Tag: elections

Yet Again, The Democrats Fall Back On Their Racist ‘Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations’

After “Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed the Republican-backed ‘Election Integrity Act of 2021,’ or SB 202, into law,” Democrats collapsed into a furious spiral of outrage.

Elizabeth Warren described SB 202 as a “despicable voter suppression bill,” which will “take Georgia back to Jim Crow.” MSNBC’s Joy Reid claimed that the “Georgia Jim Crow law” would suppress Democratic votes, while DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison argued that the “GOP is hellbent on ushering in Jim Crow 2.0.”

Firstly, it’s important to recognize that the Election Integrity Act of 2021 is not like Jim Crow. In fact, it’s nothing like Jim Crow, the laws imposed by Democrats in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which mandated the complete racial segregation of Southern states.

Beyond the undeniable historical fact that arguing that this bill is the “new Jim Crow” is an overwrought and intellectually offensive act of partisan hyperbole, it’s even more important to understand the foundation of  bigotry on which the Democrats’ routine presumption of racism is built.

The most impactful change at the center of Georgia’s Election Integrity Act is that the state will now require that voters provide valid identification — in the form of a driver’s license or other state-recognized documentation — before they are able to cast their mail-in-ballot. Given that we require identification for a wide array of activities — such as driving a car, boarding a plane, or purchasing a firearm — the notion that identification is also required to vote is as reasonable an expectation as is possible.

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Democrats’ H.R. 1 Sets ‘Unconstitutional’ Limits on 1st Amendment: Free Speech Group

“Buried in H.R. 1’s nearly 800 pages is a censor’s wish list of new burdens on speech and donor privacy. It proposes a democracy where civic engagement is punished and where fewer people have a voice in our government, our laws, and public life,” Eric Wang, the author of the study, said in a statement accompanying the release of the analysis. He is an IFS senior fellow and special counsel in the election law practice group at the Washington law firm of Wiley Rein, LLP.

Among the 14 constitutional problems identified by the IFS analysis in H.R. 1’s Title IV—including especially subtitles B, C, and D—the first are provisions that “unconstitutionally regulate speech that mentions a federal candidate or elected official at any time under a vague, subjective, and dangerously broad standard that asks whether the speech ‘promotes,’ ‘attacks,’ ‘supports,’ or ‘opposes’ (PASO) the candidate or official.”

“This standard is impossible to understand and would likely regulate any mention of an elected official who hasn’t announced their retirement.”

The proposal does that by creating a new category of regulated speech called “campaign-related disbursements” by nonprofit advocacy groups and others interested in communicating about public policy issues.

Such speech would include any public communications that mention a specific candidate for federal office and attacks or supports that candidate “without regard to whether the communication expressly advocates a vote for or against” the candidate.

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