After attending progressive activist conference Netroots Nation this weekend it’s clear Democrats have no intent of stopping their misinformation campaign on the purpose of Voter ID laws.
Democratic Congressman on the conference’s Voter ID panel reiterated claims that Republican-led efforts to enact laws requiring American citizens to present a valid photo ID in order to vote are inherently racist and intended to keep minorities, specifically blacks and Hispanics, from exercising their right to vote.
“This is about them trying to snatch our power away,” said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn), who is a co-chair of the House progressive caucus.
Ellison predicted that Voter ID would be the most important issue in the 2012 election, then corrected himself after complaints from the audience and said it “is among the most important issues in the 2012 election” Reelecting President Barack Obama is priority number one, he clarified.
Though Ellison is known for his often extreme and controversial behavior, his comments were not as radical as fellow panelist and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin’s, who claimed “[Voter ID] laws are the new Jim Crow laws of our time.”
Cardin, who represents Maryland in the Senate, is the second Democrat in the last 10 days to reassert claims that that Voter ID laws – which aim to ensure that only American citizens vote in American elections – are similar to segregationist era laws that required African Americans to take complicated literacy tests and pay unreasonable “poll taxes” to vote.
On MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) claimed on May 30 that Voter ID “is like a poll tax – it’s almost like a literacy test.” Lewis also called the laws “a sin” and said they were “obscene.”
Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (D-Flor.) was ridiculed in June of last year for claiming voter ID laws are “very similar to a poll tax” and that Republicans “want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally – and very transparently – block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates.”
Wasserman-Shultz immediately walked back her claims, saying “Jim Crow was the wrong analogy to use,” and her original claims were swiftly debunked by fact-checking website Politifact.
Nevertheless, other Democrats have persisted in claiming that the GOP’s true aim is to disenfranchise black voters.
Democrats’ dangerous efforts to rekindle comparisons of Voter ID laws to Jim Crow laws has went largely unnoticed by both mainstream media and conservative media outlets as of late. While President Obama is waging a class war in America, fellow Democrats are cranking up their efforts to wage a race war, and conservatives are not fighting fire with fire.
