FollowUp 8: Voting Rights

Florida has been in the headlines recently, with Governor Rick Scott ordering a purge of thousands of registered voters from the rolls.  The New York Times Editorial Board weighed in against this blatant attack on Democratic voters.

They have cut back on early voting, tried to stamp out registration drives, and imposed onerous identification requirements. (A federal judge reinstated the registration drives on Thursday.) Now, hoping to gain a new edge, Gov. Rick Scott is trying to clear voter rolls of noncitizens, a menace that only he and a few other Republican governors have been able to detect.

Last year, Mr. Scott ordered the state’s elections division to compare the rolls to the federal Homeland Security Department’s immigration database, a request the federal government sensibly refused. Then, a few weeks ago, the state pressed the Department of Motor Vehicles into comparing the voter rolls to its list of driver’s licenses, which often has out-of-date citizenship information. It came up with nearly 2,700 voters considered suspicious and sent them letters demanding that they produce proof of citizenship within 30 days if they wanted to vote.

The Miami Herald explored the data and found that it is discriminatory.

Miami-Dade is the state’s most-populous county and has the largest foreign-born population. As a result, its residents are most likely to be flagged in a sweep of potential noncitizens.

Hispanics are the state’s largest immigrant group. As a result, they account for 58 percent of those flagged as potential noncitizens, a Miami Herald analysis found. Hispanics make up 13 percent of the state’s 11.3 million active registered voters.

Independent voters and Democrats are the most likely to face being purged from rolls. Republicans and non-Hispanic whites — the backbone of the Republican Party — are the least likely to face removal.

The Justice Department has stepped in.

The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered Florida to halt its effort to purge noncitizens from the voter rolls.

The Justice Department says that Florida's effort appears to violate both the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which governs voter purges.

But, Republicans in Florida are determined to continue, despite opposition in every county.

Despite the warning, [Florida Secretary of State] Detzner's representative said on Saturday the state intends to go forward with its campaign. "We have a year-round obligation to ensure the integrity of Florida's elections. We will be responding to (the Justice Department's) concerns next week," Chris Cate wrote in an email to Reuters.

While Florida's state officials continue to champion the plan, its 67 county election supervisors said Friday they will discontinue the effort to purge voters.

Vicki Davis, a Martin County elections supervisor who is also president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, told the Palm Beach Post they believe the state data is flawed and that they intend to heed the Justice Department's warning. "There are just too many variables with this entire process at this time for supervisors to continue," Davis said.

Florida is too close for the Republicans to risk a fair election.  This is far from the only place where dirty tricks may sway elections.  Tuesday's recall election in Wisconsin will feature Republican attempts to prevent fraud at predominately Democratic voting locations.

[Wisconsin] Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen plans to dispatch criminal investigators and lawyers to the polls during Tuesday's recall elections to discourage fraud.

Van Hollen, a Republican, plans to deploy teams of special agents and assistant attorney generals across the state, including dispersing seven groups to the polls in Democratic-leaning Milwaukee. He said the agents and attorneys will help local election officials ensure voters comply with state election laws.

When there is real voter fraud, it must be stopped.  Being a minority or not having a driver's license or birth certificate does not constitute fraud.  These attempts to prevent American citizens from voting, these dirty tricks, are unAmerican.

3 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings article.
14 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
22 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
6 November, FollowUp 3.
14 November 2011, FollowUp 4.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 5.
8 March 2012, FollowUp 6.
2 April 2012, FollowUp 7.

FollowUp 22: Wisconsin Republican Dirty Tricks

On Thursday 5 April 2012, as many of us were preparing for significant religious holidays, Governor Walker quietly signed about fifty bills into law.  Some of these bills are ideas that I can support, such as SB 547 [that] allows school busses to be equipped with a supplemental mirror system to enhance visibility of the driver.  But there are a number that one would not expect so soon before an election.

·         SB 237 was authored by State Senator Lazich and Representative Thiesfeldt and relates to providing instruction in human growth and development. 

·         SB 306 was authored by State Senator Lazich and State Representative Litjens and relates to voluntary and informed consent to an abortion. 

·         SB 92 was authored by State Senator Zipperer and State Representative Vos and relates to prohibiting coverage of abortions through health plans sold through exchanges. 

·         SB 202 was authored by State Senator Grothman and State Representative Litjens and relates to elimination of compensatory and punitive damages for acts of employment discrimination or unfair honesty or genetic testing. 

·         SB 386 was authored by State Senator Grothman and State Representative Theisfeldt and  relates to voter registration at high schools and certain tribal schools. 

SB 237 reintroduces abstinence education to the schools, despite the fact that it doesn't work.

SB 306 ensures that women give voluntary consent before any abortion, including establishing failure to follow the state directives precisely as a felony offense for a physician.

SB 92 prohibits health exchange insurance plans for covering voluntary abortions.

