The NPR Politics Podcast - We Asked Vice President Kamala Harris If She's Pushing Senate To Change Filibuster

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Take our survey: npr.org/podcastsurveyVice President Harris talked to NPR's Asma Khalid about the administration's path forward on their voting rights agenda given the major roadblock in the Senate: some Democrats in the chamber are unwilling to change the filibuster, a rules quirk that forces a sixty-to-forty majority to pass most legislation.And many Democrats from the Texas statehouse have come to Washington D.C. to meet with federal lawmakers, fleeing their own state in a procedural stunt to stall a suite of voting restrictions proposed by Republicans there.This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and KUT reporter Ashley Lopez.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey everybody, before we start the show, we need your help with something, especially if you're somebody who's new to listening to this podcast. We're trying to figure out what people like about the show and what they don't. So if you've got a few minutes, please go ahead, pause this, you can wait, it'll be a good episode when you're done with it, and head to npr.org slash podcast survey. That's npr.org slash podcast survey. It is short, it's anonymous, and it would really mean a lot. Thanks so much. Okay, here's the show. Hi, this is Ali from Brisbane, Australia. I'm currently waiting for my family to arrive home so I can see their faces in real life for the first time in 386 days. This podcast was recorded at... Oh man, it's 1-19 Eastern here in the U.S. on Tuesday, July 13th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll probably still be hugging my

mom and little brother and sister for the first time in over a year. Enjoy the show. I love those stories of family reunions, right? It's like all the things we took for granted that now feel so special. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. And today, President Biden is delivering a major speech focused on voting rights. It's something many progressive allies have been pushing for for months and also something they say is not enough. The president is in Philadelphia today talking about it at the

National Constitution Center. We will have coverage at NPR.org and on that thing called the radio since the speech is happening after we tape this podcast. But Asma, you just got off the line with Vice President Kamala Harris, and you talked to her about how the administration is approaching this, what they're going to do, and their response to all of this pressure. That's right. And I guess for longtime listeners of the podcast, you'll probably recall that the vice president has been tapped by the administration as the point person to handle voting rights. And so it was really helpful to have some time to chat with her about how she's been seeing this issue. And where I began the conversation is essentially on around this question of the fact that there are so many voices in the Democratic Party who feel frustrated around

how the pieces of legislation in Congress have been stalled at this point for months, right? And so I asked her that in lieu of congressional action, what she thinks the administration can do around voting rights? Well, there's a lot we can do. And clearly, this is an issue that we need to approach from many different angles. So for example, there's the work that we are committed to do, which is about putting resources into the people on the ground and the work on the ground, empowering the people, right? Because this is truly about the voice of the people. So what does that look like? It includes resources and attention being given to registering people to vote, to educating people about what's at stake and what is actually happening in terms of these threats to their rights.

It's about turning out voters. You know, we actually, people think, well, it's 2022, but we actually have some elections actually this year. And so we are talking about, even though this doesn't maybe feel for some like an election year, it is. And so making sure we turn out voters and we protect voters. The voter protection piece is essential. The other work that we are doing is it's about convening folks. I've been to South Carolina and Georgia and Pennsylvania and Michigan to meet with people on the ground, leaders in their communities and their states, to get the feedback and to get an accurate sense of how people are experiencing this issue

and what we can do to lift up their voices and make sure that the realities of this issue are being heard and well understood. There's the coalition building piece of this, which includes bringing in people who may seemingly have not much in common, but have everything in common in knowing that their voices is expressed through their vote, and it really is, again, a matter of their power to determine who will be their elected leaders and what their government will be and the issues that it will prioritize. I'm meeting, for example, tomorrow I'm convening a group of leaders among folks with disabilities, that that community is going to and has been a leader on understanding how these various laws will impede, will prevent Americans with disabilities from being able to vote. So these are all of the pieces and, you know, lifting up folks like the Texas legislature and the voices of those courageous leaders.

