Texas Solicitor General, Scott Keller
What Mr. Keller didn't mention is stringent voter ID laws, cause huge numbers of minimum wage workers to take time off from their jobs without pay, not to mention shell out some of their meager cash reserves in order to buy one. It's also the quickest way to make sure large numbers of low income Hispanics, African Americans, and senior citizens don't get to the ballot box. You know, all those people who are likely to vote for a democrat.
The Texas voter ID law was passed in 2011. A story in USA Today notes federal judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos struck down the law in 2014. She was quoted as ruling the act was passed with a, "discriminatory purpose." She also said it could disenfranchise up to 600,000 Texans--a disproportionate number of whom are black, or Hispanic.
The 5th district federal appeals court blocked Ramos' ruling while Texas appealed. Last year the same court agreed the law was discriminatory, but said it wasn't conceived to be that that way on purpose. It didn't rule one way or the other, saying it hoped both sides involved could come to some sort of compromise.
How very Episcopalian of them. Yes, don't do anything while praying as hard and fast as you can the sticky subject will simply go away.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States decided not to take up the issue for now, using the excuse the appeals panel has finally decided to re-hear it in May. The non-ruling by the Supremes said that if the appeals court doesn't reach a decision by mid July it will take action.
Well, at least we know how Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg feels about the law. In 2014, when the Supreme Court allowed it to stand, by refusing to consider it, she wrote, "The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters."
She has a point. The Texas law forces a potential voter to pay the state a fee--for the ID--in order to vote. And, let's face it, you don't have to be a genius to figure out who the law is directly aimed at. As USA Today pointed out, one of the valid ID's you can use to get a ballot is a permit to carry a concealed weapon--while a state college ID belonging to a young fan of potential candidate Bernie Sanders isn't.
The truth is the great conservative fear of in person voter fraud is bullshit and they know it. In 2012 the Republican National Lawyer Association searched high and low and found, what it considered, 375 individual cases of in person voter fraud. That would be nation wide, not some precinct in south Texas.
A research group called News 21 took a look at those cases and found only 77 of them were legitimate. Of the 77, the vast majority involved absentee ballots, which aren't impacted by voter IDs.
At the same time, Professor David Schultz, of the Hamline School of Business was quoted as saying, "Voter fraud at the polls is an insignificant aspect of American elections." He went on to add, "There is absolutely no evidence that voter in person fraud has affected the outcome of any election in the United States."
If there was ever any doubt about the true purpose of this ruthless scam it was eliminated four years ago by Pennsylvania house majority leader, Mike Turzai, a--you guessed it--republican. After the Pennsylvania legislature passed a draconian voter ID law prior to the 2012 presidential election, he bragged to a band of fellow travelers about its immediate effect, "...which is going to allow Governor Romney to win Pennsylvania."
Mitt probably would have too. However, much to Turzai's horror, a state judge slapped a stay on the law before the election. Suddenly the nearly 9% of Keystone State voters who hadn't been able to secure an ID were free to cast a ballot. Barely a month later, Obama won Pennsylvania by five points.
Deep down, the wankers who run the GOP know they'll never attract large numbers of people who aren't white to their party. Their base guarantees it. Every time the party has attempted to make even the slightest move to the center, the rabid werewolves on the far right edge go straight for the throats of their own. Just ask John Boehner and Eric Cantor.
Given this reality they are reduced to the cold blooded gerrymandering of congressional districts in order to hang on to the house of representatives, while doing everything they can to keep the voter turn out as close to the color of vanilla ice cream as they can.
Luckily for them, their complete lack of morals and ethics allow them to pull this shit off with smiles on their faces and songs in their hearts.
Hey, sometimes you find you really are born for the job that has to be done, no matter how dirty it is.
Indeed.
Ladies and gentlemen, for obvious reasons, the bar is open.
sic vita est
4-29-16
I believe we are closer to bearing the consequences of not monitoring the actions of our professional politicians than we realize.
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