Andrew Cohen finally
catches up to what we've have been saying since forever in, among other places, the
War on Voters:
First, let's call it what it is. The burgeoning battles over state redistricting and voter ID laws — and the larger fight over a key part of the Voting Rights Act itself — are all cynical expressions of the concerns many conservatives (of both parties) have about the future of the American electorate. The Republican lawmakers who are leading the fight for the restrictive legislation say they are doing so in the name of stopping election fraud — and, really, who's in favor of election fraud? But the larger purpose and effect of the laws is to disenfranchise Hispanic voters, other minorities, and the poor — most of whom, let's also be clear, vote for Democrats.
Jonathan Chait, in a smart recent New York magazine piece titled "2012 or Never," offered some numbers supporting the theory. "Every year," Chait wrote, "the nonwhite proportion of the electorate grows by about half a percentage point — meaning that in every presidential election, the minority share of the vote increases by 2 percent, a huge amount in a closely divided country." This explains, for example, why Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona are turning purple instead of staying red. "By 2020," Chait writes, "nonwhite voters should rise from a quarter of the 2008 electorate to one third. In 30 years, "nonwhites will outnumber whites."
Which is why "whites," and especially white men, seem so determined this election cycle to make it harder for nonwhites to exercise their right to vote. The news from the front this week is telling. On Wednesday, in Pennsylvania, GOP Governor Tom Corbett raced to sign a bill that requires photo identification of voters. The day before, in Texas, GOP Attorney General Greg Abbott amended the Lone Star State's complaint against the federal government to seek to strike down the pre-clearance section of the Voting Rights Act, which had in turn been used by the Justice Department to block Texas' recent efforts at a stringent new voter-ID law.
In Wisconsin, meanwhile, a state court judge on Monday blocked the state's new voter ID law, ruling that it unconstitutionally created a new (and lower) class of citizen-voter. Even the Human Rights Council of the United Nations has been dragged into the controversy, by the NAACP, to the great consternation of conservative bloggers and conspiracy theorists. It's all happening because lawmakers are dissatisfied with less onerous identification requirements — like those just enacted in Virginia — which allow registered voters to produce a wide range of documentation to establish that they are who they say they are. [...]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:
In Florida, it was the logistics, in Michigan it's apparently legislative roadblocks. Either way, Michigan and Florida will rightly pay the price for breaking the rules. At this point, I hope everyone agrees to seat their delegations, split 50/50 as to give no candidate an advantage for their sham contests.
While Howard Dean has gotten a lot of bile thrown his way for this, he has in fact shown great leadership.
To me, this was never about Obama or Clinton. It was about breaking the stranglehold that Iowa and New Hampshire have enjoyed at the top of the nominating calendar for far too long.
In short, if the DNC cannot enforce its rules and its calendar, then there's no way in hell we'll ever keep Iowa and New Hampshire in check. No matter what calendar the DNC created, Iowa and New Hampshire would move up their contests. And candidates, fearful that the states would ultimately be counted, would be forced to campaign in those states.
So the message had to be sent, no matter how unpopular, that the DNC calendar was sacrosant, and that its rules would be enforced. That message has now been sent.
Florida and Michigan played a valued role in this battle, proving they would risk their representation in order to demand a say in our nominee. It was a gamble that didn't pay off, obviously, and there's great irony in the fact that a later primary would've made them that much more influential this cycle.
Tweet of the Day:
He's still ahead, but Romney's looking kind of glum lately, like someone burned his sled.
— @MJMcKean via Twittelator
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