You know, Congressman Jim Clyburn, who we should point out is a good friend of the White House, is calling for a tweak to the filibuster. He said not to end it entirely, but to carve out an exception that could allow Democrats to pass voting rights legislation with a simple majority. He told Politico that he actually explicitly shared his thinking on this with you. So I want to ask, do you support that idea? Do you think it's something that could work? Well, here's what I'll say. I believe that of all of the issues that the United States Congress can take up, the right to vote is the right that unlocks all the other rights. And for that reason, it should be one of its highest priorities. Now, the members of the Senate are going to have to

address this, and we're going to continue to work to find a path forward, no matter how difficult. And obviously, it's going to require all the Democrats in the Senate to agree with that approach. Is it an approach that you've been advocating for at all, just amongst your former colleagues in the Senate, that maybe it is worth carving out an exception for voting rights? I mean, I'm not going to kind of negotiate with, sorry, but I don't mean this in any offense, but I'm not going to negotiate this way. But I'm certainly having conversations with folks. OK. Is the answer to stopping Republican voting restrictions in some way simply for Democrats to win more elections and then get the power to overturn them? I mean, is that essentially the main way to do this at this point? I would prefer to really talk about it and certainly think about it as something much more fundamental. This is literally about one of the most important

tenets of our democracy, which is the right to vote and having a representative government. And like I said, our ability, the people's ability to vote, it unlocks every other right, and we can go through a long list of the rights we are talking about that are often at stake in elections. And so fundamentally, this fight to preserve people's right to vote unencumbered, this is a fight that is old as American pie and as American as apple pie. As you see so many GOP-led state legislatures, though, crafting some of these laws that have restricted voting rights, and as you see that not a single Republican member of the Senate was on board with some of this legislation, how do you convince the American public that this is truly a bipartisan issue? Well, I, you know, I think about it in the context of my own experience voting, right? So one of the things that concerns me about the laws coming out of these states is how they will have the effect, if not the intention, of intimidating poll workers, penalizing poll workers.

Well, most Americans who have voted have voted like I have at the local elementary school or the local church or the local senior center. Just imagine for a moment all of those poll workers when you walk in and how loyal they are to civics and to patriotism and that they should be encumbered by intimidation and tactics that are intended to make them afraid of, you know, assisting someone through the door and making sure that their experience voting is one where they feel entitled to their rights. You know, I think about it in the context of laws that are going to make it difficult for working people to vote. It's just wrong. It's just wrong. And it's not about partisanship. It really is about the rights that all people should be entitled to, regardless of their party affiliation. Asma, the two things that jumped out to me from that interview that you just did with Vice President Harris is, first of all, her acknowledgement early on that the best tool the administration has is just the raw political tool to try and get Democrats to show up. I think that tells you a lot about how the administration views its limited options right now. The second is that she seemed

to hint to you that there are conversations happening around the filibuster behind closed doors. Yes. You know, I was struck by her tone in the response to that sort of back and forth we had. You know, she did not explicitly say the context of what those conversations were, but she seemed to suggest that and acknowledge that, yes, there are conversations she is having with people in the Senate. But she also said, which is, you know, a point to keep in mind that you would need every Democratic people in the Senate. But she also said, which is, you know, a point to keep in mind that you would need every Democratic member of the Senate to endorse voting rights legislation, even if you had the carve out of the filibuster. And so, you know, the administration needs to make sure that they're not just pushing for a carve out, hypothetically, if they were, but also

that they have every Democrat in the Senate who is on board with this idea. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we will focus on Texas, where Democratic legislators have once again fled the state capitol. This time they fled the state in its entirety in an effort to block one of these new bills from going forward. We will talk to Ashley Lopez of KUT about that story. The economy is changing so fast right now, and sometimes it seems like there's something new

to worry about every day. On The Indicator from Planet Money, we bring you human stories and easy-to-understand explanations to help you make sense of these crazy times, all in just 10 minutes a day. That's the indicator from Planet Money. We are back and we are joined once again by Ashley Lopez of KUT in Austin. Hey, Ashley. Hey there. You're just in this continual loop of Democrats fleeing the legislature and covering, aren't you? Yeah, it's a really interesting loop that I can't seem to get out of.

