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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

New Voting Laws Examined; Virgin Galactic Crash Investigation; Who Will Be the Democratic Nominee in 2016?

Aired November 03, 2014 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: No matter the outcome to the debate over access to the polls and voter's rights is going to rage since 2010. Since the election 2010, 21 states, mostly led by Republican governors and legislators have modified voting laws, everything from shortening the early voting period to requiring a photo ID and restricting the types of IDs that you can use to vote.

Here with me in New York, CNN's legal analyst, Joey Jackson and Paul Callan, and in Washington is Barbara Arnwine who's the executive director at the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights.

Barbara, I want to begin with you. Your group is sending out an army of monitors. I want to go to the map and look at some of the states that are highlighted in white, from the west coast to the east coast, you can count them. There's about 20 of them.

I'm curious as to why you feel that you need election monitors, which is something we usually hear Americans send overseas somewhere but then we need them right here in the U.S. Why and what are they going to do?

BARBARA ARNWINE, LAWYER'S COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS DIRECTOR: Well, what our monitors are going to do and these will be legal volunteers and those states, who are really committed to making sure that our democracy works. And what they're going to do is they're going to monitor the polls to make sure that they're operating efficiently and to assist voters if they have questions and problems, because in many states like Florida, you better be in the correct precinct and make sure that their ballot is counted, they threw at the correct polling place, and it will help, you know, people to find that information.

We're going to also, you know, assist people with anything if they have voter ID problems, anything else, to make sure that people are able to cast a ballot even if it has to be a provisional ballot.

BANFIELD: So around 20 hours or so, give or take, until the poll is open. The ship has sailed though, and I'm sure you'll agree in terms of having the right ID. It's not something you can snap your fingers and get and isn't that really the biggest problem.

ARNWINE: Well, in Texas, you have 600,000 voters, 4.5 percent of all registered voters in Texas who lack this very narrow form of forms of ID that are acceptable in that state and so that's going to be a big problem for some -- for many, many people and in other states where they have these voter ID laws, people don't even know what to bring.

In Texas, we've already had complains from voters going early voting where the poll workers had no idea what the rules were, and we're telling people they couldn't vote, wouldn't give them a provisional ballot. They ran into all kinds of problems. So, it is very, very important that people call our 1-800-866 -- is 1-866-OUR-VOTE (ph) hotline, where we can help people or help voters give them information because people really need help and assistance and it's a shame that our states don't do their jobs of giving people the best information.

BANFIELD: OK. So, to take another attack on this, I'm going to bring in Joey and Paul on this one. Joey, let me start with you. When you just make the blanket statement, "Hey, to vote in America, you better be American. You better not cheat." There's all sorts of examples in our history of jury-rigging election and make it a (inaudible) thing.

And isn't this just a great idea to make sure a person who shows up at the ballot box is the person who suppose to show up at the ballot box?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: If the concern is practical, I agree Ashleigh, wonderful idea. If the concern is political, it raises another question, what am I speaking of? In the event that you have voter fraud, voter abuse are plenty, the state can't control it, people are coming to the polls, there are people who are not who they say they were voting. That is a problem. But if you look at the statistics and Barbara can back me up on this, and thanks to the fine work you're doing Barbara. The reality is, is that this has nothing to do with practicality so you have to wonder what the motivation is here.

If you were telling me Ashleigh that there was a massive issue or struggle that this comes in light of, I would tell you you're actually right. But in light of the fact that there's not documented instances of persistent abuse upon with people being prosecuted I think this may have other motivators.

BANFIELD: Paul Callan, I'm going to tell you right now, Councilor over here is right. Just one simple statistics in Texas will tell you in the last, you know, not quite a decade, I think there were a screaming four, four examples of ...

JACKSON: In 10 years.

BANFIELD: ...voter fraud (inaudible). What the hell is up? What is ...

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That is fast I think because I remember a story of a guy named Lyndon Johnson who was once called Landslide Lyndon. When he was elected, he was behind in the election by 2,000 votes to Coke Stevenson. And you know what happened in South Texas? More than 200 Mexican-American voters lined up, many of them by the way dead, because they were listed as dead on public roles and voted.

And I'm not just picking on Mexican-Americans because my ancestors, the Irish, were notorious for what was called voting early and voting often. May I (inaudible), just let me finish.

BANFIELD: But you got a problem now.

CALLAN: OK. Do you know why is that problem now, because we have these laws and people have been enforcing ID requirements.

JACKSON: They just say now -- Paul had to go back to the days of Lyndon Johnson.

