Internal documents prove that the Obama administration repeatedly pushed back numerous policy implementations until after the 2012 election. The administration of “transparency” and “people over politics” is continuing its longstanding trend of a different kind of voter suppression.
When most think about voter suppression, intimidation at the polls and making it difficult for people to vote generally come to mind. And there’s no shortage of Democrats who point fingers at Republicans for doing just that — at least in their opinions.
There is another type of voter suppression though, which involves no coercion: discouraging people from voting and withholding information so that voters cannot be informed when they vote.
Shortly after the 2012 election, Karl Rove asserted that President Barack Obama’s 2012 strategy was to suppress the vote. Basically, there were certain people who would not vote for Obama, but who might vote for Romney. Team Obama did all they could to paint Romney in a negative light, so that these voters would not vote at all. This strategy of discouraging voting could be written off to ‘politics,’ but it should still be seen as hypocritical, coming from the President who consistently stresses “people over politics.”
Now, it seems Obama took this strategy of suppressing the vote much farther, while deeply incorporating the White House and government agencies, according to Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post. The Obama administration intentionally and repeatedly waited to enact controversial policies until after Obama was reelected. This included everything from components of Obamacare to environmental regulations and worker safety.
One EPA proposal was ready in 2011, but was delayed until after the election so that people would not say the White House was raising gas prices. The decisions of which Americans would qualify for subsidies under Obamacare and what “affordable” means were also delayed.
Agency officials say they were “instructed to hold off submitting proposals to the White House for up to a year to ensure that they would not be issued before voters went to the polls.”
The Obama administration brushed off such delays as coincidental and not political. A new report from the Administrative Conference of the United States says otherwise. It found that regulatory changes took longer in 2012 because of concerns over electoral consequences.
The President has emphasized “people over politics” and “transparency” while going to great lengths to put politics far above people and prevent controversial policy implementation before his reelection. He has also regularly condemned voter suppression.
Ron Fournier of National Journal put it best.
“Obama’s apologists will say that every president plays politics with policy in elections years,” he wrote. “Two problems with that. First, Obama promised to be better than the status quo. Second, he’s worse.”
Obama touted himself as the pinnacle of ethical and transparent politics, but his voter suppression tactics say otherwise. Many Americans believed he could change the political game by putting people and governing before politics. His actions are sure to disappoint, and Americans will be less likely to believe the next politician who similarly advertises himself. Obama’s legacy may be a reminder that — especially in politics — the one who most vehemently proclaims his ethical superiority is often the most ethically lacking.
