Civil & Human Rights

Ornstein: time for a new Voting Rights Act

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Political scientist and high priest of Beltway centrism, Norman Ornstein, has an important opinion in the Washington Post today advocating for A new Voting Rights Act (posted in full):

Imagine an intersection with a long history of high-speed car
crashes, injuries and fatalities. Authorities put up a traffic light and
a speed camera — and the accidents and injuries plummet. A few years
later, authorities declare “mission accomplished” and remove the light
and speed camera. No surprise, the high-speed crashes and fatalities
resume almost immediately.

This is the logic that animated Chief Justice John Roberts’s decision to fillet the Voting Rights Act and that had conservative pundits, including George F. Will, praising the act as they simultaneously exulted in its demise. The predictable result took less than a day: Texas reinstated its racially tilted gerrymandered redistricting plan and moved to implement its highly restrictive voter ID law,
under which voters can be required to travel as far as 250 miles to get
identification. The real intent, voter suppression, is clear in the
legislation’s provision that a concealed-weapon permit can be used to
vote but a valid student photo ID cannot.

North Carolina
has moved to follow with its own restrictive voter ID law. Other states
and localities surely will do the same. With expensive, slow and
complex lawsuits the only real recourse for voter discrimination and
voter suppression actions, the floodgates are open to an array of legal
efforts designed to suppress or diminish the votes of minorities,
students and others.

As Roberts undoubtedly knew, the chances are
slim that our highly polarized Congress can reach agreement on a new
formula for the Voting Rights Act (even if lawmakers did, the Roberts
court may not accept it). But the decision in Shelby County v. Holder
should serve as a springboard to something more ambitious: a drive for a
new Voting Rights Act that would go beyond the scope of the original to
make voting more universal and accessible to all eligible Americans.

The right to vote is sacrosanct – now defend your right to vote

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

2305hb11Petitions for the referendum (citizens veto) to block the Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305, are circulating throughout the state. You can sign the petition at your County Democratic Party offices, and you can also pick up a petition to gather signatures.

For more information here in Pima County please call Shasta McManus, Executive Director of the Pima County Democratic Party, at 520-326-3716 or you can pick up petitions at 4639 E 1st St. in Tucson. In Cochise County please call Pat Fleming, Chair of the Cochise County Democratic Committee, at 520-249-5228. You can also call Barbara Lubin with the Arizona Democratic Party at 602-234-6800 and pick up petitions at 2910 N. Central Ave. in Phoenix.

Below is a letter from Arizona Democratic Party Chair, Bill Roe:

Voter ID on trial in Pennsylvania

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The attempt by Pennsylvania Republicans to use voter ID to suppress Democratic voter turnout in the 2012 election was thwarted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which enjoined the new voter ID rules for the 2012 election. The case has now proceeded to trial on the merits.

The Huffington Post has a reporter, Saki Knafo, covering the trial. Voter ID Trial Opens In Pennsylvania – Huffington Post:

On the first day of a
voter
ID trial in Pennsylvania on Monday, the liberal-leaning
plaintiffs got a boost from an improbable ally — a voter who called
former Republican presidential candidate John McCain "my man"
and noted she herself had twice been elected to a local office on the
Republican ticket.

Marian Baker was one of two witnesses who offered videotaped
testimony to start
a trial that will determine the constitutionality of
Pennsylvania's voter ID law, a subject of controversy since it was
passed last spring by a Republican legislature and governor. The law,
blocked by the state Supreme Court until the trial reviews its
constitutionality, requires voters to present photo identification at
the polls.

A grandmother of eight who lives in Reading, Pa., Baker testified
that the law caused her to recently miss an election for the first
time since 1960. Under the new law, she said, she would have to get a
special state-approved photo ID at a drivers' license center, where
lines often stretch down the block. (Her driver’s license recently
expired.)

"I'm never going to be able to go there and stand," she
said, alluding to medical complications that have impaired her
ability to get around.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s speech to the NAACP convention

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the annual convention of the NAACP on Tuesday, and in the wake of the George Zimmerman trial in Florida, he addressed the legitimate concerns of African-Americans that simply being a black male in America renders them a "criminal suspect." Attorney General Eric Holder denounces ‘stand your ground’ laws:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. strongly condemned “stand your
ground” laws Tuesday, saying the measures “senselessly expand the
concept of self-defense” and may encourage “violent situations to
escalate.”

* * *

“These laws try to fix something that was never broken,” Holder told cheering delegates of the annual convention of the NAACP,
which is pressing him to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman.
“The list of resulting tragedies is long and, unfortunately, has
victimized too many who are innocent.”

The attorney general, who
is the first African American ever to hold that position, drew parallels
between his own life and the claims of many here that Zimmerman
racially profiled Martin after spotting the teenager walking through his
father’s neighborhood in a hooded sweatshirt. Martin was African
American. Zimmerman’s father is white, his mother Peruvian.

Holder
recalled being pulled over twice by police on the New Jersey Turnpike
as a young man and having his car searched, “when I’m sure I wasn’t
speeding.” Another time, he said, he was stopped by law enforcement in
Georgetown while simply running to catch a movie after dark.

Questions for Martha McSally: What is your position on same-sex marriage?

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Blog for Arizona's Pamela Powers Hannley wrote a richly detailed post about Martha McSally in October 2012, after McSally avoided giving her an interview that she had scheduled with her campaign. Martha McSally: Warrior woman hides from questions, constituents, inconsistencies.

As I recall, Pamela was criticized for her reporting on McSally's annulment of marriage in Santa Cruz County, and "Rumor has it that McSally and Henry had a sham marriage of convenience." And then there was this:

There are multiple rumors on the Internet about McSally being a Lesbian. I don't care if she is gay and is in the closet. I do care
if she had a sham marriage to avoid being outed– since Don't Ask Don't
Tell was in full swing in the late 1990s. I also care about this issue
because McSally's rhetoric is decidedly anti-gay— particularly
when it comes to gay marrriage– yet another "cookie cutter" Republican
issue. Is McSally another one of those Republicans who talks loudly
against gays and then turns out to be one?

I for one do not care what a person's sexual preference is, but I do care if a candidate for office is "pulling a Mehlman."