Voting Rights Act — Happy 47th Birthday
Forty-seven years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. This was supposed to put an end to poll taxes and other Jim Crow tactics that prevented blacks from voting.
Riiight. So much for that theory. The Party of Lincoln has mutated into the Party of Sheriff Bull Connor. Rightwing politicians are doing their KKK ancestors proud by waging the largest voter suppression drive since the early 1960s.
Not only are they trying to require a photo I.D. in order to vote, but there’s mass confusion over which types of I.D. are acceptable. Driver’s license? Maybe. Student I.D. card? Don’t count on it. In Texas, the same I.D. card that will enable you to buy a gun will NOT be accepted at the voting booth.
Some of the red(neck) states are even trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn the Voting Rights Act.
And requiring an I.D. card in order to vote is only the tip of the iceberg. Whatever actual problems there’ve been with non-citizens trying to vote, this problem will NOT be solved by squelching voter registration drives, eliminating early voting and making absentee voting more difficult.
The more things change…
Forty-seven years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the President and Attorney General of the United States are both black. And “mainstream” Republicans have lurched so far to the right, they make Bull Connor and George Wallace would look like flaming liberals.
Voting Rights Act
Riiight. So much for that theory. The Party of Lincoln has mutated into the Party of Sheriff Bull Connor. Rightwing politicians are doing their KKK ancestors proud by waging the largest voter suppression drive since the early 1960s.
Not only are they trying to require a photo I.D. in order to vote, but there’s mass confusion over which types of I.D. are acceptable. Driver’s license? Maybe. Student I.D. card? Don’t count on it. In Texas, the same I.D. card that will enable you to buy a gun will NOT be accepted at the voting booth.
Some of the red(neck) states are even trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn the Voting Rights Act.
And requiring an I.D. card in order to vote is only the tip of the iceberg. Whatever actual problems there’ve been with non-citizens trying to vote, this problem will NOT be solved by squelching voter registration drives, eliminating early voting and making absentee voting more difficult.
The more things change…
Forty-seven years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the President and Attorney General of the United States are both black. And “mainstream” Republicans have lurched so far to the right, they make Bull Connor and George Wallace would look like flaming liberals.
Voting Rights Act
Labels: Voting Rights Act
posted by Tom Harper @ 5:07 PM
5 Comments:
Some may ask why we have one when we have a 15th amendment
Still others are surprised that we had an earlier Voting Rights act in 1875, and may wonder what happened to that.
Now in the future others may ask whatever happened to the Voting Rights act of 1965?
It is really scary when your basic civil rights are at a whim of a conservative tide.
Erik
The Klanservative Klanbagging Kochsuckers will be screaming, loudly, about how WRONG it was to give THEM the same voting rights as the people God meant to vote! They are absolutely incensed that one of THEM got into the WHITE house, and they'll leave no cross unburned to make sure that it never happens again.
Erik: I hope the answer won't be "the Voting Rights Act was defunded completely by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Jim DeMint, and later ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court Chief Justice Grover Norquist."
JR: Yup, no cross unburned, no snake unhandled.
"In Texas, the same I.D. card that will enable you to buy a gun will NOT be accepted at the voting booth."
I think I know a way Texans can get around this problem, at least if they're not dark of skin. Show one of these and some poll workers will have an orgasm and let you do whatever you want while others will probably grin and point you to the voting machines.
SW: LOL. That's probably the most reliable way for elderly or low-income Texans (if they're white) to be able to vote.
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