrict abortions even in the State of New York, which, of course, has legal abortion, and elsewhere against the states' rights foundation of the Supreme Court argument?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Absolutely. Senator Murphy is correct. You can't trust anything that Senate Republicans and Mitch McConnell have to say on this issue, or any issue, by the way. We've already seen Senator McConnell talk out of both sides of his mouth with respect to the Supreme Court. He held Barack Obama to one standard. Eight or nine months out from an election, when Antonin Scalia tragically, or suddenly, passed away.

A vacancy was created, he indicated that this vacancy should be determined by the next president of the United States because we were in an election year nine months out. Then adopted a different standard when there was a Republican president under circumstances where the voters really should have had an opportunity to weigh in when the historic Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away in September, about eight or nine weeks prior to the 2020 presidential election. He said, "No, a Republican president should have an opportunity to fill that vacancy."

He didn't even blink or hesitate because shamelessness, they believe, is their superpower. What rational reason would there be for any of us to believe that what Mitch McConnell is presently saying, which is that he has no plans to change the filibuster, is a lie, because he's lied multiple times before?

Brian Lehrer: If Republicans take control of the Senate, would you then be for keeping the filibuster as a hedge against Republicans taking away more rights, abortion rights, voting rights, maybe other rights as well, while Democrats tend to be for abolishing the filibuster right now when you have the majority?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: As a member of the House of Representatives, I don't want to get too deeply involved in the discussion as to what the appropriate Senate strategy should be, particularly because I've got all the confidence in the world in the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, but I will simply say this. There should be one standard, one standard. If it's going to go, it should go now. If it's not going to go, and my Democratic colleagues in the Senate actually believe that enough senators, including people like Murkowski and Collins or Romney, for instance, would not support getting rid of the filibuster.

Then maybe that helps to shape their decision as to what should happen in the different direction. I don't know because I don't know the members of the United States Senate that intimately. I do know there's got to just be one standard. If Senator Murphy is correct, and he thinks it's going to go, then I think some real decisions have to be made. The other thing that has to be pointed out, Brian, is that there are currently exceptions to the filibuster that actually exist. There are two of them. A Supreme Court justice exception to the filibuster that Mitch McConnell put into place to steal, not one, but two Supreme Court justices from democratic presidents, one from Barack Obama and one from Joe Biden. There's also a budget reconciliation exception to the filibuster.

Which by the way, Republicans used in 2017 to pass the GOP tax scam where 83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1% to subsidize the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. In doing so, all they did was to saddle the country with $2 trillion worth of unnecessary debt. That was done as an exception to the filibuster. Which is part of the reason why many of us have said seems to be reasonable at minimum for Senate Democrats, apparently to disagree. To carve out voting rights and civil rights as an exception to the filibuster, not destroying it, but contributing to the list of exceptions that already exist on matters of great importance.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your call is welcome here for Congressman Hakeem Jeffries on Congress and abortion rights redistricting in New York, which we will get to. The midterm elections more generally, which we will get to or anything else relevant to him, 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. George Donna, I was just about to take your call, George Donna and I think Manhattan because you had a filibuster question, but I see you hung up. We still have a line open if you want to call back and get back in, I'll take you first.

Anyone else too, 212-433-9692 in the 212 area code. Let me ask another filibuster follow-up question. In terms of democracy, keeping the filibuster for Republicans and keeping it for Democrats could be seen as structurally different. Because the structure of the Senate gives Republicans an advantage as it is because every small state, and I know you know this, which tends to be Republican states, small population states.

Every one of those states gets the same two votes as New York or California or other really big states, which more tend to be democratic. Republicans are overrepresented compared to their actual presence in the population in the United States Senate. That's certainly true on row, which has like two to one support among the American people, but not nearly that in the Senate. If Democrats who are structurally underrepresented keep the filibuster, one could at least argue that that actually serves the filibuster's intended purpose, a kind of protection of underrepresented states. Do you see it that way at all?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Yes. I think it's a very good observation, Brian, and an important argument for my colleagues in the Senate to consider. I also think that this notion of tradition as it relates to the filibuster is divorced from the reality of the filibuster's original intent. It was a vehicle for Southern enslavers and segregationists to actually maintain initially the institution of slavery, but most definitively the institution of Jim Crow segregation until it was finally broken in the 1960s.

