Democrats fight GOP election rigging scheme

>>> good evening, american, and welcome to "the ed show" from new york. republicans have laid out their plans to steal the next election. tonight democrats roll out their plan to stop them. this is "the ed show." let's get to work.

>> the good news is our principles are sound.

>> reince priebus sees no problem with his party.

>> win elections, we must compete in every state and every region.

>> except they just can't win. but the gop has a quick fix, steal the vote. debbie wasserman schultz and nina turner tell us the democrats ' plan to fight back.

>>> real filibuster reform is dead, and mitch mcconnell is gloating. we beat the liberals. senator bernie sanders is here to react.

>>> conservatives said the market would die without mitt romney as president.

>> the dow is sitting at this five-year high. it's actually been up for ten out of the last 11 sessions.

>> we've got to stop being the stupid.

>> bobby jindal .

>> no, the republican party does not need to change its principles.

>> with the same old lines. karen finney and eugene robinson take on the losing strategy.

>>> senator saxby chambliss of georgia is a lame duck. tonight we look at his flawed legacy.

>>> and more on the fallout from the pbs documentary "the untouchables." why isn't wall street on trial? mike paolantonio, head of the national trial lawyers association is here to explain. good to have you with us folks, thanks for watching. the fight is on. the attempt to steal the next presidential election by stealing the electoral college are facing resistance, and the resistance is working. earlier today rnc chairman reince priebus was rewarded for his failures of the 2012 election by being reelected as head of the republican party . good news. priebus told republicans to start looking at a broader electoral map.

>> it's time to stop looking at elections through the lenses of battleground states . we have four years until the next presidential election . and being a blue state is not a permanent diagnosis.

>> reince priebus is on record saying the votes to favor republicans is something fully controlled red states ought to be looking at. he is talking about states president obama won, which are controlled by republican legislatures. former rnc chair haley barbour tried to downplay the scheme to rig the electoral college , but he admitted it could affect the outcome of a race.

>> you know, i am a traditionalist myself. i really am a conservative. i'm a little bit skeptical of this. but i also am a little bit skeptical that you can predict with any sort of precision who it will really help from one presidential election to another.

>> so it's okay if the loser of a presidential race actually wins because both parties will eventually get screwed? very patriotic. or should i say pathetic. democrats are not going to let this ball get rolling. the democratic national committee said just as the american people fought the republican party 's attempts in 2012 , we will oppose any future attempts to ignore the wishes of the electorate and make changes to the electoral college for partisan purposes. msnbc's zachary roth reported the virginia bill to change the electoral college in that state could violate a key provision of the voting rights act . very interesting. any challenge to the voting rights act would get the justice department and attorney general eric holder involved. the push back against the proposed virginia law was swift and it was loud, and it made a difference. one republican senator already said that she will not support the bill. today another republican joined her, calling it a bad idea. and in a senate with a 20-20 split, these two votes make a big difference. virginia governor bob mcdonnell , he saw the writing on the wall . he rejected the bill through a spokesperson. the governor does not support this legislation. he believes virginia 's existing system works just fine as it is. he does not believe there is any need for a change. so the reaction scared off republican lawmakers down in the state of florida , who were trying to pass a similar law. the gop , speaker of that house in florida said today i don't think we need to change the rules of the game . i think we need to get better. amen to that if you're a republican. but this is all good news if you're a lefty. but it's no time for democrats to ease up at all. republicans are not going to surrender easily. molly ball from the atlantic reported on a new republican push to take the vote rigging national. gop strategists have been talking to major donors and plan to send a fundraising e-mail to grassroots conservatives early next week. the money would go toward promoting similar plans to apportion electoral votes by congressional districts in states across the country, potentially even hiring lobbyists in state capitols . they don't rest, do they? the people behind this plan, as you can imagine, are from a d.c. elections strategy firm. well, including former secretary of state ken blackwell of ohio , the same ken blackwell who manipulated voting locations of machines in 2004 to create long lines in democratic areas. ohio delivered the presidency for george w. bush . how we remember. this might be why reince priebus, reelected as the rnc chair, is so optimistic about the electoral future for the republicans .

>> no state is that reliably a blue state . but it's up to all of us to decide if we're willing to fight for these states. it takes work. it's not going to happen overnight. but from what i've seen in wisconsin, we can make it happen. in two years, we all want to hear the words and the headlines republicans everywhere.

>> well, this is the electoral map from the 2012 election. president obama won by four points in a large margin in the electoral college . this is what happens under the republicans ' everywhere strategy. president obama still wins by four points, but loses the presidency in an electoral landslide. as long as this plan is out there, republicans will continue to downplay it.

>> i would not be for it. i don't think there is any sort of national movement . and you have sort of convinced me that in virginia , there may not even be any state movement. it may be an isolated legislator.

