Obama Signs Up for Obamacare; Civil Rights Leaders Protest Against Obama's Georgia Court Appointment
KEILAR: Some of President Obama's strongest supporters gathered this morning to oppose his nominees to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Civil rights leaders, including Congressman John Lewis and the Reverend Joseph Lowery, held a news conference at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr's Atlanta church, calling on the president to withdraw nominees, saying they lack diversity and are a step in the wrong direction.</s>REP. JOHN LEWIS, (D), GEORGIA: Mr. President, the lives to the people of this state are hanging in the balance. We question whether this is the kind of legacy you want to leave in the state of Georgia. We believe it is not too late to turn this train around. Do we want the first African-American president, the first attorney general African-American to have this on their mark? Martin Luther King Jr., if he were here this day, he would tell the president not to make these appointments. It runs right in the face of justice, of fairness, of equality, of what is right for all of God's people.</s>REV. JOSEPH LOWERY, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: We've come too far, marched too long, prayed too hard, wept too bitterly, bled too profusely and died too young --</s>LOWERY: -- to let anybody turn back the clock on our progress to a just society.</s>LOWERY: God bless you and god keep you. Mr. President, hear us.</s>KEILAR: But the White House is pushing back and pushing back hard, pointing to the 1* percent of confirmed judges who are African- Americans. And joining me live to talk about this is the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Reverend Raphael Warnock, the author of "The Divided Mind of the Black Church." Reverend, thank you so much for joining us. We see that the civil rights leaders are clearly upset about these nominees. What is the main sticking point here?</s>REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK, SENIOR PASTOR, EBENEZER BAPTIST CHURCH & AUTHOR: Thank you, Brianna. It's great to be here with you. You point out rightly that diversity is part of the issue, but it's really deeper than representation in terms of race or gender. Really, we are concerned about the ideology and the voting records of some of these appointments here to the 11th Circuit. President Obama, in a real sense, is the product of the greatest movement for civil rights and human rights we saw in the 20th century. I think that it is remarkable that that movement, as represented by the likes of the Reverend Joseph Lowery and C.T Vian and Congressman John Lewis, all veterans of the civil rights movement, all supporters of the president, all recipients of the presidential Medal of Freedom as given by President Obama, stood up today and clearly said we reject this slate of nominees to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and to the Northern District. We are saying that the citizens of Georgia deserve better than this. The nation deserves better than this. And we believe that our president, a president whom we support, can do better than this. Some of these nominees have a terrible record when it comes to voting rights. One of the nominees here in the state of Georgia, Mr. Mark Cohen, was a fierce defender of Georgia's voter I.D. law. We have the unhappy distinction of sort of leading the pack here in the state of Georgia with these repressive voting laws, this effort, this draconian movement to push back voting rights at a level we haven't seen since the civil rights movement.</s>KEILAR: Sure.</s>WARNOCK: Much of that got started in Georgia. And Mr. Mark Cohen was the person who defended that law. It's quite ironic that we have these nominations.</s>KEILAR: So that's -- it seems like it's twofold. We're hearing the diversity argument and we're also hearing -- because it has to do with voter I.D. laws. Let me ask you about something the White House is saying. They are saying a couple of things. One, they're trying to say that President Obama has a pretty good record when it comes to appointing a diverse crowd to the bench. They have put out statistics that 18 percent of the confirmed judges the president has put forward have been African- American. Compare that to 8 percent under George W. Bush, 16 percent under President Clinton. But the other thing they say, Reverend, is that the members of the House, who obviously you have on your side in objecting to this, were late to the game. This is a process that is played out over months. There is a painstaking negotiation with Republican Georgia Senators who objected to some of his nominees and that's how some of this was worked out. And that, at the time, the House delegation didn't I guess make their opinion heard then, and they're way late to the game doing it now. What do you say to that?</s>WARNOCK: They have been engaged in the process since 2009. And many of them -- I know them very well. And part of what we're concerned ultimately, Brianna, with the outcome. If you look at this outcome, there isn't the diversity present in this slate that we would like to see. And again, some of these nominations are nominations that are quite scary for those of us in the state of Georgia. And if those who are watching across the state of -- across the country, we should all be concerned about these nominations. One of these nominees supported or pushed back against a law to remove the Confederate Flag over the state of Georgia. So both in terms of substance and symbol, we believe that this is a very discouraging move. Again, we support the president. We support his progressive agenda. But the irony is these appointments will undermine the very progressive agenda that we feel that he represents and America represents at its best.</s>KEILAR: And, Reverend, you look at the 11th Circuit. It services the South. Do you feel like President Obama should have better reached out to his civil rights supporters on these decisions?</s>WARNOCK: Well, these appointments to the federal bench are for life. These judges will be here long after the president leaves the White House. We will be stuck with them. We elect our Congress persons. We elect our Senators. We elect our city council persons. But these judges, these federal judges are appointed, they are there for life. And we believe that, yeah, in a real sense, the South still is the place, the battleground where many of these issues are being fought out, and we can do better than this. Open up the process, we say, Mr. President, hear the voices of the people, hear the voices of those who have been his heroes who opened a way for the Obama presidency. We believe that we can still turn then train around, that it's not too late, that we can still be engaged in a process that will reap a better outcome for all Georgians, white and black and brown, and for men and women. We believe that we can do better than this.</s>KEILAR: Reverend Raphael Warnock, thanks for taking the time. We really appreciate it.</s>WARNOCK: Thank you so much.</s>KEILAR: And we will be right back.