Holder: Republicans Using Illegitimate Power to Create ‘American Electoral Apartheid’

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline’ that Republicans were using “illegitimate power” to create a governing structure supported by “America electoral apartheid.”

Holder said, “A three-judge panel ruled before the last election that what Alabama had done was inappropriately dilute the power of black citizens in Alabama and nevertheless, because the Supreme Court reached down staying that opinion, people in Alabama voted on a map that was declared violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We go into court, and we try to move things along as quickly as we can and yet, we end up with the result that I have just described.”

He continued, “Republicans have proven quite crafty in ways in which they have tried to do undemocratic things. You know, they’re all about the retention, the acquisition of and retention of power. Even if it’s illegitimate power, they will use that to keep themselves in power.”

He added, “I look at what’s going on in Ohio right now, where there is going to be on August 8, an election that Republicans have called in the middle of the summer to try to raise the level at which the citizens of that state can amend their Constitution. It’s always been 50%, now they want to raise it to 60% in anticipation of a vote in November where abortion would be enshrined into the Ohio, the right to an abortion would be enshrined into the Ohio Constitution.”

Holder added, “So there’s a variety of things Republicans have done to hold onto power illegitimately. I think too many in the Republican Party have made peace with the notion that they are going to be a minority party that exercises majority power. They are okay, in essence, with an American electoral apartheid. That’s where one of our two great parties now finds itself.”

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