SB 202 removes much of the power of the Wisconsin equivalent of the Lilly Ledbetter law.  "This bill eliminates the awarding of compensatory and punitive damages to persons who have been discriminated against in employment or subjected to unfair honesty or genetic testing."

SB 386 makes it more difficult to register to vote for students at teachers at high schools.

SB 237 and SB 386 are of tremendous concern to me as a teacher.  I see each as having deleterious results for students.  The other three are being characterized as a continuation of the Republican War on Women, with many pundits writing about them.

Prominent conservative Milwaukee radio pundit Charles Sykes wrote that there is no war on women.

But simply put, there is no great sex-discrimination problem in Wisconsin workplaces that is not being addressed by federal law and preexisting state laws. Further, by making it easier to extract punitive damages from businesses, the 2009 law made Wisconsin companies vulnerable to frivolous claims.

The facts suggest that Wisconsin does have a problem with a gender gap in wages (ranking 36th in the country in 2009).  When women are discriminated against, they do not consider it frivolous.  The punitive damages are intended to provide a disincentive to discrimination, a disincentive that no longer exists.  State Senator Glenn Grothman, author of the repeal of the teeth of the anti-discrimination law, offered the Daily Beast his reasoning.

For the law’s critics, though, even the threat of lawsuits put an intolerable burden on business. “If tomorrow you woke up and some policeman is at your door giving you a summons for something, the fact that you’re innocent wouldn’t make you happy, because you have to show you’re innocent at some considerable time and expense,” says Republican state senator Glenn Grothman, a major driver of the repeal.

Grothman says companies are being bombarded with false accusations of discrimination. “It’s an underreported problem, but a huge number of discrimination claims are baseless,” he says. “Most of them are filed by fired employees, and really today almost anybody is a protected class.” As a result, he says, many companies are forced to pay fired employees to go away. He argues that the Wisconsin law, which allowed for damages of up to $300,000, the same amount as in federal law, raised the cost of doing business in the state to intolerable levels. “It just puts Wisconsin way out of whack with other states,” he says. “I’m not sure there are any other states this bad off.”

Actually, there are—according to data from 9to5, 33 other states have either no cap on damages or the same $300,000 cap as Wisconsin. Still, even if the law isn’t an outlier, it’s not surprising that Grothman would see it as unjust, because he believes that the whole idea of pay discrimination against women is fraudulent.

Whatever gaps exist, he insists, stem from women’s decision to prioritize childrearing over their careers. “Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers,” he says. “But the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go. Now they’re 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn’t discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person.”

He continues, “What you’ve got to look at, and Ann Coulter has looked at this, is you have to break it down by married and unmarried. Once you break it down by married and unmarried, the differential disappears.”

As the Daily Beast notes, Mr. Grothman is wrong.  Mr. Grothman has a local reputation of supporting any business and no tax (similar to Jim Sensenbrenner who represents the same area in the United States Congress).  That he places the needs of businesses above the needs of his female constituents is no surprise at all.

Perhaps even more striking than Mr. Grothman's defense of his legislation is Governor Walker's defense of these bills, as reported by Channel 3000.

The president's campaign even joined the fray, accusing Walker of waging a "war against women." The governor refutes the claim and said his approach is all about job creation.

"We care about their future," Walker said. "That's really what we need to be waging our time and efforts on and that's why when I do public signings, I focus on bills that I think will make a better future for our state."

"Most of the legislation signed by the governor today makes tremendous advances in the protection of women, so I would submit it's just the opposite of what you suggest," said Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, answering Walker's critics.

The governor said the criticism is the same old out-of-state special interest talking points which he said "seem to have a total disregard for what the facts are."

Of the five separate bills that I choose to focus on, only one has anything to do with business.  None of them will result in new jobs.  None will protect women and by limiting access to abortion they may hurt women.  For a governor who has spent tremendous amounts of time out of state raising money to complain about "out-of-state special interest talking points" is rich.  The facts are fairly clear and Mr. Walker's talking points seem to be out of sync with those facts.

Wrapping up this blog post, former State Senator Mordecai Lee, now a professor of politics and the University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee, thinks that this may push Governor Walker into the limelight enough to be the running mate of Governor Romney.  Of course, Mr. Walker will have to survive the recall election first ... although Professor Lee thinks otherwise.

Lee said that Walker is a household name nationwide, he can energize the Republican base, isn't a Washington politician and would satisfy both social and fiscal Conservatives.

"In a sense, Scott Walker is the perfect Sarah Palin without her liabilities," said Lee.  "If he loses the recall, he'll be the martyr hero of the Republicans."

Despite all the controversy surrounding Scott Walker, the recall race and John Doe investigations, Lee believes that Walker isn't a risky bet for Republicans to stand behind. 

