Text 16109, 91 rader
Skriven 2005-10-31 16:26:36 av Alan Hess
Ärende: Repubs vs. the vote
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It appears Republicans are against getting Americans to vote.  
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.tucker31oct31,1,6962054.s
tory?coll=bal-oped-headlines
House bill takes aim at minority voters


By Cynthia Tucker

October 31, 2005

ATLANTA // An ugly bit of business transpired recently in the GOP-dominated
House of Representatives, where Republican hard-liners succeeded in passing a
measure that would limit the ability of nonprofit groups to conduct voter
registration drives.

It was one of those moments when you don't have to wonder what the Islamic
radical faction of the GOP is up to: They want to restrict the franchise to
people who think as they do.

Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and veteran of the civil rights movement,
said the measure would "take us back to 1964 or 1965. I just think they
[Republicans] want to be in a position to stifle the participation of poor
people and minorities in the political process. They want to take us back to
another period."

This heavy-handed step was of a piece with other Republican efforts to place
obstacles in the way of voters they fear might favor Democrats. In Georgia, the
GOP-dominated legislature passed a law this year requiring all voters to have a
state-sponsored photo ID, such as a driver's license. Fortunately, a federal
court has ruled the law an unconstitutional impediment to voting.

In South Dakota, Republican legislators were more successful with their onerous
voter ID requirement, passed in 2003 and apparently aimed at Native Americans,
who also tend to support Democrats. Last year, though, two Republican senators,
Christopher S. Bond of Missouri and Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, failed in
their attempt to sneak a provision into law that would have prohibited public
housing sites from hosting voter registration initiatives and get-out-the-vote
drives.

The recent partisan power play took the form of an amendment tacked onto
legislation intended to increase regulatory oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, the mortgage financing companies recently plagued by accounting scandals.
The House bill included a sorely needed provision to create a fund for
affordable housing, prompted by calls for federal aid to rebuild the Gulf Coast
after Hurricane Katrina.

But to placate an ultraconservative group called the Republican Study
Committee, an amendment was added that prohibits any nonprofit group from
receiving any of the federal affordable housing funds if it has conducted a
voter registration campaign in the past year, even if it has used its own funds
to do so.

This is not a poll tax; this is a poll ax. If this measure becomes law - the
Senate has not acted on it - it will penalize countless organizations,
including churches, that have run voter registration drives and also built
high-rises for the elderly and low-cost apartment complexes.

Republicans seem to think that residents of low-cost housing, especially black
and brown residents, have a tendency - one they find troubling - to vote
Democratic. You'd think the GOP would find a way to appeal to those voters. But
that would require the party to forsake its allegiance to big business and the
wealthy. So, instead, it has decided to try to suppress the vote among citizens
of color.

Among the more than 600 nonprofits that protested the amendment was Catholic
Charities USA. "Nonprofits with expertise in housing should not have to choose
between two equally important missions: supporting full participation in our
democracy and providing affordable housing," the Rev. Larry Snyder, president
of the group, said in a letter to House GOP leaders.

GOP backers of the amendment say all they're trying to do is make sure that
federal funds are not used to support partisan political activities. There's
just one problem: That's already illegal.

Given the apathy so many Americans show toward the franchise, you'd think our
political leaders would be doing everything possible to encourage more citizens
to vote. As Mr. Lewis put it, "We go around the world telling people to
participate in the political process." Isn't that exactly what we should be
telling people - all the people, regardless of color or class or political
affiliation - here at home?

Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor of The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. Her column appears Mondays in The Sun. Her e-mail address
is cynthia@ajc.com.

Copyright + 2005, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery

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