Dewhurst Pushes Tx Poll Tax

[Nbadan]

The lousy state of politics in Texas:

Republicans in Texas try to cram through discriminatory voter legislation, force senator to come to work against doctors orders
Thom Prentice, Austin, Texas

Texas Lt. Gov. and 19 Senate Republicans nominated for worst person in the world honors on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program!

Texas state senator Mario Gallegos, Jr. (D-Houston), who had a LIVER TRANSPLANT last winter, has been forced by Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and 19 Republican state senators to stay in a hospital bed in a small room next to the Texas Senate in the state's capitol building AGAINST DOCTORS ORDERS.

Why? Were Gallegos absent, Dewhurst and the 19 Republicans could bring up the new, phony, racist, fake voter ID legislation that is a solution looking for a problem. (Why don't they look into the 2000 and 2004 Republican-assisted vote counting fraud in Florida and Ohio instead?) The bill would discourage minority voters from going to the polls by requiring them to prove their citizenship at the polls IN ADDITION to having a Voter Registration Card, receipt of which already requires some proof of iden y.

It's just a new incarnation of the segregationist, confederate poll tax to intimidate minority voters from going to the polls and so I nominate Dewhurst and the 19 human and civil rights- and human-rights denying segregationist, Confederate Texas Republicans for WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD.

Gallegos could go back to his Houston hospital bed to fight his body's rejection of the transplant if the Republicans, in a merely polite gesture, would pledge to not bring up the racist bill in Gallegos' absence. Gallegos probably ought to get a John F. Kennedy profile in courage award for putting his liver and his life on the line to maintain the American right to vote for all people.

From the Austin American-Statesmen:

Despite a growing threat that his body will reject a transplanted liver, Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr. said Monday that he was determined to stay in the Senate long enough to block a bill that would require Texas voters to provide identification at the polls.

"If not for voter ID, I wouldn't be here; that's how serious the issue is for me," said Gallegos, D-Houston. "It's very important for my community that we block this legislation."

LINKY

If you've wondered why wing-nut politicians are actively helping to feed the anti-immigration frenzy, you need look no further than their own political self-interest. That said, in Texas, we need the cheap labor to keep feeding the housing boom, so it's much more facilitating to create laws that discourage immigrants from voting.

[cholo]

ahem...

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.