Florida-Style Voter Suppression Being Planned For Texas, Yippie!!

[Nbadan]

Texas Rethugs are holding up renewal of the landmark 1964 Voting Rights Act...


http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/johncarter1.jpg

"I don't think we have racial bias in Texas anymore," said Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock.

Austin American Statesman - EDITORIAL BOARD
Monday, June 26, 2006


Texas Republican congressional leaders should take a closer look at their state and history. If they did, they might not blurt out embarrassing comments like those uttered in Congress last week.

The historically illiterate griping stopped cold a vote to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. That's unfortunate on a number of fronts, but especially considering that the bill enjoyed support of the Democratic and Republican leadership, as well as the White House. Both parties understood that voting rights are fundamental to our democracy. That law guarantees those rights are protected.

The bill had passed a key GOP-controlled House committee, 33 to 1. It was clear sailing until John Carter, R-Round Rock, and some other GOP leaders tried to gut the bill. Carter and company objected to a requirement that Texas and some other Southern states get clearance from the Justice Department or a federal court before making changes to voting standards or procedures. Texas lawmakers also objected to the law's requirement that jurisdictions print ballots in other languages if 5 percent or more of their voting-age populations have limited English skills.



"I simply believe you should be able to read, write and speak English to be a voter in the United States," Carter said.

Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3991488.html)

However, a recent report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 6/26/06 seems to contradict Carter:


Texas leads the nation in several categories of voting discrimination, including recent Section 5 violations and Section 2 challenges (http://www.fairvote.org/vra/vra.htm). … Section 5 of the VRA, the preclearance requirement, was extended to Texas in 1975 due to the State’s history of excluding Mexican Americans from the political process. … Texas is home to the second largest Latino population in the U.S.

Unfortunately, Texas isn’t the only state (http://renewthevra.civilrights.org/resources/reports.html) with continuing discrimination against voters — help renew the VRA.

[DarkReign]

hopefully they will only let you vote if you own property

...and are a WASP. Cuz thems are the onlyuns thut matta.

[fyatuk]

Texas Rethugs are holding up renewal of the landmark 1964 Voting Rights Act...


The federal government should not have a say in local and state election conditions/procedures. Don't care about the circumstances, that's giving the federal government too much power.

However, since more and more precincts are moving towards electronic balloting, it's absurd to not allow language selection on the electronic ballots. Not hard to code and not much of an increased expense. I can understand not wanting to print multi-lingual ballots since that could get expensive, and language levels can be hard to tell in borderline places.

Carter's quote about needing to understand English to vote is idiotic. If we can't even get English declared our official language, there's no reason to restrict balloting to that without other reasons.

[Ocotillo]

The federal government should not have a say in local and state election conditions/procedures. Don't care about the circumstances, that's giving the federal government too much power.



Ah yes, Bush V. Gore........

[fyatuk]

Ah yes, Bush V. Gore........

Not aplicable to what I said. That's a national election with clear federal jurisdiction. There should be a standard way of conducting elections for federal government positions across ALL states.

[Ocotillo]

Not aplicable to what I said. That's a national election with clear federal jurisdiction. There should be a standard way of conducting elections for federal government positions across ALL states.

Actually, no. An election for a federal office, yes, but states are to handle there laws the way they see fit. The Supremes overstepped their authority and even alluded to that in the judgement.

[boutons_]

"That's a national election with clear federal jurisdiction"

huh? the voters are registered locally and vote locally (below state level) with voting infrastructure totally independent of federal.

[xrayzebra]

The federal government should not have a say in local and state election conditions/procedures. Don't care about the circumstances, that's giving the federal government too much power.

However, since more and more precincts are moving towards electronic balloting, it's absurd to not allow language selection on the electronic ballots. Not hard to code and not much of an increased expense. I can understand not wanting to print multi-lingual ballots since that could get expensive, and language levels can be hard to tell in borderline places.

Carter's quote about needing to understand English to vote is idiotic. If we can't even get English declared our official language, there's no reason to restrict balloting to that without other reasons.

I thought you had to read/write/understand the English language to
become a citizen. So why do we need other languages on the ballot.

While on the subject. Why is it wrong to require identification to prove
you are the person you say you are. You do it to buy a gun. You do
it to cash a check, to obtain credit. On so many things you must
present identification I cant begin to list them all. So what is so bad
about proving who you are to vote in an election.