Thanks to leadership from Martin Luther King, John Lewis on the outside and many others, President Linda Banes, Johnson on the inside. This is a vehicle, the filibuster that is dripping in the blood of Southern segregation and the violence of what that represented in its predecessor, which is chattel slavery. The other thing to point out--

Brian Lehrer: That would be an argument to get rid of it entirely because it was so ill-conceived or conceived in that violence and not just try and apply it to generation by generation.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: That is correct. That would be an argument to get rid of it in its entirety. Brian, I think if you take some of the right-wing conservatives at their word, particularly on the Supreme Court where they're all about the original intent, the word filibuster appears nowhere in the United States Constitution. It was a creation to maintain these evil institutions as we've just discussed.

Most importantly, we know the framers of the constitution actually weighed in on this specifically in terms of what would be required of a supermajority vote in Congress and why there were four instances where the framers of the constitution said, "We believe a supermajority should be required to override a president's veto." Number one, to adopt a constitutional amendment. Number two, the supermajority required to ratify a treaty.

Number three, supermajority required, and finally, to convict a president who's been impeached by the house. Supermajority, two-thirds vote, as we've seen now, twice in the last few years required in the Senate. Four times they weighed in. Here's where we need a supermajority from Congress. Not to just pass legislation, but that's what the filibuster in the Senate has become.

It's inconsistent with the original intent of the framers of the constitution. What is the rationale to keep it other than to serve the invidious purposes of a small minority intent on doing harm to the majority of the American people or at least not following their will?

Brian Lehrer: With Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Sean in Maplewood you're on WNYC. Hi, Sean.

Sean: Hi, Brian. I wanted to speak for a second to how progressives ought to be thinking about responding to what's happening with the Supreme Court ruling. You've had Anat Shenker-Osorio on your show before she's a messaging guru for the Democrats. Kirsten Gillibrand made an amazing statement last week that really did much publicity. I have to say I heard it and it struck me so much that I had to have it transcribed. It will take about a minute, Brian, but I'd like to go ahead and read what she said if you're okay with that?

Brian Lehrer: Okay. Just so the listeners understand you're reading something from New York, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Thursday, go ahead.

Sean: Correct. Sometimes folks in New Jersey have to do the work for folks in New York. Here we go. She said, "I would like to speak to America's men for one minute. Imagine you do not have the authority over your own body for 10 months. Imagine if that decision would not be taken away even if you would die in childbirth. Even if you couldn't decide who you were having children with, even if you couldn't decide when you were having that child."

I don't think a man in America could actually imagine not having control of his bodily functions. What happens to him and what life would be like for 10 months? She said, "It is an outrage that we have five justices on the Supreme Court who lied in their confirmation hearings in order to be confirmed. It is an outrage that in America today that our judicial system is so corrupted and so politicized and no longer representative of the will of the people."

Five justices said that they respect precedent. Five said that Roe V. Wade was an established precedent. Five said they would never undermine established precedent. It is unconscionable. What this decision will do to the American people. I do not think that 50% of America should be told that they have to put their body at risk of life or death without their consent. It is barbaric. It is inhumane. It is unacceptable, and I hope that every human being in this country understands that when you take away a woman's right to make her decisions about her health and wellbeing, she is no longer a full citizen.

She no longer has freedom. I'm almost done. She no longer has bodily autonomy. She no longer has basic civil rights or civil liberties. That is what this decision would do in America today. Sorry, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Sean. Thank you very much. Quoting Senator Gillibrand and Congressman Jeffries, I'm sure you agree with everything in that quote. I think I also saw Senator Gillibrand say on TV this weekend. I'll have to look it up to completely confirm it, but I'm pretty sure I saw her say, "Not only did the justices lie in their Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Some of them did. Amy Coney Barrett wouldn't even say that Roe was a super precedent but Gillibrand to my eye accused the senators, like Susan Collins, who thought and stated publicly that the nominees would uphold Roe that they knew better all along and were lying. Did you hear that?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I didn't hear that particular statement, but would anyone put anything past Susan Collins? This is the same person who after voting to acquit Trump, after the first impeachment trial, famously said, "I think he's going to learn his lesson." Really? Learn his lesson? What was the lesson? That he could get away with trying to steal a presidential election. Then subsequently incited a violent insurrection to try to overthrow the US government.

