marvin to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture for the first time in twenty five years teachers in chicago are on strike leaving more than three hundred fifty thousand students walked out of the classroom with the story behind the teachers' strike you can expect to see a resolution anytime soon also since republicans across the country a fuse to give up their war on voting democrats are fighting back and trying to protect their right to vote are democrats taking a grassroots approach to stopping voter suppression from coast to coast and we'll talk to former alabama governor don siegelman as he prepares to start

a seventy eight month prison sentence all thanks to karl rove and a republican which are. getting to know this the nation's third largest school district is with out teachers today after contract negotiations fell through over the weekend the chicago teachers union declared a strike and walked off the job this morning this is the first time chicago teachers have gone on strike in twenty five years all together twenty nine thousand teachers and school workers are joining in on the strike to demand better pay better working conditions and stop the march toward privatization of the city's schools at the heart of the strike are several issues one is a four percent pay increase teachers were promised last year but was cancelled by mehram a manual instead the mare is asking teachers to work a longer school day also teachers are asking for a state live in a classroom sizes

a law that's in place and thirty two other states but not an illinois plus teachers are trying to reverse the mare's plans to slash public education funding and use that money to create two hundred fifty nine union for profit charter schools should . has now become ground zero in the battle over how we as a nation will educate our children but we embrace the public school system the thomas jefferson and horace mann works hard to create support teachers who perform one of the most important jobs in our society or we will we hand off educating our kids to the money changers in the corporate c.e.o.'s see education as a get rich quick scheme keep an eye on the windy city for more on this who are bring in mike staff writer for in these times and neil mccabe stamper staff writer for human events gentlemen great to have you both with us mike what's your take on the story behind the story here what's going on with the strike or i mean what's going on in this strike is basically that chicago schools are in a position where they're not able to operate i mean you've got mary manual throwing folks out left and right you've got zero funding compared to the suburbs chicago

schools have a third of the funding the chicago suburbs meanwhile rahm emanuel is diverting taxpayer money away from the schools in the form of tiffs and sending them to groups like penny pritzker who is the owner of hyatt hotel helped develop some hotels so you've got all of that going on and on top of that you have a situation in chicago were basically you know they had a guaranteed four percent raise in their contract and mehr emanuel never even gave it to them so neil twenty five percent less funds for the for the city schools them for the suburban sixty six sixty six percent of the chicago suburbs spend on average about twenty four thousand chicago spends per student chicago spends eight thousand five hundred per student well that's a lot of people is a lot of people in the last few years who have been working without raises and there are a lot of people who have to work more hours than a lot of people frankly who would be glad to have a job so you're saying you should join the race to the bottom. i don't like that

term race of the fall is what it's what ronald ronald reagan gave someone you know when i started as union busting in his war on the middle class it's been a race to the bottom for that as well let's let's stop and ask another question what's the best thing for the kids all seems like in the suburbs is spent spending twenty four thousand dollars a year let's talk about the chicago strike right now the best thing for these kids is for the teachers to get back to work. but i'm not disagreeing the union has no other choice in this matter the you know emanuel took away the ability to lift the school board there is no other venue for them to get input they tried for months and months and months and rahm emanuel through stephen sit down and this is a deal a reform you know this would go to the same thing in new york where basically there was you got to do or other cities where you centralized control under the mare i mean obviously you know rahm emanuel is you know he can be abrasive that maybe he's not a consensus guy so maybe his personality had something to do with this when he did i sit down at the bargaining table however really yet he wasn't of the party that

he went to the d.n.c. for two days but if the teachers had the heart of a servant they would worry about the kids first and they're not doing that went into it so so you can be a commentator and author and you don't have to have the heart of the servant you don't have the we're going to have your source i'm just being here with you so you can't you get work for a paycheck but if somebody is going to be a teacher in an inner city school one of the hardest jobs in america they're supposed to just be. totally altruistic and get the snow well i mean they are paid what they are the highest paid teachers in america know what is seventy thousand a year ten months a year not bad. so that's not down work it's less than new all right it's less than new york but there's a lot of people who would work ten to get you some of these years and then you obscuring the issue the issue you know what tom's point was so but the issue here that the union the union spoke last night and said they are not that far apart on pay the big issue to them is the fact that romping go in and fire anybody they want and any time they want there's not many protections they're taken over schools or

