Washington, D.C. – This week, Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States and Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), joined The MeidasTouch Podcast with host Ben Meiselas ahead of Election Day to discuss the stakes of the nationwide gerrymandering crisis and the importance of passing California’s Proposition 50 to fight back.

During their conversation, Attorney General Holder and Meiselas discussed several topics, including the significance of California’s response to Donald Trump’s mid-decade gerrymandering scheme, the weaponization of the Department of Justice, and the importance of Supreme Court reform.

Excerpts from the interview are below:

ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER: “Prop 50, I think, is an example of where this nation needs to be in this really challenging moment. Here’s the deal: there’s no cavalry coming. There’s no miracles that are gonna happen. This is all about what the American people are going to do. Our institutions have failed us. The Executive Branch is in the process of failing us and has failed us. Congress has failed us. I think the Supreme Court has failed us. But the power that the American people have is substantially greater than I think we know. And Prop 50 is an example of that. People in California will have the opportunity to say, ‘We’re going to increase the potential for five seats for Democrats in California in response to what’s happened in Texas.’ That’s an example of people power. The protests that we have seen around the country—another example of people power. And those things are consequential. So I would urge everybody to find a way to be involved in this fight. Dr. King said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But here’s the deal: it doesn’t bend on its own. It only bends when people like us put their hands on that arc and pull it towards justice. And each and every one of us, as a good American citizen, has to ask ourselves: ‘What is it that I’m going to do to pull that arc towards justice and save our democracy?’”

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BEN MEISELAS: “This has been part of a broader plan I think we have seen from MAGA—and before that from the right wing in general—to attack the Voting Rights Act, erode things like preclearance and things that used to uphold the fairness of districts, the Citizens United decision and all of that. So, where do you think this all fits into what the plan is? Because one of the things that Governor Newsom has said is that if you kind of take this to the logical conclusion of what Trump wants to do, he basically wants our system to look like what you have in Russia or you have in authoritarian states where it’s election in name only but he claims ‘I won 93 percent I mean look at it everybody!’ What do you make of the broader context of what’s taking place?”

ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER: “This is all about power. That’s the throughline. Whether it’s doing gerrymandering mid-cycle, whether it’s trying to have a compliant Congress, whether it’s a supine Supreme Court—it’s all about power. That’s the thing that explains everything that they are doing. And it’s what authoritarians do. They try to accumulate as much power as they can. They have elections in Russia, and Putin, as you said, gets 95, 93 percent of the vote. We’ll continue to have elections here in the United States; the question is whether or not the elections that we have here will be meaningful ones –– whether the people actually get the opportunity to express their views on the policy direction of the nation. Again, it’s all about power. Whether it’s gerrymandering, weakening the Voting Rights Act to take power away from people who the people in power now think are not supportive of them — it’s all about the acquisition and the use of power. And that’s one thing that we on the progressive side and the Democratic side have got to get used to. It’s not a bad thing for us to say that we want to acquire and use power. Doesn’t mean we’re going to use it in the same way that Republicans and conservatives have—in the negative way that they have done it. But Roosevelt wasn’t afraid of acquiring and using power. Johnson wasn’t afraid of acquiring and using power. That’s what we have to be about. Fighting back the way in which Governor Newsom has, and folks in California, by putting together Prop 50, is exactly what we have to do. We’ve got to fight for this.”

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