Overrun the Capitol, resulting in the death of hero police officers and serious bodily injury for more than 140 others. That was the lesson that Susan Collins thinks Donald Trump learned? I'll let Senator Gillibrand correctly characterize some of our colleagues in that institution. It was a powerful statement that she made, and we've got to continue to keep the drumbeat moving forward in terms of the stakes. This is a battle between liberty and tyranny.

It's a battle between a woman's freedom to make her own health care decisions, not be subjugated by others in a barbaric fashion, as a result of them trying to impose government-mandated pregnancies, even in the case of rape or incest.

Brian Lehrer: Trying to look up right now, and I may have been wrong on the way I heard that going by. She may have been just accusing the justices when they were nominees lying two senators Collins and Murkowski, but in any case, I'm going replay a clip we played last week of Senator Susan Collins during the confirmation process. I think just after the confirmation process for Brett Kavanaugh, as he was assuming his position on the court. Listen.

Susan Collins: I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh will overturn--

Dana Bash: His precedents are overturned all the time.

Susan Collins: They aren't overturned all the time, and listen to the standards that he put forward in his conversation with me, and also in the hearing. He says for a long-established precedent like Roe to be overturned, it would have to have been grievously wrong and deeply inconsistent. He noted that Roe had been reaffirmed 19 years later by Planned Parenthood v. Casey and that it was precedent on precedent. He said it should be extremely rare that it be overturned and it should be an example-- [crosstalk]

Dana Bash: You have obviously full confidence?

Susan Collins: I do.

Brian Lehrer: That was Senator Collins on CNN at the time of Kavanaugh's confirmation with CNN's Dana Bash. That's from the Washington Post from just the other day, it says Senator Collins, one of two prominent Republican senators who support abortion rights said Thursday, she does not support a democratic measure that would create a statutory right to the procedure, arguing that the legislation does not provide sufficient protection to anti-abortion health providers.

That comes back to your original point, Congressman Jeffries, that if Collins and Murkowski believe they were lied to by those justices at their confirmation hearings, they should at least vote to enact a woman's right to choose as protection in federal law, which they have the right to do, but Collins says she won't. This language in the Washington Post, because the legislation does not provide sufficient protection to anti-abortion health providers. I guess that means that individual health providers could opt-out if they had personal moral objections to abortion.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I'm not sure what she means by that, and that needs to be worked out. Hopefully, she's having those conversations in terms of the sponsors of the legislation in the Senate to see if they can find common ground with the fundamental need to protect a woman's right, to choose ultimately being the North Star in terms of what happens.

The question really is at some point, are these senators being intentionally deceptive with us, or are they just gullible? We all understood what Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and all of those other Republican-appointed justices had as an objective, which was to overturn Roe v. Wade. Nonetheless, we had senators who profess to be pro-choice voting for them anyway. That's why I think Leader Schumer is exactly correct. Now you have an opportunity to vote understanding the likely steaks of a woman's right to choose and make her own determinations with respect to health care freedom. Let's see where they stand on Wednesday.

Brian Lehrer: Even if Gillibrand didn't accuse some of those senators of deceiving the American people, you are accusing them. Here's Collin's quote from that Washington Post article on why she would vote against the bill to enshrine abortion rights into federal law, "It doesn't protect the right of a Catholic hospital to not perform abortions. That right has been enshrined in law for a long time." Would you spot such a compromise?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I'd have to understand what the intent in the legislative language is that's being proposed as well as the actual effect of it. I'm not prepared to say one way or the other, what I would support in terms of any compromise that emerges from the Senate. I proudly supported the Women's Health Protection Act, as it is currently written in the United States House of Representatives, and thankful that Speaker Pelosi and other members of the Democratic Caucus had the foresight, vision, and wisdom to move it forward and pass it.

Now, also, Brian, I'm not prepared to say I'm accusing Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski at this moment of intentionally deceiving the American people, but let's see what they do on Wednesday, and then I'll have more to say.

