Warren Rojas at Roll Call reported some encouraging news yesterday.
Jason Thigpen, a rookie Republican candidate for the U.S. House in North Carolina, is swimming against the GOP tide. He is describing the state’s new voter suppression law — passed on party lines by a super-majority Republican legislature and signed by the state’s new Republican Governor — for what it is: a “turd” meant to keep legal voters (certain ones, the ones who tend to vote for Democrats) from casting their legal vote.
He’s also been able to see through the GOP/Fox “News” smokescreen about the facts in regard to in-person impersonation polling place voter fraud, namely, that it is virtually non-existent.
We’ve called NC’s new law the worst voter suppression law since the Jim Crow era. But Thigpen, described as a “political newcomer looking to unseat Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC)” in next year’s primary, was even far more direct than that…
…
“This is 2013 and any legislator that puts forth such a discriminatory bill should be laughed out of office. This is America, not Russia,†Thigpen argued.
Nice. Though, Thigpen may have gotten some blowback, since, as Rojas reports, “His opposition…appears to be more technical than purely ideological,” according to a response he offered to online followers in another thread:
But, he made up for all of that, in our opinion, when Rojas spoke to him directly…
That uncertainty and the nature of the new rules — “After the Supreme Court (with only one African American Justice) ruling in June, that crippled the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina appeared to be in a virtual race to see which state could ‘roll-back’ the most sweeping reforms against its voters,†Thigpen posited in his Facebook posts — gave the candidate pause.
It also made him angry enough to compare local pols to the Taliban (“Next thing you know, they’ll be proposing bills where women can only speak when spoken to and walk 10-paces behind their husband in public.â€) and incompetent surgeons (“The passing of this horrendous legislation is like a person going to the doctor with a broken ankle and the doctor amputating their leg to fix it.â€).
And he doesn’t want to be party to any of that.
“If you believe in your message you inspire people to get out and vote rather than telling them they cannot vote,†Thigpen stated.
He expounded on that in his follow-up with HOH, while also saying the GOP’s claims of addressing voter fraud are unfounded. “Let’s broaden the base of voters by engaging them and educating them on the importance and need to become involved by voting rather than inhibiting or disenfranchising them from the process. Considering there is no empirical evidence of voter fraud to suggest such a change, that shouldn’t be used as a position to frame an argument. And again, what does voter ID have to do with reducing the number of days for early voting from 17 days to 10 days?â€
So, that’s two. Two Republicans — elected or running for office (the other is Wisconsin’s James Sensenbrenner) — we can name who are speaking out on almost the right side of the issue, the side that favors democracy.
[Hat-tip Rick Hasen of ELB.]
Hello Brad Friedman,
Wow! Two Republican elected/running for office from the total Republican officials are speaking out. Percentage wise you stand a better chance of being hit by a meteorite then finding more Republicans willing to speak out against the new jim crow laws.
Perhaps this guy should team up with Colin Powell.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/colin-powell-north-carolina-voting-law-95813.html
Themselves, they would form the entire “not insane” wing of the Republican Party.
Geez Brad,
Do me a favor and consider this statement from Sensebrenner from just last week on the Texas Photo Voter ID.
– http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=346539
“I regret that the Department of Justice announced its intent to file a lawsuit against Texas’ Voter ID law citing Section 2 to the Voting Rights Act. The Texas legislature passed Voter ID, and Governor Perry signed this legislation into law in 2011. Voter ID laws are an essential element in protecting the integrity of our electoral process and do not have a discriminatory intent or effect.” (But he’s a Voting Rights champion, just ask him. This line of crap has been peddled since at least 2009 by Diana Marrero of the GOP’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Why are you and other excellent writers so invested in portraying Sensenbrenner as a voting rights advocate?
In the face of Sensenbrenner’s refusal to support the mega Voting Rights Act — the Mark Pocan-Keith Ellison proposed Right-to-Vote constitutional amendment no less?
I just don’t get it, man.
Mike
Some of the unfathomable dynamics lie in deeper, darker waters.
So, we tend to have trouble with them:
(Dr. George Lakoff). Word magic anyone?
Dredd, Re comment 4; this is not a matter of framing.
This is simply the fact that repulsive human garbage is posing as a voting rights champion and too many are playing along. Need I remind you of the people that gave their very lives in this struggle?
Mal,
Obviously you haven’t read Dr. Lakoff. All cognition is framing.
Political, propaganda “framing” is manipulation.
Psychological framing is another thing altogether, but it is always real:
(Link in my comment up-thread). Get up to speed.
Mal @ 3 –
Your point is well taken. Sensenbrenner, as he has been on so many other things (as I noted quite clearly in my original article thanking him for his support of restoring the VRA) is absolutely wrong about the legalities of Photo ID. I hope we’ll have an article here soon pointing out just how wrong he is.
That said, I don’t believe I’ve ever described him as a “voting rights advocate”. I lauded him as a great support of the Voting Rights Act, which he, indeed is. Aside from my original article, linked above, he further went on to say at this week’s RNC commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the “March on Washington”:
If the VRA is to ever be restored — and it must be — it will take Congress to do it. And, to do that, at least some Republicans will have to be on board. Given Sensenbrenner oversaw the 2006 25-year re-authorization (with a Republican House, nonetheless!), and given he still has the courage to speak out on this, and call for his fellow “usual suspects” to do the right thing, I am happy to laud those efforts.
Hope that answers your concern and, yes, your valid point!
A new report confirms Sensenbrenner declined the invitation to speak at the MLK event marking the 50th anniversary, like every other GOP politico.
Yes, he spoke the words cited at the GOP event.
In 2005-06, he followed the Democrats and allowed the VRA to become law, at no political risk. It passed 98-0 in the Senate and 390-33 in the House. Gary May’s new book also places Sensenbrenner on the right side of the issue, along with 389 of his House colleagues in 2005-06.
So what’s the point today of lip service?
Even Reince Priebus has mouthed the words; and both remain hostile to the Voting Rights Constitutional Amendment and both support state photo voter ID with obstruction as the objective.
While ‘Dredd’ may deny the relevancy of facts and evidence to a rational conclusion, the facts remain that Sensenbrenner and the GOP remain hostile to the wrong people voting.
As for the VRA, the GOP will not allow Section 4 to be rewritten and passed into law in any manner that actually “codifies and effectuates the 15th Amendment’s permanent guarantee that, throughout the nation, no person shall be denied the right to vote on account of race or color,” which is the point.
Now, we would need a drafting, a Discharge petition, and then the votes to defeat a GOP filibuster in the Senate for the VRA to become law.
It’s dead. The VRA (Section 4) is not going to rewritten, and voting rights will remain under attack by Sensenbrenner and the GOP.
My point is we should hold Sensenbrenner and GOP accountable for “compelling evidence of continuing interference with attempts by African American citizens to exercise their right to vote.”
The fix would be easy, the mega Voting Rights Act called the Right to Vote amendment which would render photo voter ids unconstitutional, and arguably displace the need for the VRA itself.
As you know, Sensenbrenner and the GOP will never support it. If it were in the GOP’s power, they would repeal the 15th Amendment.