Civil & Human Rights

Happy birthday Medicare

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social
Security Amendments establishing Medicare and Medicaid. The guest of
honor at the signing ceremony was former President Harry S. Truman, who
fought for most of his political career to achieve this goal. (h/t Daily Kos for photo).

Johnson

LBJ signs Medicare into law, with Harry S. Truman watching.

Congressman John Conyers, Jr. penned an op-ed for The Hill today, Happy 48th birthday, Medicare:

As I reflect on my 48 years in Congress, at the positive policies
created and those that have had not so positive effects, the enactment
of Medicare is a bold highlight.

I voted for its original passage out of the House during my first
summer as a congressman, during a time that was very different from the
America of today. Prior to Medicare’s creation, only half of older
adults had health insurance, with coverage often unavailable or
unaffordable to the other half because of limited incomes and policies
that cost nearly three times as much for the elderly than the young.

Medicare’s positive impact was more than just extending medical
coverage to more than 19 million elderly citizens in its first year. A
significant requirement of its implementation was provider compliance
with Title VI of the then recently passed Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Almost overnight, this requirement effectively brought an end to segregation in hospitals.

I’m shocked! (not) – GOP won’t fix the Voting Rights Act

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Neo-Confederate "states' rights" GOP that still clings to its racially polarizing Southern strategy of appealing to the racism of white voters to win elections is going to prevent any fixes to the Voting Rights Act. I'm shocked! (not).

Sahil Kapur reports at Talking Points Memo, The GOP Won’t Let Congress Fix The Voting Rights Act:

Ever since the Supreme Court gutted
a centerpiece of the Voting Rights Act and threw it back in Congress’s
lap, lawmakers in both parties have engaged in happy talk about the
prospects of patching the provision used to proactively snuff out voter discrimination against minorities in the state and local governments where it’s most prevalent.

But it’s looking less and less likely that a fix will be agreed to
because Republicans have little to gain and a lot to lose politically if
they cooperate.

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said late last week, according to Roll Call.

(Update) The face of voter suppression in Arizona

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

2305hb11Senator Michele Reagan (R-Scottsdale) is the sponsor of the Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305, and has filed her own committee to defend her Voter Suppression Act, the purposefully misleadingly named Protect Our Secret Ballot committee (HB 2305 has nothing at all to do with secret ballots). The face of voter suppression in Arizona.

It turns out that more Tea-Publicans want in on the action suppressing voters in Arizona. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Elections
law supporters start second committee to defend it:


The referendum effort against the state’s
controversial new election law is now facing a two-pronged opposition,
as a second political action committee filed paperwork this week to
fight the referendum.

The new committee, Stop Voter Fraud, is headed up by a former staffer
for Jonathan Paton’s 2012 failed congressional campaign, Robert Mayer,
and Arizona GOP counsel Lee Miller. The group seeks to defend sweeping
changes to the state’s election laws that were adopted in the last
session.

Sen. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, who sponsored several provisions
of the bill that was ultimately signed into law, is chairing another
committee, Protect Our Secret Ballot.

Miller confirmed that he and Mayer created the new committee over
differences among the law’s defenders about potential strategy.

(Update) GOP voter suppression in North Carolina

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

David Firestone at the New York Times delivers a damning critique of GOP voter suppression in North Carolina, in a case of "Tea-Publicans Gone Wild." North Carolina: First in Voter Suppression:

[A]s yesterday’s events in the state capital showed, one thing is
making a comeback: an old habit of suppressing the votes of minorities,
young people and the poor, all in the hopes of preserving Republican
power.

Freed of federal election supervision by the Supreme Court, the North
Carolina legislature passed a bill that combines every idea for
suppressing voter turnout that Republicans have advanced in other
states. Rick Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of
California, Irvine, called it “the most sweeping anti-voter law in at least decades.”

The law requires a government-issued photo ID card to vote, but doesn’t
allow student IDs, public-employee IDs, or photo IDs issued by public
assistance agencies. It shortens the early voting window, bans same-day
registration during early voting and prohibits paid voter registration
drives. Counties will not be able to extend voting hours in cases of
long lines, or allow provisional voting if someone arrives at the wrong
precinct. Poll “observers” are encouraged to challenge people who show
up to vote, and are given new powers to do so. [This would be the Tea Party True The Vote voter intimidation organization.]