Brian Lehrer: More to do with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, in addition to representing his Brooklyn and Queens district, and more of your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn and Queens and chair of the House Democratic Caucus, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Lee on Staten Island, you're on WNYC with Congressman Jeffries. Hi, Lee.

Lee: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Congressman.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Good morning.

Lee: My memory may be faulty, but doesn't the Supreme Court have the power to declare a law unconstitutional? If Congress passed a right to abortion statute, couldn't they just declare it unconstitutional?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: That is correct. That is certainly a possibility in terms of what the anti-abortion extremists and activists across the country may endeavor to try to bring about, though they are currently claiming, of course, that in their view, states should have the power to decide this one way or the other. As we've seen, in many other instances, including the examples that we cited earlier, relative to Mitch McConnell, they'll often say one thing and do another when they've got the power to act.

Which is one of the reasons why, in addition to the activism, and the protesting, the demonstrating, and the agitating and the legislating, all of which we will continue to do, perhaps the most significant thing that we can all collectively do on a going-forward basis, in November is to vote. Vote at every single level of government, city, village, town, county, certainly the state legislature, and certainly for the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

Brian Lehrer: Just to the caller's point, it would be very hard, under the words in the Alito draft, for the Supreme Court to overturn a law that Congress passes that might protect abortion rights, because the whole fundamental point of those 90 pages is that it should be up to the legislature in the political process, not up to the court, right?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: That is correct. If they go as far as they can go in terms of viability, and making the determination, that viability, in fact, begins at conception, that may open up the opportunity. Not just, of course, to go after contraception, and we expect that they will, but to take it even further in terms of exploring the constitutionality of laws that even permit a woman to make this particular choice. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Finish, I'm sorry.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I just don't think we're in the business of assuming good faith as it relates to anything that this runaway Supreme Court majority might do in the future.

Brian Lehrer: When you say they might go after or you would expect them to go after contraception, do you mean specifically abortifacients, is that the way you say it? Contraceptive methods that technically take place after fertilization?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I think that that is a likely scenario from this runaway radical Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority. However, let's see what takes place once the actual opinion is written and how they lay the foundation in that opinion to extend the new precedent beyond the particular confines of what was before the court. It's my expectation that you have conservative radical activist justices that have intentionally been appointed and confirmed to the Supreme Court to take down laws even beyond what is presently pending in terms of a woman's rights to choose.

Brian Lehrer: A listener on Twitter writes, "Why aren't the Democrats and pro-abortion people shouting at the top of their lungs that if this affected men it would never happen?"

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I think Kirsten Gilland actually made that very same point and I agree with Sean when he said he's surprised that it had not received the coverage that the powerfulness of the statement, in fact, merited I'll certainly do my best to amplify that statement and other statements. I think this is an all-out assault on freedom and liberty and so it does definitely requires an all-hands-on-deck response. I think you can expect to see that certainly from New York's congressional delegation.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying people should go out and vote if they feel strongly about this. In the context of the midterm elections, Republicans are now saying Democratic outrage over reversing Roe if it is reversed, won't carry the day because by election season in the fall many voters will have moved on from the shockwaves of May and June. The big issues will still be the ones that they claim will favor Republicans now, inflation, immigration, and crime. What's your political analysis or argument for the midterms with respect to that Republican positioning?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I think the issues that will be important to voters as we approach the midterm elections will be all of the above. Certainly, it will relate to the economy and I think president Biden has a strong track record to run on. We passed the American Rescue Plan at a point when the economy was on the brink of collapse, the American Rescue Plan without a single Republican vote was sent to president Biden's desk he signed it into law. It laid the foundation for a strong economic turnaround.

More than 8 million good-paying jobs have been created in President Biden's first 15 months or so in office. That's a record in American presidential history for a similar point in time unemployment at a near-record low of 3.6%, fastest rate of economic growth in 40 years. Wages of course have increased for the first time in decades in a meaningful way. All of that was accomplished with the deficit being reduced by more than $350 billion.

