Taking aim at the bevy of voter disenfranchisement initiatives currently being backed by Republicans across the country, Bill Clinton today unleashed a pointed tongue lashing that echoed loudly.
Speaking to young, political activists, Clinton had this to say:
“I can’t help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time...There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today."
And though the statement might have a hint of bombast, the essence of Clinton's critique is on solid ground: the number of efforts across the country by Republicans to limit the voter rolls for 2012 is, well, rather unprecedented...
Here's just a partial list of what Clinton is talking about:
1) In New Hampshire, there are efforts (which have so far been stopped) to block out-of-state college students from being allowed to register in New Hampshire.
2) In Florida, Governor Scott has backed an initiate to block convicted felons from being allowed to register after they have completed their probationary periods.
3) Of course, in Ohio, we have the now-infamous bill, which Governor Kasich is poised to sign, that eliminates many early voting options and get rid of the week-long, same-day register and vote option that has been available to Ohioans.
4) In Wisconsin, Governor Walker signed a bill that now requires voters to not only show an I.D. at the polls, but requires them to have lived in their polling precinct for 28 days prior to election day.
5) In Maine, Governor LePage got rid of the state's 38-year old law allowing voters to register on the same day as they vote.
These efforts to limit the voter rolls by Republicans are transparent: each effort targets populations that have a tendency to vote Democratic: college students, the working poor, transient individuals and convicted criminals (the majority of whom, in America, are African-American).
And this is where Clinton evoked the "Jim Crow" comment, a comment intended to be sensational, but a comment which points to a painful truth: the GOP continues to champion efforts that limit minority engagement at the polls.
And of course there is hypocrisy here, given the Republican love-affair with the word "patriotism," for there could be no less patriotic act than taking away the freedoms for which our veterans have historically fought.
But the hypocrisy runs deeper, for at a time when so many Republican leaders take political pot-shots at Obama for not being more forceful in championing the democratic revolutions underway in the Middle East, said leaders turn around and try to staunch our own democracy.
Yes, there is a democratic revolution underway, all right. And it's here, at home. Being led by the GOP. Not to further our democracy.
But to cheapen it.