i have to say, i think about somebody like representative james sensenbrenner, republican, who has beenur closest ally on trying to amend the voting rights act since the shelby decision. he stands shoulder to shoulder with representative john lewis, the great civil rights hero and congressman from georgia, in seeking to amend the voting rights act to essentially reverse the supreme court shelby decision. i'm not prepared to actually paint all republicans that way. as ari pointed out, the voting rights act has always been overwhelmingly bipartisan. what we're seeing is something that's emerged very recently with a segment of one political party. >> and the problem is that the incentives for the republican party have changed. remember in 2000 and 2004, george w. bush courted the hispanic vote. now, you have a situation where the tea party was elected in 2010. they helped elect candidates on a wave election that was much wider, more conservative, than the electorate in 2008. and they wanted to keep it that way. so, the incentive for them was, how, in the face of changing demographics, can

have a bipartisan house judiciary task force on over criminalization chaired by representative sensenbrenner. now in the immigration realm there has not been the same sustained widespread opposition to harsh consequences for noncitizen minor criminals as there has been in the criminal justice world. but we see around the country that jurisdictions many with high immigrant populations are starting to evaluate the trade-offs of expand immigration enforcement and starting to register opposition through the political process. now, i think one question is whether that local opposition will register at the federal level, and particularly in the appropriations process which may be fundamentally the main driver of the policies that this data describes. and again shifting resources to the border where enforcement is less visible in communities may deflect some of that criticism. it may not be that the same political opposition emerging at the local level in certain cities rises up to the federal level of communities registering their opposition in the appropriations process but that maybe where the f

. >> i'm a cosponsor for legislation with plaintiff sensenbrenner and others, mr. scott of the second chance act which helps state and local government agencies and community organizations improve prisoner re-entry nationwide. do any of you have any comments on the second chance act and how it might help? >> well, again, i think with comments that have already been made, prosecutors around the country are certainly supporting and have started re-entry programs. i think it's so important. i think without looking up front of what's going to happen to an individual who it is sentenced to the penitentiary, knowing that that individual is going to come back into the community is just develop -- it misses the entire point of what we're trying to do, trying to make productive citizens out of these individuals and help them. to just warehouse individuals as a prosecutor i can tell you, just warehousing individuals in penitentiary makes no sense at all. i think we have to be smarter on crime, smarter on who is sentenced to the penitentiary and to help whether it's education

. >> i'm a cosponsor for legislation with plaintiff sensenbrenner and others, mr. scott of the second chance act which helps state and local government agencies and community organizations improve prisoner re-entry nationwide. do any of you have any comments on the second chance act and how it might help? >> well, again, i think with comments that have already been made, prosecutors around the country are certainly supporting and have started re-entry programs. i think it's so important. i think without looking up front of what's going to happen to an individual who it is sentenced to the penitentiary, knowing that that individual is going to come back into the community is just develop -- it misses the entire point of what we're trying to do, trying to make productive citizens out of these individuals and help them. to just warehouse individuals as a prosecutor i can tell you, just warehousing individuals in penitentiary makes no sense at all. i think we have to be smarter on crime, smarter on who is sentenced to the penitentiary and to help whether it's education

sensenbrenner and others. mr. scott, i think, of the second chance act which helps state and local government agency and community organizations improve prisoner re-entry nationwide. do any of you have any comments on the second chance act and how it might help? >> well, again, i think with comments that have already been made, prosecutors around the country are certainly supporting and have started re-entry programs. i think it's so important. i think without looking up front of what's going to happen to an individual who it is sentenced to the penitentiary, knowing that that individual is going to come back into the community is just very -- it misses the entire point of what we're trying to do, trying to make productive citizens out of these individuals and help them. to just warehouse individuals as a prosecutor i can tell you, just warehousing individuals in the penitentiary it just makes no sense at all. i think we have to be smarter on crime, smarter on who is sentenced to the penitentiary and also to help,