CALLAN: We're getting more sophisticated maybe about the IDs required but when you have no ID requirements, you get voter fraud as existed in New York and Texas and this 1960 presidential election.

BANFIELD: Listen. You're amazing. I love you.

CALLAN: OK.

BANFIELD: And you are brilliant with your history. And, look. There's a reason you're (inaudible). But the truth is we're talking about now. And there isn't -- Barbara, you were saying something, and because of the cacophony of me and everybody else in the set, we couldn't make it out.

The truth -- give me the real live land, in terms of the need for these laws, because look, you speak from a position of jurisprudence and I want that position, I don't want the political position. What's the problem in the United States?

CALLAN: Well, that ...

(CROSSTALK)

ARNWINE: Well, the problem is that ...

CALLAN: Yes.

ARNWINE: Well, the problem is that basically in most states, they allow you to bring over, you know, 20 to 26 forms of separate voter identification. So you can bring your traffic tickets. You can bring, you know, water bills. You could bring your electronic -- you know, your electricity bills. You can any kind of student ID, for example, notice that in Texas, you can even use a valid student identification. There was (inaudible) state of Texas, you know. So those kinds of IDs are accepted. Nobody is saying that you don't have to have any idea, we're just saying it should broader and not so narrow and not so hard, you know, only IDs where you know are going to be hard for people to get.

So, what we're saying is follow the states that do it right, that allow a cacophony, you know, a whole lot of different ...

BANFIELD: I got to say -- Look, I'm going to take it on the chin. I'm going to take it on the chin after this segment because everyone can scream (inaudible) liberal who's -- but I'm going to tell you this. I am that (inaudible) new American who goes out to vote. I also volunteer for jury duty because I'm just that proud. I want to serve this country. I want to be a part of the process, and I think it's critical for all us.

CALLAN: Can you figure out how to get an ID for yourself? You need an ID to get into building here ...

BANFIELD: I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm one of the lucky ones.

ARNWINE: Think that hard, inside income.

BANFIELD: I have a sweet life. I got a sweet life. And so many of fellow Americans do not have a sweet life, and they can't get the 50 miles to the office where they have to get that perfect ID with their single mother, kids don't have anyone to look after them and the $15 in bus fare. And I just get ...

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: My fellow Americans are being disenfranchised for the political reason.

JACKSON: Well stated Ashleigh.

BANDFIELD: For the political reason.

JACKSON: Absolutely. And the reality is we should be in ...

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Right, more.

JACKSON: Democracy as supposed to ...

CALLAN: I'm with those ...

JACKSON: And I'll be the first one on Twitter. But I'm going to say something very nice about what you just said.

BANFIELD: Thank you very much. I could use some balance on there. OK, Joey Jackson and Paul Callan. And Barbara, thank you for your work as well. Barbara Arnwine ...

ARNWINE: Thank you.

BANFIELD: ...will be out there. You watch for her. You watch, she'll be in (inaudible) in a stick.

ARNWINE: Caller hotline, get out.

BANFIELD: OK. I appreciate it. Thank you.

ARNWINE: Thank you.

BARNFIELD: Anything to get people out to vote, I'm disgusted when I hear 15 percent of Americans even care. Come on, this is your right. People died for this. CNN is going to bring you the complete coverage of Election Night in America. We're going to be here right until the last vote is counted. Moving on to another big story that we've been following, the investigation into the crash of an experimental aircraft meant to take tourist up into space. Just ahead, its owner Richard Branson speaking out about it. And former astronaut, Mike Massimino, is going to talk to me about what this could mean for the future they flight for civilians.

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BANFIELD: Several investigators say Friday's deadly Virgin Galactic crash may have been caused by a premature deployment of the ship's feathering system that dramatically slows the phase craft down. Now, this may have caused structural failure, but at this point nobody really knows for sure, so a lot more questions still swirling around the company and the future of its space tourism program. Poppy Harlow spoke with the company's founder, Richard Branson, just a short a time ago and he said that Virgin Galactic will be safe when consumer space flights begin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BRANSON, FOUNDER, VIRGIN GALACTIC: There is no way that I would ask others to travel on Virgin Galactic unless I'd been the first to go myself, and therefore I will certainly be the first to travel. If it's -- if I didn't feel it was safe enough for myself, I would not ask other people to take a flight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Joining me to talk about the investigation into the crash is former NASA Astronaut, Michael Massimino. I said it wrong the first time, I'll say it right the second time. Veteran of two space flights...

MICHAEL MASSIMINO, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: It's not so easy.

