Redstate Racists Redux

by Matt Stoller, Fri Mar 24, 2006 at 07:17:09 AM EST

This Ben Domenech debacle is more than a sad story of a young conservative with integrity problems. The toxic brew of racism and dishonesty is really part of their DNA, and it has practical real world consequences. Remember this article from the Washington Post?

In a case that some have called a showdown over voting rights, a U.S. appeals court yesterday upheld an injunction barring the state of Georgia from enforcing a law requiring citizens to get government-issued photo identification in order to vote.
The ruling allows thousands of Georgians who do not have government-issued identification, such as driver's licenses and passports, to vote in the Nov. 8 municipal elections without obtaining a special digital identification card, which costs $20 for five years. In prior elections, Georgians could use any one of 17 types of identification that show the person's name and address, including a driver's license, utility bill, bank statement or a paycheck, to gain access to a voting booth.
Last week, when issuing the injunction, U.S. District Judge Harold L. Murphy likened the law to a Jim Crow-era poll tax that required residents, most of them black, to pay back taxes before voting. He said the law appeared to violate the Constitution for that reason. In the 2004 election, about 150,000 Georgians voted without producing government-issued identification.

And who wrote the law implementing a new poll tax? A different and non-Ben Domenech Redstate co-founder.

(update: Erick's not a founder, he's part of the management team...)

Tags: Redstate, voting (all tags)

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Join the Campaign for progressive legislation.

"Because just blogging or complaining about Republicans will not get you anywhere significant."

Browse http://www.boycott-republicans.com

by maximus7 2006-03-24 07:44AM | 0 recs

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How much lower will they go?

Red State is almost reaching the bottom of the barrell. They apparently don't know journalism ethics. Maybe someone should slap a MLA Handbook across their face to knock some sense into them?

by optimusprime 2006-03-24 07:46AM | 0 recs

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Re: Redstate Poison

Matt,

I know I'm repeating myself, but please, please stop calling these creeps 'conservatives.' We do them a huge favor every time we make that mistake. It gives them a mainstream status and acceptability that they do not deserve.

by global yokel 2006-03-24 07:58AM | 0 recs

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Re: Redstate Poison

Great point Pete. They are not worthy of the name 'conservative' - extremists? radicals?

Pathetic. Currently eading RS comments...Ben's own peers have casted a vote of confidence for him to remain at wapo.com. These 'conservatives' have no shame.

by optimusprime 2006-03-24 08:09AM | 0 recs

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Or

It taints the conservative brand with their behavior.

The conservatives never worried about labeling anyone to the left of Reagan as "liberal"; why should we worry about labeling anyone to the right of Feingold "conservative?"

by Drew 2006-03-24 09:36AM | 0 recs

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Poll Tax on Medicaid

Take a quick look inside the Deficit Reduction Act and you'll find that Republicans are adding what amounts to a poll tax on accessing Medicaid.

Low-income individuals must now provide either a birth certificate or passport to be eligible. Medicaid already has lots of "safeguards" to review the immigration status of non-citizens applying for Medicaid. So this new provision really only affect applicants who are U.S. citizens. In a lot of states, in particular in the South, many Medicaid-eligible and enrolled citizens may lack these forms of documentation for a host of legitimate reasons - especially true of older low-income African Americans who may not have received a birth certificate because of discrimination barriers that prevented hospital delivery decades ago.

The Administration's answer? Go pay your birth state for a new copy of your birth certificate (which most likely isn't on file anyway). Sounds like a different type of poll tax to me.

by CAat14K 2006-03-24 08:08AM | 0 recs

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Re: Redstate Poison

Better link on Erickson's parentage of the voter ID bill: http://www.erickerickson.org/blog/index. php/2005/01/29/client-in-the-news/

by Greg Greene 2006-03-24 08:18AM | 0 recs

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Re: Redstate Poison

And also ... http://www.erickerickson.org/blog/index. php/2005/04/22/common-sense-protection-a gainst-voter-fraud/

by Greg Greene 2006-03-24 08:21AM | 0 recs

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Domenech posts gone from WaPo?

I can't find them through the Blogs and Columns page. Have they been disappeared?

by aretino 2006-03-24 08:27AM | 0 recs

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Reading Racism into it

What he said was:

We would truly be fooling ourselves if we did not recognize the historic, negative impediments to black voting. Notwithstanding that, we should also not allow various individuals to scream racism -- a ridiculous charge -- over this law to have it defeated. That does not do anything to advance the conversation.

1 concern. We should work to stop voter fraud in absentee balloting, early voting, at the polls, and through intimidation. Requiring voters to show photographic identification is common sense. Additionally, the law, as written, would allow any person to obtain a free photographic id card to vote.

The law was struck down as presenting a financial barrier to voting. Clearly Erickson didn't want it to present a financial barrier. The charge of "racism" is spurious, and you should be ashamed of yourself for cheapening the term.

by lheal 2006-03-24 08:35AM | 0 recs

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Clearly?

Why? Because Erickson said so? Well, that's good enough for me.

That said, I don't think that Erickson is a racist. I think he's a partisan. And I think he wrote this bill to disenfranchise voters, knowing that a disproportionate number of those disenfranchised would be Democrats.

His bill doesn't harm black voters because they are black; it harms black voters because they tend to vote Democrat. Were that not true, I'm sure he'd write a different bill, one as friendly to black voters as his was to the suburbanites who are the foundation of his party.

So Erickson? Not intentionally racist, just effectively racist.

Not that his intentions make much difference to those harmed by his actions, of course.

by Drew 2006-03-24 09:52AM | 0 recs

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Re: Clearly?

Erick's a nice guy, and a smart guy. But writing a law to disenfranchise racial minorities is racism, even if he bears no personal predjudice.

by Matt Stoller 2006-03-24 10:07AM | 0 recs

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Re: Clearly?

Charming post.

Yes, Democrats probably enjoy having felons vote for them, although let me tell you, it's a lot of work to spring them from that jail cell Tuesday morning just to get them to the polls. But point taken.

And Republicans just love using the specter of Democratic fraud to achieve their own unfair electoral gains, as when they used a doctored felon database to disenfranchise thousands of lawful voters in Florida for the 2000 election.

So you see, no one is stupid enough to sit here and listen to your speech about how the noble Republicans are just looking to ensure fair elections for everyone.

And the old canard about how minorities aren't smart enough to realize the Democratic Party is exploiting them - keep on using that one, please.

by Steve M 2006-03-24 01:29PM | 0 recs

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Re: Redstate Poison

As an African-American, I have seen so many of my people struggle so they get the right to vote. Because of this, I personally vote in every primary as well as general elections. Now the Republicans are trying to curb some of this right.

What is happening now is truly disgusting.

(Paul Hackett is no coward).

by puma 2006-03-24 08:54AM | 0 recs