>> sure. it was just an isolated legislat legislator. yesterday it was this isolated legislator, senator bill carrico from virginia . today it was this isolated legislator, and that would be representative peter lund of michigan . now michigan is in the picture. lund is set to introduce a similar rigging bill in michigan 's legislature. michigan speaker jase bolger said today he is open to pursuing the strategy in his state . the fight to protect our democratic process , my friends, is far from over. and i know it's only january of 2013 , and we're a long way from the midterms and a long way from 2016 , but this is the modern-day politics that the republicans have decided to play. you take your eye off the ball we lose. we can't turn it over. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question, will the democrats stop the republicans from cheating in elections? text a for yes. text b for no. to 622639. you can always go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com. we encourage you to do that. we have the results of the poll coming later on in the show. joining me tonight congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz , chairman of the dnc . debbie, great to have you with us tonight.

>> thanks, ed.

>> they keep coming at you, don't they? they just don't stop. do you have a strategy or do you have to develop a strategy to counterpunch this republican plan from a national down to a local level?

>> well, absolutely we're going to have a strategy. and our strategy is going to be inclusive of the grassroots opposition that we use successfully to oppose photo suppression laws across the country. and we're going to use every tool at our disposal to do that. but, you know, i'm heartened at least by the fact that someone like the speaker of the florida house of representatives , will weatherford, who i know and know to be really very often a reasonable person, i think he had it exactly right when he said that this type of proposal to essentially rig the outcome of an election by switching to congressional district -based electoral college votes is like saying well, we won 3/4 of a football game , but we didn't win the last one. so from now on we should only have three quarters in a football game . basically what he said what the republicans need to do is be right on the issues and win over the hearts and minds .

>> sure.

>> but that's not their mo.

>> in the state of michigan , this is a quote from a michigan republican lawmaker who washe state 's electoral rules. he said it got no traction last year. there were people convinced romney was going to win, and this might take votes from him. in other words, this is an admission of pure political motivations. they only want to change it when it's going to help republicans . but they would have done this last year had they had thought that romney was in trouble. but people up there thought he was going to win. they're dirty pool players.

>> in 2004 , in 2004 , the republicans killed the very same proposal in colorado because it -- they thought it was going to hurt them, because back then colorado was more red. and this was when john kerry was on the ballot. so, look, at the end of the day , messing with the way the founding fathers structured the electoral college system could come back to bite you easily. so today in one particular state , i agree with reince priebus in this sense that today we've got a lot of blue states that we're winning, and some of those states were red states previously, and they may go back. and demographics in politics shift. we need to stick with the founding fathers ' original concept because that's what is fair.

>> is there any state where you're worried this is going to catch on and there is going to be a shift?

>> i think it's a bit early to tell, but i can assure you that we are certainly not going to let it go too far down the road without fighting back.

>> all right. congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz , thanks for your time tonight on this.

>>> now let's go to nina turner. nina , you and i were talking about this in d.c. earlier this week. could this happen in your state ? are the wheels in motion in ohio ?

>> not as of yet, ed. we know that husted mentioned it in a speech. but democrats are standing strong and so are advocates. we must continue to be vigilant against the practices of the republican party . what they are trying to do is unfair, unamerican, and undemocratic. and we cannot relent on insuring that nothing like this happens, not only in ohio , but nowhere else in the country. it is not by happenstance that they are targeting the very battleground states that they lost and had the previous plan been in place in 2012 , governor romney would have received 12 of our electoral college votes , even though the president won ohio by over 166,000 votes. so we're going to keep fighting, ed. they're trying to steal the one woman, one man, one vote democratic idea in this democracy. but we're not going to relent.

>> i really think this is all about concentrating and protecting the wealthy. your thoughts on that.

>> not just that, but to try to disenfranchise folks this way. you know, it doesn't matter what they say. you know, governor jindal told them to stop being the stupid party. well, stupid is as stupid does as forrest gump has said. and nothing about what they're doing has changed. they're just trying to repackage the same mess. and that is why democrats and progressives and fair-minded republicans , people in red and blue and purple states must continue to stand and to stand strong. ed, the greatest equalizer that we have in this country is the access to the ballot. and your socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity should not matter. and the fact that the republicans have their friendships all over, gerrymandering, and they don't care, and now they're trying to steal the votes and rig the next presidential election . but i am confident that we the people of ohio and we the people of the united states of america are not going to stand for it.

>> i got to ask you. what do you think of ken blackwell 's involvement, his involvement in this national push? he's got quite a history in ohio . and now he is involved nationally in this electoral push. your thoughts on that.

>> the more things change , the more they stay the same, ed. they certainly knew how to go and get the captain of deception to help them with their dirty deeds . but we're going to stay vigilant on that. ken blackwell is not going to stop fairness in this country.

>> do these efforts violate the voting rights act the way you interpret it?

>> i believe they do. and if they do make that move we will have to take it to court. and i am hopeful that the courts will rule in favor of the people. it is patently unfair for them to even try to do what they're doing. but, ed, they're not ashamed. we're going to stay vigilant. evil never sleeps, so good can never take a vacation.

>> all right. ohio state senator nina turner here with us tonight on "the ed show." thank you so much for joining us. remember to answer tonight's question there at the bottom of the screen. share your thoughts with us on edshow and facebook. we always want to know what you think.

>>> well, today senator mitch mcconnell tells us what he really thinks of the deal on the filibuster reform last night. senator bernie sanders responds. stay with us. you're watching "the ed show" on msnbc. mptoms