Eric Holder

Yeah. To favorably place Democrats in a position to fight for fairness.

I am against partisan and racial gerrymandering done by any party in any place.

The reauthorization of the act was supported almost unanimously by Republicans and Democrats in the House as well as in the Senate.

Eight years ago tomorrow in the Shelby County decision, a very divided Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

We need to repair the damage being done to our democracy.

We need to end gerrymandering so that all people, including people of color, can be represented by public servants of their choice.

What I oppose is the overly prescriptive way in which States, generally Republican States, have indicated that which is acceptable to prove that you are who you claim to be when you want to vote.

Well, I think that what we would have to do is do what the Congress did back in 1965, which is to conduct hearings, as you are doing now, come up with ways in which you look at States that have----

I am very concerned about what this will mean. We have seen what State legislatures have done since the Shelby County decision.

The Court in the Shelby decision actually invited congressional action, and I think the efforts that are being led by Chairman Butterfield here are consistent with what the Shelby County decision mandated.

Let me just say that that is a mischaracterization of the intent of that filing.

I am concerned that without the protections of the Voting Rights Act, that which we have seen in the past decade can continue into the following decade.

Well, I would look at voter participation. I would look at the way in which lines were drawn when it comes to gerrymandering.

One can look at words and mischaracterize them. With all due respect, Congressman, you are looking at those words and mischaracterizing them.

Now, before 2013, Section 5, relying on Section 4, had helped prevent discriminatory voting laws from taking effect.

Since the Shelby County decision, millions of Americans have unnecessarily been purged from voter rolls.

Very clear violations of the Justice Department policy and a really serious issue.

That story is appalling.

the main problem is that we have a Republican Party that is intense on changing the laws, the election laws in our country to benefit them so that they maintain power.

the policy we left in place was probably violated. I put that policy in place because I thought in our pursuit of leak cases, we had gone too far and concerns raised by the media were, in fact, valid ones.

What we said in the policy, what I said in the policy is that if you want access to records related to reporters, you should first go to the publishers, people who run newspapers, people who are in charge of the television stations.

Let me be clear, there’s absolutely no indication that the last election was conducted in anything other than an appropriate way.

One of the things the Trump administration did expertly was simply to trash norms, trash policies.

It seems they have violated that policy. I`m not surprised by that.

the Justice Department has got to be aggressive. They have to be forward leaning and trying to make sure that what’s going on in these different states if it violates federal law needs to be stopped.