BANFIELD: Well, you're a rocket scientist, it's easy for you. You've had 24 days in space orbiting the Earth hundreds of times. Currently, you're the senior adviser for space programs at the Intrepid Museum here in New York, perfect person to have on set to talk about. There's a lot of people sort of freaking out in less than a week, two major disasters in, you know, in private, non-public space investigative work.

MASSIMINO: Yeah.

BANFIELD: Is this the end of the commercial space travel program?

MASSIMINO: No, I don't think so.

BANFIELD: Now, you can close?

MASSIMINO: No, I don't think we're closed. No, I don't. You got to make distinction to the first one. The first accident we had earlier this week was bad. It was a cargo ship that was...

BANFIELD: Right.

MASSIMINO: It's been successful before. We have other ways of getting cargo up to the space station. It's terrible that we lost that stuff and there's going to be a lot of hard work that people can do to get them flying again. And then you have the second one which is a bit different. It's a lot different because we lost people. That's a bigger problem.

BANFIELD: One person died and a person injured.

MASSIMINO: We have one person -- yes, and another person hurt. So that's, you know, that's a bigger issue of course because people were -- or one person killed and one person hurt.

BANFIELD: You can only see the people in your community are scrutinizing every frame that you're seeing on the set. And then of course this giant zone that stands for miles in the desert of debris field, et cetera. Are they going to be able to figure this out?

MASSIMINO: Yes, and I think they -- I'm pretty sure they will.

BANFIELD: You're sure?

MASSIMINO: Yes. I mean, my experience with this first hand comes from the Columbia accident which happened, you know, 11 years ago.

BANFIELD: 2003.

MASSIMINO: Yes, right. So -- but I was an astronaut then. I flew before and I flew after. I knew all those people on board and I was part of the group of astronauts who were there at NASA trying to figure out what happened or at least contributing to it. But it's going to be a big effort to figure this out and I think they will but, you know, there's a lot of reports coming out already whether it could be this or it could be that, a new fuel, or whatever. I think you just got to take the data as it comes, and it might be something obvious and it might be something that's not obvious and there's probably more than one thing. It's a probably a combination of things. So that's it.

BANFIELD: And quite frankly, you know, we're looking at these two disasters so proximate in time. That might be why it's kind of alarming. But if you look at NASA over the years, a decade, some pretty massive disasters as well. And you just mentioned, you know, Challenger, there was Columbia, there's a whole other teams. I could go on.

MASSIMINO: Yes.

BANFIELD: Did anybody ever screamed, "The sky was falling," after each and everyone of those as well?

MASSIMINO: You know, it's -- on the inside of it, it's really -- it's a nightmare because you lost your friends. So, losing people makes it really bad. But then you pick up and you look at what happened and you want to keep going, for me, it was a never a question that I was going to fly again, that I wanted to fly again, and that we needed to fly again. And I think this is probably going to be addressed the same way, even though it's, you know, it's commercial, it's different. So I can see how one will take to figure it out, but it's not a government agency, it's a commercial (inaudible).

BANFIELD: OK, you hit -- that's exactly where I want to go with you.

MASSIMINO: Yes.

BANFIELD: It's not government. Is this a period in time where we're evolving to realize maybe the following of our decisions prior to this or maybe the evolution of our decisions. Do we need more public input, whether it'd be in federal funding, more NASA programs, make it more robust, yet again, it got hacked and sliced and diced, or do we not? Or do we need more oversight, do we need more government oversights from another do-nothing-congress?

MASSIMINO: Well, as far as like the funding goes, yes, you could always get -- yes, you need more funding. Probably, you at CNN too I would guess, right?

BANFIELD: Everywhere.

MASSIMINO: But nothing is going to happen, so you have to deal with it.

BANFIELD: So, does it mean -- is this a wake-me-up moment?

MASSIMINO: No, I think that what we're seeing here -- I don't mean to jump to too many conclusions.

BANFIELD: OK.

MASSIMINO: We really need to find out what happened. I think in the case of the cargo ship, that's a NASA contract that they were working on. OK, so NASA has a lot of oversight with it. There was a lot of their equipment onboard. There were no people onboard though.

BANFIELD: Yes.

MASSIMINO: This is a bit different. This is truly -- they're not taking astronauts in space. They're not taking equipment to the space station. This is a private venture, a bit different. I think we are still -- I still believe that we are kind of just at the dawn, just the beginnings of turning over space flight from a government-only endeavor to commercial entrepreneurs and the public, and people can experience space travel. I don't think that this should stop us from doing that. I do not.

