Not on my Watch, Baby! --Lewis Black, comedian

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Voter Suppression Laws:

As Election Day draws near for 2014 the dirty tricks books are open, and an avalanche of rotten-to-the-core tactics are being yanked out of the pages by the handfuls. Actually, many of them were lifted and put into place about 2 years ago. Among them are myriad ways to stop people from voting. Not any people, mind you, but those who tend to vote for Democrats. And in particular, that means lower income voters, immigrants, and minorities. These are the people whose daily lives are consumed by the need to scratch out a living, by the need to feed their families, and by trying to find the money for paying their rent. More than 50 years ago psychologist Abraham Maslow described how these kinds of needs and activities had to be met before anyone would engage in the more cerebral civic duty known as voting. Common sense quickly confirmed that Maslow was correct in his investigations.

Yes, it is a fact that the Republican Party has been busy doing whatever it can to suppress the most sacred of all American rights—the right to vote. Their efforts are dishonest, disingenuous, and disgusting. I read that part about the right to vote in the pamphlets and other reading materials put out by the immigration service, now a part of Homeland Security. It would make a lot of sense to criminalize efforts to hinder anyone’s right to vote by putting up obstacle after obstacle in their path. Thus, in my opinion, the Republican Party is flirting with activities that suggest treason.

What have they done? In state after state with Republican legislatures and/or Republican governors, they have passed laws that have placed restrictions on absentee voting and early voting; they have put new and difficult to comply with registration requirements such as providing original birth certificates—even for those who have been voting for 50 or 60 years and who no longer have driver’s licenses, or their birth records long ago went up in flames. New laws requiring new voter ID cards also place unreasonable requirements for documents that are not easily accessible. Many elections these days are decided by 30 or 40 thousand votes. Make it difficult for 200 thousand Democrats to vote, and the election is yours, so the shoddy thinking goes.

Which states are guilty of these quasi-criminal activities? According to the New York University Law School’s Brennen Center for Justice, at least 180 restrictive bills have been introduced since the beginning of 2011 in 41 states. 27 restrictive bills currently are pending in 6 states. 25 laws and 2 executive actions passed since the beginning of 2011 in 19 states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin). 15 states have passed restrictive voting laws and executive actions that have the potential to impact the 2012 election (Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin). These states account for 203 electoral votes, or 75 percent of the total needed to win the presidency. Of these, restrictions from 18 laws and executive actions are currently in effect in 13 states (Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin). In the past two years, vetoes, referendums, court decisions, or the Department of Justice have blocked or blunted restrictive measures in 14 states (Arizona, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin). Note: this list does not include successful legislative victories such as those in Nebraska and other states.

Apparently the new Republican thinking goes like this: Forget about agreeing to disagree. Whenever we can win a majority in any legislative body, let us cram our ideology down the throats of all within our sphere of influence. If we can rig elections, let’s do it. If we can transfer all wealth to us and to our pals, let’s do it. If we can stop the wheels of government, let’s do it. We are backed by the wealthiest Americans, we virtually own the U.S. Supreme Court, and we can gerrymander voting districts far into the future to assure that it’s “our way or the highway” for decades to come.

Their strategy appears to be based on the old saying “money talks and bullshit walks.” While that is often true , we also know that they are doing their dirty work from an IQ deficit of about 12 points. And that means Democrats are way smarter than they are. And in the game of brains versus money, I’ll put my money on brains every time we get serious about something.