through these corporate takeovers that they're firing everybody from the from the teachers to the to the janitors all the charter schools are open in those kids are going to school today and try to catholic schools are open in those kids are going to school today and so the only people who are suffering are the ones who happen to have members of the you know well let's bring up something else even if the kids in chicago were in school today there is no guarantee they would even have books one of the key issues in the contract negotiation is that the teacher unions once they're to be books on the first day of class as opposed to what's currently there which i think they can cut a deal on books i think and i'm very i think your books and a thirty percent pay right amount if they're spending eight thousand dollars to be student in the city and they're spending twenty four thousand dollars per student suburbs something's really screwed here oh yeah there's a lot i mean there's a lot of waste everywhere i mean i am not talking about waste and yes i live in cambridge i mean it's not just was it where they spent twenty eight thousand dollars per student and part of that budget they included afterschool programs

where you could take buses and go all around and while they were getting this twenty eight thousand a year per student cambridge rindge and cambridge rindge and latin was within a breath of losing its accreditation i mean a lot of these there's a lot of waste in these budgets we're going to maybe have twenty eight thousand dollars per student but it eight thousand dollars per student how i don't mean this a thousand you know not easy and you can run away there's only one school nurse for every three schools you don't even have guidance counselors in some of these schools or you have an epic crime wave hitting chicago or people getting killed people are seeing their parents killed and i have nobody at school to talk to our child supposed to learn to cut a deal on. nurses and books i know they haven't cut a deal like that i think is moving is not about being is not a are you out of sixteen are you even paying attention to what the union leaders are talking about there whereas a six percent increase what they're asking for is three percent per year what they got is according to n.b.c. in chicago what if they took notice inflation just one factor or said on your is last time in

a. race where you know we're like the biggest recession ever right then why do you need to use central office staff they had fifty million in two thousand and thirteen why isn't that money going to frontline teachers so there's a guidance counselor a nurse in every school this is up see and so you're saying that because rahm emanuel has extra office staff these kids have to suffer he's taking money from the school district and giving it to high it so hard it to united airlines to develop corporate headquarters and that's the reason why these kids can't have teachers yes because there's very little silly and a liar and he's denying funds to the school to seize kids you don't get a do over for sixth grade you don't get a do over for second grade i mean it's all the more important that chicago actually be serving their kids and serving is properly east teachers should not be extorting and it went no it's why it's so much more important the teachers or maybe standing up and saying we're going to get we're going to i'm going to have to start my cable home some mayors phone well i got us i got to wrap this up but mike neal thank you

thank you absolutely appreciate it now for more on this i want to turn things over to gloria steinem author activist and co-author co-founder of the women's media center gloria welcome thank you why are you supporting the chicago teachers in the union strike. because i am empathetic witness i have no role in this strike it's a democratic mayor you know but it is so overwhelmingly clear that these teachers have been taking it on the chin for twenty five years working in schools without enough heat with asbestos with not enough textbooks with social workers do you know that there's a thousand students per social worker if they need to so it is outrageous what's been going on and it is now especially outrageous that the mayor has the chutzpah. to. say that this is selfish on the part of the teachers it is

simply outrageous he says he has no money but in fact it doesn't seem to be true because he gives it to the police department even though they didn't ask for it he gave seventy million dollars for charter schools even though the independent stanford report made clear that charter schools on the average do less well worse than public schools and he has a huge you know break the unions strike fund of twenty five million dollars so he's already spent more than one hundred million dollars that could have been given to keep the schools open and to improve neighborhood schools that's remarkable it to what extent is this an extension of the war on working people that the. ronald reagan kicked off in one thousand nine hundred one when he started out by busting patco. well it certainly is war on unions this is

a kind of arab spring moment with some rosa park moments. as part of it because this union which is eighty seven percent female and almost half. african-american and latino i mean i really don't think even given the anti-union sentiment that there would be quite this degree of hostility and contempt for a union of white guys with hard hats but setting that aside it is in general clearly an anti union movement and i think it is also in general in the nation a movement toward trying to turn schools into the profit centers that prisons have been turned into in many states so this is part of the privatization agenda of absolutely converting our of a commons into into an opportunity for some you know somebody like mitt romney to make a buck yes and you know it for mayor emanuel now it to be so fervently and supported

by romney i mean you know it shows how far he has sunk from from his suppose a brute well you know way though wasn't wasn't this up by mary daley before him. well you know no school problem is new in this country but he came in with a determination to fire people when actually he appointed a commission to make a recommendation and the commission the independent record recommendation of his commission was that the teachers get an eighteen percent raise but then he immediately distanced himself from that that's that's remarkable gloria steinem thanks so much for your perspective and thank you for joining us tonight thank you . after the break as republicans across america continue to introduce to ration legally questionable voter id laws democrats are fighting back but what's their

plan. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about you sir are a fool you know what that is my terrorist cells in your neighborhood want to give us a defeat terrorism a liberal christian point you. can see you're really going to. get you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this that.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture. from.

