00:00issues in the past? No, and that's an inevitable question, and obviously that was part of the
00:03debate. I don't want to overstate it. Would this, quote-unquote, have stopped what happened
00:08with an individual in Riverside County? Not necessarily, though there are aspects and
00:13component parts that certainly would make it more difficult and wouldn't require necessarily
00:18the clarification of the state Supreme Court that ultimately ended the abuse in Riverside
00:26County with those 650,000 ballots, and that is certainly benefit, that clarity is going to get
00:33benefited because of the legislation. This is about sending information out with clarity, drawing a
00:39line in terms of what you can and cannot do as it relates to the registrars coming out of the
00:44DOJ,
00:45the AG's office, which is important. That clarification is important. It addresses the issue of peace
00:50officers and any prospect of intimidation addresses the issues, as was suggested, around chain of
00:56custody. And so I think it's an important group of specific provisions and part of what will be a
01:03mosaic of grouped legislation to address the legitimate anxiety that is out there. And I say
01:11legitimate, and I, forgive me, would be remiss if I didn't just briefly remind you of the legitimate
01:20reasons that we need to do this. I'll remind you that Prop 50, which was the election in question in
01:26terms of the Riverside County ballots, that that was kicked off at the Democracy Center of all places,
01:32in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. And as we entered the building, there were masked men in front of the
01:40rally to kick off the campaign that ultimately became Proposition 50, the redistricting campaign.
01:45Those masked men were led by someone by the name of Greg Bovino. We said at the time, by the
01:50way,
01:50none of them were necessarily identified. And there was no ID. There was, as I suggest, masked men,
01:58with the exception of Bovino, who was, you know, certainly looking forward to engaging all of you
02:03in preening. We said at the time was a preview of things to come. He became a household name,
02:08and ultimately was fired by the Trump administration, retired after his antics that led to the deaths of
02:15two people in Minnesota, and of course, antics that were extended all across the United States.
02:21Of course, that happened after the federalization of the National Guard, 4,000 National Guard were
02:26federalized, 700 active duty Marines were sent not overseas, but to the second largest city in the
02:32United States of America. We said at the time that was a preview of things to come as well. Of
02:37course,
02:37we saw that played out in the streets of D.C., Illinois, and elsewhere. And we make this point
02:43to make the point that needs to be made. This is all happening in open sight. What happens is it's
02:51a stacking. It's not the one act. It's the sum total of all of these things happening. There's a
02:57pattern. Now, that's what this legislation begins to address, a pattern of actions. That pattern,
03:02by the way, unfolded in primarily blue states where the Trump administration tried to access the voting
03:08rolls of our state. If not for the courts and the state of mind of the attorney generals and governors
03:15in those states, he likely would have had access to that. He's trying to vandalize trust as it relates
03:19to vote by mail. And so many other categories with Save Act is trying to even make it more difficult
03:25to register, which is not just about voter ID that act. It's about registration and deciding who
03:31and who cannot vote. All of these are consistent with the phone call, the origin story here that he
03:38made to Greg Abbott, saying he's entitled to five seats in an effort to rig the election before one vote
03:45is cast before November. And we're seeing that played out all across this country now after the
03:52Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act, Section 2, and none more galling and outrageous
03:57than what Governor Landry did and is doing in Louisiana, where he suspended an election that was
04:05already underway, where tens of thousands of voters had already voted, suspended the election by declaring
04:13an emergency for the intended purpose of eliminating black representation in his state. Jim Crow 2.0.
04:24These guys are not screwing around. They're ruthless. So it's in that spirit that I'm signing this,
04:32sober about what we're up against.
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