We of course reduced child poverty by about 40% during the last six months of 2021 because of the Biden Child Tax Credit Law, which we're fighting to reinstate past historic infrastructure investment which will create millions of good-paying jobs moving forward, spread out all across America. The Biden track record is robust. Now, of course, there are issues that remain because we inherited an economic disaster from Donald Trump and the shockwaves of the economy shutting down because of COVID having an impact on the supply chain. We do need to take some additional steps with respect to inflation and gas prices and I can expect, you can expect Brian that you'll see the House and the Senate taking those actions in the next few weeks.

Brian Lehrer: You have one for people whose years perked up right then thinking, please Congressman do something.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Currently pending before the House and the Senate is the America COMPETES Act which will invest in bringing back domestic manufacturing of chips here in America which are currently made in the far East about 70% of the chips that we need basically for everything, consumer products, cars, everything are made in Taiwan and beyond. We saw when the pandemic hit that so much of our supply chain is tied up in China.

The America COMPETES Act will invest about $52 billion in domestic semiconductor production which will enhance our ability to improve the supply chain dynamics and not be subject to foreign geopolitical shockwaves. That's going to be a step that you can anticipate us taking in the next few weeks. As a conference committee right now, that's underway between the House and the Senate to reconcile our differences.

Speaker Pelosi has also indicated that the House is planning to act on gas prices in the next few weeks sooner rather than later. We don't have any specific proposals to share because we're still trying to find consensus amongst ourselves, but we are going to act decisively in this area. That's a contrast, Brian, because the other side of the aisle has nothing. No plans, no vision, no public policy, nothing but lies that they put forward trying to mischaracterize Democratic positions because they have no actual agenda other than trying to regain power.

Brian Lehrer: Rich on Staten Island you're on WNYC with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Rich, are you there? Rich on Staten Island? Rich once.

Rich: Good morning. Thanks for letting me begin. I want to push back on the idea that the 11th Congressional District is a Republican district. If you look at what happened in 2012, it was gerrymandering did to make it a Republican district. It narrows as it goes to the East and it explodes in Gravesen and it cuts off Bay Ridge Avenue. If we're going to redistrict this, I think you have to take out both Sunset Park and Gravesen and look at the other neighborhoods in Southwest Brooklyn to give them political power. Right now it's all chopped up and I think it dilutes their power.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman, that gets to the larger question which we were going to get to in any case of New York, being in the middle of a redistricting mess. The congressional lines drawn by Democrats in the State Legislature to basically take a few seats away from Republicans was thrown out by the courts as partisan gerrymandering. Now a special master appointed by the court is drawing those lines instead of legislators, but on the one seat that a Republican holds from New York City, District 11 currently hold by held by the Nicole Malliotakis, largely Staten Island with a little bit of Brooklyn. The caller is saying that was gerrymandering in the first place 10 years ago to make it a Republican district. Where do you enter this conversation?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Thank you Rich for making that observation. I think it's a very important nuance in terms of a very important discussion as it relates to gerrymandering. If you just take a step back and look at what the Court of Appeals did, I think there were two mistakes that were made one on substance and then the other certainly on process by putting into place a very flawed process. First, on substance, they effectively concluded that the line is drawn by the legislature with gerrymandering.

Now, instead of doing what every other court in the United States of America is apparently done which is if you conclude that there are flaws in lines that have been drawn you give the legislature, the elected representatives of the people of New York which happen to be led by two African Americans and constitute very diverse bodies. You give them a chance to correct the flaws that you believe exist and resubmit maps for your review. Instead, the legislature was deprived of that opportunity and the court instead sent it to Steuben county, the Village of Bath of all places to be presided over in a remote location with no real opportunity for input.

It concluded that the lines were substantively gerrymandered based I think on this theoretical notion that Democrats would've had an opportunity to elect 22 members out of a 26-member delegation. Let's actually look back at recent history. In 2018, '21 Democrats were elected and there were two seats, one in the Eastern shore of Long Island and one in Syracuse currently held by Katko the Eastern shore seat held by Zeldin that were fiercely competitive. Why were those two seats competitive even though we didn't win them in the 2018 cycle because the Zeldin seat was held by a Democrat for 14 years prior to his election and Tim Bishop and in the Syracuse seat, that district is being held by Katko, who's a moderate Republican because he's a brilliant elected official in terms of how he presents himself to a very moderate district.

