democrats on the committee heard testimony from georgia voters and elected officials including helen butler just heard from there. ms. butler served on the board of elections in her rural county in georgia for more than ten years until this year. when a provision in georgia's restrictive new voting law allowed local republican officials to remove her from the board this month so they could take full partisan republican control of her county's elections administration. helen butler called the takeover of local elections boards the most egregious part of georgia's restrictive new voting laws because these new partisan boards can potentially overturn any election results they don't like. helen butler and other witnesses at the hearing today urged senators that they need to pass federal voting rights legislation to backstop voting rights nationwide. in georgia to block georgia's flu restrictions. not to mention those passed in 16 other republican-controlled states just since the 2020 election. that sailed, there is still no clear path to getting that voting rights legislation through the united

helen butler was removed from her position last month as a county election official in georgia afterlican goarn governor brian kemp put into law voted restrictions that among other things, gave the republican-controlled commission authority to appoint members to local election boards. ellen butler appeared on this program last month to discuss why she thought she was being removed from her position. >> we had great turnout, we had people who are able to be hired as coworkers that can really implement the process. foreign members who are also a part of a county process so they didn't like that outcome so they decided they wanted to change it. >> and in a remarkable tv moment we are wearing the same shirt and tie. the senate rules committee is heading to atlanta georgia on monday to hold its first field hearing in two decades. the hearing is intent of protecting the freedom to vote, recent changes to georgia voting law is in the need for basic federal stands to make sure all americans can vote in the way that works best for them. one of the witnesses who will testify at that hearing, i

and we stand, for example, in total solidarity with our sister in georgia helen butler who is an extraordinaryadvocate. she has just been removed from the board from the voter rights board. this is the kind of insidious action being taken in state after state after state. so let me say finally that texas democrats who have left their state in the interest of justice, they are our heroes and sheros. >> dr. cole, i appreciate your insights as always. dr. cole is the current president of the council of negro women and national chair of that group as well and also the former president of spellman college. thank you. >>> we have breaking news coming in that we have to get to. it involves the chairman of president trump's 2017 inaugural front. the our justice dependent pete williams joins us from washington where this information is coming in. what do you know? >> a lot more. we know that he's been arrested in california. he is an investor in california. that's where he lives. he was the chairman of president trump's 2017 inaugural fund. and that fund was under federal investigation whether or not f

we can organize all day long in 2022, and like in georgia, my sister helen butler, who leads our affiliate that you've had on your program, has been stripped of the ability to be an elections administrator in the state of georgia. so you have the ability for folks to be able to say, we can turn out and do all of that hard work that we have historically done, and then have some people go in a back room and decide they don't like the results. so we have no choice but to fight. and so we're ready for the fight, and, don, we're going to keep showing up. we're going to show up in those districts. we're going to keep pushing our president and vice president to do what any can do. and the american people have to speak up and know -- a lot of folks, i believe, didn't know, and i appreciate what you do on this show, to let folks know the truth, not the lie as president biden said. and i think that history has shown us we can win some battles even when it -- reverend bernice king was on tonight, and one of the things she said, darkest before the dawn. that's the reality of where we are, and we're dn

this tooth and nail, let them do the talking, because what we're going to hear is the reason that helen butlerand that is because there is a concerted effort not only in georgia, but in texas, as you just heard from the state senator, to basically take away people's freedom to vote, lawrence. and one of the -- i think many of us are focused on the provision in the bill that said you can't give water to voters in line. of course, an egregious, egregious measure, but there's so much more in that bill and that's what latosha was getting it. the legislature kicked people off the voting board. then they said and if we found a few technical violations, we can replace you, local officials. we'll look for stuff and we will replace you. one of the things people haven't noticed very much is that they require runoffs. that is where senator warnock and senator ossoff became great senators, as they are. but they reduced the time for that runoff to only 28 days, so there's no time after the general election. they reduced it. that way they kept in place their law that you cannot register as a new voter. you

that that vote gets counted, one of the things that happened in georgia, our local affiliate is helen butler, who state affiliate with the georgia coalition with the people's agenda, who was taken off the local board of elections so that some folks can choose who they want to be able to decide how votes get counted. so we can organize all day long the way we always have, but then if the rules change about who gets to decide if that vote gets counted, we'll never be able to have the ability to have one man, one woman, one vote, and vote for the candidates of our choice. >> kurt, the history rhymes. when the 1960s movement was taking place, democrats also controlled the house, the senate, and the white house. right? it was full democratic control. the difference was, what you have now are republicans who are essentially being very open and telegraphing the fact they're attempting to seize power by stealing outright elections. they're not hiding that, not like hiding the ball. they're being open, we're going to steal these elections. we're going to make sure black and brown and young people can

but one of the things, one of our leaders in florida -- not florida, excuse me, georgia, helen butler on her local board of election for years it's something you try to keep nonpartisan or some cases bipartisan. that bill passed in georgia also allowed for them to take people like helen butler off the board of elections so you can put lackies in with control of the count. so these laws go at the heart of how election administration takes place. we know as african-americans we have had to have federal interventions. and we know if we can't win in the courts we have to have legislation. with my colleagues who are the sharpest legal minds out there, broke it down how we had to fight for our vote when the courts weren't there for us, we had to have legislation passed. you can go as far back as the 1800s. it was laid out, as a matter of fact, yesterday. we have to have it, it's not an option. our democracy is at peril. it's not just what's going to happen to african-americans. it's the whole idea of what our democracy is built upon is the right to vote and have that vote protected. >> than

when we were in georgia we heard from helen butler who i mentioned, a former local election official from rural morgan county who pointed out it was only after black voters increased their vote by mail numbers in the 2020 election that the georgia legislature imposed new restrictions on mail-in ballots after all those years. georgia state senator sally harrell also testified about how the bill was rushed through this restrictive voting bill through the georgia legislature without meaningful debate. we heard about the provisions of the bill that basically say that nonpartisan -- that's already required and that's correct -- nonpartisan volunteers can't even give voters water when they stand in line despite the fact that there were voters that we heard from the day before that, with senator merkley and stacy abrams, that those voters stood in line for three hours, for four hours, for seven hours. we heard from the runoff changes, the runoff used to be nine weeks in georgia. it was reduced to 28 days. and during the runoff period, you can't vote under the new law on saturdays and sunday