Not content with gutting America's Unions, the GOP has established the next beachhead: students.
Under the oh-so-handy excuse of voter fraud, Republicans are taking steps each day to warp back to the days when only white male property owners can vote. As Tea Party Nation Founder Judson Phillips put it:
"The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn't you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you're a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you're not a property owner, you know, I'm sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners."
The GOP is on a mission: punish and disenfranchise those who vote against them. Unions, students, blacks, Latinos, Muslims; they are all fair game.
They used to pull the "concerned citizen" act when pulling these stunts to try and hide their true motives. Now they're not even pretending anymore. Just listen to the eye opening comments by New Hampshire House Speaker William O'Brien:
WaPo Article
New Hampshire's new Republican state House speaker is pretty clear about what he thinks of college kids and how they vote. They're "foolish," Speaker William O'Brien said in a recent speech to a tea party group.
"Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings."
The proposed legislation is a naked power grab. It will, among other things, strip out of state students of their right to vote where they reside in NH. But let us put aside the breathtaking partisanship for a moment, as it really speaks for itself.
This type of thinking spotlights the elitism that has become so ingrained in modern conservative thought. Young people don't DESERVE to vote because they are too immature; if they were more mature, they'd obviously vote Republican! But how can they fix this problem? It is illegal for them to prevent all young people from voting outright. Why not disenfranchise out-of-state college students? It won't get all of them, but it's a start!
This is akin to a "poll-tax" or a reading test that Southern States used to prevent blacks from voting. These serve to prevent those who the GOP deem "unworthy" from being able to vote at their local polling place when they show up on election day. This is a way to implement their anti-democratic ideas into actual law. Speaker O'Brien makes no bones about his wishes to strip young Americans of their right to vote. He just can't do it outright legally, so this will have to do for now.
Don't let the fact that NH has a Democratic governor fool you, the Republicans control over 75% of the both chambers in the state. They are counting on the fact that the left is so heavily invested in Wisconsin right now that no one will notice. This is getting virtually zero notice from the MSM outside of the WaPo article today. Google News has a paltry 15 news articles on this story. There have been some protests by students, but barring some kind of loud awakening by NH students (as we are seeing among union-members in Madison now), this will most likely become law in NH.
If the GOP succeeds in this, it will without a doubt embolden them to strip more voters from the rolls. If you live in New Hampshire, whether you are a student or not PLEASE call your Senator and Representative about this. If you have the opportunity, organize or take part in a protest. If you do, make sure to alert the local and national media to amplify your efforts, send emails, videos etc.
New Hampshire: Where's My Legislator