It's a district in Syracuse, Bryan, I believe as you know that Barack Obama won twice. Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and Joe Biden won in 2020. It's a democratic seat already. If you were to take a look just on numbers, you could have said, "Well, under this current map, there are actually 23 opportunities for Democrats to win the 21 seats that we won in 2018. The two actual seats that had been previously held by Democrats or won by democratic presidential candidates. The Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals based on what? A number that actually matches up to prior numbers declared that the lines were rationally gerrymandered.

That's totally unreasonable. That's not even based on any legitimate conclusion. That's the problem that we have right now. We're left with a flawed process that I think is going to lead to a flawed result with special master drawing lines, without meaningful input from downstate communities of color,

Brian Lehrer: All those arguments that you make are very interesting, but they are moot now. Because the Court of Appeal is New York state's highest court. That's like the Supreme Court, but for the state. There's no higher authority to appeal this ruling to now. The state is in the hands of that court-appointed special master, or am I wrong?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: That's correct. It's one of the reasons why I have indicated that we are where we are it's problematic. However, what needs to happen moving forward is that the special master, unlike what the court of appeals did, which is not to respect communities of interest, both downstate communities of interest, where the legislature was very clear to try to draw opportunity to elect minority candidate districts, respecting Black communities and Latino communities.

Asian American communities, such as the one in Grace Meng's district, apparently that had no impact on the court of appeals consideration, even though the constitution clearly states that communities of interest, particularly as it relates to historically disenfranchised minority communities should be respected in the drawing of the lines. My hope is that this special master and the judicial overseer,-- By the way, Brian, any process that involves an overseer and a master, I've got some problems with.

Brian Lehrer: So you would suggest, do you know the individual, the special master? I don't have his name in front of me and I don't remember it, but he do you consider him a fair mind person or biased in any way?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: That remains to be seen. I do know that Judge McAllister who's in Steuben county, again, the Village of Bath, a location where you can get there faster. It's closer to Cleveland, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Toronto, Canada than it is to New York City. He holds a single hearing on Friday Amtrak, doesn't go to the Bath, there's no airport in or around the Bath.

It's a 10-hour bus ride to get to the Bath. You have to leave Porter authority at 1:30 AM to get there, which basically means it's not accessible for downstate communities of color and everyone else. It appears at least that there's reasonable concern to believe that the fixes in when that judge doesn't even give anyone the ability to virtually participate in the hearing in the 21st century. That makes no sense. Now, ultimately, whatever the special master does. He apparently is affiliated with Carnegie Mellon as an institution has to be approved by this judge. That's where the concern is for me at the moment.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, how can, if there's any way, the public from downstate have input into how this master draws the lines if he's only holding if I understand you correctly in-person hearings that are only taking up taking place way, upstate in that remote community? Is it on people like you who have the ability to travel and go to that hearing to represent your downstate constituents or how can downstate make its voice heard?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I sent a letter to Judge McAllister a week ago last Monday, illustrating the concerns that I had on behalf of the communities of color and all downstate New Yorkers, with respect to the exclusion from this process. I'm still awaiting a response, but I would urge citizens, particularly the good government groups who rightfully have been concerned with a broken redistricting process in the past to elevate your voice because we have been given another broken redistricting process, albeit one being presided over by a judge and sanctioned by the Court of Appeals.

Now, in terms of what we can do moving forward, as I understand it, the special master has said that the new lines he plans to draw will be released in a first draft on the 16th of May. Then I believe there are two days for public input to be received. Although it's not clear how exactly the public can communicate its input at that point. We're going to push for an open process. Once those lines are released, but preceding the drawing of those lines, just to sharpen the point a little bit.

Brian, the judge McAllister is only holding a single hearing. It already took place. It was on Friday and there was no voice from downstate New York present because no one could get there and that's problematic.

Brian Lehrer: Got it. We'll see what those lines are when he releases them a week from today, the 16th. Then what kind of a process there is for public input next Tuesday and Wednesday, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn and Queens and chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Thank you so much.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Thank you so much, Brian.

 

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