And I think if you look at hundreds years ago, you know, the Wright brothers did it and then the government developed airplanes. And now, we have -- every three seconds, we have an airplane taking off somewhere in the world, right? It's not -- and we're not going to get the three seconds for a long time with spaceships, but I think this is the beginning of that transition. And I don't think we're going to stop. BANFIELD: So glad you're here. I like it when smart minds weigh in on this kind of thing, because it is scary when you hear that kind of thing. I do appreciate it. And like I said, you're a rocket scientist (inaudible). Mike Massimino, thanks so much.

MASSIMINO: Thanks, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Back to the big story, the election is tomorrow, and what they could mean for the race for President, which is two years away. Some people predict that Hillary Clinton might be the only Democratic Presidential candidate vying for the nomination. Really, really, empty field? How could or fact that that possibly be? You'll hear about it, next.

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BANFIELD: With the exception of a few possible runoff in key Senate race, the midterm election will be over after tomorrow and then it's smooth sailing to 2016, right, of President race? Yeah, smooth.

We are 736 days away from the Presidential election, folks. I couldn't be happier. On the GOP side it looks like there's going to be burn and burner, full of candidate. Not the same story on the Democratic side at least for now anyway, and that's the focus of our CNN national political reporter Peter Hamby. He's been writing about it on CNN.com.

So this -- this latest story that you wrote on Hillary Clinton that she just might be all by her lonesome, she had into the Iowa caucuses. So is that -- would this be a very good thing for the Democrats that she had nobody beating her up heading into race against whomever the Republican candidate would be?

PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Ashleigh, that question breaks down along party lines a little bit. Republicans are fearful that Hillary Clinton will just be anointed and have, you know, a year, two years just build an organization, you know, in (inaudible) Republicans in 2016 but talked to Democrats including Clinton supporters. They want her to at least get some kind of token challenge, you know, Al Gore and Bill Bradley back in 2000 where, you know, a little bit of inter party squabble doesn't hurt and that it helps Hillary Clinton to hone a message to get her candidate skills on point. And also going to build that part ...

BANFIELD: Does she really need that? Peter Hamby, this is the most professional politician I've ever seen in my life. Does she really need some training or honing? I think she do that. I think she's got it now.

HAMBY: Did you watch the book tour?

BANFIELD: Does she really need somebody -- watch the what? The book tour, yes.

HAMBY: Did you see Hillary Clinton's book tour?

BANFIELD: Yeah.

HAMBY: This is an enduring truth about Hillary Clinton. She has so many tools in the toolbox. She can raise ...

BANFIELD: Yeah.

HAMBY: ...a ton of money. She has global fame that kind of (name idea) that you can't buy, but from a candidate skills perspective, instincts, giving the big speech. She's not, you know, the best candidate in the world. She does need to practice and I think that her, you know, paid speeches, her book tour over the summer, she kind of work through a lot of those challenges. And then you saw her in last few weeks, she kept that the barn-burner schedule, she's given a lot of really good speeches over the last few weeks campaigning for midterm candidates with some exceptions that this don't create jobs line, you know, it's not going anywhere soon.

But look, again, back to the Democratic caucuses in primary, Democrats want her to at least be tested so she can get all these things down and really hit the ground running 2016.

BANFIELD: I just think it would be -- look, I'm crazy, but I think we'd be smart politics to have a bunch of friendly fire that's all orchestrated as you go into these primaries instead of the ugliness that we saw between Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton.

You know, I don't understand why there is that kind of cohesion. Is it everybody just really selfish for themselves?

HAMBY: Well, politicians end up for themselves. I'm shocked (inaudible) such a claim.

BANFIELD: Shocked.

HAMBY: I think the reason Democrats are routing for challenges that they know if won't be a challenge on par with what we saw in 2008. Humor me on this. In 2008, we had John Edwards, we have Barack Obama, two figures who could raise a lot of money, who were genuine political challenge ...

BANFIELD: Yeah.

HAMBY: ...who could rival Hillary Clinton. When you look at the field of people who are openly talking about challenging Hillary Clinton, it's a shallow bench. You have ...

BANFIELD: (inaudible), yeah.

HAMBY: ...former Virginia Senator Jim Webb. You have Vermont Senator ...

BANFIELD: Do you know what's going to happen if I roll into a Fletcher Show because we went too long? It's going to be on you.

HAMBY: I don't want that. BANFIELD: It's going to be you, Peter. All right. I know you're going to be working hard in next couple hours, well, actually about the next 36, so.

Peter, thank you. I want to tell everybody as well, tune in tomorrow Election Day. Make sure you take a break to go to the poll and then watch everything we're going to bring you, complete coverage, Election Night in America. Thanks for watching. We'll start after this quick break.

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