I am the last person who Mr. Romney might listen to for advice on picking a running mate.  But I can think of few better than the extreme Governor Walker.  Better, that is, for President Obama.

16 November 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings post.
30 November 2011, FollowUp 1.
4 December 2011, FollowUp 2.
11 December 2011, FollowUp 3.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 4.
15 December 2011, FollowUp 5.
30 December 2011, FollowUp 6.
13 January 2012, FollowUp 7.
17 January 2012, FollowUp 8.
25 January 2012, FollowUp 9.
2 February 2012, FollowUp 10.
9 February 2012, FollowUp 11.
12 February 2012, FollowUp 12.
18 February 2012, FollowUp 13.
22 February 2012, FollowUp 14.
6 March 2012, FollowUp 15.
12 March 2012, FollowUp 16.
16 March 2012, FollowUp 17.
30 March 2012, FollowUp 18.
31 March 2012, FollowUp 19.
3 April 2012, FollowUp 20.
4 April 2012, FollowUp 21.

14 April 2012, FollowUp 23.
17 April 2012, FollowUp 24.
21 April 2012, FollowUp 25.
29 April 2012, FollowUp 26.
2 May 2012, FollowUp 27.
6 May 2012, FollowUp 28.
10 May 2012, FollowUp 29.
13 May 2012, FollowUp 30.
23 May 2012, FollowUp 31.
24 May 2012, FollowUp 32.
30 May 2012, FollowUp 33.
2 June 2012, FollowUp 34.
4 June 2012, FollowUp 35.
5 June 2012, FollowUp 36.

FollowUp 7: Voting Rights

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  The words in this picture, a screenshot of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board statement on the Voter I.D. Law, is stunning.  Tuesday 3 April 2012 is Primary Election Day in Wisconsin.  Monday night, the rules are far from certain.

3 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings article.
14 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
22 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
6 November, FollowUp 3.
14 November 2011, FollowUp 4.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 5.
8 March 2012, FollowUp 6.

3 June 2012, FollowUp 8.

FollowUp 6: Voting Rights

Paul Carroll, WWII veteran

According to the Plain Dealer, Mr. Carroll was the victim of Ohio's new voter registration rules.

“My beef is that I had to pay a driver to take me up there because I don’t walk so well and have to use this cane and now I can’t even vote,” said Paul Carroll, 86, who has lived in Aurora nearly 40 years, running his own business, Carroll Tire, until 1975.

“I had to stop driving, but I got the photo ID from the Veterans Affairs instead, just a month or so ago. You would think that would count for something. I went to war for this country, but now I can’t vote in this country.”

Portage Elections Board Director Faith Lyon said she felt badly for Carroll, but said the law requires an address on even a veteran’s identification card.

None of this should be surprising.  I was among many who was writing about changes in voting laws half a year ago.  These laws are supposedly to ensure that we don't have cheating at the polls. 

Lyon said Carroll could have voted a provisional ballot at the polling place he visited, Harmon Middle School in Aurora.

Carroll said he was offered a provisional ballot, but that "the print looked very small, I didn't have my glasses and I was kind of perturbed by then."

Governor Kasich and the Ohio GOP should be ashamed of themselves.  Major Carroll should have been treated with far more respect.  He, more than most of us, earned the right to vote in our elections.

The Plain Dealer has recently spoken out against the new laws and they note that the voters of Ohio will have a chance to rescind the new voter rules in November.

The Senate Republican caucus got Ohio partway to a solution with last week's introduction of a bill to repeal House Bill 194, the set of election reforms the General Assembly passed last year and Gov. John Kasich signed into law. HB 194 reduces the time for early voting and forbids mailing absentee ballot applications to all voters -- a practice that Cuyahoga County had adopted in recent elections and that this page supports.

Even worse has been the perception of partisanship driving the bill, which passed with no Democratic support.

With ease, Ohio Democrats collected enough petition signatures to challenge HB 194 with a referendum on this November's ballot. With that cloud hanging over it, the new law cannot go into effect. The March 6 primary will be run under the rules that existed before its passage.

As I wrote last year, while photo IDs may be implemented as a reasonable requirement to vote, I question them way many states are doing so, particularly Wisconsin with its "free if you are in the know" IDs.  The governors and legislatures enacting these laws claimed that their goals were to reduce taxes and increase jobs.  Restricting voting does neither.  Most of these restrictions appear to have the goal of disenfranchising new eligible voters.  Limiting access for those who are legally entitled to vote is unAmerican.

Thanks to Tully's Page for the heads up and for the photo of Mr. Carroll.

3 October 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings article.
14 October 2011, FollowUp 1.
22 October 2011, FollowUp 2.
6 November, FollowUp 3.
14 November 2011, FollowUp 4.
14 December 2011, FollowUp 5.

2 April 2012, FollowUp 7.
3 June 2012, FollowUp 8.