Voting Rights Act

Bill Clinton Reminds Us About “Jim Crow” Voting Restrictions On Blacks, Warns Against Them Returning!

Former President Bill Clinton has made a major speech criticizing Republican Governors and legislatures passing restrictions on voting rights, comparing them to the old “Jim Crow” restrictions that ruled the South for nearly one hundred years until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The new restrictions being promoted and put into law with the backing of Florida Governor Rick Scott, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and many other Republican Governors would require drivers license ID cards to vote, shorten hours and days of early voting, require college students to vote at home instead of where they live, and restrict felons who have completed their obligation to society from being able to cast their vote. The theory is that these states are trying to prevent voter fraud, which in reality, is a very slight problem historically!

This is all designed to harm groups–African Americans, Latinos, the young, and the poor–who are perceived as likely to vote for Democrats.

Clinton reminding us of “Jim Crow” should lead to law suits to stop this new limitation and discrimination of the right to vote, something supposedly overcome by Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s as part of his Great Society.

Somehow, we seem to repeat history’s mistakes over and over again!

Republican State Governments Trying To Destroy Voting Rights Of Those Likely To Vote For Democratic Party In 2012

In thirty two states, where the legislature is majority Republican, legislation is being sponsored to destroy the voting rights of those likely to vote for the Democratic Party and its candidates in 2012.

College students have always had the right to vote where they attend college, but many states are now working to require residency of the student or their parents, or else no chance to vote in the college town.

New ID card requirements are being imposed, which African Americans, Latinos and Hispanics, and poor people in general, are less likely to possess, with their suspicion of government as great as it is already.

The move to end same day registration is another method being used to cut down the voting population.

Florida is now requiring a five year wait before former felons, who have met all requirements of their sentence, can even ask for the return of the right to vote.

The concept of the right to vote has been fought over the past two centuries, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was supposed to guarantee that no one would be denied that right, but conservatives are working very hard to fix the elections of the future by interfering with that basic human right!

It is not enough that corporations have no limit anymore on contributions to Republicans!

It is not enough that Republican Governors are destroying the rights of public workers by destroying collective bargaining!

It is not enough that Republicans are striking out against the interests of the poor, the sick, the elderly, the young, women, ethnic minorities, and on the issues of the environment, health care and education!

Nothing is enough, as the Republican Party works to make this nation a country dominated by the rich and the corporations FOR the rich and the corporations, and to hell with the interests of the rest of us!