Special: Supreme Court rules on voting rights, Obama & Romney raise 2014 campaign cash

GWEN IFILL: Hello, and welcome to the “Washington Week” Webcast Extra.

Joining me around the table are Gloria Borger of CNN, Alexis Simendinger of Real Clear Politics, Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post, and Pete Williams of NBC News.

The Supreme Court stepped into more than hot-button cultural issues in its first week of the new term. As early voting began across the country this week, the court also weighed in on voting access debates in Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio, to varying effect.

Pete, you want to walk us through it?

PETE WILLIAMS: Sure. On North Carolina and Ohio, what the Supreme Court did now leaves in place laws that make it harder for people to vote in those two states. Now, the state would say it’s a way of dealing with fraud. What it does is it eliminates the ability to same-day register in both those states.

And in North Carolina, it also makes it hard – well, really impossible – to have your vote count if you accidentally show up at the wrong precinct. What they say in North Carolina is sometimes you go to a precinct worker, if you show up at the wrong place, they tell you somewhere to go and it’s the wrong place. So if you cast your ballot in the wrong place, under this new law it cannot count.

But the court made it easier by keeping in place bans on laws on tough new voter ID laws in both Wisconsin and Texas. So it was a mixed bag there.

MS. IFILL: What especially in Texas?

MR. WILLIAMS: The Texas ruling was very interesting, because the judge based it on what is left of the Voting Rights Act. Remember, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act by taking out the pre-clearance map.

MS. IFILL: Right.

MR. WILLIAMS: But it left part of the Voting Rights Act that said if you can find that a state is intentionally discriminating against minority voters, you can opt it in and still require it to have pre-clearance.

Now, that is sort of the nuclear response that the Justice Department was hoping would begin to work in the states as they try to keep what’s left of the Voting Rights Act working. That would be a very powerful ruling. You can be sure that Texas will resist that. But it’s a fascinating development in trying to use what’s left of the voting rights law.

MS. IFILL: Absolutely.

OK. Well, let’s talk a little bit more granular politics, in this case about money. Alexis, the president is not welcome in a lot of places, a lot of red states, a lot of middle-ground states. But the places he is welcome, he’s really welcome, and that’s because he raises a lot of money.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: He is really welcome, and is shaking the money tree like nobody’s business. And his travel schedule has been very brisk, and it will continue to be brisk. If you look ahead at the week coming up, he’s got two or so different trips planned. He’s done the same thing in the week that just ended. He was at Gwyneth Paltrow’s house.

MS. IFILL: And she lost her ability to speak, she said.

MS. SIMENDINGER: She thought he was so handsome and complimented him in every possible way. And his reply was we should take her to all of these events. (Laughter.)

MS. IFILL: I don’t think he understands the Gwyneth Paltrow backlash out there.

MS. SIMENDINGER: Right. So what’s interesting is that the president, unlike maybe what he had imagined he would do in a midterm year, is just, you know, the skunk at the garden party. And he just can’t go into these states, nor do these candidates want to see him, so fearful are they that they will see him in attack ads immediately. And so Michelle Obama can campaign. She can do this. Joe Biden can.

So the president is raising all this money, and he is putting it to very good use. The Democrats are raising tons of money. But the president did stop in this week in California to a candidate who’s running to fill Henry Waxman’s seat in California, and came into – it was like a phone-a-thon booth, you know, kind of a place, and complimented the candidate, Ted Lieu, and said, you know, I hope you do well. He was encouraging all these people who were making calls for all these candidates. And in the week coming up, he’ll be campaigning at a rally for Governor Malloy of candidate. So, you know –

MS. IFILL: There are some people –

MS. SIMENDINGER: - apparently there’s three people in the United States who are welcoming the president of the United States.

MS. BORGER: What’s interesting to me is the Democrats have to run without Obama, but they’re still running on the Obama coalition. And they have to put it together for the first time in six years without the president himself there –

MS. SIMENDINGER: And turnout.

MS. BORGER: It’s a little tricky, because how do you motivate the base –

MS. IFILL: The turnout.

MS. BORGER: - voters, minorities, women. You know, how do you do that?

MS. IFILL: Let me flip this and ask you about the Republican side of this, because this is – speaking of skunks at garden parties, for a long time Mitt Romney was persona non grata; nothing like losing in a campaign for people to say it was nice knowing you.

MS. BORGER: Bye-bye.

MS. IFILL: Now he’s back.

MS. BORGER: He’s back in a big way.

MS. IFILL: And he’s campaigning for people.

MS. BORGER: He’s everywhere. I mean, this is kind of redemption with a capital “R” for Mitt Romney. I mean, suddenly he’s wanted again. And the reason he’s wanted again is because he lost against the guy that’s really unpopular now. So everything in life is compared to what?

MR. WILLIAMS: Wanted again for what?

MS. BORGER: He’s wanted again as –

MR. WILLIAMS: To run again?

MS. BORGER: No, no. Well, no, I think – (laughter) – some people say yes. I say no. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t know what you think, Karen. But I think he’s a good surrogate out there because he’s got great name recognition. He can raise a lot of money for Republican candidates. He can remind Republicans of what they might have had but they didn’t get –

MS. SIMENDINGER: In terms of management especially.

MS. BORGER: - in terms of management, leadership, you know. And, you know, so I think he works in the midterm elections.

MS. TUMULTY: And to the degree there is appetite for yet another Mitt Romney candidacy, I think you’re seeing it in the money people. And the money people especially are worried if there’s not a Jeb Bush in the race, if there is not perhaps a Chris – you know, Chris Christie – that can’t perform as well as they had hoped, they are looking for somebody to fill that kind of establishment spot.

MS. BORGER: Well, and I talked to some Romney people this week about it, and they don’t – you know, they’re not throwing cold water on it, because they kind of like their guy to have his day back in the sunshine again. But the truth of the matter is that nobody really believes he would run again.

MS. IFILL: Well, let me ask you about a question about something that actually has to do with an issue, which is we talked in the program about cultural issues, and especially gay marriage, and whether that’s now – it’s unclear what the political impact that will have. But we know that, at least in Colorado, where you just were, there’s a really interesting cultural clash going on that’s actually about something.

MS. TUMULTY: It’s an extraordinary cultural issue. It’s 10 ^th grade American history – the advanced placement American history. And it’s – the College Board, which writes the curriculum, has tried to make some changes, tried to bring in some of America before 1492, when it wasn’t – you know, American history doesn’t start with white American history, some of the darker aspects of our history. This is an advanced course, a college-level course, for high school kids.

But somehow conservatives have decided that there’s something un-American about this. It’s been denounced by the Republican National Committee. Ben Carson, a conservative that a lot of people would like to see run for president, said it would make young people want to join ISIS.

And in Colorado, where the new conservative majority on a suburban school board in Jefferson County, just outside of Denver, decided that they weren’t going to accept this, and they were going to rewrite their own more patriotic curriculum. It has brought people literally into the streets. They are having teacher sick-outs. They’re shutting down the schools. Kids have been leaving schools in walkouts by the thousands. Parents have been protesting. It is absolutely extraordinary to see this level of activism.

Now, mind you, the school board got into office because nobody showed up to vote last year. (Laughter.) But this time it’s really amazing to see, you know, suburban people out on the streets waving signs.

MS. IFILL: And just in time for Columbus Day. (Laughter.)

Thanks, everyone, for watching. If you’re dying for more, keep an eye on our website every day for the top stories our panelists are reporting. That’s at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. And we’ll see you next time on the “Washington Week” Webcast Extra.