[exstatic]

The reason for the oversight in certain states became abundantly clear in today's SCOTUS ruling.

[xrayzebra]

Once again, it awfully quite in here.

[Ocotillo]

Quite quiet....

[Nbadan]

US ON THE BRINK OF DEMOCRATIC COLLAPSE

In the case of Tom Delay's Texas gerrymandering---gerrymandering made possible by the use of illegal campaign contributions which allowed Texas Republicans to gain control of the Texas legislature--the SCOTUS voted narrowly to affirm the Voting Rights Act and order a district to be redrawn because it violated the Voting Rights Act by denying 100,000 Latinos their right to representation.


"At issue was the shifting of 100,000 Hispanics out of a district represented by a Republican incumbent and into a new, oddly shaped district. Foes of the plan had argued that that was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voting rights."

This case is significant, because it is one of the few instances in which the Voting Rights Act has been enforced in this country since W. took office. The Department of Justice under John Ashcroft and then Al Gonzales has chosen to pretend that the Voting Rights Act does not exist. Ashcroft did not prosecute Katherine Harris for using a felon's list in Florida which contained the names of tens of thousands of people entitles to vote (even though she was informed that the list was flawed in this way--a violation of the Act). He did not prosecute the thugs who crossed state lines to threaten and intimidate poll workers into stopping a lawful vote recount, even though that is clearly against the law. He did not step in when Diebold inserted an illegal patch called "rob.georgia.zip" into the softwear of of its voting machines in 2002, resulting in surprise upset victories over Democratic incumbents who had double digit leads in the polls.

Thanks to Ashcroft's non-enforcement and the climate of Anything Goes, election fraud reached epidemic proportion in 2004, with bogus voter registrations in which Democrats found their registration forms shredded, more questionable E-voting and, of course, Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell's blatant disregard of the Voting Right's Act. The Act basically says that every effort will be made to make sure that all eligible to vote get to vote and that every vote will be recorded if at all possible. Blackwell went to the opposite extreme, attempting to keep people from voting based on technicalities such as improper weight of paper used, wrong precinct or form used. He scrubbed thousands of minority and poor voters from the rolls without giving them a chance to get back on the rolls. He denied Democrats equal access to voting equipment. He interfered with the recount process. He broke the law so many times, it was ludicrous---and the Department of Justice looked the other way in every single instance, because everything Blackwell had done favored the Attorney General's boss.

Now, thanks to this laissez-faire attitude, the gloves are off. State legislatures in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Ohio have passed laws that violate the Voting Rights Act. Not only has the Department of Justice failed to act, it actually rubber stamped a photo ID law in Georgia that the federal courts later struck down as amounting to a poll tax. Secretaries of State in Ohio and California are actively disenfranchising voters--and no one is acting to defend the voter's rights. Not the Department of Justice, not the Republican controlled Congress.

The only federal governmental body left that seems to believe that the Voting Rights Act is still the law of the land is the judiciary. And even at the Supreme Court of the United States, it is a 5 to 4 decision. One more Justice, and the Voting Rights Act will be dead in our lifetime, whether or not Congress ratifies it again.

It is essential to take back Congress in order to ratify the Voting Rights Act. It is also important that Congress become Democratic in order to keep W. from nominating any more extremist judges to the SCOTUS. And while they are at it, maybe Congress can do something about the biggest criminal of all in the current administration, the attorney general who thinks that he is the White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales. If the attorney general can not be bothered to uphold the law, then our country will descend into anarchy.

MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13592999)

[Nbadan]

Meanwhile, the House gets a heart NO THANKS to some Republican lawmakers...


(AP) The House agreed Wednesday to affirm the right of voters in areas with large populations of non-English-speaking citizens to cast ballots in their native language.

The 254-167 roll call in support of bilingual balloting came just a week after GOP divisions over the issue contributed to the postponement of a House vote to renew the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.

"If you have the good fortune to be able to vote in the United States, then it is not too much to ask that this be accomplished in English," said Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. "I don't think the United States government should be forced to pay for (bilingual) assistance."
...
Supporters of non-English ballots reminded colleagues that only U.S. citizens are able to vote and that even those whose native language is English have difficulty with complex ballot initiatives, much less those who learned the language after coming to this country.

An overwhelming majority of Democrats joined with slightly fewer than one-third of House Republicans to reject Stearns' amendment.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said taking away the right to bilingual ballots would "allow states and localities to discriminate against taxpaying American citizens because of their language ability and impede their right to vote. That is wrong."

CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/29/ap/politics/mainD8IHK4D00.shtml)

[DarkReign]

that reminds me of a joke


a black guy goes in to vote--
this is back in the day when they required literacy tests--
so he goes in to vote, sees the white guys working the voting table
the white guys say, sure you can vote, this is america, you just need to read this sheet of paper
the black guy says okay and reads perfectly off the sheet of paper--it's like a menu or a page of a novel or some irrelevant shit
the white guys say, okay now recite the declaration of indpendence for us
black guy says, sure, and says the damn thing
white guys look at each other, and one white guy pulls out a Chinese newspaper and hands it to the black guy.
the black guy looks at the Chinese characters for awhile, and the white guy asks, "so do you know what it says?"
yes, says the black guy
----the white guys are shocked--
black guy says, "it says that this here's one ###### who's not going to get to vote"

:lol :lol :lol

OMG! :lmao

rofl

[Yonivore]

Actually, no. An election for a federal office, yes, but states are to handle there laws the way they see fit. The Supremes overstepped their authority and even alluded to that in the judgement.
No, they merely upheld the constitutional principle that protects us from Ex-Post Facto lawmaking and the specific constitutional prohibition against changing election law during an election.

Thanks for playing though.

[Yonivore]

OMG! :lmao

rofl
What's even funnier is that it was principally Southern Democrats that were in favor of literacy tests for voters.

Yeah, I tell ya, that's a funny joke. :rolleyes

[ChumpDumper]

Then all those Southern Democrats became Republcans in the 60s.

Har de har har.

[boutons_]

"became Republcans in the 60s"

Being Repug in the southern states is where white supremicists and racists find a veneer of respectability.

When the Democratic 60's started giving blacks, minorities more rights and protections, it's well known the southern bigots switched to Repug.

[Yonivore]

Then all those Southern Democrats became Republcans in the 60s.

Har de har har.
Not all of them. Robert "Sheets" Byrd as an example.

At least Strom Thurmond loved his black constituents instead of lynching them.

[ChumpDumper]

Not all of them.Ok, most.
At least Strom Thurmond loved his black constituents instead of lynching them.Ah, probably did both.

[Yonivore]

The Republican Party is founded on the premise that slaves should have been emancipated and it was a Republican President that made it happen. And, it was Republicans that carried the Civil Right Act of 1964 to passage.

[Yonivore]

Ok, most.Ah, probably did both.
Hell, Byrd (still a Democrat and still in the Senate and, presumably, still alive), probably only lynched them. He was still calling them ######s as late as last year.

[ChumpDumper]

Nah, I'm sure Byrd did both too. Just wasn't stupid enough to impregnate any of them.

[Yonivore]

Nah, I'm sure Byrd did both too. Just wasn't stupid enough to impregnate any of them.
And, yet, the Democratic Party continues to lionize the geezer.

[ChumpDumper]

And voters keep electing him.

[Yonivore]

And voters keep electing him.
Democratic Voters. Go figure. The party of bigotry.

[ChumpDumper]

And Republican bigots kept voting for Thurmond and Helms.

And Bush.

Go figure.

[Yonivore]

And Republican bigots kept voting for Thurmond and Helms.

And Bush.

Go figure.
I'm not sure that Thurmond or Helms were in the KKK, much less Kleagles (whatever that is), and running on a segregationist platform in '48 was the Democratic thing to do at the time.

I don't get your Bush reference.

[ChumpDumper]

I applaud your feigned ignorance of the politcal shift of the 60s in the south, but turning a blind eye is what you do.

[Yonivore]

I applaud your feigned ignorance of the politcal shift of the 60s in the south, but turning a blind eye is what you do.
Well, for the "shift" to benefit your argument, those Republicans that voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have had to become Democrats...did that happen?

No, instead, you had Democrats becoming Republicans...and remaining such. Except for the Kleagle types, of course.

[ChumpDumper]

Well, for the "shift" to benefit your argument, those Republicans that voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have had to become Democrats.No it doesn't. You were better off pretending it never happened.

[Yonivore]

No it doesn't. You were better off pretending it never happened.
Here, go chew on this for awhile...

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/3/82.03.04.x.html

The fact remains that in the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes.

By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.

It could be argued that the shift of the 60's was Democrats, who realized how bigoted their party was, abandoning the wrong-minded Democrat platform and leaving to join the Party of equal rights.