'You Think The Entire State Of Texas Is Racist?': Ted Cruz Grills Dem Witnesses On Voter ID Laws

and turn to the ranking member thank you mr chairman i want to start with a question for each of the five witnesses uh in your judgment are voter id laws racist professor tolson thank you for that question um so it depends one thing we have to stop doing is treating all voter id laws as the same okay so your answer i i want to move quickly so it depends is your answer yes that's my okay so what voter id laws are racist apologies mr cruz or state of texas perhaps okay so you think the entire state of texas is racist what about requiring an id to vote as racist um so i think certain is a pretty reductive i'm not saying the entire state of texas is racist you just said my state of texas so you tell me what about the texas voter id losses racist so the fact that the voter rd law was put into place to diminish the political power of latinos uh with racist intent and it had been found to happen you're asserting that what's your evidence for that uh the dish the federal district court that first resolved the constitutionality of texas's voter id laws okay so your view is voter id laws are racist how about you mr yang i agree with professor tulsa voter id laws can be racist there are some voter id laws that are racially discriminatory in intent how about in practice in intent i find you you say there's some racist with with a malevolent intent lurking in the back of their mind but let's just talk about as a practical matter when i go to vote they ask me for my id i pull out my id i show it to them i vote is that racist if the law that requires you to do that was motivated by racially discriminatory under our client set aside intent i'm asking about the effect yes in effect i think that there are discriminatory effects from a number of voter id laws okay thank you i'm going to give the witness a chance to answer the question go ahead mr zion yes in effects i think many voter id laws are discriminatory and in design they are designed to have that effect okay ms reardon no sir mr van spakovsky uh no particularly because every single state that has passed an id law has put in a provision to provide a free id to anyone who doesn't have one the turnout numbers show it has no effect and i would remind everyone that the current version of the texas voter id law for in-person voting the obama administration agreed in court in a court filing that they were satisfied with it and it was not discriminatory you know i have to say this range of question actually shows the wildly partisan nature of the democrats proposal the record should reflect all three of the democratic witnesses invited by the chairman maintained to this committee that voter id laws can be in many instances in most instances i think of the various ways they formulate it are racist so let me tell you who disagrees with that 35 states across the country disagree with that because 35 states have voter id laws in effect but not just 35 states 81 percent of voters in america disagree with the radical views proposed by the democrats and the democratic witnesses not just 81 percent of americans 77 percent of black voters in america support voter id laws 78 percent of hispanic voters in america support voter id laws maldef should think about that 81 percent of low-income americans support voter id laws and yet what this bill is about is putting radicals in charge of saying if you require an id to vote that is racist and must be struck down this is all about partisan power now doj has also said under the biden administration that it is not going to presume that state acts that that a state acts lawfully if it simply returns to pre-covered voting laws ms reardon mr van van spakovsky what does that tell you if they say after a pandemic if you go back to the laws that existed before doj is not going to assume that that's okay what does that tell you about the partisan nature of doj by um by the by issuing the guidance that they did it says to me that what they would like to do is make permanent the um emergency procedures that were instituted by many states through litigation by the dnc throughout this throughout the country prior to the 2020 election and they would like those to be permanent and so rather than understand that they are temporary they are going to go after states that design to go back to their original election procedures well and i think they also think democrats did well under those emergency procedures and so putting those keeping those emergency procedures in place will predictably benefit democrats you know i would note in addition to disagreeing with the vast majority of the american people the democratic witnesses and the democrats here also to agree with disagree with the united states supreme court when i was the solicitor general of texas i represented a coalition of states defending indiana's voter id law before the u.s supreme court a group of plaintiffs challenged that it went to the supreme court and the supreme court by a vote of six to three upheld indiana's voter id law not only did they just do so justice john paul stevens one of the lions of the left wrote the majority opinion where he said voter id laws protect the integrity of elections and yet sadly too many democrats today don't want to protect the integrity of elections and i've got to say there is a view particularly from northeastern democrats that they look down on the rest of the country as a bunch of bigots and overalls their southern cousins who are too old-ish to be as enlightened as they are and i have to say there's an incredible hypocrisy in that in that states like georgia and mississippi have a higher black voter registration rate than states like connecticut the chairman's home state they have higher black voter turnout rates than states like connecticut they have a lower gap between black and white turnout than in states like senator blumenthal's connecticut and in fact states like georgia and mississippi african americans voted a higher rate than white voters and in texas they're basically equal one of the sad realities of today's democratic party is they define race as follows if you're a democrat you qualify so under the democratic view i'm not hispanic senator padilla is if you're a democrat you're an hispanic m my whale would be very surprised to discover i wasn't hispanic but that's how democrat views it that's how the radicals in the civil rights division view it and i will point out as an example this committee one federal district judge in the state of texas jason pulliam it's an african-american judge nominated by president trump sat at this table presented superbly the democrats had no criticism and every single democrat on this committee voted against him why because they perceived him as a black republican he didn't qualify as a black man and i actually asked as the democrats were voting against judge pulliam do you have one basis to vote against them anything you disagree with none of them had any single answer at all this hearing's about one thing it's about power and it's about ensuring democrats stay in power that's cynical and it's at the expense of democracy and the right of voters to express their will through free and fair elections i'm going to ask my questions now and just begin by saying this hearing has nothing to do with any geographic discrimination any idea that one state or another is o fish

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Keywords: Sen. Ted Cruz, voter ID, Democrats

Id: GGp08YB4mao

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021