We'll see if there's any end in sight. It's, I mean, it's a little bit of a farcical situation, but but they're doing it because this is the only tool that that Democrats have in order to stop this bill from moving forward. This is a second attempt to pass a Republican-authored bill that restricts voting rights. What would this bill do? And why are Democrats taking the step of fleeing the state to try and stop it? Well, this bill is actually really similar to the last bill they walked out on that was close to passing earlier this year at the end of May. And it's, you know, a sweeping overhaul of the state's election code. It adds restrictions to vote by mail as well as some in-person voting, mainly as it relates to accommodations for people with disabilities.

And it creates a slew of new criminal penalties that voting rights groups are worried will lead to this like uptick of people getting in legal trouble for voting crimes in the event they make like some innocent mistakes while voting. And, you know, Democrats had said from the beginning that they were not on board with any legislation that would make it harder to vote, especially since it was pretty clear this wasn't solving any actual issue in Texas. State election officials have said that, you know, in 2020, our election was safe and secure and successful. So there was really no need for, you know, especially a giant overhaul of the election code. And, you know, because there's like another 20 something days left in the legislative session, they had to leave the state altogether as opposed to just like walk out on a final vote.

And that's because they could be summoned back or arrested or some something like that if they stayed in Texas? Yeah, the way it works is like if the Texas House, which that happened this morning, the Texas House calls a quorum and they don't have a quorum, the legislature can vote to have the state police arrest and bring back these lawmakers. But that can only be done within state lines, right? So they can't go to like D.C., for example, and grab them. So that's kind of where we're at. Which, of course, is where they are right now. And Asma, you talked to the vice president about this.

These Texas Democrats are meeting with Senate Democrats today. We just learned that Harris is going to meet with them again. I mean, their message is, hey, we're taking this incredibly extraordinary action. You need to do something now, too. I mean, what do you make of the dynamics when they're going to meet with Senate Democrats who are opting not to change a rule that they would have the power to change in order to pass voting rights bills? You know, a lot of what I took away from the interview with the vice president was this idea on exerting outside pressure, right? And on the idea of mobilizing, say, coalition groups, mobilizing folks in different facets, different parts of the country on the ground. And so, you know, a meeting, say, with the Texas legislators to me is just another aspect of this.

In reality, what can they do? You know, I think, in all honesty, I think that it's very limited what they can do in the terms of their meetings with lawmakers here. This is going to come down to whether or not a few key members of the Senate, Democrats, are willing to essentially just change the rules of the filibuster and carve out an exception for voting rights. I would say I don't think that they're there yet, because if they were there yet, we would have seen them already do that. The more and more maybe outside pressure is exerted on a couple of key members of the Senate. I'm thinking, say, Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin in particular, perhaps they'll be willing to budge. But, you know, as our colleagues

reporting on Congress have said, they're not the only two who are a little bit reluctant to just get rid of the filibuster. Ashley, in Austin and Washington, how are Republicans responding to this? Well, we can start with, you know, Governor Greg Abbott is obviously not happy about this. He said that lawmakers are, you know, shirking their responsibilities as lawmakers. Actually, he talked about this in a video address last night. The Democrats must put aside partisan political games and get back to the job they were elected to do. you know, once this special session period, which ends early in August, and he is very likely to call another special session. So, you know, they Republicans don't feel like this is over for them, like they are going to give up this fight to to pass voting restrictions in the state. And

our US senators have have weighed in, John Cornyn called this a publicity stunt. So, you know, I think like not surprisingly, Republicans are not happy about this, but they remain undeterred, it seems. All right, Ashley, thank you again. I'm sure we will talk to you pretty soon about all of this. Probably. Thank you so much. And everybody listening, don't forget, we really need your help. Whether you are listening every single day or whether you've just started listening to our podcast, please go over to npr.org slash podcast survey to give us some information about what you want to hear. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House.

And I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.