Civil & Human Rights

President Obama on Voting Rights at the National Action Network Convention

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President Obama addressed the National Action Network Convention on the issue of voting rights in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, and the wave of GOP voter suppression laws that it has unleashed. Obama denounces apathy — and Republican- supported voter ID laws:

President Obama on Friday continued to denounce voter apathy in a push to get more Democrats to the polls for midterm elections and blasted Republicans for passing laws he said make it harder to vote.

Addressing the annual convention of the National Action Network, a nonprofit group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Obama said people need to put aside distrust and frustration with politics and get to the polls.

“The number of people who voluntarily don’t vote dwarfs” the potential effect of any “laws that are put in place to diminish the voting rolls” might do, Obama told a cheering, fired-up crowd of 1,600 at a Manhattan hotel. “We can’t use cynicism as an excuse not to participate.”

Obama also continued hammering a theme he first raised at a Houston fundraiser this week: that Republicans are trying to keep people away from the polls.

“This recent effort to restrict the vote has not been led by both parties. It’s been led by the Republican Party,” Obama said. “If your strategy depends on having fewer people showing up to vote, that’s not a sign of strength. That’s a sign of weakness. And not only it is ultimately bad politics, ultimately it is bad for the country.”

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Is the Civil Rights Act on the Roberts Court hit list?

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Last year, the “Felonious Five” conservative activist justices of the Roberts Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most important pieces of landmark legislation in U.S. history.

John Blake at CNN takes a deep dive into the question, Has the Roberts court placed landmark 1964 civil rights law on a hit list? (excerpts, paragraphs reordered):

The act was first introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 amid bloody civil rights campaigns in places such as Birmingham, Alabama. After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson marshaled the sympathy generated by Kennedy’s death and the suffering of civil rights protesters to pass the bill after a bruising, yearlong legislative battle.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called the law “the child of a storm, the product of the most turbulent motion the nation has ever known in peacetime.”

The law, though, didn’t just help blacks. It explicitly banned discrimination against women, religious minorities, Latinos and even whites. It also served as a model for other anti-discrimination measures passed by Congress: the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

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President Obama at the Civil Rights Summit

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Lyndon_JohnsonI am deeply disappointed by the lack of media coverage in Arizona of the Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library this week in remembrance of the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the most important pieces of landmark legislation in U.S. history.

The CRA fundamentally transformed this country from one of state-sanctioned segregation and racial Apartheid, to a country that more fully resembles its national creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I suppose I should not be surprised by the lack of media coverage. Arizona conservative icon Sen. Barry Goldwater voted against the CRA (he had supported all previous civil rights acts), and ran an early version of the GOP Southern strategy of racial animosity and polarization in his campaign for president in 1964. Goldwater carried the core of the Old Confederacy (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana), and just barely won his home state of Arizona. That’s right, Arizona was aligned with the Old Confederacy, and in many disturbing ways remains so today, 50 years later.

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Horrid anti-choice bill passes, to little attention

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Well, at least Howie Fischer covered it.

Citing everything from protecting women’s health to God’s opposition to the procedure, state senators gave final approval Wednesday to legislation allowing unannounced warrantless inspection of abortion clinics.

The 17-13 party-line voice vote came after extensive debate about not just whether the law is needed but whether it is really designed to harass abortion providers and their patients. The House already has approved the measure, meaning it now goes to Gov. Jan Brewer.

Brewer said Wednesday she never comments on legislation until she sees it. The governor conceded to Capitol Media Services, though, she has signed every new abortion restriction ever sent to her.

“I am pro-life and I believe that we have done a good job in Arizona,” she said.

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Tea-Publicans in the Arizona Legislature cower before Cathi Herrod again

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6a00d8341bf80c53ef01910386dd8c970c-320wiCathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), and its legal arm ally the Alliance Defending Freedom, have once again convinced Tea-Publicans in the Arizona legislature to enact yet another unconstitutional and unlawful abortion regulation permitting unannounced warrantless inspections of abortion clinics for purposes of harassment and intimidation of abortion service providers and their patients. Arizona lawmakers OK plan for unannounced abortion clinic inspections:

[S]tate senators gave final approval to  HB 2284 Wednesday to allowing unannounced warrantless inspection of abortion clinics.

The 17-13 party-line voice vote came after extensive debate about not just whether the law is needed, but whether it is really designed to harass abortion providers and their patients.

The House previously approved the measure on a near party-line vote of 34-22-4, with Democratic Rep. Lydia Hernandez (LD 29) voting with the Tea-Publicans, and Republican Kate Brophy McGee (LD 28) voting no with the Democrats. The “mythical moderate Republicans,” including Rep. Ethan Orr (R-Tucson), voted for this unconstitutional CAP bill.

Once again, the state of Arizona will be pissing away your tax dollars to defend yet another unconstitutional and unlawful measure on behalf of the extremist agenda of the CAP.

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