berlin. in screwed news while republicans are reliant on billionaires to win the election this year democrats are starting to enlist the help of lawyers in response to a rash of voter suppression ideal laws and restrictions on early voting and voter registration president obama's reelection team and the d.n.c. are deploying teams of lawyers and states around the country to challenge right wing anti voting laws the voter protection teams as they're called are monitoring any new law changes putting pressure on local election officials and training poll watchers to keep an eye on any shenanigans come election day it's a crime as such efforts are necessary in america the beacon for democracy around the world with the republican party committed to kicking millions of largely democratic voters off the rolls by november one of the choices there i'm joined now

by hilary shelton director of the washington bureau and senior vice president for advocacy and policy at the end of. a nonpartisan organization hilary shelton welcome good to be with you today thank you for joining us tonight attorney general holder in a moment of candor i think he went off script referred to these laws that have been promoted by largely the american legislative exchange council. which was founded by a guy who said i don't want everybody to vote but in any case he's referred to these laws as poll taxes if they are such how are these state legislatures getting away with this because many of these state legislatures are not bound by section five of the voting rights act the pre-clearance section which makes them have to go to the department of justice to preclude change the type of place or manner of an election it means they can make these changes under the guise of stopping voter fraud but we've heard those stories before. absolutely right in the days gone by

before the past. when they passed poll taxes when they passed the clauses when they passed that would prevent you from being able to vote they didn't say black folks either but we knew very well those were the jim crow laws of days gone by now with the same guys we have the same kind of programs put in place to prevent millions of americans being able to vote because of their race because their income because of the gender because of this student status because their retirement status because they don't have the proper id to be able to participate in the voting process. eleven million americans will not be able to vote in this upcoming election if they're in states that require them to meet that very high standard of having those state issued very stringent photo i.d.'s to be able to come to the polls and participate and by and large who are those eleven million people they are

african-americans twenty five percent of them out of five. african-americans will not be able to vote if they're in states that require them to have those same policies in place women who have changed their names and names a different state than there are using in other places. divorce those who have professional names that utilize on the job a different idea for those kind of issues those kind of students. texas if texas was not blocked by voting rights of the justice department. very well texas would not allow students to use state issued student to be able to vote yet they would allow those who have concealed carry permits to be able to use that to go to the polling from out of state in virginia you can get one online on the internet i mean . we looked at the applications for concealed carry versus the application for a student. in the colleges and universities the applications for students was

logged. more detail in the application for concealed carry gun permit is outrageous and it goes beyond outrageous this is it many are asserting and i would assert this is targeted voter suppression absolutely if you look at how these laws have been handed down when they ask the governors why are you signing these laws in place why you cited these laws and they'll say well we're trying to prevent voter fraud in the ask the obvious question how much voter fraud have you had to take such extreme approaches to stopping people from being able to actually cheat when they go to the polls say well we haven't had any if you asked for this is the state attorney in pennsylvania how much voter fraud have you had in person voter fraud in which a photo id would have made a difference the answer is we haven't had it next logical question is how much in person voter fraud are you expect in the election coming up in november the answer is we have no reason to the voter fraud there is the question then why indeed are

you going through such an extreme measure to them lock out so many eligible americans have been able to participate in this important process for us this downright sacred process in our democracy of being able to go out and cast a vote and have to count it and the only conclusion is we want to make sure that everyone can vote even in pennsylvania there were those the head of the republican party said unfortunately this is good now we can make sure that mitt romney gets elected into the u.s. white house this makes no sense whatsoever unless what you want to see is at the expense quite frankly of our democratic system for participation. to actually support our democracy that you want to see your candidate win in a way rather than having to actually make the arguments and win on the merits of the issues you want to be the winner anyway we have a graphic that shows you know who doesn't have id in the united states on the screen here behind us african-americans twenty five percent asians. twenty percent

latinos nineteen percent student college student age eighteen to twenty four year olds eighteen percent seniors people who are no longer driving eighteen percent people poor people working poor less than thirty five thousand or fifteen percent and then you get down to the republican constituency of whites eight percent so this is who is going to be bumped off the voting rolls absolute somebody said i mean paul weyrich back in one thousand nine hundred eighty founded the american legislative exchange council gave a speech in texas where he said i don't want everybody to vote elections are not decided by a majority of voters now they never have been in fact art in fact let me let me just play this clip for you hilary if you haven't seen it you're going to this going to make your hair stand up here take a look at how many of our critics have what i call. wrong. they want everybody to vote i don't want everybody to vote. by a majority of people they never have. and they are not. in the elections

