Sen. Cory Booker on the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act

The New Jersey Democrat is interviewed on "This Week."
6:24 | 08/09/15

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Transcript for Sen. Cory Booker on the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act
Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will insure them the right to vote. The wrong is one which no American in his heart can justify. The right is one which no American true to our principles can deny. Historic moment 50 years ago, Lyndon Johnson signing the voting rights act. Senator Cory booker of new Jersey, saying that's under threat right now. Thank you for joining us this morning. We have argued the combination of the supreme court's decision back in 2013 which overthrew a key portion of the voting rights act. My question is what is the solution? Some like martin O'Malley say you need a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. Many people don't understand that this voting rights act is under threat. Ened these voters I.D. Laws which are being passed in many states have a disproportionate impact. Take Texas for example, where Lyndon Johnson is from, they passed these voter I.D. Laws. In the decade before that, ten years, they prosecuted two people. You're more likely to get struck by lightning in Texas than voter fraud. But yet they passed a law that even right now we saw the circuit court said there are 600,000 people being affected by this. Minority and poor. When you see all of these voter restrictions taking advantage of the loopholes that were opened up by the act, the lack of preclearance necessary, you suddenly see people racing to put in laws that really are, as we see, a solution that has no problem, in fact it's creating the problem. If it is, do you need a constitutional amendment? I have joined with dick Durbin, senator Leahy, in a step before that. I don't think you need a constitutional amendment. I think there are things we can do legislatively to address that. There has to be some kind of a halt done that deny people voting rights. I want to take it a step further. For me, right now, I look at the voting rights act, before the ink was dried, it was sweat, blood and effort of many people to expand voting access to Americans. What we have also seen in this country since the 1970s is a great restriction of voters rights in this country. In 1976, about 1.7 million Americans were denied their voting rights because of previous convictions. They had felony disenfranchisement. Since the 1970s, we had this explosion of this drug war, incredible explosion of massive incarceration in this country, and now we have come to a point in America, in 2010, we had 5.85 million Americans who have lost their voting rights because of previous convictions, they paid their debt to society, many of them nonviolent criminals, if that was a state, it would be 20th biggest state in our nation. And we have seen the rise of the black lives matter movement over the last year as well, it's gaining some steam. There was a moment last night, Bernie sanders was out in Seattle, where he was trying to speak, he was talked down by members of the black lives matter protest. We will fight for black lives no matter what it takes. Is he getting fair treatment there and what more should be done to address this issue? Well, two things. First of all, Bernie sanders is a friend and a colleague. I'm supporting Hillary Clinton in this election, but Bernie has become somebody I have tremendous respect for, as an ally of mine addressing issues that affect minority communities. He has a long record of civil rights. But the anger you saw there, from the protesters, this is a legitimate degree of frustration in this country, in a nation that has yet to confront what I believe are persistent human rights issues. You mentioned in the criminal justice system, yeah, we know that we see, there are some statements that one in five black Americans don't have a right to vote because of this felony disenfranchisement. We have an overall prison system where we see there's no difference between black and whites. Some studies show that young whites have more of a chance of being drug dealers. But yet we have an incarceration rate for drugs, drug use and drug selling that's disproportionately seen. It has created these. We have a nation that has states like mine that has 14%, 15% african-americans, but the prison population is over 60% black. And so, when you know there's no difference, when you're african-american almost four times to be caught. Equal justice under the law. Please understand that there's going to be an understandable reaction to that in our country. The criminal justice is so overbroad right now that, we as a nation is spending quarter of a trillion dollars a year, we have one out of every four prison person in this country. Yeah, there's a reason to be upset. Senator Cory booker, thank you very much. Next up, gop candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Perry both

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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