Freedom vs. the Cult of the GOP

Let's face it, there are really two reasons why Republicans want to put up significant obstacles to voting, The first is the obvious one that everyone knows: faced with an ever-shrinking demographic base, Republicans want to even the playing field by keeping Democratic voters away from the polls. If you ever doubted that one, then consider Texas' onerous voter ID law, which recognizes gun licenses as valid voter identification, but not a college ID card.

The second is similar, but more cultish. It's the Tea Party's rationalization for voter suppression. Like the first, this reasoning has it that too many Democrats vote, but this one tries to argue that making it harder to vote is a good thing, since then only the people who really want to vote will make it to the ballot box. These people worry about the "low information voter" (LIV), who -- if they only took the time to listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the Blessed Electronic Gospel Box -- would understand all and see the Starry Wisdom of the Tea Party Way. It's ironic, since the people who think this way are actually the LIVs they worry about. They're factually wrong about pretty much everything, but reject any disagreement as heresy and even as some sort of mental defect. In any case, the result of this cult-thinking is the same as that of the more reality-based suppressors' thinking -- weeding out Democratic voters. Only the reasoning behind the suppression effort is different.

Of course, there's a third reason and it's the stated reason: that democracy is at risk from voter fraud. But that's the excuse, it's not the reason why. When it comes down to why Republicans introduce laws to restrict voting, one of those two reasons are at the heart of it. Voter fraud is just the lie they tell as cover.

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GOP vs. the Voting Rights Act

You remember Rep. Trent Franks, right? He was the Arizona congress critter who decided America was ready to hear another completely insane Republican rape theory. You might also remember that he was wrong on that point. Turns out that Trent Franks is not the guy you turn to when you want to get the pulse of the American people.

Yesterday, the House held its first meeting on what to do about the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting RIghts Act and it was up to Franks to explain House Republicans' position:

If House Republicans are interested in patching the Voting Rights Act, they aren’t showing it.

“Historically I fully understand why they addressed the situations they did,” Republican Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, who chairs the House judiciary subcommittee that would handle new voting rights legislation, said to reporters after the hearing. “I am just of the opinion today that we should do as the court said and that is to not focus on punishing the past but on building a better future.”

The House GOP held their first hearing Thursday on how to handle the Voting Rights Act in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down Section 4 of the law. Section 4 determines which parts of the country must submit in advance their election law changes to the Justice Department, a process called “preclearance.” Republicans have criticized the Section 4 formula for being based on outdated information, even though when the Republican-held Congress in 2006 reauthorized the Voting Rights Act it looked at data showing that the jurisdictions affected by the formula were more likely to engage in discriminatory election practices. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, states formerly covered by the Section 4 formula have rushed to implement new voting restrictions.

Yes, let's not look at past behavior to determine which states are using racist voter supression techniques, let's use... Wait, what did he say we should use?

The answer would appear to be nothing.

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Roberts Court an Enabler in GOP's Self-Destruction

In writing for the majority in favor of gutting the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Chief Justice John Roberts' argument boiled down to one point; that "the conditions that originally justified" singling out nine southern states and portions of seven more for increased oversight in election laws no longer existed, so that oversight was obviously unnecessary. This "the tire's not flat anymore, so we can tear off the tire patch" reasoning probably didn't fool too many people. Even the most racist and/or committed to the Republican War on Voting could likely see that it was a rationalization, not a solid logical point. As is so often the case, conservatives came to the conclusion they wanted to all along, then made up an explanation that backed up that pre-determined conclusion. The only other explanation would be that the conservative minority on the Supreme Court was made up of very stupid people who have no idea how logic works. But these are -- allegedly -- America's top legal scholars, so that explanation seems unlikely.

No, five of our supposedly "unbiased" high court judges -- the Chief Justice among them -- are blatantly dishonest and hopelessly biased by rightwing talking points. Roberts had previously demonstrated this trait in this very case, citing bogus census numbers. So the Chief Justice had the same command of the facts as your average Rush Limbaugh listener. Go ahead and let that depressing notion sink in. Fellow justice Antonin Scalia called the provision of the VRA a "racial entitlement," as if protecting people's right to vote was some special favor the government did for people who don't happen to be white. Again, this an opinion you could get from just about any frothing and stupid talk radio zombie.

Underneath the unconvincing lies is the real reason for the decision -- to aid in the Republican War on Voting. Racist voter ID bills and gerrymandering plans that would nullify the non-white vote can now be launched without federal oversight and Texas got right to work doing exactly that. Roberts ripped the patch off and, to absolutely no one's surprise at all, the air immediately began rushing out of the hole.

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Romney Done In by Misplaced GOP Focus on Voter Suppression

There’s an Associated Press story out there today that may reinvigorate the Generals in the Republican War on Voting. It seems that a certain demographic got a little too excited about the 2012 election and, for all intents and purposes, choose the winner in the presidential race.

Associated Press: America’s blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.

Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.

Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year’s heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president.

We see these numbers despite the fact that the Brennan Center For Justice estimated that Republican voter suppression efforts would disenfranchise as many as five million voters in 2012. Unfortunately for the Grand Old Party, a few of their anti-democratic efforts to keep minority voters from the polls didn’t go as well as they’d hoped. In the swing state of Wisconsin, for example, a voter ID law was struck down as unconstitutional. In a damning ruling, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess wrote that the law was clearly about disenfranchising voters and that this was contemptible. "Voter fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression," he said.

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Why Republicans are Terrified -- And Why That Should Worry You

Last month, Nate Silver took a look at Republican chances to win a majority in the Senate. The verdict: maybe, but probably not. Of course, it really is hard to say with any certainty this far in advance, but this assessment does not say good things about the party overall. If all things were equal, Republicans would be the clear favorites. The vast majority of Senate seats being contested in 2014 are held by Democrats -- 21 of 35 -- meaning the Republican Party can use most of their resources working to gain seats, while Democrats will be forced to spend mostly on holding them. And out of all those 21, Republicans need a mere 6. In other words, they could lose all those races at a rate in the neighborhood of 3:1 and still come out on top -- but they probably won't even reach that paltry level of success.

Today Republicans get more 2014 bad news. Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg writes that Democrats will likely pick off a few governorships that cycle.

While the fight for the House of Representatives will take center stage next year, another battle could be almost as important for the two parties: control of a handful of big-state governorships.

Republicans like to point out that while they lost the presidency and seats in both chambers of Congress in 2012, their party continues to hold governorships in 30 states, including nine of the country’s 12 largest states.

But most of those governors — 23 to be exact — were elected in 2010, a great GOP year that doesn’t reflect the nation’s (or many states’) political fundamentals. (That number includes Utah’s Gary R. Herbert, who ran in a special election in 2010 and again in 2012.)

In congress, the big Tea Party wave turned into the one term Tea Party anomaly. And it's looking like that will likely hold true at the state level, as well. It's at this point that Democrats and liberals will need to pay close attention. You'll notice that these races where Republicans are expected to do poorly -- governorships and the senate -- are all statewide races. That means these races can't be rigged by gerrymandering. Not only is that why Republicans can expect to have a bad year, but it's why it's the year Republicans are most likely pull out the stops on dirty tricks to win elections. You see, if things turn out as predicted, the GOP will be royally screwed.

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