Voter ID: now, here’s a profile in courage
Sort of, anyway.
In this article Artur Davis, former Democratic Congressman from the 7th District of Alabama and an African-American, recognizes that voter ID laws can be good and are not inherently racist when well-drafted.
So, better late than never, Mr. Davis! He starts his piece with an unusually forthright declaration and admission, which fits right in with the theme of this blog:
I’ve changed my mind on voter ID laws — I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one — and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.
You can see why I’m choosing to highlight Davis’s article. He goes on to write:
When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation.
Davis then goes on to explain how the Alabama law has provisions that protect potential voters (such as the elderly, who don’t drive) from being unfairly shut out of the registration process. Davis adds that he’s been disappointed to hear Bill Clinton, a president he admires (Davis is still a Democrat, after all), “compare voter ID to Jim Crow, and it is chilling to see the intimidation tactics brought to bear on African American, Democratic legislators in Rhode Island who had the nerve to support a voter ID law in that very liberal state.”
If Davis keeps paying attention, he may discover a lot more out there that’s chilling—and a large proportion of his cold shudder will be engendered by the actions of his own party.
This is good news. I hope that more people will examine thoughtfully positions that have been unjustly called racist. It doesn’t take much common sense to see the holes in the arguments, if one can be objective and look and listen beyond the hysterical hype.
voter ID laws can be good and are not inherently racist when well-drafted
I don’t get it. How are voter ID laws racist under any circumstances? Do blacks drive? Yes. Do they have driver’s licenses? Yes. So … what’s the problem? Do they have utilities in their homes? Yes. Do they pay utility bills? Yes. So establishing identity and residency should be easy. (Don’t have an ID card? How exactly do you use a credit or debit card, or buy Sudafed, for that matter?)
It’s not as if the voter ID laws require prospective voters to show country club membership cards, or trust fund statements, or DAR membership cards.
And the point about the elderly does not support the racist contention either. White people become elderly too – little known fact. The passage of time is surprisingly color-blind.
Once again, let’s strip away the BS. The Dems oppose voter ID laws for one reason, and one reason only: such laws impede their efforts at electoral fraud, without which they’d lose a lot more races. Period.
Most states that have voter ID laws provide for free picture ID’s for non drivers.
Will Clarence Page write a column accusing Mr. Davis of not liking black people very much? Since Davis is a Democrat, I doubt it.
Every time I vote I insist that my voter registration card and my driver’s license be examined to verify I am legally allowed to vote in my precinct. It always rankles the old ladies and gents that I insist they formally acknowledge that I am a legal voter; but its my limited means of demonstrating that voting is a serious business that should be restricted to registered voters.
It’s sad what a transparent attempt opposition to voter ID it is to have illegals vote, and vote for democrats. That’s why it’s racist. If you are against Democrats, you are racist.
The thing is – that SHOULDN’T be courageous. How far we have sunk. That for him to have his own opinion is courageous.
Can’t wait to find out how many more petitions to get Obama on the ballot were fraudulent. I don’t care what party or color you are, that should offend you, that they cheated to such an extent. On top of the dead people ‘registering’ to vote and all the ACORN fraud.
Rose —
Paragraph 1 — yes.
Paragraph 2 — it is useful to bear in mind that integrity and honesty are unimportant. What is critical for the left-oriented ideologue is increasing the power of the pee cee collectivists and squashing the pretensions to power of the individualists, utterly regardless of the means employed.
I live in Alabama and it’s good to see Artur Davis come to this conclusion and have the cojones to stand up and speak out. But it could be a slap in the face of the democrat leadership who deserted him.
Arthur made a run at the democrat nomination for governor in the last election. The democrat machine led by black legislators in the state defeated Arthur because of his “opposition to the president’s health-care legislation as a blatant attempt to pander to white voters.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/06/04/fallen-star.html
Whatever his reasons for making the statement – Good for him.
Yep, MJR, they are ‘ends-justifies-the-means’ and scorched earth all the way.
Here’s what Jesse Jackson said about Arthur.
“We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill from Alabama,” Jesse Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
“Jackson said later that he “didn’t call anybody by name and I won’t.”
“Davis, who is running for governor, is the only black member of Congress from Alabama. ”
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/68451-jackson-you-cant-vote-against-healthcare-and-call-yourself-a-black-man
Mr. Frank Says:
October 22nd, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Pennsylvania doesn’t have a voter ID law, but it has had that exact system in place for years. If you don’t drive, you can get a state ID card which is almost identical to a driver’s license.
Occam’s Beard Says:
October 22nd, 2011 at 4:49 pm
AHA! So it is all about race. I denounce thee. 🙂
I ran across this article at RealClearPolitics and thought of you and a few of my friends… who have apparently drifted to the right now that Obama has yanked the center so far to the left 🙂 Nice to see that it is better late than never… up until it’s simply too late.
Cheers
You have to have an “official” photo ID to fly via the airlines, n’est-ce pas? What’s the problem? All states have provisions for official ID’s for non-drivers.
I would think that all the community organizers, flush with “walkin’ around money”, would be happy to see that all the poor, or elderly, or illiterate voters were able to get an ID. Don’t they want their legitimate citizens to vote or are they happier just digging up the zombie vote?
Even some liberals are admitting their attacks are sometimes unfair (can I suggest, ummmm, unprincipled?). This New York Times writer, f’rinstance:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/opinion/nocera-the-ugliness-all-started-with-bork.html?_r=2
“The next time a liberal asks why Republicans are so intransigent, you might suggest that the answer lies in the mirror.”
For many years I didn’t own a car, but I had to pay for a driver’s license to do various things, including cashing checks and getting into clubs. I still know many inner-city folks who don’t have a photo ID except for work: They ride the bus to jobs in the suburbs. If there was a program to get them picture IDs for nothing, they’d jump at it.
I think Dems care less and less about black votes. I’ve been getting the sinking feeling that the Democrats are willing to abandon black voters if they successfully court Hispanics, legal or otherwise. Open-borders groups like LARAZA have moved in from the fringe and talk openly about immigrants having “access” not just to services but also politics without having citizenship. In the last week, I’ve read/heard calls to eliminate the electoral college, which would greatly reduce the voting power of not only rural areas but also black Americans as a voting bloc. One was by Democrats in California.
I have to admit I swipe a copy of the NYT’s Tuesday Science section when I can (I’d never pay, mind you), because, by and large, it’s liberal writers often don’t (or forget) to throw in a rant. However, I’m always braced for that first article about heart transplants or whatever to throw in a random aside about rising sea levels and dying polar bears or how Muslims have an extensive history of scientific achievement.
Same goes for TV, I used to watch 30 Rock when it started when I was much more liberally-opinionated. But as I became educated politically, even though most of the show was still palatable, the predictable slams on conservatives grew grating (and I’m guessing more frequent) over time.
I hadn’t seen this article. It’s great. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen it mentioned in the local press–I also live in Alabama and am really, really sorry that the Democrats ran off Artur Davis. I usually vote Republican but if he had been the Dem nominee for gov I would have voted for him. He won me over completely with a statement about race that he made during the campaign. Someone asked him whether racism would be an obstacle, etc., and he replied something to the effect that there were probably about 30% of white people who would vote against him because of race, and probably about 30% of black people who would vote for him because of race, and he was going to make his case to the others. I hope he’ll come back home again and get back into politics.