quite. as the guy who founded the american legislative exchange council co-founded the heritage foundation worked on the reagan campaign and both bush campaigns just land it right out but it's a it's sad for those of us who are strong supporters of democracy and those tenets of democracy a government of the people by the people for the people the blue the people should have the opportunity to cast an unfettered vote and have it counted but those who would strip that away just to be able to win in the election rather than again when all the merits of having the best ideas that's what our freedoms about that's what democracy is about that's why the vote is so important that our country so well said hillary thank you so much. thank you i'm now joined by my papen tonio attorney and host of ring of fire radio mike welcome back. just great mike will these lloyd teams of lawyers be able to mitigate some of the damage caused by these

voter id suppression voter suppression id laws. they will some of it tom but the real fight is going to be on polling day that's when the fight is going to play these people don't understand this this little fact and that is that twenty four states in twenty four states you can have random people off the theory approach somebody in challenge them to vote they can say well we don't think you're entitled to vote because you're an illegal illegal alien or may be accuse them of being a past felon or accuse them of being somebody who's voted already or voted in the wrong polling area twenty four states that can happen and they can do that without any proof whatsoever people the reason this is never been on the radar screen is we've never really faced a year like this to where it's very clear that the republicans have a very clear agenda and that is to keep people from voting so right now we're aware of it but most people are not aware of this very unusual thing others fifteen

states in the union where somebody could make an accusation randomly but they have to have proof that that rant that random accusation actually has some has some body to it twenty four states you simply say it and what it does tom is it slows down the process it disrupts the process and that's really the goal here for people like true the vote these organizations understand if they can target latino where it is if they can target african-american areas and they can be disruptive they can slow down the process then they have a success in the early one nine hundred sixty s. william rehnquist who ended up chief justice supreme court made his chops in the republican party by being a one of these poll challengers in arizona in hispanic and native american areas basically being very intimidating he was apparently a very tall guy and a white guy and you know in a minority area and he would just challenge people and they would freak out and

leave or in some cases he could prevent them from voting. the republican party then was operating under some sort of a court order preventing them from doing agene didn't it extend to this kind of behavior as well it absolutely did this is this is something that's been borrowed from banana republics tom this is what you see in a country where it's nothing less than a banana republic where you have people who are in power who want to keep people from voting against them this is borrowed from places like south south america parts of africa parts of asia it's not unusual to see that in those kind of settings the republicans have this has been around for quite a while as you point out rehnquist was a master of it who later became supreme court judge but he kind of made his reputation by being the guy who could stop people from voting so right now the goal is to stop african-americans latinos students and so they target those areas their goal is to put one million of these voters these voting poll people out on the

street here's the other part of it people are talking about what they want to do is they want to target people from there when they leave their car and go to the line to vote they're going to throw a camera up in their face they're going to put a recorder up in their face they're going to call themselves citizen journalists and whether going to be doing is they're simply going to be discouraging that person from voting that person then goes home and says gee you better not go to the polling place here because they have people with cameras they have people with recording devices i don't know what's going on and all it is time is a small percentage that they're trying to a small percentage percentage are trying to sway here to scare away from the polls right and you know presidential elections are typically not won by five or ten percent if you can not one percent or two percent off the shave that off of the vote you can as the state legislator in pennsylvania you know we've got voter id laws in pennsylvania now romney for president right. well wasn't just said there it

was said right here in florida where you had jim greer. who was actually had to admit in a deposition a criminal deposition the attempt to change the laws voting laws in florida was was engineered by the republican party in florida to keep minorities from voting so there's no there's a shameless about it there's no there's no cover up here we've moved well beyond the era of dog whistle this is you know this is dog bar and there they understand his call rove figured out the last election with obama all they had to do is as you point out tom is shave a few percentage points and they win doesn't make any difference what the groundswell is on behalf of obama and against romney the they understand this is the last chance they have the demographics as you've talked about so often are shifting in this country if they don't win here they understand this may be their last time so it's going to be pulling all the stops out you're going to have

lawyers who are going to be at these polling at these polling places to try to prevent it yeah amazing mike papen tonia thanks so much for being with us tonight. over at that. thank. you.

laurie mr. it all sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.