From Bill Clinton, talking to a group of college students about the relentless two-decade Republican effort to restrict voting among minorities, the young, and felons who have done their time and finished their probation:
One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time….There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today. Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they’ve paid their price? Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics who tended to vote for Democrats. That’s why.
Good for him for saying this so directly. The Republican push for “voter ID” laws that address no actual problem and are plainly designed solely to reduce voting among Democratic-leaning constituencies is one of its most disgraceful projects. And it’s not just the formal party apparatus either: the Supreme Court’s refusal to overturn these laws is one of the clearest indications we have of the nakedly partisan turn the court has taken in recent years. It’s shameful.
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